Jack and Jill

Now where has Jack gone?
He has left Jill
He's run off to the foreign legion
To climb a foreign hill

She stayed at home and wept
On many dark nights
In her cold bed where she never slept
But kept turned on the lights

Now Jack is a mystery
You can't predict his next move
His old life is history
His letters home prove

He was spotted in an Art gallery
It was Paris, the Louvre
He was looking long at the Mona Lisa
She never did move

He saw in her smile
A look like in Jill's
He had been walking mile after mile
Over many green hills
But they never were as green as
The ones he left behind
Nothing like Jill's Topaz eyes
In his diamond mind

So he kissed the Mona Lisa
And bid her fair well
He asked 'shall I be a man of peace now?'
But she replied 'I never kiss and tell'
So when the guards came running
And the alarms went off
Jack made for the Sun in
His arms Mona Lisa scoffed

Don't you know you can steal my heart
But you'll never know my smile
And it tore him into pieces
Mile after mile

As he ran back to Jill
and her maternity leaves
The pregnancy tree was wilting on her hill
She wore her heart on her sleeves

I live in a house with a red roof
I live there with Jill
Of my life I needed proof
She gave me permission to kill

A salt mine stood buried
Beneath the hill
Every night Jill's tears
Would fall into the well
This mine to fill

One day the miners rang the bell
They said we can't take no more salt
She looked around for Jack to blame or tell
But it was nobody's fault

Sometimes these things happen
Said Mona Lisa with a smile
You can tell I've cried a lot
And laughed for a good while

But Jill turned her face from Mona
To contemplate Jack
He had a dark brooding look
His roof had turned black

I belong in the Army he said
I think I must turn back
You know they're shooting deserters its a fact
I'll take my chances in the desert,
They don't know my face there
She said the desert is a terrible place
I think you will despair

I have to go, don't you see Jill
My mind, it is made up
So Jill watched him roll down the hill
As she cried tears into her broken cup

Beer gut

All of every kind,
The silence of the moon
The howling stars
And biting wind
The barking trees boom

A boulder the size of mars fills my living room
Leaves me feeling all the scars
From a life in the space age doom

Coming from a yielding country
To a likewise yielding dream
The gelding of a course of white horses
Bolted down the stream
And each Gnome who guarded
A quiet garden gate
Leaves his post for the ghost
Of a memory of love or hate

I have seen a million salmon swimming up a stream
And even fished upon the banks
of the river out of Eden
But who is there can tell me
Which way the river does flow?
When its too sour to taste, to bitter to remember now.

I cornered into the encounter with all the grace of an ox
The china shop was waiting for me to drop the box
But I could not let it go
I could not let it shatter
I was more than I did know
That it did not even matter

The carpenter was full of words
He was carving out a coffin
For all of them who spilled their words
In the act of coughin'
And even if she knew now
Somehow better than before
I remember what she said
Before every open door

A bitter taste

In the counting of taste buds
A new season is in bloom
The flowers of flavour have blossomed
Like Spring has stepped into a room

The long dark night of winter is over
The passing of the year
Death has claimed his last victim
What finger pointed, which had made the fear?

But fear made the man,
if ever the man made fear
It was left like a dripping tap
to torture a restless ear

In the cutting and the pasting
the documents were forged
And I passed over the border
Without the life on which I had gorged

Love in the river

I was walking in the wasteland of a certain kind of desire
Just talking with a face and thinking of a fire
I was moving with a grace and I walked a tight rope wire
Excluding the other place so I stand and sing with the choir

It was hard to find the words, just when they did not come
It was hard to reach beyond the place
That's hid behind the sun
In winter time the ice sheets fall like plates of glass
And armour up the cold sold streets
While the wind does pass

I have to let it go
I have to let it pass
The seasons and the snow
The face behind the glass

I have to say "You know"
And "this is how it was"
I have let the wild wind blow
And carry me through the pass

I am standing in a river
I am falling through a stream
Like a lover or a giver
In a most fantastic dream

Seasons in the sun

She sits in the sun
With her face to the rays
Just breathing in the light
Of the morning of the days

These days seem to come and go
So fast I can hardly tell
Whether I was built to last
In a world of blue bells

Each has its short season arising in the wood
Gathered on the hillside
by the lovers of the good


