Category: Artists’ Rifles

Artists’ Rifles

Artists’ Rifles

1914 – 1918
I’ve got your letter here
I’ve got your memories
Young men, as us – broken soldiers
I’ve got your telegram
I’ve got your souvenirs

1914 – 1918
I’ve got your photograph
I’ve got your poetry
Young men, as us – Artists’ Rifles
Young men, as us – Artists’ Rifles

 

 

(Lyrics – GA Johnson)

No Closure

N0 Closure

On the forecourts of French libraries
From Reignac to Marseilles
The rain rattles small cars,
Clouds drape over backseats
I am a photograph in your satchel
Between a paperback and cigarettes
I am the dead bird on the gravel
Neck snapped from last night’s Northwesterly

But no peace, no closure
But no peace, no closure

Beside these roads that halt like jetties
Beneath circling murders are leafless trees
Drowning at the knees
Some burnt to the fingertips
And here my tracks sink, end, return
As I walked in and out of you
And here my tracks sink, end, return
As I walked in and out of you

But no peace, no closure
But no peace, no closure

Driving back through the town
The road map-pinned by Pharmacie signs winking up-road
The cars slice the afternoon with a guillotine slush
As it bleeds into a night peppered by stars and planes to Japan
And the changing of gears jilts the cats from the walls
The truth lives with you
The truth lives with you

But no peace, no closure
But no peace, no closure
But no peace, no closure
But no peace, no closure

 

 

(Lyrics – GA Johnson)

Password

Password

My password is a dead aunt’s name –
A monument, a testament
My password is a dead aunt’s name –
A cenotaph, a shallow grave

I’m thirty one and fading fast
Forget the past, repeat the past
I’m thirty two and fading fast
I started last and I finished last

 

(Lyrics – GA Johnson)

The Index

The Index

I have thought about you in your Summer abode
In your lunatic smock, in chronicle mode
The typewriter smack as you nail in the words
And the turntable’s drunk reflection occurs

I have thought about you in your grasshopper pose
And the cigarette smoke carving trails through your clothes
Your Spanish guitar pins your bed to the floor
So your dreams can’t escape
And they’re yours evermore

Paris, she bleeds night into her cup
As you index the birds and you label them up

 

 

(Lyrics – GA Johnson)