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