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No Expectations. From The Landsong Series. Dedicated to Bono.

Just don’t expect me

To come back from this

In one piece

It’s alright for you

To suggest I live and let live

But how do I know I will survive it

Sounds more like a devil’s bargain

I could be trapped forever

In your unrelenting grip

Condemned to wander up and down

This stretch of road

Cheated on a whim

For eternal life

But now all alone

Left with just a view

And a bitter wit

To see how far I can spit

My angry words

Into the frigid air without a care

In a display of petulance

Like a dare

 

*****

 

This third work in the Landsong Series as I now read it again expresses those anxieties that I was anticipating at that time of the covid pandemic; how do we survive it? How do we carry on?

 

And now we are here post covid, how do we interact with each other?

 

The world has raced on in a sort of panic, desperate to restore sanity.

 

I would venture there has not been enough time to recover. People need to take some time to be a human being again, one that is allowed to explore those mix of emotions that have put us in survival mode. We need to rediscover those connections that mean so much to us, and those elements that make us similar and those that make us different. We need to understand what and who we are, and how we want to go forward, and not be forced into it.

 

Time is priceless. You cannot get it back.

 

U2’s track “Bad” from the album “The Unforgettable Fire” was the only choice that really stood out to be paired with this work. There is a desperate beauty to it, that fitted so well with what I was trying to say, to give voice to the visions I was having where we all lost our humanity. This track is a live version, from the 1984 concert at the National Exhibition Centre in Birmingham in the UK, and Bono’s voice just tears at your soul.

 

www.youtube.com/watch?v=4oRGxL42cI8

 

This work along with the rest of the series [and those yet to be added], are also available on my website with a new introduction and a viewing experience that is closer to the designed pages I print out for my own personal collection. If you wish, follow this link for a look:

 

www.shelleyturnerpoetpix.com/thelandsongseries

 

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Uploaded on December 23, 2025
Taken on December 1, 2022