Fire and Matches

Man of Sand

Here I stand

a man of sand

which time does wash away

My only relief

From the ocean reef

Greets my face the cool sea spray

As each grain of belief

falls to the waves beneath

and a man mould of clay

A new man of sand

who now may stand

To greet a bold new day

Here I stand

a man of sand

One which the ocean may carol

but which part of me is given

which part has it stole

Which land locked heart the key?

Love is strange, love is bold

Love grows weary, then is old

But each grain new

My hand does hold

As if of silver, as if of Gold

And as this cursed melody

Rolls with tide and ocean wave

A man of sand

does too give way

To love bold, and love brave

Yet here I stand

a man of sand

And across the sea I reach

For to hold the hand

Of my love who stands

on the other beach

Time has ravaged each of us

The sands of time do fall

And what was once sand in your eyes

Now my sandy voice does call

Oh Love is but a shifting quick sand

Into it each man may fall

and who amongst us would reach across

Who would answer your loves call?

Blue caesars

St Peters

Concubines

and turbines

turn wood from heels

to the eels

of salad dressing rebels

in the sinking sun

of a million buns and tokens of love

drugged by the stuff

that call to your heart

Totem pole dolly girls ready their seeds

to prayers and missions

in the countries art museums

That hold vases of flowers

As if earthly powers

Could some how

their seeds lay to rest

In it's appalling jest

Of some prison convict

Of who's innocense he protests

Inside the judges chambers

I lay my case the best I can

There is no equality in this world

Except the grace which is Natures Rod

The country parks hold festivals

The towns streets are full

Love transcends this wearied world

As each generation calls man God

Then fights for rights to rule

Each side believes they are top dog

The heinous crime that was His murder

Has left its mark on the faces

He created

In the pool of tears that Man is standing in

What leaves our flesh but love and sin

To lead the selfish to the test

Of nightmare or dream

Contested by the seas colours

See the grey turn into green

See the flag ships on them rolling

Confused when green turns to blue

And there is no line between

heaven and ocean

when there is no boundry

which walks beauty's line

The Train wreck of my heart is swollen

In the voices of the wind

But who's shirt now have I stolen

When I see the colours run from black to red

Upon the turf where we tread

Upon the roads that leaves the sod

When we eat the bread that bitter tastes

When the grain is small and shriven

As your love when you feel mine

What is this law

that nature has writ

That all good things die

But to save our lost wit

So too shall the bad things

die though not so quick

What are the laws that man has made

In place to confirm his face

In Godly Halls

Yet where does his dominion reach

As man is stranded away from God

Upon the other beach

He killed his God

Sometime back in the days

When capitalism breached

The walls of his holy house

Then layed so too by his self love

In his bed of roses

Yet his bed has already forgotten

Mans existence,

The years have trodden it out the way

We are each divided from another

By the time that our love does decay

Only one love when reached

Can fulfil the vacuum that

lies under the sun

There is just one love, only one

And that commands its law

With iron rod

That which transcends the bonds of time

The love in one universe alone

That Spiritual love of God

Hear the owls of night

They are poets burning bright

Each new sound a hundred more

They do set fire with bells aroar

Their loquacious tongues

do sing the hymn

Before the bat king (hung in the rafters)

