The Fire Has Brought Us Together

Keep the engine running I’ll sing you a song:

it all goes right till it all goes wrong

Everything sugary and fuelled with science.

There was a man and he was me:

all as vivid as it could be

back in the American Century

(with a rigorous programme of defiance)

All quite factually banal

stimulating as a root canal

incurable as some diseases

When we all discovered how weird things are

all the skeletons singing in the Dalloway bar

with the ‘ying-tong ying tong’ ‘oom-pah-pah’

(and the wild wind blows wherever it pleases)

all of this mercy has fallen away

if it was up to me

the fire has brought us together

there would be something special where there used to be

no more than this…

the fire has brought us together

well a the ghost and me

all went out on the terrible sea

and as we gazed at the primitive ocean -

to a muscular rhythm on the barreling oars -

I wondered why my spirit soared

and was I feeling a pure emotion?

for the ocean’s meaningless and immense

and, it was clear that these events

had overwhelmed our usual praxis

I said:  ‘shantih shantih - praise the Lord’

but the paralysing rattle on the slippery boards

had neutralised my prophylaxis

all of this mercy has fallen away

if it was up to me

the fire has brought us together

there would be something ringing where the bells should be

no more than this…

the fire has brought us together

brought us together…

Well there it is, I don’t know why

there’s a fearsome clarity I can’t deny -

I’m contemplating what its face is…

In Tracy’s desecrated bed

or in the disused Wexford shed,

down in the Valley of the Dead …

…and many of those kinds of places…

and this cluster of events

as we watch they all condense

into something quietly tragic

gazing up at the fathomless stars:

(that one’s Venus, which one’s Mars?)

Om-Mani-Padmi - Ooh La La!

got no use for that kind of Magic…

all of this mercy has fallen away

if it was up to me

the fire has brought us together

There will be something beautiful and clean and free

No more than this

The fire has brought us together

and if I had my way

I would save this nonsense for another day

no more than this

The fire has brought us together

If it was up to me

There would be something special where there used to be

No more than this

The Fire has brought us together

brought us together

no more than this

no more than this…