Velocity from Affirmation Cities by WAYNE HALFPENNY

Velocity
--------------
1) Hummingbird Time
----------------------
What is it about the young
What compels them to always flitter flutter away
Always in a hurry to be someplace else?
I wrestle with that dark space surrounding me
Emptiness left longing for her company
But I fill these vacant sacks instead with the musing of an old man
Tied off inevitable, slow of movement
Tired
Shuffling from room to lonely room
Counting time as the kitchen clock drones on and on and on ...
She will return, I tell myself
And her bright smile will once again cast out these shadows
What is it about the young
So careless free and wild hovering over fields of hedgerow hope
The world is welcoming her
Wide eyed and innocent as a spring wound back to zero
Yet miss her I will
Sentimental old fool never ventured past that white picket fence
Lived a life through words seeded and virulent
Always circling over the same bland patch
But she will return on the wings of blessed fortune
And wait a time
before alighting again
 
2) If Shakespeare
-------------------------
If Shakespeare ambled round today
Would he scratch out his musings
With a feather quill
Draw inspiration from an overflowing inkwell
Cause that's what he knew
Old habits die hard you know
Would he turn out at the barracks
For a tankard or three and carouse with the bard boys
until the publican poured them all out on the street
Cause that's how you really live
Old friendships tied to the mast of the frigate frozen in the bay

I am betting a thousand gilders he wouldn't forsake his times
But invent a future he would never get to see

And that's the real meaning, you know, of this whole disenchanted thing
The one where imagination plants the forests of tomorrow

 
All artists draw their meticulous verse from the wintry veins
Of gas lit snow dredged back street lanes
Love hearts on frosty panes
The pipe lit from the hearth
Lips pursed
Breathing rings into a veritable furnace
That's what I would expect to see
When Shakespeare projects himself into the centre of attention
In this crowded well-oiled pub
With its garrulous patrons
Taking shouts to skol the schooners

What a strange and interesting man
When he talks as he offhand does often and verily
Merrily verily
I can't understand a bloody word he says
Pooncey showboat skite
So, he probably should have stayed at home tonight
And left me to my reading
 
3) Alone Again?
----------------------
She said to me "do you want to be alone?"
I said "No! Who the fuck wants to be alone?"

• Rock
• singer-songwriter
• Redcliffe