To Sam Bradley, who was taken away from us too soon.

I could tell this day was coming
My body knew this day was near
I could tell when my life fell apart
There was a return of all I fear.
I guess everything I was
Everything I am sure I want to be
Every bridge I burnt
Was because I needed you near to me.
And look, three years on
Every day is still a case of survival
It’s a struggle I know
This feeling no-one can rival.
So I sit down and write,
I think about girls, counting the cost
Yes work’s a bit hard
But I look at what you’ve lost.
And that makes me cry
It sends shivers down my bones
They took you away from us
Somehow I’ve got to make it on my own.

It was the day I rode on with my life
The day I went into my daydreams
The day I fell through the floor
And life wasn’t everything it seemed.
I was lost in a forest,
Trying and not succeeding to follow the signs
In the I end I was beaten, wasted
Wasted from wasting my time.
I got lost in the jet stream
I got lost in a hole in the night
I saw a fire beyond.
I saw the golden beams of your light.
It was then I knew
It wasn’t you I was running from
I could see the petty anger
That held us, ending up living alone.
Then I saw a city
A city dressed in cold concrete
It  was the city of angels
But the angel was dead in the street.
For once I saw it your way
For once I was all wrong.
I could see you there
I had just been pushing you home
People will only take so much
People will only wait so long,
Oh -----, my love, oh -----, my love
I can see I was driving you wrong
Insane even, I laughed
Because life can just sting
When we forsake our own love
Without you, -----, my life doesn’t mean a thing.

Some people say I’m sheltered
And perhaps that is so
But if that means watching slugs
To shelter I’ll happily go
That’s the way it is in Muskogee
It’s a trip to go and get the news
And the biggest scandal of all
Is when Mr. Scott blew the local fuse.
We just sit and watch the world go by
We still raise the old Union Jack
We still don’t know about foreign policy
We just think I can’t be too late getting back
Got to get the washing in
Got to put the food on the fire
Got to get in from the rain
Livin’ free is our only desire
And to go down to the freehouse
To have a tipple of ale
We know alot about the weather
What to look for in thunder and hail
We just cherish these  honest values
We just know no more can be done
When the dark sets in
And we start at the rise of the sun
It’s quiet but it’s nice
The last untapped reserve
Free to do as you wish
The Internet don’t get on your nerves
You just talk to your neighbour
When you want to know
What the sport was last week
And he’d say off to the shop I’ll go
Come back two hours later
With not much really to say
Other than about the chicken he strung
And that ‘rain stopped play’
Being an Oakie from Muskogee
That’s all you had to chew on
You sat and stewed over a brew
Until the rain was gone
Then you were back out and
Sure enough you’d get a laugh
As two old coots tried in vain
To back a tractor down a path.
I here people talking bad
Sayingthe way things ought to be
But life here is good
If they would only come and see
You don’t get no emails
You don’t get no one bossing you
The last place where you can be free
And do what you want to do.

I say do what you want to do!

*From An Oakie

I wonder what this world is coming to
When we have to overcomplicate everything
All I hear on the TV of late
Is ‘bare craic’ as my northern Irish friend would say –
“I can’t understand this  credit crunch,” she said
Poignantly, (neither could I) “I think I’ll take
A dander down to the shops.” And so she did
We were out of milk
And living off salami
I picked up the paper
And I realise nothing is without a price
Or a fate
They are the two certainties
So is death
And the price is not so hard to see either.
The American bigwigs sit round a table
Complaining what is to be done about the financial crisis?
Each eating a $16 dollar muffin with their $8.48 coffee
Wondering where oh where can money be saved?
And they’ll get back in their private limos
Drive past their second addresses
Back down to Bel-air
Lock themselves in their villas
Count their bonuses
And sleep happy
After doing jack ****.
While Greece is going down the crapper.
I can see the solution
Can you?
Or is it just me?
Or can you see it to?

Hey girl where you going?
I’m very much a talker
Cos I can’t dance good
And I never been a stalker
Where you off to my l’il lady?
Hop in my left seat for a ride
Wind it up or slow it right down –
I can get you to the other side
I’m just a country boy
And I can take you up city streets, country roads
Just a poor l’il redneck
But I’m sure I can get you to where you want to go
I got a full tank of gas
I got an all-terrain SUV
You sure do look good
Buckled up next to me
I can take you up the fast lane
I can drive you round the cones
I can take you slow through the forests
I can take you fast through 30 zones
I got air conditioning in here
Chamois leather seats as soft as babys butts
I can take you across the smooth asphalt
I can take you through the deep ruts
Putting on my aviators
Just let me know if we’re getting close
We can slip on out
Or we can take the main roads.
Just listen to the music
And i can listen to you if you like
I can rev the V8 and take you there
Be it day or be it night
I got fully automated
And a nice little gear change
I got super beam headlights
With a three hundred foot range
I can go on the straight and narrow
I can take you down winding roads
Nothing’s a problem for us; we know where we come from
And I can get you where you need to go


Yeah, I don’t dance so good
But I’m a country boy,
A nice little country boy.

Well I tried so hard
And I still  don’t know
How to turn the page,
And let you go.
I’ve read this book
And I know how it ends,
It brings me back to you
Again.
It’s like a movie
Where I play the part
Of the guys who’s imprisoned
By his lonely heart.
And for the first time he’s where
He wants to be
It’s just that way
With you and me.
I used to think
I’d never need someone
Like the superhero
Who comes undone.
As the part unfolds
And it falls into line,
You’re my someone,
Who I want with me all the time
Like the caped crusader
Needs his boy wonder
I need you
To steal my thunder.
I was so confused
Two weeks ago
Whether I really  loved you
But now I know,
Happily ever after
Like a fairytale...
That’s just how it is
With me.
A story that’s true
And real,
That’s exactly the way
That  I feel.

