For the beauty

For the beauty, give me some to ease
For it’s the beauty that’s got its claws in me

There is an ache in our steps as walk through the streets
But it’s the beauty that stops me and brings to my knees

For the pain, we live with our pain
Each day we manage our pain

In the hum of its song there is comfort and calm
But it’s the beauty that sears through me and tears at my heart

You stepped off the ledge, clawed at the air
Crawled up the stairwell to throw yourself again

Just to feel, to love, to live, to try, to feel, to live, to love, to try

For the beauty give me something please
For it’s the beauty that’s killing me
I can’t trust it anymore or rely on its truth
It pulls me right to it then makes a show of its abuse

You stepped off the ledge, clawed at the air
Crawled up the stairwell to throw yourself again

Just to feel, to love, to live, to try, to feel, to live, to love, to try
To feel, to love, to live, to try, to feel, to live, to love, to fly

Stuart A. Staples 2018

The amputees

We are the amputees, cut off at our knees
Something tickling at our feet
No more the sufferers, the dull thud of us
Once our heels, they clacked in these streets

I miss you so bad

We are the stigmatized, the prosthetisized
Our love and our hate smoothed and shined
No more extremities, no more possibilities
Like forgotten skittles we wait for our strike

I miss you so bad

If I could lean to you, I’d whisper in your ear
If I could reach for you, I’d touch you, I’d touch you, I’d touch you, I’d touch you
I miss you so bad
I miss you so
I miss you so bad

Miss you so, miss you, I miss you
I miss you so bad

Miss you so, miss you, I miss you
I miss you so
I miss you so bad

Stuart A. Staples 2019

Trees fall

The hum, somebody turned off the hum
Has the juice run out again?
Shall we sit in the dark and tell our old stories?
Oh no, not that one again, but we were happy then
Now we laugh the laughter of a laughter remembered

And oh, trees fall with no one to hear
Tears fall into our beer
And we laugh that laughter remembered

And oh, it’s so dark on the stairs
And the air is thick and stale
The laughter bumps through the walls
And oh, are we tied to those moments for good?
The way the light was, the salt of or skin and the smell of the ocean

And oh, trees fall with no one to hear
Tears fall into our beer
And we laugh that laughter remembered

The hum, somebody turned off the hum
Has the juice run out again?
Shall we sit in the dark and tell our old stories?
Oh no, not that one again, but we were happy then
Now we laugh that laughter remembered

And oh, trees fall with no one to hear
Tears fall into our beer
And we laugh that laughter remembered
And oh, are we tied to those moments for good?
The way the light was, the salt of or skin and the smell of the ocean

Stuart A. Staples 2019

Pinky in the daylight

With your lip bit and your nails too
Your hair pinned and falling down
With your elbows extended
I follow the shape of your brow
And there’s a new kind of beauty
That I’ve never seen before
In the flickering of a candle
The paint on my brush

Pinky in the daylight, crimson at night, how I love you

Silvery in the moonlight
Like dusk on the sea
Standing at your shoreline
An ocean at my feet
And in those moments I am ready
I am humbled and I am free
And I can feel all those colours baby
Pour back into me

Pinky in the daylight, crimson at night, how I love you

And in those times when I was blinded
And colours faded away
Bleached by my own sadness
I was slipping into the grey
(But now I see)

Pinky in the daylight, crimson at night, how I love you

Stuart A. Staples 2018

Carousel

This old carousel keeps on turning
This old carousel keeps on turning, keeps on turning
Worn smooth, faces, voices, broken, cracking
Bright blue eyes in the darkness, passing lovers
Chances taken, good times used
Good times used.

On that old carousel we refused
We rode and we rode and we made believe
Naked watching the snow falling, it burned our skin
On that old carousel we shouted our love
We shouted our love

Tell me it wasn’t all for nothing
That we weren’t just taking our time before we caved in
Those moments shared, they meant something didn’t they?
That intimacy wasn’t all for nothing
We had something that was ours, tell me
We had something that was ours

Stuart A. Staples 2019

Take care in your dreams

From those places so sure
You can fall so far
In those moments so certain
You must listen to your heart

And take care in your dreams

And when the ground gets shaky
And the world seems wrong
And everyone is faking
That’s when you learn to be strong

And take care in your dreams
Take care when you dream
Take care with your dreams
Be there in your dream

