The Explorer

It’s a lonely life to be an explorer
On a single track of need to know more
The kind who always questions where to stay

It’s a lonely life to be an explorer
And many times he thinks he ought to
Find someone to help him on his way

Sometimes it seems to take so long to reach treasure deep
Beneath the mountains and the sea
Follow the horizon that’s beckoning on and on
His curiosity burning in the sun

You wonder why you never took the chances
A simpler life would be far less dangerous
Did you risk it all for some more worthy cause?

One step for one man
Commander and conquistador
Circumnavigating the soul

If you go exploring, then explore something new
Life wants nothing more of us all than to face our fear
Move to the inside or escape to another world
I can see it all from here

The great discovery now to find
My tranquillity of mind
She’ll call me in from the cold

I am fired by the open road
I am tired by the open road
Now the open road is all I know

Headlong into nowhere, surviving out of this suitcase
Freedom is confinement when the heart has no place
All I want is a heart to hold, a land for a home
And a treasure to keep

All I want are hearts to hold, a tribe of my own
And treasure to keep

It’s a lonely life to be an explorer …

◊

Exactly How It Has To Be

Speck of light that flickers in the dark
Only seen when you don’t directly look at it
In a flash, an inspirational thought
That this is exactly how it has to be

We’re in a walking sleep from which we may awake
And be no longer hypnotised by the ‘norming’ state
To find our idiosyncratic grace

Are there times you doubt your senses and feel displaced ?
When you’re searching for a home and only see the mess you’ve made
Then simply go outside on a clear night, and raise your eyes.
Simply go outside on a clear night, and raise your eyes.

Who will beg for food ? Who will live like a clown?
Who will violate the norms and turn over rocks ?
The truth must be found at all cost

Developing Markets

There are some who see the world in two parts
As developed and developing markets
Lands of deep tradition culture and art
Reduced to commodity

The flowering nations fed by the elite
And nurtured with a simple belief
That debt is debt, to be promptly repaid
And our god made this world in just six days

And if the markets suddenly did not exist
A plague would spread and the sky collapse
For the land is well-tilled with double speak
That turns the truth on its head

Observe, in the earth, a small rose shoot
And the delicate breath of butterfly wings

The Believers

 Some days I get to think
I’m on the brink of a great discovery
There’s nothing wrong
With being one of the believers

The fresh-faced say there probably is
No more than all this
So just enjoy yourselves
There’s nothing else here for us to do

We can’t hear the silence here
For the discord of conversing
All we speak is vapid and weak
When the spirit runs on empty

We don’t need the preacher’s word
To stop the hurt that’s pervading
We don’t need to smash the state, fight hate with hate
Love the aggressor till
He doesn’t have the heart to kill no more

I’m a Buddhist, I’m a Atheist
I’m a Christian, Radical, Secular, Hindu
I’m a Mystic, I’m an Agnostic Sikh
A Moderate, Muslim, Environmentalist, Jew !

When heaven and hell is no longer
And there’s no more king and country
No ritual, heritage or true belonging
No magic, nor mythology …

 The fresh-faced say there probably is
No more than all this
I say it’s all too extraordinary
For those limiting borders

Some days I get to think
I’m on the brink of a great discovery
There’s nothing wrong
With being one of the believers

This Chair

When I am old
When I am weak
And I cannot move my self from this chair
I will remember
How I used to dance
And was free to move my body anywhere

Sometimes I forget to stretch these muscles till they ache with joy
Sometimes I forget to reach out and grab the hand
That will spin me through the air

 There forever reason
Each elemental season
In whatever chapter of your life
Had I known that you
Had turned your pages blue
I might have pulled you to the light

 Don’t hide your face, your feelings, your heart or your soul
You either die too young, or you grow old
There’s no in between

There’s no in between, there’s no in between
There’s no in between

The stale tar of addiction
And the limited thinking
Why so often settle for so less ?
What if you love to write
And maybe just ride your bike
Well what’s wrong with doing those and nothing else?

Shall it take our bodies to be blackened from within for us to learn to live the love ?
Shall it take the taste of death to feel the sun upon our skin ?
And the breeze between our toes

From plastic cradle
To a well tended grave
Obedient servants with a prayer
Is this the place to be ?
Craving epiphany
Though you’ve never had one sitting there

The vertigo of freedom
The thrill seeking tunnel vision
Soon I will be drifting away …
Somewhere

Sometimes I can’t move myself , no
Sometimes I can’t move
I can’t move myself from this chair

In Our Oasis Garden

 As the forest drinks the rain
I drink up your longing
I found it there
In our oasis garden

What did it mean that day ?
The rage against restriction
In the wasteland of the mind
I knew your smile

The mound on which we sat
Tilted and rolled you
Into my arms
Your soft hair against my lips

I grew in your light
In you, I flourish
As the garden drinks the sounds
Of boom bird and chatter finch

What would you say if I
Told you that I think the universe
All along was contriving
And bending to bring us together ?

 The longest love affair
Intoxication for the senses
Wildness and dirt
And the sweet musky smell of flesh

I could push your hands
Into the dark wet crumbing earth
In thrall to a savage lust
From the housebound and husbanded

I am no stranger
To your complication
Maybe explaining why
I am your more and you are mine

 What would you say if I
Told you that I think the universe
All along was contriving
And bending to bring us together ?

◊

When The Daydreamers Lead The Way

I dream of when we, as one, set foot
Upon the soft earth once again
And do away with the hard tarred road
That only moves us faster to the big empty hole

A crazy flight of fantasy
Miracles to modern minds
I’ve been dreaming of the day
When the daydreamers lead the way

Let’s take off our shoes and touch the earth
Let’s take off our shoes and touch the earth

It seems you’re yearning for what, at times
Kills you in slow motion
As fingers slowly trace the spine
The twists and turns will keep us guessing

It’s the ebb, it’s the flow
It’s the holding back , the letting go
Let’s take off our shoes and touch the earth
And the knowledge that went underground for a while
Let’s take off our shoes and touch the earth
Sole with soul

I woke from yet another fight for my life
A fight for my right to belong
The being and longing are inseparable
The moving sea of my song

I dream of when we, as one, set foot
Upon the soft earth once again
I dream of the day
When the daydreamers lead the way
When the daydreamers lead the way

Here it is

I see a man lost from himself
Heading back to the place
Where he came from , in mystery
Where the ocean sighs his name
Ah…

The hammer fell, he’ll forever fear
Unless he learns to love the fight
The battlefield is where we belong
And there, we must hope to die.
Ah…

Here it is, the rest of my life, it’s finally arrived , oh yeah

The journey’s end may be the start
The path you can’t see, cannot betray
He will know me for the first time
When I reach home
Hey…

Here it is, the rest of my life, it’s finally arrived , oh yeah

◊

The Stranger We Fear

I want to be that man who treads with lightness through these lands
I want to be that man that you may trust to lead your hand
I want to be that man who sees connection in everyone
I want to be that man that serves a world, not a nation

Oo, oo ,oo …
The connection in everyone
Oo, oo ,oo …
Serve a world, not a nation

I want to make a start to regard the brother in each man
Regardless where his reality lies, from castle to refugee camp
I want to be the man who dreams in harmonics , songs of peace
Cuts free his rage, and loves the brother from the land that bleeds

Oo, oo ,oo …
The harmonic songs of peace
Oo, oo ,oo …
Love the brother from the land that bleeds

I want to be that man who sees the journey in your eyes
And speaks up when you have no voice, and demands your right to equal lives
I will do all I can to take adventures to join these ends
I want to be that man who makes the stranger we fear my friend

Oo, oo ,oo …
Make the stranger we fear my friend