1. OPENING

2. TELL ME I’M A FOOL

My lips are quivering, I don’t know why.

My hips are shivering, like paper in the sky.

I’m made of heaven’s skin, too alert to everything,

Maybe I’m just afraid to die.

I’ve seen good people come and suffer the rot of age,

When God came to claim His Son, He did so in a rage.

I’m made of heaven’s skin, too alert to everything,

Awaiting death’s eternal prize.

Tell me I’m a fool, tell me I’m a fool, please

Tell me, I’m a fool.

The wind is spun by hand, to whisper up the glen,

Making the hard river calm, and babies out of men.

I’m made of heaven’s skin, overthinking everything,

I feel a worry in me rise.

My lips are quivering, I don’t know why.

My hips are shivering, like paper in the sky.

I’m made of heaven’s skin, too alert to everything,

Maybe I’m just afraid to die.

Maybe I’m just afraid

Tell me I’m a fool, tell I’m a fool,

Tell me, I’m a fool.

Tell me I’m a fool, tell I’m a fool, 

It is better to be stupid than be sane.

3. NO COUNTRY FOR YOUNG MEN

I sit alone, no jobs for the bachelor,

Looking into rivers, singin' a swimming song,

I walk to school, 8 years ended, still a fool.

I am a weed, given no ground,

I am a woman, born the wrong way ‘round,

Underneath my feet, a city

Waits like a woman.

House bare and empty,

Guarded and barred,

Stares through Black eyeholes,

Can't tell the goons from the guards.

4. DALY’S WELL

5. LIFE’S NEW HAIRCUT

Life got a new haircut,

A choice you could call rash,

Bleach and three fringes,

And a great big moustache.

Nothing can be done, when nothing's in your hands.

Let the scissors come, rearrange the land.

Getting funny looks from,

People bustling by,

Flat caps on their heads,

Hiding what's inside.

Blocking out the sun, a quiff to beat the band.

Let the razor come, rearrange

The land is bowling over, hiding from the rain

Of stray hairs falling, across the open plain.

Life looks very different, as the barber lifts his comb,

And looking in the mirror, 

Says “Aren't you glad we're not alone?”

Glad we're not alone

Aren't you glad we're not alone

Looking in the mirror.

6. GOOD FRIDAY

On a Monday morning, from a stupor I did sprout,

Raving in an ale house, 'til my money all ran out,

I did not need direction, it was my conscience called me out, where

Chats are cheap and talk is often free.

When I'm in a mirror, my appearance is not so odd,

I change clothes, more than a grave-digger turns the sod, 

A devil in the darkness, I'm a different man before God, 

And when the Devil is listening.

The wind tonight is howling up the alleys,

The moon is like the barrel of a gun. And the

Give and get, hasn't changed me yet,

I will keep you always in my mind.

I can see my funeral, and there's no one in the church

From the pulpit, all across the seats,

Through the mountains, over fields, and back to this alley, 

Eighty-odd years of living to be free.

The wind tonight is howling up the alleys,

The moon is like the barrel of a gun. And the

Give and get, hasn't changed me yet,

I will keep you always in my mind.

7. GIVEN IN THE DARK

Hard gift given in the dark,

Touch wood,

Bending beyond lines of thought.

No one helps, nor any eye see,

Scraps for a dog, nice thoughts only.

Power, fill me to my neck,

Touch wood, 

Bending beyond over backwards.

Touched and trembling,

Thank you, hello,

And hard gift given in the dark.

8. KING JESSUP’S NINE TRIALS

1) Execution, 

2) Prosecution, 

3) Elevation over fire.

4) Incarceration, 

5) Laceration to the face and brow bearing a crown of wire.

His eyes are made of tears and perspiration under Middle Eastern sun,

Heaven waits for King Jessup, when His final hour comes.

6) Self-flagellation (the wasps are stinging themselves dry), 

7) Course gravel to knees, jagged sand to the thigh 

Uttering holy curses, 

Is it better to die for your parish than for old orders from on high, with the whites of our eyes, 

Maybe everything's changed and satan's in the sky,

And congregations burst through the church doors each Sunday, safe from the flames licking the windows, and they’ll count their beads 'til they get what they long for and need, not knowing they're all already in Hell,

8) With a surge of wet steel the Earth's curses are lifted, and Heaven revealed through the wound and through space. 

Before dying he catches God's face and in agony screams "Get me out of this place", 

But the bell has been rung, as His name loudly sung is bounced up and down through the cracked rafters and into the bread and the cup and the ending comes after, ended with a tongue that could tell stories if it had eyes, to shock and recoil but to no one's surprise, as the dead are lifted from the hollows of earth, 

Too young to remember dying, but too old to forget, 

Could they see the cruel shovel and knife, as the pious said don't worry young one everything will be alright? 

