I or Maybe You

? Simple Is Everything but Difficult
? Difficult Is Everything but Love
? Love Is All but Hate
? Hate Is Everything and You
? You were All
? All is Gone
? Gone is Time
? Time Wasted
? You Left

Note From A Ghost

Fog rolling in by my feet,
Lying here and loved,
And you by my side,
Sharing my greatest defeat.

Car cruising on down the road,
Crumpled now and crushed,
With you by my side,
Sharing my heaviest load.

Fog feeding on my regrets,
Driving and drowning and drugged,
With you by my side,
My biggest mistake yet.

Decked out in black was your father,
Crushed with the weight of the loss,
For his only daughter,
Seems I made that poor man a martyr...

Your coffin was placed into that place,
A black tear fell from a dying face,
Your family wailed out their goodbyes,
And I slipped away...

Fog rolling in by our stones,
Standing here, side by side,
And yours looking fine with those flowers
Left with a note from a ghost.

The Red and The Black

A coin spinning in an illimitable world of space and chance
A taken opportunity, a thousand possibilities falter
At best, to see with untarnished vision, the universe shrunk to the size of a decision, and worst, the binding of flesh to time and knowledge to earth.
The glimmer of hope in a suns all seeing eye,
The pallid paucity of anticipation in the nights unforgiving emptiness.

Do you take the chance?
Do you build on the dust of the past and the great?
Do you remember the faded fallen, their words still making the world?
Do you see a world with the red of a fire burning, the beacon of the risen?

Do you hide from a life less ordinary?
Do you follow the path of the many, on an apathetic road to wherever and elsewhere?
Do you see the faces, but not the souls, in a million mirrors forever pointing down?
Do you see the world with the black of a closed book with a final chapter known but not written.?

We know the past
We live the now
We expect a future
We thread our lives through unknowable truths and unquestionable answers
Comfortably blind and contentedly deaf to the unthinkable beyond and an inexorable death.

Control is myth, power built through need
Chaos dwells in the cracks of the illusion
Waiting to waken those who can see a better future.
And shatter those who live the lie.


The coin spins for the free and the chained
Ignorance is bliss but what bliss will remain?

Losing, Lonely, So...

Girl, oh girl,
Whoever you are,
You're words on a page,
I'm dead without you.
I'm dead without your smile,
I'm dying inside.
I dare say I'll survive,
But girl, oh, girl,
Why would I care,
If not for your presence,
Here, within the world?
There is no love,
I could ever give to you,
That would ever be close,
To being enough.

Human Alien

Sometimes I’m so calm.
It’s not as though I listen anyway,
Welcome to my daydream,
What shall we dream about today?
Well, how about the loneliness?
The time I’m wasting wasting time alone?
Instead of being a giver,
I’m a watcher,
I’m a thinker,
But why can’t I be all three?

Painted In Grey

And when I opened up my paints,
The colours met with my old feelings,
And so, I set up my old easel,
And set about painting a portrait,
Of you.
The mixture of the brown and the golden,
Falling in the brushstrokes,
Failing as I tried to imitate your hair.
The ocean blue I tried to make,
The love I had for your eyes,
The colour that I tried so hard,
To recreate.
And then the colour of your skin,
My paintbrush painted it within,
The red of your lips,
The water that the watercolours,
Couldn't repeat,
The signiature beneath the work,
The single "X" I left after the sad "For you, I hurt".
The frame I hung that painting in,

Your wandering heart.

The wrinkles in your face,
The darkness in your eyes,
The oily tear,
I never noticed,
The canvas hung upon the wall,
All painted in grey.

Twelve Steps To Emily

Mary

Mary, you were more than just a girl to me,
More than just a half-smile in the rain.
Mary, you were something of a mystery,
Now you’ll never need to cry again.

Laura

Laura, let me help this lover take her berth and sleep,
No-one needs to make a promise, less a promise I can’t keep.
Take your troubles, throw them to the sea,
Let the lost days drift now, let them be.

Jessie

She doesn’t know, she never will.
I only longed for Jessie to be thinking of me still.
But hoping for a miracle’s just taking life for read,
Forgetting that these miracles are all inside her head.

Clara

Clara settled down when she was only seventeen,
Had eight kids and now she thinks of me,
He’s in Spain on ‘business to be seen’,
She‘s alone, pretending to be free.

Kate

Kate likes me and I love her,
And she’s holed up in Rupert Street,
And I pretend that I don’t care,
I only hope I never see her there.

Anne

Someone told me about Anne,
She lives out on my street.
I think a lot about that girl,
I doubt we’ll ever meet.

Caitlin

Caitlin’s in another world,
For that I wish her all the luck this world has left to give,
She’s only starting out just now, she’s not even a kid.
I hope she gives her mother all the love her mother did.

Eliza

Eliza, while you're worlds away,
I sometimes feel you here,
You shouldn't be afraid of love,
I shouldn't be afraid of fear.

Angela

Your sparkle still burns on
long in my eyes, though it has long since left you,
And Angela, I wish I’d never met you,
Because I hurt you.

