The Old Road Out.

It was built where the rain fell grey,
Where men worked hard and drank pain away.
Where fathers were silent, childrens dreams small.
And nobody spoke of the hurt at all.

Its mills had gone quiet, its high streets grown bare,
With boarded-up windows, resentment in the air.
There were debts on the doorstep, and jobs hard to find,
And old wounds passed down through the town’s troubled mind.

There were nights with a bottle, mornings of shame,
And promises broken, no where to complain.
For a man can be wounded and still cause pain,
Then kneel in the dark and do it again.

Addicts shuffle, beneath skies of grey.
Past old stone churches, a rent due each day.


The pubs full of laughter, bedrooms full of tears,
lives spent in silence, all alone with your fears.

One night, by a churchyard, a figure stood in the rain,
And remembered loved ones bathing in pain.
No angel appeared, no voice from above,
Just the weight of their wrongs, and the memory of love.

It learned that forgiveness was more than a friend,
And the wounded still standing should call it an end.
Couples facing truth, making right what they could,
And becoming, through mercy, beyond broken glass, and the blood.

Hearts here stumble, wrestle with shame,
Carrying old sorrows, call out His name.

The rain drops splashing truth, they’d once spat lies,
More foreign faces with anger in their eyes.

The sins of our fathers are heavy to bear,
But a chain can be broken by someone who cares.


Still the child inherits the wounds of a man,
til it lights up a cigarette and clicks open a can.

So here’s to the broken, the bruised and the brave,
To the people who fight and take all to the grave.


For we’re more than our worst, more than all we’ve done,
The old road leads out, though the nights just begun.

Music From the Cell

Goodbye My Lover

I sit starring out the window from the kitchen table.
The clouds pass by, I’m tired but I’m able.

My prayers these days don’t start with why. When a song the radio catches my eye.

Well, not my eye, but somewhere much deeper,
A memory I’d forgotten, the feeling though a keeper.

Goodbye My Lover, James Blunt is singing.
Suddenly I’m twenty,
But the alarm bells aren’t ringing.

I’m back in that cell, in Lancaster Farms,
A young lad alone with his fears and his charms.

A look out a window trying hard to be strong,
the tears came falling, along with the song.

And I want to reach back through the years to that boy,
Tell him there’s love still, there’s laughter and joy.

That one day he’ll sit at a table like this, With a wife and a family, a life he once missed.

But I can’t reach through time, can’t unlock that door,
Can’t take from his shoulders what he carried before.

I can only sit here, with my head hanging low,
And remember the boy that they didnt know.

The radio plays on. The kettle clicks.
The world carries on with its everyday tricks.

And my family are sleeping, my life is my own,
Yet for a moment, that cell feels like home.

Not because I miss it, not because I want to return,
But because some old memories ache, some songs they burn.

And I feel for that lad, so pain ahead,
And the tears he swallowed, and the prayers left unsaid.

Then I whisper a prayer, though my voice barely stir
Lord Jesus Christ, for that young man be near.

For the years may have passed, and the boy may have grown,
But have mercy when its steep till you bring back home.

And that song reaches its ending. I sit in dim light,
Forty-one years old, this tear carries might.

I look at the life, I once thought was a loss
And I thank the Lord for the nails, the blood, and the cross

☦️

Home

He survived the war, just to come home and die, on his way to church.

The story is simple, yet this one is hard for to recite.

The women gathered there beside his coffin, their hair covered, dressed in black.

It was tragic, yet somehow romantic.

He survived the war but died on his way to church. A poor man, humble.

It would have been silent, yet for the church bells ringing.

Ringing for a man, who never really made it home.

The Beautiful & Frightening Truth

To know Christ is to stand before the Truth, bare beneath a heaven that sees through every lie.

And what a beautiful terror it be.

Beautiful — His light is mercy, His voice is peace, His wounds are open doors into eternity.

Frightening — His light leaves nowhere for darkness to hide. He enters the locks that guard our souls, names the things we dared not name, and guides the heart from every throne but His.

O, to draw near.

For the Truth is not my old cold blade. It is Christ Himself. The hands that uncover my ruin are the hands that were pierced to save it.