9) The breath of a mighty storm blows the black habits and robes back to Hell, and the violence aswell,

‘Til all that remains is a gold carcass spread across the world, 

That is dead but is breathing for them without breath.

Three nails, a cross and an ideal son,

Heaven waits for King Jessup, when His nine trials are done.

Dead young lifted, from a long rest. 

Too young to remember dying, Too old to forget.

Earth's floor shifted. 

If I don't want to die for cowards than neither did He.     

9. THIS IS MY BODY

This is my body now, like it or not.

The price of exercise when the exercising stops.

She said she’d love me with a body or without,

I find that hard to believe, when I look down and I can't see my feet.

This is my body now, I think I must accept.

Feed a man for seven years and he’ll widen his neck.

And now I'm stood here, in front of my own reflection

Stripped from head to toe, 

How can she love a human potato?

Now my lips are bare. I'm ready to be kissed.

My clothes are on the floor, and there's no hiding anymore. 

She said she’d love me with a body or without

I find that hard to believe, when I look down and can't see my feet.

I find that hard to swallow, when the words 'I love you' follow,

I can't get on board, when I split clothes she can't afford,

Stripped from head to toe, how can she love me? I don't know

This flesh will perish, and no love lost. And we'll get nourished, and at no cost.

This flesh will perish, and at no cost. And we'll get nourished, and no love lost.

10.  NO MORE DOGS

No more dogs bark,

In this old home,

Holes in the garden,

Full of bones.

Times were good,

When all was safe,

But life is hard, 

Home and away.

Life's too long to be invested,

Death will come when least expected,

Under boot, or wheel of wagon,

Fur consigned to ground.

Blame the hills with roads to wander, curse the forest's hooded dark,

Not the Man above who lent his cough to be your puppy's bark.

Times were good when all was safe,

But life is hard, home and away.

Life's too long to be invested,

Death will come when least expected,

Under boot, or wheel of wagon,

Fur consigned to ground.

11. LANDLORD’S HUM

Stir not,

Talk none,

Waste not,

The young.

Big man,

At command,

Old songs,

Arm bands

Man at the door looking for my river running underneath the floor

All ideal, no want anymore, coins on the counter

I hear the armed men come, singin’ a song called the Landlord’s Hum,

I hear the old men come, singing a song.

12. NO SNITCH

Dalkey water freezing in the season of the drought,

Out to water, back to bay, like

Any ordinary day, 

Fondly, the moon pulls my body in,

Never asked for, nor neither refused.

Happiness like Nausea comes and goes,

Though the text is written there is error in the prose,

I’ll Hate you forever for what you’ve done,

I’ll Hate you forever, 

I’ll Hate you forever for what you’ve done

Change across a distance cannot be measured by hand,

Letters unanswered or shunned, the

Water and the sand.

Never asked for, nor neither refused,

Led along the garden to a gate I can't get through

Happiness like Trauma comes and goes,

Though the text is written there is error in the prose,

I’ll Hate you forever for what you’ve done,

I’ll Hate you forever, 

I’ll Hate you forever, for what you’ve done 

Now I am angry,

God knows why,

God knows lots of things,

But God’s no snitch, God’s no snitch ya-

Now I’m fucking angry,

Heaven knows why,

Heaven knows lots of things,

But God’s no snitch, God’s no snitch no-

Now I am angry, 

God knows why, 

God knows lots of things, but 

God’s no snitch, God’s no snitch no-

I’m so fucking angry,

Heaven knows why,

God knows lots of things,

But God’s no snitch God’s no snitch no- God’s no snitch God’s no snitch now.

I’ll hate you forever - I’ll hate you forever - I’ll hate you forever

13. THE LONG MEADOWS

I fell to sleep; 

I dreamed a love and it came to me -

The long meadows,

River slips;

Sliding down a lucky dip.

And when a stream, boy pucked hurley-ball into the dog’s mouth,

In dying, made boy bigger -

That’s how the hound got in us,

The bed bare where river dry,

Great Irish famine suit and tie.

I fell to sleep,

I dreamed a love and it came to me.

The long meadows,

River slips,

Neverending peak and dip.

Ah - Ie

O my friend,

I’m so tired and weary

Trauma’s own baby, old as oak,

Great Irish joke -

The hunger spoke;

The dying drained their river,

That’s how it got in us

That’s how it got in us

That’s how it got in us,

The bed bare where river dry

Locked out

Locked out

Locked out

Locked out of the next life