Michael Walsh

A Man From No Time copyright2025 Michael Walsh

In the muzzle flash of her shotgun shack
Memphis Mary shook the rattle of a diamondback
Conjurin’ spirits of my lives past
She grabbed my hand, cried out with a gasp
Killed the King’s coachmen, stole their guns
Rode out of Versailles as The Revolution spun
down the road of ravens and blood
to dance with the guillotine in the Paris mud

(chorus)
My past lies up ahead
My future I can’t outrun
I’m a man from no time or place
One history has shunned
My soul on trial for all the wrong I’ve done
The Fates hung me out to dry
Between the centuries I’ve swung

I’m a tidal wave in a suitcase
A punk in a Peruvian jail break
As The Shining Path fell from grace
they sharpened their teeth on my mistakes
I walked 17 miles across a machete
Slept in a gun barrel cool and steady
Got a lone wolf’s cry, a book of lies

(chorus)
My past lies up ahead
My future I can’t outrun
I’m a man from no time or place
One history has shunned
My soul on trial for all the wrong I’ve done
The Fates hung me out to dry
Between the centuries I’ve swung

Alabama’s burning 1963
Jim Crow boilin’ the mercury
Baudelaire’s Flowers wrap ‘round my reed
Go buy a rosary, sins pickin’ up speed
The Fates cracked the whip, stripped the trees
Gave me cuts that do not bleed
Drowning gilded memories
This day a flashing century
My grief a public enemy
Politicians greased with Vaseline
Lady Justice on her hands and knees
beaten ‘til she could not see
Jacked on Benzedrine and dopamine
with Baudelaire’s Flowers and gasoline
I torched Precinct Seventeen
and ran home as fire bells rang

(chorus)
My past lies up ahead
My future I can’t outrun
I’m a man from no time or place
One history has shunned
My soul on trial for all the wrong I’ve done
The Fates hung me out to dry
Between the centuries I’ve swung

My past lies up ahead
My future I can’t outrun
I’m a man from no time or place
One history has shunned
My soul on trial for all the wrong I’ve done
The Fates hung me out to dry
Between the centuries I’ve swung
A man from no time
A man from no time
A man from no time . . .

Give Me A New Sky copyright2024 Michael Walsh

A Locust drone blew off my legs
Give me a new sky!
Under War’s marquee where lions fed
Give me a new sky!
Jackals on The Hill, flags that hypnotize
Give me a new sky!
Morals for sale, see the snake unwind
Give me a new sky!

(chorus)
Give me a new sky
Before we fade to black
Give me a new sky
Bloods in Liberty’s tracks
Give me a new sky
I’m not turnin’ back
Bombs droppin’ on the wicked and the wise
They tell us peace is just over the rise

The chop shop gave me swizzle-stick legs and a rebel tattoo
A ticket to the Revolution and a pen with a fuse
We have a see-through past, blow flies that won’t blow
Cops takin’ down rainbows with pistols and firehose

Prophets chased from the river to the sea
Humanity chained to a gun factory
Children runnin’ across The Machete
Humvees on a spree
Makin’ empty pairs of shoes out of old enemies
The U.N. got a bloody nose, another Wounded Knee
Couldn’t climb out of Hell on the Pope’s rosary

Give me a new sky
Before we fade to black
Give me a new sky
Bloods in Liberty’s tracks
Give me a new sky
I’m not turnin’ back
Bombs droppin’ on the wicked and the wise
They tell us peace is just over the rise

The news is weavin’ synthetic horizons
Give me a new sky!
The streets scream a thousand sirens
Give me a new sky!
I write gasoline poetry you can ride in
Give me a new sky!
In hope’s arms I’ll forever sigh in
Give me a new sky!
I write gasoline poetry you can ride in
Give me a new sky!
Joe Strummer’s rockin’ my engine
It’ll never stop firin’

Give me a new sky
Before we fade to black
Give me a new sky
Bloods in Liberty’s tracks
Give me a new sky
I’m not turnin’ back
Bombs droppin’ on the wicked and the wise
They tell us peace is just over the rise

Joan of Grace copyright 2024Michael Walsh



My mother walked with me down Recovery Road
Her shadow casting angel wings across the sand
She never turned back, never let go
When the Devil tried to take me by the hand
When the Devil tried to take me by the hand

You better pull your boots on
Get out in the field and plow
You better pull your boots on
Get out in the field and plow
You better pull your boots on
Get out in the field and plow

Years rolled, I walked with my mother down Parkinson’s Road
Her shadow casting angel wings across the sand
I had to turn back at the bottom of the cross
when Jesus took her by the hand, when Jesus took her by the hand

You better pull your boots on
Get out in the field and plow
You better pull your boots on
Get out in the field and plow
You better pull your boots on
Get out in the field and plow

Grief’s flood of roses and mud swept me away to 1965
My mother and father were dancing in the kitchen
So young and so happy, it was there I wanted to hide
It was there I wanted to hide

You better pull your boots on
Get out in the field and plow
You better pull your boots on
Get out in the field and plow

Saint John topped Westmill Hill ridin’ a white ram
John picked me up, carried me on his back
And we headed toward new land
We headed toward new land

You better pull your boots on
Get out in the field and plow
You better pull your boots on
Get out in the field and plow

Saint Joan copyright2024 Michael Walsh


They ran me out of Shanghai
the day the moon stole the sun
On a road boiling over the rise
filled with ravens, bones, and mud
My past lie up ahead
My future I couldn’t outrun

And Saint Joan took me by the hand
and said together we’ll overcome

Imperial guards burned down my san-ho yuan
Shot my horses, stole my guns
All because of the favor of one
of the Emperor’s concubines I’d won
She gave him only daughters
When she gave me a fat blue-eyed son
the sky fell on the Forbidden City
I set on the run

And Saint Joan took me by the hand
and said together we’ll overcome

I’m a man from no time or place
One history has shunned
The Fates hung me out to dry
Between the centuries I’ve swung
My soul on the docket
for all the wrong I’ve done

And Saint Joan took me by the hand
and said together we’ll overcome

I married a Hong Kong dancer in 1841
Victoria loaded our lives into a cannon
and the Opium Wars begun
Jade’s father was shot for smugglin’
They beheaded both his sons
We escaped on a fishing boat
to the Formosa port of Jeelung

And Saint Joan took me by the hand
and said together we’ll overcome

As Shangri-la burned
I threw ghost money at the sun
Taoist shaman danced
to the beat of leather drums
In scorched cane fields
where water’s thick with blood
The tigers of truth were coming for me
on their mad circling run

And Saint Joan took me by the hand
and said together we’ll overcome

The tigers dragged me to a temple
in the hills above Kaohsiung
I could hear my sweet wife
singing take me home to Sai Kung
I collapsed at her coffin
as pilgrims and farmers looked on

And Saint Joan took me by the hand
and said together we’ll overcome