I have heard the tautologies of the rich,
the shifty and the shallow
when told of their impending fate
in a medical review

I’ve seen them torturing themselves
over the unfairness of it all
as though it were a deal, to negotiate.
But The Reaper always calls

They don’t go gently into that dark night
but not like that drunken poet meant
many pass with a look that begs
One question, was that it?

It was

At the dawn of my half century
I sometimes squint to see who's moving
whose heads pop up above the wheat and weeds
whose flower is still blooming,

and it is there I find you
standing taller than them all
drinking in the sunlight
no man has made you fall

and no man has ever owned you
though all of them endeavored
including me, my younger self
and I lost you forever

Do not hang me for my folly
for I was younger then
and loving you naively
shouldn't be a capital offence

I am worthy of you now
but will you ever come
or will you sit there swaying
never needing anyone,
drinking in the sun

Heater and me shoulda been a thing
but we let it go,
I stayed put when she went south
to see the hippy show

at Varanasi she got sick
I'd warned her of the same
but her friend was green, about our scene
so she went anyway

When I got back to England
I gave her dad a call,
she'd given me his number
coz she didn't know where she'd fall

he said she was in England too
and not too far from me
I waited for a coupla of days
hoping she'd be free

and when I called I could hear
some strain within her voice
she didn't sound like the angel
I had met in other times

she told me she was hooked up
with the guy she'd left behind
she felt like she'd betrayed him
she was not the travelling kind

Charlie got clipped by his missus
again
over another broken time
through the jibes and the spite and the humbling blows
he tried to explain baby I'm
tired Maggie I'm tired
and the drinking makes me feel like the man
who promised you the moon and the stars
before I became who I am
Oh Maggie you don't understand

I found her at the base of trees,
on the sunny side along a breeze
at the end of sunsets golden time
this playful firebug flew beside

then landed on these time worn hands
pulsing and so bright,
fearlessly she rested
and in my palms remained alight

She's made of air and I of earth
and yet together we were merged
and in this silent, sacred place
we slipped the chains of time and space

Her light sank right into my skin
filling up these veins
as under Luna's influence
we talked about the rain

we'd weathered many growling storms
and I said as she was going
it is not your glow that I love so
it's that you are still glowing.

I'll light a candle for you firebug
every anniversary
of the moon blessed and enchanted night
you came to visit me

your light sank deep into my skin
my fearless bright explorer
the sky without your playful light
feels once more like a corner

oh my little firebug
you flew so near and lit
a light so strong and pretty
what am I without it?