Each is a kind of hologram
For the state of being blessed
Each a holy program
Of songs I love the best

St George

I must become St George
and kill that awful dragon
He will become the death of me
If I don't race the wagon
I'll chase him out over sea
I'll bring his head back on a platter
Mother save the breath in me
To go and fight the dragon

You must go son
I've wished it
For a thousand love lorn days
Your brothers all have fished it
In the seas arms they've swayed
They've lost their lives to stop it
They've given all they had
Now you must make their sacrifice
You must choose good over bad

Mother I will fight him
Bring me my sword and shield
I'll cross over on the ships lanyard
Soon he will taste my steel

The going will be dangerous
You must cross the sea and desert
You must find the tower
Where his black heart sleeps
And put an end to his terrors

He will breath fire and scorch you
You will fear his terrible wrath
But you must be so brave my son
You must give all that you have

I have nothing left to give
You are the last child of my womb
With you the legacy of your father ends
With you comes an end to the doom

After you die, as die you must
A stone statue will be raised
In your remembrance
To show how men fight to triumph
Over death
To leave but lives of stone

Only our words will triumph over death
For words are dead but brought to life
Through breath
Spoken then echoed through the chambers
Underneath, the vaults of a dying sun

Oh mother, now my time has come
I wish for one thing before I run
To love a woman, to live a life
Before I give this sacrifice

But son, your life is to one end
To murder the terrible, fearsome fiend
Who devours the land, brings pain and famine
Your purpose on earth is to kill the dragon

If I must go,
I give this kiss to you dear mother
But to my lover my bliss
She knows me, where I'd rather be
Than travelling alone, to meet my foe
Aboard this ship, to meet my destiny

Fair well then to England
Fair well my country green
Across the scorched and desert lands
I go,
To meet the dragon supreme

The bells did ring,
In the heat they sang
Of a thousand slain
Englishmen
But on he strode
Believing his road would not
be the same

Until through the smoke he sees
The black tower rising in misery
And patrolling all around it goes
That Dragon his most awful of foes

Come now dragon to battle you and me
Let me put an end to this misery
And then the dragon spoke
With fiery breath
And his scales shimmered
And he smelt of death

Saint George thrust his steed to the fray
And his steel sunk deep into the dragon that day
The clash of armour, the beat of wings
The terrible fire, and smell of burning things

Late the next day the smoke had cleared
The tower rose, but the sun appeared
The Dragon lay smitten on the scorched earth
And St George wandered back to the land of his birth

Farm Girl

There she goes cleaning the bathroom
Bending and spraying and wiping away
Grease falls from the tiles the sink
The warm water shower washes it away

Before this she was hoovering, tidying
polishing, picking up pieces
Like foraging, gleaning, until the carpet
furrows were clear
Until the fallow field could be left
Til next year
Farmer girl in the house
Keeping home, keeping mum
Keeping the mouse
And the tiger together at bay
Keeping order in that Sunday way

Meanwhile I was washing up
Just wiping the dirt, squeezing
The bottle
Squirting the liquid, herding the bubbles
In and out of every corner of the corrugated
Plastic lunch box
Around the sides of cooking pans
Up the walls of the stainless steel sink
That had turned orange with Bolognaise
And arranging the clean orderly utensils
And containers, in their rack to dry
It is the least I can do
And honestly also the most too
Right now with my knee.

The writing on the wall

Walls that divide and walls that protect
High Walls of pride you may fall from and risk your neck
Walls that conquer and walls that control
Walls where Willy Wonker nearly lost his soul
Walls of esteem and walls full of bullet holes
Walls that cut up mountains and block up streams
Walls whose only purpose is to break other's dreams
Walls full of murals or of protest
Walls that are cure-alls walls you come to detest
Walls you love pasted with posters
Walls of past lovers full of ears and ghost stories
The wolves in the walls
These four walls you stare at, at night
When the evening falls
You can talk you can whisper
You can shout you can scream
You can beat them with your fists or
You can scale them in your dreams
One thing is for sure
Behind every open door
They'll be a wall waiting for one and all

Hair of the Dog

I badgered a rabbit
Who was rabbiting on
He was dogging a hare
Whose hair had all gone
But he took the hair of the dog
When he sang his swan song
I soon met an otter who was beavering away
He was playing in the reeds
While I was reading a play
And an owl was hooting
Calling to his mate
His mate was shooting
Pellets at a plate
And the Platypus lay
Asleep in the hay
Full of nature's platitudes
In a latitudinal way



