That Girl

I was standing behind her when queuing to pay
for my solitary sandwich at lunchtime that day
and though trembling with nerves and full of self doubt
cleared my mind, cleared my throat and then asked that girl out
The second that followed was a lifetime of stress
'til she turned and she smiled and then she said yes
My mind just exploded, my heart filled with joy
that the girl that this boy liked also liked this boy

Now though we'd been working together for years
the days 'til the weekend were filled with the fears
known by any teenager going on a first date
I was sweaty and shaking, in fact, in a state
But everything settled when that girl stepped down
from the bus at the stop in the center of town
Although I must confess my knees went a bit weak
when she reached up and gave me a kiss on the cheek

We were ten minutes late for the six o'clock show
so we missed all the trailers and I still don't know
what the film was about or who was the star
for that girl outshone everything else there by far
Then after the movie we sat in the park
and we talked and we talked while around us the dark
stole away all the details of that little town
'til the world was that girl in whose eyes I could drown

Then after the talking and talking was done
I walked that girl home while the autumn stars spun
and fell all around us like fireworks galore
'til the evening ended outside her front door
It's late now she said, it's the end of the day
The last bus is long gone so why don't you stay
My house is a small house, that can't be denied
But my heart has enough room for one more inside

The Tramp

Smaller than many and older than most
The scruffy little tramp slinks away down the coast
Taking coal for the depot or tar for the road
and going wherever to find the next load
Until at its end when it's run its last lap
It is sent by its owner up river for scrap
Where the torches and hammers will silence the boiler
that beat like a heart pumping not blood but oil. For
it's profit that says what must go or remain
and this steamer must go now and that is a shame.

For she's more than just rivets and rusty steel plates
She's got personal history and character traits
that will live in the memories of captain and crew
like her name on their arms in a blue-black tattoo

To rise again

Now as the year runs down towards its end
Each morn's sunrise is later than the last
Each night the sun does earlier descend
Each noon the sun climbs less far up the mast
And as we see the sun fail day by day
We all regard the dying light with fear
We tremble at the light of life's decay
We wonder if this is its final year.
But come the winter solstice all things change
and earlier we see the sun arise
and our star in its splendour does arrange
to linger longer in our evening skies

Each year on year we're taught the same refrain
The sun must fall ere it can rise again

Teasing Sun

You teasing Sun
in your evening vignette
flashing your finest clothes
as you sink into sunset
and changing as you go
into the brighter dress of morn
as one land's sunset
is another land's dawn