Bereaved daughter releases stunning book of poetry and photos in tribute to her father

A bereaved young woman has published a unique book of poetry and photographs as part of her eight-year long process of understanding the loss of her dad.

The book Dissect my Fragile Brain by Londoner Kim Yudelowitz, 24, explores human grief in three stages: Loss, Love and Life.

Kim was just 16 when her beloved father and well-known dentist Leor, 57, died from cancer in 2013.

His death hit the whole family hard and after seeking help and support from grief counsellors, Kim began her own homage to her father which involved exhibitions of photographic art-work, public speaking and writing reams of intense personal poetry.

She did most of this while completing her A’Levels at JFS and studying for an honours degree in Comparative Literature at Queen Mary University Of London.

“Poetry has been my way of channelling my emotions and dealing with the significant loss of my dad. Writing is therapeutic for me and allows me to visualise my emotions by writing them down and having them eternally in writing for everyone to read and know how much I love my dad,” says Kim of Mill Hill in North West London.

Now she has compiled a heart-rending book as a culmination of her homage.

The book has been edited and published by Wolverhampton based editor Nic Outterside

After 28 years in newspaper and magazine journalism Nic took early retirement in 2013. During those years he scooped more than a dozen major press awards and in 2016 was awarded an honorary doctorate for his services to written journalism.

Following retirement Nic set up his own publishing house – Time is an Ocean – and Dissect my Fragile Brain is his seventeenth paperback publication.

Two earlier books – Death in Grimsby and Bones both became Amazon best-sellers.

Nic said: “It has been one of the joys of my editing life to work together with Kim on this project.

“Everyone experiences loss and grief at some point in their lives. But to have that happen while still a young teenager is particularly hard.

“But for Kim to turn that loss to something so positive is remarkable. Her book is truly a thing of beauty.”

Kim added: “Working with Nic has been a wonderful experience. As someone who hopes to pursue a career in book publishing it has been amazing to be so present in the putting together of my book. I just hope people read my words and gain more clarity on the concept of grief and start conversing more about losing loved ones and ending the taboo around speaking about death.”

Dissect my Fragile Brain isavailable as a paperback book priced at £7.99 from Amazon portals worldwide.

A formal launch of the book will take place on 12^th March – the anniversary of Leor’s death.

www.amazon.co.uk/Dissect-My-Fragile-Brain-Poems/dp/B08SGWD3Q5/

New book of shared humanity written in the Himalayas and edited in England

A sensational debut book of poetry and prose is published worldwide this week despite its writer and editor living 5,000 miles apart.

Don’t Look Down by first-time author Ritambhara Chowfin was entirely penned in the small hill fort town of Almora, some 5,400ft above sea level in the Himalayan foothills in northern India.

It has been edited and published by award winning editor Nic Outterside in Wolverhampton in the English west Midlands.

This transcendent work forms part of a personal journey out of darkness and into light, where love and theft are in constant conflict.

Within Don’t Look Down readers will find the thoughts and poetic musings of a young Indian woman born and raised in a part of the planet visited by very few others.

The leopards growling in the forest, the black bear snuffling among the lush vegetation, an old witch casting a spell for childbirth and the tall cedars and pines swaying in the lashing rain, may be a world away from the one you inhabit.

But this young woman is exactly like anyone else, whether they live in New York, London, Cairo, Buenos Aires, Lagos or Melbourne.

She has the same fears, the same loves, the same faults, the same frailties, the same hopes, the same passions and the same emotions; and these all come tumbling out in her poetry and prose.

Like everyone else she is human, and is trying to make sense of her life and this world.

Ritambhara is a 25-year-old graduate in English Language and Literature from Amity University in Delhi. She is the eldest of three siblings and returned to her home town for the inspiration to write about the world she knows.

Don’t Look Down is her first published book.

“Although Hindi is my first language, I love English and the UK,” she says.

“I have relations in Warrington and my dream is one day to visit them.

“I reached out to Nic earlier this year as we both had dealings with a story-teller in my town and I knew him to be a brilliant editor. He agreed immediately to edit and publish my first book. And the whole process has been a joy.”

Nic, who owns the publishing house Time is an Ocean says: “Working with Ritambhara has been an utter pleasure. Her writing is so deeply filled with emotion and her use of English is stunning.

“I am very proud of this book, and of her. It is amazing what can be achieved across 5,000 miles by email, WhatsApp and Instagram,” he added.

“The added bonus is I now consider Ritambhara as a very close friend.”

 

Don’t Look Down is available in paperback priced at £4.99 (US $6.15) from most Amazon portals

www.amazon.co.uk/Dont-Look-Down-Ritambhara-Chowfin/dp/1698038674/

www.amazon.com/Dont-Look-Down-Ritambhara-Chowfin/dp/1698038674/

 

A Kindle e-book edition of Don’t Look Down is also available for £1.99 (US$2.45) (174IR) from all Amazon portals

www.amazon.co.uk/Dont-Look-Down-Ritambhara-Chowfin-ebook/dp/B07YVH8WS3/

www.amazon.com/dp/B07YVH8WS3/

www.amazon.in/dp/B07YVH8WS3

 

 

Live each day as if it is your Last

My death waits like an old roue’

So confident, I’ll go his way

Whistle to him and the passing time

My death waits like a Bible truth

At the funeral of my youth

Are we proud for that and the passing time?

My death waits like a witch at night

As surely as our love is right

Let’s not think about the passing time

But whatever lies behind the door

There is nothing much to do

Angel or devil, I don’t care

For in front of that door there is you

(Jacques Brel)

 

ONE thing I have learned from my life, is that it is a short movie.

And if I die tomorrow I will be grateful for it.

Sure, it has been a rollercoaster with more depths and dark places than I care to recall… you can visit those if you wish in plenty of my other blog features.

But, it has also been a stellar ride; visiting so many beautiful places, meeting scores of amazing people, enjoying two successful professional careers, producing five wonderful children – plus three more I sort of adopted – and the best family and friends I could ever wish for.

And I know it will end soon.

For the past 30 years I have been living on borrowed time, since I twice cheated cancer and later survived an almost fatal assault.

But I am still here and my life defines me.

As it does for all of us.

A couple of summers ago, I sat talking with my 87-year-old mum about life, death, the universe and our own mortality.

She began reviewing the fact that most of her peers, friends and siblings have now died and the ensuing loneliness is sometimes difficult to bear.

I blithely joked that she is still healthy and active and has experienced a full life.

And that life should not be measured by age or loss.

As I looked at my ageing mum and in the mirror at myself, I realised that time never stands still.

In 2016, I happened to be in South Wales on a business trip, and decided to use my time there to visit the grave of a dear friend who died tragically young, 28 years ago.

Andrea Price grew up in the small mining village of Rassau by Ebbw Vale.

She was the sweetest and most funny girl I have ever met and we became inseparable soul mates, while we both battled cancer together during the winter of 1987 and summer of the following year.

Racked in pain, with Ewing’s Sarcoma, a bone cancer – diagnosed while she was on a walking holiday in France – she knew her chances of survival were slim.

“But I’m going to fight it,” she urged, willing me to do the same. “I haven’t yet got my degree, I haven’t learned to drive… and I’m still a virgin.

“I want to live a bit before I die.”

She did.