To the cat clung tight in doors

stretching its carpet claws

And to each sound my ear is a tuned

As the play of light on your face by the moon

And right be right

wrong be wrong

You too my love

May hear the owl's song

Thought at night is there by right

Thought by day may go and play

Though I love the evening time

And run to it with body and mind

My love is free

As the roots of a tree

For in the day the truth to find

And yet it also must be true

That as night follows day

So I follow you

And being as one who sees

 but does not say

I will keep you a secret

from this to the last day

And comfort is blind

To the trials of love

It is good it might find

In the darkness above

A light of star to guide

While the night we abide

We pray that the day

May be more merciful and kind

So scurry not

To the scarecrows lot

With flightless birds from the sea

The Meare Road, the Road is Meare

Raging on the Meare Road

Eleven in the evening

don't know why I'm getting old

And don't know what I'm feeling

Shored myself up with a drink of gin

Jack Daniels and Rum Jim

Just walking while still missing

This gap I find myself in

Hoping all is eclectic work

No church work on this wall

Bells just fall

and ring the ground

In Meare where I'm suffering

Pale moon, pale night

My soul is pale, pale white

while the road I walk

Bends left and right

to follow the way I'm feeling

I find a bridge over running waters

Upon its wall I lay me down

The river curdles all my angst

Until black tender night

cradles me to my rest

Now nothing matters

and nothing's lost

Like in the waters I have crossed

There is no time to worry more

For blessed sleep comes

knocking at my door

And nothing's sacred

and nothings soft

Except your memory

Which I cannot turn off

All I long for, yearn, desire,

Is to burn with you, within your fire

All I savour and still hold close

Is the memory of your ghost

You got every colour Blue

You cheer cheers

Mine is close

You got ropes

I got nooses

You got hopes

Mine are mooses

You got soaps

I got sluices

What we need

is two-way fuses

You got boss

I got shriven

You been a loss

I broke even

Every thing I'd given

You need coal

I need water

You got fire

I got spit

You got sand

I got shit

You got one

I got two

We got every colour blue

Money comes, money goes

Funny how, some are sold

Some get rich, some die old

Every colour blue

Crazy gate, for crazy horse

Crazy jump, crazy course

What came first?, but what worse?

what went out, came back curse

Sitting pretty, sitting gold

Streets of heaven all are sold

None for rent have to buy

See estate agent in the sky

When I go

You go too

I and us

Me and you

Like yo yo

You two, too

We are lust

Trust like glue

how you know?

