Gold, oh gold of homeland soil touched once and nevermore
Glisten in my memory for the eternity that I could not hold
And cast the visage of perception, shrouding your long distance
That my heart may rest in clouds of artifice and mirth

Scatter all the truths amidst the wind
To drift unconscious to a distant desert, buried among the sand.
Paint paint paint with blood of sickly verdance; mask the image
Greener from the other side and poisonous within

Some day 20 years from now
I shall look back and see the hills
And think of misty mornings
196 up Old Belair Road
Middlemarch beside Windy Point
Rehearsal Room 3 just down the hallway
A chance to pluck the strings and cast illusions with my melody

Sentimental whims below the shade of the veranda
I said I’d write my very first novel before I turned 18
Then the venom streamed down from the sky and withered the roots beneath my feet
And sent a southerly wind to sweep me to a ‘home’ that I know not

In truth, the venom was always there
But I never deigned to see it
I frolicked and danced upon the grass
Pretending to ignore its prickles

Now from balconies and windows in a foreign haven
I see the grass as only green and bask in sweet nostalgia
I need not fear the prickles of the truth’s venom spires:
I am far away and safe
I’ll never touch it anyways