But that did not dull the agony when in May 1990 I stood and shared heart wrenching tears at her funeral.

She was just 23.

For me, my memories of Andrea always remain, and often been my driving force to live.

Her smile and her laughter as she beat me in a physiotherapy game of football in the hospital gym, where she was only allowed to use her right leg and I only my arm. At the end of the game we collapsed side by side on the floor guffawing at how silly all this was.

Then there was the Wednesday night visit to the local rugby club for a game of bingo and a half pint of beer. We walked slowly back to the hostel at 10pm. She rested her head on my shoulder as we walked and suddenly whispered: “I love you Nic… we are going to win, aren’t we?”

I kissed her forehead and answered: “Of course we will.”

A year before her death I visited Andrea again in a hospital in Birmingham, where she had undergone a hip replacement operation in a last attempt by surgeons to remove the seat of her cancer.

I sat and clenched her right hand and looked into her sparkling eyes.

I giggled: “Hey, you’ve got freckles and hair!”

“Yes,” she answered, “I have been off chemotherapy for three months now to build up my strength for the op’.”

I had only known Andrea as a tall, underweight, pale-faced girl stooped under a horrendous NHS wig, which at times made her look like an extra in the Addams Family.

But now, holding her hand, this was how I was going to remember her.

True love never dies.

And something remarkable happened during my trip to south Wales.

After laying flowers at the cemetery where her body rests, I decided to post a copy of my first poetry book The Hill (with a brief accompanying letter) through the letterbox of her old home – vaguely hoping it might reach someone in her family.

My book included two poems I had written to Andrea.

Time passed and I naturally assumed the missive had failed.

But always be prepared for the unexpected.

Suddenly, I unexpectedly received an email from Andrea’s younger brother, asking if he could buy more copies of my book for other members of her family.

I fought hard to fight back tears as I read his email.

And later I cried again when he told me that her father (now in his 70s) was writing to me with some photographs of Andrea – the one thing I have never had is a photo of my beautiful departed friend.

In the words of Bob Dylan: “Death is not the End”.

I have faced the death of family and friends many times over the years.

The grief is always immeasurable, and in recent years some of those deaths were untimely and shocking.

Three years ago, I discovered that my former brother-in-law Dougie had died suddenly aged just 54.

It was a total shock. I had not seen or spoken to Dougie for many years, since my former partner and I split, but he was a lovely man and the world became an emptier place with his passing.

Then a few weeks later, I found out that one of my oldest and dearest friends Gill Gilson had died in the summer of 2014 after a long battle with lung cancer. Gill was just 56.

We met at university and became the closest of friends. We were never romantically attached… we were just good mates and stayed in touch for many years after graduating. She sometimes came to stay and we would sit and laugh as we shared many student memories.

I also remember Gill giving me a lift home from Yorkshire to Sussex in her old Morris 1000 Traveller and eating cold bacon sandwiches which she had secreted wrapped in foil in her glove compartment.

Memories of life are made of this.

Gill was a musician and a fabulous piano teacher. Her only weakness – and her charm – was she loved beer and I still remember the mornings I had to knock on her door to tell her to get to lectures because she had imbibed in a few too many jars the night before.

Gill oozed fun, gentleness and companionship in everything she did.

I miss her.

Then in the summer of 2016, I took a long overdue holiday in my old haunt of Chichester in West Sussex.

Whenever returning home – as I still call Sussex – I always made a point of catching up with another old friend, Jayne West.

Jayne and I met as teenagers while nursing together.

Any hope I may have had of a romantic attachment disappeared quickly when on our second date she told me she was gay and lived happily with her partner Julie.

She was the first openly lesbian woman I had ever met – in a time when personal sexuality was more closely guarded.

So instead of romance, we became lifelong friends. Each visit we would swap stories of the directions our lives had travelled and how much weight we had both gained.

I had not seen Jayne for over 10 years, so this holiday visit was going to be an extra special catch-up.

But before I set off for the drive down south, I discovered that Jayne had died in November 2013, aged just 56.

Her partner Julie was with her to the end.

It seems that time, life and death waits for no one.

So we live our lives as constructively as we can, seeking happiness and pleasure, loving and caring, and at times grieving.

And always knowing that our own time is limited.

And each day might be our last.

I recall two sets of lines from the movie Dead Poets Society.

The late Robin Williams, playing the role of school teacher John Keating, teaches his charges the essence of life: “We don’t read and write poetry because it’s cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race.

“And the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for… that you are here – that life exists, and identity; that the powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse.

“That the powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse. What will your verse be?”

And later, turning to fading sepia school photos of students taken decades earlier, he reminds them of the passing time and the brevity of life: “They’re not that different from you, are they? Same haircuts. Full of hormones, just like you. Invincible, just like you feel.

“The world is their oyster. They believe they’re destined for great things, just like many of you, their eyes are full of hope, just like you. Did they wait until it was too late to make from their lives even one iota of what they were capable?

“Because, you see gentlemen, these boys are now fertilizing daffodils. But if you listen real close, you can hear them whisper their legacy to you. Listen, you hear it? Carpe – hear it? Carpe, carpe diem, seize the day boys, make your lives extraordinary.”

We should all make our own lives extraordinary as we pass this way just once.

My own is almost run, and it has certainly been extraordinary

So my advice to all my children and other young people I know: live today as if it is your last… carpe diem.

Depression and the angry thief

I HAVE been depressed most of my adult life.

Depression impacts on every aspect of life and well-being. It is much more than feeling sad. It is a mood disorder that can interfere with everything.

Having untreated depression can put your life on hold for months, if not years… it can also lead to thoughts of suicide or self-harm.

My own depression festered inside me as a reaction to many things: the sexual abuse I suffered as a young teenager, a major life crisis in my late 20s, battling cancer in my early 30s, relationship breakdowns, the loss of two of my children, bankruptcy, assault, the loss of my home and the deaths of my soul-mate Andrea, my life-long friend Jayne and my amazing father.

Any of these things could have triggered the condition, and for me they did as a matter of course.

The depression manifested itself in feelings of deep lows or worthlessness – especially in a relationship or at work – but also in many other less obvious ways such as anger and irritability, frustration, OCD behaviour, tiredness, insomnia, forgetfulness, clumsiness and the inability to concentrate on one thing for long periods.

In my case, it was all of these, plus for many years, an over-dependence on alcohol.

But, there is a limit to how long you can lock things inside while appearing to function normally on the outside.

And my “normal” exterior collapsed in a complete nervous breakdown on 12 June 2013… a day when I simply could not hold it all in any more.

It is now five years since that collapse.

Those years have been an important period of professional counselling, the love and support of family and close friends and the catharsis of writing and unburdening my mind, memories and fears.

In the months soon after the breakdown I was struggling to get back to a life of any sort and was fighting my way out of the corner.

Now, I am so far out of the corner you won’t find me… I have at last found my way home.

But the Black Dog never leaves and the depression can still manifest itself abruptly… often when I feel I am being dragged back into that corner.

And without control I snap.

Irritability is a symptom of depression, and it makes total sense; depression usually plays havoc with our sleep patterns.

Lack of sleep causes irritability, and makes us less able to cope with day-to-day challenges.

With depression often comes aches and pains, and our digestive system can be affected, causing us discomfort. Pain makes us irritable and frustrated.