I went on a speed date with a ray of light
She was fast and loose
And waved me good night
But in a particle way so she had an excuse

Approaching the speed of light
It became horribly obtuse
As if all my energy were matter
Time itself seemed to slow to a stop
My mental processes worked with the speed of a mop
I think my impression not a good one
My mind in confusion
And like Icarus
I never had
The Sun on the run

Two crash test dummies were on a speed date
It was important they broke the speed limit
When they broke the ice
Unfortunately, she broke her neck
And he lost his eyes
But he thought, what the heck!
Another date tomorrow night?
She just played dum
By which she meant - Why not Hun?
You only live twice.

Illustrations website

Please have a look at my illustrations if you like, thanks
https://www.chrisscullyillustrations.com/

Push and Pull

He began by pulling my leg
But ended by pulling my hair
I was glad he was pulling my leg
When he said he would pull my finger
He had pushed me far enough
Nearly pushed me over the edge
It was a case of push and shove
And being dragged backwards through a hedge
Someone was pulling the cart
Another was pushing his art
But it was all being pulled apart
By the time she took off her pull over

Archaeopteryx

The trees are awake
The fields in furrow
The brown salty earth
Is dug from the burrow
The rabbit makes his home beneath
Where vineyards grow
The wind has teeth

Then opens out the fertile plane
Where land has lain
The fossils remain
Of so many millenia ago
Epochs, eras our clocks cannot know
Of a time when dinosaurs roamed
Now slip-silted down muddy loam
It fell and slipped down a loamy flume
Within minutes the flow had covered its plume

Archaeopteryx half bird, half beast
The link between these two disparate cleats

For the benefit of those who don't know
this dinosaur had feathers
His beak did crow
Even from the other parts we know
This bird had claws from arm to toe

Unlike anything that had gone before
His skeleton opened up many a genetic door
The missing link, the piece of the chain
That would tie down Prehistoric Adam to Cain

What memories of a terror-bound world
Would be released if we could read its skull?
If the tracks and times, and minutes
Were laid down like tree rings
Or the braille-like markings of a limpets shell

Of what world might Archaeopteryx speak?
One of unimaginable beauty, one where terror peaks?
Palm trees as tall as two story buildings
Jungles alive with giant insects and snakes
All creatures inhabiting a godless ocean
With razor sharp teeth leaving devastating wakes

How might he have lived?
What aerobatic skill?
To evade the predators clutch,
Or to make his own deadly kill
How did he hone his technique?
Where was his school?
At what did he pique?
Were there extremes in plenitude?
Mountainous relief?
Did he witness an earthquake divide and fold?
Did a volcanic eruption turn his world cold?
Were there rains for days, did it hail stones?
Was there room for beauty or mere survival alone?
When and how did the butterfly come to be?
How did such a delicate beauty from the beast flee?
What of the flower, why is it here?
How can an hour be heard to chime in its ear?
What possible claim do we have to this earth?
How can we name it ours?
By whose power do we say we have worth?

Book line and sinker

You caught me book line and sinker
With that sentence of yours
Turned my cheeks a bit pinker
With that fish verb doing its best
To escape the nets, and nest
Of the dark owl of Grammar

In your forest of words I was lost
For a moment that lasted an hour, or days
I cannot tell,
They were like little bells
Tinkling in the trees of a's and b's
Then like soot
These burnt words fell, their fire
Having died out
Like ash, they lay on the ground
White words pale with memory

I kick them and let the dust fly up in a cloud
Translation is soft, it makes little sound
Remembering understanding is quiet, not loud

White Trunks

Sitting upon a giant trunk
A white leviathan once sunk
Like Moby Dick, caught and weighed
Left its ballein skeleton - sunbleached for days
Trees are like dinosaurs of the hidden valley
Echo back the white chalk cliffs
Which straddle up above the canopy
The semisphere of blue to kiss

Wood peckers drill holes about
Bull ants fill them with their snouts
Searching out the sweetest honey
As pirates seeking out hidden money

All at once the leaves do drop
In an unknown breeze
Like a gentle woman walking by, inexplicable
Ease
The winter comes as Summer's release