So let the Truth frighten you too. Let it break every falsehood until nothing remains but the sinner beneath it all —

Beautifully undone. Beautiful and frightening – like the Truth.

Our Home

I know the world — I’ve walked its streets, I’ve heard the lies, I’ve tasted grief,

I’ve watched them sell their souls for gold. Then swear they’re young when they know they old.

I’ve seen the jealous turn to stone,The hungry make another’s known.

The mouths that run, the tongues that tear. The ones who smile when they don’t care.

And I’ve been there — I know that road,I’ve carried more than I could hold

I’ve chased the things that rot and rust, And learned too late its all just dust.

But Christ came calling through the noise,Not with riches men employs.

But with a Cross, a crown of thorns ,And mercy for the soul that mourns.

So here I stand, still caught between.The world I know and what I’ve seen.

The old man pulling at my sleeve,The young man begging to believe.

I see the devil lead the blind,Through silver, envy, lust and pride;

They trade their peace, they sell their name,Then blame the world put family to flame.

And sometimes, Lord, I’ll be honest too. I miss the things I used to do.

Not because they made me whole,But because I knew that fucking road.

Yet something in me won’t go back,There’s something burning through the black;

A little light I cannot hide,The Cross, a spear in His side.

So if this world is not my home,Then let me walk where saints have known.

Through every lie, through every scar, Keep me beneath Thy holy star.

For I have known the world, my Lord,And now I know what You afford.

Not wealth, not fame, not men’s applause,But mercy hanging the cross a course.

And when this tired heart does roam, Lord my God show us our home

, Give a Fuck

They said I’m wrong and heartless. But it was them, not me, that produced it.
Pointing their left middle finger,
Im glad I did not fit.

I cared for years and years, too much
years of heartache, fear and pain,
of worrying about everything,
then worrying once again.

It takes years of giving a fuck
about things you cannot change,
until one day you finally reach
the point where nothing’s gained.

To not give a fuck is hard,
when your heart has always cared—
until you’ve carried so much for years
you find you’re no longer scared.

And maybe that’s the hardest part,
you don’t stop caring overnight.
You just get tired of giving everything,
from me they tried to hide His light.

It was hard—
until it wasn’t.

It was hard
until for them–

I JUST DONT, GIVE A FUCK!

Praying for a simple Week

Jump in my van,
through the wide-open air,
a little bit of work
and a whole lot of prayer.

Praising God,
then back on the road,
For a song in the heart,
Lifts the weight of a load.

Back to the gardens,
where the green things grow,
then back in the van
when it’s time to go.

Home to my boys 
we wrestle and we fight,
teach them the world,
Whats wrong and whats right.

Tell, them a good story 
the Lords up above,
to stand on their feet
and to lead with their love.

To smile at my wife,
and hope she don’t bite.
Some there battles,
you don’t win outright.

For the night to settle in
and the house to fall still,
the angels to sing
the world loses its will.


To see the stars in the night
compelling me to write,
To put down a few words
before I turn off the light.

No mansion, no fortune,
nobody’s impressed
just muddy boots
a life of the blessed.

God, family, work,
and the road rolling on,
the sun through the trees.
Three into one.

An I pray next week, to do it
again.
back in the van,
till the gardens say when.

Maybe it’s simple.
Maybe that’s the art. Just keeping life simple,
with God in my heart.

My Reggie Boy


French girls are fun, my son,
Spanish girls, not so.
But if you make one yours,
she can take you far,
farther than you know.


And son, I’d tell you,
go see the world.
Don’t let it pass you by.
I’ve walked through many places,
gazed beneath many foreign sky.


So travel, my son.
Get lost sometimes.
Hear the tongues of strangers.
Eat their food, taste their wine.


Remember, we’re all
just passing through.
Fall in love, lose your way.
You’ll make mistakes,
I made them too.


You’ll stand where I once stood,
beneath a sky so vast,
and wonder how the years
could ever have passed so fast.


So take the roads I couldn’t.
Go where the fools won’t dare.
And when they laugh at you, my son,
Know your not one and leave them there.


For the world belongs to those
who dare, the truth will set them free
Find your own road, be one of the few,
who truly gets to see.