Moreover, depression can be overwhelming. Getting through each day often requires Herculean stamina.

So much energy is directed towards trying to cope that, if anything goes wrong, or something else is added to the pile, we snap.

We just can’t handle any more.

Sadly, our irritability is often directed at others, who happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

This isn’t acceptable, but it is understandable.

It’s good to wait until you feel calmer, then apologise, and explain how you felt at the time – it can be helpful for others to understand your perspective and give them a chance to help.

More tears and genuine remorse is a bi-product of depression.

The classic symptoms of depression – disinterest, lethargy, sadness, detachment, and sleep problems – can make our lives so difficult.

Suddenly, we’re don’t care about the things that we used to enjoy. We can’t concentrate on our favourite books, or TV shows. We don’t have the energy to get up, get dressed, and go out to meet friends.

So, we stop doing things.

Soon, we might not recognise the person we’ve become. We feel as though we’ve lost ourselves to depression. This also inevitably leads to anger; we become angry at depression, we might blame ourselves, and feel incredibly angry at our circumstances… why me, why has this happened?

Depression is an illness, yet we very often blame ourselves for having depression.

It feels like a personal failing.

Because depression is also a thief.

If we’ve been living with depression for a while, it can feel like it has been stealing from us.

It can feel like we have lost an aspect of ourselves, of our identity; we are forced to come to terms with a new ‘us’. We may wish we could go back to how we were before.

Depression can force us to give up work, or our studies, putting a stop to our life, for months or years. It’s common to feel that depression has stolen time from us, and to feel angry about what could have been. Depression can also make us lose touch with friends, or push away our loved ones.

We might feel angry – both with the depression, but also with them. It’s very easy to get lost in thoughts of what could have been.

It can help to try and look towards the future, rather than ruminate in the past.

We can’t change what’s happened, but we can set new goals that interest us, as we are now. We can reflect on the things that depression has taught us about ourselves, and what makes us happy – and make plans based on this.

We can even try reaching out to the people that we previously pushed away, and explain what was going on for us at the time. They may have been hoping from afar to hear from us again.

Looking forward, and achieving new goals, can ease the anger we feel at depression’s thievery.

If you feel depressed, talk to someone… be brave and confide, you will be amazed how many other people out there feel similar things and will let you unburden.

And how many will also forgive and help you to rediscover the real you.

There is light on the other side of that dark door… just have faith in yourself.

• With thanks to the Blurt Foundation for the practical aspects in the second half of this blog: www.blurtitout.org
• Thanks also to MIND, who have always been there: www.mind.org.uk

Sex abuse survivor’s first poetry book now available on Kindle and paperback

MULTI award winning writer Nic Outterside quit his job as editor of North Wales’ flagship newspaper The Denbighshire Free Press following a nervous breakdown in June 2013.

Nic launched his own publishing company and began the slow road to recovery under the watchful eyes of his doctor and the support of his family. Part of the suggested therapy was for him to begin writing and talking about the life experiences which had led to his breakdown.

“From childhood sexual abuse, through cancer, bereavement, bankruptcy, divorce, repossession of my home, the loss of two of my children and an assault which almost took my life, I guess there was a lot to write about,” says Nic.

“My first book a paperback The Hill – Songs and Poems of Darkness and Light, published in November 2014 was a huge success, and last winter I started work on the follow-up.

“I also decided to make the book more widely available this week by publishing a second edition worldwide on Amazon Kindle,” he adds.

The Hill – Songs and Poems of Darkness and Light is a raw, and at times shocking, book of angst, joy and reflection on subjects as diverse as abuse, cancer, politics, depression, bereavement, love and joy. The full story behind the book can be listened to here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2N2X7t7awo

You can buy the book on Kindle, priced just £1.43 at:

www.amazon.co.uk/Hill-Songs-Poems-Darkness-Light-ebook/dp/B07CNZ75MZ

Alternatively you can still buy the First Edition paperback (120 copies left of the print run of 1,000) The Hill – Songs and Poems of Darkness and Light in paperback, is priced at just £1.99 with £1.80 for UK post and packing and is available via Ebay: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/The-Hill-Songs-and-Poems-of-Darkness-and-Light-Nic-Outterside-Paperback/222959978770?hash=item33e9734912:g:3O0AAOSwdjha6DvY

 

 

Songs and Poems of Love and Theft

September Song

Boots and bottles and a telescope reel

No-one knows just how I feel

Sitting blindly by a Catherine Wheel

I open my arms to you

 

Write me a song to sing all day long

Catch me a tune to howl at the moon

Watch me waltz on a silver spoon

I open my arms to you

 

My golden daughter does what she oughta

Reading medical books with whisky and water

The words get longer but never shorter

I open my arms to you

 

The breakdown came, the breakdown went

Forty-four years they were paid and spent

I’ll pack up my shoes and buy a new tent

I open my arms to you

 

The sun still warms the September air

The grass is green and the day is fair

I look at my life with barely a care

I open my arms to you

 

The fox it will run and the bat does fly

The poacher stares at the empty sky

Time it passes with no reason to cry

I open my arms to you

 

 

Redemption Song

I stand here amazed

Lost in your gaze

Emerging from hell

In a delicate shell

You came and you saw

Just like the law

I gave you my soul

And it made me feel whole

 

One life

One chance

One kiss

One dance

 

I asked for some time

Tasted your wine

Looking to the sky

As the comet passed by

You came and you saw

Just like the law

I gave you my soul

And it made me feel whole

 

One life

One chance

One kiss

One dance

 

You waltzed by the moon

At the dark of the noon

Standing so still

My glass yet to fill

You came and you saw

Just like the law

I gave you my soul

And it made me feel whole

 

One life

One chance

One kiss

One dance

 

 

Tortured Blues #2

And now that it is over

He could sit and count the cost

Wondering if she’d changed at all

And realised what they had lost

He was standing in the driving rain

Water filling up his shoe

She was lying on a snow white bed

Hair and face were all askew

Tortured by the blues

 

He found shelter in a small café

Writing hymns and poems on the wall

She slipped close by and cursed at him

They were both heading for a fall

Outside the booths were filling up

Minstrels and waiters in the queue

He stopped nearby and filled his cup

The last romantic of the few

Tortured by the blues

 

Their breaking up was a tempest storm

Promises and words were said in vain

She withdrew from the human race

Neither one could take the strain

He drowned himself in red wine

Street lanterns burned green and blue

Once their love was something fine

Now it was split like cracked bamboo

Tortured by the blues

 

Another year had passed by slow

His young face was lined with pain

She lay wrecked in a juniper bed

They both had to start out again

But all the while he was alone

Clinging to an old church pew

Women came and lovers went

The howling wind it ripped right through

Tortured by the blues

 

 

Willow’s End

I’ll wait for you where the Willow bends

Where lives and deeds make no amends

Branches and leaves punctuate the sky

Life races quickly

And the grey gulls fly

Talk to me, talk to me, we have such little time

We drift this way and pass sublime

And sip our cup of blood red wine

 

I’ll wait for you where the fenland breaks

Where time releases our past mistakes

Branches and leaves punctuate the sky

Life races quickly

And the grey gulls fly

Talk to me, talk to me, we have such little time

The day it breaks and shadows fade

Into a life of light and shade

 

