Ten light years -
I still walk on air,
my hand in your hand,
my life held gently there.Ten light years -
I still walk in time,
out along the trace
of love's light travelling line.Ten light years -
I still walk in grace,
in transport towards
your still-hidden face.
So love has left you, high and dry.
Left you bitter with the lie.
Left you cold, too cold to cry.
Left you, high and dry.
So now you're leaving no goodbyes,
with her quiet ghost to exorcise.
You're going to walk from sunset to sunrise -
you're leaving, no goodbyes.
Beside You
Beside you, by your side,
I have nowhere to hide.
Beside you, too close to see,
my body tells me.
Beside you, I can't touch,
I love you too much.
Beside you, I'm gone astray,
my heart a run-away.
Far away, far away,
if I could stay,
beside you.
Love moves me,
love takes me,
love binds me,
love breaks me - beside you.
The Name of Life (poem by Christina Dunhill, after Pablo Neruda)
The cherry tree is gilded with memory.
Three days the brittle leaves will burgeon -
already the wind plots their downfall.
Be my gardener; come into my employ.
The name of life is rounder on your tongue,
the wine of life is sweeter in your mouth.
Be mine, boy with the wide lips.
Your eyes have returned from the country of dreams
to seek me out; they want to graze on me.
The wind empties my voice -
the wind gusting over night's marina.
Rest now on my cloak of leaves,
lie in my arms like a boat.
Your songs of the past are what I follow.
Light on the far side - shall we cast off?
Belief is the haze I wear over my body.
Sous le pont Mirabeau (poem by Guillaume Apollinaire)
Sous le pont Mirabeau coule la Seine
Et nos amours
Faut-il qu'il m'en souvienne
La joie venait toujours apres la peine
Vienne la nuit sonne l'heure
Les jours s'en vont je demeure
Les mains dans les mains restons face a face
Tandis que sous
Le pont de nos bras passe
Des eternels regards l'onde si lasse
Vienne la nuit sonne l'heure
Les jours s'en vont je demeure
L'amour s'en va comme cette eau courante
L'amour s'en va
Comme la vie est lente
Et comme l'Esperance est violente
Vienne la nuit sonne l'heure
Les jours s'en vont je demeure
Passent les jours et passent les semaines
Ni temps passe
Ni les amours reviennent
Sous le pont Mirabeau coule la Seine
Vienne la nuit sonne l'heure
Les jours s'en vont je demeure
To His Coy Mistress (poem by Andrew Marvell)
Had we but World enough, and Time,
This coyness Lady were no crime.
We would sit down, and think which way
To walk, and pass our long Loves Day.
Thou by the Indian Ganges side
Should'st Rubies find: I by the Tide
Of Humber would complain. I would
Love you ten years before the Flood:
And you should if you please refuse
Till the Conversion of the Jews.
My vegetable Love should grow
Vaster than Empires, and more slow.
An hundred years should go to praise
Thine Eyes, and on thy Forehead Gaze.
Two hundred to adore each Breast:
But thirty thousand to the rest.
An Age at least to every part,
And the last Age should show your Heart.
For Lady you deserve this State;
But at my back I always hear
Times winged Chariot hurrying near:
And yonder all before us lie
Deserts of vast eternity...
You play on my mind,
like a cat with her prey -
although you're a life away,
in another time.
Love across the ages,
love across time.
My thoughts still stray,
to a picture of you
lit by the sun's rays...
a heart unwinds...
a cat lies with her prey -
you play on my mind.
Love across the ages,
love across time.
My thoughts still stray
to a picture of you.
Tears Idle Tears (excerpts from the poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson; inset lyrics by Caroline Trettine)
Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean,
Tears from the depth of some divine despair
Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes,
In looking on the happy Autumn-fields,
And thinking of the days that are no more.
Life is lost, sweet life gone, cut short, ended, done.
Lauren, spinning in the sun, alive and young, living on the edge, turning yourself on.
Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail,
That brings our friends up from the underworld,
Sad as the last which reddens over one
That sinks with all we love below the verge;
So sad so fresh, the days that are no more.
With your razor and your mirror, you lived for the highs - did you realise your face was growing whiter?
You lived dangerously, always on the wild side - but you loved tenderly inside.
And you loved carelessly, free with your own life - spinning in the sun like a knife.
Dear as remembered kisses after death,
And sweet as those by hopeless fancy feigned
On lips that are for others; deep as love,
Deep as first love, and wild with all regret;
O Death in Life, the days that are no more.
Should we love,
make heaven earth,
and draw the sun
from its quiet berth?
And if we love,
turn earth to fire,
would it make hell
of heaven's desire?
And is desire worth
burning for,
catching light
at the earth's core?
Yes, let heaven
come to earth,
and roll the sun
to its gold hearth.
Elizabeth's shoes lay on the floor,
in the middle of the corridor,
she didn't want them any more.Elizabeth's cry, she kept in store,
behind closed glass office doors,
but she couldn't hold quiet any more.Elizabeth's heart, hard at the core,
broke in a deep, funny roar,
she wanted someone to care for.Elizabeth's shoes lay down the way,
from the office where she worked away
her life till late, alone, each day.Elizabeth's life was a weight she bore.
Like the heavy shoes she wore.
She couldn't bear it anymore.Elizabeth's head, an open door -
she walked out to a strange shore -
she took her shoes off at the door.
In your arms, I'm innocent, safe from harm.
In your arms, I'm your child, you're my home.
In your arms I lay and I'll stay, all is calm.
The world falls away when I'm in your arms.
In your arms, I'm not alone, I have done no wrong.
In your arms, I'm your child, you're my home.
In your arms I lay and I'll stay, safe from harm.
The world falls away, when I'm in your arms.
© Caroline Trettine 2000