Space Between the Lines
Shine
Ask
The Space Between the Lines
Gold
Poetry in Sand
The Hills that I Know
Make it Home Tonight
The Bramble and the Brine
Rainy Days and Windy Skies
I Came to Play
Shine
My mother spent her nights alone
Thinking ‘bout the absence of my father
When he finally came home
It was never happy ever after
I never thought to ask them why
They never held each other tight
It never dawned on me that something wasn’t right
Chorus
Until the night I saw the light inside your eyes
Shine for me
They told me she was hard to see
So I tried not to look at her too closely
She hid herself so easily
I thought it was her way to take it slowly
I liked the way she used her mind
The way she weaved her story lines
I never called them lies sometimes I lied myself
Repeat chorus until the night I saw
What you never have you can’t ever miss
But I was missing you long before I knew
That there was something true
Out there beyond the blue
Promises we never made
Don’t wait around expecting to be broken
Some music that just can’t be played
Is saying all the things that can’t be spoken
In the dying of the day
When our dreams come out to play
I lay beside you in the night and float away and pray I’ll wake
Repeat chorus
Back to top
Ask
I was just 16 she was scrubbing floors
At the harbor queen through the hotel doors
Her eyes told mine through the hotel glass
Till the end if time if you’ll only ask
Chorus
If you need a friend when the sky is torn
When November wind drowns the harbor horn
I will light the shores till the storm has passed
My heart is yours if you’ll only ask
I wait outside till her work was done
Till the evening tide makes the waters one
I shared a room on the north quayside
With a grand old man from the banks of the bonnie Clyde
Repeat chorus
Down on the floor drunk as a king
How the old man snored like a train in spring
On tippy toes we mind his head
We laid our clothes down on the old man’s bed
Middle 8
I loved her there the old man slept
Her raven hair across my chest
I talk too much …. I laugh too long
Her tender touch ushers in the dawn
Repeat chorus
She was my own my first true love
You ask how long? Not long enough
It was just one glance through the hotel glass
I was just 16 … too shy to ask
Back to top
The Space Between the Lines
I know there’s something deeper than friendship
That I find in the shelter of your easy company
Somewhere in the trusting of the silence
That leaves nothing unspoken we set each other free
There in the space between the lines
Traces of the innocence
We thought we’d left behind
I can’t say that I always know what’s on your mind
But I always know for certain ……… you’re a friend of mine
They say that on the far side of the river
Old friends will gather together in a dance
But something in the precious passing moment
Will disappear forever so I will make my stand
There in the space between the lines
I’ll meet you in the now and then
And when you’ve got the time
Here while the blossom is still upon the vine
I’ll make you know for certain ……… you’re a friend of mine
It’s the last breeze of winter warm as the breath
It’s the sunlight in the flower that melts the frost
It’s the joy in the waiting – jewel in the dirt
It’s the knowing that there’s nothing ever lost
No it’s found then it’s lost and found again
I walk along the river in the lamplight
Looking for the city that used to be my home
Still the mists of memory wrap around me
Like smoke around a chimney clinging to the stone
There in the space between the lines
You’re shining through the reverie
The water and the wine
If I could start again across the mystery of time
I’d live my whole life knowing ….. You’re a friend of mine
Back to top
Gold
Golden waves of light round her in the darkness
“It’s just imagination child, go to sleep” her papa says
“Don’t you tell those lies girl
Don’t you make your mamma cry
Coz baby if you die tonight your soul won’t go to Jesus.”
