Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS writer.
(Apologies to Bob Dylan)
When your breath gets shallow, and you can’t feel your feet
When the shadows creep into your sunlit street.
When your thoughts turn to dust and your tongue is dry,
When your sword is blunt and clouds fill the sky
When the buzz of a fridge is all you can hear
When you’re standing alone at the end of a pier
When your baby is crying and the bills aren’t paid,
and your lover’s run off with the chamber maid.
When your childhood memories of lush green hills
turn to concrete rivers and plastic thrills
When you see the ball in the back of your net,
the cold air cuts through, and you shiver and sweat.
When your hero gets shot and your words get twisted
and you dig all day till your fingers are blistered.
You’ve walked as far as you can with the sun beating down.
Your thirsty and tired and can’t hear a sound.
The birds start to circle and you fall to your knees,
There’s smoke in your brain and you cough and you wheeze
Your chest start to crumble and you pull at your hair
When you can’t recall if you’re here or there
You’ll want to escape, you’ll want to shut down
You’ll just want to run, disappear out of town
You’ll chase the bright lights and the rainbow swells
You’ll look to the promise of big silver bells,
You’ll disappear to the mountains or fly up the pole,
You’ll dive into the river or a rabbit hole.
You’ll reach for a branch or your mothers hand.
You’ll lose yourself in another’s plan
You’ll hope for the wind to blow the right way,
You’ll jump on the ships sailing out of the bay.
You’ll want for a pretty girl to blow you a kiss,
You’ll look to the eyes of the ones you miss
You’ll do anything you can to get far away
but just remember, in the same park you play
There’s a weary young woman who’s looking for a line
to make sense of the colours, to know she’s not blind
There’s a sea sick lover leaning over the stern
reading poems to the ocean from a heart that burns
There’s an out of work husband, on a lonely park bench
humming a tune to make things make sense
There’s an old army nurse, walking into the cold
reciting a verse her mother once told
There’s a teenage couple, with an old english novel
connecting the dots to get over their trouble
An old lady on a bus is writing down jokes
that she keeps in the pocket of her petticoat.
There’s plenty more people who would only choke
if they couldn’t feel the words that someone else wrote
If they couldn’t understand the land that they stand on
To point to a sign and keep walking strong
To carry a flag, have their wings beat
To laugh at the sky, feel their bodies in sync
So when your breath gets shallow and there’s dirt in your mouth.
When the tide’s pulled out and your birds flown south.
Just stand in the mud with the blood on your face
take a deep breath and fill up the space
Feel the drums start, and the trumpets blow
Pick up your pen, and write what you know.
Tom’s on twitter @thomsorr