You and I are voices sight-reading tomorrow.
We write out to all the listeners
and give them no reason to stay
but there are so many hands on me
I can’t sit still for a second
even to listen to what might become the world.
I sight read your lips over and over and I keep finding a different rhythm
every step that sings I belong here
is interrupted when the seconds unwind
and lay out a carpet to carry me from you.
I just want to be the person I’m too shy to be
after a day or a universe
I walk in your door and drop everything I am on the ground
I know you won’t care.
Sometimes I think when I am in love
I am buried so deep in sanity that I don't know what it is anymore
I couldn’t recognize it if it came and broke down my door
made these breezes breathe through my skin
cleaned me out of brain space
gave me the best orgasm I have ever had.
And so I stare it straight in the face,
look right on through.
I reach in for all the love I can give you
I twist it with your smile
I let it go but it is easy
because there is so much to hold on to.
You pull at my lips like a few too many consonants,
a string of intrigue that will make me come back,
look twice.
This moment is glittering with promises
and I can’t catch it
no matter how fast it feels like I am flying.
I don’t think like my words
but my words build a body
that wonders if you can see
promise in girl
and then every time you get close
something wishes it away
because my doubt can’t stand the company.
The promises seep down
and I twist them in my fingers like red under thorns
and sometimes I look at you like I might go blind
or you’ll go missing.
Tonight is thunder and stillness and missing you
and someday it will be
a wave I can’t conquer by hearing your voice at night.
I think if history comes around again
I will repeat myself onto other lips
You are my first string and I will make the world our race.
I think if I fall in love again
I will see you in her eyes
I will make sure she is just enough like you
to break me down.
50 was a crossroads
By jfarrell
I did have a party on my 50th birthday…
And it was decided on your votes and contributions;
And, I think, it was great!!
My first birthday party, ever
Two folks did turn up..
Definitely better than no-one.
And we spent the night jamming on guitar;
With everybody begging me to stop singing, hehe
But, it’s my party and I’ll sing if I want to.
The real guitarist, I hadn’t seen him in a couple years;
And ‘Dodge’; well he couldn’t dodge the end of this friendship…
“Jim, you’re always so negative.”
A crossroads;
A natural ending, without bitterness;
My last friends and I go our separate ways.
“The times we had were great, we gotta keep in touch….”
We, all three, nodded, big smiles…
But.. the smile never quite reached our eyes….
I maybe losing the remnants of the only last good thing I got left;
Maybe, depression, pain, clouds my judgement….
….but
Maybe…
To move on to something better…
I gotta let something, stale, go….
Wolf Unleashed
By jfarrell
(loved them old horror films, lon chaney jr, peter cushing..)
My 50th birthday was my Lon Chaney Jr. Moment….
Collapsed, out of site,
Behind the kitchen table;
Emerge;
Everytime a bit hairier;
Everytime my teeth, especially my canines (vampire teeth);
A bit longer,
A bit sharper.
With each rise above the kitchen table…
More hair, longer teeth, and my clothes more ripped, more shredded…
…it happened…
Thank you
Lon Chaney Jr.
I became the Mr Hyde I’ve always waited to become….
And I’m so happy….
It’s the not the evil child raping monster I was expecting….
I CAN play guitar… DAMN…. I can play T’rex, Chuck Berry…
I can jam along with Clapton, Van Morrison, Iron Maiden…
I’m far from good… YET… but, damn, I CAN play
And I WILL get better
Like Lon Chaney Jr…
I gonna get more hairy….
I gonna let them teeth grow down to my knees….
Damn, am I gonna get hairy….
Hair alll the way down to my feet….
…..
AHHHHROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOooooooooooooooooooooOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
That’s my werewolf howl :-)
Dr Who got a new regeneration on Xmas Day;
I got mine first ;-)
Changes; language
By jfarrell
“Where’s your rubbish bin?”
“My what?”
“Your rubbish bin; to throw out the rubbish…”
“Oh, you mean waste management”
What??????
What was wrong with rubbish bin?
Waste management?
I spent months looking through job adverts,
Looking for till operator, or checkout person;
Or cinema usher, team member…
Still haven’t learnt what those roles are now called.
Non-binary; snowflake; remoaner; brexiteer;
Cultural disapropriation; fake news;
Maybe it’s my age and my absence from the world;
But, woah! Language has changed.
When I went into childcare, I was trained,
‘keep your language simple’, so everyone can understand;
Doctors, psychiatrists, courts, parents, you and me;
Everyone can understand; multidisciplinary team.
Language today is like a minefield;
Tiptoeing on the eggshells of people,
Trying to avoid the cracks of what is now ‘politically incorrect’;
And huge money to be made at every misstep.
Please explain to me something…
How could George Orwell, who died so long ago,
Still foretell, with such accuracy,
How we would live today?
Life is bigger
By jfarrell
(inspired by REM’s “losing my religion”)
Life is bigger than me.
Bigger than everything I am;
My hopes, dreams, hurts, pains, disappointments…
Whether I die tonight, or fifty years from now….
Life, the World, and everything in it will continue….
Life is bigger than me.
And, yet, somehow,
Whether I die tonight or many years from now….
My life has been as important as that ant you just crushed,
Or that dandelion, blown away on the breeze;
Every happening has a cause and a consequence;
However insignificant, I made a difference.
You must realise, life is bigger than you;
I have no children, no legacy, nothing invested;
Most of you do.
At nearly 50, I hope whatever I’m here for I’ve done;
I just wanna go,
There’s no point for me.
But there is a point for you - ALL OF YOU!
Your children must inherit a better world;
They’re your children,
Not mine.
I realise life is bigger than me, and I’ve done my part;
Life is bigger than you, realise that.
The heart within me turned to stone
Like a wolf pack's lonesome cries
Darkness woven in my bones
But starlight fading in my eyes
I hear the whispers in the trees
A wisp's song fluttering on the breeze
But ne'er will I go home again
Ne'er will I go
I heard the call of maiden fair
But swore again I'd go not there
My lonesome crying in the night
Has formed me as a sullen wight
Oh cursed fairy! How could you lead
A child to such an awful deed
For ne'er can I return again
Ne'er to return
Alone at last, my will is done
Now, forever this must be
Before my mind be overrun
To hurt no more, my final plea
My past is lost, the future nigh
My story dead on sands of time
To home I must return again
Again I must turn home
Yesterday I was haunted by you,
your careless laughter to cover everything,
every step you took in front of me
blind, without looking back.
Now I sit here wondering
why you decided to look
at me this way.
Now I sit here wondering
how your hands hold this well,
even more than they were made to do.
Now I sit here wondering
about all the gems of good in you
and how you overlook them.
Now I sit here thinking
that tomorrow when I miss you
you will deserve it.
Now I sit here wondering
how I got this lucky.
I know you don’t always want me to fall.
But tomorrow I will deserve to miss you.