DEATH MAKES YOU FEEL LIKE A MAN

Little woman, smart detective
Simple weapons are effective
Force is a friend in your hands
Shoulder arms and watch forever
Kill for good, kill bad, kill clever
Death makes you feel like a man

Stand alone with cold assistance
Nothing home, friends in the distance
You don’t think that we’d understand
Father’s love, forbidden meaning
Stake the heart, and love the demon
Death makes you feel like a man

Innocent, and vincible, it hurts to watch you bleed
Killing monsters easy, it’s the people you don’t need
When your ugly work is done the bad is safe below
Enemies define you, it’s the killer that we know

Seven season slay succession
Special skills, suppress sensation
We are your conscience and fans
Social forces isolation
Escape the role become the woman
Death makes you feel like a man

Innocent, invincible, it hurt to watch you bleed.
..


JERUSALEM'S HOME

(A Kommos for the Holy Land, in two voices)

We came from countries across Europe
We left our homes across the seas
To settle our ancestral homeland
So we could be free

We turned our children into soldiers
Protecting us with David’s stone
To sling Arabian Goliaths
From our ancient home

Moses led us out of Egypt
Into Canaan’s land
God who made us, God preserve us
In immortal hands

We settled on the coast at Gaza
...and now our army occupies
A stateless, shiftless group of Arabs
Whom we despise

We fought our enemies in Golan
...We took the West Bank for our own
...we've/we're subjugated Palestine
And Jerusalem’s Home


Moses led us out of Egypt…

(WE WERE) ALWAYS ON OUR OWN

They were always improving
The fun of grown-up jobs cemented being friends
He was slow and she was moving
She in mind and he at home until the end

How could all these days have ended
One last look into your eyes before you go
Will away what you invested
We were always on our own

She was always distracted
Her day to day was filled with things he couldn’t know
She absorbed and he contracted
A simple mind pushed just as far as it could go

How could all these days have ended…

They were always dreaming
Waking to a bleak new world away from home
He never saw her leaving
Too few words to fill the gaps when they’re alone

How could all these days have ended…
WATCHING WATERS RISE

First comes emotion
Your partner in mind
Telepathic sensing of the signs

The second is action
A stranger in time
Struggling for the words to match the rhyme

A quiet sun, a background voice
Under-rated
Watching water rise
Choosing not to sign your name
Or show your face
Watching waters rise

The last is in thinking
A stranger in mind
Flowers and candles stand for being kind

A quiet sun, a background voice…

TALKING TO HERSELF AGAIN

Don’t be fooled by the simple style
There is art in speaking
If she can’t hear the sound of words
What can she do?

Sit before him and hear the praise
Music in his speaking
Keeping truth hid between the lines
So she can’t see

Take the stage
Talking to herself again and
Fill the page
Sensitively capturing her awkward ways

Who will tell her if she can’t hear
What’s the sound of speaking
Why her buildings will stand or fall
And she can’t see

Take the stage…
AGENDA FOR CHANGE

Generating holes is useful
Filling faster than we dig them out
Information, all the mixture
Channels narrow, start, whisper, then shout

Head and shoulder
Heart and mind

Tying bits of string is useful
Learning knots to bind the many strands
Weaving threads to tidy ends, and
Networks form from many different hands

Head and shoulder…

Counting leaves in trees is useful
And provides the shade where you can hide
From the roots and build the picture
See the whole from out and then inside

Head and shoulder…
GONE GIRL

Odd to have a station at the edge of town
Maggie waves and hurries as the sun goes down
Cuts across the playground that will save some time
It’s raining and she covers up; she’s looking fine
Heading for the city friends to stay the night
She’s in the Glen and so is he, she falls from sight
…the girl is gone

Billy was a tracker and he gets his prey
Started out from nothing, knew the traps to lay
Rugged, smiling, ruthless, thought that he could see
To the truth and that gave him authority
By the time the girl had gone his gift was past
He gambled for promotion to be king at last
…the girl is gone

Beattie was a dreamer with a low IQ
Mind lined up on trains with nothing else to do
His life was told with stories only he believed
Laundering his memory, the less deceived
Sometimes spoke to Maggie on her way back home
He’s in the Glen and so is she, the rest unknown
…the girl is gone

Warm girl dies on a rainy night
Dragged into the trees
Mirrors, music and starry sky

Soft man lies on a stranger’s bed
Home where dreams can end
Silent now his story’s told

Time goes
Man walks out to dream
Railed to older voices

Time goes
Girl fades from the scene
Death brings life eternal
POISON

You only come to me for money
You never arrive when you say you will
My reminders of your obligations turn
Remorse into rage and I’m poorer still

Every day I yield to your commands
The tyranny of weak against the strong
It’s give up or give in to you
The tyranny will last though I know it’s wrong

Can’t bear this resentment and bitterness
I can’t take scenes and ugly words
They seem important to you
You know you’ve got my heart on your mantelpiece
And that I’ll take you back
Whatever you doPOISON

I wait in vain for your excuses
I lie awake until it’s dawn
Your wait for my forgiveness
I apologise to you and we carry on

Degradation’s all I get from you
Your lowest appetites feed on me
My will is subject to yours
Your common passions keep me company

Can’t bear this resentment and bitterness…
NUNC DIMITTIS

A promise promised to be kept in winter sun
The time is coming and the faithful faces home

A cold dead wind that’s killing living land
The old man holds the baby in his hands

The pages turning and the temple wakes to sound
The table’s laid in the gaze of all around

Words, words spoken with a measure he can feel
Light, light lighten to the glory that is real
ROGER'S WORLD

Sing, children’s songs
Funny little melodies
Friends can sing along
Leading the work
Whimsy and whine
Pretty, and right for the time

Shine, cold black star
Decomposing melodies
Wonder what you are
Move off the stage
Followed and mined
Slowing to fill in the time

Welcome to Arnold’s world
Stand in the burning sun
Disintegration on show
Die slowly, please the crowd
Leave behind the gold and run
Disintegrating for show

Build, build your wall
Furry little animals
Had to let him fall
Leaving his work
Founding and fine
Fatally lost all the time

Welcome to Roger’s world…
BLUE SCREEN

Another thought sails across his mind
Another star explodes across his sky
Another fight postponed until he’s brave
Another ship capsizes on a wave

Another voice falters and dissolves
Another day summarises lives
Another verse and chorus left to go
Another party’s over… over

A hundred thousand steps until he’s home
A hundred billion wires connect the scene
Another chance to take the empty throne
Jump up to the mark and tell the audience he might have been

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