He’s stone cold sober, he walks in quite alone
Diners raise their gazes, his head, tilts to check his phone
Takes a table in the corner, pulls his chair in tight	 
He catches no one’s eyes stares out the window, into the black of night

The man in the restaurant, his story untold, behind his 
Fixed smile someone ran off with his soul, don’t you know that
The man in the restaurant he’s dying inside, as he fights
Memories pretending he’s nothing to hide

A foreign waitress politely asks “Sir, will you be dining tonight”?	        
He orders from the a la carte and a single glass of white wine
He’s still, he waits and a circle of tension weaves around his table   
Inside his head, it’s exploding with his thoughts, and he’d run if he felt able
	     	
Without warning he jumps to his feet, storms past discerning diners
Demands to see the maitre d’, though the food could not be finer
Arms raised in front of blood shot face “Sir, are you alright”?

Man In The Restaurant

Would have been good, to be asked
Let’s face it, it was the last
Thing on your mind, at the time
Just get through it, it’s hardly a crime

All the right noises, made in advance
You let her believe the ebullient stance
When it spilled over, held some sway
So cruelly snatched away
           
It was only a party, I hear you say
Only a party in your mind and hang what’s left behind

Let’s pretend, she doesn’t exist
Let’s pretend, all thoughts dismissed
Let’s not think, it’s come and gone
Shrug your shoulders and let’s move on

It was only a party, I hear you say
Only a party in your mind and hang what’s left behind

Compounded from 10 years of pain
What she did to you was never explained
Maybe one day you’ll understand
Won’t hold my breath, keep it underhand 

Only a party, I hear you say 
Like the fading light at the end of the day
Only a party, in your mind
Only a party and hang what’s left behind

Only A Party

Winter in Madrid, the man at the gig counting down his working days
Regaling stories of bundled regrets, a lifetime’s malaise
A banker of decades standing, a release in his creative writing
Took 20 years, 800 pages, his friends didn’t read it and the irony is biting

The man at the gig, he loves the band, but
Just 10 minutes in offers his right hand, he says 
It’s time to go, I’ve seen it all before, and the singer he can’t sing anymore
And like the Man in the Restaurant, the Man at the Gig
Is losing his internal fight, he turns around and disappears into the night

37 years, she’s been the only one but now she hates his new tattoos 
He’s given his all, always been there for them, but should he twist now and risk losing it all
Should he hide in his music, his books and allotment, or get lost in the sequel 
Will it be enough in the golden years, is he equal to what lies ahead?

Man at the Gig

The more that I learn, the less I understand
As this world spins around me
The older I get, the less that I know
Of the world that surrounds me

We have the power, but we’re not responsible
Little men with plastic minds craving isolation
I feel giddy, the world spins around me
We pray they’re for turning our private desperation

No one hears the voices of the seven out of ten
Feeling like fools, standing on the sidelines watching the lunatics
Playing out some crazy movie right before our eyes it’s out of control
Searching for a grain of truth in a web of lies

Who are we to deny opportunity? 
Who are we to close down choice? 
What right do we have to make their world a smaller place?
No one seems to care no one hears their voice

The More I Learn

Like some gnarled and ancient baton, passed on down through the ages
Tales get twisted, bent from shape, truth lost from missing pages
It’s just the way it was, it is, and ever will be
Fledgling thoughts annulled, this is what you will believe 

Love and hatred, confirmation  
Compassion and humility
Prejudice predetermined 
So many roads – don’t make up his mind

Honourable and well intended, pre chosen as the only way 
Don’t regard the mirror deeply, or hierarchy’s deep disgrace
It’s just the way it was, it is, and ever will be
You are the chosen one, all I want is to breathe

Predetermined Again

Atocha

Took a roundabout way to finally find you
The endless meandering and bumps in the road
But oh when I did, I finally discovered
What being in love means and what it’s like to strike gold

No flash in the pan, no two year wonder  
The decades stretch on, we’re not news anymore
Still I reach for your hand as the TV drones on
Unhearing, not watching I’m lost in the glow

When I say you’re beautiful you think I’m blinded by love
Well I know it’s not true, if you stood in my shoes
You would see the love that I feel everyday 

When the demons creep in, when worry takes over
When my complex mind it seems to explode
You restore the peace, my strength and my rock               
You say everything’s OK and I know that it’s true

My choice of long words, the world’s worst romantic
You forgive the sceptic, poor excuses, the cynic
But my heart is so true and I’ll do right by you
We still fall about laughing we can flourish and thrive

When I Say You're Beautiful

In the shadow of a war-torn dawn,  he journeyed west to carry on 
From fields of Poland, skies of grey,  to the island’s shore a world away  
A fighter pilot in the night,  wings of freedom for the fight  
But when the battles came to cease,  he failed to find his inner peace
  
Oh Stan you wandered far from home  
A ghost among the streets you roamed  
Those winter nights, a photograph, a memory 
Of a man who lost his destiny

English rose with eyes of blue, a love he thought would see him through 
But with her gone  his world unwound, his luck had finally run aground
He made his bed in the station’s fold,  a silent sentinel in the cold  
No drink, no smoke, no words to say,  his life had seemed to slip away  

Oh Stan, you wandered far from home    
A ghost among the streets you roamed
North London’s alleys Camden’s lights  
A man who lost his will to fight  

As your story starts to fade, there’s those who still know your name
Stan the Polish, the story goes, weaved into every cobblestone
Forgotten few but still remembered , in those hearts is how it ended   
To fight, to love, to lose, to roam, until the day you find your home

Stan

It could be an old piano, wrapped in blue
Could be a pile of breeze blocks hidden from view
But the bright tarpaulin starts shifting on its own
An arm appears, then there’s a face, then a home

Bench people you look like you’re watching TV
In zen like contemplation and blind to the likes of you and me

Sitting there on their bench watching the world go by 
Swaddled in a pile of old blankets under the leaden sky
Faces on a passing bus turn to stare
These people, do they really live there?

Bench people you look like you’re watching TV    
In zen like contemplation and blind to the likes of you and me
The screeching Deliveroos, the roar of the bus
There but for the grace of god, sit you and not us
Bench people, it seems like I’m watching TV

Hipster barbers, bao bun places
Anonymous people with their long lost faces
Market stalls serving up artisan gin
They don’t give a fuck about you about him
 
Bench people who look like they’re watching TV
The elected self-righteous blind to what they will and won’t see 
The screeching Deliveroos, the roar of the bus
We all count our blessings it’s them and not us
Bench people, they look like they’re watching TV

Marshall

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