Deeper than the velvet of your smoking jacket,
Eyes gaze up and out, on and on, a darkness so complete.
The hairs raise on your arms, diminished by the uncountable pin-****** of light in the sky.
Some fade while others bloom, a million years suspended in one second’s glance.
What if every light were a dream, a human hope once had now held captive by the sky.
Find yours amongst the Milky Way, the icing-sugar-dusting constellation.

Dreamer,
Sleep is the cousin of death,
A visit to Neverland.
Fragile eyelids droop
and you're dream-ward bound.

Dreamer,
Look around you
At the world you've created.
Your mind's still sharp
Though your body defeated.

Dreamer,
Send a postcard
From wherever you go.
Though you are not, I am
Afraid and need to know.

Dreamer,
Close your weary eyes
And drift to sleep.
Live's lived, time's up.
At loss of you we weep.

December is harsh,
Winter seeps through the pavement
And we mourn the tree’s loss.
How can I behave when I do not
Know the culture?
You pass the bread back and forth
And I do not know why.

Will you speak to me, Monsieur?
Speak to me with meaning in your eyes
So that I might understand.

Chestnuts roast, a smell so warm and kind,
We pass the stall but do not turn to look.
Paree, Paree, what did you do to me?
Oh darling! What did you do?

The sky is weeping,
His tears rolling down windowpanes
As he sobs into the shoulders of the Gare du Nord.
Winter has come and he knows it as much as I.
I went to see the girl who stares,
I stared back and sought comfort in her gaze.

Strange, how a place can make you feel so alone.
Don’t you agree? Show me if you agree.
In this town of fifty million Frenchmen
Cold creeps into my bones.

Yesterday we..
Or was it the day before?
No no no.

We went to the most beautiful place,
Have you been?
The trees, oh, the leaves!
Lovely!

Sorry, I can't have been..?
I thought..
But I saw the lake!

I saw the lake,
The wake the swans create.
It was just magic, just.. magic.
And the leaves, oh, the leaves!

My name is, name is, name..
You're confusing me!
How old?!
How old indeed.
Where am I?
Who.. who..
Where are the trees?
The leaves and the lake?

I'm meeting him there at 3.
My husband, he'll be free at 3.
We'll feed the swan's bread..

There is nothing wrong!
There is nothing wrong with my head!
I... I... I...

Yesterday we went to the most beautiful place,
Have you been?
The trees, oh, the leaves!
Lovely!

The delighted shrieks of kids as they play marbles on the cobbled sloping streets,
A Ramadan pleasure while adults sleep off the heat of the day.
Men watch with quietly stirring stomachs as we stroll past, ice-cream in hand and flip-flops clicking on the pavement.
A woman tuts.
We are foreigners here in this foreign land,
Lending our British gaze to the hill-top view.

Let's go back there, me with you,
To the town of white and blue.

Nervously she sits,
Fidgety, afraid.
Across from her
A man-
A man with beard and braids.

Oh why,
Why are you afraid?
And what are we to do?
I'm afraid my dear
This is how it is,
That man's across from you.

Quite hurriedly
She glances round,
Careful not to stare.
An awkwardness is settling in,
Of that they're both aware.

A slip of hand,
His coffee spills.
It's all a dripping mess.
He leans across to help her
Wipe the mess up from her dress.

The tension builds,
It's all too much,
His touch has caused a stir.
He continues on a moment more
Aware of this and her.

She's breathing now
Quite heavily.
He can feel it on his chest.
And with his hand
He strokes her cheek
And there does let it rest.

She moves across
And he sits down,
Their bodies side to side.
They turn towards each other
As if pulled by a strong tide...

'Unlikely tale!'
I hear you say,
'Romantic and untrue!'
But mind you wait,
On the last train home
This may just happen to you.

Where are you sun?
Where have you gone?
In summer months you shone so strong.
I long for a beach, a warm summers day
In which there is laughter and everyone’s gay.
Rather than this wintery grey
That blankets the world in a sense of dismay.
Everything's a shade of grey
And I don’t feel okay.