Scratch the surface and what have you got?
a scratched surface.

Another Sunday working
this bible's getting pretty thin
I may survive this onslaught
but the chance is looking slim

She said be brave
I'll save you
from yourself if not from me.

If this is really my journey
why didn't they tell me?
were they scared of who I'd
become, where I'd run to,
who I'd tell it to?

secrets,

nothing to say to
those who have gone through
because I have been there too,
why didn't they tell me?

I have been busy but now?

work has several things going for it,
I'm not one of them.

Sat with the Captain
who offers me a glass
and who am I to say
pass?

other privateers
vie for the top spot
but good old Henry
has another tot
and
sends them to swing
on the gallows.

The spirits of when they were
walk among us, breathe our air
because no one truly goes
they're still here
in our gestures
in their clothes
it's just that sometimes
grief's so strong
and blinds us
to what we knew all along

no one truly goes.

He looked like he could have been
that man we thought he should have been
but it wasn't him at all.

A case of mistaken identity is
not as useful as a case of wine.

Saturday dressed in black and it's early
so she might go back
and change into something
a bit lighter.

Seek and you will find
or maybe life's unkind
and you'll go blindly on
never finding the one.

But one is out there
and usually where you
least expect.

Postscript.

Some who are living do not know
that life thrills you before it kills you,
there's no escaping fate and her hand.

I've been here before
the last day of the first month
in the new year,
yes
I've been here before.

Different but the same
or possibly the same
but a bit different,
or
I'm getting older
and my
eyesight weaker,
but
mentally stronger
I hunger no more
for those things
not meant to be
and
not meant for me,

so
different in a good way
and today is a good day
to be alive.