Just passing through

Oh what a perfect morning
Just passing through
The valley in the early dawning
Reds and pale yellow leaf hues

Insects in the bright meadow
Appearing out of hill shadow
Buttercup and clover
And low thorn bush cover

The slope and the pines
Keeping ancient time
With the Sun's clock
That awakens them from a dream
So shallow

Its dial winds and the birds awake
A brand new morning to make

Orchestral movements

There they come with their flutes and violins
As they walk in
Like a hot knife through butter
They cut her
They fill the Cathedral atmosphere
With tones uplifting in the air

And smartly dressed in suit and tie
In black lapels, collars that would fly
If they were not buttoned down
In formal attire
The occasion calling for its desire

Calling for Hosanna to come down from above
Calling to praise the public square doves
Calling the broken, the lame and the sick
Calling them all within the walls thick

Unbroken symphonies of sound
The memories of lives once lost
Now found

In the ruins of the church
Long after the Turkish Wars
When Christianity knelt low
Yet stronger seeds would somehow sow

Then calling you back from imagined histories
To the present day mysteries
Of the hot knife cutting
The voice from a milk bottle chested singer
Singing in a cage - the church
Within a cage - her ribs
Within a cage - her heart
Like a bird on a perch

To what heights can the human heart soar?
On the days remembering the war?

A Boring poem

Ruth was over the moon, she was an astronaut
Barry was down in the dumps, he was a recycling operative
Norman was under the weather, he was a meteorologist on holiday
Faith was keeping her money for a rainy day, she was married to Norman
Bill was taking the plunge, his toilet was blocked
Gertrude was footing the Bill, she was bill's chiropodist
Nancy was washing her hands of him, she was Tony's nurse
Tony had a bone to pick with her
But he chose the wishbone, and Jill told him to pull the other leg
But Francis broke a leg, he wasn't a chicken when he plucked up the courage
To walk the boards
However Sally got stage fright when she saw a deer with antlers
And the dog had a nervous tick, it wasn't prepared to suck his blood
Cathy was given the cold shoulder by the butcher
There were no flies on him, he used deoderant

No man's land

It was long ago and I had lost the feeling of the fall
The broken tambourine played by the hand
Was knocked against the wall
The shake of bells
The sound of drums
As the mourners come
And all hell breaks loose in the streets
The day that Kingdom comes

It was long ago and darkness
Filled the waking hour
Two thieves stalked in the night
Up the stairs of the white marble tower
One just wanted honesty
To be paid in bell flowers
The other wanted innocense returned
From foreign powers

I saw the thing from a distance
And shot a shooting glance
That echoed with all the resistance
That could be mustered outside of France
And laughing said oh well
I'll tell the bell to toll
And it will ring for them who dance
In the midnight of their soul

A few were lucky they did escape
The room which filled with black
When soldiers of the unseen vision
Started to come back
A few were not and fought
With their dying thought
That what if dying is like drought
As Drinking was to thought
That what if dying means the end of all
These foreign wars
Which keep the soul away from home
And locked up of outdoors

Autumn Love

I held autumn like an air
Of a cloak of understanding
Putting it on as one does a glove
To feel the warmth
Or touch of the velvet
And sinking into that
Autumn of love
In which leaves fall from
Winter wind chilled trees
And she like an autumn
Garden I have visited
Whose secret is safely hidden
Though I must search to find the key
Lies in wait at her gate
In the comfort of the dying
Of the year to greet me

Robotic Love in Machine Code

Poems for Robots

Get Love
(Search library infinity AND Randomness)
        Class a Love = TANx (costanx)^3x
Get Love y
        Class b Love = (23 SIN y +11 Cosin y) / pi
Plot
Loop

Display

Find love

 I, the me, the ghost in the machine
Eye to eye
Toe to toe
Columns, vectors
Matrices glow
It is has momentum
The speed of light
Love in an electron

Cat Lovers

I can't answer why I love
I can't answer that
I can't come always when you call me
Like I am your cat
Still it's no use crying over milk that's been spilled
You thought I had nine lives well now
One of them is killed
You say I always land on my feet
I can't believe you say that
Each time that we meet
Well I've been prowling around and sniffing your flap
It's a wonder I found you out
Without a body map
But we are cat lovers
Scowling in the dark
Murmuring our pet names
Like an army of mice in a park
And I am always eating and sleeping
And you are always washing and preening
But that is why we are cats

