Brandes

THE LION OF JUDAH

I am the Lion of Judah; I’m the Serpent of the Nile;
I am the phantom of your dreams, I’m the number on your dial.
I am the shadow on the wall, I am the Wandering Jew;
I’m the footstep on the staircase and I’m coming home to you.

I’m the traffic on your highway; I’m the message in your mail;
I’m the Oracle at Delphi; I’m the smoke behind the veil.
I’m all the falsehoods you have heard, except the one that’s true;
I’m peeling back the mysteries and I’m coming home to you.

The journey has been hard enough
To wear away the sin.
We need a place to bind our wounds,
Come down and let me in.

I’m master of the revels; I am the king of spades;
I’m the emperor of illusion; I am the great betrayed.
I’m the tyranny of the multitude, I am the precious few;
I’m breaking with convention and I’m coming home to you.

I’m guardian of the secret place; I’m keeper of the key.
I’m the prisoner of conscience; I’m champion of the free.
I am the priest confessor, I know everything you do;
I am because you think I am and I’m coming home to you

I’ve known the blood flow in the street,
I feel it rise again.
I see the horsemen on the hill,
For God’s sake, let us in.

I am the executioner, I am the dangling man;
I’m the victim of injustice; I kill because I can.
I am the ancient sacrifice; I’m everything that’s new;
I’m all you ever wanted and I’m coming home to you.

I am the lonesome loser; I am the gypsy king;
 am the great romancer with a golden violin.
I’m the summoner of tempests; I’m captain of the crew
I am the prophet in the dust and I’m coming home to you.

The journey has been long enough
And still we are not free.
We need a place to call a home,
I need your sanctuary.

I am the great pretender; I’m the master of surprise;
I am the mirror to your soul; I'm unfathomably wise.
I’m alpha and omega, but I’m hungry and I’m blue
So I’m packing up my caravan and I’m heading home to you.

Be there in your forgiveness; be there in your despair;
Be there in your musk and silk, with a lily in your hair.
Be there with your crucifix, with your rosemary and rue;
Be there with your monstrous love because I’m coming home to you.

LIKE A DAGGER

You know I…you know I…you know I…you know I…

You know I loved you Laura, but I loved you from afar;
I never could uncover just how beautiful you are.
It’s like a dagger to my heart,
Like a dagger to my heart:
I'd take the blow and fall apart,
With a dagger through my heart.

The time was never right for us and I was not that brave
To think that I could satisfy the loving that you craved.
It’s like a dagger to my heart,
Like a dagger to my heart:
I guess I knew it from the start,
There’s a dagger through my heart.

Our eyes would meet and you might smile but then you’d look away.
You loved me as a friend but not in any other way.
It’s like a dagger to my heart,
A naked dagger to my heart,
I'd take the blow and fall apart:
Like a dagger to my heart.

I've thought it through as best I can;
There is no purpose, there's no plan.
It's been the same since love began:
We're just a random woman…and an arbitrary man.  

I know about the lovers that you visit now and then;
It hurts to hear you talk about those legendary men.
It’s like a dagger to my heart,
Like a dagger to my heart,
I take the blow and fall apart:
Like a dagger through my heart.

We talked a while, you kissed my cheek, I heard you close the door.
Whatever little that we had, I knew there was no more.
It’s that dagger in my heart,
Dagger deep within my heart,
I took the blade and fell apart:
With a dagger through my heart.

I lay down on the shingle and I watched the waves crash in.
I felt a cold blue emptiness I've never felt again.
And it pierced me to my heart,
Still stabs me to my heart,
I feel the blow, I break apart:
With a dagger through my heart.

You know I…you know I…you know I…you know I…

You know I loved you Laura, but I loved you from afar;
I never could uncover just how beautiful you are.