I’ll wait for you by the wooded glen

Where lovers search for the souls of men

Branches and leaves punctuate the sky

Life races quickly

And the grey gulls fly

Talk to me, talk to me, we have such little time

Turn and face the tangled weeds

Forget the curse of forgotten deeds

 

I’ll wait for you on the old brown moss

Where the water birds don’t count the cost

Branches and leaves punctuate the sky

Life races quickly

And the grey gulls fly

Talk to me, talk to me, we have such little time

Clouds of oblivion blow around my head

As we creep still closer to the living dead

 

I’ll wait for you where the seas cascade

Where life and death are not betrayed

Branches and leaves punctuate the sky

Life races quickly

And the grey gulls fly

Talk to me, talk to me, we have such little time

Then drink to me at the graveside brae

And pray together for the passing day

 

 

Drifting

You drifted in from nowhere

On the breath of a southerly breeze

Your face now haunts my dreams

Like golden butterflies in the trees

Your eyes pierce my soul

And your fragility tears a hole

So I reach out

To touch you

But struggle

Stupidly

You know me

Yet

Heaven is a place

That dreamers want to see

And sometimes you may find

An occasional angel

 

 

Redemption Paradox

She was the rose of Sharon from Paradise Lost

The scent of peach blossom beneath the Conquerer’s cross

I told her about my own agony and the driving rain

She told me about the year when her innocence was slain

Was she a girl or a woman, I can’t say which

From one to another she could easily switch

My Kether, my Abbadon, my redemption

 

We went to a place that our friends could not reach

We learned from the lessons we both could teach

She looked into my soul through the clothes that I wore

And told me without words that she knew the score

Was she a girl or a woman, I can’t say which

From one to another she could easily switch

My Kether, my Abbadon, my redemption

 

Our lives they were ruins and her heart was a snare

We both had to run and leave hate to die there

I hear my voice crying, “Help,” and she echoes back

But it’s only the silence as the darkness does crack

Was she a girl or a woman, I can’t say which

From one to another she could easily switch

My Kether, my Abbadon, my redemption

 

 

Empathy

Beauty is a painted veil

Its colours are skin deep

Love is just a holy grail

Fading grey while you’re asleep

 

Don’t look away, I’ve drained the cup

And life’s race is all but run

Thinking of you when the sun comes up

To finish where I begun

 

Magic sparkles in the night

And laughter fills your dream

Hope dances in the morning light

Drifting away on an urgent stream

 

Don’t look away, I’ve drained the cup

And life’s race is all but run

Thinking of you when the sun comes up

To finish where I begun

 

Life it seems to crawl away

Drowned by rivers of blindness

Curtains shutter the brand new day

Floating on a sea of kindness

 

Don’t look away, I’ve drained the cup

And life’s race is all but run

Thinking of you when the sun comes up

To finish where I begun

 

Time lingers on the ocean’s edge

To where the soft winds blow

High up to that golden ledge

Looking back on what was left below

 

Don’t look away, I’ve drained the cup

And life’s race is all but run

Thinking of you when the sun comes up

To finish where I begun

 

 

True Love Never Dies

The sky dawns grey

The branches they sway

Your beauty it knows no bounds

Our eyes they still meet

And your lips taste sweet

The brute is running from the hounds

 

By rivers of blindness

My love is pure kindness

We’ll drink another cup when we meet

It’s the cutting of fences

To sharpen the senses

That linger in the fireball’s heat

 

So come with me quietly

Dance with me slowly

This time is for us both to share

This true love will never die

For the sky does not lie

The evil of man will be laid bare

 

So bang the drum slowly

And play the harp lowly

You know the song in my heart

In the turning of twilight

In the shadows of moonlight

You can show me a new place to start

 

 

Shades of Abandoned Love

I can feel your hand upon my knee

Deceived once more by the clown inside of me

My head tells me it’s time to make a change

But my heart still screams I love you, something strange

 

Love was found

Rekindled

And then lost

Sitting here trying to count

The cost

Of an abandoned love

 

Everybody’s wearing a disguise

To hide what they’ve got left behind their eyes

But me, I can’t cover what I am

Wherever the spirits go I’ll just follow them

 

Love was found

Rekindled

And then lost

Sitting here trying to count

The cost

Of an abandoned love

 

I’ve given up the game, I’ve got to leave

The pot of gold is only make-believe

The treasure can’t be found by men who search

Whose gods are dead and buried deep within the church

 

Love was found

Rekindled

And then lost

Sitting here trying to count

The cost

Of an abandoned love

 

We sat in an imaginary place and we kissed

I asked you please to cross me off your list

You looked at me with a smile upon your lips

Your heart it heaved towards me in another script

 

Love was found

Rekindled

And then lost

Sitting here trying to count

The cost

Of an abandoned love

 

One more time at midnight, near the wall

Put aside your unspoken fears and your shawl

Please come out from the dark room where you sit?

Let me feel your love once more before you abandon it

 

Love was found

Rekindled

And then lost

Sitting here trying to count

The cost

Of an abandoned love

 

 

Coloured Memories

It was in another lifetime

When we walked together

On the moss

Hope it stretched before us

Beneath the Southern Cross

 

Blue, the sky explodes above you

Green, the leaves they dapple free

Brown, the earth beneath our feet

Black, the colour of the mud

 

It was in another lifetime

When we talked together

In the woods

Laughter it sang so sweetly

The wine it tasted good

 

Blue, the sky explodes above you

Green, the leaves they dapple free

Brown, the earth beneath our feet

Black, the colour of the mud

 

It was in another lifetime

When we danced together

On the green

Our feet moved so swiftly

Your beauty could be seen

 

Blue, the sky explodes above you

Green, the leaves they dapple free

Brown, the earth beneath our feet

Black, the colour of the mud

 

It was in another lifetime

When we drank together

In the yard

Words they flowed so freely

Written upon a card

 

Blue, the sky explodes above you

Green, the leaves they dapple free

Brown, the earth beneath our feet

Black, the colour of the mud

 

It was in another lifetime

When we laughed together

By the lake

I told you that I loved you

Was that my last mistake?

 

Blue, the sky explodes above you

Green, the leaves they dapple free

Brown, the earth beneath our feet

Black, the colour of the mud

 

 

 

A Handful of Rain

I was drifting in from nowhere on a prayer and kiss

Life passed me by, 34 years I had missed

So how did this happen and when did she come?

Like Louise in the attic of Dylan’s radio hum

 

A handful of rain, a handful of rain

Tempting me to defy it

My scruff bag sweetheart, you don’t know how to buy it

 

She came from nowhere and she carried my name

Talking to a banana in her wild childhood game

Mercurial mouth and missionary times

Lost in a dream of music and rhymes

 

A handful of rain, a handful of rain

Tempting me to defy it

My scruff bag sweetheart, you don’t know how to buy it

 

She captured my heart by words in the mist

Still waiting in line for her geranium kiss

Floating ‘cross the airwaves from time gone by

Tracing blood on blood to the fog on the Tyne

 

A handful of rain, a handful of rain

Tempting me to defy it

My scruff bag sweetheart, you don’t know how to buy it

 

Insomniac cat now dancing on her bed

Sixty miles away morning sky’s turning red

Sleepless in Seattle ghostly figures at my door

And words that trip unconscious from phone to the floor

 

A handful of rain, a handful of rain

Tempting me to defy it

My scruff bag sweetheart, you don’t know how to buy it

 

She holds my hand in a dream undercover

Tracing Patti and Frederick asleep she’s my lover

Under a southern cross she casts the years unspent

Matching I for eye for a back broken and bent

 

A handful of rain, a handful of rain

Tempting me to defy it

My scruff bag sweetheart, you don’t know how to buy it

 

So how did we meet and where do we go?