Suitors and Jumpers

I saw you on the high rise
The block of flats
The wind blew you sideways
You didn't account for that
I saw when you fell you pulled the parachute flap
But it did not open well
Much like your cat flap

Oh suitors and jumpers
It's charming the thumpers
That punch out your lights
When you try to alight
Upon a foreign window sill

And what of being a suitor?
The eyes are often traitors
To the soul
Well who could really tell
What he should surely sell
In order to buy a piece of her heaven

A fragment of a kind
A frog jumped into the pool
The lemon slipped off its rind
Like a dress
She felt the bitterness of his
impress
Touch her through her jumper
Though she fell like water
Of Victoria Falls
When this suitor jumped her

Bruton Castle poem readings

Bruton Castle

The Whimsical Wood reading at open mic nite 4th Aug 2017

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DtWjq83rJBY

The egg that rolled

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fMF0SXP2Zkc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fMF0SXP2Zkc

Jason and the astronauts

One day Jason was out in deepest space
He had to recover the Golden Crease
It was hidden in the Argian trousers
Guarded by one of most fearsome face
Trigonom of Pestilese the terrifying beast

The trousers once were worn by King Wowser
One of Seven knight kings born of the first phase
The other six had all been eaten in defence of Galactic Rights
The last stand of Wowser came against Trigonom in a field of Maze
Where he fought bravely but lost the fight

When the awful Trigonom attacked it was in the seventh moon
Ever since that Lunar day The trousers of King Wowser
Have hung up in the Trigonom's dark cave room
Nobody ever attempted a rescue
Not until Jason that is and his astronaut crew

The astronauts set out one day on their God sent mission
To recover the stolen Trousers before too long an intermission
But on their way they met an intergalactic spider
Who spun her space time warping web
And trapped his ship beside her

With an eerie elegance she began bundling up his ship
Wrapping it in silky thread from her body did it slip
Jason spied just one whole in the nick of time
And thrust up through with his sharp pole
To severe the spiders spine

Now all a tumbling went the space time continuum
They all fell into her black hole funnel
In a time warp they swung like a pendulum
First in the future then in the past
Their final destination was once again the present at last
And now nearer than ever for space had been nipped
And tucked under in folds as space's cosmetic surgeon had tipped

The planet of the Trigonom now came into view
All they had to do now was land right on cue
No sooner had they done this and their ship come down to rest
When the singing Queen's of Trigonom sung a tune they loved the best
These Queens were of such beauty no mortal man could resist
And if not for the actions of Jason all his Astronauts would desist

Jason being a demi God new the Queen's dark plan
To devour each and everyone of them down to the last man
So stepping up with skill he sang his own song shrill
Until their notes they'd miss like a lovers kiss, 
Once the spell is broken, he took his chance and made his kill

The astronauts were much relieved to be saved by Jason
And it strengthened their will and made them believe
In this demi-god they called Captain

A prophecy had foretold that they must encounter some problems
A great marsh stood inside a hellish wood full of murderous Goblins
To cross it they must take a path no mortal man had tread
only the seventh King Wowser whose body still lay there dead

The astronauts were ready they were Jason's loyal knights
However much dread they felt in their hearts they knew
They fought for Galactic rights
With a tip and a toe and a power lazar bow
They cut through the forest ahead of them

Many a nasty creature did sit in their sight
And they were forced all day long to severe and to fight
At last at fall of blessed night
The monsters came no more
They found themselves a resting place beside a cave mouth door

Come the morning, the sun's rays barn storming
Broke and woke them from deep slumber
They looked for foe and checked their friends
And found them less in number

The forest at that hour was filled with grazing unicorn
Such a sight revived their spirits new in magic were they born
But no sooner had enchantment come then the spell was broken
For from the caves dark belly a tremendous voice had spoken
Who out there can I smell? Is it Jason and his astronauts come please do tell
And even greater than the voice soon followed the man
If man you can call the hideous giant form of Trigonom

His thunderous footsteps crashed, all deer and woodland beast did scatter
And then appeared with fearsome beard the mad cyclops of unearthly matter
Aha cried Jason here I am, I come to cut you up like ham
You bad hog whose dirty dog has spoilt the fair galactic calm
I accuse you of Regicide to kill a King who awfully has died
You must in the name of all that's right and fair
Offer up his Golden trousers and return his body to our care

