Familiar sounds of summer days
Will form a song for those who laze.
For those in love, each day presents
A chance to use the present tense,

Inhabiting the 'here and now',
Allowing every day endow
Each mind with perfect sunlit sights,
The opening act for summer nights.

Parties start as daylight fades.
Minds as sharp as razor blades
Lose their edge when doused in drink.
A golden haze in which to think.

A golden age of falling down,
Where people see their head, their crown
As just a hole for alcohol,
To fill and thrill and then enthral

By filtering all the words and sounds
Of people, birds and Basset hounds,
Allowing us to bear the bores,
And talk to her who he adores,

And clear the floors when he begins
To sing to her a song he pens
On a perfect mental page,
A product of the golden age.

And yes, it sounds like Dire Straits,
And yes, he looks just like Bill Gates,
But he exudes a glowing charm
That's growing on a mental farm.

His song reveals the fields inside,
With views extending far and wide,
A tulip farm where all the flowers
Will dance in summer breeze for hours,

Despite not having knees or feet
And wilting in the summer heat.
There's a chance they'll dance tonight.
His bait will work; the fish will bite.

And Dire Straits will be his king,
Replacing Elton John or Sting.
They're isolated from the throng.
'The Walk of Life' will be their song,

The soundtrack to the summer days
That represents a healthy craze
For spending all the day outdoors
On beautiful flower-covered floors,

Admiring nature's summer style,
Hearing sounds that make them smile,
Happy cries that scatter crows,
The sight of brightly coloured clothes,

Hearing tennis grunts and screams,
More sinister when heard in dreams,
Where all the summer signs seem wrong,
Just like a happy, carefree song

That's sung too slowly, out of tune,
Suggesting night is coming soon,
Heralding an impending end
When Death will be your only friend.

The sky has hints of purple hues.
The young news reader on the news
Is talking in a voice that shows
No sign of life. The jet-black crows

Flee in terror for the hills.
With smiles suggesting dentist drills
And sudden, terrifying fights,
Their sparkling teeth and tennis whites

Are glowing under purple skies.
On the news two pale-blue eyes
Suggest a mind intent on murder.
The old news reader overheard her

Plot and plan her victim's death,
And now he's gone. His end he met.
The tennis players' manic smiles
Make poodles cower and run for miles.

At parties there's a dark foreboding,
A sense of evil near exploding.
Couples tell each other lies.
They look into each other's eyes

In fear that one will pull a gun.
Two is company. So is none.
Life is just a list of hates,
From Elton John to Dire Straits.

Even Sting is Stephen King.
His songs of hate and death will ring
A dull funereal mental bell
That conjures scenes of deepest hell.

Danny sees it all at night,
Lit up by his mind's spotlight.
He feels as if he's seen the truth.
He's seen the set, the film shoot.

In waking hours he only sees
The finished film, the scenes that please
The senses and the censors who
Prefer the lies to what is true.

He thought the scenes of waking hours,
Of summer days and fields of flowers,
Presented all there was to see,
Our contact with reality,

But now he knows it's all a lie.
He sees the truth and wonders why
In the past he'd never seen
The grand illusion on the screen.

He thinks he's seeing something real,
But this dark dream stems from a meal.
Specifically, a slice of cake.
Earlier, when wide awake

He ate the cake, despite the smell,
And even though it fell as well.
While on the floor, his pet dog, Fred,
Helped make sure the cake was dead.

He stood on it and left it there,
Attached to dirt and bits of hair.
The cake may well have caused his dream,
His terrifying drawn-out scream.

But this is just a theory too,
And there's no guarantee it's true.
Perhaps he's right. His case is strong.
But when he wakes he thinks he's wrong.