This Strange Engine

<br>There was a boy who came into this world at the hands of a holy woman in a<br>holy place<br>He wore a red coat and walked a bulldog-saw them reflected in the mirror of<br>the lakes<br>Lived in the shadow of the mountains with the smells of disinfectant,<br>dusty old leather and the polished wood of his bed<br>No more than a baby feeding swans on the river holding the hands of his<br>mother,<br>and the wax paperbag of yesterdays bread<br>And his father on the other side of the world<br>On the ships railings and some far away tide<br>With the silent dry tear of home thoughts from abroad in his far away eyes<br>In his faraway eyes<br>The smell of the wax on the wooden floor<br>Mixture of polish and soap<br>No children to fear or to play with<br>Rows of empty hooks for the coats<br>An upright piano and the boys in the choir<br>Still remind him of just before he was born<br>Remind him of just before he was breathing<br>Strange misty visions of God<br>Turn the cities into families<br>Into villages of souls<br>Hovering in the air while they`re sleeping<br>With their houses invisible<br>Running as fast as I could run<br>Send to me the ghosts of Christmas<br>Whispering: "You`re the only one"<br>And ever since I was a boy<br>I never felt that I belonged<br>Like everything they did to me<br>Was an experiment to see<br>How I would cope with the illusion<br>In which direction would I jump<br>Would I do it all the same<br>As the actors in the game<br>Or would I spit it back at them<br>And not get caught up in their rules<br>And live according to my own<br>And not be used<br>To find the fundamental truths<br>It was going to take some time<br>Thirty five summers down the line<br>The wisdom of each passing year<br>Seems to serve only to confuse<br>Daddy came out the navy and took us away to his dirty gray home town<br>And he worked down on a coal mine for National Service so that he could be<br>around<br>There was a magical purple in the chrome of the exhaust of his triumph motor<br>bike<br>And a warmth of oil and metal and the thrill of the hard corner holding tight<br>From the horizon..<br>To buried alive<br>Took his dream underground<br>Buried his treasure in his faraway eyes.<br>And one day as the boy lay sleeping in the sunshine of a half remembered<br>afternoon<br>A cloud of bees with no particular aim, and no brain<br>Found the boy, decided that his time had come<br>Came down out of the sky.<br>Stung him in the face. Again and again. Blue pain.<br>Screaming like baptism<br>Intraveinous, Jesus!. Like being chosen.<br>Blue pain from something with no brain. I can`t explain<br>It`s happening again.<br>Oh mummy, daddy, will you sit a while with me<br>Oh mummy, daddy, will you jog my memory. Tell me<br>Tall tales of Montego Bay, Table mountain, Flying fish, Banana spiders, Pots<br>of paint<br>And the sun on the equator<br>Setting like an ember thrown to deep water<br>From crimson to black.<br>But coming back..<br>Tomorrow on the horizon<br>The blue pain<br>Fades to a point where it doesn`t fade<br>It stayed..<br>Blue<br>Stirred his red coat heart to his strange engine<br>This love<br>This love<br>This inconvenient, blind, blood-diamond<br>This puzzle I don`t understand<br>That knows no faith<br>And tries and fails<br>And tries again<br>Stares at the sea<br>The night`s dark deep<br>For one last time<br>And bleeds And bleeds<br>And dies for you.<br>And lies<br>And is to blame.<br>And is ashamed.<br>And is not the same.<br>And is true.