Such an upstart how dare you speak to me
I am the King now I keep the golden trousers hanging free
You want them back eh? you must settle with me

With that he picked up a giant log and hurled it into the astronauts
Who tumbled back into the wood until only Jason stood and fought
"With that one bad eye old man, you this whole horizon scan
And call it your dominion? Well let it roll back in your skull
For now your death drum roll is the sound of my opinion" spoke Jason

"What you say makes little sense but, if you leave now
I shall take no offense, and take with you your bandaged brethren" replied the giant

"I will not go you dirty hound the wolves have called now 
You must go to ground, let me lead you on your way" Jason said
With this Jason thrust his mighty dagger into the cold heart
Of the Astronaut bagger
Trigonom finally fell
The earth shook and forest floor quaked, stones as big as houses
soon rolled cracked and flaked, trees uprooted
And the volcanoes coughed soot 
But eventually all became still

After the dust had settled Jason walked over his kill
Beyond Trigonom's corpse in the dark caverns recess
Hung the Golden Trousers of King Wowser shining
like a fork in the darkness

With the strength of ten men Jason pulled them down and put them on
They must have weigh nearly half a tonne
But feeling now the Majesty of Kings he strode on
To accomplish other things

The surviving Astronauts bound King Wowser's body in the green leaves of a palm
And carried it in consort back to their ship
Finally only Jason stood on that planet of Mortal Woe
Thank goodness he thought, we have fought and won
A great battle of galactic rights
Now gone is Trigonom the great foe
One stepping stone to future harmony is laid when we felled his body

Then he climbed aboard his ship, and it pushed up through the gravity
Escaping at terminal velocity the Planet's well
Such are the escapades of the brave
That they live to outshine the dimmer lights
before they turn to the grave
And so it was with Jason and his Golden Trousers
Now they hang in an interstellar wardrobe
Next to a statue of King Wowser
A triumphant tribute to Virtue over tyranny 

Failure of Adam

When we begin to sin the road is not yet light
The sun has yet to have fully risen
The stars are still out in the embers of night
Un-creating Adam in a God-like frisson
In a swagger of the mystical
The moon leads the way like a pied piper
To the un-begun day

Un-sun,in unison with childhood memories of hay
And what is left is the failure of Adam

The license to kill was given him
In the hearthrug to decay
Next to a roaring fire where
His father spends his day
Cleaning up ashes, sweeping up soot
Clearing the chimney chambers then polishing his boot

Holding up the cinders of an unhindered world
Falling like the dust of empires into a bag of perfect pearls 

Taking stock of photographs, stored for memory
The gland which does the talking in his head
Is the one he must make free
Courting the disaster that is the consciousness of Eve

The last, the single plaster that may mend his wounded sleeve
For there he has worn his heart from the hour he first believed

Her own heart is on his sleeve she said
Do not wipe your tearful eye with it
When you contemplate the dead
They are gone as apostrophes in history
Silences in the pitta patter patois of eternity
All the rocky cliffs that chant infirmity
That edifice of Eden called infinity

That none can scale its garden walls
But must be let in its gates
It takes a mighty pride to succumb to such as its falls
It takes a river to cry over its loves and hates

Some such philosopher Rimbaud maybe
Told of these devices of the coming day
A tree to scale once there in
Of innocence it lies,
It grows neither to east nor west
It knows of no earthly prize
Yet in its fruits has mankind made a home for all his sins
The melting pot where to put the devil in

Its name is Nature it knows no law of man
Its laws are of God's creation its roots seek out his plan
Such is the arrogance of Adam
That he sees this tree as lumber
And every fruit and every leaf
As an economic number

He frames it in human terms
Tries hard to tame it
Forces it to follow rules he learns
From his greedy heart names it:
Tree of his possession, Beginner of his sin
Constructor of the pale confession
The water he drowns himself in
He calls this tree the Mother
For it cannot be male
She is the only other
Whose profession teaches Adam to fail

This tree flowers but once a year
In this he says is innocence reborn
In this her virgin tear
And yet "hell hath no fury like a woman scorned"
As the roots reach down to a buried fear

