our love i feel is an ancient love
from a smaller world of greater ideal
a love so touched by the stars above
never to fall so as to become so real

our love i feel is an ancient love
an unspoken word of a long lost tongue
flies on the wing of an immortalised dove
to transcribe in dreams and nightly song

yet this night is upon, this night is cold
and sleep she refuses my welcome plea
this ancient love a story no longer told
white winged doves carry my angel free
now what is left, what is there of me
bereft of meaning, vanquished by decree
yet i will treasure each harbored memory
consigned to sail our love through history

the weeks stretched out to months
on a whispers gentle breeze
he hadn't been seen at Tuesday's mart
nor the public house for an evening's 45
most had blamed the drink driving laws
the cosmopolitan killing of simple ways  
yet the rusted gate, the untended fields
told another story not so easy to regale*

for hearts can break in so many ways
to devastating effect or slow debilitating decay
now sitting and staring by my window chair
this television set pleads for repeal of the eighth
unknowing that what is gone can never be
i reach within myself to find next to nothing there
for my mind now fails the memories of yesteryear  
no longer can i recall what Kathleen wore that day
setting sail to end one life so as to start anew
how i feared in truth that she would never return
like those letters i sent shrouded in uneasy pen
lost to the shame of the times as that were then
today, i'm the old man from an older boreen still
facing this death that relieves me of all my pain
my story, my dreams, my life i shall no longer recall
for my stage is set and the curtain it slowly does fall
where i will become so anonymous to even myself
perhaps only when all memory is lost shall i see
golden dreams to return my sweet Kathleen to me

she tells me that she's breathing only that shame again
and that there is nothing i can do to relieve her pain again
she has walked a thousand miles in hand me down shoes
no stretch of roadside can ever quench these travelling blues

i don't know how to feel but yet i pretend to understand
what do i know of her life or this punctuating hard land
bequeathed to her from generations since come and passed
as culture, a sense of identity, a life much too innocent to last

she's reaching out, longing for her own voice to be heard
masquerading empathy i offer all these right and measured words
for with no one to answer to nor no real actions to take
i master in hollow sentiment formed from these feelings i fake

as always i seek the beauty of fragility for only my gain
i play out this butterfly's life as her delicate wings are stung by rain
briefly she flies as her life sparks and dims over fourteen days
by resurrecting my jesus my self satisfaction empowers my ways

so why is it she that carries this shame and i stand left of frame
as a spectator, a commentator, an outsider to the rules of the game
whereas she is the soul of the mythical dancer in the flame
i am the vessel devoid of heart breathing in this cold cold shame

casual conversations
evoked then folded
amongst the personal things
stickered and stored
i've so often asked myself
is it possible to fall in love
with every woman
that you ever meet
and if so
how do you let go
and where can you find
a removal van for the mind
for the memories
of all that's left behind
stepping out to start anew
how can i cleanse
in this irish summer rain
with it's tears of a lost love
permeating through
everything i own
records and books
now boxes on a pavement
left signing an old tune
to these photographs of you
of a time
where a photograph
was so much more
than a nine second delay
but something to own
yet like these memories
time too gets overtaken
with no distance left to run
i try to hold as best i can
from the steely approach
of the oncoming removal van

I shall internalize to the point where i rise
Like a grey misty ash through sullen harbour skies
To descend on these eyes who never danced with ambition
Nor once sought to covet nor hold executive position
Sweeping through parochial house to office building
I consume this room as a deathly prison warden
Where time passes and falls in a desperate eerie sigh
Unable to cry in an endless stare of just getting by

I shall crawl through the past of these city streets
Retracing my footsteps as the years they recoil
The red terraced housing of old Hungry Hill
A young boy in his room sitting there still
Head full of dreams waiting for his moment to shine
Such foolish naivety of a dreamer in his prime
He would never tie his shoelaces anything but straight
Just getting by, the sole manifestation of a solemn fate

I shall leave as a mist to cover these countryside hills
As a wandering soul, a veil rolling down as early dew
Comes upon a house where children asleep in their beds
Let it be them that carry the dreams of lives better led
So that I may finally relent and lay myself down to rest
Not for deaths cold embrace but a warmer peace instead
In a world of all or nothing we have this life of you and I
Where it shall be enough to get by, by just getting by