I know you

We go, go

But I go too

Fire, fire burning

Inside the zoo

Ark now go

Two by two

Kiss queen toe

toe times two

Two times toe

Toe times you

You be queen

Queen bee you

You throw, throw

To you, you,you

We must go

Now every colour blue

One is two,

Two is four

One is every colour poor

Give me trailer

Give me skint

Give me fifty dollar splint

I've grown old, but

she's still young

In the car room, salesman

husband, wife, city strife

I am her,

You be nice,

I be handsome,

You be cold

I want ransom

but kidnap sold

Kill a love

Don't love a kill

Love got no license

Love need no skill

Better be brave, better be will

love goes ice

When iceman still

Hill is cold, some mother crying

Tears fall twice

longing ever growing

Love not come, pay any respect

Now she is old, crooked neck

love stand still

Sun on hill

No mother crying

For love now kill

You are grainy

I am sand

You talk crazy

I no understand

I have time

Time kill you

We have every colour blue

If you see me

Where the elder droops

And the swallow in the sky just swoops

See my head bowed down

Don't look at my frown

because I'm still free

David Thurlow

Zen like and nimble

Fit as a thimble

That shadowy man of the lair

Bearded not greedy

By rights not all there

Shaggy not bad tempered

Robust as his fencing

Traced back his lines to the roots

Whole hearted, out-smarted

by no one above him

You just have to love him

Mr Thurlow comes from stock of the bear

You shout in his direction

He hears not a question

But answers with meaningful stare

Romance is in him

No Lance corporal can wince him

That canny old elf of great care

I once had met

Some folk who could vet

They saw him leap five great stairs

Look in river or stream

He's near anything green

You cannot believe his clean hair

David Thurlows his name

But he's outside the game

Still winning while he's not in there

Do you wait by the river

Or stumble the gorge

There's a man who'll deliver

His life in the forge

Cast of iron or steel

You know it ain't real

But believe this man of the lair

Ghosts risen in steam,

The glen or the stream

Mr Thurlow will willow,

and billow your windrow

Til canal boat and thimble

Do thread where the wind blows

Then you'll hear his voice on the air

Calling come back and greet us

Ye locals and far reachers

And step your nimble feet in Ebbors lair

Love upon Love/ upon all

I came upon loves fence

Out from a walk in wilderness

And sat there for a while

Many a thought did come to me while I rested upon loves stile

And many a feeling too

Though so fleeting were the clouds above

That soon I abandoned love

and walked on

In that time all was white and fine

For the briefest moment all was bright

I said good bye to blackest night

And in my hand

I felt her hand

In my heart I heard her voice

Each was nothing

but ever most

She was too real

Yet she seemed a ghost

Each was hard yet soft

In my dilemma I had no choice

I had to return to love

Either to win the moon and stars

or to lose all of creation

Either to be bold to match the feeling

Or as ash and star dust

be blown away

Nothing was near yet nothing far

As all in Loves landscape

had been changed by trust

And silence moved my very soul

Yet in my heart

I heard music of harps

And all this I found in loves place

This love I found in her sweet face

A Day in a Bar

In such a selfish time

And a likewise sheltered bar

I stopped a moment for to take a sip

And then to smoke a cigar

The mercenaries and Judges

There did sit and each other abide

With the mercury of their smiles

which cut their faces open wide

And selfish sin did stink the place

like some potent mell of fish

When I sat down, a waitress

came and said honey what is your dish

I left my honour at the door

My mind spoke my wish

Like bullets from a tommy gun

My eyes grappled to her flesh

And seasons of sin turned my stomach

as the blonde went to the boxer's corner

And to him him did confide

I with my half spun anarchy

Laced her pride filled heart to my side

So that when he began to bad mouth her

I quickly stepped astride

And there and then the boxer crooned

and to my face cried

A jeering jest

to which his friends did not protest

Indeed they lit the way to a duel contest

This guy who's jealousy had blunted his features

to some dumbness of form

As I levelled my hateful gaze upon him

As in some biblical storm

The day drops bled from a top his brow

Then the dame did run

And later when she was retelling it

She revealed that beneath

the table he had held a gun

Disgusted in Love

I take off my glove

And find no finger prints there

Caught red handed

And unbandaged by the witch

Who pulls at your golden hair

Looks troubled at the shaken crime

And into the toast rack of the forgotten line

Al dente under pants

firm to the bite

Throw them at the wall

All through the night

If they don't stick

They will be alright

Al dente under pants

Are a culinary delight

No pasta walls are wailing tonight

I'm disgusted in love

But my eyes cry in fright

My legs turn windmills

in the wind

And all my arms can stand up for

Is their right to be still

Give me disgusted love

And I'll tell you a rhyme

Kick out the cat in a river of slime

Bile of the ages

Pill box of crime

Disgusted love is overflowing

through the sewers of time

Ribald ribbons joke with curls

That girls are no better than boys

In the best of all worlds

Leave me tight in the pocket

I'm short in the purse

My mouth is a drain pipe

So go call the nurse

I'm disgusted in love

but it only gets worse

Now for the second time

Lets hear the first verse

Disgusted in love,

Tailored in chasened dreams

Pull down around the pantry room

The kitchens not been cleaned

I'm in my al dente underpants

And I'm disgusted

Disgusted in love

Sychophants in under pants

call time on the nations chore

Risen tides of violence rides

Out the Severn Bore

Token takes the toke glass

That smoky rivers pour

To rustic lies, in ancient eyes

When timbers moan and call

The Lady lies full square in bed

Her dead head falls

From her homestead

And elephantic wives endure

Up and down the window

This wife then yours

Us our lives

Stick the door

with tape across the cracks

Timpany creeps

A creepers core

This is obvioussly Pigeon Street

Coo, coo, Ha, Haa, Ho, ho, He, he,

The slap and tickle the cackle free

Of turned up turnips

Tournique, tie around

a dignified neck

Telescopic voice calls out

Not a laugh, but a shout

You've reached the corner

Now turn about

back onto Pigeon Street

Real lives turn fake

Taken pride, prison cake

Some where within you find

The key to 15 Pigeon Street

Now yours, now his,

This wide eyed blink

Can you believe no Kitchen sink?!

