Sure

if i could be sure of you
time would not matter
if i knew what to say and do

If I could have a clue
the world would spin faster
If I could be sure of you

If I knew what you know
could see the places that you go
If I knew which way
the wind will blow

If I could just once see through
to what in all of this is true
If I knew how I could be
sure of you

1993

Passing season

can you hear the sea?
washing through my shallow veins
breaks my rocky heart
you surf on my crashing waves

how could I forget you
you left footprints in the sand
deep down in my soul
you walked through that foreign land

can you see my country?
waves on rocks and shooting stars
where every day will flash past
you drive through in a fast car

how could I forget you?
and take a brush to erase
the memory of once good love
you want to wipe without a trace

but I will disappear
into the night of broken dreams
leaving kisses tears and my love
a trail of old brown autumn leaves

untitled

sometimes I feel you are only inches from me
and if I turned and looked
you'd be all I saw before me
sometimes I'm feeling ugly

some days the world turns so slowly
and you wonder if hours are years
some others they fly right by me
sometimes I'm feeling lonely

sometimes I feel I need someone beside me
I feel I need a helping hand
sometimes when I'm crying quietly
there is no-one to hold me.

Stay at home

In a glass - I saw
everything I fear
come to pass

you could have known
should have foretold
some of the places you least want to go
turn out to be home

I know - we have to part
it has to happen
you cannot have a heart

I should never have
let it happen
this way
I reach out for a place
I could never stay

you'll have to be alone
stay at home - never roam
you'll have to pay
for every trip
to every place you've gone

this is the way
of every part of human living
when what you get
is not worth the price
of what you're giving


you never learn - you burn
your itching feet
back to where you began
return

you stay at home now
never stray far
should stay at home now
never go far.

Nothing can be

I cannot move
and when I move
my eyes are closed
I cannot see a thing

only rocks to break you
only sticks
and stones to shake you up
Only love to make you cry

I cannot feel
and when I feel
my eyes are open
and I see everything

She was a bough
to break my head on
a secret
a lie to tell
She was a whisper
a fading dream
a kiss
a wishing well

I cannot be
and when I am
my heart is cold
I am not anything.

On a rock

here is something they say
to dull the senses, kill the pain
but I would go blind rather
than never see your face again

I got a big red motorbike
in my dreams it's an aeroplane
I would fly on wheels of sadness
down some lonely country lane

There is a big and empty room
where they place the broken hearts
where they lock the lost and foolish
all those broken into parts

here is something they say
to help you leave your love behind
but life is not that easy
you're out of sight not out of mind

here is something they say
to dull the senses, kill the pain
but can't quite kill the urge to
have you in my heart again.

The story of my life

this is the story of my life
I was born
that I'm sure of
for I am here

then there was a confused period
of some 26 years
full of sorrow
joy and anger

now I have met you
there will be another
26 years or so
of sorrow joy
and anger

then I'll most likely die.

Lonesome without you

this evening the sun
like a track
of a golden glistening tear
is falling down
around the envious dirty world

and the cold slate evening sky
shatters hearts hard as rock
into pieces of dreams
of forgotten moments
brings in the empty night once more

nothing glows and nothing shines
even the stars lack their lustre
without you to shine beside them
light them
I need you to ignite them

and the pale and insolent moon
dark in its bed of diamonds
is whispering your name
reminding me that
all the wishes that I wish
would wish you mine again

Notes for terminate and stay resident

elephants never forget
but I forget
your name your face
and everything about you

Nothing can remain
when you take these things away
love dignity pride
leave me only shame

Some say all tends to order
Some all to chaos goes
What's left when it all falls apart
no one knows

nothing ever forgotten
something you cannot grasp
even when my mind is empty
something small will last.

Empty

children on a lawn
a river,
nothing moving but
the sun is moving
slowly across the sky.

later
I thought I heard
you say something
but it was nothing
just a passing word
someone else said
and I heard.

I wanted to believe
that in time all our blemishes are healed
and we turn out to be
actual human beings
real and free.

I wanted to believe
in the supreme indefatigability of love
of all dreams come true
of me and another you.

Children in a storm
running through streets
paved not with gold
but knee-high in slush and sleet,
empty like a dream.

Feathers

The feathers of light
the blue sky
the unending note
the bell never ends
its ringing

The sweeping brush
I paint
everything I see
frigid empty
transparency

The feathers of the night
deep and lonely
stars
children never end
their singing

The first touch
I feel
of anything real
wonderful love
clarity

Boiling & freezing

I felt you creep
like a moving sickness
vectored across my skin

everything
is blowing hot and cold
getting older
there won't be time left
to think about
time wasted
thinking about you

I saw you waiting
down a million
empty corridors of life
thinking
of things to say
at the end
of anything left to say

I won't feel for you
when you're gone
subtly try to
call you back
I won't wait around
in a limbo of hope
ugly fear
I won't be dismayed

everything
collapses with time
ending up heatless
getting older
colder than misery
lost and alone

I felt you gripping me
and now you slip away
all across my empty life
nothing left to say

Going to Australia

wail and weep
creep

creep into my arms
unravel all
your splendid charms

I know a word.
I know a joke about
how all I had
spilled about
I know a good joke.

we're like sheep
bound into life
by a million words
commitments & promises
we can't let go,

and what we truly feel
we cannot let it show.

wail and weep, creep,
your motherfucking heart is weak.

But I know
that when once you look
into the depths
of where you want to be
you will see,

you will still want me.

When I went to where I went to

There was a shadow of a time
before I was a shadow of the man I am today,
before I fell in love with the whole idea
of someone, anyone, falling in love with me,
when I knew, or at least was sure,
that real was real and unreal should be hid away
now I know I was at a kind of place
some how I should have stayed.

But whispering in the wind,
the times that are waiting, holding all possibility
calling to me, saying nothing but
promising everything
promise deliverance, will take me to where I,
not now, but will soon want to be.