On a boat on a river we meander and flow

But my darling you have me for time to come

I know I have found you and found my home

 

A handful of rain, a handful of rain

Tempting me to defy it

My scruff bag sweetheart, together we try it

 

 

Comfort Zone

She cuddles up beside me

The log fire is burning bright

I whisper that I love her

We’re settled for the night

 

The music plays quite softly

Our glasses both half full

Her head it rests upon me

Warmed by old lamb’s wool

Love is

Love is

Love is

Love is just a pretext for a better place to be

 

A fox slides through the hedgerow

The owl hoots a new refrain

The wind it howls like thunder

And suggests a chance of rain

 

The new moon casts mad shadows

Across the placid pond

The air it is enchanted

From the doorstep and beyond

Love is

Love is

Love is

Love is just a pretext for a better place to be

 

A half familiar key change

A riff that sounds so blue

Guitar music fills the air

It was made for me and you

 

You searched for love eternal

Now tell me what you found

A passage of lost time

And we are homeward bound

Love is

Love is

Love is

Love is just a pretext for a better place to be

 

My golden ring shone brightly

As I hit that long lost chord

It held our love so tightly

When the final lyric poured

Love is

Love is

Love is

Love is just a pretext for a better place to be

 

 

Vision

Your face

Your voice

Your eyes

Your hair

I sense you here

And everywhere

The sun

The rain

The night

The day

My love for you

Does not decay

 

 

The Moving Finger Writes

On the windswept dales of limestone Karst

See Emily play

A romantic farce

Heathcliff searches

For a Wuthering lust

The window glass shatters

And life returns to dust

But true love never dies

As the darkness fades to light

My soul is yours to keep

Bill Burroughs is writing tonight

 

My love she sleeps in Cham

In a bed of Norwegian wood

My heart is buried somewhere

Under Dylan’s old Milkwood

 

On the melting tarmac of Kerouac’s road

The sun now rises

On Sal’s paradise load

Dean Moriarty sleeps

His heart trips a beat

Life it slowly creeps

But true love never dies

As the darkness fades to light

My soul is yours to keep

Bill Burroughs is writing tonight

 

My love she sleeps in Cham

In a bed of Norwegian wood

My heart is buried somewhere

Under Dylan’s old Milkwood

 

On the frozen streets of forgotten Oslo

Knut Hamsun he tries to write

But his words are just a show

As the hunger eats within

From Kafka, Joyce and Camus

Their life is full of sin

But true love never dies

As the darkness fades to light

My soul is yours to keep

Bill Burroughs is writing tonight

 

My love she sleeps in Cham

In a bed of Norwegian wood

My heart is buried somewhere

Under Dylan’s old Milkwood

 

On Woody’s slow railroad train

The hobos beg for dimes

His broken voice remains

In Bob Dylan’s homage song

His tune plays ever onward

Bound for glory all along

But true love never dies

As the darkness fades to light

My soul is yours to keep

Bill Burroughs is writing tonight

 

 

Siren

Salt spray

The crashing waves

The sound of thunder

Can you hear it?

The ocean so deep

Your eyes shine

Your face, your smile

A vision shared to keep

I’ll keep it with mine

The siren of my dreams

I can never forget you

Old bathetic fool

I know that fate is cruel

I ought to forget it

Yes, I know it’s true

I’ve seen what love can do

But I don’t regret it

My voice chokes

I can no longer sing

I love you… but

I can see what’s happening

I must now admit it

Unrequited love

A tsunami from above

I have to accept that

Now within your coral sea

You swim so deep

And don’t need me

We’re both safer without it

Is that really the case?

If you were in my place

You never would doubt it

The mermaid of my dreams

I’ll never forget you

Can you hear the siren screams?

I’m glad that I met you

Old bathetic fool

Who has broken every rule

I tried to resist it

Though it’s all in vain

I’d do it all again

I’d give my world to you

Just to relive one minute

By your side

I have to admit it

As I fall in love

Your presence I breathe for

And I am not mistaken

So I think of when

And turn to sleep again

A lot was meant

But nothing was taken

 

 

Beyond Dark Eyes

I am sat here alone and writing

The midnight moon shines on the temple gates

They’re drinking wine and talking

And my thoughts they all now separate

I live in another world

Where pain and death are iconised

My life is strung with traitor’s pearls

And all I see are dark eyes

 

I think of you sleeping so far away

Hear you breathe sweet innocence

Your face it fades into darkened grey

But your words now enter my inner sense

I can hear a desert drum

Beating beneath the poet’s disguise

Four riders watch as they come

And all I see are dark eyes

 

I was raised to be discreet

For all life’s intended purposes

They tell me revenge is sweet

Against my enemy’s twisted vertices

But I feel nothing for their game

Where beauty goes unrecognized

All I feel is heat and flame

And all I see are dark eyes

 

 

Future Comfort

Sweet gentleness

Your name is life

It surrounds my being

Cuts like a knife

Cascades and unfolds

In all that I do

The love that surrounds me

And the friendships too

 

I watch the rain fall

And the winter does grip

But your warmth it envelops

So nothing will slip

Risk and perspective

Valour and pain

Is marked here forever

Though death does remain

 

So fear not my love

As we walk up that road

Stronger than ever

Let me carry your load

And we come now full circle

To the top of the hill

And hold hands together

Brave blood to spill

 

For love is not blinded

And neither is truth

As my tale unfolds gently

Our own fountain of youth

 

Life Is Brief

I carried you in my arms

On that long hot summer’s day

Under the waxing crescent moon

I promised I would stay

Twenty-one years have now passed

Since your sapphire eyes

Looked into mine

Twenty-one years under a darkening sky

Your reflection does still shine

 

Grey hair tumbles into crow’s feet lines

Tears smart memories

As age defines Tears of pain, tears of grief

I’m so alone And life is brief

 

I cuddled you in my arms

On a frosting winter’s night

You held me tight and smiled

Before I gave up the fight

Twenty-one years have now passed

Since your little hand

Fell softly into mine

Twenty-one years under a darkening sky

Your reflection does still shine

 

Grey hair tumbles into crow’s feet lines

Tears smart memories

As age defines Tears of pain, tears of grief

I’m so alone And life is brief

 

I said goodbye and kissed your cheek

On that last time that we met

And cried a veil as I drove away

How can I ever forget

Twenty-one years have now passed

Since your gentle laugh

Made life seem sublime

Twenty-one years under a darkening sky

Your reflection does still shine

 

Grey hair tumbles into crow’s feet lines

Tears smart memories

As age defines Tears of pain, tears of grief

I’m so alone And life is brief

 

(With reference to Bob Dylan’s Tears of Rage)

Songs and Poems from the Edge 2012-2016

The Climb

Life is a journey we walk alone

A steady path

With no road home

Time is a war against the unknown

Fears reside

Within every bone

Strangers come and lovers go

Leaving scars

And wounds below

Age descends as years pass by

Feet on the ground

And eyes to the sky

Mistakes count too many

Yet joys are too few

We hold on tight and enjoy the view

The stumble you see is in your eyes

To me it is a pace

As I meet the rise

The stone in my shoe has been there a while

It eases the pain

When I climb the next stile

So join me now on this lonely climb

The hill that awaits

Is yours and mine

 

 

A Handful of Rain

I was drifting in from nowhere on a prayer and kiss

Life passed me by, 34 years I had missed

So how did this happen and when did she come?

