Lost Boys

Forgotten Poems of Paul Hemphill

Sitting in the morning sun I'll be sitting when the evening comes Watching the ships roll in And I watch 'em roll away again Sittin' here resting my bones And this loneliness won't leave me alone It's two thousand miles I roamed Just to make this dock my home Now, I'm just Sitting on the dock of the bay Watching the tide roll away I'm just sitting on the dock of the bay Wasting time

Otis Redding

Many of the songs and poems written during the eighties are published in the wide-ranging and eclectic anthology Into That Howling Infinite, the idiosyncratic The Drover's Dog And Other Stories, and in Roman Holiday, the collected works of the first century Roman poet Meniscus Diabetes. The poems featured in this collection, The Lost Boys, whilst not "the fish that John West rejected", are songs and verses that never quite made it into the mainstream. Many are snapshots, mementos, en passant, of particular interludes and interstices during a decade of personal change and turmoil. Some record instances and interfaces of pain and passion, points in time and terroir, and others, passing fads and fancies, vagaries and valances. They represent markers and milestones at seminal points on the road. Some, like 'True Believers', 'All That I Want To Be I Am’', ‘The Little Man', and ' A Dog From Society's Pound', featured on the old vinyl records. There are frolics like like 'Moses Heston', of which the man himself wrote "I am enchanted by the lyrics", and 'Transylvania Nights', both inspired by second rate movies. There are those, seemingly incongruent in style and substance that were written during a sojourn in hospital in December 1986, under the influence of morphine, in a mental space that would today describe as 'out there'. And some are actually performed. In the spring of 2007, 'The Average Man' was a highlight of the sell-out Bellingen-born review The Trial of John Howard, when Genghis Khan, Torquemada, and Uncle Adolph appeared as witnesses for the Defence. Can't say we single-handedly brought down the Tories, nor seized the Costa Geriatrica from the National Party, but a good time was most certainly had by all

Lost Boys

1. Souvenirs 2. London John Moves On 3. Lost Boys 4. Paul, 1984 5. A Dog From Society's Pound 6. True Believers 7. All That I Want To Be I Am 8. The Pale Rider, Gustave Doré 9. Moses Heston 10. In The Midnight Hour 11. The Average Man 12. St John’s, Paddington 13. Transylvania Nights 14. The Little Man 15. Bricks And Mortar 16. No Survivors 17. The Wisdom Tree 18. Sparks 19. HuldreFolk at 2MBS FM,1983 20. Pudu Jail 21. The Warship Earth 22. Legend 23. Ludlow Castle,1987 24. Crying Out 25. Modern Living 26. Past Perfect 27. Promised Land 28. Paradise Last 29. Quest

About The Writer Multi-award winning songwriter Paul Hemphill has performed throughout Australasia and the UK, as a solo artist and as a member of the shadowy HuldreFolk, combining poetry and music, horror and humour. Vikings, Romans, Mongols, and the Spanish Inquisition have all faced the music! Something old, something new, something that may take us disappearing down the foggy ruins of time – pushing poetic licence to its hazy limits, reacquainting us with his particular take on history, imparting an altogether different perspective on pain and pandemonium, and sharing with us dubious anthems to power, pride, and prejudice. You can find out more and listen to some of Paul’s songs on SoundCloud and YouTube. Search under Paul Hemphill or HuldreFolk (but ignore the Dutch death metal band of the same name)

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