There was a boy who came into this world at the hands of a holy woman in a

holy place

He wore a red coat and walked a bulldog-saw them reflected in the mirror of

the lakes

Lived in the shadow of the mountains with the smells of disinfectant,

dusty old leather and the polished wood of his bed

No more than a baby feeding swans on the river holding the hands of his

mother,

and the wax paperbag of yesterdays bread



And his father on the other side of the world

On the ships railings and some far away tide

With the silent dry tear of home thoughts from abroad in his far away eyes

In his faraway eyes



The smell of the wax on the wooden floor

Mixture of polish and soap

No children to fear or to play with

Rows of empty hooks for the coats

An upright piano and the boys in the choir

Still remind him of just before he was born

Remind him of just before he was breathing

Strange misty visions of God



Turn the cities into families

Into villages of souls

Hovering in the air while they're sleeping

With their houses invisible

Running as fast as I could run

Send to me the ghosts of Christmas

Whispering: "You're the only one"



And ever since I was a boy

I never felt that I belonged

Like everything they did to me

Was an experiment to see

How I would cope with the illusion

In which direction would I jump

Would I do it all the same

As the actors in the game

Or would I spit it back at them

And not get caught up in their rules

And live according to my own

And not be used

To find the fundamental truths

It was going to take some time

Thirty five summers down the line

The wisdom of each passing year

Seems to serve only to confuse



Daddy came out the navy and took us away to his dirty gray home town

And he worked down on a coal mine for National Service so that he could be

around

There was a magical purple in the chrome of the exhaust of his triumph motor

bike

And a warmth of oil and metal and the thrill of the hard corner holding tight

From the horizon..

To buried alive

Took his dream underground

Buried his treasure in his faraway eyes.



And one day as the boy lay sleeping in the sunshine of a half remembered

afternoon

A cloud of bees with no particular aim, and no brain

Found the boy, decided that his time had come

Came down out of the sky.

Stung him in the face. Again and again. Blue pain.

Screaming like baptism

Intraveinous, Jesus!. Like being chosen.

Blue pain from something with no brain. I can't explain

It's happening again.



Oh mummy, daddy, will you sit a while with me

Oh mummy, daddy, will you jog my memory. Tell me

Tall tales of Montego Bay, Table mountain, Flying fish, Banana spiders, Pots

of paint

And the sun on the equator

Setting like an ember thrown to deep water

From crimson to black.

But coming back..

Tomorrow on the horizon



The blue pain

Fades to a point where it doesn't fade

It stayed..

Blue

Stirred his red coat heart to his strange engine

This love



This love

This inconvenient, blind, blood-diamond

This puzzle I don't understand

That knows no faith

And tries and fails

And tries again

Stares at the sea

The night's dark deep

For one last time

And bleeds And bleeds

And dies for you.

And lies

And is to blame.

And is ashamed.

And is not the same.

And is true