FAST FOOD

She’s primed for unarmed combat; she’s ready for the fray,
She’s open to an acrobatic tumble in the hay.
She knows her tags and catches but she’s eager for defeat;
She’s ready to submit her soul to any man she meets.
But every painful victory leaves its history on her face,
And though love has turned its back on her, she longs for its embrace.
Her head is filled with hope but her eyes are full of fear;
Will anybody take her home; does anybody care?

She remembers breakfast in the café on the square,
The two-room flat above the bar, the lovers she took there.
She recalls smooth velvet, how it tantalised her skin,
The terrifying ecstasy when new romance begins.
Now she pulls down her dark glasses and finds shelter in the shade;
She’ll be waiting there till nightfall for the aching day to fade.
Her heart is filled with hope but her eyes are pricked with tears;
There is no-one to take her home; there is nobody here.

And though I long to comfort her, I’m a thousand miles away,
In exile on this hillside in the range above the bay.
Though I recall the boulevard, the scent of her cologne,
The tiny flat above the bar, the nights she took me home,
I guess it had to come to this, that now that we are old,
One of us is passionate, and one of us is cold.

But I can taste the cheap champagne, her scent upon my skin,
And I recall the savage thrill when love affairs begin.
She loved me fierce, she loved me fast; I couldn’t take the pace
I’m just another set of tracks that’s etched across her face.
And though I’d run to comfort her, I’m a thousand miles away,
On this barren hillside in the range above the bay.
And my hopes like hers are fading with the passing of the years:
I have no heart to call my own; there is nobody here.

BRUISED AND SHAKEN

I know that it is over:
You've been telling me so long.
I know it ain't been easy:
You know I'm not that strong.

Now that it has ended,
This thing of you and me,
I will not be offended
If you just let it be,
Let it be.

Now that you are leaving,
You take my breath away.
But though you know I’m grieving,
I'm not begging you to stay.

Now that it has ended,
This thing of you and me,
It’s not as we intended
But now that we are free,
Let’s let it be.

It’s like dreams you’ve lost on waking.
It’s like the love you never had.
And though I'm bruised and shaken,
You know it really ain’t that bad.

Now that it has ended,
This thing of you and me,
We can stop pretending
And we can let it be,
Just let it be.

So you just pack a suitcase,
You make the break, I'll take the blame,
I'll drive you to the station
And we can be alone again.

Now that we ain’t faking,
This thing with you and me,
I’m still bruised and shaken
But we can let it be,

Let it be…Oh let it be….Let’s let it be…Just let it be.

FROM THE HIGHER GROUND

I see a man with tattoos tumbling from his shoulder
Of symbols that he does not understand;
I see a woman raw and bloody from his loving,
But when he calls she's always close at hand -
She's close at hand, she needs her man - ha!

I see a mother who is mourning for her daughter
Who's living on the darker side of town,
And she's offering her body up to strangers
To keep her high and stop her feeling down -
She's feeling down, she's falling down.

And so it goes, and I suppose
The world will turn again tomorrow.
Each day begins in so much hope,
But comes by dusk to sorrow.

I see fathers who don't recognise their children;
I see children who are crying out for love.
I see them turning from temptation to temptation,
Till they cannot know that they have had enough -
They've had enough, they’ve had too much.

And the money moves around in circles,
Though each time that it passes it gets less.
And when the music stops the rich get richer
And the poor just shuffle closer to the edge…

Still the prophets promise life could be much better
If we do what it takes to get ahead.
I wonder then why we're so sad and lonely:
Did we want too much or have we been misled -
We want too much, we are misled.

I see bad men who are slaughtering the children;
I see children grow to slaughters of their own.
Each age must feast upon the bitter harvest
That those who went before us all have sown -
We should have known, the dice were thrown.

Well we all know, that’s how it goes:
The wheel will spin tomorrow.
Each day begins in so much hope,
But turns by dusk to sorrow.

From this hill I see the colours round me swirling -
The blue is so much greater than the green.
I see the child's hand slip forever from her father's:
Is this the way the end was meant to be -

It's meant to be, it’s meant to be.

