Category: Writers Without Homes

Already Ghosts

In travel, there are traps
When I’m writing in the back
Beneath the rain, between the maps
My diary bears this out but memory has it wrong –
I loved you when you loved me and then we were done

There’s a silence on the railway
There’s a bad curse on the land
And this season writes a rainstorm like a poem in the sand
You told me I depressed you, that I withered in your hand
And that sentence cut my loveline
When you left me as you planned

In travel, there are traps
When I’m writing in the back
Beneath the rain, between the maps
My diary bears this out but memory has it wrong –
I loved you when you loved me and then we were gone
In travel, there are traps
When I’m writing in the back

(Lyrics – GA Johnson)

Certainty

There are more people alive now than have ever lived –
I read that somewhere and instantly thought it impossible
But if it were to be true, I wonder that, if we keep living this fast, no-one will have time to die

I’ve met people whose lovers died in war
And I’ve wondered what this helplessness could be like –
One minute there’s a whole life entwined with yours and the next, just a space and scattered clues

When I watch old films in which animals appear,
I get sad because those animals are certainly dead now –
And that certainty prompts my private epitaph and I have to say it out loud : “That dog is dead, that cat is dead, that horse is dead…”

(Words – GA Johnson)

Crown Of The Lost

The night settles down on the water
The feathers of sun gather in
The trees wave their way to the morning
The birds think about what they’ll sing
I have dreams in which you’re a nightmare
I have dreams in which you’re unfair
But angels still dance in your garden
And flowers still grow in your hair

My tears leave a skull on the pillow
My tooth leaves my blood on the sheet
My heart sways the way of the willow
My heart sways the way of the wheat
But you are the queen of the lowlands
You have the crown of the lost
I found you broke up like a shipwreck
I found you broke up on the rocks

The horses come in from the cliff tops
Their shadows upsetting the sea
The waves swim their way to the bottom
And stay there until they’re forgotten
And you know about birds when they’re dying?
How they know that they’re going to die?
How they hide in the heart of the forest
And sleep until death chances by?

You know that

You know that

(Lyrics – GA Johnson)