I don’t wanna die tonight sweet Jesus
Specially after all the lies I’ve told
I don’t wanna make you cry mamma
No I never saw no waves of gold
You know the ones that … hold me
She grew up in the dark loved the shadow places
Scared to trust her only light she sought the shadow graces
Strangers in the park money on the table
Go to hell I might as well I’m miles away from Jesus
I don’t wanna die tonight sweet Jesus
Just don’t wanna live here in the cold
I don’t wanna make you papa cry
I just wanna find that pot of gold
You know the one you ….. Sold me
She called the young man “lover”
Though he paid just like the rest
But every time he held her
The aching in her chest …oh the aching
Holding on so tight the harbor water rages
Strong and slow coz they both know boat is broke in places
Across the night love turns pages
Whispering “it’s always been alright with Jesus”
I don’t wanna die tonight sweet Jesus
Won’t you let me live till I grow old
I know I know I’m gonna make you cry lover
But we’ll always sail on waves of gold
You know the ones around us
You know the ones you found in us
Back to top
Poetry in Sand
Reaching out for paradise in smoky rooms and melting ice
And your eyes are glowin’
It doesn’t matter what you do if you don’t know it’s up to you
It’s a dice your throwin’
And as your shadows grow inside
I’ll keep on looking for the light you’ve learned to hide
Chorus
Baby hold on it’s right and it’s wrong
It’ll bring you down and it’ll spin you round
And if it breaks you I will wait for you
To gather up your strength and make your stand
Write your poetry in sand
I know a mirror shouldn’t lie but cross my heart and hope to die
You don’t look so bad
So brush your hair you’ll be ok coz no one cares here anyway
In this downtown grave yard
But I won’t take this losing you
There’s no substance in the lie abusing you
Chorus
I wish that I could tell you why I know that we can never die
But it’s only feeling
And I wish that I could feel for you the pain I know you must go through
Some lonely evening
When you decide to fight that war
Won’t you let me hold the piece you’re fighting for
Chorus
Back to top
The Hills That I Know
My love found a linnet alone and forgotten
Abandoned and broken and barely alive
She held it and kissed it and wrapped it in cotton
And taught it to fly by the light in her eyes
Chorus
Now I glide as a cloud over cottage and castle
And city of plunder where nothing can grow
The terrible freedom of endless horizon
Is pulling me back to the hills that I know
My love is an ocean of pity and pardon
And petty annoyance all fickle as fame
As I sit in judgment she tends to the garden
And banishes anger as fast as it came
Chorus
My love heard a whisper of innocence calling
Forgotten inside me all buried and blue
She held it and kissed it and wrapped it in morning
Forsaking all others till I heard it too
Chorus
Back to top
Make it Home Tonight
Sing to me so sweet a song my doubts fly away
Words so true this heart of stone turns like potters clay
You’re the breeze that’s whispering through this broken kite
I know that you can make it home tonight
Sing to me a mountain stream cool the burning sand
Winter roses opening though spring is not at hand
You’re the song that sailors sing when land is out of sight
I know that you can make it home tonight
Middle 8
Tiny candle shining so my shadow disappears
Laughter through the ocean of these tears
Tiny vessel carry on the storm’s behind you now
And every prayer you’ve ever prayed
Is a wave beneath your bow
Take this furrow from my brow
Plant it in your field
Take these doubts around me now
Hold them……… till they yield
Turn this endless falling down
Into freedom’s flight
Take this lonely road i’m on and make it home tonight
Back to top
The Bramble and the Brine
We walked across the Burren with PJ as our guide
He talked about the famine the million souls who died
The sea views from Sliabh Elva left us breathless as the climb
The beauty of this blessed land the bramble and the brine
He led us to through ancient forge where back in yesteryear
His family forged the pikes and swords invaders learned to fear
He talked of Cromwell’s armies spreading hunger by design
The troubled past of Ireland the bramble and the brine
Mid 8
Inside the church at Kilnaboy behind a crumbling wall
He talked of church and country and the crumbling of it all
For now another conqueror was ravaging her shore
He captured her in promises of more and more and more
The crescent moon rose like the tiger’s claw that ripped her soul apart
But stronger than the tigers roar the beating of her heart
It beats within her in her rivers on her hills of ash and pine
In her oceans cross her highlands the bramble and the brine
I hear it in her music through her stories old as time
Through her cities and her meadows in her people proud and fine
………………. And kind
In the poet and the rebel the bramble and the brine
Back to top
Rainy Days and Windy Skies
Chorus
I was born on a rainy day
I grabbed my hat and I ran away
It keeps raining I keep running on
I fell out of a windy sky
Falling down I learned to fly
In rainy days and windy skies I roll my eyes and roll on home
I grew up on the side of town
Where they make you tough so they can knock you down
They’d talk of god and knock you down some more
