Thus I Wrote

I can see the fire burning
But the warmth’s buried behind
It’s buried deep inside her house
Deep inside her mind
I’ve knocked gently on the door
But she won’t let me in
She doesn’t feel safe
She has rituals that begin
She’s a butterfly
Afraid of being hurt
I see the flicker in her eyes…
In the corner of her mouth…

There’s a memory of intimacy
In my heart and head
Years of laughing and trust
Once vibrant now dead
We gave of ourselves
Truly, deeply, madly
I ache for that love
I ache for that so badly
But I can’t short-circuit
Or jump-start that birth here
Even as my emotional muscle memory
Slams into gear
Cos I want it all now
CosI feel it all near

I ache for her
But if I can’t have her all
Then I want nothing…
I want nothing…
Nothing at all

Some don’t have this need
Themselves to open up
To feel what they feel
Or to ache for a woman’s love
I want her joy
I want her heart,body and soul
I want to kiss her gently
I want to see her grow

Of course I worry sometimes
That I’ve got some fault inside
Am I emotionally healthy?
Or am I wounded, raw and wide?
Do I attract vulnerability?
That hides such a strong will?
First, there’s love and then there’s passion?
But then, wounds that grow and kill?

Oh I ache for her
But if I can’t have her all
Then I want nothing…
I want nothing…
Nothing at all

I want a gourmet meal
And not some fast food joint
I don’t need some transaction
I just don’t see the point

I don’t have peace now
Because I miss you
Or I miss the thought of you
The warmth of you

I don’t have peace now
Because something’s missing
I dream of kissing…
And of other things

I pull down the stars
To put them in your eyes
I dream of your smile
As I watch the sun rise
I dream of your voice
When I hear bird song
But, still, among the flowers
I feel something’s wrong

I don’t have peace now
Because I don’t have you
And I may never have you
As I may never know you
Are you a shimmering mirage?
Made of my hopeful schemes?
And all my yesterdays?
And all my dreams?

But just the thought of you
Just the chance of you
Just the glimpse of you
Fills me with desire
And I’m glad to be so alive again
Filled with desire

I did not always manage
To stop the damage
That my impatience had spread
My fears rushed on
I know it was wrong
And our love ruptured and bled

Like a finely tuned machine
I was good for a scene
But then something broke inside
I did not manage my fears
Oh, they cost me dear
But I’ve learned a lot on the ride

I’m glad I was kind to you
That I was steadfast and true
Cos this will stand the test of time
And it’s never too late
To grow and change our fate
To change some parts of our mind

I asked why
She burned incense
In the room before she leaves?
She whispered quietly
“It will keep me safe, and rightly
This is what, I believe”

I asked why
He prayed to God
What did it build or achieve?
He whispered quietly
“It will keep me safe, and rightly
This is what, I believe”

Now I do not understand
All the rituals you plan
Or all that you perceive
But they whispered quietly
“It will keep us safe, and rightly
This is what, we believe”

I bow to the haze
Our limitations have made
This wisdom I now conceive
I will tread around lightly
How you feel safe, and rightly
This is what, I believe

They say that she was from the East
She was warm and cool
Pale skin and green eyes
That looked straight through you

She had a room in Carnaby street
She loved it there
But she couldn’t afford it
Without working extra there

She took me in
The light was a hazy red
From the shawl draped
Over the lamp beside the bed
Incense smoke was floating
Above the nervousness in the room
She smiled and opened up
The wine I’d brought home
She poured and let it flow
Over the past where we didn’t roam

We looked at the cracks in the ceiling
As she blew black cigarette smoke
Her perfumed belly moved
When she laughed at my joke
In the red twilight we were the same
Looking for something
Looking for someone
To hold onto

Later, I heard she’d left
Everything was gone, She’d moved on
Maybe, she found something
Maybe, she found someone
To hold onto

This human condition
In which we live
In which we know
This absurd condition

We watch ourselves grow
Live, love and decay
We hear echoes of eternity
In a dark universe of stars
We wonder, we cry out
For a father or mother
A creator to give us meaning
Someone to make us feel less alone

We push our boundaries
We compete for our space
We seek some control
For the world to remember us here
And so the river runs
Ever onward
And so the current pushes us
Ever onward

Now I’m alone at night
In the darkness
I feel the earth turn
Beneath me
I’m fading, fading into silk
Black silk

Dark skies, foreboding
No summer sun or rain
I feel the wheel is turning
It’s time for change again
We don’t do it neat
But within the rules we agree
We make blind bets
On our future religiously

