A Kind of Suicide

Its like a kind of suicide. You need someone to represent you, one to say the things you wouldn't think, one to act on your behalf, be the bold you, hold your hand for you, make you smile for you. Decide for you, be your guide for you, be the singer that you are, the poet that you could be, helping you to breathe easily without responsibility, live your life for you, by killing the life that is within you, and you are the one with the dagger at your throat.

Does Life Work?

The Strobe puffing its light into the darkness of the room. A world in tears can become a dream, that haunting feeling overwhelmed by fantastical simplicity, the dark colours of life, obscured, life working on the outskirts of its own life, wearing its blinkers, transferring them to me, looking for my innocent embrace, for my niave compliance. Ultimately though, I can only deal in the truth of my mind and heart and I ask 'Does Life Work?'

Hate

If I hate you then I hate a part of life, my life. And if I love you then...... All of heaven breaks loose, the heaven of the most righteous part of me. The heaven of life's love... Our love: Love seems to be the connection between the soul and the creator, the bright and the dark side of me (us). And I don't want to live in a place that doesn't exist, although a place that exists can be surprisingly pleasing and interesting, with you who are my dream. And you don't know who you are and I ask myself should she really be the one? And I tell myself she is who she is and she there in my picture, and I like to gaze upon my picture in her aspect. And when I look at her and find that I want to look at her, I need to know the place that I have for her, that is suitable and appropriate for as regards her, remembering that there is love in friendship and that it needn't be romanticised or sexualised.

The Power of the Lady 1 (or was it 11?

The power of the lady, when she assumes , she can overwhelm, she has no need to touch or even to look. She's been working on her relationship with herself. She is able to create beauty, albeit a very shallow one, but man is frail and so suggestible and will look upon her as she wishes him to.

The Power of the Lady

The Power of the Lady is her personal assumption, she doesn't have to touch or even to look, her strength is in her relationship with herself, she will assume a kind of beauty and attractiveness, even if it is a very shallow one, but man is frail and indeed she knows this and almost loves him in his frailty, in his suggestibility.

(almost) Renata

In the style of an older time
long before I was young
the day unfolds itself
like a morning that't reborn
and in the mist of its mystery
without threat and without home
I see you walking now
and you're walking all alone

I've tried defining the look of you
and the look you've given to me
and what you say in your European way
when the words do not appear
and then you walk out for the world to see
and for a world that has eyes
You are so beautiful inside and out

In the style of an older time
long before I was young
the day unfolds itself
like a morning that't reborn
and in the mist of its mystery
without threat and without home
I see you walking now
and you're walking all alone

I Wonder

I wonder where our love is gone,
must 'this' linger on when its dead and buried
and that summer when the whole world loved,
when it was making love and getting married

I wonder where the summer went
the summer we were in the love we spent
is each one gone away
to where another love
shines on
another summer's day,
I wonder

I wonder where the love is gone
the love that lingered on
through all the ages
and the music
and the words in books
and the soulfull looks that love engages

I wonder where the summer went
the summer we were in the love we spent
is each one gone away
to where another love
shines on
another summer's day,
I wonder

I wonder where the summer went
the summer we were in
that gave us love to share
but it faded
until it was gone
and then when it was gone
was it anywhere

I wonder where the summer went
the summer we were in the love we spent
is each one gone away
to where another love
shines on
another summer's day,
I wonder

Angie, Vincent, the Teddy Bear and Me

The Teddy Bear sat there with me and a bottle of wine
the day it was dying and stars were beginning to shine
the music had died about a quarter to five
there was nothing or nobody looking alive
and the Teddy Bear thought to himself
'what a waste of a day.'

I answered the door to an outgoing girl from abroad
I'd been feeling so low but now my troubles began to unload
I said 'I'm glad you could come, I've been all along,
there are times when I don't feel so good on my own
I hope you stay for a while' and she smiled as I brought in some tea
for Angie and me.

It was coming on twelve when we went up to bed
the Teddy Bear didn't let on what went on in its head
but I was quite sure when she walked through the door
that this would be different from ever before
and with gentle surprise I gazed at the sky in her eyes
when they didn't surmise

It was almost three when she said to me I must be gone
she asked me to show her my love for her in a song
I said 'I'm tired you know, and anyway you've got to go
and love is not an easy thing for me to show
but I'm glad you could come and I hope that I've not done you wrong,
and I'll work on a song.'

