<Audio>
Down
the seas of my history,
the
dreamboat ploughs the rolling waves,
the
high tiers of tears,
stinging,
just there, where I used to be.
Aquamarine
in dream, but grey
in
reality, the slag tips and the stone
where
we played, short-trousers ragamuffins,
with
mum waiting at home for tea.
Little
light bulb station road,
haloed
in watering eyes.
When
darkness beckoned, adventure bragged,
and dragged in backward glances.
Pals
we were, dwarfed by the ghosts
who
were there. We knew. We stepped
onwards
in the flow of growing up.
The
round trip of home for supper.
The
wooden bridge, the slag slashed path.
Our
hurrying feet, sure but unsure,
span
the wide-eyed orange moon, of Dan Dare,
up
there, in a spacesuit full of bated breath.
Take
not the chapel path, nor by the pub.
Meet
not the prayer books or the beer blather.
But
tread the boys' own secret paths,
of
a communion, dark in conspiracy.
Knowing
there's an answering to the village,
in
the mist above the moon ways.
Where
the book of times was written,
recording
all our sins.
Even
'ere we shun the whispered rules,
even
our mothers' solemn contracts.
So
runs the demon spark of youth.
Go
on! It is! Go on!
I
could race around and down
these
warren ways, for all my days and days.
Awash
with sangfroid broken tears,
and
the anguished love of years.
Long
gone, and yet alive for always,
when
we return in thought,
to
our ruin in the ruins,
on
the slag tips and woe betides.
Lay
the ashes of my thoughts,
where
the torn pages smoulder.
Lay
them upon my village times,
and
sprinkle over my slumber. For
I've
been back there again.
I've
hugged them all again.
And
I will return there again.
To
laugh again, and again, and again.
Surfing
the tides of my history.
Running
in mystery.