Stuart A. Staples 2019

See my girls

As I sit here attending my news stand
The water lapping ‘round my little island
My girls are running around the world
See the pictures above my cash register
They see the world and they send it me home
They take pictures with their cameras
They see the world and they send it back home
I stick the pictures above my cash register
They see the world and they send it me home

See my girls on the Headerwick buses
They like the energy of London town
A cooking pot with so many flavours
They taste the world and they send it me home
Taking picture at the Eiffel tower
Taking pictures on the Grand canal
I stick the pictures above my cash register
They see the world and they send it me home

See my girls, see my girls

And they dream of returning to this little island
The most beautiful island in this world

Riding camels in the Sahara
They see the pyramids across the Nile
On a boat in the Amazonia
They see these things and they send it me home
The tall buildings of the Americas
Skyscrapers as they are known
They take pictures with their cameras
They see the world and they send it me home

See my girls, see my girls

And they dream of returning to this little island
The most beautiful island in this world

Taking pictures in the planetariums
They take their pictures in the Grand Bazars
With the horses of Buenos Aries
And the antelopes of Africa
At the grave of the great Bob Marley
The slanty pillars of Park Guelle
With statues of Piazzolla

They see the world and they send it me home

See my girls, see my girls

So many tears shed into this ocean
So many innocent lost souls
So many cries of desperation
Washed up on these shores

Among the crosses in the hills of Flanders
At the gates of Birkenau
The killing fields of Cambodia
They see the world and they send it back me home

See the beauty of the great Damascus
And of the babies of South Yemen
The security barriers of Jerusalem
They see the world and they send it to me

With the turtles of kefalonia
With the dolphins of Donegal
The great oak tree in the hills of Paulhac
They see the world and they send it me home

Stuart A. Staples 2019

The old man’s gait

Neither kind or unkind
Neither absent or present
Just a reflection
It’s just in the way we walk

I walk to my father’s metre, I walk with the old man’s gait
Down past the gasometer and through the estate

Those miscalculated steps
Now he’s not so steady on his pins
Those miscalculations
He was never ready with his affection

He walks with my grandfather’s falter, he walks with the old man’s gait
Not that he ever knew him, just some guy staring at the school fence
Those miscalculated steps
None of us were so good at sums
Those miscalculations
With never the time to make our corrections

And I lifted you up to get a better view.
Your hip pressed against my cheek and your arm fell over the top of my head.
Your fingers playing with my ear.
And we looked at the same thing. And you were my boy.
And then I sat you on the wall, leaned down on my elbows to be by your side.
And you pointed and you told me of everything you could see.

Those miscalculated steps
None of us were so good at sums
Those miscalculations
With never the time to make our corrections

Neither kind or unkind
Neither absent or present
Just a reflection
It’s just in the way we walk

Stuart A. Staples 2019

Tough love

That guy, I’ve seen pictures there on your phone
That guy, sitting around and wearing my clothes

This tough love changed me
This tough love made me

Baby, take my hands and place them on you
Baby, won’t you show me how did you move

This tough life I live
This tough love I give

So tell me what he said
Show me what he did
What he said and what he did
Take me to that man I was

That guy, did he take you somewhere new?
Baby, maybe I can take you there too?

This tough life I live
This tough love is all I have to give

So tell me what he said
Show me what he did
What he said and what he did
Take me to that man I was

This tough life I live
This tough love is all I to give

So tell me what he said
Show me what he did
What he said and what he did
Take me to that man I was

And I know that you still love him so
I know you wait for his return
Your gonna get him back someday

So tell me what he said
Show me what he did
What he said and what he did
Take me to that man I was

Stuart A. Staples 2019

No treasure but hope

No treasure but hope, no treasure
The end of a rope, no pressure

No treasure but hope, no love on our streets, only fear in our hearts
No love on our streets, only fear in our hearts, no treasure but hope

Too many stars for the counting, lessons for the learning
Lessons for remembering
Too many stars for the counting, lessons for the learning
The trick is the escaping

No treasure but hope, no love on our streets, only fear in our hearts
No love on our streets, only fear in our hearts, no treasure but hope

Too many stars for the counting, lessons for the learning,
Lessons for remembering
Too hungry to think of the providence, too angry for the consequence,
We raised our hands for the counting
We raised our hands for the counting, fill our bellies with worms
No treasure but hope

Under a shower of all our days listening to the sunshine burn our lawns
The trick is the escaping
No treasure but hope

Stuart A. Staples 2019