THE LAME FIANCÉE

I’ll tell you how the story went.
I found her in a blue whale’s tear.
I was drunk, in the harbor,
I was sick of my old repartee.

She was so sweet; she was so weak.
She was a leaf floating in the breeze.
Soon I noticed she belonged
To the handful of things I had never seen.

Not especially beautiful; she was lame.
An empty seashore under the rain.
I felt like I needed to get a hatchet
To build a shack for her.

I’d look after her all night long.
She’d fall in love with me ‘cause I’d be strong.
When I woke up she’d be there,
With her head upon my chest.

She said: I’ve been so alone…
I don’t know where I am coming from.
I remember a big gale,
A big wave, and a grey moon on the wane,
And the taste of the sea on my tongue,
And seaweed in my hair.

The candle flame flickered in the air,
She moved to bring over the chair,
Her cold hand, still wet,
Brushed my dry cheek while she wept.

She drank the tears with a smile,
We fell asleep after a long while,
when the moonlight, on the waves,
allowed the sun to win the race.

A seagull squawked in the wind,
I feared it had been just a dream,
One more lie, one more bagatelle,
A flash remembered, a silly fling.

But then I noticed my bed was warm,
with the indentation of her form.
There were footprints on the floor
And a paper note stuck behind the door,
Like an awkward tender trace:
Tomorrow. Same time and same place.

THE SUNKEN GALLEON

She took her turtle shell
And followed me to break my bad spell.
Crabs were in heat
And they crossed the road, an amazing feat.

She was nothing but skin and bone
I heard the beat of my old stone,
As ancient snow was melting down
A doubtful king was pawning his crown.

She cooked sapphire soup with jellyfish and sugar cane
And the water she had gathered from the rain.
Stroking a catfish, she told him a white lie:
I know, with time, you will learn to fly.

I’m still there, lying on the bed,
Watching the starfish on her head,
The coral bracelet and earring,
The tender smile and the wink.

I can try to change, but I won’t change just to try,
My lame love, I’m too old to get by.
Ev’rytime I think about the wasted days
I can’t stand the sight of my own face.

The prisoner sleeps behind my eyes,
Far beyond these bars of ice,
Like a sunken galleon full with gold
Where the water’s warm and the sharks are bold.

Bring over your pretty face, you little fish I found,
Blow softly on the scars that you have bound.
Now your daily joy, so lavish and so fresh
Feels to me like new skin over old flesh.

But time is something that someone lends.
It dripped like water through my hands.
If now I sing my drunken wail,
It means I vanished from the tale.

She took her turtle shell
And, following me, she broke my bad spell.

AND NOW YOU ARE SO NEAR

Where are you from? You’re so unreal.
You’re a puzzle, a hieroglyphic,
A small clue to a weird background.

No scales on your skin, but a natural-looking fin.
And the brightest smile in the whole wide world,
The tale that has never been told.

Time splits into infinite pieces
When you come over limping to change the way I feel.

And me, in my immeasurable slowness,
Empty the bucket after the wheel.

I watch you from afar in a lazy dusk,
When the sea tilts, as the day wilts
And you are alone on the shore.

And I can’t describe the curve of your lips.
Mermaid’s secret, mysterious wicket
I’d bury my tears in your drawer.

My dear, how I long to hear your soft uneven footsteps
Making these old planks creak, sing.

You are a hint in the darkness,
A voice in the blindness, a push on the swing.

Defeating death I’d hug your dream.
In your warm young mouth, I’d regain my will
To walk again on the sill.

Breaking the mirror, I’d bring you good luck
For a whole lifetime -or at least seven years-.

Hello, my love. It’s your skin so pearly
And your red hair all so curly that I’ll always revere.

And now you are so near.

THE BASTARD THAT I SHOW

You keep on saying obstinately that tomorrow never knows,
That I’ll surprise myself one day suddenly in love with you,
And you base your forecast in my songs,
where you see I’m not the bastard that I show.

