I struggle, bloodied pride, hands still tied
To truths that seem to fail and fade.
Forsaken, mistaken, faith awry,
In my race toward no finish line.

I let you down, troubled life, feet still bound
To paths that twist and slip away.
Broken, unspoken, falling down,
My struggle, punctured hope, stolen crown.

TS Lefort June 2020

I opened my eyes and let the darkness in,
Every shard of evil cut me deep
Stole my hope, stole my sleep,
I opened my eyes and lost my light,
I lost my fight, I lost my life,
I close my eyes but you are already in.

TS Lefort 2017-2020

I tread those memories still,
Those well worn footprints never fail
To lead me, deceive me, free me
From these journies I can never end.

Walk, don't stop, homes long gone,
Torn from years once set in stone
That bind me, blind me, hide from me
A place to ever call my own.

I dread these memories still.
Yet return to tread their streets of gold
That take me, make me, forsake in me
The peace I seek to call me home.

TS Lefort

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

An age ago, the summer of our youth;
That Eden where those sun kissed memories burnt their legacies deep into our wounds.
Oh those days, the fire within our souls,
A rage of youth that lovers yearn thereafter;
A squall of passion, a fire unquenched,
Those days of days, that time of our lives
Which still ember glow and light our now,
Where we will forever see and grieve
With gladdened hearts and grateful minds.

Consumes me, controls me with a Poisoned passion that cracks my face
Against the past;
The horrors of my idiocy, the idiocy of
My horrors,
Falling and failing, falling further still
From my fainthearted present toward
Those broken, bitter,
Love soaked memories.

Takes me, betrays me, awakens me
From my calm to reap my soul
For lovers still held fast;
In that pain of passions fire,
The scars of youth;
Beautiful but fading, fading faster still
To a shadow of a hope once held fast
In my reckless,
Broken, love provoked yesterday.

I never said goodbye,
In that slight of smile,
Or wink of an eye,
Those unanswered letters,
Your deepening sigh;
In my heartbeats skipped,
Our questions why;
No, I never ever gave to you
My last goodbye.

TS Lefort 2018

Mourned are the times we so loved but lost,
Wasted are the words we spoke in years forgot;
Regrets now all that bind as one our fractured hearts,
Broken be our lives yet still entwined by lovers knots.

TS Lefort 2017

Moment - Secret - Mine - Drink,
Stirs - Stokes - Secrets - Awoke;
Burn - Gone - Memories - Choke,
Light the fire of long lost love
And blow away the smoke.

TS Lefort 2018

Lights above the summer fair reflect on tins of Super
And there within a sublime madness, I find my lifelong stupor.
Drunk, cry, drink, sky, on our backs in laughter;
But this disparate, foolish love of mine is nothing you are after.
Bass, hearts, twilight, beat; that soundtrack cuts me still,
Above the fair, out of our minds, upon that wind of ill.

                                                                                     TS Lefort 1987

From these shores, we quietly slip away,
Across a wake of raging memories;
Through the storms we were, such crashing waves,
Upon that rock of friendship, this tide of time betrays.

TS Lefort 2019