My life story.










You say that love
Love baby it takes time
I won’t give up
Not until I make you mine.
I’ve just found out
That when you take me home
You push we away
With your heart of stone.
Which one of you are you today?
Do you want to hurt me
Or are you coming out
Out to play?
There are so many ways
So many ways to fall
Guess I’m an easy touch
And you don’t care at all.

She came up to me,
Flailing her arms on the stairwell:
“It’s the song isn’t it?
What you were trying to tell me:
‘I hope your happy now, I
Could never make you so.’ It’s
The line out of a song isn’t it?”
I stand there mute, one
Foot up the stairwell.
No-one can argue with an Irish
Women when she’s got something
In her wee bonnet.
“It’s a line out of You Made Me Thief
Of Your Heart isn’t it? I heard it on the
Radio today, a song by Sinead O’Connor,”
I was going to interject but something held my tongue
“It’s from a film about a Northern Irish man who feels
The world has done him a great injustice isn’t it?
Don’t bother answerin’ you’ve seen it, 5 TIMES!”
“What is this a dig at me? Cos I’m Northern Irish?”
“No it’s not...” I whisper hoarsely
“So what does it mean? Have I done somethin’ to upset you?”
“Not that you’d know of...”
With that I turn on my heels and walk away
It’s always a nice send off, when they never really get it.
A flustered northern Irish girl left exasperated
Staring at a piece of paper that reads
YOU MADE ME THIEF OF YOUR HEART
With hearts to dot the I.
Sometimes they just don’t get it.

That one song
You hear with loved ones
That one moment of bliss
Of the infinite
And you never meet again
That moment you will never live again
Seconds of bliss
Before the **** hits the fan.
Hey I’ve just met you
And this maybe be crazy
But I think I love you <3
It’s like I’ve know you for years
So let’s meet up again one day
Friends
Lovers
Reconcilers
And sing this loud and carefree again
Let’s do it. Maybe?

There’s this guy
I once knew –
He was called ---
And every night he would frequent the local
He was ****** as a ****
But me and my mates felt we had to talk to him
Out of sympathy.
I could reckon that --- was quite intelligent
But he just drank too much
And people gave his a hard time
Apart from keeping us amused
I thought how he must
Each night
Reach his angle of repose
The moment when he began to slip away
From reality into drunkenness
As if we all haven’t?
And when I look back
I think of those fun-filled nights
With his new interpretation of ‘The Lord of The Rings’
And his philosophy of ‘the end of the world’
They were poignant evenings
And somewhere in between the alcohol
Was method in his madness.
Cheers, here’s to you,  ---

I like the days, when I just sit
Staring vacantly at the ceiling
With a book of Bukowski upon my head
Serious Osmosis going on.
I go back, to days
Days when we would just steal a traffic cone
For the Hell of it –
When being young was just doing
What you could
Because you could.
I remember eating Nachos and apple crumble
At 2am.
Then watching a friend of mine
Eating icecream one night with a ladle
The next night screaming in the shower
Out of apparent ‘excitement’.
I remember when we would sit,
You and I,
Drinking and if the atmosphere wasn’t more
Frosty than the arctic wind
Then Dave the drunk  added his two penceworth.
When I had to fight off Dave and his  Bovverboy.
That was rather humerous
Particularly by the fact that you nearly crapped yourself
It was a good laugh
I wish there could have been more times like that
Ah well...
Unlike most great works of art, this has no theme
That holds it all together.
I guess, like most undiscovered artists
I just thought I’d write **** down
And see where it went.
Clearly, not very far.

Look at that ***
Just one more look
Before you walk away.
I thank God
That we have women
With blue faded skin tight jeans
When I’ve been breaking my back
Working like a dog
When blood sweat and tears
And violence are so gratuitous
With people sinning gratuitously
Don’t we deserve to sin a little?
To indulge in a little flesh?
When there’s drugs and violence
On the streets, people dying everyday
And not even making the news
We could do with a few more
Blue faded skin-tight jean cowgirls here today
A few more cowboys showing how the West was won
A few more days of reckoning
And a lot more hell-to-pay.
People have little respect for others today
There’s nothing to threaten them, and nothing to fear.
It’s good to see the bad guys finally on the run
We could do with a few more blue-faded skin-tight jean cowgirls
Here today.

I am always curious to see
How we each react in our own way
To the things that hurt us most.
Our breathing lessons.
The shizz that just gets us by.
One foot at a time –
Concentrating on only each and every breath:
Through love
Through life
Through marriage
Through divorce
Through elation
Through heartbreak.
Some of us turn to *****
Some to drugs
Some to women
Some to solitude.
But these people bar the last
Forget the importance of being quiet
And believe the void can be filled
With substance
It can’t.
Much like the governments
And politics
Of this world – it’s an insatiable
Inimitable black hole
That when it shows its teeth
We have to all grin and bear it.
What do I know?
What do I care?
It’s all very much like poetry for us poets –
Just another way to survive.

Get a bellyful of bubbles
And watch them form one by one
As they come to the surface
All your troubles are just gone
They just pop. Pop.
I will pop some for you
There goes another
Look, it’s so easy to do
We could do this all day
Just you and me
All that time spent worrying
It was a waste, don’t you see?
They were really nothing
It was nothing to hold back?
It was just little bits of nothing,
Air. One by one, in a stack
I see the bubbles floating up
I see it in your eyes
They become so blue when you let go
Of the bubbles of hurt and lies
These tiny little bubbles
They’re the things that held you back
When you just wanted to have fun
They didn’t cut you any slack
And so they’re really nothing
Blow them away and say ‘don’t come back’
The worst thing you can do is bottle them up
Because then the bottle goes crack.