Can you cry out, what drought, what drought,

Its dry on Pigeon Street

Come pour with rain

Come fill your pain

With Tears so distant they

Fall in vain

When windows blow

The prison cell

You'll know too well

You're living on Pigeon Street

Two eyes collide

head on with stuff

Graveyards, bones

Now I scoff at

Flies inside the beggar's belly

Calling out for Pigeon Street

Reading lines from long lost poems

Who wrote the Mayans

When they last wrote Home

Because they died because they lived

In the house on Pigeon Street

Railings cold, and trailers scuffed

Tears dry on tombes

You learnt your books off

And library's close

And Roman roads all lead

to Pigeon Street

Coo, coo, Ha, ha, hee, hee

Hoo, ho

You know you are a prisoner now

Your keys are gone

but thought lives on

Inside the cracks on Pigeon Street

Take heed my friend

It does not end

That road which leads from here

there wends

When the light is gone

And all is cold

You know you've reached the pigeon road

And there no friend

One may meet

Unless its to ask

Is this Pigeon Street

Great Breech Wood

I went to walk in Great Breech wood

And found myself where trees abound

The North wind blew between dead twigs

And curled the leaves that lay on the ground

My nose it twitched, my ears they itched

I felt the presence of deer and hounds

I saw a squirrel run to a trees furthest reach

And heard the forest birds song of sound

The nettles stung, the beeches browned

The Oaks were strengthened by the ground

The leaves curled in the winter furls

That twirled the wind and around me wound

And my love did call from beneath an ash’s eves

Like a satellite I was drawn to its planetary crown

Then Great breach wood was torn asunder

It gave forth lumber of Larch and pine

All of it under a winter storms thunder

Which rattled the bones of all those near

Their toppling heights and treacherous climbs

My dear lady was struck by a bolt of lightening

A love dart from the Gods struck her in her prime

And the planetary dark that ensued was a wonder

To walk in this park I felt was a crime

My romantic soul wished to lurch for a number

By which I could dial then bring back the time

But the forest which was wiser than mountains

Held my soul fast so alone did I climb

To birth the last hope I had of my loved one

And set her soul free her one God to find

Now alone I walked though the forest was alive

Badgers scurried like bank clerks collecting

Their wad of twigs and worms like knives

The wood pecker sung the pigeon cooed

A single black bird alone mewed

And rats slumbered beneath

Rotting tree limbs

As foxes cavorted singing howling hymns

The forest was quiet like a graveyards hushed

As greenery flourished

And foliage lushed

The sandal wearing saint was knighted

The night began its game

Half housed between this world and the next

Advantaged

As in the eves called the owls

And many stations of the cross were planted

As herbs and forest plants were vowed

Into sacred celebration

Of the moon like majestic cows

Who’s alien forms besmirched the landscape

And past the night with heavy sounds

Until in the dawn rose the single starlings

In the flock of chorus loud

And beneath the canopy of heaven

Wrote the names of those in shroud

To be remembered by the martyrs

Who had seen and died, and lived then bowed

And this I saw while I was walking

All this was mine of to be most proud

Inside the Breech of the Great Wood Vaulting

And opened its vaults to the sun and the cloud

Want

I don't want to want

I don't want to tell you why

All I want is the font

Falling from a rain filled sky

And my want is tears

Falling from a pain filled eye

All my wants are fears

Stealing out before I die

And I don't want to feel or cry

I just want the want

That means I don't have to try

It has been a desert of the years

While all my wants have turned to fly

and even if I want you

My wanting will return like a sigh

So hear me in my wants

Just list them like wishes to tie

Your wishbone has been broken

Now don't you want to break the lie

How about it Sinorita?

