A Ruminating cowboy

 Like a ruminating cowboy

Chewing the cud in the mud

Along with his cows

Thinking thoughts he can't even understand

All alone on the prairie land

With his thoughts running through his fingers like sand

Like a ruminating cowboy

In a battle with his cattle

Talking prittle prattle

To a rancherman 

Leaning on a fence post on the rancher's land

Considering the lily in the waterhole

Where he washes his hands

Like a ruminating cowboy

Holding tight to the ponderous thoughts

Going through his mind

Like a lasso bind

Lassoing up the strays like

Shooting manta rays he could find

Or something along those lines

Like a ruminating cowboy

Overthinking the stinking lot

That is his life, doesn't help him a lot

If he loses the plot or his mind

Like a ruminating cowboy

I think therefore I am

Or I am therefore I think, I'm in a bind

If I cogitate will I find

I'm not really the cowboy kind?

Like a ruminating cowboy

Contemplating the clover

And the tobacco in his grind

Rolling up a fag of the inexpensive kind

Debating fate over the Indian wines

Deliberating with the snakes on

The Texas New Mexico lines

Like a Ruminating cowboy

Mulling over a mule

Eyeing up a steer for to

stir in the stew

Meditating the meat

Wrestling with the rodeo

In his rawhide seat

Rolling up and wracking up

And turning over in his sleep

All the herds that ever heard

Him rolling in the deep

Like a ruminating cowboy

Dining room

 Do you remember when we sauntered

Down Kirlegate

Into the peabody fields 

Of long owl bottomed tablelands

Of sheets of ice over grass

That broke when we walked

Like knives and forks

On the dinner table

A Christmas in the dining room

With the big dark brown wooden legs

And sitting up straight

And well behaving 

Accidents and incidents

Of birth

But in our mother's sphere 

where the 

Birthday parties were

And the weight of those thick walls

And the texture of the wall paper

I can almost touch

The convex mirror

Set in black twisted leaves

And our grandmother

Like a presence known

Without even being there

And now she, our mother

Waves a hand through thin air

Does not fully know

I'm there, perhaps can hardly see

Except on certain days

And times

When the curtains in her mind

Draw back enough

Or align

To allow a polarized light through

And spotlight

In the dusty air

Again back on that table spare

In the dining room

All those moons

Ago

When we were young and her children

And not her adult helpers

But how is identity defined?

Just a shroud a cover over us

That lasts for a certain time

Until we must slough off the skin

And grow

Or change

It's strange, isn't it strange?

Have my cake and eat it

 Well I hit rock bottom

With a rock cake

They said I was forgotten

But I've been on the bake

It's not that it's Stollen, or sponge or date

Oh just want to have my cake and eat it

It's a shame that a man these days can't decide

Whether to be a woman and have to wear a disguise

It's not the way I cut the mustard or bake my bread

Oh I  just want to have my cake and eat it

Yes you've been giving me these excuses

About the size of your cake tin, and how it was faked in

 and how I have to use it

But I just like the cream and jam, Pam

Oh I just want to have my cake and eat it

I've seen madams make cakes in the confectory

They all look so tempting, but it's like I'm stuck inside a rectory

And even the Vicar likes his cake with tea, like me

Oh but I just want to have my cake and eat it

What has happened to the world ma

It all seems so absurd ma

If I were Marie-antoinette, I think I'd get it in the neck

For saying let them all eat cake

Oh I just want to have my cake and eat it

It maybe a mignon, or a chocolate bourbon

Perhaps an eclair, I don't care

But if you tell me I can't have it

I'll just reach in the jar and grab it

Oh I just want to have my cake and eat it

It's been such a long while

Since I've been able to smile

So why can't I just have my cake and eat it?!

Don't get too heavy

Don't get too heavy

Oh it's only the middle of the night

Don't get too heavy

Oh and don't give up the fight

Don't get too heavy

Cos I need a little light

Oh don't get too heavy tonight 

I need a levy on all the things

You're doing right

I need a chevy, but I only got a bike

It's not my bevy

But you know it is my bite

Don't get too heavy tonight

Make love room

 This room ain't much to look at

The taps a walking out the wall

On long spider legs

And your powder kegs

Are about to blow up everything and all

These chairs are not much

at lying

These beds are not much for sinking

These lies are like a flower stinking

Stinking of the bad rose air

Oh I can tell you that I loved you

From the moment I first saw you

Playing and sparkling in the air

Your eyes were like a fire

And your face like a choir

That sings out of some kind of despair

But a real joy was in you

And I knew, just knew you'd renew

Like a phoenix from the ashes of her care

And go spiralling into night

Like a beautiful firelight

Burning as the thousand suns up there

So we must make room for love

Make room don't slip off her glove

That falls like a silk scarf on a wild wood stair

Make room for love

And all the the oils on the the roaring sea

All the black spills killing

All the helpless gulls

Make room for love

Let love make room for you and me

love meaning

 I mean I love you

Yes I love you

Yes I do

I love you

Without warning

But the sun is early dawning

And the black night of your suffering

Still lingers on your ruffling

Bedsheets

All the songs of the skies

seem to fall down and die

But when you hold your head up high

I can feel

Your long goodbye

of longing

And I've spent many lonely nights on my pillow

Crying myself to sleep just like a weeping willow

And if you want something from way down deep

Well let me tell that I keep one eye open when I sleep

Beaver lodge

 Beaver lodge, beaver lodge

You gotta get on down to the beaver lodge

Don't dislodge, don't dislodge

Get your log down to the beaver lodge

There's a traffic jam

In the grand coulee dam

You gotta get your log

To the beaver lodge

It's a hell of a thing

It's gonna make you sing

If you ain't got a wing

Then you better bring

Bring your log

To the beaver lodge