No Quiet

Daddy said, “lay me down in the sea,
I want to be with the waves”, as she wept
“Watch over me like the Fear Marbh please”, she begged
As he wailed out his breaths.
“Cover me in a mountain of seeds
I want to breathe long after my death
I want to be with the flowers and weeds
I want to feel like the life that I left.”
Her brother Danny loved her just like a Mother
Still used the old names for all the new roads
She loved him most when he came home alone with silver
But he broke her heart when he stayed out to hunt for gold.
Her Mother stayed hidden from the sunlight
Uptight locals said she suffered with her nerves
One night left her with a shadow on her future
She got lost inside herself when she went looking for the cure.
Her Ma left
Her Da left
Her brother is next
He’s marched out on the steps
He spent years in the depths
Then he put a hole in a chest
He’s locked up for the rest
Her Ma left
Her Da left
Her brother is next
Marched on the courthouse steps
Now she’s depressed to her depths
Can’t budge the flames in her chest
She just needed a rest.
Her Mother held her hand as she sang over tears
“Hush now these waters will comfort your fears.”
All that year she sang the song of her home
She wiped the tears from her eyes
As she was carving the stone.
“Is it the postcode divide?
Am I lost by design?
Is it the roll of the dice that keeps me
Gone or alive?”
She said she searched for a sign
But the time wasn’t right
And frontlines of future they wouldn’t be in her sights.
Still she was living for a breather
Job to job they couldn’t keep her
She worked herself to death and back
But still no-one would believe her
She burned the candles just to heat her
But the lights were growing weaker
She tried the teachers and the preachers
But still none of them could reach her
She begged her brother for a change
He played the horses with his wage
He lost the shirt off his own back
But couldn’t budge the world that weighed
She played her own life on the stage
They paid to watch her eat her pain
Each day she’d make the trade, she’d stand and say
“I’ll stay, I’ll stay, I’ll stay, I’ll stay, I’ll stay”
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