What had happened to me?
I wanted to know
on that Christmas morning
all alone
I saw one star
amid a sky of cloud
I didn't understand
it wasn't possible
and I wondered with all those lost dreams
where I had gone
and lost myself beneath the wave
beyond the farthest mountain
under the sea
where lady with her red dress
was waiting
II saw fear in the great mirages
success, death, happiness
little did I know that
none of those
was permanent
I had to seem so tough
to confront you
a regular he-man
a regular screw
whatever happened to the child I knew
in the land of Nod?
then I started laughing
I laughed with that last star
as God's eye opened
and blessed me from afar
from beyond the rusted alleys
and the wasted streets
and the dull grey depression
that greets every success-bound
boy - a real rube I was
to some other tune
but then the laughter started
I don't know when it came
I just know that I no longer
was the same
the dark days had broken
their bats' wings on the walls
your gloomy illusion
did completely fall
and I was free again
free as I had been
free as the open skies
above a sheath of rain
free as the dark wildcat
with her quivered thighsfree as the sweet child
who no longer fears the night
free as the lost shepherd
coming home again
free as all the little boys
lost in the rain
with just a leather jacket
and nothing in his pants
free as the dark pines
towering over me
with a great Significance
oh don't ask what it means
free without the dark tide
that consumed my life
free as the lost chickens
playing in the grass
free as the adolescents
checking out the ass
of every passing schoolgirl
free as horses and maidens
sailing ships that pass
free as fourth of July crackers
as a madman's laugh
free as crickets in the night
and the crimson tide of death
free as dark beginnings
so lost then in the night
free as bears in the forest
walking on my path
and now in the forest laughing
laughing a new laugh
free as Christmas morning
with a little child
free as all true lovers
across the miles
free as broken English
on a sea-side holiday
free as new tires squealing
at the crack of day
free as the dark night
when all is lost
free as the new morning
drenched in the rain
and now I'm here without you
and I'm glad again
whatever did happen
to all the pain?
(C)2000 by W.G. Milne