Slainte Mhath - Fish

A hand held over a candle in angst-fuelled bravado

A carbon trail scores a moist stretched palm

Trapped in the indecision of another fine menu

And you sit there and ask me to tell you the story so far

This is the story so far

Shuffling your memories dealing your doodles in margins

You scrawl out your poems across a beer-mat or two

And when you declare the point of grave creation

They turn round and ask you to tell them the story so far

This is the story so far

And you listen with a tear in your eye

To their hopes and betrayals and your only reply

Is slàinte mhath

Princes in exile raising the standard drambuie

Parading their anecdotes tired from old campaigns

Holding their own last orders commanding attention

We sit here and listen to all of the story so far

This is the story so far

Take it away, take it away, take it away, take me away

From the dreams on the barbed wire at flanders and bilston glen

From a clydesdale that rusts from the tears of it’s broken men

From the realisation that all we’ve been left behind

Is to stand like our fathers before us in the firing line

Waiting on the whistle to blow, we stand here waiting

On the whistle to blow

They promised us miracles, and the whistle still blows

Broken promises, and the whistle still blows

The whistle still blows