LIKE A WATERFALL

I see soft light kiss the surface of the lake,
Like my caress, like silk upon smooth skin.

I see the water rise in gentle waves,
Like your slow breathing.

I see the ripples froth upon the beach
And fade into the fragrance of your hair,

Your dark brown hair,
Your moist brown hair,

Your hair tumbling

Like a waterfall.

THE BRIDGE

Love disappeared at a quarter to four;
It slipped through the crack where the wall meets the floor.
We thought it was brilliant and lasting and strong;
But now it was jaded and threadbare and gone.

We sat at the table as love drained away.
Nothing was said, there was nothing to say;
I reached for your hand but your fingers were numb;
I wanted to love you but love would not come.

And the city is waking,
The city still sleeps,
And the city betrays
All the secrets it keeps.
This is the time and this is the town,
This is the place where our love must go down.

So we finished our drinks in the night café.
We pulled on our coats and we got up to pay.
And you swept back the hair that fell over your eyes,
And for a moment love flickered, then finally died.

So we walked to the corner where the working girl works.
Making friends in the alley where loneliness lurks.
And a man in the shadows relieves her regrets,
With a cocktail of cocaine and cheap cigarettes.

And her body’s a temple
The faithful profane,
First with desire
And then with disdain.
For this is the time and this is the town,
And here by this lamplight she has to go down.

Now the drunk in the doorway mutters and sways
And he raises his face to the break in the day;
And he prays for a sign that it will all end
In the neck of a bottle and the arms of a friend.

And the statues are pale in the grey of the dawn.
They’re eager for conquest; they're ready for war.
But the hoofs of their horses are frozen in stone,
They cannot set out; they can never come home.

They’re fixed on the future,
But pinned by the past,
The king and the conquered
Have all come to dust.
Here in this city, here in this town,
The horses rear up and the riders fall down.

Well, I'd read in the headlines our love had to die,
Though I always suspected the newspapers lie.
But the journalists told me the story was true,
And they said that the source of the rumours was you.

So I hired detectives and I made them aware
Of the private details of our public affair.
They searched all the airports, they boarded the trains,
But then they came home without Lili Marlene.

You dreamed of freedom
And I dreamt of chains.
You longed for deliverance,
I wanted the same.
This is the time, this is the town,
And here is the place where our love will lie down.

Well, a thousand rehearsals prepared us for this:
The distracted embrace, the indifferent kiss.
But we couldn’t have known that our love would go down
At this time in the morning, in this part of town.

So we stand on the bridge in the frost bitten air.
There’s ice on your eyelids and flakes in your hair.
And I look at you long and you look at me slow,
As we let our love slip to the river below.

Locked arm in arm,
We’d tried to break free.
I broke from you
And then you broke from me.
But now at this time and here in this town,
In these grey frozen waters our love comes to drown.

And love disappeared at a quarter to four.

IT IS YOU

Between the Sanctus and a fiercer creed,
On Yom Kippur and the days of Eid,
In the bloody wars the priests decreed,
When no-one’s god would intercede.
Between the jagged thorn and its stone-smooth seed,
In the blossom, in the weed,
In the mercy that we plead:
It is always you I need.

In bonds from which we’re never freed,
Where they cut us, where we bleed,
Between the hunger and the greed,
In the ground that we concede
To the greater force of the stronger breed,
In their vengeance and the speed
Between cold thought and crueller deed:
It is only you I need.

In the appetites I feed,
In the teachings that I heed,
In the holy books I read,
In this measured life I lead,
Where I fall short, where I exceed,
When I advance and then recede,
In my struggle to succeed:
It is always you I need.

It is only you I need, it is always you I need…

PLEASE DON'T CALL

I found you in an autumn mist
And rain hung in the air.
I asked if you could comfort me,
You laughed and shook your hair.

