THE KIND OF LOVE I WANT TO KNOW                         

 

Forget he loves me, not trying to hurt me

When he tells me something I don’t want to know

That in his fingers, he holds a mirror

That shows me things I don’t want to be shown

He’s not my mother, nor my father

Can’t give me what I needed long ago

But he can see me and all I could be

Now that’s the kind of love I want to know

 

We can’t heal each other’s loneliness

We can just stand side by side

As I help you to live the life you must

And you help me to live mine

 

My heart was broken and wouldn’t open

And let me feel how letting love in feels

So, I learned to fake it and learned to wake it

And learned to see how loving it can heal

You know my dark sides and won’t let me hide

From all the places, you know I could go

You remain faithful, for that I’m grateful

Because that’s the kind of love I want to know

 

We can’t heal each other’s loneliness

We can just stand side by side

As I help you to live the life you must

And you help me to live mine

 

We can’t heal each other’s loneliness

We can just stand side by side

As I help you to live the life you must

And you help me to live mine

​

​

​

BE PATIENT                                                

 

I’ve watched you go through ups and downs

Through eyes of blue and brown

Spent hours with you, inside your head

Working the next step out

But this time that’s all of no use

Because your heart has taken lead

That place before a love can bloom can be dark indeed

​

Be patient, my friend, be patient

She still has to open her eyes and see

Be patient, my friend

That’s all you can be

 

Well, there you stand in no man’s land

You’re watching every move

And every word that she might say

Trying to find some proof

That this is not a game to her

While to you it means so much

Fight that longing to hold her

And fight that longing to feel her

And fight that longing to touch

​

Be patient, my friend, be patient

She still has to open her eyes and see

Be patient, my friend

That’s all you can be

Be patient, my friend, be patient

She still has to open her eyes

And see exactly what she has in you

And until then there’s not much you can do

But be patient

Be patient

That’s all you can be

​

​

​

FOR A WHILE

 

Come to me my darling

Lay your hand in mine

Sit with me in comfort

And just forget time

What tomorrow brings

Is a whole day away

So for a while, for a while

 

Just breathe in and out

There’s nothing except now

There’s nothing you can loose

And nothing you must choose

 

How these quiet moments

Are the ones that are few

Days and nights are full

Of all the things we should do

But on this fair evening

Leave it all aside

And for a while, for a while

 

Just breathe in and out

There’s nothing except now

There’s nothing you can loose

And nothing you must choose

 

​

​

LAY YOUR WEAPONS DOWN

 

If I lay my weapons down,

Will you lay down yours?

Can I feel safe here now?

We’ve been on all the rides

Used up all our chips

Playing on love’s fairground

The drama isn’t gone

though we are done contemplating

on who’s to blame for what

Thank God we’re done with that,

done with all that pain

And still you fight

I know I fight too

 

Whose honor do I defend

When I try to bend and break you down

My heart it is on the mend

And so much of that depends on you

So lay your weapons down

And I will lay down mine, too

 

We can keep what’s in the past

And see how long we’ll last

Or we can let it go

We’re not beyond and not above

the other side of love

That we have come to know

But there’s so much that is right

So many battles you and I no longer need to fight

But still we carry on, still we carry on

I know you try

You know I try, too

 

Whose honor do I defend

When I try to break and bend you down

My heart it is on the mend

And so much of that depends on you

So lay your weapons down

And I can lay down mine, too

​

​

​

CHAOS OF LOVE                           

 

I will be different, improve on my mother

We all have said this at one time or another

We loudly proclaim we’ll do good on her bad

With all of the arrogance innocence has

 

And the first time we see them,

our child in this world

In a breathtaking moment

of life we are hurled

Into chaos and love that we’ll come to know

Will take us to places we don’t want to go

 

And our history haunts us almost everyday

As we hear ourselves say

what our mothers would say

All the words that we swore we’d never use

Though we battle our demons we so often loose

 

Because the wheel it turns and turns

The same thing we all yearn, love, love, love

 

Oh and where is the love

that we promised to show

Where’s the understanding,

the patience, the loving embrace

That we want our children to feel

We admit our defeat and then we begin to heal

 

When we see that our love is no bigger than hers

In a breathtaking moment her life it unfurled

She got lost in the chaos of love just like me

She couldn’t be all that she wanted to be

 

I bow my head gently because now I know

That all mothers were children once and wanted to grow

And the steps that we take may be small, all the same

Each little step slowly leads us to change

 

If my daughter decides to have kids of her own

When she tries to improve on all that I did wrong

May she never give up, one day come to see

That all mothers try mothering perfectly

​

​

​

SIX MILLION YEARS

 

Some say we’ve come a long way, I’m not sure I’d agree

When I see the desolation, the floods of refugees

The poor becoming poorer, the sick remaining sick

As the fighters go on fighting, the rich they remain rich

 

There’s no justification, no explaining it away

No blame to place on others because we all play the game

As we move around in circles, some facts they remain still

Like when a child must die of hunger, that child it has been killed

 

Six million years, and this is what we’ve become?

