A tree with many shaped leaves
Glows in a clearing in the heart of life
A tree with many kinds of leaves on its branches
Leaves of oak, chestnut, elm, and poplar
All these leaves grow on one tree
One magnificent tree
Then came the burning fire
Then came the raging flood
And its branches were torn from its trunk
And the seed of the many leaved tree was scattered
And many different kinds of trees
Began to grow in place of the one
But never again
Has there been just one tree
There is an alliance
Between magpies and men
When the songbirds
Are driven off by pollution
And the ground cries for their sweet songs
You will see the magpies
Preform the final rout
Magpies proliferate
In their squawking, I can hear
Swords banging on shields
They fight for their territories
And where they have their nests
They fight with unrelenting courage
The magpies control the trees
But you do not see them in their leafy coverings
Looking down on the rooftops where we live
Every so often, they clash with squirrels
They do not let up the fight until
The squirrel is driven away
1.East of the Sun West of the moon
We lived our lives In sep’rate rooms
A star way shines The moon well sleeps
Across the land, A shadow creeps
The eyes of time Rest in her heart
They rest in mine While we’re apart
East of the Sun West of the moon
The shadow flies To a fiddled tune
2. A pen on paper Writes the law
A heart in love Knows much more
Across the sky With words untold
As light as mist As bright as gold
The message rides Through frosted glen
In winter woodland To tell again
East of the Sun, West of the moon
Of loves lost dreams Of flowers strewn
3. In mirrored darkness, Her face is seen
A sacred flight Recurring dream
The morning breaks Through broken heart
To spill on floors The morning star
The hand wipes brow Agonised sigh
First tears of day, The wish to die
East of the Sun West of the moon
We lived our lives In sep’rate rooms
PDF: East of the sun, west of the moon
I began this song at Heidi Berry’s songwriting workshop. I agonised over the chords for ages trying as well as the progress of the melody, it has so many places it could go as a melody, so sing it how you feel it.
The idea began as the typical princess locked up in a tower waiting for her knight in shining armour to set her free, in real life it hardly ever happens.
I hear rain, but outside there is no rain
No, the rain must be inside my head/me.
But where?
I focus on the pavements, the roads
The surface is reflective
It rained overnight while I was indoors
Now, the rain I hear now is trapped inside me.
Now I hear the sound of a violin
Yet the strain is gliding, hovering
On the dark reflective surface
Where is the sound coming from?
It must be coming from inside
It fills the skies now like music in a cathedral dome
But it comes from somewhere else
Comes from somewhere inside
Comes from somewhere inside me.
The holiday
you booked
by a blue lakeside
in a quaint town
good for nightclubbing
surrounded by green countryside
has been
cancelled
due to
being turned into
salt.
Following behind
In the dusty industrial houses
Walking tiredly
Through the collapsing sunsets fire
The vanguard, so forgotten
By the laughing worldly crowds
Someone playing the official
However, did you get that name?
The leader of the free world
The tallest tree attracts lightning
The father destroys his own
The leader destroys his followers
On a pavement in the early morning
A headless starling, its heart ripped out
through a hole in its breast
A sign of the times
Cruelty born from plenty
A well-fed cat
leaving the carcass for it masters approval
A child, untaught in love, acting cruel
perhaps unloved, perhaps not loved enough, confused
capable of expressing the demonic
A terrifying consciousness; of expressing the uselessness of its own love
Or maybe angered by an aggressive starling
A predatory cat possesses some very sharp, awful abilities
It claws through, its eyes are surgical instruments
That can see with X-ray senses
the heart and brain beneath the victim’s flesh
Its eyes within its teeth are
animal axmen executioners, Aztec priests
And its prey today is
a pretender, an ex-wife, a rebel, a minor sacrifice.
They all swim in the same sea
Feeding off of each other
Aliens, politicians, demons, priests
They’ve all been lovers.
They all swim in the same pool
Fenced in, protected
They all drink the same drink
The poisoned wine – is the most selected.
The poisoned wine of the sea
The sea of the sunset, the sea of blood
The vaults protected from the bombs
Of anti-love
The marble slab is moved away
Cobwebs and bones and funeral cash
Death, dust and fire on a silver tray
Buried in the soft stinking ash
They all swim in the same sea
The Fuhrer, the Caesar, the monarch
Babylon, Pharaoh, senator
They all have sacrificed to Molech
the living sphere
is marked by
the etched and stretched lines
of anxiety
the living sphere
that other planets
don’t have
the living sphere
of air and water
and life’s multiple connections
between every growing thing
it’s a theoretical sphere
but a diagram can be made
of the stresses that stretch and tear it
in a perfect world
the living sphere
would be as clear
as a cellophane window
but it’s hard to imagine
the living sphere anywhere around us
as clear and as peaceful
as cellophane