Through the blue smoke
I see your eyes burning a blaze
And I feel my heart jump
As I negotiate the roadhouse maze
This isn’t just any piece of ***
Any idiot can chase that
But what I’m chasing now
Is a hurricane across the flat.
You’ve had your share of pain
I can only see those brown eyes burning
I can’t take my eyes off the three dots
By your eye that has got my soul turning
Your finger curls at your blonde brown hair
The ringlets fall thick on your shoulders
And every time you pucker your lips
I always feel my nerves smoulder.
I see you tapping away to the evening beat
The long hot Tequila nights before us
The world is playing at our feet.
I see you draw up on a cigarette
The smoke encircles my heart
Now sitting in the barroom five years on
I wish we had taken it back to the start.
I wish we had started again
On that Tequila night
Can I just ask you somethin’, mon amie-
Can you see the light?

I remember once a day at school
I will never forget
She was called Storm
It was not so much what she said
That was memorable
But how she drove some
Guys insane.
It’s amazing what a piece of ***
Will do to a guy’s reasoning.
There was this one Belgian
Called Timothy
He never really said much:
Girls ignored him
And so did the bully’s
Because he wasn’t worth anything
The only thing I remember is
That he used to share his potato chips with me.
I didn’t want to be his friend:
I just liked his chips.
You realise when you have nothing
You’re out for all you can get.
One day when our English Teacher Storm
Came in
Showing all the leg
I think she knew how much to reveal
And to leave us guessing
Just wanting a little bit more...
But not ruining the dream for us.
It’s true we wanted to rip that spray-on dress off
She pouted her rose lips
And tossed her bountiful brown eyes
Her grey-blue rimmed eyes were framed by magnificent lashes.
A photo in the making.
Every boy was willing to pay for her to have her nails painted
And her eyebrows plucked
Well, it would start every English Lesson
Storm (Mrs. Goodwin) would cross one leg over the other
And there would come this noise,
From the back of the classroom,
Quietly at first
Then...
Thump
Thump
Thump
It would continue all through the lesson
And Timothy could continue
With mute persistence.

“What did you say your name was?”
“I didn’t”
“Well kiddo, I seen a lot of guys come through here... You got something’,”
*Smile.

Don’t ask me when it started
Don’t ask me how long it’s been
I just always wanted to be someone
I just wanted to be seen
It makes me feel good
It makes it seem right
Just telling my story
In front of that spotlight
Just wantin’ to be somebody
Just want to have a cause
Just want you to put the words
In this melodic pause
I’m just the stars
And you are the moon
You are the words
I am just the tune
Playing, playing, playing,
I always had a dream
That I would be more than a job, a car
My ma always said I loved to write
But she never thought I’d take it this far.
At the sight of a coffee cup
I just sit down and write
And I got this buzzin’
As if I was putting the world right
An’ of course I had opposition
There were times I read for free
People said you can’t write that
But I knew there were people who believed in me
And said ‘come on, you can do it,
People have to hear what you have to say’
My pa got that TV he waited thirty years for
And he said, ‘son, I know we’ll see you on here someday’
Just keep going, my boy,’
Keep sending those poems away’
You’re a natural writer my boy
And maybe someday it’ll turn out that way.’
Well I kept on writing
I believed what my guys said
I kept chasing that vision of light
I could see it in my head.
All it took was a little determination,
Daring to dream, a little courage
And each time they would hear me say
Show me the way to that stage
And so here I am,
Chasing that vision of light
I’m living the poetic dream
It all turned out just right

Like they said it would,
Like they said it would,
If I just chased that vision of light
And dared to dream.

I am the first to admit
I’m not God’s gift to women
It’s more like a penance when I’m involved really
And I am certainly a little rough around the edges
But there are certain things you can do
To make yourself more respectable to the fairer ***
Like: be wary of your weight and what suits
Don’t loaf onto a bus with your gut
Hanging out, wearing a stained Hawaiian t-shirt
Sweating like a hog in the midday sun.
I know ladies make allowances:
Ineptitude
Dickishness
Bravado
Rudeness
Even arrogance.
But even our fair compadres draw the line
At sheer disregard for personal hygiene.
I wonder what people think
When they go out dressed like that?
They’re either one of three things:
Very ignorant to what women want,
Femo-phobes,
Or they think they got something god-**** special
No woman can resist.

I shuffle through the detritus within my flat
My atomic stockpile
Once every so often I empty out the draws
The decaying *******
And forgotten poems
I put them up on a board
Prepare them for an emergency operation
I give them fillings
Attend to the cavities
Brush them down
Give them another lick of paint
And bit by bit they stagger into shape
Doctored.
Breathing.
     ...Just
If I didn’t do this
I would have to burn your cities
Hound your women
And unleash my attack on every corner on the globe
You should be thankful
I only clean out my room
Once every  ten years.