You said:

I’ll live with you, I may be true,
But I never stay for long.
Just when you think I love you,
You’ll wake and find me gone.

And I said:

Don’t tell me when it’s over.
Don’t tell me when we’re through.
I will not want to hear it,
If I’m still in love with you.

Don’t try to cable baby,
The wires have all come down.
Don’t send no so long letter,
I’m moving out of town.
My email’s disconnected,
The phone is off the wall.
If you can’t say you love me,
Please don’t call at all.

I loved you through the winter,
Between the snowflakes and the frost.
But I could not keep the cold outside:
That’s how our love was lost.

And you said:

I told you I would live with you,
But it would not be for long;
That I would make you love me,
And then I would be gone.

And I said:

Don’t tell me that it’s over.
Please don’t tell me that we’re through.
You will not want to hear it,
But I’m still in love with you.

No, don’t try to cable baby,
The telegraph's a mess.
Don’t write me goodbye letters,
I don't live at this address.
The internet is broken,
My phone is off the wall.
If you can’t say you love me,
Please don’t call at all.

AN ORDINARY MAN

I am an ordinary man.
I’m doing the very best that I can
To contrive somehow to survive;
To get out of this life alive,
By doing the best an ordinary man can.

Mine is an ordinary life.
I live in a box with my very ordinary wife.
We work hard every day to conform;
We never deviate from the norm.
And that is my very ordinary man’s plan.

I live my life every ordinary day by day.
They all start out bright but then the light just slips away.
We’re all doing what we do to get by,
Breathing in till it’s our turn to die.
That’s about as much as an ordinary man can.

SONG FOR MORDECAI

Oh Mordecai

I should have known you’d not be found
Where wine is drunk and sages think aloud,
But in a shabby room, alone with God
And prayers in ink you shed like blood.

Ah Daniel

How long, oh Lord, have I been waiting,
My soul in flames, my body in decline.
The day is closing, the light is fading,
But you have come in time.

These are my hopes for you to hope;
This the vision you must see.
This is the glory I behold;
This the man that you must be.

Ah Daniel

Death is coming to me soon;
It is a parting and a gift.
For I shall live again in you,
And our spirits co-exist.

You shall lead our people home,
This is my final prophesy.
Where thou goest, I shall go
And we shall set our people free.

Oh Mordecai

I see your dream as if through clouds.
I feel the darkness closing round.
I fear the sorrow there will be,
Before our people can be free.

THE DREAM

You dreamed of a knight in a helmet of steel;
You imagined his lance and how it would feel
To be laid on his shield, to be pierced on his tower,
To be crushed by his needy mechanical power.

You dreamed of a lady mysteriously veiled
Whose passion was pure, whose love never failed
To absolve and enflame you and make you feel whole
In your loverless body and unlovely soul.

Now beauty surrounds you, and music and light,
The bloom and the blossom, the swallow in flight.
You call for your lover - your lover is there
With your name on his lips and your scent in her hair.

But deep in your heart, you believe that it’s true
There is no love in this world for you;
That nothing is what nothing seems
And the day’s the distance between dreams.

As darkness gives way, your dreams lose their shape.
You try to hold on but your lover escapes.
Your knight rides away as the light closes in,
There’s an infinite ache where your lady has been.

And you sense a familiar chill in your soul.
It stalks through your sleep and then it takes hold.
It’s a yearning and freezing and desolate love;
It penetrates deep but it’s never enough.

Perhaps there’s hope, there may be grace
There’s inner peace and outer space.
For nothing is what nothing seems
The day’s the distance between dreams.

SIRI’S SONG

When Siri comes to me, she’s like the mist upon the water.
She’s all silk and scent and silver and the memory of laughter.
But her eyes are deep and dark; they’re for looking in not looking,
And her slender hand is cold where her fingers touch my face.

There is no sign when Siri leaves that she has ever been there.
She goes so slow and silently, like blossom from the branch.
And you’ll never know if you are glad that Siri lay beside you,
In her silk and scent and silver, she’s like the mist upon the sea.

