Aine sits in our big chair,
Her legs stretched out,
Her feet are bare;
I'm counting ten wee toes for her,
Toes I love so dear.

They lead her from the crib to stairs,
Though never far from loving care;
Those ten wee toes we love so dear,
Will take her far,
Will lead her there.

They'll get ***** in the garden
While laughing in the rain;
They'll be her fins
When she swims,
They'll wiggle
When she sings.

They'll tap out eighths and quarters
When she plays her songs;
She'll slip them into runners
For a race to last life-long.

They'll get cold on the rink
When she plays our game;
We'll rub those toes quite vigorously
To warm the ice-cold sting.

They'll fit right into heels and pumps
When she plays her game;
But for me those liddle toes of hers
Will always be the same.

listening to the tune of the breeze
she sings to me through needles and leaves
nature's song can be seen in the trees
when they sway with me to her beat of ease

it is in the cool green edges
of my memory
that i see you
                            standing, talking, with other men
                            cigarette in hand, a hat cocked on head
                             all tall and strong and smelling of brylcream
      

it is in the deep purple
of my mind
that i love you
                                 remembering days stolen from a lost childhood
                                 beacons on shipwrecked love
                                 admist the heaving sea of a saddened childhood


it is with orange streaked red rage
that i hate you
when i can be bothered to hate you
                  
                                for parties lost, birthdays  fogotten
                                for questions asked and gossip whispered
                                for the belief instilled by lack of interest
                                 that i was not enough, that i was the problem


it is with a tired sky blue
that i forgive and recognize you
    

                                                as  a man who wished, and wanted
                                                but was unable to give and recieve
                                               a world of wonder and days of sweet wine

it is with white...i let your memory drift...into the dark  of your making

and it is to the bright welcoming yellow of my life
to be lived, that i turn and embrace....

Now the working day got me blue again
and the taxman takes all profit from my sanity,
lining the pockets of the rich in this top-heavy system.
I fell to the delusion that the left is always right
in this fight for centralised power,
but now the working day got me blue again,
and I'm tired of watching the news at ten.
I'm tired of seeing the human race **** each other,
so I turn off the television, and I try to live again.

Try to live past that working day,
past the need to keep artifacts from yesterdays
that can never effect the here and now.
Try to live past the event horizon,
the Great Electron in the sky;
the awful weight of uncertain futures-
but the working day got me blue again,
and those twelve hour shifts **** my strength
before I can punch through the wall that separates
you and I, from the happiness we earned,
the tears we cried.

The working day got me blue again,
and I've been quitting smoking for five years now,
But bad habits accumulate when you have no time
to file all the information that passes your way-
like dust across a construction site, when they promised
things would change. Though I've been breathing since birth,
I still turn to cigarettes as if they were the only thing that will calm me
in this sea of high expectations, sugar and caffeine; an isolated reality.
The working day got me blue again
and only music seems to talk above timesheets
and all those titles given to fools that you must obey.

I try to live past this humdrum panic,
this commonplace, day-to-day emergency.
I have been waiting for the paramedics,
for a team of experts or an expert lover
to frame all my fears into words, into diagnoses,
into myths and fallacies that tell me everything will be okay.
Everything will be okay, despite the finger on the button,
despite the chaos in my brain.
The working day got me blue again,

the working day got me blue,
and so all I can think of to do is to
fall into the grooves, into the static sheet of familiar melodies
on midnight walks, only my headphones and a cloud of smoke
to keep me company. The constuction site is always under new management,
the disabled are always ****** over by the government,
and its a surprise the fire service can still afford the price of running water-
double the price of Coca-Cola, and all the sheeps left to the slaughter.

I try to live past the bitterness that kills invisibly
like Carbon Monoxide; a fog, a cataract, that occludes the vision
so steadily, so incrementally,
that you cannot see the Scrooge in you,
until you find yourself alone in your room,
when only yesterdays remain, tattoo on your skin
in a series of callouses, of scars; photographs of guilt or all those better lives
lived by better men. Better women: better blades of grass and ameoba.
We stare into our phones in some punch-drunk hypnosis,
glowering at the world that distracts us from distraction.

The working day got me blue again,
and so I fall into a retreat. Into a fox-hole of self-delusion,
of puppetry in the world through my ugly words
and solemn verse; as if being clever with my tongue,
as if being cursive at the microphone is enough to save the world-
or at least, to save myself. You see, I've been a beacon of poor mental health,
I've been a victim of my own crimes for too long,
but the working day got me blue again, and before I find that strength
to punch that wall, or to make a change,
the working day got me blue again,
the working day got me blue again.

I try to live past the elevator jazz, as I stand on hold
for a company that would just as quickly drop me,
despite the smiles on their logos, despite their slogans of delight.
The lights went out a while ago,
and so I'll work another weekend,
I'll fix up my future pay, I'll sing sadly into my guitar
after a twelve hour shift, my ode, my unrequited love,
my poetry for Saturday.
You see, the working day got me blue again
and though I've spent my time saving up,
putting in the hours to fill my cup,
the working day got me blue again,
the working day got me down.