Red Sky

Red Sky At Night

The village stood as if damned

Corrosive in illusions of the mind

A water boy was running

To fetch the fire brigade

And the torpedo manufacturer

Had corked his finest wine

A magical dragon

Then curtailed the wagon

And bit off one of its wheels

Gosh Golly said the madam

Drinking from a flagon

That warehouse is making eyes at me

Well how does it make you feel?

To know an empty field

Said the farmer

In his hand was a potato peel

The last crop of last year

Since war with Mars

All our spuds have been nicked

Yet I chased a Martian with a Spatula

And it felt quite spectacular

To know that  a fly on Mars

Can flatten me

You don’t drive your car on Mars?

Said the lollipop lady

Who had filled her mouth with Candy

From all the helpless babies

She helped to cross the road

You must be crazy

Said the Martian

We all hover on Space beams

And gravity don’t pull you down so hard

He ain’t Heavy, man the life buoy

He’s floating away

Oh Brother why did you have to go and live on Mars?

My brother he was happy

Wearing the Martian Hood

He felt Einstein was the only one

Who truly understood

But the Milky way was curdling

And his journey would be long

Jet set let’s go

Now I’m going to where I must belong

The rocket ship fired

Its engines burst into flames

The little skid mark from tyres

Left single tracks across our brains

And in a gush of gasoline

And a whoosh of rocket fuel

This ship crossed the boundary line

Of the imagination and what’s possible

Out beyond the stars

Above a barren sands

To another Red Rocky plane

To be caught in Martian hands

Like a paper aeroplane

Sent across a class in school

Its message met the Martian eyes

As if a guided cotton spool

The thread as in the labyrinths

In jet trails out to Space

Yet in their air, it was so vacant

The origin difficult to trace

The burning ship set down

Its fires quenched by the Red sand

Like blood the red horizon foretold delight

At shepherds hands

But Martian sheep can bound for miles

And a shepherd here must have a sense of humour

The only time he’s without his smiles

Is when he sees a Martian Puma

They prey upon his flock of sheep made

In part of aluminium

And sink their tin opening mouths

That shine in some illumine

These chases take place soon after dark

While the tin sheep start to rust

And by the morning they’ve shed themselves

Of a hundred fillings of red dust

The Zinc/Magnesium clad Pumas agitate

And set themselves in bold

Shining like a fire

In the starry Martian cold

It all seems like a miracle

It all seems so well planned

But the shepherd he rises on a spiracle

Of unearthly breath he has manned

For no man ever went there

None who from earth were born

None before my brother Peter

Who rode in on a cob of blazing corn

He landed and a maze field, began springing into life

All the Martian cried that’s amazing

No more worries or agricultural strife

We can all give up steel sheep grazing

And opt for an easier life

So glad were they he came there

They called him star man from the East

For with him Sunlight, blue skies and rain

Which drove out the wild Red beast

The Red dust which fed him had fallen from grazing sheep

And now without red rust it led him

To retreat into the planet’s deep

Out went the warders and keepers of the Red

Out the damn spot back to its hole

Now they’re all living underground

Now the Martian’s can have a soul

On went the planting of the corn and the wheat
New grew the bread and the patter of green feet

The Green giants stood at eight feet tall
Every earthman was a midget 
To these men of the Red Ball
But the Red dust had not gone away
It was hidden in the basement
And buried in the hay
Waitin for the right time
When night replaced the day

Then at that moment when night broke out instead
The Red Martian's came out their holes
And began killing the Green ones dead 
To and fro they wrestled for what seemed fifty years
Until a final truce was settled
Which left the Green ones quite in tears

The Greens would be left in peace
If they helped the Red Barons with a War
They wanted their dogs of war unleashed 

Upon the hated earth they swore

For an Earthling had come some years ago
And changed the fine balance of power
The Reds had lost face that day when to their holes they'd cowered

The Reds would stand no more for earth
With Its lights of leading minds
They wanted to extinguish all its candles
Bring back the dark times

The Green Martians disagreed
But what else could they do?
If they didn't want more bloodshed

They knew they must subdue

And so a pact was made to ally against the Earth
The Red blood was mixed with Green in Oath
And each knew what blood was worth

The Invasion came one Wednesday
Following a Blood Red Dawn

The people of Earth felt hazy
As if tired of just being born

And if this was to be the World's end
Then what an end it would be
While the Martians rode in on Fountain Pens
And scribbled on the Sky
We are Free

So as I say
There came a day
When Mars did Earth Invade
And after much bloodshed
Both red and green of Martian Vein
And Earth's blood that was red
The Earthlings realised a thing
Like knowledge from a dream
That it was the red not the green
Who did the War-waging
Though it cost the Greens their souls

And the Great minds on Earth perceived
That when the first earthling who was on Mars received
The place was a desert made of Red
From the rusty sheep
And they saw if only stainless steel sheep
Could be persuaded to live there instead
The Red dust would be gone
Just as a Body which is dead
Decays to dust and bone
Nothing else could be left
To the Red Army which they might call home

So the plan became to drop
These steel wool parachutes
As if a ticking hand grenade
In that when they moult
As will a sheep
Only stainless steel wool would be laid
And the Red Planet who wages war
Would instead become a silver ball
A harmless brother to the moon

A crack team of Shepherds set out
Into the Red of Night
And dropped their ticking bombs of wool
Under wooly cover out of sight
The next months proved decisive
As the New Martian sheep did Moult
It left no rust for Red dust to mine
Like it grinds the pepper and salt
The Reds soon had no choice
but to retreat to underground
And even now you can hear the faint voice
Of the Red Dust drilling sound

But so long as Green is Green
And the stainless steel sheep do munch the pasture
The Red dust will settle out of scene
The Greens will still be master

So don't think the Grass is always Greener
On the other side of the road
Just think of this tale when you see a Red Sky at Night
And be Glad the Earth is your abode



  

Ben Nevis

Sitting on the over ground

Under ground flows over rock

The voice from under is a trickle a babble

Of life where for it to be found

Is like a shock

Old familiar burn is friend to traveller of weary feet

Once you’ve climbed to mountain peak

It serves you a cool refreshment stop

Red burn flowing from a thousand fathoms deep

Who knows where it comes from?

How or why the Red Giant sleeps

Like a Lazy reptile

Its fish flesh rests

Easing in the water

Sliding smooth granite slab over slab

Like intercostals of its heaving rib cage

Breathing algae and moss

Wet lichen sponges, the ages that pass

And then the Red Giant shifts

Raises his leviathan bulk

Skip sized boulders

Roll off his great shoulders

And then he settles again

And the Red Burn off his orange, silver grey body

Rolls as if his blood

But though his bones creak

He still lives under rain flood

Or baking blue skies

Heights

Up high it is grey cold stone

A graveyard of broken tombs

Fallen base of sky

The barren boulder field

Crumbled moon rock pie

Adamantine Hardness of earth

Protrusion reaching so far up

One of Mother Nature’s most promising children

Turned to stone by an angry God

What did it do to warrant such a punishment?

Did it like the Titans of old try to reclaim Eden?

Made themselves Lord and Master of all they survey

But oh what disaster ahead of them lay

They boiled in righteous indignation, in their own impotency did rage

Their molten vibrancy of action lay like monuments that last an age

Their only crime self realisation that in God’s image were they made

And yet in this pride was their downfall from their Mighty Stage