Like Louise in the attic of Dylan’s radio hum

 

A handful of rain, a handful of rain

Tempting me to defy it

My scruff bag sweetheart, you don’t know how to buy it

 

She came from nowhere and she carried my name

Talking to a banana in her wild childhood game

Mercurial mouth and missionary times

Lost in a dream of music and rhymes

 

A handful of rain, a handful of rain

Tempting me to defy it

My scruff bag sweetheart, you don’t know how to buy it

 

She captured my heart by words in the mist

Still waiting in line for her geranium kiss

Floating ‘cross the airwaves from time gone by

Tracing blood on blood to the fog on the Tyne

 

A handful of rain, a handful of rain

Tempting me to defy it

My scruff bag sweetheart, you don’t know how to buy it

 

Insomniac cat now dancing on her bed

Sixty miles away morning sky’s turning red

Sleepless in Seattle ghostly figures at my door

And words that trip unconscious from phone to the floor

 

A handful of rain, a handful of rain

Tempting me to defy it

My scruff bag sweetheart, you don’t know how to buy it

 

She holds my hand in a dream undercover

Tracing Patti and Frederick asleep she’s my lover

Under a southern cross she casts the years unspent

Matching I for eye for a back broken and bent

 

A handful of rain, a handful of rain

Tempting me to defy it

My scruff bag sweetheart, you don’t know how to buy it

 

So how did we meet and where do we go?

On a boat on a river we meander and flow

But my darling you have me for time to come

I know I have found you and found my home

 

A handful of rain, a handful of rain

Tempting me to defy it

My scruff bag sweetheart, together we try it

 

 

Future Comfort

Sweet gentleness

Your name is life

It surrounds my being

Cuts like a knife

Cascades and unfolds

In all that I do

The love that surrounds me

And the friendships too

 

I watch the rain fall

And the winter does grip

But your warmth it envelops

So nothing will slip

Risk and perspective

Valour and pain

Is marked here forever

Though death does remain

 

So fear not my love

As we walk up that road

Stronger than ever

Let me carry your load

And we come now full circle

To the top of the hill

And hold hands together

Brave blood to spill

 

For love is not blinded

And neither is truth

As my tale unfolds gently

Our own fountain of youth.

 

 

A Day in the Life

A blackbird is singing, grass growing high

There’s a soft cotton dress on the line hanging dry

The window’s wide open, Acacia trees

Yellow wash gently in a warm summer breeze

He sits at his desk, pencil in hand

Watching and waiting for his grey dove to land

 

A train rumbles slowly, along the old track

There’s smoke in the air from behind the shack

Feel the pulse and vibration and the rumbling force

A young girl is out there upon a white horse

He sits at his desk, pencil in hand

Watching and waiting for his grey dove to land

 

A faint message appears in the hand of Hermes

Love and affection ‘mid the fluttering leaves

Hope is rekindled, and his brave life it does float

Cool is the wind as he picks up his coat

He sits at his desk, pencil in hand

Watching and waiting for his grey dove to land

 

Love Minus Zero

Scarred and scared

Battle weary and blind

To a life so shattered

And hope left behind

You came from the stars

And opened my eyes

You healed my scars

And softened my cries

I give you my heart

My life you do fill

We won’t tear apart

My wondrous Gill

 

 

Comfort Zone

She cuddles up beside me

The log fire is burning bright

I whisper that I love her

We’re settled for the night

 

The music plays quite softly

Our glasses both half full

Her head it rests upon me

Warmed by old lamb’s wool

Love is

Love is

Love is

Love is just a pretext for a better place to be

 

A fox slides through the hedgerow

The owl hoots a new refrain

The wind it howls like thunder

And suggests a chance of rain

 

The new moon casts mad shadows

Across the placid pond

The air it is enchanted

From the doorstep and beyond

Love is

Love is

Love is

Love is just a pretext for a better place to be

 

A half familiar key change

A riff that sounds so blue

Guitar music fills the air

It was made for me and you

 

You searched for love eternal

Now tell me what you found

A passage of lost time

And we are homeward bound

Love is

Love is

Love is

Love is just a pretext for a better place to be

 

My wedding ring shone brightly

As I hit that final chord

It held our love so tightly

When the final lyric poured

Love is

Love is

Love is

Love is just a pretext for a better place to be

 

 

September Song

Boots and bottles and a telescope reel

No-one knows just how I feel

Sitting blindly by a Catherine Wheel

I open my arms to you

 

Write me a song to sing all day long

Catch me a tune to howl at the moon

Watch me waltz on a silver spoon

I open my arms to you

 

My golden daughter does what she oughta

Reading medical books with whisky and water

The words get longer but never shorter

I open my arms to you

 

The breakdown came the breakdown went

Forty-four years they were paid and spent

I’ll pack up my shoes and buy a new tent

I open my arms to you

 

The sun still warms the September air

The grass is green and the day is fair

I look at my life with barely a care

I open my arms to you

 

The fox it will run and the bat does fly

The poacher stares at the empty sky

Time it passes with no reason to cry

I open my arms to you

 

 

No-one hears the call

Sunlight dapples

Oak tree tops

Above the leaded roof

The sky screams

Infinity

Searching for the truth

Victorian tiles

Line the attic

Of Dylan’s distant vision

The rain cascades

Torrential

Reaching no decision

Radiators rumble

Shunning silence

With dim electric noise

The heating coughs

Creative

Humanity destroys

Window shutters

Cause shadows

Upon the study wall

The day’s stillness

Meanders

No-one hears the call

 

 

Fly Sweet Sparrow, Fly

I once held you in my hand

Your broken wing

Hung limply

Your heart it sang

And above the sand

The clouds they drifted

Simply

 

Fly Sweet Sparrow, Fly

Try to touch

The Sky

The sun it calls you

High

Fly Sweet Sparrow, Fly

 

I once held you in my arms

Your broken heart

Lay bleeding

Your soul it cried

And behind your eyes

Your spirit it was

Pleading

 

Fly Sweet Sparrow, Fly

Try to touch

The Sky

The sun it calls you

High

Fly Sweet Sparrow, Fly

 

I once held you in my mind

Your mercury mouth

Was singing

Your voice it chimed

But beyond your song

Your life it now was

Clinging

 

Fly Sweet Sparrow, Fly

Try to touch

The Sky

The sun it calls you

High

Fly Sweet Sparrow, Fly

 

I once held you in my heart

Your timeless love

Was fleeting

Your face it shone

In a world gone wrong

Your memory is still

Beating

 

 

Song of hope

In my life of two thousand summers

I have no regrets

Or remorse

Would I have done some things differently?

Would I change some decisions?

Well, of course.