Complex Truths, Simple Lies
We don’t want statistics
Have cake, eat cake
Let’s banish pessimists
Unicorns and Sunny uplands
If we take our country back
Let’s blame the Eu
For whatever we lack

Have faith, our faith
We don’t need expert views
Stir emotion, stir fears
Must control all the news
Use Lies, Use untruths
Engage and stir the nation
Stir emotion, stir fears
Over sovereignty and immigration

And then the veil was ripped
By those who knew
And darkness seeped in
And darkness came through
In the noise you got sick
And you fell to the ground
Your pure heart stopped
And silence wrapped round

You were the best of us,
You were the best of us
When your smile danced
You were the best of us,
You were the best of us
We were deeply enhanced

Getup, standup
Gotta stand up for your rights
Evil shall happen while good people
Remain hidden and out of sight
The fragile light of the world
That we’ve built for so long
Needs people who serve right
To fight those who serve wrong

I had a visceral feeling
The grief of a death or divorce
It was punch to the heart
It punched with so much force
It’s done for a generation
It’s a civil war without guns
But I know who they are
I know they are the ones

Elites wore new clothes
Demagogues with a new blend
They polluted the waters
But he’s no fisherman’s friend
Take back, bring back
Lies about democracy and control
They focussed on the 1%
And not the damage to the whole

Ignorance is a choice
Ignorance is a choice
We choose what we do
Ignorance is a choice
Ignorance is a choice
For me and for you

I was born naked
Naked in a frightening world
A world without obvious meaning
A world insecure
A world with no direction
A world of swirling forms
A world of noise and uncertainty

And so I built a house
To make sense of the world
And it became my world
With pillars strong
And I found others
Who shared my world
And together we built a city
To protect us
To give us meaning
To protect us from storms

But one day a big storm came
That knocked a pillar of my house down
That rocked my world
That separated me from the others
That forced me to look at the truth
To look at the darkness beyond my house
To look at the darkness beyond my city
And I saw death
I saw no obvious meaning
I saw I was alone
I saw the terrifying responsibility
Of my freedom
I saw the terrifying responsibility
Of finding my own way

For a while I went mad
And I sought distraction
In drink, in sex, in recreation
But, over time, came acceptance
Over time,  I found my new niche
Over time, I found a way to compete and serve
Over time, I built a new house
In a new city
With bigger windows
Over time, I let more light in.

You were out on the street with me
Full of passionate conviction
You made me realise then
That I’d let the darkness in
That I’d let ignorant intensity
Punch me in the heart
I worried the centre couldn’t hold
I worried things were falling apart

We try to make the future
Through the limits of our own haze
And it becomes our faith
And we push it in our tribal ways
But it makes me feel lonely
And then I need to hear you call my name
As I ache for the things I love
In this grand game

And I feel so small
As I stare up at the stars
As I feel the sand shifting
Oh but I remember we’ve travelled, so far
And I really don’t mind losing
If  the reason is sound
If we don’t lose the wisdom we’ve found
As this grand game, cycles round

Now when everything is slipping
And the cold wind starts to blow
I remember that sometimes things fall apart
So better things may fall together and hold
Inequality shines through
Beneath the ignorance and the lies
But false promises won’t do you no good
In this grand game

And I feel so small
As I stare up at the stars
As I feel the sand shifting
Oh but I remember, we’ve travelled, so far
And I really don’t mind losing
If the reason is sound
If we don’t lose the wisdom we’ve found
In this grand game

Now it’s all fading away
We compete well as we must
But we’ve much more in common
Than that which divides us
There’s always room in the dark
As in between the changes we’re drifting
To the light of the moon
Your lovely face, I’m lifting

Image – Anselm Kiefer – The Renowned Orders of The Night – Guggenheim Bilbao.

I see a darkness
Threaten our light
That has created our day
From the darkest night.

They feel disconnected
They feel all alone
Too much inequality
They don’t listen any more
They have lost trust
In the perceived elite
Who got richer than they
Who couldn’t make ends meet

The global winds of change
Tell them they’ve lost control
And they believe many lies
They pay papers to be told
They want the identity
Of their yesterday’s nation
And they want more say
And less immigration

Now they won’t listen
They just want to fight
For destruction and change
And not for what’s right

And there was a void
Festering in their minds
And something dark was born
Leaving cohesion behind
And in this dark void
So a false prophet grew
He thought of false hope
The fog they won’t see through

So the ingredients were there
Now the scene was set
For him to enter
From stage right or left
The wizard of fear
He is the demagogue
The alchemist of prejudice
Emotions and fog

This assassin is now dressed
In the clothes of a clown
But his creative destruction
Won’t bring him down
He shot the future
Right through the heart
I was there as it died
And things fell apart