They reach back farther to when the earth began
Before the concept of human fear or folly
Had even entered into God's master plan

They are irreconcilable, parallel roads that never crossed
And yet so close they could be twins
Two life forms, each others' ghost 
Mirrors, but to each other lost

The Lion of Lake Balaton

Standing strong the lion
Stood on the ice upon the Balaton
Defying the winter chill
As all came to a standstill
And let the white Safari gaze
Hunters out on Winter days
Sighting the mighty king

Its ferocious head
The leader of the lead
The majesty of the ice jungle
Fill the heart, its worlds apart
No more false hunts to bungle

They set out at break of dawn
The ice did creak as if it'd sworn
Under their skates
Their snow boot plates
That trod their mystical way

The hunters walked in single file
Mile after weary mile
The darkness and the cold
The starkness of the white was bold
As the sun climbed into a purple sky

Tinted by a red rose tie
Tinted now they traveled long
Between the feet of Balaton
The ice was deep it sang its song
Mile after mile

Mile after windswept mile
Until they found where the Lions beguile
He hid not from them in their scope
He stood strong like a symbol of hope

They took aim, and he did fall
In a crash that sent up an ice sheet wall
A crack which spread
Was the great beast dead?
Or a figment of imagination
Out on the ice of lake Balaton

He runs there still
Through the winter chill
King of all he surveys
More hunters come in the Midday sun
For long at him to gaze

.....................

The lion bounds across the frozen Balaton
Bound in the breaking ice
And crashing in its warlike eyes
Melting paws
The frozen thaws
Out through heat of life

Out, out beyond the cold stars
Reflected from the sky
The ice abounds while the lions crown
Like a furry Eskimo's hood does fly

From the scope of the hunter's moon
Earning his almost magical skill
To mark his prey, and then to kill
The mystical beast too soon

It leaps beyond the gun
Beyond the glinting rays of the sun
Through the testy fields of ice
The frozen waves
The half crescent eyes
Closed to the pain, the cold
But open to the fame of the bold
He fights for life

He fights, he fights
And yet in their sights
They have him still
Like a hymn sung on a hill
Like a bull caught by the nose
In its advancing raging pose

Now crossing the inebriated plain
He comes close to the edge again
And finds in the twisted bank of reeds
A cover that will suit his needs
He stops to rest
And feels best
His heart's blood bleed
The wound is in his thigh
The bullet nipped, it tripped
And skipped back up into the sky

He sees the jade dawn's birds cluster
And at last his strength does muster
to go on
Stalking on around the edge
The cover of the myrtle hedge

The hunters far across the ice
Have yet to spy him with their eyes
His blood is spent, it drips it screes
In pools that mark him, foot prints with ease
The hunters follow this Hansel trail
Of blood sweets, the end their quarry to take

The leaves they breeze
The end in sight
The slightest sneeze
The burn of the night
The lion sees the lake's bright lights: Balatonfűred
He wanders up the pearly streets
Blood dripping on the marble feet
Staggers then
Lays down to rest
Upon a plinth
There he turns to stone
No more the hunter's bullets him can harm
Only their thoughts to atone
For the Lion of Balaton stands alone

The Welsh Bards

There he is the Venomous King
Head in the clouds, our Praise should sing
Closer to God?But he is the Sod
Whose doing the Welsh Murdering

King Edward No, I shall not show
Nor break my bardic Seal
You are the black crow
Of Evil tidings don't you know
Such harm you cannot heal

King Edward, black of heart and mind
Go back to England there to find
Your throne's foundations rotted root
The day your  blighted hand played your family suit

Your coat of arms, a shield of death
Your pack of cards is missing a king of hearts

King:
I am here, I'm ever present
I put down the poor Welsh peasant
My English crown is most pleasant
When I wear it on my head

They're dead, they're dead
The Welsh are dead
My Kingdom knows a wider spread
Make way the Royal carriage lead
Up the Royal Road

Red, its red, the road that's lead
From my throne to this Welsh bed
Here an English castle build
With Spear and Sword I wield
Might is right, and the English fight
To conquer foreign field

Young Bard:
He's mad, he's bad
He's made us sad
What can we sing of now but sorrow
Tomorrow, tomorrow is another day
Dad, but what of the Welsh blood to borrow?