If I hear the words
‘I didn’t lead you on,’
One more time
I’m.going.to.scream.
How long before
You realise
Love doesn’t work
Like that?
You’re off chasing
A dreamer
And to me, you’re
Just a dream.
It’s either one of two things:
Either it’s love between us
Or we’ll go bust
It should be heavenly appealing
These show be the best
Years of our lives
Love should have us
Swinging from the ceiling

There’s one thing you must learn
About women,  it is just this
They  always call you –
Whether it be to make-up
Or break-up
They let you know where you stand.
It was some time after I fell out with Josy
And I dared to ask her flatmate
The droll question:
“Josy holding up ok?”
She clearly wasn’t because
She hadn’t called me.
The short answer I got
Was a cold
“Yeah, she’s fine”
Women too are full of contradictions:
“Fine” means she’s not fine
She’s probably been crying,
The short answer is teasing
They want you to ask more
To suffer, suffer, suffer.
The fact the flatmate was reserved
Means that Josy has told her a lot.
The fact  I thought this was gonna be painless
Is testament to the fact it’s not.

There’s a little place we used to go
Our second home that’s where we’d call
It was a little running of river
If you can call muddy water a river at all
We named it the Chattahoochee
Don’t know when, don’t know why
Just liked the sound of this name
Where we could give love a try
So we fogged up the windows
Of my old pickup truck and car
Turns out we learnt a little about love
Though the lesson didn’t get too far
I was willing but she wasn’t ready
So I went and bought us a burger and a snowcone
I dropped her off early
(But I didn’t go home ;)
Those were good times
Stretched out by the river on Friday nights
Watching the fireflies
Talking by pale moon light
Dreaming about love
Talking about women
Just a few cans of beer
And living for the minute.
It was at Chatahoochee
That I learned who I was
A little bit of silence
A little bit of love
Chattahoochee was a place
Was not much but it’s where I learnt to smile
Well you might as well
Life goes on for only a little while

Who needs to be loved?
I do.
I do.
Who’s fed up of lonely nights?
I am.
I am.
Who’s sick of TV dinners/ tears?
I am.
I am.
So who will love an honest gent?



*Silence

When you come away from home you can be one of many things:
A ****
A partyanimal
A geek
A talker
A listener
A doer
A drinker
A social recluse
An alcohol abuser
A hustler
A bustler
A fanatic
A panicker
A best friend waiting to be discovered
A great lover in the cupboard
The list goes on
But we are all one thing:
A fresher
A newbie
A greenhorn
Streetfighters
Run up quarterbacks
Soldiers of Fortune.
And I realise it can be hard
With everything going on
Trying everything new
Trying to make friends
We can sometimes get caught up
And lose our field of vision.
If I could give one piece of advice
It would be:
Be who you are.
Standup for what you believe in –
People always come round to respecting that
If you don’t do shots
Drink beer
If you don’t like ****
Pass on it in a dignified manner.
I once knew a guy who lost his field of vision:
He ended up firing a rifle out of a second-storey window
Trying to hit the centre of the O’s on roadsigns.
It might have been the exuberant amount of alcohol
He had consumed that night.
I just don’t know.

He may love himself
But every man has
A weakness,
He loves his face too much
And a broken body
Is not a good one
For modelling
Cashmere scarves
And playing
Waterpolo.
This will be
Your downfall Adam
One day,
A guy’s gonna
Land you one
Right on the chin.
It’ll be like
A Magnum Colt going off
It’ll send you reeling
And even death will wince
Before taking you.

There will come a time in life
When you feel swept out with the tide
You really want to get you some
But actually no-one’s on your side.
You stand there, at the end
And I sit here, wanting to die
Only inside as you curse my French
But baby, all I did was try?
How long can a man survive this?
How long can he believe in love?
How long can he hold onto a chord, a prayer?
How long can he believe in a God above?
It makes me mad to think, God when will I be loved?
I come home alone every day and night
I  just sit there crying, wondering
When will somebody see the light?
When will we realise that today
When we shell and run for cover
It shouldn’t be a God that we fear
But indeed how we treat each other.
We are so cruel in the things we say
It pains me Josy, baby, cos it’s true
Why do you want to hurt me so badly
When all I wanted was to love you?

I
I thought that it would last my time –
That children would always read books
There would always be fields and farms
Where whippersnappers would climb
Where they would run and play in brooks
I knew there would be false alarms
II
But I never thought the malaise would spread this far
Kids not knowing what it is to be out in the air
What it means to use their mind and creativity
Just plugged in to their DSs and their Ipads in the car
Kids rooted to sofas, couch potatoes in the chair
Somehow I always thought their innocence would be free
III
There is always another day, just
As there will always be another excuse
Why we cannot go outside to play
Just sit glued to the idiot-box if you must
Passively watch this world of abuse
As our generation becomes stupider day by day
IV
Don’t write a poem or read a new book
Don’t go and sit out in the sun
The malaise is spreading and infecting us all
The crowd is young and beauty, but rooked
Rooked of their youth, it’s done
As they sit and stare at a screen in a stall
V
This really is what Orwell said, 1984
A world of computers and screens
Before I ***** it, the whole boiling will be bricked in
Nobody wants to play chess any more
A logged on generation, logging up through their teens
First cyber slum of Europe, a role it won’t be so hard to win
VI
Facebook, VK, Kikitalk, Instagram – a world that doesn’t exist
Just a world of fast past insubstantiability
****-eyed spelling and refute of grammar
And yet we let these kids get on with their imaginary bliss
We buy them the latest gizmos just for pacivity
And when we ask what’s to be done? You stammer
VII
We, the older generation, who knew a world better than this
A world of trees, and parks and streams
A world of old values, an idyllic pastoral
But with all pastoral, a world that can no longer exist
A world that can only reside in our dreams
Today’s world is ‘fast or nothing at all’
VIII
And I feel sorry for those kids, really
They never got to run around with a stick as a gun
They’re just getting angrier, as the malaise takes hold
Manifesting itself through boredom so easily
And then they go out and buy an AK-471
Oh well, most things are never meant, we’re told
IX
It seems, just now,
To be happening all so very fast,
For the first time, somehow
I feel that good values aren’t going to last.

