40 years ago was ‘84
and I Relaxed cos I was 17
not knowing I knew nothing about war
or love or hate or anything between,
presuming things would work out as they should
presuming should was something that was standard.
The world was all before me, like a door.
I chose the windows, gazed out at the scene,
stared at love and hate, and glanced at war,
and cursed the glass between
I carefully kept clean.
40 years ago I saw a girl
it was spring, she is becoming a woman,
I’m a man, still with skinny arms,
I drink strong ale to build myself,
I read the papers to become a man,
to know about the world,
to dream of how I’ll walk it,
walking home, butting every bit of tree bark,
how I’ll save it,
I am the man for you my love,
I say this proudly up to every sheet of stars
I lay up under, and I smile at the thunder
coming back,
how, coming back, it hollers with a whisper and a smile.
40 years ago Frankie Says
and much as I wish to be cool
I’m not cool enough still
to wear it, I should have done
20 years ago, might have been important,
but I couldn’t then either, sadly
I was already too old, and torn t-shirts,
being honest, don’t stop warry people
getting down with getting a good war going,
good old funky Tone taught me that,
he was a pedal a good guitar
couldn’t live with long,
specially not live, the phasic horror.
40 years ago was ‘84
and I Relaxed cos I was 17,
I thought the world,
I only thought what everybody thinks,
I think everbody thinks, at least
I thought everybody thinks, or thought I did,
but anyway, the girl becoming a woman
indeed became a woman
but in another nest than mine,
big T kept boogieing and showing off his bombs,
and I fell over in so many midnight pathways
veering home that I’m more intimate
with the starry night than Patrick Moore,
all I can’t do is give the sweethearts names.
Relax.
(David McLintock)
.