Six million years, of battles lost and battles won?

Six million years, of evolution at its best?

What have we become, what have we become?

 

There are so many people lonely and longing for the touch

Of another human being so many people lost

As we measure our existence by likes and hearts and views

And medicate the feelings that seek to tell the truth

 

Six million years, and this is what we’ve become?

Six million years, of battles lost and battles won?

Six million years, of evolution at its best?

What have we become, what have we become?

 

As I look upon my children I am overcome with shame

For the world that I will leave them is a world that’s full of pain

Chances are where we have failed our children might succeed

Evolutions given them all that they might need

 

Six million years, and this is what we’ve become?

Six million years, of battles lost and battles won?

Six million years, of evolution at its best?

What have we become, what have we become?

​

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​

PRECIOUS                                                                                      

 

Like an old and faded photograph

kept somewhere deep inside your mind

All that is, becomes a memory

that can’t withstand the power of time

But what’s to come cannot comfort now

Still this you must hear

​

Precious are those who have walked on the path

That takes them through darkness shows them no way back

For they learn to be brave

Because when they give comfort it comes from within

With a deep understanding of how fear can win

And of how, fear can pass

​

There are times it washes over you

just like a wave that can’t be stopped

Drags you down and starts to smother you

It can swim but you cannot

And oh my child I would comfort you

If there was a way

 

Precious are those who have walked on the path

That takes them through darkness shows them no way back

For they learn to be brave

Because when they give comfort it comes from within

With a deep understanding of how fear can win

And of how, fear can pass

And of how…

Precious are those

Precious are those

​

​

​

WALTZ OF LIFE

 

Those nights they are dark

They are dark and they’re cold

I breathe and I watch and I try to keep hold

On what I know, I know

On what I know

Reason it fails and worry begins

Can’t find an escape from this trap that I’m in

Or these memories

 

Because I still see you there in my arms

I still hear you scream

I still see you there in my arms

Doing the waltz of life with me

 

Sleep has become a long lost friend

And laughter a thing I can only pretend

But cannot feel

Broken am I and this heart of mine

Blind to this laughing, this dancing boy

When the nights are dark

When the nights are cold

 

Because I still see you there in my arms

I still hear you scream

I still see you there in my arms

Doing the waltz of life with me

​

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​

HOLD ON!                                                                           

 

Between the crimes of our elders

The lies that are planted and the God-honest-truth

Between the violent nature and the beauty of man

That powerless feeling and the power at hand

 

Between the growing confusion and the wisdom, we own

And all that panic that blinds us and where empathy is sown

Between the overindulgence and the making ends meet

The blood on our doorsteps and the lives at our feet

 

Hold on! Just take a minute

Some time to decide if how you’re living your life

Is how you want to live your life

Hold on! Just take a minute

What’s your wrong or right?

Each of us must decide how we want to live our lives

 

Between that call on our mobile and the face vis a vis

Keeping our eyes shut or wanting to see

Between forming our futures or letting them slide

Between the voice of another or the voice deep inside

 

Hold on! Just take a minute

Some time to decide if how you’re living your life

Is how you want to live your life

Hold on! Just take a minute

What’s your wrong or right?

Each of us must decide how we want to live our lives

 

Between the hope that we harbour and the action we take

Suffering in silence and the noise we can make

Between remaining indifferent or taking a stand

Between the fear of a stranger, the uniqueness of man

 

Hold on! Just take a minute

Some time to decide if how you’re living your life

Is how you want to live your life

Hold on! Just take a minute

What’s your wrong or right

Each of us must decide how we want to live our lives

 

 

​

RIVER

 

Daylight starts creeping in

When this soul’s song begins to sing

Listen to its tender words

Give it flight now, this faithful bird

 

Grey clouds, they slip away

When this music begins to play

Know now, it is not me

It is a river that must run free

 

Come doubts, come fear

Come words to a song

This river keeps flowing

It keeps flowing on

 

Forces, always at play

Making sure I don’t lose my way

Choice is no longer mine

I have learned that along the line

 

Come doubts, come fear

Come words to a song

This river keeps flowing

It keeps flowing on

 

Freely, I carry on

Sharing with you my simple song

And when they come into flow

All my doubts I can just let go

 

Come doubts, come fear

Come words to a song

This river keeps flowing

It keeps flowing on

Come doubts, come fear

Come words to a song

This river it keeps flowing on

 

​

 

HERE UPON THE WATER                                                            

 

I am here upon the water

Got swept out by the tide

Left all I had behind me

Except my broken pride

As I am getting colder

I try to understand

Why I am in the water

While you are on dry land

 

I cannot help but wonder, if you knew the cost

Before you came and plundered, all the lives that would be lost

 

There are people all around me

All sat here, side by side

And on each face, the faintest trace

Of the hope that each one hides

The hope that hearts are open

For those who make it through

The fear you’ll all by wary

Of what we could do to you

 

I cannot help but wonder, if you knew the cost

Before you came and plundered, all the lives that would be lost

 

As I look towards my future

And I am well aware its bleak

But I’ll play the game and hide my shame

And of the past I will not speak

I am here upon the water

Feel the cold seep through my bones

As the tide, it takes me further

And further…..

