Once more the rains came To soak up my resistance My heart is now a sea of hurt From memory’s harsh persistence. And see how grey the sky now grows Though still the sun will shine It warms me not I find these days For how my heart does pine.
And all the gold from winning Some mythical jackpot prize I’d trade for just a moment Of joy in your sad, sad eyes. For all the pain that’s in my heart No more than lives in thine Is love that fuels this sorrow In two hearts that intertwine.
In these modern, bitter, violent wars Where none at all shall ever win Words that once came from the cross Though oft repeated wear so thin. Yet once more I beg You listen I supplicate with eyes that glisten And begging in sorrow I ask of You Forgive us Lord for we know not what we do.
I bet that as a child I climbed up many trees Sometimes in tears running home with cut knees I’d have played with Dinky toys and Hornby trains And jumped into puddles after pouring rains.
I bet that as a youth I was petulant and daft And sailed down a river on a home-made raft I’d have ridden on my bike for miles and miles Watching all the steam trains at railway styles.
And on a rugby pitch I’d have felt right in place Charging down the wing or lying on my face To clubs I’d have gone for the rhythm and the blues We’d dance through the night like we’d nothing to lose.
I bet I met a lady who would love me forever Who’d nurture our children and make us seem clever She’d always keep me warm on the coldest nights And be by my side when I get these frights.
I bet these things I’ve written may have all taken place But the end-game approaches at an ever-quicker pace I see it is the sort of life someone like me would need But the memories have faded like an old dried up seed.
A breath is being taken that’s so shallow No sound the breathing now makes The fear of death lurking in the shadows Immerses the souls in fearful quakes. For the breathing of man is a precious gift Yet one taken as a right by this sinner But the spectre in the shadows is yet waiting As the rasping sound of death grows ever thinner.
A tear now slowly falls from the dying man’s eye It lands with a mighty clap upon his pillow For the man is in such pain while he is living Yet he knows there’s more to come at where he’ll go. For not a word of simple kindness did he ever utter A cruelty to fellow-men was all he’d show And he never gave but a thought to how we got here But down there, it’s safe to say, he’ll surely know.
Thinking back now, knowing it wasn’t then the same Sex lives free and easy and the rest just a game But recalling the names of my friends from back then I find they’re so few now and I miss those young men And I bless that I knew them as I take up my pen.
It was a time they called ‘swinging’ in the press of the day But those of us there at the time just made hay As we carelessly staggered through our wild teenage years Racing round in cars with bad brakes and crunched gears Till we arrived at adulthood and took on new fears.
Some of us got married and our lives felt complete A few drowned in alcohol and lived on the street While others tripped out just that one time too many On the drugs that were freely available to so many You literally could get them at ten for a penny.
But most of us moved on and we raised families With mortgages or rent life was no social whizz And our children carried hopes for things we’d failed to do Such an ordinary tale that reflects me or you But it all helps to bind us together like glue.
Now we find ourselves older and wiser perhaps Managing to sidestep some of lifetime’s worst traps And we pause for a moment and think of those days Many of them spent in a drug-induced haze And we’d not change a thing, we just shifted our gaze.
His pain from fire was seen round the world And Governments’ collective lips all curled Such profanity was displayed without a care A King left the runway as his jet took to air. Leading his people against this vicious attack It began long ago and there’s no going back They’re baying now for the terrorist blood He’s sure to know it will come to no good.
So many wars and so much fighting And so much bloody death New children are brought into the world Where wars just rob them of their first breath. Everywhere now seems awash with the blood With the blood of the Innocents While the world is slowing destroying itself In human inflicted increments.
Speeding along not a care in the world the young man and his beautiful girl driving in an open-topped E-type Jag they were happy ………………………….and life was a whirl.
They were racing along the motorway fast approaching Gravelly Hill when a tanker jack-knifed in front of them ……….I can hear their screaming still.
They had nowhere to go but under the trailer, however, was too low and I, in a car a short distance back saw both of their heads suddenly …………………………………………………go.
One head rolled onto the hard shoulder and sat there staring right back at me while the other bounced over the railing and fell into Witton ……………………………….for all there to see.
It put me off my lunch I can tell you for that’s where I was going at the time and if it wasn’t for the fact that it’s totally true it would be a case of the ridiculous ……………………………….from the sublime.
A little dot of light in the distance Signalled that they were on their way home She was waiting at her own insistence As the trawler drew closer through the foam.
Her man had taken another man’s place And he sailed with yesterday’s tide But their baby was due in only three days She wanted him back on dry land by her side.
It caused her to reflect on her father He’d been lost in the’53 spring tide That had raced down the east coast of England Brushing trawlers and ferries to one side.
They called it ‘The Big Flood’, it was really that bad It happened unexpectedly Two and a half thousand, including her dad Were drowned and swallowed by the sea.
January thirty-first into February one The storm raged like no other before Then it turned out to sea and was suddenly gone Leaving death and devastation in it’s maw.
The trawler was pulled into the harbour And her husband jumped the jetty and ran He took her into his arms and she worried no more He was home, he was safe, and her man.