Picture now if you are able
White cloth covered kitchen table
One man sits among his own life stains
Trying to squeeze some fools-gold wisdom
Through the gaping hole in his reasoning
And wrestling with the blank space that remains
He sinks into his minds eye corner
Joins the stream of hopes and schemes
As the void bursts into fantasy and dreams

North had jumped to 4 spades
Broke her heart and palmed the diamonds
Still the laughing mute with baited breath
Was fishing for chance answers to her quest

The dealers's hand was led and lost
South won the game but paid full cost
Your fate is sealed in a self addressed stamped envelope
"Can you guess the rest," she said

And down by the corner a sidecar is rammed
Two plastic containers are holding my hand
They've been trying to stretch me into an elastic band
Performing silent songs for humanity

So I stand beneath the memory sieve
And watch the fractured images
That drift anf fade before my vacant gaze
Wondering just where I've been
What was heard and done and seen
That dictates the blank space I'm in today

But there's a light in the sky
As the underground flies by
See the pen and ink are drawing close
A picture line and hook secure the past.

There's a highrise mental block scarred land
Where knots are tied by idle hands
And multinational man with government plans
Sells sticking tape to a million hungry mouths
He's like a razor that walks on a tightrope of hair
A face with no sockets that's continually staring
You can nail our hands to your napalm plans
But our hearts are determined
To share the world with dignity.

Richard Heley