Justice is one thing you should always find
And it’s something not so common today.
If you step out of line
There should be hell to pay
We need a little more retribution
And throw a rope of that tree
If we put a few more in the ground
All those bad boys would think more carefully
Before assaulting that person
Before doing somebody wrong
And once the gun smoke settles
We’ll all meet in the saloon for a victory song
Back in those days my papie said
A man had to face up to what he’d done
We’d either find a great oak tree
Hanging them high or put them to the gun
There just ain’t any deterrent any more
We have to raise our glasses up against evil forces
We got too many gangsters, too much corruption
Order whiskies all round for the men and water for the horses
Today we need to show them who’s boss
The law needs to put a few more bodies in the ground
We need to fins the tallest oak tree and a length of a rope
Let them meet their Maker, that’ll settle them down.

There are a lot of misconceptions about Uni
Such as we all live lives like the ones off Hollyoaks
And that in order to survive
You need to be three things:
Beautiful
A party-animal
And an iron liver.
Sorry to disappoint you.
Those things are all nice:
Much like a free side with your sub
Or a red-letter day.
They’re nice –
But they’re not necessarily vital.
It’s not vital you fall in love with the first person you meet
It’s not vital you get with someone within Freshers
Like it’s a race and you’re Lyford Christie.
It’s not vital that you down half a bottle of Jager
To prove to your flatmates you’re a god
It’s not necessary.
Some of my best friends
Are quiet
But they are good
And I wouldn’t want them any other way
When we come together we have nothing but fun.
Without alcohol
Without drugs
Without 2am walkins
I know...
What’s this world coming to?

I sit here alone with my drink at the bar
Listening to what my senses say
My heart’s telling me
You ain’t no kid at 23
If you play around
You’ll lose your friends
Play too long
And you’ll lose your life.
Mothers, oh mothers
They’ll try and protect you
But there’s a time that they gotta let go
Because it’s a cross they can’t bear
And for all your father will want to tell you
It’s a bridge he can’t cross
Not again, you have to walk it alone.
And I realise now all the things
That my father couldn’t tell me
The  boundaries you just don’t cross
The rules you just don’t break
Not at any cost;
But then, I had to find out on my own.
I had to do things the hard way
To learn what friendship meant to me
I was working on a mystery without any clues
About women and about their intricacies
Sometimes it’s worth a few false starts
A few nights of whiskey on the rocks
Trying to understand Jack
So that you realise a step in the right direction
Is worth a wasted mile behind.

From If French Fries were Fat-free [and other longings]*

Well, I made a ******* mess of my life
And like usual when I realise
Where I should go
It’s too ****** late.
Ad I see the door slam
And you thunder down the corridor
I press my head against the plaster.
If only French fries were fat-free
That would be one less cause of heartache
And if the whiskey really helped me
You’d see me smiling endlessly
The more I think about it, you know
The more I realise you were right.
So I raise my glass in a toast
Over my bowl of curlies.
They taste so good and yet I know
Deep down in my heart they’re so bad for me
Can’t I have one wish at least?
You back or French fries fat-free.

To Lucinda*

There you stand in the door
And after all the fights we’ve been through
When the-you-know-what hit the you-know-where
You still can bear to look at me
I see the tears twinkle in your eyes
I see the hands on your hip
And I dread to think what you’ve got to face
They way you’re working over your top kip
You never shout, you just look disappointed
Your eyes say: ‘back down that stony road’
And now even though I hurt you
You helped pick your girlfriend up out of the road
Because there was a ****** old truck coming
She just broke down to bawl
And yet after all that
You’re a proud woman standing tall
You sit down on the bed next to me
And you speak ever so slightly
I feel your warm breath on me
In the cool of the Texas night
You say, ‘Oh Dan here we are again,
I thought we talked about this.’
She’s out there crying in the other room
You should know nothing goes amiss
And if I get caught in here you know
I’m going to be dead meat too’.
I apologise profusely, counting my blessings
You just look at me like you always do.
‘Now, you know I got to go console her
You know I’ve got to go and get supplies
Of tissues and Kleenex and toilet rolls
But please just give it time
Let everyone cool down, storms always blow over
It’s the only way a friendship can be saved
With that she left, back to the toilet a girl bereft
And as I heard the sobbing I know I’d take that to my grave.

Until I met you
I never understood
What was to be gained, from the rain
That ran like blood
Out of every orifice
Watching the clouds frown
Like outlaws on the run, under the gun
We run through this town
I can imagine us
Running with nothing to lose
The rain’s forever falling, we’re forever calling
And I’m falling for you
Just like the rain.
Now I understand what I had to do
That through the pain, what you had to gain
I never liked the rain til I was with you
The rain no matter how it comes
Isn’t something to be feared
It’s just like all the rest of God’s creations
It’s something that has to be adhered
Respected, for its presence
We know it will come again
So we might as well laugh, a baptism, a bath
Holding hands in the rain.

Let me tell you something
About life as seen on TV
It may appear ideal
But that ain’t the way it should be
The goodie has no end of ammo
The baddie is never in with a shout
But in our world today
It’s always the good guy who loses out
He loses out to the *******
The puff with the SUV.
The girls drop a nice one instantly
For a flutter of profanity.
The ***** always get laid
While the dude’s  left out to dry
And for all that goodness he’s got
He’s alone a lot and why?
It’s a question I asked myself
For years and years to come
To the conclusion that all winners
Are deadbeats, jerks and ****.