Jonie

Jonie do you know how blue I was?
Like bad news in a river drowned in loss,
I hung on all the sadness you had seen,
I wanted you to know how much you mean.

Nicole

Someone’s got the loving bad,
It’s more than words can ever say,
I tried to be with you, Nicole,
But Emily got in the way.

Holly

How happy can a lover be
To live to help put up a Christmas tree?
And Holly’s such a flawless girl
I want her more than peace within this world.

Emily

Emily does her pretty hair,
It comforts me to feel it here and there,
And Emily's the girl I love the most,
But Emily's a ghost.

Guitar Without Strings

I'm playing that lonely song again,
The one that only comes when,
We've nowhere left to go.
And you're right,
You always were,
Even when the tables turned.
Now I'm strumming lonely,
Leaving loving in the air,
And left fretting, longing,
For a guitar without strings.

I'm playing the broken soul again,
That one I only hear when
The living have gone home,
And you're right,
You always are,
Even when the records end.
Now I'm strumming lonely,
Leaving loving in the air,
And feeling incomplete,
Like a guitar without strings.

Astronaut

Leaving the world behind,
There it goes.
Growing smaller,
Seeing the lights in the distance
I put out in the past,
When my mind spun round,
And the sun stopped shining.
I'm floating in a spacesuit,
In a spaceship,
Avoiding contact with people,
I'm an astronaut,
Floating away from situations,
The world created.

Somewhere, somewhere out there,
In the great infinity,
Stands a man with a horse,
Grizzled as he goes,
And weeping,
And lonesome,
Looking for a new hope,
Looking for answers,
Like an astronaut,
Floating through the dark.

Sympathies To A Lover

Don't know how to help,
Don't know what to do,
I'm just a man, you see -
I am not you.

I know that you're grieving,
All dressed up in black,
I'm sorry your brother was stabbed in the back.

Got a pair of red shoes,
That I need to pick up,
I just hope that they'll cheer you up.

Motel Regrets

Took a look at that view from the window,
One last time,
Till the clouds rolled across.
And I shut the curtains,
And you shut your eyes,
And I shut my mind,
And kissed you goodbye,
And told you my lies,
And picked up my things,
And took off that ring,
And cleared my head in the haze of the booze,
Except when I saw your prettiest pair of shoes,
Red straps, red laces,
Stood by the door,
That I bought for you,
To take away your blues
When your brother died.
So I hurried out that door,
And down the motel corridor,
And picked up a cab,
And pictured your face,
And as the rain tumbled down,
And the cab wipers struggled,
I fell asleep,
And then we arrived,
With the sky darkening,
And I had no money,
To tip that man anything,
I climbed up the stairs,
And I knocked on her door,
And she let me in,
And we went to the bar,
And we laughed at pretty much everything,
And I laughed about you,
And forgot what I did,
And I took her back home,
And with all regrets gone,
We did our thing, time and time and time again.
Then next day I gave her a ring,
And told her that she was my love,
And she then believed,
What you once believed,
And time marched on,
But that ring never really meant anything,
At least not to me,
Not for her.
And her love never did come for free,
Paid for in full, three times a week.
And then that night alone in the bar,
When my walls were closing in,
I learned about how,
You damn near always pay for your sins.
See, your sister walked in,
With the rain weeping hard from her face,
Which at least had the grace,
To disguise the tears,
That her red eyes released.
And it’s then that she told me the news -
You were in that motel room,
Where I’d taken a look at that view from the window,
One last time,
And the clouds rolled across.
And you'd shut your eyes
When I shut the curtains,
And I'd shut my mind,
And told you my lies,
And picked up my things,
And took off that ring,
And cleared up my crimes in the haze of the booze,
Well, it’s there where they found you,
Hung from the laces,
Of your prettiest pair of shoes.

Turned Off

There's no unplugging.

Tugboat

No-one cares for our hearts on that shore,
They always cut loose and drink,
But what if we need saving?

What if we need saving from this whipping wind?

This vessel's a stranded pebble to the sea,
So save us, or we sink.
We need saving.

Flares aren't quite imaginative enough,
They only think they're fireworks...
Well, this is November the fifth.

Everyone think of a warmer time,
Rid your dying hearts of the chill,
And learn to love the sea,
But do it quickly.

You know, we could die in an aeroplane,
Or maybe a car crash,
Or both,
then a coma,
But better,
Much better,
This tugboat.

Loved Her, Or Liked Her

Wheels turn,
Hearts burn,
No-one cares.

Wheels burn,
Gravel's in control.

I lost my love in the dust,
I wasn't enough.

Slowly, the dust settles,
And I create jet-streams,
While she replaces her mobile phone.

Don't Worry

Don't worry 'bout the morning if it rains,
After all, it rains just to because,
Well just to wash your loneliness away...

Don't worry 'bout the setting of the sun,
After all, the sun sets just because,
Well just 'cause it's the breaking of a day...

All across the distance,
Stop with your resistance,
Doodle with your daydreams,

Don't worry.