BEHIND YOUR EYES

Turn on the light now:
I want to see your face,
Your unselfconscious beauty,
Your heavy-lidded grace.
Your hair has kissed my shoulder,
My sweat is on your lips,
My heart’s in syncopation 
With the rhythm of your hips.

And oh, what might have happened
And how might life have changed
If you had not sought freedom
And I not been constrained?
My arrow never reached you.
I aimed and fired in vain.
The world coheres, then falls apart
And we’re alone again.

I see behind those eyelids
The shapes of other men
Who were fated and have fallen
And will not rise again.
They tried like me to hold you,
To bind you to their love
But none of them could keep the faith
They were not worthy of.

Each man has his memento,
Each one a walk-on part,
A footnote in your story,
A foothold in your heart.
But that blessed imperfection,
The flaw that makes you whole
It overwhelms my waking day
And it subjugates my soul.

And oh, what might have happened
And how might life have changed
Had I not sought my freedom
And you not been constrained?
The arrow never reached me.
You aimed and fired in vain.
The world coheres, then falls apart
And we’re alone again.

When will you end your wandering?
When will you come to me,
Through the swarming forest
Across the troubled sea?
The years are now behind us,
My hair is flecked with white.
But I hold you in my memory
And I wait for you at night.

NOTHING COMES

I have not lived a life it seems
Except in nightmares and in dreams.
So though I thought I longed for you
I could not write love songs for you:
My eyes were dim, my lips were numb,
Nothing can from nothing come.

We send our children to the war
And tell them what they’re fighting for.
But when they return, the glorious dead,
They have forgotten what we said.
The funeral dirge, the muffled drums
Nothing out of nothing comes.

You agonise about the poor
Who stand in silence at your door. 
You shut your eyes and stop your ears
To make injustice disappear.
Pound for pound and crumb for crumb,
Nothing out of nothing comes.

This is the way; these are the laws
This is all we can afford.
This is the truth: you’re on your own
Each one must face their fate alone.
The parts are no more than the sum
And nothing can from nothing come.

I have not lived a life it seems
Except in nightmares and in dreams.
And though I’ve always longed for you
I did not write this song for you:
My eyes are dim, my lips are numb
Nothing can from nothing come.

THE WALL

My father built a wall for me
And he built it broad and long.
He fashioned it from love and fear
And he made it very strong. 
The bricks his grief, the stone his pain,
The tower his despair,
The battlements the fractured dreams
That he could not repair.

Beneath the wall he made a moat
To float his memories on,
Of loyalty and faith betrayed,
Of righteousness and wrong.
The gates were barred, the drawbridge raised,
No-one could enter in:
My father kept his children safe 
From where the world begins.

And the birds fly south
And the world grows dark
And the colours drain away.
My father seeks the sacred spark
At the breaking of the day.

My father told me stories
Of the wars that he had fought,
His quest for perfect beauty,
The redemption that he sought;
The standards he had captured 
The ransoms he had paid,
The innocence he sacrificed,
And the innocents he saved.

I lived within my compound.
My childhood passed me there,
Sheltered from the sunlight
Suspended in the air.
Spring was cold as winter
And then summer brought the rain.
My father lived his life for me
Then I lived it all again.

Death came to my castle
And with her little pin,
She bored through my father’s wall
And sent her soldiers in.
They threw him from his battlement
They tore his tower down.
They cast him to his memories
And I watched my father drown.

And the birds fly south
And the world grows dark
And the colours drain away.
And I look out with my father’s heart
For the breaking of the day.

My armies are disbanded now
We’re weary from the fight.
We’ve waged our war on darkness
But we have not found the light.
So here upon this mountainside
Suspended in the air,
I will rebuild my father’s wall
And raise my children there.