We don’t smoke Marijuana
We don’t take our trips of LSD
We like to just live right here
Where the air’s fresh and life is free
We don’t make lovin’ to make a party
We don’t need to get with to get some fun
We just prefer to hold each other’s hands
And go fishing in the sun
We don’t go round bare-chested
We don’t wear skimpy clothes
Roman sandals are a nada
Leather boots are still à la mode
We don’t need to go out getting drunk
Here even Squares can have a ball
Going to the shops is still an event
White lightning’s still the biggest thrill of all
Down here football’s the roughest sport
Long, shaggy hair definitely won’t be seen
A large patch of open land is our campus
And Kids down here respect the village dean
So please forgive me if I don’t understand
Forgive me if I feel a little out of place
I’m just proud to be an Oakie from
Down there we slow the pace.
Yes I’m just an Oakie from Muskogee
Yes I’m proud to be an Oakie from Muskogee

It really is so very foolish
And we really should have let go
To things that we hold on to
Things that hurt us so

I should have let go of you by now
I should have said it’s getting old
But why do I worry so much
That you make yourself so hard to hold?

It’s because I still care for you girl,
Not in the romantic sort of way
But the undying sort where
It doesn’t matter if you’re straight or gay

It doesn’t matter for which side your batting
Or which side you butter your bread
I just want us two to talk
And put this thing to bed.

That doesn’t mean I want to go to bed with you
Believe me, that feeling went long ago
But I still look at you in awe
And think there’s a girl I’d like to know

If only she would open up a little
And let these things ride
If only she could see how sorry I am
And let those comments slide

We both should know by now
That nobody wins a fight
It’s no longer a question
Of who’s wrong, who’s right?

I am too tired to fight it
But I’m never too tired to give up on you
But when you hurt me so bad
Honey what in the world am I meant to do?

I’m no longer thinking of myself
I hope deep down you didn’t forget
That night I saw you in the club
I didn’t want it to be a night to regret

For you, as drunk as you were
For one moment you dropped your guard
It could have been so easy for some boy
But I didn’t want you getting harmed

I didn’t want some boy to take advantage of you
So I guided you to the door
Your perfumed hair slipped against me
Before you dropped to the floor
And sat on the steps
And you began a crying
EVERYONE JUST LEAVE ME ALONE
And that’s when I began a dying

There must be some reasons why you don’t give forgiveness
You must be dragging round a boulder
Upon your soul, no more shackles please
No more looking over your shoulder.

I know you’ve had it tough in the past
Who you once were and what was done
But look now, you’re a beauty
Those days are long gone

I know that we can change physically but not emotionally
We cannot change the past
But looking you’ve grown
Into a fine work of art

You’re an inspiration for other women
You’re an inspiration to me
So don’t you know it hurts me when you say
You wouldn’t have liked what I used to be

That’s not for you to say
You could be black or white, rich or poor,
Skinny of fat the fact is this
As a friend I couldn’t love you any more

I sit on my own in a restaurant
And at the table next to me
A guy’s grabbing a hunny’s ****
And giving it all the googly eyes;
He smiles.
It’s a first date.
He’s done her already
And she is a stunner
Eastern European
A body built like an athlete
A body you’d **** yourself for
Just for a sip of that amber nectar
The body of a woman that puts fire in the *****
And gives way to sleepless nights.
He was grinning
And I was lost in my Vichyssoise
But as the evening wears on
The passion disintegrates
Into mindless rote
They were onto eating sandwiches
And I was onto the lobster
I know that you shouldn’t bring a sandwich
To a buffet.
The guy with the Bulgarian hunny learnt that too:
As soon as the guy looks up and begins to give his order to the waitress
The Bulgarian hunny interrupts him
“I would to order...”
“Bradley, don’t you look at another woman –
He’ll be having the salad and the tuna steak.
You know you’re not having a **** steak
I don’t want you dying of a heart attack before you’re forty.
And I’m certainly not going to be left to feed 6 kids!”
There was an awkward silence
Every time Bradley tried to get a word in the
Hot Bulgarian fluttered her big brown eyes
And shrugged  her shoulder.
“Boy, save the charm for the ******* your arm.”
God, if I were him
I would sleep with one eye open.
And I know if they had a bunny
It would be on the stove by now.
The conversation gently continued,
Poor Bradley couldn’t look at another woman
Throughout the evening
It was decided:
3 boys and 3 girls
And not one would be thought to be called
Bradley Jr.
They had to graduate
They had to work five years
And have full dental plans
All this was going on before
The salads.
I have to laugh
Hahahahahaha
When one is faced with a beauty like that
That’s a maniac
I have to think:
You can’t taste the milk
And then not put a down payment on the cow.

I sit on my own in a restaurant
And at the table next to me
A guy’s grabbing a hunny’s ****
And giving it all the googly eyes;
He smiles.
It’s a first date.
He’s done her already
And she is a stunner
Eastern European
A body built like an athlete
A body you’d **** yourself for
Just for a sip of that amber nectar
The body of a woman that puts fire in the *****
And gives way to sleepless nights.
He was grinning
And I was lost in my Vichyssoise
But as the evening wears on
The passion disintegrates
Into mindless rote
They were onto eating sandwiches
And I was onto the lobster
I know that you shouldn’t bring a sandwich
To a buffet.
The guy with the Bulgarian hunny learnt that too:
As soon as the guy looks up and begins to give his order to the waitress
The Bulgarian hunny interrupts him
“I would to order...”
“Bradley, don’t you look at another woman –
He’ll be having the salad and the tuna steak.
You know you’re not having a **** steak
I don’t want you dying of a heart attack before you’re forty.
And I’m certainly not going to be left to feed 6 kids!”
There was an awkward silence
Every time Bradley tried to get a word in the
Hot Bulgarian fluttered her big brown eyes
And shrugged  her shoulder.
“Boy, save the charm for the ******* your arm.”
God, if I were him
I would sleep with one eye open.
And I know if they had a bunny
It would be on the stove by now.
The conversation gently continued,
Poor Bradley couldn’t look at another woman
Throughout the evening
It was decided:
3 boys and 3 girls
And not one would be thought to be called
Bradley Jr.
They had to graduate
They had to work five years
And have full dental plans
All this was going on before
The salads.
I have to laugh
Hahahahahaha
When one is faced with a beauty like that
That’s a maniac
I have to think:
You can’t taste the milk
And then not put a down payment on the cow.

