Simon Joyner

John Train's Blues

Simon Joyner


The ripples crawl into the past as easily as they travel forward 
Across the mast to seduce the sails which sway above an anchor 
Into the ocean of your yearning blue and vast and unrestrained 
It's here not there that they reside unsettling what's remained unsettling what's remained 

I will not speak of love with words that sting or fertilise flowers 
I do not wish to flatter or to sling uneasy arrows at flesh harbours 
Where swims the ache of eternity bedridden but never sleeping 
Cause it's here where all the hope hides out to listen to the ancient beating to listen to the ancient beating 

I watch a bottle tangle with a girl made out of paper 
It all happened so fast I and in the pitch black I didn't see him rape her 
But I found her ripped and soaking the bottle staggered off confused 
The shattered himself against a post After whistling John Trains Blues After whistling John Trains Blues 

I changed when you died and I never returned. It rained around my eyes 
We painted and paraded our memories and planted yew in the hillsides 
From the cracks in your bone grew a grey stone and now I visit you instead 
Your cowboy dreams are gold dust gathering in the fountains of my head in the fountains of my head 

When the firing squad of loneliness discharges in the darkness 
A child will rip at the grass to teach his new found tongue a question 
Between my head and my boots I take and blend all these colours of the rainbow 
And the ladders in my eyes extend into what I do not know into what I do not know