gin palace breakfast bowl
old fat Henry Tudor roll
watching wooden tulips grow
big red bus to Old Kent Road
chandelier spiderthreads
reminding me of Pier Head
Mr Wimpey dropped down dead
and slipped into the river cold
somewhere in the heart of town
a pair of yellow boots were found
which stomped my nation underground
with it all our future’s sold
and so dear friends my song is done
I’m off to sing another one
before the inspiration’s gone
or if the day grows old.
this dream is tethered to your smile
that way it won’t drift away
across the subconscious ocean’s miles
I plan on having you stay
here instead
as I lay in bed
you sinking deep in my pillow
until sunlight beams
into this dream
and fills my waking head
and so in his Augustan phrase
forced between the ringing bars
a poetry of his young passions
duets with his cold guitar
(chorus)
there’s loneliness
where none should live
and sadness takes
when love must give
and though his rhymes are older now
they still beat inside my dreams
sing along with my heart somehow
and drive away the clouds it seems
(chorus…)
the patterns make their way through
those memories we have all shared
and though they fall to pieces
even scattered shine those words
(chorus…)
I loved a girl on the beach in Spain
only we both didn’t know it then
destiny would see to it
was just a matter of when
she had no cares in eighty eight
or whenever it may have been
and nor did I wherever I was
that changed when I had seen
the woman she grew into
before I even knew her name
and from the moment I held her
something inside me changed.
throw a quarter in my tambourine
and I will sing for you
put a dollar in my notebook
and I’ll write a song or two
cause my heart is hungry
and not just for your smile
I gotta keep my soul together
for the next five hundred miles
let the rains come
and wash away the songs of summer
there needs to be September
to remind us of July,
when the long days grew tired
and let themselves
fall into your waiting arms
and have the nights slip by.
steel guitaring echoes
of sadness and defeat
when Patsy gave me sweet dreams
in the heart of lonely street
and the needle always caught her
at the start of cigarettes
no matter how I’d set it right
I never can forget
just how those days are beaten in
and make of that boy the man
I tried to fall far from the tree
to find out who I am
…but…
all these countless heartaches later
when I’m thinking that I’m fine
I realise like old boy Merle
I’m still drinking yesterday’s wine.
Down in your Subtopia
this brutalist dystopia
you can hide yourself among
your village common memories
of a time before no time at all
when all the good men took the call
to run off to a foreign field
looking out for enemies.
new romantic ghosts in two tone silk
tailored words stitched by gilded hands
and in their eyes expectant lovers
see themselves reflected…
…and stand…
to sing blue silver midnights
to the white gold morning sun
when both empty hearts awaken
as if they’d sang as one
and as the neon streetsigns flicker
to drown in the winter daylight rain
one hit wondered one time lovers
see themselves rejected…
…to refrain…
to sing blue silver midnights
to the white gold morning sun
when both empty hearts awaken
as if they’d sang as one
If I could speak upon a breeze
in summer’s lost to time
I’d have the wheat field’s whisper
to you and make you mine
with golden couplets on the wind
and rhymes of weather fair
the warmest songs of mid July
would await you on the air.