Don’t waste your life on *****
Don’t waste your life on drugs
Don’t waste your life on women
Don’t waste your time learning a language you will never use
I did because I couldn’t be loved
Not when I wanted to
Not when I was young.
And I really needed to be loved
And as I grew up
I never stuck around
For people
I just kept riding off
Into the sunset
Trying to shake of a broken heart
They say forget the past
But the past has become so convincing
And the wound so pronounced
That its something I cannot overlook.
More like it creeps up on me
When I am alone with this mind
This mind that achieved alot
But achieved so little
Kissed so few women
Was loved so little
Had so few experiences in love.
It’s best to be stupid when you are young
And not have this pessimism hardening in your soul.
Like a dry bit of flesh
Protecting the tender wound
I’ve tried *****
I’ve tried laughing
I’ve tried staring at the ceiling
I’ve tried not caring
But this mother dies hard.
I can only survive
By listening to Waylon
And Willie
And Alan
And Merle
And David Allan Coe.

A good day is beginning
I can feel it in my bones
It doesn’t matter what you’re winning
It doesn’t matter what you own.
It’s more than just a feeling
It’s more than just a zone
It’s something like a healing
And I feel it coming strong.
We have got our history
We’ve had that ‘I need my time alone’
And even if we lost our mystery
At least we know we’ve grown
It really wasn’t so complicated
Not after all
We’ve been through all that
We don’t have so far to fall.
There’s only one girl
Who I can telephone when I’m blue
And I know you’ll be there
I can finally give myself to you.

Jesus, lord above
We got a bus full of Christ’un girls here
They got rose perfume and windswept hair
We got blonde bombshells with **** glasses.
Jesus, why do you tempt me so?
I bet they’re all off to pray.
All off to do some good in the name
Of our lord. Raising their button noses in reverence.
But I think God was having a ***** joke
When he made girls so good looking.
Pearl white teeth, plush and kissable cherry lips, Salvation T-shirts
With the Good Lord Jesus Saves belt buckles
Man, oh man, I go to church and light candles
Praying, lord please oh please
If these girls are going to Heaven
Save me a place in the Pearly Club.
So that we can dance the night away
Watching those saintly hips swing...
Watching her play with her pinna earring
Watching her ****** with her Ichthys ring
All those lovely girls,  up from the Bible Belt
Nibbling on their pink-chipped nail polish
Driving me crazy, torturing men forever.
Just my luck, I’ll bet I’ll be in Hell
While the party’s going on.

To John – who always told me, ‘I’m fine, it’s the rest of them’

You know that
You’re kissing life’s ***
When a girl chooses
A weedy
Airheaded
Pompous
Obnoxious
Nothing
Over you.
You, with a big heart.
A warm touch
A sense of humour
A sense of love
And not just carnal desire.
That, no man can do without
She will not love you
Nuh-huh, no way.
And you’re thinking,
Jesus:
It’s either something he’s got that I haven’t
Or indeed  that
They’re lacking something I’m not.

If it’s recognition you want
By all means, go ahead and try
But don’t get so bogged down
That your time passes you by
If it’s a point you’re trying to prove
Give it your all until the last
But while you’re so set in your ways
Remember to let go of the past
There’s no use in holding on
To things false things all around
And there’s no point in looking
For something that can’t be found.
If it’s power you want, honey
I hope you’re going to see
That all these uncertainties
Aren’t  in a boy like me
I know that you could look forever
In search of insubstantiality
But just chain down my heart
And throw away the key.
I hope then you will find
I hope then you will see
You don’t have to fight me all the way
You only have to talk to me.
So don’t curl your lip
So don’t look the other way
Avarice is only temporary
But my love is here to stay.

One thing I love to do
Is write letters to Grandpapa
Because
You never know where it’s going to take you:
Octogenarians are a real wildcard
And that makes life interesting.
For example, I was writing a letter
To Grandpapa and he likes to imagine things
Because he can’t get around much
So I give the cat meat to feed on.
I embellish a little my romantic situation
And I tell him about M; little M
How she reminds me of my little mama
And that boys tend to look
For someone who is like a mother figure
And we grow into this role
We become more dependent on the girlfriend
Til she becomes like a second mother
But it never starts out that way.
So I was telling him about little M;
And when I receive a letter back
I notice a rather odd sentence
That I cannot help but laugh at:
“Dan, you say M; is smaller than you
All the easier to back her into a corner”
And then it follows on with some
Incongruent sentence about ‘me driving a car’
Now I’m not sure if we got lost in
Translation
I don’t know whether Grandpapa is thinking
I’m going to run M; over (she’s not that small)
Or whether he’s suggesting I invest in a booster seat?
Or whether in fact, he has made an unwholesome
But wholey funny link
Between me staying up all night
And my young ****** prowess
(Which is the same thing I suppose)
But I’m not quite sure why I’d be backing her
Into a corner
That sounds like outright pressure
But I have to laugh
Ah Grandpapa
Maybe one day I’ll show M;
Or maybe not
She may develop an irrational fear
For tight spaces
Which is something
I will never have a problem with...

