jim hogg

Are you leading off the final bend
Are you at the front of every trend
Are you every girl and every boy
Are you melody or just white noise
...

I

I pass your old house sometimes, in the car,
or walking with friends, I'd sneak a quick glance
...

The satellites are searching high and low
Detectives stake out places you might go
For fifteen years you haven't left a trace
There's only these old photos of your face
...

The road of destiny is long
and on that road a noisy throng
determined me to make a move,
to up my sticks and choose a groove
...

A girl with hair like yours
Was standing on the bus
She hurled me back into
A sudden swirl of us
...

There's shrapnel in old memories,
And wounding ways of little things
Are waiting for the killer song.
The one that sings of love gone wrong;
...

Her name was Jean,
her eyes were green;
I never noticed her at first;
And though she's well past seventeen,
...

Beneath this stone bridge that we stood upon once
the waters of two lochs mingle and glide
weaving a flowing concerto of life
out of the world it reflects from above:
...

The winter winds are blowin' in
from Ireland ‘cross the sea
I'm standing on this pierhead here,
just watching seagulls wheel
...

Up round St John Street we walked one night,
while moonlight brightly glowed,
My arm around you, yours round me,
with two friends long ago.
...

There's a river in the valley
Sunlight glints on springtime leaves
Foxgloves deck the riverbanks
An old stone bridge between the trees
...

I saw you only one more time
in all those years between.
We stared into each other's eyes
across a Glasgow street.
...

Now every song calls moments home, even grains of summer
I sit and turn them clumsily to keep the tide at bay
And here through flattened notes I hear the coming of the drummer
In all those words like wingbeats that once carried us away
...

I saw the blue in good times gone
With friends inside the Three in One
As snow lay white on Kelvin Grove
As glasses clashed and liquor flowed
...

The jukebox in the corner played
To shadows sitting sipping tea
The light was low and you were there
Your collar open to the sea
...

By Mountain Ash and roses wild
Recalling all we've been
Let's cast our eyes o'er views so wide
And think on what's unseen
...

The mouth of the harbour here quietly kissed
blue waves that waltzed from Kilkeel home to us
The springtime sun faded to 'love's old sweet song'
and the light at Killantringan came on
...

You took my hand and danced me through
so many possibilities
the winding lanes and vales of you
across the boards, beneath the trees
...

I rarely thought of you
‘Til you finally broke through
I thought the story was complete
When we talked back in ninety three
...

The lights are shining down upon
broken stones and fishing boats
In the amber haze reflections reach
for the night that's crowding close
...