You stole me.
Sneaked in and grabbed me
Then dragged me into a world
I ever knew;
To make me yours.
Then you slayed me,
Hung me up to drain me dry;
Left me hanging
Out there in the cold.
While I grew paler,
While my skin puckered,
And my flesh shrank,
You lived and lied and laughed and shagged.
While I died in the cold
A heartbeat away.
Where you hung me
To drain me dry.
Moongazer 2014
and it’s just me, and maybe my music, it’s so easy to forget. I can just ‘be’ with the reality as it was…..as it still should be, as it maybe still could be. And no-one knows any different. And who cares, anyway, when it’s just me, and maybe my music, what goes on inside my head, inside my heart? Who cares what my memory replays for me in the quiet of the night? Only me.
Although, of course, you are here with me too, then. In the quiet times. When a song comes on, my gaze will turn to you, your eyes meet mine, and close in soft recognition of those pleasures deep inside we know we share as it flows over our shared soul, our heads gently nodding in time.
I can reach for your hand, feel your fingers close around mine; or I can lie next to you, tucked under your arm, breathe in your scent, hear your heartbeat.
With your arms around me, I was home. The place I was meant to be, the place where I belonged. Nothing else mattered. That’s just how it was. And where we came from, what we had done and how we had got there was meaningless – because what we found……….was just some kind of bliss.
There are the other memories too. The ones that in the space of a heartbeat, I find myself bathed, suffused through with the the same feelings I am remembering.
We couldnt get enough of each other………….and then the reality of now seeps back in.
You are far away. Out of reach. Part of my life, but so far removed.
Until the rest of life is quiet, and it’s just me, and maybe my music. And then I can love you. Then you can love me.
Illumination brightly shines
On all the things I left behind
It lifts the shadows from my eyes
Revealing corners in my mind.
Oft times we talked
And shared the depths
Of us betwixt,
And us apart
Two, as one together.
Times turn and things they calm
The ebb and flow
We’ve come to know
It’s peaceful here, inside my heart.
Within your arms, I rest my head
Within myself, you helped me grow
Helped me begin.
And life moves forward now.
And you are there – at my side
My champion strong,
Keeper of my heart,
You are a part of me.
There is still more for us to know,
For us to share
Let’s not let go
Of what there was,
Of what there is,
And what there still could be.
I can hear what they are saying
But it doesn’t seem right
So I’ll sit over here
And just keep myself quiet
I did put it on right,
The label’s just here
Oh, that goes at the back, does it?
<<sigh>> oh dear
He sees a young woman
And remembers his bride
How you doing today dad, she says
As she walks on inside
I’m hungry and thirsty
Need the nurse to be fed
And she talks to him gently
Of the day they were wed
I’m watching the football,
I’m watching the game
I can see them all playing
But it’s not quite the same
No I don’t know the day today
I don’t know the year
Can’t you tell me instead?
No – don’t cry, please – don’t fear
My life on a list
In the palm of my hand
Unfolded and opened
I just don’t understand
I don’t want to do it
Don’t make me
I wont !!!
What are all these things,
That must go down my throat?
They come and they go now
Their faces I know
They come and they go now
Where to I don’t know
I can hear gentle talking
Quiet laughs in the room
So very familiar
It reminds me of home
It s dark now. I’m tired
But I don’t want to go
But I love you all deeply
And I know that you know
Your touches, your whispers
Each gentle caress
Tells me that you love me
But now I must rest
And now Dad is gone
Life is not quite the same
But the loves still inside us
And will always remain
While sliding through morning
On my way to a day,
Of gathering in problems
And hunting for solutions
My temporary clan, in need of shelter,
I see Crows atop the lamp-post,
Watching me go by.
Cathedral masked with mist
Primordial waters shrouded grey
With centres of learning opening for the day
To the brightest of minds,
Do they see the decay
Of the leaves on the ground
Autumn fading away ?
A city still sleepy, part numb with the cold
Its energy humble
Contrasts new against old
Layers of people housed at its core
With a backdrop of the ancients
And the same grey skies they saw.
And as morning passes, turning soon into noon
I harvest what I can
Hidden deep within the gloom
Of lives that are tattered by more than decay
Of the wheel of life turning
Hopes passing away
I see the could-be warriors alert on their toes
With no one to fight, except societies woes
Testosterone pumping, muscles fine tuned
No hunt today boys, no prey to be found
Yet you still see them ‘dancing’, still standing their ground.
Maidens who bloom with the beauty of youth
Who will come courting with honour and truth ?
Or will they fall foul of the fast easy buck
Have babies by maytime
Find cronehood too soon ?
We walk amid shadows of how it all was
We step among gravestones
When down on our luck
But around us this city still follows the tune
Of the earths gentle melody
So steady, so strong
The ages of man, they have all hummed along
The day almost over
The moons on the rise
The cars flow their way home
Red white to your eyes
The sleepiness gone now
A different beat.
The wheel keeps on turning
As it did long ago
The ancients are with us
As part of the flow
We see things as they did
We also see more.
Lifestyles in transit
As theirs would have been
Without all the highrise
Still dangers unseen
Still there are shadows
Still there is pain
Still there is sadness
With little to gain.
And still there is hope
As each new day dawns
And still there is happiness
Within others arms
The wheel of life tells us
So much is the same
Life in the city
Or life in the green
Its all still around us
All there to be seen.
Moongazer 2004
Once I walked
Within the shadow of you
Kept beyond what was my right to know.
I dreamed of sunshine, from time to time
But gloom witheld me
A pale reflection of you
Or of myself ?
Were you the best of what I could be ?
I let it go
And wept unseen,
Unheard,
A creature of the dark
You closed the door
And held it shut on me
My secrets hidden beneath the stairs
Where your feet trod
Well now I walk in sunshine
Bright, clear, cloudless sky on my horizon
Behind me
The thunderheads darken
But I ignore their roar of anger
In my ears – no more
I climb the stairs freely
The steps are mine to take
And I can shine now
Your shadow on my life
No more
(Moongazer 1997)
Bitterly, I know of my misdeeds,
And the carnage that lies in my wake;
Myself among the ruins
Where your heart lay bleeding,
Until you passed it by.
I have returned there
To the battlefield;
In my dreams for so long, until –
Until I could sleep no longer.
So I went with conscience,
Repenting to that place;
And all I found were scars,
And two beating bloodied hearts.
When I heard their whispered moans
My soul recoiled
For there we lay
You and I,
Two disembodied lovers,
Our hearts;
Beating blindly against the cold
Beating still
Beyond the lives we live apart.
I took up my heart,
And brought it back to me;
But of yours,
When I wished to keep it as my own,
All I can say
Is how it twisted in my grasp,
Loath to go with the one who caused its pain.
My heart inside my breast still weeps for you,
And its twin in love,
Your heart.
And it, as I, must only be content
With the little we absorbed
Of You.
Until perhaps, you too return
To the fields of pain
And find your heart
Bleeding in the dust
And listen to its whispered pleas
To re-unite
What should never have been torn apart.
(Moongazer 1988)
Moongazer's Meanderings of the Written Kind 