 

 

​

HERE I GO

 

Some days demand, more than I have

They drag me down and they leave me withered

And then I always find myself

in circles going around

The same old bends, the same old stories

And can’t find my way out

 

Here I go, to that place

where I don’t even know my name

And I can’t just hide

 

Some days I’m glad for what I have

I feel it all and I see it clearly

Until I go and loose myself

Somewhere within my brain

All feeling lost, at such a cost

The circle starts again

 

Here I go, to that place

where I don’t even know my name

Where doubts they grow

And they smother the brightness

I know is there but I just can’t find

When I’m within the walls

that I’ve built in my mind

Can’t knock them down

 

Here I go, to that place

where I don’t even know my name

Where doubts they grow

And they smother the brightness

I know is there

But I just can’t find

 

​

 

WHAT WOULD OUR LOVE SAY NOW IF IT WERE WATCHING?

 

Stand aside and watch the tide a-changing

Against its flow we seem to swim these days

The solid ground we once stood on is fading

It turns to sand a little everyday

What would our love say now if it were watching?

It used to keep us safe within its arms

 

I look into your eyes and see a stranger

Someone who just hurts me as a rule

Our words have left us deaf to one another

And blind to all the things we’ve gotten through

What would our love say now if it were watching?

Most likely turn and bow its head in shame

What would our love say now if it were watching?

As you and I, we both give up again

 

Are we going to let this go, our love

Use the past as ammunition

Or we could let this grow, our love

All we have to do is listen, just listen

 

Remember when we used to trust each other

And when we swore we’d leave the games aside?

Remember when our instincts drew us closer

When we both chose love instead of pride

What would our love say now if it were watching?

Most likely tell us both we should grow up

What would our love say now?

What would our love say now?

Keep trying

 

​

 

DEVIL IN ME                                                                       

 

You go your way and I will go mine

Maybe we’ll meet again

Distant voices, distant voices call

Call me away from here

They tell me I must flee

They bring out the devil in me, flee

 

They get louder, louder every year

I can’t seem to still them

Those distant voices, shouting in my ear

I can’t help but hear them

They tell me what to see

They bring out the devil in me, flee

 

Hold my ears shut, hold my ears, my eyes

There’s no escaping

Those distant voices, they live here inside

And I can’t get rid of them

They tell me who to be

They bring out the devil in me, flee

 

​

​

JOY OF IT ALL                                                                    

 

Sit by a lake in the morning light

As the world it awakens, in all its delight

At moments like these I can take a long deep breath

And bask in the joy of it all

 

I’ve lived a life that is ruled by fear

I’ve questioned myself and what I’m doing here

At moments like these I can let my guards fall down

And bask in the joy of it all

 

And Lord knows, I’ve wasted so much time

And lord knows, how much I have left

But at moments like these it doesn’t matter either way

I can just bask in the joy of it all

 

At moments like these I can see the cage I’m in

And that outside this cage is where living begins

Where the world never sleeps and it lays in wait for me

To bask in the joy of it all

 

                                                         

​

GOODBYE, ADIEU

 

This is a song of Goodbye, one of letting go

Of the grudges, the grievances

The lurking uncertainty

That all that you’ve learned here will prove to be wrong

Now I’m packing my doubts in the words of this song

And saying goodbye, goodbye, oh goodbye Adieu

 

This is a song full of hope in what is yet to come

The future lies open

Oh, what can go wrong now

I’ve learned how to follow my nose  and that while

I reach for the stars this all just passes me by

 

And says goodbye, goodbye, oh goodbye adieu

 

​

 

REASON

 

The horizon on a cold day

And those wild west-coast winds

How they blow me away

Do I miss them?

We’ll, give a guess

When I close my eyes

I can feel them on my chest

 

The reason I left is the reason I cannot go back

Over there I get lost and here somehow

I manage to stay on track

Oh it’s sad but it’s true and

I wish it were different but it’s not

Suppose missing the wind’s a small price

for what I’ve got

 

And the ocean on a wet day

As black as black

And still the children play in her waters

To spite the cold

Making memories for when they

When they are old

 

The reason I left is the reason I cannot go back

Over there I get lost and here

somehow I manage to stay on track

Oh it’s sad but it’s true and

I wish it were different but it’s not

Suppose missing the wind and missing the waves

And missing the rain that holds on for days

Suppose missing it all is the price for what I’ve got