Laughs, Giraffes & Epitaphs

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Laughs, Giraffes & Epitaphs 

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Clocks, Cobwebs & Chalk

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Peg, Picture, Piece - The Square Pegs
:- Some Answer & That Hammer; Unfit!
 

Clocks, Cobwebs & Chalk
words & music by Ed Hooke, 1987   -   © Ed Hooke 1987

E P I T A P H

Inspired by the memory
of stumbling across
an abandoned cottage
on the slopes of Cader Idris
in North Wales
as an impressionable
12 year old schoolboy,

This is me wondering
what impression someone might form
if, after my death,
they were to stumble across my home
in a similar way.

 A photograph - browned and curling.
Magnetic tape - recorded sound.
The dust has gathered.
 The vultures have flown.
(Worn garments of an age outgrown.)
A secret museum - its cobwebs undisturbed.
(Echoes of yesterday preserved.)

Out of breath and out of petrol.
The sands have fallen now.
Though older is not always wiser
the choice is ours. 

Who once lived here?  Were they content?
They must have been - or surely they'd have changed?
Haunted by clocks - counting down down down down.
(Less to be, more what might have been.)
What's the use of so much so-called potential if it's wasted?
(Chalk epitaphs fade in the rain.)

Change the world or change a light bulb.
Change something inbetween.
I can stand standing still no longer
lest rots sets in.
So where do you stand? 

Fate twists mainly as allowed.
Our lives are in our hands.

The choice is ours.