They said “god is love but love is blind
He plays rough and he’s hard to find
But I found him playing softly at the record store singing
Repeat chorus
Met her out on a stormy sea
She sailed right up close to me
Close enough to see my sail was torn
She tried and she tried with all her might
To patch the wind and stitch the night
But the best that she could do wad find me gone
Repeat chorus
I worked a while with a river man
He lived his life by a simple plan
Never sail at night when the water’s low
But when you sailed my winter heart
The tide was out and the moon was dark
But I felt the waters rise with the melting snow
Back to top
I Came to Play
I am a soldier in a city
Where every window is a gun
Fighting a man who’s not my enemy
Waging a war that can’t be won
I am the shadow of an eagle
Hiding the coal fields from the sky
I am the water that’s undrinkable
I am the tears you never cry
I am the sigh of endless yearning
Behind the burning of the day
I am the warrior remembering
That I’m a child who came to play
I am a traveler on an ocean
Covered in tar from shore to shore
I am a smiling politician
Caught in a lie you will ignore
I am the hero of the people
Wearing a suit that doesn’t fit
I am the priest in the confessional
Hearing the sins I will commit
I am the sigh of endless yearning
Behind the burning of the day
I am the warrior remembering
That I’m a child who came to play
Back to top
Shine
Ask
The Space Between the Lines
Gold
Poetry in Sand
The Hills that I Know
Make it Home Tonight
The Bramble and the Brine
Rainy Days and Windy Skies
I Came to Play
Shine
My mother spent her nights alone
Thinking ‘bout the absence of my father
When he finally came home
It was never happy ever after
I never thought to ask them why
They never held each other tight
It never dawned on me that something wasn’t right
Chorus
Until the night I saw the light inside your eyes
Shine for me
They told me she was hard to see
So I tried not to look at her too closely
She hid herself so easily
I thought it was her way to take it slowly
I liked the way she used her mind
The way she weaved her story lines
I never called them lies sometimes I lied myself
Repeat chorus until the night I saw
What you never have you can’t ever miss
But I was missing you long before I knew
That there was something true
Out there beyond the blue
Promises we never made
Don’t wait around expecting to be broken
Some music that just can’t be played
Is saying all the things that can’t be spoken
In the dying of the day
When our dreams come out to play
I lay beside you in the night and float away and pray I’ll wake
Repeat chorus
Back to top
Ask
I was just 16 she was scrubbing floors
At the harbor queen through the hotel doors
Her eyes told mine through the hotel glass
Till the end if time if you’ll only ask
Chorus
If you need a friend when the sky is torn
When November wind drowns the harbor horn
I will light the shores till the storm has passed
My heart is yours if you’ll only ask
I wait outside till her work was done
Till the evening tide makes the waters one
I shared a room on the north quayside
With a grand old man from the banks of the bonnie Clyde
Repeat chorus
Down on the floor drunk as a king
How the old man snored like a train in spring
On tippy toes we mind his head
We laid our clothes down on the old man’s bed
Middle 8
I loved her there the old man slept
Her raven hair across my chest
I talk too much …. I laugh too long
Her tender touch ushers in the dawn
Repeat chorus
She was my own my first true love
You ask how long? Not long enough
It was just one glance through the hotel glass
I was just 16 … too shy to ask
Back to top
The Space Between the Lines
I know there’s something deeper than friendship
That I find in the shelter of your easy company
Somewhere in the trusting of the silence
That leaves nothing unspoken we set each other free
There in the space between the lines
Traces of the innocence
We thought we’d left behind
I can’t say that I always know what’s on your mind
But I always know for certain ……… you’re a friend of mine
They say that on the far side of the river
Old friends will gather together in a dance
But something in the precious passing moment
Will disappear forever so I will make my stand
There in the space between the lines
I’ll meet you in the now and then
And when you’ve got the time
Here while the blossom is still upon the vine
I’ll make you know for certain ……… you’re a friend of mine
It’s the last breeze of winter warm as the breath
It’s the sunlight in the flower that melts the frost
It’s the joy in the waiting – jewel in the dirt
It’s the knowing that there’s nothing ever lost
No it’s found then it’s lost and found again
I walk along the river in the lamplight
Looking for the city that used to be my home
Still the mists of memory wrap around me
Like smoke around a chimney clinging to the stone
There in the space between the lines
You’re shining through the reverie
The water and the wine
If I could start again across the mystery of time
I’d live my whole life knowing ….. You’re a friend of mine
Back to top
Gold
Golden waves of light round her in the darkness
“It’s just imagination child, go to sleep” her papa says
“Don’t you tell those lies girl
Don’t you make your mamma cry
Coz baby if you die tonight your soul won’t go to Jesus.”
