She’s always thinking of how to help the ones she loves,
So she’s spent an hour staring at the phone.
Whishing that she didn’t have to call,
to make real after all That she won’t be coming home…

But there’s just no guarantee she’d arrive COVID free
and her mother’s not doing very well.
She never thought she’d chose to be alone,
to spend Christmas far from home.

First Christmas, away from home.

I could tell you that your love is far more fine than any sand
Finer than the finest cloth touched by a master’s hand
Finer than any watchman’s works to ever tell the time,
Finer than a vintner can make his best-aged wine.

I could go a very different route and talk about a rose.
I could talk about a living friendship; a love that grows and grows
But my words can only fail me, and it is time, I suppose,
To accept that my love for you cannot fit within my prose.

The words I want to use are the grandest of the grand,
I beg my muse, I threaten, I coerce and I demand,
To have the perfect words, to make you understand,
But the best that I can do is to simply take your hand and say I love you.

The cold wind blows.

That cold north wind, That wicked wind.
The damp that cuts you to the skin
You promised that you’d leave this pen
You swore you’d never see again
But summer’s gone, your trapped within…

And so it goes.

Summer jobs paid winter bills,
The binge that warmed you through the chills
That got you through last winter’s ills
All those Goddamned little pills
That kept you mind off cold grey hills

This life you choose.

This land ain’t what it aught to be.
You thought you’d find prosperity.
Now you find you live of charity
With happiness a rarity
In a land of bipolarity

And the cold wind blows.

She peddled her fish at the fair
She did what she did with a flair
Her parents before her
Did strongly implore her
To sell fish and fend off despair

You don’t hold despair off for long
Too many things simply go wrong.
As her parents, they cried,
She took fever and died,
But she lives on forever in song.

The past and future gather here,
For all who care to gather near
The fiddle calls the dancer’s round
As accordions and banjos sound
A caller calls us out to dance,
Around the maypole, children prance
Now as closing time draws near
I’m blessed by you all gathered near.

I thank you for the time we’ve spent
Though the time it was not long.
I thank you for companionship,
For dancing and for song!
I thank you for the time we’ve spent,
And time we’ve yet to spend.
But most of all I’m thankful that I can call you friend.

Though we haven’t known each other long
With some folks you just feel like you belong,
You feel the need at least for one more song,
When you know the road ahead of you is long
And I must admit I can not comprehend
The different ways our lives and stories wend.
Or why I’m certain that we’ll meet again,
Or why I know I’ve found in you a friend.

All too soon I’m way to high
I wave to you a soft goodbye
You may see me in the sky
As you drive to somewhere new
This plane will take me far away,
You car will dive you on your way
It’s the nomad’s price we pay,
“Hello and adieu”

And though it’s sad to go our separate ways
I’ve not seen my own bed for days
And though I’ll go anywhere that pays
a girl back home that fills me with clichés’
And I haven’t seen her in quite awhile,
It’s too long since I’ve seen her smile
I’ll share with you many a mile…
but at home I have to rest awhile.

At home I have to rest awhile.

Don’t take my sleep away from me!
Waking up is such misery!
Sleep until the sky is blue,
‘cus waking up is hard to do,.

Remember when, you said sleep tight,
I should be sleeping all through the night!
Let me sleep the whole night through,
‘cus waking up is hard to do.

They say that waking up is hard to do.
Now I know, I know that it’s true
Don’t say that night’s at an end.
Instead of waking up I wish that I could hit the snooze again.

I beg of you… please comply.
Don’t you know my sleep’s in short supply!
A full night’s sleep is overdue.
And waking up is hard to do

You can’t know what lies in store, in the world outside your door.
Caution and kindness, and trouble on the wind!
You can not lie in fear, of things you should not hear,
You are surrounded by your own, your friends and your kin.

Sleep my love, in your dreams your dreams you must pursue
Sleep my love, for your dreams will guide and shelter you.
Do not fear what the world brings for tomorrow the world is born anew.
Sleep my dear, sleep my love, for the world will be dreaming too.

The world inside your head, as you lay back in your bed,
Cotton candy trees under rainbows in the sky.
It’s a world that you own, let it be your home,
Until you wake tomorrow morning, and your dreams teach you to fly.

And then tomorrow morn, once you’ve lost this morning’s scorn,
The nasty names, the hurtful games that made you almost cry
A new and better day will bring a new and better way,
And tomorrow’s new horizons will kiss today’s regret goodbye.

So sleep my love, in your dreams your dreams you must pursue
Sleep my love, for your dreams will guide and shelter you.
Do not fear what the world brings for tomorrow the world is born anew.
Sleep my dear, sleep my love, for the world will be dreaming too.

Call me a hack, but I’d rather sing a disco.
Or listen to a third grade talent show.
But I must eat, and pay rent on my condo.
So Danny boy, oh Danny boy, I “love” you so.

And as you watch, you’ll see my spirit dying.
I’ll sing the song, though dead the song might be.
When I say I love the song; I’m lying,
Please still kneel, and leave some cash for me.

And I shall smile, as coins they shower around me.
And my abode will warmer, sweeter be,
I’ll pay my bills, with music that confounds me,
And this song’s allure will always puzzle me.

© 2005, Kevin McClear

Through wind and snow, through weathered blow she saw her crewmen home.
Through snapped spars, through broken shrouds, through oceans white with foam.
She’s worked hard, and with her crews, she’s built a strong rapport
Her lines now marred in the breakers’s yard, she’ll go to sea no more.

This grand dame, now without her name, waits upon the morning light.
Tomorrow we do our breaker’s work, but she’s still whole tonight.
One last night see her whole, to admire and adore
She dies tomorrow in the breaker’s jaw, she’ll go to sea no more.

Her woodwork tells of bygone skills used in days of yore.
The Craftmen’s skill built a hull that’s solid to the core,
With a chain saw and with no such skill I’ll do what I deplore.
Salvage blends with scavenge, and she’ll go to sea no more.

I retain a copyright on all my work. (c)2004