Music, music, music,
My head is full of music
and memories interlaced with tunes
Woven into patterns and wandering variations
New melodies unlocked by changing keys
The moods of major, minor
Triumphant shifts then pathos
To rest in lullaby and memories of dreams.
Music brought us all together
Sun or rain didn’t matter
We went dancing in the mud.
Student, hippy, drop-out, traveller, punk,
There was no real space between us.
Hendrix, Dylan, Floyd, The Clash, Sabbath and Santana
Floated us above the void.
Keith Richards punching rhythm bound us to the bouncing beat
and brought us prancing us to our feet
We had a vision; a world with no divisions,
Positive the world could change.
We were busy looking inward
So it’s not so strange
We didnt see ourselves surrounded
By the swiftly gathering chains.
He always knew I watched him.
I made no secret of it.
A child obsessed with ancient gods I chose him.
Did he choose me or I choose him?
I neither know nor care.
A bargain had been struck,
Just as his foot struck the earth
before he took to flight
and where he went, I followed
inspired by happiness or sorrow.
I don’t know why I write this now
It isn’t me who holds the pen.
Now my youth is gone
He compels me in the task
Of speaking truth to men.
I know how to write a sonnet.
I’ve written many before
But I’m not going write one now.
That’s not against the law.
I’d much rather write a ballad
Or a poem that’s free of all form.
I was writing pictorial poems
Even before I was born.
I hummed before I heard words.
I needed no metre or rhyme.
I was given a gift that’s divine.
Out on a limb
Hanging on a thread
A crystal swings and turns
Capturing lights reflected.
Like my life.
A brief flash of fire in the dark.
If music is the food of love
Turn it down, don’t sing along.
All those words of sweet romance
Lull us in a lovestruck trance.
Loves and doves and stars above
Disguise the fist in velvet glove.
The honeymoons that don’t last long
Soon grow cold, as does the song.
I got the blues so bad.
Had the worst dreams I ever had
I was hanging out with the dead.
Those old ghosts controlling my head
Making me deep midnight blue
‘Cause I can’t get back to you no matter what I do.
I’m stuck on you like glue.
Baby, I’m so purple, battered and bruised.
When you were a lop eared rabbit
and I was a battered old bear
we rattled around the countryside
In an unbalanced three wheel cart.
On a whim you broke my heart.
But when my arm dropped off
and all my straw stuffing fell out
you pushed it all back in.
Only a very good friend would care enough to do that.
Poems used to come easy;
I could refine them or not as I wished.
Now I have to struggle and strain using only six lines
To squeeze out some half-born attempt
That ends as a whimpering flop.
I should really know when to stop.
The sound of the sea pulls me deeper and deeper into the deepest sleep,
drawing me down into deeper dreams.
Slowly.
Drowning.
Back and forth all night, the sea sighs and mists my windows
and turns with the drag of the tide.
I rise with the surf and the light.
The Dreaming Path 