I don’t wanna die tonight sweet Jesus
Specially after all the lies I’ve told
I don’t wanna make you cry mamma
No I never saw no waves of gold
You know the ones that … hold me
She grew up in the dark loved the shadow places
Scared to trust her only light she sought the shadow graces
Strangers in the park money on the table
Go to hell I might as well I’m miles away from Jesus
I don’t wanna die tonight sweet Jesus
Just don’t wanna live here in the cold
I don’t wanna make you papa cry
I just wanna find that pot of gold
You know the one you ….. Sold me
She called the young man “lover”
Though he paid just like the rest
But every time he held her
The aching in her chest …oh the aching
Holding on so tight the harbor water rages
Strong and slow coz they both know boat is broke in places
Across the night love turns pages
Whispering “it’s always been alright with Jesus”
I don’t wanna die tonight sweet Jesus
Won’t you let me live till I grow old
I know I know I’m gonna make you cry lover
But we’ll always sail on waves of gold
You know the ones around us
You know the ones you found in us
Back to top
Poetry in Sand
Reaching out for paradise in smoky rooms and melting ice
And your eyes are glowin’
It doesn’t matter what you do if you don’t know it’s up to you
It’s a dice your throwin’
And as your shadows grow inside
I’ll keep on looking for the light you’ve learned to hide
Chorus
Baby hold on it’s right and it’s wrong
It’ll bring you down and it’ll spin you round
And if it breaks you I will wait for you
To gather up your strength and make your stand
Write your poetry in sand
I know a mirror shouldn’t lie but cross my heart and hope to die
You don’t look so bad
So brush your hair you’ll be ok coz no one cares here anyway
In this downtown grave yard
But I won’t take this losing you
There’s no substance in the lie abusing you
Chorus
I wish that I could tell you why I know that we can never die
But it’s only feeling
And I wish that I could feel for you the pain I know you must go through
Some lonely evening
When you decide to fight that war
Won’t you let me hold the piece you’re fighting for
Chorus
Back to top
The Hills That I Know
My love found a linnet alone and forgotten
Abandoned and broken and barely alive
She held it and kissed it and wrapped it in cotton
And taught it to fly by the light in her eyes
Chorus
Now I glide as a cloud over cottage and castle
And city of plunder where nothing can grow
The terrible freedom of endless horizon
Is pulling me back to the hills that I know
My love is an ocean of pity and pardon
And petty annoyance all fickle as fame
As I sit in judgment she tends to the garden
And banishes anger as fast as it came
Chorus
My love heard a whisper of innocence calling
Forgotten inside me all buried and blue
She held it and kissed it and wrapped it in morning
Forsaking all others till I heard it too
Chorus
Back to top
Make it Home Tonight
Sing to me so sweet a song my doubts fly away
Words so true this heart of stone turns like potters clay
You’re the breeze that’s whispering through this broken kite
I know that you can make it home tonight
Sing to me a mountain stream cool the burning sand
Winter roses opening though spring is not at hand
You’re the song that sailors sing when land is out of sight
I know that you can make it home tonight
Middle 8
Tiny candle shining so my shadow disappears
Laughter through the ocean of these tears
Tiny vessel carry on the storm’s behind you now
And every prayer you’ve ever prayed
Is a wave beneath your bow
Take this furrow from my brow
Plant it in your field
Take these doubts around me now
Hold them……… till they yield
Turn this endless falling down
Into freedom’s flight
Take this lonely road i’m on and make it home tonight
Back to top
The Bramble and the Brine
We walked across the Burren with PJ as our guide
He talked about the famine the million souls who died
The sea views from Sliabh Elva left us breathless as the climb
The beauty of this blessed land the bramble and the brine
He led us to through ancient forge where back in yesteryear
His family forged the pikes and swords invaders learned to fear
He talked of Cromwell’s armies spreading hunger by design
The troubled past of Ireland the bramble and the brine
Mid 8
Inside the church at Kilnaboy behind a crumbling wall
He talked of church and country and the crumbling of it all
For now another conqueror was ravaging her shore
He captured her in promises of more and more and more
The crescent moon rose like the tiger’s claw that ripped her soul apart
But stronger than the tigers roar the beating of her heart
It beats within her in her rivers on her hills of ash and pine
In her oceans cross her highlands the bramble and the brine
I hear it in her music through her stories old as time
Through her cities and her meadows in her people proud and fine
………………. And kind
In the poet and the rebel the bramble and the brine
Back to top
Rainy Days and Windy Skies
Chorus
I was born on a rainy day
I grabbed my hat and I ran away
It keeps raining I keep running on
I fell out of a windy sky
Falling down I learned to fly
In rainy days and windy skies I roll my eyes and roll on home
I grew up on the side of town
Where they make you tough so they can knock you down
They’d talk of god and knock you down some more
They said “god is love but love is blind
He plays rough and he’s hard to find
But I found him playing softly at the record store singing
Repeat chorus
Met her out on a stormy sea
She sailed right up close to me
Close enough to see my sail was torn
She tried and she tried with all her might
To patch the wind and stitch the night
But the best that she could do wad find me gone
Repeat chorus
I worked a while with a river man
He lived his life by a simple plan
Never sail at night when the water’s low
But when you sailed my winter heart
The tide was out and the moon was dark
But I felt the waters rise with the melting snow
Back to top
I Came to Play
I am a soldier in a city
Where every window is a gun
Fighting a man who’s not my enemy
Waging a war that can’t be won
I am the shadow of an eagle
Hiding the coal fields from the sky
I am the water that’s undrinkable
I am the tears you never cry
I am the sigh of endless yearning
Behind the burning of the day
I am the warrior remembering
That I’m a child who came to play
I am a traveler on an ocean
Covered in tar from shore to shore
I am a smiling politician
Caught in a lie you will ignore
I am the hero of the people
Wearing a suit that doesn’t fit
I am the priest in the confessional
Hearing the sins I will commit
I am the sigh of endless yearning
Behind the burning of the day
I am the warrior remembering
That I’m a child who came to play
Back to top