You are in, I am out

I'm bitter, you're stout

Come one, come all

come nail your colours to the wall

I've seen what you can't believe

But your ghost won't leave

And I've only heard the rumour

That you were here Lady Amour

That shoulder to cry on

Seems as harmless as a lion

Until I step into the pen

Where you'll drink with your mouth open

And mine will cast as black as ink

You wish well, dried up ivory sink

Sucked bone dry

The hair of the sky

Now bristles with untimely winks

As your unicorn eclipses the sun

and goes to the moon light to drink

Synopsis of the film Tension at Table rock

Or the story of Wes Tancred

The head lines read :Ruthless and mean

He killed his best friend over a woman

who he snubbed then she turned him in

Then he was pardoned

The song Wes Tancred

Left him no place to call home

So he left town

and took the name John Bailey as his own

The change of my name

is a strange taste

as bitter as sage and as lonely as thyme

The faces of my masters

Turn to me to blame

They're slaves to agents of change

And actors of a stage

Still my past is shadow and reputation

And that can only be

Dismissed by acts of bravery and redemption

I killed a friend

And in it self love

He had betrayed me in crime

it was a strange taste

As bitter as sage

As lonely as thyme

Tancred earns a friend

In the owner of a stage post

He is killed by the hand of bandits

And Bailey takes the killers down

Earning him an adopted son

In a new town

The boys uncle is the sheriff

Though only in name

For his deeds do not answer the same

The colours of eden

do turn fast as pastures

grazed by cattle the drivers rustle

The county sheriff's in a fluster

frozen in fear

As the town's folk grow nervous

As cattle rustlers grow near

The cattle boys have been on the trail

for four months

Are hard bitten, rough drinken

Ready for a brawl

As they ride into town

The town's folk hide and crawl

But they're done with running scared

They need a leader to stand behind

To stand up to their foe

He's the very man

Who has had to change his name

He's mirrored his original scenario

This time its an impotent sheriff

Who's life he must change

And his love is new

The Cowboys they fill the whore house

With scenes of blue

And the love, who is wife to the sheriff

finds it hard to live with a coward

As he tries to work out his own fear

By facing up to the cow herds

And Wes Tancred has to

Face his own past again

And remember

When Ram Rod busts a fight

but the range is far away

A farmer who stands up to them

Is shot down cold in the sheriff's sight

The sheriff does not have the courage

to be a witness

He is frightened of his stage

The newspaper man tells the truth

With brave words on the page

But the cowboys came in

To revenge the cry of murder

Wes Tancred saves paper print

With fists as hard as lumber

And his adopted protege son

Is caught up in the fricay

And the new love is smitten

By his brave deeds and acts

And it is a stange taste

bitter as sage

As lonely as time

The farmer's death went to inquest

But the sheriff would not tell the truth

Until Tancred revealed his true name

Then the jury and whole town did decide

Upon who to turn the finger of blame

The sheriff finds his voice

And the cowboys are accused

But will Tancreds testimony hold up

He is still hampered by the crime

Or false repute of his past

There is a weasel who runs

the bars and whore house

And favours the cowboys custom

He arranges a local hired gun

To intimidate the sheriff

But what does it take

To make a man like Tancred stay?

The promise of a woman he loves

at end of day?

Then

Margaret Feeney’s Funeral - January 18^th 2012

The relatives have all arrived

The Priest is expecting the church to fill

Lacock Abbey stands to the West

To the East is Bathwick Hill

Holymen and sepulchres

Fight in some far off foreign land

But in this Earth Margaret will rest

In this our England

The summer starlings have been and gone

Winter is reaching out her hand

The ice, the ice and frost abound

Like across a desert sand

Nothing but bleak relief

Follows the funeral caravan

As they climb the hill to the crematorium

And let fire consummate her wish belief

That all men were created equal

But all women work for peace

From ashes we come to the stars we return

Our dust is lust and trust reborn

In peasants as in kings

How the mightiest have fallen

Under such a sweet birds wings

Margaret you had the best of us

In you the most dear human qualities were found

A friend to those who knew great hardship

A saint to those run aground

The nuns of l’oisiers sang out a tune

That Margaret Feeney would come

Back to them soon

As over Africa rose the stars and great moon

A country that you once were in love with

And they loved you too,

With their hearts like balloons

As you carried them away from their strife

There was never a more deserving thing to do

No greater good could you do in your life