And I will tell them stories
Of the battles I have fought,
My quest for perfect beauty,
The sanctuary I sought.
And though they listen patiently
I know I speak in vain,
For the life that I have lived for them
They will have to live again.

And the birds fly south
And the world grows dark
And the colours drain away.
And they’ll look out with aching hearts
For the breaking of the day.


LOVE IN TWO DEGREES

There's trouble in the eyes of the woman I knew
There’s rubble in the garden where her flowers grew.
The day’s defeated, the nights are long.
It’s been that way since she’s been gone.

Why can't she hear the words I say? 
Why must she always turn away? 
I don’t know why, I don't know how
We mean so little to her now.

It's been a year I’ve lived alone. 
She never writes, she never phones. 
Don’t think I’ll ever love again:
There’s too much grief when you love in vain.

She never heard what I had to say. 
She just got up and she walked away. 
I heard her say it hurt to go
But she’s never known the pain I know.

That was a cloudless summer sky
Everything was blue and so was I.
But in autumn winds and winter frost
I found the love I thought was lost.  

And when the spring came, you were there
With yellow daisies in your hair.
The fields grew green, the rivers ran
And that is how it all began.

Now there's beauty in the garden where the flowers grow. 
There's peace in the eyes of the woman I know. 
This love is stronger than it seems,
A love that only lives in dreams.

The earth revolves, the seasons turn
The water falls, the fires burn.
I don’t know how, I can’t explain
But I’m in love with love again.
 

FOR NO-ONE #2

She wakes slowly, from deep sleep
And draws an arm across her eyes.
A dream still lingers on her lips.
Her hair is wild about her pillow.
You know because, sometimes, you have been there.

She rises sensual and slow
And feels cool water on her face.   
The mirror tells her she is still beautiful.
She will be beautiful always.
But you will not be there.

She dresses sensual and slow,
Running her hands along her softness.
Is there someone in shadow, out of shot?
No, not today, and never you.

She sips her coffee
And is thinking of many things.
But she does not think of you.

She takes her seat on the bus.
She is going no further from you
Than she has already gone.

THE SONG THAT ELVIS TAUGHT ME

I spent the whole of Sunday walking, walking
Tried to shake the shadow stalking, stalking me.
The hill was high, the air grew colder, colder
Still that shadow’s at my shoulder, shoulder.

Began to run and I was racing, racing
Close behind my shadow’s chasing, chasing me.
Feet of lead, my shadow’s feather
Which way I turn, we turn together.

And so my history trails behind me. 
I try to hide but history finds me.
A life of myths and misconceptions,
Of sad mistakes and bad connections.

And how I’ve longed for solitude,
Not lonely but alone;
A time to think, a fleeting interlude,
A safe oasis of my own.

The sun sank low; the sky went crazy, crazy
And red and purple clouds amazed, amazed me.
My shadow’s swallowed up in twilight 
And I am almost free at midnight.
Instrumental

I lie beside a sleeping stream
And drift like water into dreams.
Pale blossom floats beneath the trees,
The scent of lilac's on the breeze.

I meet a woman, wise and kind,
Whose shadow falls in love with mine. 
She takes my hand, I kiss her face.
Our shadows merge as we embrace.

We learn together it is best
To walk to sun’s set from the west
And now, until the light goes low,
Our shadows show us where to go.

And we who’d longed for solitude,
Not lonely, nor alone,
Have found at this high altitude,
Our souls have shadows of their own.

WAITING FOR A WAR

I was sitting in the window;
We were all expecting rain.
The clouds were thick with thunder
The wind smacked on the pane.
The streets below were empty,
The curtains all were drawn:
There’s nowhere you can go to
When you’re waiting…for a war.

Out along the boulevard
The cabs are cruising slow
No-one wants to pay the fare
When there’s nowhere else to go.
And the gangsters in the alleyways
Are chalking off old scores:
There’s no point making enemies
When you’re waiting…waiting for a war.

