Being your slave, what should I do but tend
Upon the hours and times of your desire?
I have no precious time at all to spend,
Nor services to do, till you require.
Nor dare I chide the world-without-end hour,
Whilst I, my sovereign, watch the clock for you,
Nor think the bitterness of absence sour
When you have bid your servant once adieu.
Nor dare I question with my jealous thought
Where you may be, or your affairs suppose,
But, like a sad slave, stay and think of naught
Save where you are, how happy you make those.
    So true a fool is love that in your will,
    Though you do any thing, he thinks no ill.

I was just getting a coffee
Grabbed a seat and shut my eyes
My son was in for testing
Having trouble with his eyes

The room was full of parents
Also waiting on some tests
But over in the corner
Sat one boy not like the rest

He was in a wheelchair setup
With knobs and flags, all sorts of gear
He looked at me and smiled
"you're new...I've not seen you here"

I smiled, mumbled something
He smiled back, said "it's ok."
Then he wheeled himself beside me
And said "Sir, your life will change today"

"Your son will come back to you"
"There are things he'll have to do"
"He can only do so much though"
"The rest is up to you"

"Don't look on him as challenged"
"your son, is still the same"
"he's now....a different kind of normal"
"If you must give it a name"

"A child born with no sight"
"That is normal ....don't you see?"
"What's normal to that child"
"Is just not the same for you and me"

"It's a different kind of normal"
"That's the best thing you can say"
"For a child without eyesight"
"you just find a different way"

"How do you know the feeling"
"Of something you've not had?|
"If you've never caught a football"
"Would missing it be bad?"

"It's just a different kind of normal"
"That's all that I can say"
"I've never run or jumped"
"But, I still learned to play"

This boy, was something special
Someone special, heaven sent
I was learning things for nothing
And to me that's money well spent

"A person adapts to whatever"
"it is they have to change"
"It's just a different kind of normal"
"And it's really not so strange"

"Who says just what is normal?"
"We're all different in some way"
"Whether hindered by our bodies"
"Or by things along the way"

"To label one as special"
"or as challenged, or just ill"
"It limits them forever"
"It equates them down to nil"

"Just think we all are equal"
"We just don't all act the same"
"We're a different kind of normal"
"And to us, it's not a game"

He touched my hand real gently
More like a feather on my skin
He said, "My name is Simon"
"And I'm glad that you came in"

"Just think of what I told you"
"Just take some time, once I am gone"
"We're all a different kind of normal"
"Now you know...so...pass it on."

Opportunity gently knocks
  Whereas temptation demands to be let in

It was early nineteen thirty four
The world was set to change
Europe was on fire
It was time to rearrange

Poland was the first stop
The German Army on the move
So we left for America
I hope you did approve

You came with me to Jersey
On a trip across the sea
You've guarded all my secrets
Known by only you and me

You used to spin quite gaily
Now you just stand there en pointe
You're my clipped wing little angel
That's the name I shall anoint

Thumbelina, Ballerina
Dance your dance for me
We've been together eighty years
You are who I want to be
Thumbelina, Ballerina
Just one more pirouette
We've been together all this time
Our dancing's not done yet

I sit here and remember
All the treasures you once hid
You've still some trinkets in there
Some from when I was a kid

Your tu tu is all tattered
The silk lining frayed and torn
But, you've held together nicely
But, I guess we're both quite worn

Your lipstick isn't red now
I hear your music in my head
It hasn't played for 50 years
I just remember it instead

The music gave up playing
You were slightly over wound
But, you still twirled and kept dancing
Even though there was no sound

Thumbelina, Ballerina
Dance your dance for me
We've been together eighty years
You are who I want to be
Thumbelina, Ballerina
Just one more pirouette
We've been together all this time
Our dancing's not done yet

I've told you more than anyone
Than I have ever known
We've been together now forever
You're the most precious thing I own

You've been with me for two husbands
And you've seen my kids pass on
There's just me and you,  my dancing girl
All the rest of them are gone

Your paint is chipped and cracked
Your pony tail is broken too
If I still can recollect now
In the fall of fifty two

Your spring is rusted tightly
You need a hand to stand up right
But, then again, I do as well
And most days it's quite the fight

Thumbelina, Ballerina
Dance your dance for me
We've been together eighty years
You are who I want to be
Thumbelina, Ballerina
Just one more pirouette
We've been together all this time
Our dancing's not done yet


Charms and little trinkets
Plastic jewellery, real as well
Secrets of a child
Secrets you would never tell

I am now moving to December
Of my calendar of years
Soon my life will end and
There's no one left to shed  me tears

I sit here and I wonder
What shall become of you
My Thumbelina Ballerina
In your dancing dress of blue

You started as a music box
You are not used as that no more
But, Thumbelina Ballerina
Will you dance for me once more?

Thumbelina, Ballerina
Dance your dance for me
We've been together eighty years
You are who I want to be
Thumbelina, Ballerina
Just one more pirouette
We've been together all this time
Our dancing's not done yet

Catastrophic calamity
Souls made of blasphemy
On the down low
The World as a whole
Had turned to anarchy
And it's a shame there's no name
For all this antirelgious hate
Spreading across the world
Like a facebook game
Everyone looking for a high score
All in the name of fame

He was in a cafe across the tracks,
Leaning against an ancient, crumbling brick wall
The sun hung low through the window showing off a gold halo in his hair
On his lap he held his six string,
Gently strumming a soft tune
She watched, from just inside the brick archway
The guitar mans lips were red as a bleeding rose
He gave her a glance, sideways, showing her a colour of blue she'd never seen before
Her breathing stopped
Moving forward, entranced, toward the strumming siren
She couldn't help herself
Her deft movements, won her a second glance, and half a smile
Yet, still he played on
And it became clear then, he already held his only love
He was, after all,
A guitar man

In the narrowest of lanes
I found the sweet shop.

Behind dusty crumbling glasses
dozed the old keeper
smelling of sugar, milk and sweat
over fossils of Paleolithic sweets
on a time machine from the century
he never was
to a millennium he doesn't bother about
clinging onto clay by pottery
not succumbing to synthetic
counting not on android
but accounting on parchment
with the art of finger's arithmetic
most intricately scribbled with pencil
announcing progress is a trouble
not designed for the simple
and contentment has no more nitty-gritty
than price and quantity.

Over his head
spiders worked and reworked
from the ceiling to the glass
as have been doing
since Carboniferous.

Cane pole fishing spawned many a thought
Ushered in countless boyish dreams , wrought more than it's share of childish hard spots
Taught a five year old the patience of Job
This blessed classroom along the River Road* ...

I speak to the moon
in the dead of night.
I come to her
when her light is bright.
I confess my secrets,
beneath the starlight,
and pray there is not
another soul in sight.
I dance with her sprites,
around the firelight,
and listen carefully,
as she recites her rites.
I give her my secrets,
and she ties them up tight,
hanging them high,
like a stalactites,
that shimmer
like the northern lights.
In return she incites,
that we unite each night,
so she can hear me recite,
my love for her,
beneath her loving light.