 

One life

One hope

One love

One spirit

Forever

For you

 

But we run this race only once

We become who we are

By our deeds

Our words make us human and vulnerable

And love opens our heart

Till it bleeds.

 

One life

One hope

One love

One spirit

Forever

For you

 

So look at your friends and your enemies

They are all human

Like you

They hate and they fear for their failures

And those that leave a mark

Are so few.

 

One life

One hope

One love

One spirit

Forever

For you

 

So let’s each make our lives individual

Loving and brave

From our soul

Reach out to our fellow human creatures

So their hopes and broken lives

Become whole.

 

One life

One hope

One love

One spirit

Forever

For you

 

 

Love Has Many Faces

Love has many faces

Of warmth

And lies

And lust

Love has many places

Of kisses

And hugs

And rust

Love has many chases

Of youth

And life

And trust

Love has many graces

Of tenderness

Hope

And must

Love has many cases

Of memories

Promises

And dust

 

 

Powdered Chalk and Diamonds

When I first saw you

Time stood still

Your hair

Your face

Your smile

Powdered chalk and diamonds

They shone in your eyes for a while

 

When I first met you

Time stood still

Your warmth

Your laugh

Your love

Powdered chalk and diamonds

An unexpected gift shared from above

 

When I married you

Time stood still

Your beauty

Your scent

Your touch

Powdered chalk and diamonds

Told the world I would always be your crutch

 

When I last saw you

Time stood still

Your hug

Your promise

Your need

Powdered chalk and diamonds

Help our lives to somehow succeed

 

 

Tell Me

You tell me that you love me

You tell me that it’s true

You tell me you’ll be here tomorrow

But I don’t know what to do

Cos I don’t know the reason for your loving

The reason for your sighs

The reason for your confidence

The reason for your cries

I look beyond the emptiness that I feel inside

I look for something bigger on the greener side

But all the while I struggle

With this warring tide

And the words you spoke in anger

You hoped that I would die

So tell me darling, tell me

What is it that you see?

What is it that you’re hoping for?

What do you see in me?

Because you don’t tell me.

 

 

Sign Language

You sign to me in semaphore

You talk to me in Greek

You leave me hidden messages

But I cannot hear you speak

The words they dance before you

Like mummers in a play

Your mouth it makes to open

But I cannot hear you say

“I love you”

 

 

Island Dreamer

I left my heart in the islands

On a westerly breeze

Purple heather blooming

Amid bare rowan trees

Bluebells blazing

Where the fast waters flow

The time has come

For me to go

 

Feel like a prisoner

In a bleak city world

Need to turn back the clock

To where the wild cat is curled

My heart’s in the islands

Wherever I roam

That’s where I’ll be

When I get called home

 

Feel like I’m drifting

On a grey rolling sea

Watching mermaids dance

And they’re singing to me

But the waves wash deep

Over a mortal dream

And nothing is as easy

As it once did seem

 

Feel like my love was

Lost in the glen

On a mountain side

Where the stags rut again

On the rocky shore

My heart begins to burn

By a smoking peat fire

Someday I’ll return

 

My heart’s in the islands

At the break of dawn

When I left there

I hadn’t even been born

Just a young man all at sea

I threw too much out of the door

Now I am further away

Than ever before

 

Feel like I’m lost

So I sit and yearn

Some things in life

Take an age to unlearn

The sun outside shines on me

But not like the sun that used to be

On the ben I see the winter hare

I’m not lost, I’m already there

 

 

Shades of Abandoned Love

I can feel your hand upon my knee

Deceived once more by the clown inside of me

My head tells me it’s time to make a change

But my heart is screaming I need you, something strange

 

Love was found

Rekindled

And then lost

Sitting here trying to count

The cost

Of an abandoned love

 

Everybody’s wearing a disguise

To hide what they’ve got left behind their eyes

But me, I can’t cover what I am

Wherever the spirits go I’ll just follow them

 

Love was found

Rekindled

And then lost

Sitting here trying to count

The cost

Of an abandoned love

 

I’ve given up the game, I’ve got to leave

The pot of gold is only make-believe

The treasure can’t be found by men who search

Whose gods are dead and buried deep within the church

 

Love was found

Rekindled

And then lost

Sitting here trying to count

The cost

Of an abandoned love

 

We sat in an imaginary place and we kissed

I asked you please to cross me off your list

You looked at me with a smile upon your lips

Your heart it heaved towards me in another script

 

Love was found

Rekindled

And then lost

Sitting here trying to count

The cost

Of an abandoned love

 

One more time at midnight, near the wall

Put aside your unspoken fears and your shawl

Please come out from the dark room where you sit?

Let me feel your love once more before you abandon it

 

Love was found

Rekindled

And then lost

Sitting here trying to count

The cost

Of an abandoned love

 

 

Coloured Memories

It was in another lifetime

When we walked together

On the moss

Hope it stretched before us

Beneath the Southern Cross

 

Blue, the sky explodes above you

Green, the leaves they dapple free

Brown, the earth beneath our feet

Black, the colour of the mud

 

It was in another lifetime

When we talked together

In the woods

Laughter it sang so sweetly

The wine it tasted good

 

Blue, the sky explodes above you

Green, the leaves they dapple free

Brown, the earth beneath our feet

Black, the colour of the mud

 

It was in another lifetime

When we danced together

On the green

Our feet moved so swiftly

Your beauty could be seen

 

Blue, the sky explodes above you

Green, the leaves they dapple free

Brown, the earth beneath our feet

Black, the colour of the mud

 

It was in another lifetime

When we drank together

In the yard

Words they flowed so freely

Written upon a card

 

Blue, the sky explodes above you

Green, the leaves they dapple free

Brown, the earth beneath our feet

Black, the colour of the mud

 

It was in another lifetime

When we laughed together

By the lake

I told you that I loved you

Was that my last mistake?

 

Blue, the sky explodes above you

Green, the leaves they dapple free

Brown, the earth beneath our feet

Black, the colour of the mud

 

 

Opposites

Black after white

Peace after fight

Day after night

Holding onto the light

 

You came into my life

Like the cut of a knife

Then you entered my soul

And made me feel whole

 

Sun after rain

Love after pain

Loss after gain

Easing into my brain

 

You’re there in the dawn

On the wind you are born

Now you fill up my soul

And make me feel whole

 

 

Vision

Your face

Your voice

Your eyes

Your hair

I sense you here

And everywhere

The sun

The rain

The night

The day

My love for you

Does not decay

 

 

Redemption Song

I stand here amazed

Lost in your gaze

Emerging from hell

In a delicate shell

You came and you saw

Just like the law

I gave you my soul

And it made me feel whole

 

One life

One chance

One kiss

One dance

 

I asked for some time

Tasted your wine

Looking to the sky

As the comet passed by

You came and you saw

Just like the law

I gave you my soul

And it made me feel whole

 

One life

One chance

One kiss

One dance

 

You waltzed by the moon

At the dark of the noon

Standing so still

My glass yet to fill

You came and you saw

Just like the law

I gave you my soul

And it made me feel whole

 

One life

One chance

One kiss

One dance

 

 

The Moving Finger Writes

On the windswept dales of limestone Karst

See Emily play

A romantic farce

Heathcliff searches

For a Wuthering lust

The window glass shatters

Life returns to dust

But true love never dies

As the darkness fades to light

My soul is yours to keep

Bill Burroughs is writing tonight

 