The atmosphere thickened and guilt hung itself in the air
I piced up the book that she'd read when she'd sat on the chair
and as I patiently waited for the day to begin
I picked up a pen and started writing
and I dedicate this song to Angie and Vincent Van Gogh
and physical so-called love, that's not nearly enough

Elvis

He was there at the corner, a foreigner
at the wrong side of town,
so quietly singing a country song
he never made a sound
then the crowd heard him singing
and shaking and swinging
he looked just like a dream
that rocked and rolled
full of gospel soul
in the age of Jimmy Dean

Elvis, Elvis
a duck's ass for your hair
was it you were a hound dog
or just a Teddy Bear
Elvis, Elvis
and where you anywhere
and all the love that you gave for free
was it love that didn't care

They really made their mark on you
when you showed them all around
singing your golden rock and roll
with a style that you had found
and then they took you to Hollywood
in the mindless USA
where your innocent heart #
played out its part
for MGM and RCA

Elvis, Elvis
I remember when you died,
some wanted to die with you
but they just died inside for a day or two (maybe a week)
Elvis, Elvis, your money and your fame
cost the life that you bought them with
when life had gone insane

Elvis, Elvis
a duck's ass for your hair
was it you were a hound dog
or just a Teddy Bear?

To Sylvia, for the Breeze and the Wildfire (an extract)

Nine years old and tuned into the sounds of Italia, in the place where Victoriana encompassed a later time. They were all there, the man the woman the girl the boy, and why yes, of course, the razor belt. At times I saw a holy angel in private frustration vowing to leave it all behind, but love was the dam.. It was modern then, it was new, one of the visitors vibrated to the sounds of the sea and one of the visitors guests was none other than Narcissus himself. There was scary laughter concerning me and the Italian prince but I was too young to care, I just flipped the Lira over until the sad news came 'September sees a prince change his tune' I wasn't so much hurt but concerned, I believed now in sharing someone elses wife, I wasn't so innocent after all and I knew it.

Looking Back on Yesterday

You were there,
I recall,
milk shaking to the beat
brown hair held by ribbons
when the rhythms tapped your feet
nine o'clock Friday, schoolhall social evening
talking with your hero from a hundred miles away
you walked a narrow road you surely would be leaving
looking back on yesterday

back in the pinball cafe where you sipped your coca cola
slower than I have ever seen again
life is such a mystery when you refuse to look it over
but life looked over you just like a friend
and there you were with your face painted and smiling
talking with another evening idol of the men
all the ones around you had found that they had found some new messiah
in the fire of a newfound friend


You stopped a while beside the stage,
and looked around in wonder,
I couldn't understand exactly what you meant,
and when you saw me I was screaming words of thunder,
all about a movie and a tent,
the old blue resting place had taken its toll of spaceman,
I had to tell myself there was nothing there for me
old men from the phoney opera house
getting by on buried treasure,
getting high on LSD

I returned again, to the memories friend,
that was in a palace sighing,
I was taken aback when I couldn't hear your name,
a torn worn out uniform hung from a coatstand
where had the nervous traveller from the city in the slacks gone?
where were all the people who took shelter from the rain?
i caught a glimpse of a mortal sin and then I turned my back on
looking back on yesterday

What's it all about anyway?
seems I look from all the awkward angles
was it so contemptible
lying under where the dagger dangled?
and if I could only get to you
I'd take you till tomorrow
and you could see the changes that were coming around yourself
and then before you turned me off
I'd give you something you could borrow
a page, a book, or a library shelf.

The Force of Love (for my mother)

I was so very bound to you, my heart was like a rock, that when gravity was ended was still in the same old spot, and I don't need gravity to speak to me, about the force of the force of love.

Memories of Twinkling Feelings

Brightening spirit within the dancing coloured lights where the words will not reveal their mystery in their memories of twinkling feelings.

A Sports' Jacket on Parnell Street

Sports' jacketed, with the leather patched elbows, looking all set for the academic life, perhaps a little beard and a couple of pens in the upper pocket, it is Parnell Street and the weather is winter, and I catch a glimpse of the past in an unforseen moment. And there is a different person in the garb, and I remember the glasses and the gait and the way I was affected then, and I am looking on the sixties in the numbers of the years. I think of now and I think of then and the space between made greater by the succeeding years, life becoming mistier by the thought and the time and the discomfort of uncertainty.

A Matter of Towns (A Tale of Two Cities)

I walked by the Guinness river
my dream was a ship forever,
taking me slowly to the place
where I was born
and she was right here inside me
using her love to guide me
singing a song about the place
where i belong

I was there in the festival city
drinking in all kinds of beauty
I walked in the gardens
when summer was warm
and I was in love and music
flowed through the streets
and into beauty
and there was my son
and the one o'clock gun

And so I was home in Dublin
so peaceful
with all the loving
living inside me
taking me on
but the summer was turning colder
and I'd grown ten years older
in a couple of moments
in a matter of towns

Truth in the Night and in the Day

Even the night,
has the memory of light,
as the day believes the dark
will return
truth is not given freely
except when truth and I are one.

Summertime Rain

The Summertime has been full of rain,
like a beautiful woman crying,
like a promise broken,
by the one you love.