Writing good songs is hard to do

Richard Thompson ringing

around my head

The songs he is singing

are unlimited

His fine stories he tells

In words so fair

While my poems they fall

on empty air

He writes songs of love

and of Heartbreak too

While my efforts at rhyme

Are all a bit poo

 

Poem quoting out of context song lyrics

Oft repeated lines

closed, interstitial times

Never failed to democratise,

criticise the eyes that light up

when you shut up

and go your own way

so far away,

singing a song that’s not your own

in a land where you’re unknown

and you see the signs in those oft repeated lines

text and ties, unloved and foreign

played for a fool, not your time

used your tongue to tie around the neck

of a slippery fish, not to be seen

to be obscene, ludicrous

a joke, not funny though, a lack of euro

not young, not thin, not full of wine

a chailín óg na mbriathar what could you possibly find

in this Wreck, this sandbar, this sunken face

where are those oft repeated lines

the signs o’ the times,

between the signs of age

not your words, nor mine falling on their page

but I digress, I feel pain in my chest,

a heartsick pain, a desire for your flow

unkindness wilting in your shadow

Oft repeated lines, running down my face,

silver whiskers on my brows and chin

running from an angel, running on empty

Running out of words and my well runs dry,

Who will repeat my words if I do not?

Words are all I have, and oft repeated

lines