Another proof of what I mean are this very words,
Another armor, another wall, and you are not afraid to fall,
But your good faith won’t awake my love,
Your optimism will get lost in my forest, in my haze,
And you keep on and on but you are confusing terms
Because I am….I am just the bastard that I show,
And there might be something good but you’ll never know.

The prize is high and it will get higher- the times I’ve made you cry-.
But you were thinking it was impossible waving the last goodbye,
You say I got into your heart forever more
And you’ll never be the girl you were before.
But that’s not my problem, it is yours.

And if you are so sure you know me how can you explain
Your corpse, your bruises, all those beatings, your standing on the wane;
Don’t justify me, don’t give me shelter,
not all of us must be fair, feelings are not a response.
Everybody everywhere I go believe they know me,
I’m always putting on the top
the new layers of incredulity they chop.
So they made of me the bastard that I show.

But if this fact excuses me it could mean that long ago
I had been good, I had been free, I didn’t feel I had
To satisfy the world or the books with dots of gold,
I just had to breath, it was enough,
I suppose there I learnt what I know about love.

I’ve kept a little of my feelings, a piece of yesterday,
I have to fight to see you bleeding, a fight against myself,
I’d heal the wound, I’d cry, I’d stop the hemorrhage,
I’d stay if I could go at the same time,
But at last, when I have to choose, I choose myself,
I choose my body and my house.
So people wonders everywhere I go:
How can I write this songs being the bastard that I show?

THE TIMELESS POTION

I would lift you in my arms.
I’d be, under your spell,
A whirlpool, a huge swell,
The wild poet of your charms.
I’d wake up early while you sleep,
Across the cabin I would creep,
I’d go out to pick some cherries
To bring your breakfast on a tray.

I could wait until the sun
Was replaced by the moon,
We’d watch the twilight swoon
On the green hill where children run.
But ev’rytime I try to move
I feel that sting I can’t remove,
I’m aching for your loving
But I can barely follow you,
My sad smiles are my dry tears
And my wrinkles are my wounds.

Roseleen, she stole my
young man’s stripes
and when the harm was done,
once she was gone,
she poured cement into the pipes.
You don’t deserve this wretched crop,
A love distilled drop by drop,
Your joy is the sweet ocean
Where I would desperately drown
If I had the timeless potion,
If I could, If I were young.

But it’s true that there’s a
little hole, through which your
light comes through so warm and blest,
like liquid gold in a broken chest.

My love, don’t let this sunshine come to grief.
So much to do, and time so brief.
See those seagulls on the buoy, in fact they are not brave.
Ignoring any risk, they’re waiting for the final wave.

THE LAST DIVE

Clouds were blurring the sun the day she
Left all of her clothes by the sea,
And watching that threatening sky
I didn’t even kiss her goodbye.

Her paper ship from side to side,
Adrift in a blue cygnet’s tide
I sat down to wait on the shore,
Guiltless and thirsty for more.

I didn’t know it was over.
It was over.
It was over.
It was over.

The wind smashed sand in my face
And suddenly that dreamy place
Began to show all of its cold,
And I noticed I had always been old.

Then, the night fell on me like a ghost
Scaring a child that was lost,
I lit some bonfires on the beach
With a piece of my heart in each.

She was gone and it was over.
It was over.
It was over.
It was over.

It was over.
It was over.
It was over.
It was over.

SLIPPERY FISH

I string a cherry on the hook
Of my rod of hair and wood
And I go to the reef.

Standing by the sea I sadly wait
For my fish to take the bait,
To sigh with relief.

But she never bites
In my slow cold nights.
I steer my anguish
I drink and languish,
‘till the sun comes with new lies,
And í feel so drowsy at dawn,
And I swallow silent teardrops with each yawn.

How I long to see her little fin,
When the moon makes the night clean,
But there’s no trace.

And a sailor comes back along the wide blue road,
With yellow candles in his boat,
Lost in the haze.

I pull up the hood
Of my raincoat, then.
I can bear the storm
but not take out the thorn
that sinks into my chest.
I’ve got to find the weeping whale
To write a happy ending for my tale