Coal eyes burning

Coal island bound
On the ship
On the rocking waves
I'm on my way
To the black coal face
I will work in the gutters
The shores of respite
Will heal my soul
And my ship will be scuppered
On that island of coal
I've hurt and I've suffered
For the whys and the Hows
The whos and the whats
But if I had to tell
What it was I learned
I can't say a lot
Apart from how and when
To be a fool to myself
When someone rings a bell
I jump
When they start to yell
I slump
Like a puppet on string
Held by you

The puppet island sailors
Are calling now
Writing letters
To the roving butterflies
That are blown across oceans
Whose pupae have squirmed
Chrysalises shake
In the mid Atlantic wake
Of the Ships
That go sailing by

Eye and I

With one eye I am laughing
With the other I will cry
When I find the pieces come together
Of the puzzles in my mind

The mask it slips like an actor's
When the stage is bare
When Tragic and Comic factors
Look up from the audience and stare

There are no more tickets left
The show is about to begin
But I can stand there in the drama
While one eye sheds a tear
And the other spreads a grin

Who can see beyond the face
Who can crack the mask
For the wearer hides in disgrace
The questions he fears to ask

And when finally they are answered
The mask can be allowed to slip
While one eye will be filled with laughter
The other shows a trembling lip

From two parts we are made
Mother and father put together
The lightness and the shade
The sunshine and bad weather

Take out from the equation X
Then Y has no place
See the execution of sex
The chromosomes of race

The black and white of colour
Where creation finds its space
One eye open wide in laughter
The other closed in sad embrace 

Mr Yesterday

I am Mr Yesterday
Pleased to meet you
No, no after you Mr Today
I've already been here before
I'll tell you what you need to know
All the things you should remember
Just like the things you said you'd forget
Like Christmas shopping in late December
I'll remind you of the self you thought you'd left behind
But remember that I am you yourself
Just bear that in mind
I had your thoughts the other day
They churned and turned and whined
About all the places you will go in forward or rewind
I'm telling you this Today,
To your self you must be kind
Just don't forget to remember everything I say
And don't put off until Tomorrow
What Yesterday already did find

The river that flows

Fisherman sitting looking in a stream
Thinking of all the fish he's seen
Some they come and some they go
Down by the banks of the river that flows

Some he's caught and some let go
And it all depends on how far he throws
Some swim fast and some swim slow
When his line he casts he soon lets trow
Down by the banks of the river that flows

Orange glint of a dawning sun
Just a hint of the knowledge it knows
In the tree sits a big black crow
Sitting in the shadow of a big black gun

Some birds come and some they go
Down by the banks of the river that flows

Pigeons flutter into the sky
Ducks stay hidden down below
Fisherman thinks how the good men die
Some they come and some they go
Down by the banks of the river that flows

Halfway to Heaven

I am halfway to heaven, halfway to heaven
I feel I'll be half way pretty soon
Well the stars fall from the bright sky
I'm walking down the highway
And the hills rise up to meet the moon

I'll be halfway to heaven, half way to heaven
Halfway to heaven pretty soon

Well I'm gonna get there my way
No matter how long the highway
I'm gonna walk a million miles to the moon
I'll be coming round the mountain
Stop to drink at a fountain
But I'll be halfway to heaven pretty soon

Halfway to heaven, halfway to heaven
There's a red carpet being rolled out flat
I've just got to keep on going
Though the weather may be snowing
And across my path walk many cats
I know that I've a dog star
Shining in the silver cinema
Some movie playing about a tramp
And there's a lady there kissing him
Well I can sing the missing hymn
I'll be halfway to heaven pretty soon

True at first light

The Evening is the best time for denial
In it we can lie to ourselves
The music plays
The dancers twirl
The fingers curl
Into hair
And stares across tables, and rooms
parking lots and underground platforms
Throughout the day
Swirl into one confusing nebulae
And explode in fireworks
Of stars new hopes and dreams
On the consciousness

Down on earth in the morning
After the stars have fallen
Below the line of the subconscious ocean
Of sleep through the night
The dawn breaks
And understanding dawns on us
That we are not as indestructible
As we had made out
But more fragile things
Yet made of this star dust
We continually come together
Under the same guise as before

Perhaps except rotated at a different angle
To face the sun
And let the shadows of our doubt
Fall on another someone
Forgive the other we had previously accused
Then let our suspicions rest elsewhere
Until they can be denied or confirmed

Or else and this is the hope
To be free from such denials
And falsehoods
But the human mind can only face so much
Can only stand so much truth
And bite off enough reality for it to chew
Over

So that solutions if they come at all
Come as pieces of comets and asteroids
broken up in the atmosphere of
Our worldly concerns
The air we share
To fall like shooting stars
Down to earth

Under a green leaf tree

Somewhere under a tree
In a sunny green field of wheat
Where the shade of its leaf
Gives some relief
To the blind fury of life

Some standing arbor like a grotto
Some freshly grown riparian chateau
I'd settle for such a repose

Lay me down in the flowers my love
Lay my head on your breast
I want to stay for hours my love
With you and find my sweet rest

I want to dance in the moonlit towers
On the marble stairs of Olympia
Or throw my cares to the wild flower airs
That grow in the fields of Elysium

I wish for sources of rivers to be known to me
So I can drink from their well
And fill my dry mouth with their reviving salts
And bathe my limbs where tired they fell

Do you remember the fish in Eger?
That weaved their way through the stream
The river changed, but they remained the same
Like you and I in a dream

Sadly the river has passed us on
As we've been treading water together
I wish like the salmon we'd swum
And seen
All the places we could've together

But instead we joined a stagnant pool
Where the Sun has almost killed us
And the water is dank
Where nobody drank
And no new hopes could've filled us

So I must leave on my own off shoot
I must join a tributary of the Great River
And you must go too if you value your life
Or you will stay in this poor pool forever

There can be no way back for us my love
We must accept what the river has given us
And if we can't live together
Then we must find another
And hope that other
Has forgiven us