I was born of troubled love,
Those who searched but never found,
My first steps were upon their broken ground.

There upon that sinking sand
I sank my feet and ran aground,
And to their score of lies my hands are bound.

I am he who pays their price,
A child who bore that wage of shame,
This man so lost within the shadow of that pain.

TS Lefort

Deeper than these scars within,
Cuts the fear of failing you;
Runs wider than the seas combined,
Tides of time are crashing down,
I cannot stop this drowning man;
Gasps of truth still hurting you,
Sinking now in waves of shame,
I can never find my breath again.

TS Lefort

Like fireflies we burned so bright,
Hope eternal, life inferno
Through the darkness of the blackest night;
We blazed our trails yet now must go
To that place in which we rest our wings,
Humbled, quietly troubled
In reverence to the King of Kings.

So fierce the flame of ageing man,
Regrets eternal, death too certain
Burns up those dreams and best-laid plans;
Leaves just the ash of our untruths,
Fading, sadly aching
For that firefly light burnt out for you.

TS Lefort

Breathlessly broken, yes we are,
Nothing more, nothing less;
Held together by cheap regrets,
And the stains of beer and cigarettes.
Shamelessly spoken, yes it's true,
The passing of life, nothing left;
Soaked to the skin in compromise,
Burnt from within by our troubling lies.

TS Lefort. May 2020

Those still left, bereft, bereft,
Nothing left, nothing left
But empty places, fading faces;
No one here, just this fear
Of forgetting all we said
Within those hallowed years,
That now speak just in whispers
As they are quietly left for dead.

TS Lefort 2020

We were that few,
The troubled troupe of broken homes,
Raging youth and misspent hope;
We were those few,
Majestic, awful, lovers too.

And still with you,
The restless bond grows deeper still,
In scars that burn for those now gone;
We are the few,
Our lives, as one, always true.

1983-2020

What will become.
When the flames of all we were
Dwindle, dim and all but fail,
What will be done with those prevailing, precious days;
Our loves, our lives, our yesterdays?
And when the smoke is all that's left
Of passions burnt and loves' bereft,
What will we see, what shall we be?
But fading, aching, longings for that former majesty.
Lost, bereaved, broken of all our dreams;
When the embers of all we are
Blow cold the truth of these, our desperate sentimental, autumn hours.

TS Lefort. February 2020