Bloody Sunrise
Words & Music by Neil Gaiman
Every night when I crawl out of my grave
Looking for someone to meet, some way that we’ll misbehave
Every night when I go out on the prowl
And then I fly through the night with the bats and the owls
Every time I meet somebody, I think you might be the one
I’ve been on my own for too long
When I pull them closer to me
Bloody sunrise comes again leaves me hungry and alone, every time
Bloody sunrise comes again and I’m nowhere to be found, every time
And you’re a memory and gone, something else that I can blame on bloody sunrise
Every night I put on my smartest threads
And I go into the town and I don’t even look dead
Every night I smile and I say ‘hi’
And no one ever smiles back and if I could I’d just die
But when I’m lucky I do get lucky and I think you might be the one
Even though the time is flying when it gets to the time of dying
Bloody sunrise comes again leaves me hungry and alone, every time
Bloody sunrise comes again and I’m nowhere to be found, every time
And you’re a memory and gone, something else that I can blame on bloody sunrise
And you’re a memory and gone, something else that I can blame on bloody sunrise
The Wreckers
Words by Neil Gaiman, Music by FourPlay String Quartet
Huge moments of surprise that leave you wrecked.
The wreckers on the old black Cornish rocks
(when there was no moonlight, and hard storms
pushed the waves and winds to treachery)
would light their lamps to lure the ships ashore
and ships, who thought that they were safe and lights
were there to guide them home, would run aground,
all hands lost and stolen by the cold sea.
To share the good times is to share the bad times.
To share the joy in the fine-wine-times
is to drink the wine down to the bottom of the glass
where things are bitter
I will not ask for any glass to pass from me.
There are no accidents. (Or possibly there are.
But things happen because of their nature
and there is no arguing with nature
for she is wise and innocent and cruel
and rage and hurt and pain and blood are hers.)
So we build rituals of mourning and acceptance
to walk us through the nights of tears and pain.
(But nature lost a daughter, who remains
six seeds of pomegranate dead today.)
Three things I send you. First I send these words
that you may use them as a pool of ink
to see yourself reflected, or see another in,
to see far-away things, so you do not forget to dream.
And then I send you pain, a small pain,
to whisper to your pain and keep it company.
And last I send a smile, that it might serve you well
and you may hold it in a time when smiles are scarce.
Remembering the moonlight on the water.
Credo
Words by Neil Gaiman Music by FourPlay String Quartet
I believe that it is difficult to kill an idea, because ideas are invisible and contagious, and they move fast.
I believe that you can set your own ideas against ideas you dislike. That you should be free to argue, explain, clarify, debate, offend, insult, rage, mock, sing, dramatise and deny.
I do not believe that burning, murdering, exploding people, smashing their heads with rocks (to let the bad ideas out), drowning them or even defeating them will work to contain ideas you do not like. Ideas spring up where you do not expect them, like weeds, and are as difficult to control.
I believe that repressing ideas spreads ideas.
I believe that people and books and newspapers are containers for ideas, but that burning the people who hold the ideas will be as unsuccessful as firebombing the newspaper archives. It is already too late. It is always too late. The ideas are already out, hiding behind people’s eyes, waiting in their thoughts. They can be whispered. They can be written on walls in the dead of night. They can be drawn.
I believe that ideas do not have to be correct to exist.
I believe you have every right to be perfectly certain that images of god or prophet or human that you revere are sacred and undefilable, just as I have the right to be certain of the sacredness of speech, of the sanctity of the right to mock, comment, to argue and to utter.
I believe I have the right to think and say the wrong things. I believe your remedy for that should be to argue with me or to ignore me, and that I should have the same remedy for the wrong things that you think.
I believe that you have the absolute right to think things that I find offensive, stupid, preposterous or dangerous, and that you have the right to speak, write, or distribute these things, and that I do not have the right to kill you, maim you, hurt you, or take away your liberty or property because I find your ideas threatening or insulting or downright disgusting. You probably think some of my ideas are pretty vile, too.
I believe that in the battle between guns and ideas, ideas will, eventually, win.
Because the ideas are invisible, and they linger, and, sometimes, they can even be true.
Eppur si muove: and yet it moves.
In Transit (for Arthur Eddington)
Words by Neil Gaiman Music by FourPlay String Quartet
1.
To find the many in the one
he sweated under foreign skies
to see the stars behind the sun.
So space and time were now undone
reality was undisguised.
We found the many in the one.
There is no photograph, not one,
that shows the mind behind the eyes.
He saw the stars behind the sun.
Not with a sword, or knife, or gun,
a simple picture severed ties.
He found the many in the one.
Light bends around us. So we run,
as gravity reclassifies
the stars we saw behind the sun.
To see the world beyond the skies,
to know the mind behind the eyes,
To find the many in the one
he showed us stars behind the sun.
2.
Unfucked, or anyway retiring,
in the awkward sense. Retirement will never be an option.
The gruff gentleman with the cap who understands
what the numbers mean
remembers a bicycle ride when he was younger.
The smoke of the cigarettes he does not smoke kicks at his lungs
mixing with the buzz of the booze he doesn’t ever drink
a convivial pint after the ride into the country gave him such a thirst.
And afterwards they lay on their back in the stubble
staring up at the stars. Together. All the stars
Countable as the words in a Bible,
countable as the hairs on his friend’s head,
all accountable, and that is why they never truly touched.
The shadow of prison or disgrace perhaps moving between them
like the shadow of an eclipse.
And, in another life, at another time,
to see the stars behind the sun,
he takes his photographs
fighting the cloud cover. Becoming
the thing that happened in Principe.
when he proved that the German was right,
that light had weight,
half a year after the Armistice.
A populariser, but not courting popularity.
Somewhen a boy is counting stars.
Somewhen a man is photographing light.
Somewhen his finger strokes the stubble on another’s cheek,
and for a moment everything is relative.