religion – MichaelAitken

I tried too hard to give you my heart

I tried too hard to give you my heart
The remembered days that live in there
The delusions that seem so real to me
The truth that seems a lie to you

I’ve preserved my sanity in a memorial dream
I sent it by spacecraft into my hearts endless space
In a metal safe box as hard as titanium
In a container as small and soft as a bird

I’ve tried to give my heart to you
Its dusty dark streets where children play till late
Its realisations about my cherished beliefs

Its trust in giants, in gods, and heroes
Though some of the blood was poured away
Thick and hot onto the sacrificial floor
This I did when I knew you too well

I’ve tried to give you my heart
To you who exist in thousands of disguises
I try my desires on you
You flicker, flicker, flicker

In and out of reality
Back and forth from your book to your overcoat
You’ve walked out the door
Before I’ve even finished and you’re gone

I’ve tried to speak truly of paradise
Though but a single candle flame of it exists
In all the world in its time and its space
I’ve known it, I’ve known it, I’ve known it

Halleluiah, Britannia

Here in my isolation with my broken tattooed mind
Across the road from paradise with the love I’m trying to find
I see the marriage in Cana from the stop across the street
As if time itself had hit me in my drowning broken teeth.

Yes and England, you’re a long way down the road
Way ahead with your windows on the shoulders of the poor
Your rolling stock don’t pass this way no more
And I stand here on this crossroads screaming floor.

I’m looking up to heaven I suppose that’s what it is
I’m seeing the kind of vision that your grandfather slept with
Halleluiah, Britannia, with Jerusalem at your shore
But you cling to the economy and to war.

I pick up my right foot I leave the wedding songs behind
I pick up my left foot and go where England cannot find
The guests of the party dancing or the miraculous vats of wine
Across the road in another patch of time.

Halleluiah, Britannia, with Jerusalem at your shore
But you cling to economy and to war.

Yes and Halleluiah, Britannia, with Jerusalem at your shore
You struggle to survive the world’s fast-changing law
While the song thrush sings bravely on your highest telephone wire.
The jet plane comes screaming through broken cathedral spire.

Halleluiah, Britannia, with Jerusalem at your shore
But you cannot follow those ancient feet no more.

2004

In the Early Days of Dance

And the shadows became flesh
And sacrificed to their god
And their god was a dancing god
And their dancing god lived in the mind of man
The Beatmaster – Nom-Nom
And the shadows that became flesh slept during the day and danced at night
And during the day you could not find where the shadows slept
But during the night they partied
And you could hear their voices shouting to the Beatmaster
And you couldn’t see the shadows dancing in the night
Until the lights shone in the room that they danced in

But then in the winter months the shadows that became flesh
Became snow that fell upon the ground and they died
And their whiteness covered the earth and made them shiver
Until the dancing god appeared
And the dancing god said to the Beatmaster “where are the dancing shadows”
And the Beatmaster said the snow appeared and they died
And the dancing god said that to beat death they should dance
And so they began to dance and the sun came out and they lived again
Dancing to the beat of the Beatmaster who lived in their heads
And during the day they slept in the shadows where no one could see them
And during the night they danced all winter and then they continued to dance all summer
Until some of them grew old and died
But some of them never grew old
And these became the famous dancers of olden days
Who lived in dance town, dance time UK
And they danced until the mountains crumbled into the sea and the moon flew away forever

But another tribe of shadows had a different dance
Thy loved to dance in the daytime
They were the winds
They copied the flow and the grace of birds with their hands
They followed the dance steps of the big red deer in the spring
They danced in the fields where they worked
And they were happy in their work and they also sang as they danced
And at the end of the harvests they would sing and dance
And they formed groups and they danced and they invented dances
And all this took place during the daytime and the evening
And they would eat and dance
But then they would sleep through the night
And their music was found in the wind blowing through the night
And the shadows would hear the music and sometimes steal it

Through the glass top of my coffee table

Looking through the glass top of my coffee table
I see the people in Canary Wharf

Adam and Eve were ashamed of their nakedness
But maybe they were more ashamed of what they were thinking
The tree of knowledge had started to infiltrate their minds
An alien life form had begun its life

What is this class under this glass? What is class?
Those with the intelligence to use the knowledge of the world
Swarm here under the glass of my coffee table
Through the shopping centre
Up and down the escalators
A world lost in a lost world

Smart, clean, sharing the same determinations
Escalator man and escalator woman
Each wanting a bite of the fruit
What else is there to life?

Why was God angry
Why was knowledge so bad?
Looking down through the glass of my coffee table
The tree is covered in stinking ivy; dead bodies are now its fruit
Knowledge is a whirlpool in the sand
A hollow tree trunk, aged and rotten

The internet has it all
All the knowledge of the world, both good and bad
And in this an empty centre, a hollowness

Something was left behind a long time ago
Fear of falling, clinging onto the knowledge of the world
What was Adam and Eve supposed to be?
How did this knowledge change them?
What did it replace in their minds?

Slaves, all of us!

Slaves, all of us!
Pulling the World along the road
Like a giant block of stone

Without the world you would have freedom
Why haven’t you got freedom?
Because you lack love

Once upon a time a man thought he could build a world
With flesh, muscle, bloodletting
But he failed to finish it – he died!

He was a typical man
He believed it weak to understand the heart
He preferred war

Ever since we have laboured to finish what he started
Ever since we have been dying and leaving it unfinished

You can ring the truth with paper chains

You can ring the truth with paper chains and offer paper roses
The truth lasts forever with an indestructible heart.
Your beauty is for a time of love in a moment of eternity:
Your love is needed forever; its broken heart becomes whole
Your love is needed forever, and it makes things beautiful with its kiss.

You can decorate your chrysalis with golden gods
But the creature inside may be malformed and lost.
The pearl jewelry case may contain a stolen ring
The sea may be weeping, but who is able to see its distress
An angel shines so brightly that it distracts from its purpose.

The voice from the robbed bowels will burst out of its chains.

“By my Name Jehovah I was Not Known”

A name above the shop door
A manufacturer’s sense of pride
Businesses are called by a name
That emanates far and wide.

But broke into a million pieces
Changed to suit every need
God’s Name keeps disappearing
Under a mountain of greed.

In a church you’ll find a name
Sometimes several or more
But look above the altar
But look above the door.

His name, a sign of quality
Just like a Saville Row suit
You know that it’s been tailored
With a skill that’s absolute

The body beneath the clothing
That dances like Fred Astaire;
But the makers Name is forgotten
Though his work is everywhere.

Oct 22, 1995

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