Songs for the band unformed – a compilation
Posted by John, February 25th, 2012 - under Poems, Poems for the band unformed, Songs for the band unformed.
I sent this compilation of songs for the band unformed to my great guitarist son to see if he wants to put them to music. I have 2 cunning plans. Put these or some of them at the back of my book on the best political pieces from my blog, and hire a recording studio for a day or two and get Michael and his almost band friends to cut a CD of their work and maybe include some of my doggerel. (c) John Passant 25 February 2012.
The birds do not sing anymore
The birds do not sing, anymore
They fly by, to cry, elsewhere
On trees less fair
Their perches claw
And nail, fail
And gaining height
They flight the wisdom we eschew
For they knew, and know
The coming of the summer, cold,
Will bold the brave
And eternal, make the grave
A place of rest, an empty nest
With feathers burnt and brown
Fallen to the ground
No breeding but the brood of death
Here lie ourselves in shallow depth
Awaiting respite from our plight
But none comes until the night
Of humanity, set free,
Rises like Icarus
To burn and blaze
Through endless haze
And profits nothing, but profits all
That is our fall
(c) John Passant 10 December 2011
The guitar gifted one
The guitar gifted one
Who slings his arrows as the son
Departs, town gone, for too long
With the tumbrils rumbling past history’s door
To take a moment and to floor
The yesterday that lives in awe
Of nothing
And breaking chains, we rearrange
the furniture of future days
In lounges of the living
Still, forgiving, quiet and believing
For we are leaving
And the journeys’ end has just begun
To take us to the returning son,
The returning son
And where goes the road
That burdens after load
And crying winds away
To find the day, so bright
That night is but a passing dream
And you the centre of its cream
A cream centre, aye that’s fun
For you are the one
Eaten, beaten and
The Hendrix, Townsend, Shaky mix
Between, betwixt the dream
Ours too and you
Returning son.
(c) John Passant 11 December 2011
Only catching love to play
There is a gaining in the loss
that brings together hope and fear
And blends the meaning of our words
To the passage of the year
As the silence on the streets
echoes down the path of tears
And captures all our trodden times
In the birthplace of our wares
Will you walk again this way?
Or pass another’s place to stay
Where there are no others resting
Only catching love to play
Only catching love to play
(c) John Passant 27 November 2011
I had a poem last night
I had a poem last night
of fright and fear and fancy
But sleep has robbed the words
And the patterns that,
absurd,
had passed for insight,
Are gone,
to delight no one
And fall among the dreams
Caught between the streams
Of the waking and the dead
All read, but only read,
in that space, my turning head
and pass away
like shadows of the day
as the night descends, to the end
(c) John Passant 27 November 2011
Poets are not generals
Poets are not generals
tramp, tramp, trampling,
to the tune of the dead,
the people’s revolution, its head
smashed against reaction’s rock
Yet rising to mock and batter down
the ratted gown of despots
with their plans and plots
That is not us, we cry
and die under their bullets
and take Christ’s cue,
to begin anew
the task of freedom’s mask
lifted from its twisting chains,
caught in the rhyme of rain to bear the fruit
And let the time, so dissolute, dissolve
We poets are not generals
in the theatres of their war,
the bosses’ whore,
but saviours of the spark
that leads us from their dark
and inspires worlds
that twirl and whirl sweet freedom’s space
behind our face, impassive and inert,
until the grin of winning takes it place
and we stand among the trees, free,
reading, not bleeding.
(c) John Passant 12 March 2011
Three degrees
Three degrees, sparse, stark, bare
Caught beyond the watered where
Glance fevered, fervid fools
Blanche tethered, turgid tools
And the silent scream
Dreams the universe
Is gathered, worse,
Is revenged, avenging abuse
To what use?
Of theirs no doubt
And the clout
Of dictators’ gold
Grown old in vaults, foretold
In books that make no sense
And called hence from after life
To live with fire, always fire
The burns are rife
On the pyre, to profit right
That is the point, to profit right
Their smokey joint, plumes away
Brings us joy, dark lights of day
The joy of struggle, wages fight
And sleep for years between
Not covered, never seen
Until the pain forces, but forces what?
I am not, I am not
But they are now, and how,
While the plains pain plenty in their plough
And the birds sing tears
From our yesteryears
Silent in their chorus
For them, not us
We are beyond their quiet
And caught in the dance
The slow, twirling dance
of withered weather
Where no chance, taken
Upon those forsaken
And left rotting, all rotting
For everywhere
Are the dark days of light
The dark days of light.
(c) John Passant 2009
Gone is the gathered
There is a joy
we will never know
written fast, taken slow
And gathered ground
around
to take the place
where life is face
in others eyes
and strip disguise
from Christian reticence
Not caught but taught
defence, always the fence
who slips the knot away
and sails for today
A town where time is you
calls to play, to do
And then disappears
like wide clip shears
But gone is the gathered
And gathered is the gone
Done wrong for heaven
To the hell of the way
Do not stay
Go, go away.
(c) John Passant 15 December 2009
Wollongong walk
What beauty, father heart in tow,
To walk the beach, and sit aglow,
Sun taken, not forsaken,
Waved bodies sculpting sand,
and to drift, beyond the man,
to nature’s rendered hand,
Such is the joy of Wollongong.
© John Passant 19 September 2009
Daylight saving again
The sun is come
and the shadows fall
like statues of John Howard
The walk is run
And the clocks are set
to fast forward for an hour
October is the cruelling month
of revolution and credit, crunch
Where roos a’bound
through grass so brown
with the hound upon the hunt
Nothing caught but breath, and stableness
Abandoned in the fury
The cows and goat greet every bloat
with belch and fart and duty
And as we talk, this dog and I
the time returns and the future cries
it is the past but full of lies
And the savage one then
begs his only question
Can we last in this direction?
The sun is gone
there is no mention
of the fast
or the forward
We trudge back from our beginning
And see the ghost of Howard,
Grinning
The bark is whimpered and we go
inside cowered
(c) John Passant 7 November 2008
Yes, it’s the great recession
Oh yes, it’s the Great Recession
Pretending that we’re doing well
Our need is such, we pretend too much
We’re jobless and we’re going to hell
Oh yes, it’s the Great Recession
Adrift in a world of our own
We play the game, but to our real shame
We’re jobless and all alone
Too real is this feeling of make believe
Too real when we feel what our wallets can’t conceal
Oh yes, it’s the Great Recession
Just drinking and down like a clown
We seem to be what we are not,
We’re wearing our loss like a crown
Pretending our jobs still around
Too real is this feeling of make believe
Too real when we feel what our wallets can’t conceal
Oh yes, it’s the Great Recession
Just drinking and down like a clown
We seem to be what we are not,
We’re wearing our loss like a crown
Pretending our jobs still around
Pretending our jobs still around
© Whoever wrote the great pretender and John Passant 25 March 2009
The hope of the despairing
It is the hope of the despairing
Not caught but wearing
Life in vests
Escaping the empty nest
Taken, not blessed,
upon the sea, the holy sea
of cant and won’t be in our place
Belonging is their other face
staring, staring, staring
upon our shores
Whose dead are these the question asks
And the answer crashes on our masks
Yours; they are yours
© John Passant 23 December 2010