My love she sleeps in Cham

In a bed of Norwegian wood

My heart is buried somewhere

Under Dylan’s old Milkwood

 

On the melting tarmac of Kerouac’s road

The sun now rises

On Sal’s paradise load

Dean Moriarty sleeps

His heart trips a beat

Life it still creeps

But true love never dies

As the darkness fades to light

My soul is yours to keep

Bill Burroughs is writing tonight

 

My love she sleeps in Cham

In a bed of Norwegian wood

My heart is buried somewhere

Under Dylan’s old Milkwood

 

On the frozen streets of forgotten Oslo

Knut Hamsun he tries to write

But words are just a show

As the hunger eats within

From Kafka, Joyce and Camus

His life is full of sin

But true love never dies

As the darkness fades to light

My soul is yours to keep

Bill Burroughs is writing tonight

 

My love she sleeps in Cham

In a bed of Norwegian wood

My heart is buried somewhere

Under Dylan’s old Milkwood

 

On Woody’s slow railroad train

The hobos beg for dimes

His broken voice remains

In another singer’s song

His tune plays ever onward

Bound for glory all along

But true love never dies

As the darkness fades to light

My soul is yours to keep

Bill Burroughs is writing tonight

 

 

Willow’s End

I’ll wait for you where the Willow bends

Where lives and deeds make no amends

Branches and leaves punctate the sky

Life races quickly

And the grey gulls fly

Talk to me, talk to me, we have such little time

We drift this way and pass sublime

And sip our cup of blood red wine

 

I’ll wait for you where the fenland breaks

Where time releases our past mistakes

Branches and leaves punctate the sky

Life races quickly

And the grey gulls fly

Talk to me, talk to me, we have such little time

The day it breaks and shadows fade

Into a life of light and shade

 

I’ll wait for you by the wooded glen

Where lovers search for the souls of men

Branches and leaves punctate the sky

Life races quickly

And the grey gulls fly

Talk to me, talk to me, we have such little time

Turn and face the tangled weeds

Forget the curse of forgotten deeds

 

I’ll wait for you on the old brown moss

Where the water birds don’t count the cost

Branches and leaves punctate the sky

Life races quickly

And the grey gulls fly

Talk to me, talk to me, we have such little time

Clouds of oblivion blow around my head

And we creep still closer to the living dead

 

I’ll wait for you where the seas cascade

Where life and death are not betrayed

Branches and leaves punctate the sky

Life races quickly

And the grey gulls fly

Talk to me, talk to me, we have such little time

Then drink to me at the graveside brae

And pray together for the passing day

 

 

Poppy

Little Poppy fell into the swollen river

She was clinging to a branch

Our breakfast passed by childishly

The poor bitch didn’t have a chance

 

 

Just one night

On this lonely night

In the stardust of the fading light

You came to me in black and white

Embracing all my dreams

On the rising curve

Where the ways of life test every nerve

We won’t get anything we don’t deserve

Where we were born in time

 

You came, you saw

Just like the law

You bound up my heart

On another shore

I fell for you

And you for me

Our lives they were one

Now lost at sea

 

You are snow, I’m in the rain

You are beauty, I am plain

Oh my Gill, truer words

Have not been spoken or broken

In the hills of mystery

In the foggy web of destiny

You can have what’s left of me

Where we were born in time

 

Oh fragile flower

In an autumn shower

I watch you bloom

From my ivory tower

I’ll tend your needs

Pull the weeds

And fill our lives

With better deeds

 

 

Leather Bound Memories

You wore grey

On that blissful day

Your love cut like a knife

A handful of rain was all I gave

As you held my hand so tight

Just leather bound memories

 

Our lives were grey

On that frightening day

I feared for my new wife

We waited for fragmented time

Magic and loss returned your life

Just leather bound memories

 

The future was grey

On that fateful day

Into your wide arms I fell

Abuse and pain ate through my brain

Forty-three years of a living hell

Just leather bound memories

 

The sky was grey

On that moving day

Into Alice’s hole you stumbled

The snap, the break, the huge mistake

In chaos the dead spirits mumbled

Just leather bound memories

 

Your dress is still grey

On this broken day

Like Lennon’s dream recalled

A Revolution 9 as I sip the wine

And remember these times before

Just leather bound memories

 

 

Tortured Blues

And now that it is over

He could sit and count the cost

Wondering if she’d changed at all

And realised what they had lost

He was standing in the driving rain

Water filling up his shoe

She was lying on a snow white bed

Hair and face were all askew

Tortured by the blues

 

He found shelter in a small café

Writing hymns and poems on the wall

She slipped close by and cursed at him

They were both heading for a fall

Outside the booths were filling up

Minstrels and waiters in the queue

He stopped nearby and filled his cup

The last romantic of the few

Tortured by the blues

 

Their breaking up was a tempest storm

Promises and words were said in vain

She withdrew from the human race

Neither one could take the strain

He drowned himself in red wine

Street lanterns burned green and blue

Once their love was something fine

Now it was split like cracked bamboo

Tortured by the blues

 

Another year had passed by slow

His young face was lined with pain

She lay wrecked in a juniper bed

They both had to start out again

But all the while he was alone

Clinging to an old church pew

Women came and lovers went

The howling wind it ripped right through

Tortured by the blues

 

 

The Hill

The hill that we climb

Is the sweetest decline

But does not define

Our journey

 

Our lives are entwined

With gold ties that bind

Yet we cannot find

The summit

 

Our eyes are both blind

To what was left behind

And it scrambles the mind

With regret

 

The sun it does shine

And the day is yet fine

To light up the decline

Together

 

Broken Years

It’s been so many long and broken years

Since we were happy and our hearts were true

Once upon a time you told me, I was the man for you

 

Two souls sleeping side by side

Love was eternal and our lives sublime

But now the chasm has grown wide

I pray each night that there is still time

 

I wear dark glasses to cover my eyes

There are secrets in them I can’t disguise

I say to you now, if I ever hurt your feelings, I apologise

 

I haven’t seen my children in thirteen years

That’s not easy to understand

The pain runs deep and never leaves

Some things in life the heart cannot withstand

 

I think that when my back was turned

The whole world behind me burned

It’s been a while since I crossed that broken stile

 

My body is scarred and my thoughts bruised

Life is now in overdrive on an eastern cruise

The evil that men do will always break them apart

They die strangled by guilt with an iron heart

 

I cried on that cold and frosty morn

I cried because our souls were torn

So much for tears, so much for these long and broken years

 

Tortured Blues

And now that it is over

He could sit and count the cost

Wondering if she’d changed at all

And realised what they had lost

He was standing in the driving rain

Water filling up his shoe

She was lying on a snow white bed

Hair and face were all askew

Tortured by the blues

He found shelter in a small café

Writing hymns and poems on the wall

She slipped close by and cursed at him

They were both heading for a fall

Outside the booths were filling up

Minstrels and waiters in the queue

He stopped right there and filled his cup

The last romantic of the few

Tortured by the blues

Another year had passed by slow

His young face was lined with pain

She lay wrecked in a juniper bed

They both had to start out again

But all the while he was alone

Clinging to an old church pew

Women came and lovers went

The howling wind it ripped right through

Tortured by the blues