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?

 

Six million years, six million, six million years, six million…….

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FOUR SEASONS

 

Summer it can feel like a sweet song

That leaves you with a peacefulness that lingers on

And keeps you warm, long after it has faded

 

Until it makes way for Septembers tired sigh

With its bursts of brown and amber and it’s autumn skies

Another key and melody is written

 

November wild winds blow it away

Steal all the colours and leaves us

 

With the grey of winter mornings and the fog

That lays its veil upon us, sings a different song

A quiet tune in cosy rooms, together

 

Snow turns to rain to Marchs delight

As the veil, it is lifted and makes way

 

For the light of springtime and its burst of song

Where the nights they become shorter and the days grow long

And nature shows its face in all its glory

 

Each season brings a sweetness to my heart

I have come to love the seasons for what they are

Each hand in hand, they dance a dance of splendor

 

 

 

 

 

THE STRANGEST THING 

 

I am not a woman who just tries to find her way

Through the ups and downs that life may bring on any given day

Oh, the rising sun it doesn’t let me know what lies ahead

If today I’ll win the battle with the ghosts that live inside my head

 

The past has left a trail upon the pathways of my mind

Making sure I take it with me, don’t leave anything behind

At times, it is a helper and at others it’s a foe

But my memories they follow me no matter where I go

 

The past it is the strangest thing

It can steal a day away

While what the future holds and what it can bring

Must lay in wait

 

Looking back is easy, it’s the seeing that is hard

It’s the understanding, reprimanding Pendule in my heart

That sways in constant motion between doubt and between trust

Touching things I do not want to feel but feel I must

 

The past it is the strangest thing

It can steal a day away

While what the future holds and what it can bring

Must lay in wait

 

 

 

 

 

STORIES OF OLD 

 

My father’s father was born when his country was torn

At a time when at best, you survived

Back when Ireland was ruled by drunks, thieves and fools

In the name of our neighbouring isle

Did he fight night and day or just look away?

I don’t know because I’ve never been told

And I can’t ask my Dad, the pain might drive him mad

In recalling those stories of old

 

I know the years weren’t kind to my Dad as a child

Lost his sister and two brothers young

And when his father passed, the child that had been last

Had turned in to the eldest son

Not yet even ten, can you imagine the hell?

All he had were the words that they shared

In the letters they wrote while their bodies they broke

Far away from the loved ones who cared

 

Well he was just skin and bone when his mother left home

To find a job in the parish next door

Had a roof over his head, which is more than can be said

For so many, oh so many more

He filled the factories shelves at the age of twelve

And he stayed there until he retired

Had his own family, wife, my sisters and me

And with us found a way to survive

 

Well, now the book can stay closed on these stories of old

Somehow, they found their way in to my hands

And now in this here song all their memories live on

Something the past from the future demands

And when I look down the road I see that stories of old

Are still happening up to this day

They say life has improved, I say you, you are just fools

Who have learned to look the other way

 

 

 

 

 

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

 

Uuhh

 

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

 

Uuhh

 

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

 

 

 

 

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…..

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

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