Well, the workers in the tenements
The lawyers on the hill
The bishop at his altar
And the merchant at the till
The children of a noble house
The orphans of the poor
All share a brief equality…
While they’re waiting for a war.

The young men leave their lovers
Stirring gently in their dreams
Of blankets spread beneath high trees
That shade a shallow stream.
But in the backroom of the bar,
As their fathers did before,
They stare into their yellow beer
While they’re waiting…waiting, waiting for the war.

The grey indifferent river 
Slides slow between its banks.
One is green with orchards
The other black with tanks.
The men in grey are asking
What cause they came here for
But no-one gives you answers 
When you’re waiting for a war.

The workers in the tenements
The lawyers on the hill
The bishop at the altar
And the merchant at his till
The children of a noble house
The orphans of the poor…
All share a brief equality
While they’re waiting for a war.

And here’s a wound for some boy’s side
Here’s terror for a tortured town.
Here are shattered limbs and dreams 
And blood enough in which to drown.
Here are blackened fields and sky
And nature red in tooth and claw.
There is poison in the air
And war is waiting at the door.

I was sitting in the window.
We were all expecting rain.

THE SIMPLE TRUTH

As brittle leaves float from the tree
So have my hopes deserted me.
I was a tower among small men
But they have pulled me down again.
The force of many against the will of one:
They brought me low and now they’re gone.

I climbed the hill and saw them hang
The sinner and the other man.
I could not tell the two apart
Who saved my soul, who broke my heart.
Before I knew which was the one
They’d cut him down and he was gone.

I plucked the notes, I measured time;
I ordered words and made them rhyme.
I made them moan, I made them fly;
I made the music swell and die.
But when I rose to play my song
Nobody heard for they had gone.

I kept the faith, I kept the laws,
I never used oppressive force.
I built a garden out of stones
I brought the orphaned yearlings home.
But when I asked for fire and bread:
There is no comfort here, they said.

I pressed my face against the wall
Where they were dining in the hall.
The king, the gentlemen and priests
Sat down together at the feast.
I beat the door, I called my name
But though they heard me, no-one came.

This life’s the shadow of a dream
It is not what it seems to seem.
I never sought what others saw
I wanted truth and nothing more,
And every falsehood made me strong:
They’ll come for me, but I’ll be gone.

The air is light and cool and sweet.
The earth is firm beneath my feet.
I shall not yield; I will not bend;
I’ll tell you how it’s going to end:
Upon the midnight without pain
Before it all begins again.
 

FOR PENELOPE

I could have loved you better
And I should have loved you more.
I should have offered shelter
I shouldn’t have ignored
The sadness in your eyes
When you came to realise
That though I truly loved you
I set myself above you
And I could have loved you better
And I should have loved you more.

It was I destroyed the city
By trickery and flame.
I did it without pity
I did it for the fame.
I’m a hero and a schemer
A poet and blasphemer.
I wrote the myth about myself
But now I ache for something else -
Cos should have loved you better
And I should have loved you more.

Is it too late in the evening?
Has the sun sunk down too low?
Is it too long after leaving?
Are you too much on your own?
If I called out would you answer?
Is there still a slender chance or
Would you come back if I asked you
Or has that moment passed?
Yes you should have loved me better 
And oh you should have loved me more.

Can you hear my siren calling?
Am I too far out at sea?
Can you see how far I’ve fallen?
And how fate has punished me?
But I shall not wait for morning
I shall brave the ocean’s roaring
And I shall know what I am for
If you are waiting on the shore.
And I shall love you better 
And I shall love you more.

I shall always love you better 
I shall always love you more.

GOD’S SONG

I met you in the garden
Among the serpents and the flowers.
I was tantalised by beauty
You were mesmerised by power.
In our wild intoxication,
In that brief ecstatic hour,
We came closest to perfection
Before the sweet fruit soured.

