YOU KNOW (Never Need to Apologize)

 You know, you never need to apologize for not always keepin’ in touch

As I know this crazy ol’ life can sometimes get a little much

For us to care about anything more than just one thing at a time

So, some things get left on the shelf by accident, not design

 

You know, you never need to apologize for not having something to say

As just having you beside me chases those nasty blues away

Your hand upon my shoulder communicates more than one word ever will

So my friend, you don’t need to say a thing, let’s sit here and be still

 

You know, you never need to apologize for getting things a little wrong

For, my friend, I know the list of my mistakes would extend long

Into the night of honest recollection. So no rush here to critisize, you see

As when my finger points in your direction,

there’s always 3 pointing back at me.

Just One More

JUST ONE MORE

Just one more drink, say it ain’t so
Just one more drink before you’ve got to go
Back to wherever you’ve come from
And I stumble not so merrily all the way home

Just one more dance on the empty bar floor
Just one more dance before you walk out that door
As we sway to the tune of “this much is true”
I catch myself; hold my breath and I look at you

Just one more cigarette before I quit
Just one more cigarette that needs to be lit
While we talk one more time in the cold night embrace
My hand is caught one more time reaching for your face

Just one more kiss on those lonely lips
Just one more kiss before I watch those hips
Move side to side away from me
Stay and confide, don’t you play with me

Just one more drink; just one more kiss
Just one more dance, that would be bliss
Just one more cigarette, don’t want to miss
Any more moments before you disappear
Before I start asking around, “did you see her?”
A tiny drop falls to the ground of just one more tear.

But now, you’re just one more memory
Of someone that I’ve once seen
Just one more memory
Of something that could have been

What Words and Wounds

What words remain unspoken
Or feelings left out of reach
What hearts have been broken
Where departed lovers forced a breach
What dreams are now fading
Out of breath, run out of steam
Things we hoped for, cascading
Away, ripped apart at the seams

What wounds remain unhealed
Covered up by skin and bone
What lips have been long sealed
By things we’re forced to condone
What innocence has been lost
By deeds done for love or war
The dark of the night has left a cost
That too many folk don’t abhor

TULLAMORE FILM CLUB: EASTER WEEK FILMS

PRESS RELEASE

TULLAMORE FILM CLUB: ALTERNATIVE JESUS FILMS
HOLY WEEK

In the world of the sacred and the holy, the word “alternative” can sometimes seem like a dirty word, a profane addition to the vocabulary of the spiritually inclined. Yet it’s precisely the word that Tullamore Film Club chose to headline the selection of films to be shown this coming Holy Week: Monday April 2nd to April 5th in the run up to Easter. From E.T. the classic and much loved sci-fi drama from Steven Spielberg on Monday to the groundbreaking & mind-bending realms of ‘The Matrix’ by the Wachowski Brothers on Tuesday night and the final instalment of the magificent Harry Potter franchise on Wednesday night. Of course, where would any film series on Holy Week be without the wonderful cinematic adaptation of C.S. Lewis’s magical book: ‘The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe’.

Let us take a look at what the word alternative means. Alternative is different and difference; being or thinking different, is a scary thought for so many folks trying desperately to be the same as society dictates. Alternative means new and anything new is an equally terrifying thought/prospect for a person/institution for whom the old ways have always worked & provided them with the comforting embrace of familiarity. Alternative also makes us uncomfortable, aswell as challenging our beliefs; perceptions and viewpoints. It teaches us new ways of looking at life; the world; faith; others and ultimately ourselves.

Some may say and rightly so, that being alternative is easy and almost a requisite undertaking for any Film Club worth their salt. Not in this case however, when your setting is in a church and one of their main organisers a man of the cloth. Yet William Hayes proves he has many strings to his bow and interests that extend beyond and include his deep rooted faith, one of his which is his passion for and delightfully geeky appreciation of all things film.

Fellow organiser: Ken Hume sees this as “an exciting and meaningful amalgamation of the 2 normally very distant mediums”, “a week for film buffs; people of faith and those that have a shared passion for both”. So some along to the Presbyterian Church on one or all of the nights next week at 8.30pm for a night of film entertainment; good company and alternative spiritual insight.

Took the Plunge

I’ve prayed on bended knee beside my bed
To the one they say rose from the dead
Soaked in the scripture just like a sponge
Immersed in water, I took the plunge

Into the faith, that would alter my perception
Instigate a call to an immaculate conception
Of my own, giving birth to a different kind of me
That disowned the living, and dove into eternity

I’ve stood on street corners, knocked on doors
Sang songs of salvation and hoovered some floors
All for His glory and all in His name
I changed my story and was never the same

I can’t say that change did me much good
Or the people around me who misunderstood
My ‘honest’ intentions and ‘noble’ vocation
This new world seemed more like an alien nation

To them, with a foreign language all it’s own
Idealistic, I took the plunge and disowned
Everyone who was ever close to me
Everything that I had wanted to be

Sacrificed them on the altar of some holy ambition
As I became infused with a supernatural mission
But my youthful enthusiasm eventually wore thin
As I battled with this ‘weakness’ they called sin

Sin it wasn’t, just a desire for a normal kind of life
Where politics and pious talk were not so rife
For I was growing tired of getting nothing in return
And the fire inside of me, it no longer burned

Like it used to, nor would it ever burn again
Everything I had lived for now all seemed in vain
It was time to take a different kind of plunge
Into the next chapter of my life, time to feel the sun

