The Crossing

You have broken through the veil of faded glass
It’s gone away now
The pain now has subsided at last
Feel your senses tingle at the slightest touch
A gentle faded whisper of I love you very much

Kaleidoscopic images rush by
Showered in color, reminiscing life
Never felt quite like this, never felt so alive
How can you imagine this?
How can you feel so much bliss in the blink of an eye?

Come, come, come, come with us
You are safe now
You’re away now the crossing has begun
Come, come, come, come with us
You are safe now
You’re away now the crossing has begun

Sea Of Life

Busy streets and busy lives, busy, busy like busy bees in hives
Producing honey, producing money, producing magic paper got no worries
All of a sudden it suddenly seems that all these people have given up their dreams
A wake up call should make me appreciate what I have done, but I fear that it’s too late

The world will keep on spinning round
When I am laid deep, deep in the ground
Farewell struggle, farewell, farewell strife
I want to drown in the sea of life

Snapping pictures with my eyes, locked away in the dark room of my mind
Undeveloped scenes yet to unfold, snatched away no chance now to grow old
The sands of time will run out no matter what, must use the little time left that I’ve got
Why do I feel like I’m bereft of something more, some higher place, something to aim for?

The world will keep on spinning round
When I am laid deep, deep in the ground
Farewell struggle, farewell, farewell strife
I want to drown in the sea of life

Change

The seeds of change have been sewn
Into the ground
Waiting below
Waiting for that spark of life
Want to be reborn
Need to see the light

It’s going to take a lifetime for me to really grow
Up
Tall
Strong

The winds of change are blowing in
Feel every inch of my skin
I close my eyes and depart
A thousand voices
Singing in the dark

I’m going to rip it all down and wash right out to sea
The endless sea
So clear
And so deep.

How Can This Be The End

There are moments in your life
When everything is going just right
Nothing can spoil it
But you know after day comes night
It’s in league with the moon
Helping to cast shadows in your curtained room
You can choose to ignore it
But it’ll catch up with you soon

The break of the day hits your eyes
The bad dreams wiped away by blue skies
You don’t even notice
All of the signs
That something’s not right
You are blinded by the light
Oh you are naive to things that can’t be seen

So here you go without a fight
Final snapshots taken with your eyes
Just a memory now
Locked inside your mind
With all of its flaws
And the only sound you can hear is the sound of a slamming door

Where do you go now
Where will you go now?

Oh how much time can you spend
Trying to fix something that you can’t mend?
The word’s make believe now
How can this be the end?

The final curtain
How can this be the end?

The Black Country

Oh back there in the valley where the hills are on the crest
The patchwork blanket of emerald hues branch out far to the west
The black veins used to stretch out under scarlet skies and yield
Scaring structures, a tainted earth, rusting iron and smokey steel

Ages past, landscape changed, falling into disrepute
Songbirds sing tales and make their nests in ancient chimney flues
A crystal ball born out fire reflects a future truth
A great oak tree full of memory, sticking out a factory roof

This land is so very tarnished, battle worn and charred
You cannot see the heavens as smokey skies veil the stars
I am so far away from it but wherever I may roam
The Black Country, the Black Country is in my heart, it is my home.

Home // Heart

New life is a drug that I’ve just started to take.
Sometimes I wonder if it was a mistake.
And chains,
Big, shiny, metal chains fall down to the floor,
Am I more restricted now than ever before?

Here like a ghost, like a lost thing,
I am wandering between the light and the dark.
And try,
How I try to be seen,
But when I reveal myself, regret creeps in.

Love is a risk that I’ve just started to take,
And like this new life, I’m bound to make a mistake.
I think that fear will take a hold of me somehow.
I know I cannot let it but doubt runs through me now.

If home is where the heart is,
Then I have lost my home.
I wish it hadn’t departed,
It’s cold out here in the snow.

Branches

The branches are silver, it’s winter forever, I climb to the top but there’s nothing to see.

The rings bound inside you, tell a thousand stories, the tales are locked inside now, not a soul to hear.

When the seed hit the ground, you grew up strong, the roots went down deep, deep, into the dirt.