Old Bard:
Its drained, its drained
The life's been washed out by the English reign
Our Prince Llewellyn lies in pain
He's seen only sorrow

How now, I fought beside the Great
A Great man never knows love nor hate
Just daring do be he early or late
To fight the English Foe

But fight he does on Castle Rampart
Flinging spear, casting sharp dart
The arrow head as daggers sped
Into the English Horde
The Welsh fight on
In perennial rebellion
Ever shall daffodil flower yellow
Or the bluebell ring on
In green valley, or fields fallow
Ringing the chimes of freedom

Here are our hearts grown stout and strongest
Bringing courage over hard times longest
Waiting besieged in Castle Harlech
Or standing on the shore

Someday Wales will sing free again
Free of English will to cruel reign
Over hearts and minds
Bards will sing them, of Wales' Victory song

He sits there on his throne admiring
As beyond Welsh country folk are expiring
All for the joke of a United Kingdom
All under one yoke, one throne

See his might on pedestal put
As Majesty steps down its heavy foot
The poor welsh crown is crushed ash soot
In another burning town

See his face in the fire flaming
See the juices of meats and gaming
Set out on the banquet Naming
King Edward King of Wales

His son the poor boy such a weakling
Must follow suit and be a leak King
Prince of Wales is this meakling
Powdering nose and trailing coat tails

When do the ever self-abasing lords
Lay down their arms offer up their swords?
Yet we as Bards fight with our quills
Our tongues our bows, our arrows our words

We shall not deny our heritage
To speak Truth in place of false homage
To recognize infamy in the guise of virtue
To know a villain out beyond his curfew

Such are the acts of an honest bard
Not to dishonour his tradition
Though demands be deadly hard

What worth is a man's soul anyway?
A king's ransom? For King who will not pay?
One compliment given, is a sin to heaven
Even if a season in hell be my forfeit
Heaven knows a poet must speak
But truth guides his tongue
He must not be weak
To sell his soul for a lie
Or his pride for a leek?

I will wear it by my side
Until the stench does wreak
Then the king will know the bad air around him
Of the Welsh's men's hearts grown cold that surround him
The banquet table holds a chill as well
For all the soul's he's damned
Including his own straight to hell

So no I shall not sing his praises
King Edward is the poison of the middle ages
Wales the sick patient,
Only kept down in a perpetual sleep
May King Edward's Castle fall
and tumble into the deep

River Severn

River Severn, River Severn
Severed heaven
At the pearly gates
Your locks the Brunette, Brunel Curls
That flow and Furl
Along your banks

River Severn on a journey
Through the mists of time
Turn back the clock
At the Bristol docks
So the river creatures chime

River Severn, severed from heaven
Flowing out of Eden
Through the bearded bushes grow
Narrow, widen, even
All the gulls that fish you
All the cormorant crews
Crows in rows that haunt your flanks
Swans that pose upon your banks
Carry the roots of inner earth
The heart of caves
To the river mouth of course
Far from ignoble birth
In the hilltop source

River Severn, severed heaven
From a Seventh Eden
Bows down from the midland crown
Between Wales and England

From source the mundane force
From little becomes a lot
Into the trees of noble seas
The Blood clot
Breaks through waves of life
Muddy foot prints in clay
Sinking skin of arterial
Reeds poke up as aerial
Let little birds fish
Has bigger fish to fry
The river in quiver
From the rain darts of the sky
Down the ponds and lakes
That stand beside in half hidden tree stakes
That let the flood-lines shake
The field levees break
And out in all the miserable din
As Winter breaks the icy grin
And spread its cold shiver across the skin
Of river-land

There it is beneath the skin din
Rustling its shoulders
Rolling blood over mud over blood
Over boulders
Slipping its slight artery out to sea
Bleeding its inheritance of land
Bleeding its rain heart
Its cloud song
Sky banks let its savings out
Spending all its cash
On one last ditch attempt
To splash, flash or smash our contempt
For law for the claw that
tries to rake back the sea

It tries to take back the land
In its never ending battle ground
Playing its hand
In Neptune's tidal sand
In the Kraken's fighting stand
With its seven heads of heaven spewing
Severn mouths of seven wells
From the Seven fallen Angels
Conquering seven seasons of hell

each one feeding, snatching at the next
Until the river Severn has severed and broken all their necks
And the river dragon is finally dead