Dancing with Ol’ Dept

I’m signing my autograph in the Post Office every week
In the same line, and it’s not the type of fame that I seek
That money, euro 188, handed across the counter
Not funny, how I hate taking it, while so many flounder
Under the weight of crippling financial debt
Trying to raise a family, while dancing with ol’ death

Yes, dancing with ol’ death in, whatvever shape she comes
No romancing, just enticing our fathers; brothers and our sons
To take their lives, after being stripped of their dignity
Someone wake their wives, before their men step into enternity
Too soon, and for what reason, except they couldn’t pay their bills
Boom is out of season, now austerity, and the grown men it kills

Kills them to talk about it, kills them more if they don’t
Fills the morgue, while politicians talk about what will and won’t
Be cut, because you know ‘we all have to chip in and share’
The burden, a burden that we didn’t create, tell me is that fair?
That the bankers, whom we gesticulate, for wasting our money
And the speculators, I speculate, are getting off scott free

364 Other Days

Valentine’s is but one day a year
When roses, chocolates and teddy bears rear
Their mocking, greedy heads and sneer
At the lovesick and the lonely who rightly fear

The stigma of the singleton on this day
When adults, adolescents and little ones all play
The commercial, dating rituals and say
I love you, don’t leave me and why don’t you stay

With me forever in Cupid’s maze?
But they forget about the 364 other day’s
There with the 364 other way’s
To show how much you care and raise

The level of your love and devotion
That’s not just about the roses and emotion
Or brought about by some magic potion
It takes hard work swimming through the ocean

Of committment with a lot of self-sacrifice
Patience; strength & consideration, to be concise
Not always about being nice
But by knowing when to step up and fight

For her or him
On the 364 other days
In the 364 other ways
And not just Valentine’s

Sleeping Heart (Does It Still Beat?)

SLEEPING HEART
(Does It Still Beat?)

I’m looking at this girl walk by
Through the coffee shop window pane.
Oh, my heart stirs and I wonder why
I’ve been so long out of the game
Of love, that once made me try
Flush those feelings down the drain.
But it’s impossible to deny
Her beauty is greater than my pain
Do I go…

Chorus
Fishing for just one more chance
In that still sea of tired romance
To see if my sleeping heart still beats,
Does my sleeping heart still beat?
Hoping that I can cross that line
Be more than a one day Valentine
And see if my sleeping heart still beats
Will it beat because of her?

The next day she stops walking
Smells the coffee and comes inside
I try hard, but I can’t stop gawking
At her, as she orders, then sits beside
Me and starts gently talking
To me, but my tongue gets tied
I feel that old fear is stalking
My mind and leaving me paralysed

Chorus
Fishing for just one more chance….

Time for this caterpillar heart of mine
To crawl out of it’s cocoon
But I’m too scared of love’s sunshine
I’d rather it let me stew in
The comforting loneliness one more time
Easier than flying to the moon
Or Venus, if I could read the signs
On these butterfly wings, I assume
It’d be easier to let down a line
And go….

Chorus
Fishing for just one more chance….

She Loves Me She Loves Me Not

She loves me, she loves me not
Picking petals off a flower
Above me, there is a clock
Ticking minutes off the hour
Until she dials the number
And responds to my declaration
Of love, her smile’s a wonder
That soothes my desperation
I love her, there is no doubt
Does she feel the same?
If not, I’ll carry on without
Her, and sing a sad refrain

She loves, she loves me not
If she loves me, she’ll be my lot

THREADING THE TIGHTROPE AT TULLAMORE FILM CLUB

MAN ON WIRE

Me and heights just don’t go together, so we generally keep a pretty big distance between us. You see, the very thought of scaling or walking on anything above the dizzying heights of my 6 foot frame would generally be enough to raise the ol’ heart rate about 20-30 beats/minute higher (though that could just be the regular doses of coffee I inbibe); induce a mild panic attack and set my knees to shaking. And, I can safely say that I’m not the only one who suffers from this dehabilitating if slightly irrational fear.

Fear clearly wasn’t a problem with the daringly courageous 24 old French high-wire artisit by the name of Phillippe Petit, who, on August 7th 1974 strung a wire between (what was) the two towers of the World Trade Centre in New York. He then, 1,350 feet above the ground, proceeded to perform a serious of precarious and nerve-wracking acrobatic movements and knee bends, whilst walking all the way across the wire, much to the annoyance of the local Port Authority policemen and amazement of the heavenward gazing onlookers.

This riveting documentary, made in 2008 and directed by James Marsh, revisits the astonishing achievement 34 years after it occurred, recounting the events leading up to it and meeting the other people involved in, what many people have dubbed “the artistic crime of the 20th century”. It serves as a fitting; awe-inspiring and sobering memorial to the stunning things that human beings are capable of when they put their minds down to it and how nothing ever stays the same.

However, there is an unescapable dimension to this jaw-dropping accomplisment that makes this film all the more bittersweet and poignant. It is that you are watching two towers that were collided into by 2 planes on that fateful day back on the 11th of September, 2001 and now (along with so many innocent and unsuspecting lives) no longer exist. The epicentre of America’s greatness or greed, whichever way you look at it collapsed to the ground; burnt to a crisp with a memorial now lying in it’s place.

So, why don’t you come along to the Presbyterian Church, High St, Tullamore this coming Friday at 8.30 pm with some friends; refreshments and a steady supply of nerves, while you thread the tightrope of Philippe Petit’s enduring feat with the rest of Tullamore Film Club. It will linger long in the memory.