You can’t bury your head, it’s not who you are, but you managed to bury one branch, what a sad thing, unfortunate.

Not of choice, not of will, but a freak situation. Gone forever but yet you still stand up tall.

I love you. I love you. I love you so much, yet, I can’t stand to say it. None of us ever say it?

Why. Why. Why. Is it. So… difficult to say?

We just know

It’s there.

We just know.

Why. Why. Why. Is it. So… difficult to say?

I love you. I love you. I love you so much

The branches are silver, it’s winter forever, I climb to the top but there’s nothing to see.

The Peculiar Pendulum

She sits on the high stool in the flamboyant kitchen, her blonde hair illuminated by the spot lights and her defined face lit by the computer screen that she so often stares blankly at. I walk in the room, say hello. No response. An awkward silence thickens the air.

Then a little peep.

Hi.

She has this barrier or an invisible hermit crab-like shell that only occasionally sheds. I don’t understand. I’m an empath, so my mother says, and I respond a lot to emotions. I can usually tell what people are thinking by the way they act. There are people with barriers… then there is her. It’s like a germ, it travels and infects me and fills me with paranoia and dread; and then suddenly I’m lifted out of it. A smile. Warm and friendly like some kind of switch has gone off. I’m filled with optimism and the little voice of doubt in my head dissolves into nothingness.

Oh how the pendulum sways and conducts you in manner that I find most peculiar.

The Train Man

I wait in the icy station, solitary with no one around to affect my thoughts. The station is in a village and it feels old, I stand there wondering how many people have passed through here, how many last goodbyes or first hellos. It’s late on in the evening; all the shutters are down and there’s a sick yellow light coming from the waiting room that isn’t fulfilling its purpose. It’s empty… it’s like looking into a window of a museum occupied by relics of a bygone age of train travel. It definitely needs an upgrade. I think to myself that it would make a great photo, and then the silent air was broken by local revelers. Burly men with fermentation running rife through their veins, going back in time…I can almost hear the beating of chests. I smile. It reminds me of coming from a small place, though I never have or never will never be one of them. I’m a traveler, I feel like I will always be on the move. Not much of a settler.

I embark the train choosing the door furthest away from the revelers…but alas…sods law means that of course they all decide to come into the same carriage as me. I bring out a book, escape to another world and manage to shut them all out of my brain. They disembark at the next stop and the carriage is silent, apart from the steady duh-dum duh-dum duh-dum of the tracks.

Then a phone goes off, I had no idea anyone else was there but a curly haired man in his late forties replaced the revelers of before. He looked tired as he was speaking. I couldn’t help but eavesdrop. From what I gathered of the conversation to ‘Gareth’ was that something must have not been completed at ‘the site’. All sorts of things were running through my head as to what ‘the site’ was; but I continued to listen. The man seemed to be a pathetic character, not in a horrible way, more in the fact I felt sorry for him. This person higher above him on the proverbial food chain was prolonging his plight more than I think was necessary. The man came up with ways to fix the problem, even going back to work at the late hour, but in the end it resolved to ‘I’ll see you tomorrow then’.

As he put his phone away he mouthed angry words that I couldn’t make out and bashed his bag in frustration. There was a look in his eye of a sort of longing and sadness. The train came to a halt. As we were lining up to get off I was behind him, I wanted to put a reassuring hand on his shoulder and ask if he was ok, but I think that years of cultural influence refrained me from doing so. Thinking back, I wish I had done because sometimes you need a stranger’s ear, a distant reassurance. It gives you a sort of freedom of emotion.

I enjoy these little snapshots of people’s lives; I think I just enjoy observing. I wonder what happened to the man? I will never know but I think there’s a beauty in that.

Plaster

I stare at the night sky

Made from plaster, made by a skilled hand

Scraping

Scraping

Scrape scrape scrape

I admire the detail in contemplation

An unwitting blank canvas on the plateau above my head.

Genius.

However.

One day the surface will flake and fall and carpet the floor

Peel back the thin perfect layer and reveal the cigarette stained yellow underbelly.

I am the ceiling

You are the plaster

Thank you.