If I

If I should lie on mornings dew,

and cry the blood I’ve spilt for you,

and die the deaths I’ve killed for you,

would you grant me peace?

If I should scythe a field of corn,

and bare the looks that are filled with scorn,

and sing songs of doom in early morn,

would you grant me peace?

If I should choose another life,

and make my mark without a knife,

and strip my heart of pain and strife,

would you grant me peace?

If I should find a priest still true,

and carve a cross of wood for you,

and wear a crown of thorns for you,

would you grant me peace?

If I should find the Promised Land,

and scorch my feet on burning sands,

and free my soul with tight clasped hands,

would you grant me peace?

If I commit to the valley of death,

and with my very last whisper, in still bated breath,

give all that I have till I’ve nothing left,

would you grant me peace?

Tomas Bird - Shallow Sea 2013

Alone on a Train

Upon this seat on which I sit,

I count my last ten cigarettes,

I count my last ten silver disks,

and slowly start to reminisce

 

about the pin-pricked starry skies,

when in the dark, they guide my eyes.

About the brighter, sunny days,

when in the light, I'm warmed by rays

 

of summer’s love and laughing friends,

and summer’s styles and pretty trends,

and summer’s carefree attitude;

I absorbed this all in solitude.

 

Although alone, I was content,

I chose bars void of eloquence,

so I could sit and drink in peace,

my summer thoughts slowly released.

 

But on this seat on which I've sat,

and counted my last this and that,

I slowly start to realise,

I cannot see with my closed eyes.

Tomas Bird - Shallow Sea 2013

Never Again, Always

Never again will I see his grey eyes,

shake his rough hand, or stand tall by his side.

Never again will he hoot his young laugh,

his joy like a brook, my soul like a raft.

Never again will I hear his kind words,

"I'm proud of you, lad, stick in and work hard."

Never again will he head out at dawn,

with me at his side, his childhood re-born.

Always, always I shall remember though,

his loving heart was like an open book.

He shared his eighty three year old pages

with all, and all whom he shared with was touched

by his selfless warmth - the kind that melts snow.

Blessed am I, in his life I partook,

my hero, my grandfather, my sage –

his wise voice so clear,

the beat of The Cut.

Tomas Bird - Shallow Sea 2013

6pm till 7pm

We push a dull, greyish-white,

scored button and pause

for the chipped-nicked, creaking

door to yawn.

We ascend the scuff-scraped, over mopped

linoleum clad stairs.

Down scented strips of disinfectant,

we pass rented units filled with breathing, weathered-blotched skin.

We dispense a jelly like placebo

and try to ignore the reverberating gurgling maladies.

I place a gentle kiss on her soft cheek

and ask, “how are you feeling, Gran?”

Her withered eyes flutter open for but a second

and she smiles her last goodbye to me.

I hold her frail hand, “Go to my granddad,” I say,

“go to your Andy.”

And so she does.

Tomas Bird - Shallow Sea 2013