Waiting

I fear that I'm waiting
for something to happen
that won't ever happen
because I am waiting

Forward or Backward

The young live in the future
looking forward all the time
The old live in the days gone by
in memories of their prime
The modern man lives in the now
and hasn't got a second
for looking on or looking back
each minute is a weapon
But I look forward like the young
to times when like the old
I'll look back on the good old days
that's these days, so I'm told.

Resolution

Now comes new year and others will
prompt you for high aims to fulfill
For promises to mend your ways
for three hundred and some odd days

Don't set your target for the year
while influenced by drinking beer
For any target set this way
will vanish by the light of day

Don't set your aim or sights too high
for as the weeks and months go by
and any hope of success goes
your sense of failure grows and grows

Don't set your aim by other's measure
For notions that your friend may treasure
may be quite meaningless to you
and come between and split you two

The best advice that I can give
to help you through this year. To live
in knowledge that each promise won't
be kept at all is simply Don't

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

Not alone

Each falling tide I walk the sand
to build my short-lived castles there
and scan the beach for flotsam and
the treasures that each tide may bear.
But one day as I started back
I paused and saw to my delight
a dark green bottle in the wrack
all sealed with wax and stoppered tight

I took it in my trembling hand,
removed and read the heartfelt plea,
"I'm all alone on tide swept sand"
said someone just as lost as me.
This bottle cast up by the foam
has cured me of my dark despair
To know I'm not alone alone
and others build their castles there

The victory of time

Dry up the sea and empt the sky
Return all living things to dust
Grind down the hills and with a sigh
reduce all man's great works to rust
Eat up the moon and earth and mars
and with a universal chime,
snuff out the sun and douse the stars
This is the victory of Time

A time will come when time is all
that's left and matter wears away
Then time will raise his voice and call,
Let there be light is what he'll say

Here

I was born here
I grew up here
I was wed here
had my child here
lived my life here
and grew old here
when I'm done here
I will die here

Dig my grave here
place a stone here
carve my name here
and the date here
as I lived here
so I'll lie here
resting till the
end of time here

The Question?

The future of our union is in question
Though most of those involved won't get a vote
For only in the north
will the ballot box go forth
to ask if this idea can really float

And the question is can Scotland be a nation
that stands firm on its own to face the world
or should it decide to stay
the northern branch of the U.K.
and forever keep the union flag unfurled

Now the arguments for this divorce are many
As many as the reasons not to part
but they mostly seem to be
just financial sophistry
designed to sway the head and not the heart

So if you're in the north and face this question
Should Scotland be a nation on its own?
Ask yourself just where you sit
Are you a Scot or still a Brit
and let your heart choose
where to cast your stone

The answer

After many years of searching
for the reason or the meaning
of the life that I am living
if that is the thing I'm doing
I have come to the conclusion
that I'll never have the answer
So I'm giving up philosophy
and going to be a dancer

A message for my children

I've worked all my life to earn a good living
I've brought you all up as best as I can
So now that you've left home and are self-sufficient
it's time for me to be my own man

So I've sold the Volvo and got me a mo'bike
Growing older's compulsory, growing up is a choice
Ninety's the new sixty as I head down the highway
singing "born to run" at the top of my voice

Now I've left no money for coffin or funeral
So when I crash just break me for spares
Take them all I shan't need them wherever I'm going
and maybe the credit will help pay the fares.