Here are my keys
Please take them
I think I’m going to need you
To hold me and
Get me back home
When I’m broken down.
I came here so you could help me
I needed a friend to help me through
I didn’t want to come here
But I didn’t know who else to turn to.
I’m not the kind to drown my sorrows
I’ll surely hate myself tomorrow
Oh well, you know tonight
I’m the designated drinker.
I need to get somewhere
Where I can’t think of her.
Thank you my friend,
Thank you for understanding
Thank you for the whiskey
Thank you for helping me stand.
You know I’d do the same for you.
When you can’t stand yourself.
So while I try and drink myself free
From the woman who twisted me
Round her little finger
I’ll have another whiskey
Why this feeling decides to linger.

To Daphni
Αφιερωμένο στη Δάφνη

I  clearly remember now
It was the darkest night
I was half past lonely
And I hoped you’d see the light.
I’m sitting on the old greyhound bus,
I look to the girl opposite, she returns my smile.
It’s a dog’s life this travelling
But it will only be for a while.
I doze and try to tell myself that I don’t care.
My eyes roll over dead
I lean back against the frosty window
So far away from my nice warm bed.
Like a hurricane we whistle on
Through the streets beneath the night’s sky.
And I remember that evening
When I saw your eyes turn to fire
You knew just who I was
One night of pleasure, I have to defend
Within my alcohol imbued mind
I have to accept there’s not a rainbow at the end.
Not at the Greyhound Interchange
Always looking to the future in my life
When we going to stop? Where next?
When in fact all my life’s a ride
And actually you can’t get off
I wish life was like a Greyhound and I could
I realise these are all little inconveniences in life
And it’s got to be the going, not the getting there, that’s good.

Two young people
Living without a thing
Say their youthful vows
And they spread their wings.
A little bitty boy and a little bitty girl
She don’t care about his style
She don’t care about what he got
She just likes his smile
They aint thinking about the future
They ain’t making plans
They ain’t thinking about family
And they ain’t using their hands
But then when you’re living on love it don’t matter
And it may sound cliché, it may sound the same
But love oh love
Can walk through the fire and flames
It may sound silly
But it’s truer than you think
Love can withstand the heat
Without needing a drink.
All it takes is one little look
All it needs is a little bit of pain
And a little bit of endurance
The belief in the passin’ of the rain
That’s living on love
Like an old fairytale book
It’s possible to live on love
It just takes one look.

I’m a country boy, girl
And I don’t usually act this way
But what have you gone and done
To make me hope you’re crying today
What have you forced me to?
Now I got nothing left to say
I’m locked and loaded baby,
So you best get out the way
I’m armed to the hilt
I’ve got lead up till the teeth
Guns cocked on the table
Rhinestone boots with high-riding heels beneath
I got my aviators on, stubbly
I tug at my neckerchief against the dust
Of that love that we destroyed
Now point-scoring replaces where once was trust
You’ve got me to the point where
I just want to see what can **** you off
How did this all get so ugly between us?
Call somebody who cares, enough is enough.
I hope you’re lying awake tonight
I pray that you’re scared to sleep
Because that’s how you made me feel
Leaving me feeling so shallow when I got so deep
I hope you don’t know where you are
I hope you don’t know how far you have to fall
I never want you back again, he can have you
You never saw this coming? It was writing on the wall
Baby, one day you’re gonna realise
It doesn’t matter who was right
Because at the end of it all
Nobody ever wins a fight.

The first time,
I remember (through a drunken haze)
It was beating down with rain outside,
The gods were weeping,
She looked beautiful that night
And we were both wasted,
I sat up and lit a cigarette.
It was done.
She continued to lay astraddle on the bed
“How was that, baby?”
I said puffing on the smoke, grinning.
She took a few minutes to answer and said,
“It only hurts when I laugh.”

Grew up down a back road you wouldn’t know
Grew up on an old country homestead
In a town of 20 never needed much
Just some place to lay his head

A drifter he won’t give you
Gifts of diamonds and gold
He’ll give you a good story
And he so hard to hold

Brought up alone long enough
To function without anyone else
Some family, two friends
Just the world and himself

Mamas don’t let your babies be drifters
They may know about the world so much
But they shy from daylight, shy away from people
They don’t look for another’s sympathetic touch

Drifters don’t need relationships
It’s just a tie that doth bind
They don’t need anyone much at all
Just ride off in the world see what they can find


Mamas don’t let your babies be drifters
People of great minds and a great love of a drink
They’re not going to try and impress you
They’ll just go ahead and let you think what you think

Drifters are free-living people
Is this really someone you want to choose?
Freedom is just another word
For nothing left to lose.

It doesn’t matter who you get with
Or how many parties you go to
At the end of the day you retreat
To that hole inside of you.
Where she once sat
Strumming your heartstrings
And now late at night you sit
Weeping, oh how it strings
You can’t choose your family
Just as you can’t choose where to leave your heart
Neither can you choose for it to be accepted
But you can choose to go back to the start.
It doesn’t make you weak to think:
If only I’d help on a little longer.
It’s not abnormal to think:
If only I could have been stronger.
Then the next day you’ll go out
Walking across the common to town
And you’ll see her walking by
Headphones on and her eyes down.
I’ve been there my friend
With all this madness where are we bound?
When we can’t just love each other
And unite two lonely hearts, waiting to be found.