I was kneeling at the altar
When the holy ghost came in.
He was crowned with thorns and olives
And his face was pale and thin.
I begged him for forgiveness
For this fundamental sin
But he said “You are condemned my friend
To do it all again”.

How long oh lord how long,
What revelation will it take
For the captives to rise up
And the chains of faith to break?
The judgement day is coming
When the lamb lies with the snake,
The day that God will realise 
That we were his mistake.

You’re living now in darkness, 
But you say somewhere there’s light.
And though your vision’s clouded,
You know, this time you might be right.
For if you have no expectations
And you keep your goal in sight,
You’ll surely find a prophet
To illuminate your nights.

I was wondering in the desert
With a bible in my hand.
I was searching for direction
But all I saw was sand.
And each grain a contradiction
Of everything I’d planned
When I was cast out from the garden
To this God-forsaken land.

How long oh lord how long
What revolution must we make
For the captives to rise up
For the chains of faith to break?
The day of judgement’s coming
When the lamb consumes the snake
And then we’ll know for certain
That God was our mistake.

We’re standing at the crossroads
Beneath a tolling bell.
The signposts point to heaven
But the roads lead straight to hell.
And the martyrs scream for vengeance
And the saints with souls to sell
Are all delivered to temptation
Where the great archangel fell.

I came upon the garden
And the gates were open wide.
There was no-one there to bar the way
And so I passed inside.
And the sun lanced through the darkness,
Like the spear in Jesus’ side,
And I felt your breath upon me
And the noise within me died.

How long, my love, how long
What eternity it takes
For the righteous to rise up
For the bonds of faith to break.
But in this holy garden
The snake enfolds the lamb,
A woman stands beside me
And I am just a man.

OLD PHOTOGRAPHS

The clock has stopped and will not go
And time hangs heavy on the wall.
Life is featureless and slow
And nothing seems to change at all.

George, my friend, how you could teach
Ideas that long seemed out of reach.
Those drunk, uplifted afternoons
All too few and gone too soon.

Jean, starlit eyes and sunlit smile
We knew each other for a while.
And though we went our different ways.
Ah, those were blissful, summer days.

This is you; this must be me
This is who we used to be.
This is where and here is when:
I do, do you remember then?

Oh Stevie, my brother, my comrade, my friend
We could not foretell how it would end
When the brightness gave way to the blackest of nights
And you climbed to the top, looked down and took flight.

Suzanne, I hear you settled down
In a wooden house on the edge of town.
You’ve given up your wayward ways
And Jesus fills your empty days.

Michael, so much distance now.
It seems you have forgotten how
We dreamed that we would make high art
Before we drifted far apart.

This is you; this must be me
This is who we used to be.
This is where and here is when:
I do, do you remember then?

Well, nothing had been understood.
I never did, I never could.
So much lost, so little found.
Lives we’ve lived on shifting ground.

But through those growing-older days
You taught me there were kinder ways,
How songbirds sing for love of sky.
You sang their tune; now so do I.

BREATHING

Breathe in, breathe out
Be still, and know:
The mountains melt, the rivers flow;
All that’s past will slip away
And leave us with this unlived day.

I know a place where we can go
On a hill above this town.
The air is clean and sweet up there
And the light falls soft as down.

There is a cabin in the trees
Where you and I might love.
The rich brown earth beneath our feet,
The boundless blue above.

Breathe in, breathe out,
Be still.
Do not speak until
The sun climbs through the grey
And promises this day.

We will walk among tall trees
And time will never find us.
We will lie in fields of green
And the moon will rise behind us.

And we will trace the frozen paths
Feel summer’s breeze about us
We will watch the wildflowers bloom
And the world go on without us.

Breathe in, breathe out,
Be still.
Do not wake until
The dawn has drawn away
And offered us this day.

Breathe in, breathe out
Be still, and know:
The mountains melt, the rivers flow;
All that’s dark will drift away
And leave us with this sunlit day
...this day...this day...this day...