Ten minutes past dead

I am ten minutes past dead

Well I walk around

In a one horse town

With sign hung round my head

And this thorny crown

Keeps weighing me down

I am ten minutes past dead

The satchel flew

In the wind that blew

And the coroner called out words unsaid

For they'll be saying a few

Kneeling in their pews

While I'm ten minutes past dead

Can they hang a man

For having a plan

Or murder him in his bed

Was it desparate dan

Or Laurel and stan

Or am I ten minutes past dead? 

Moses on the mountain is eating molasses

Kendra the dragon is breathing madrases

And I am currying favour from you instead

Releasing the poisoned gases

The Opium of the masses

While I am ten minutes past dead

Jack in the box part 3

I decided there and then

I would know his ken

And bravely strode over to appraise him

As I let down my hand

Like a gangway he climbed on board 

To the port

Holding him as Hamlet

Once held Yorick so

I asked him alas what his name was

And how he came to be this John Doe

He answered his name was Miklos Kundra

A Hungarian travelling magician

That he had been touring this land

In the year 1597

Not long after the great dissolution

All had been going well for him

London had been his home

He played on the great stages and theatres

Of the Age

He had known the great playwrights

Shakespeare and Christopher Marlowe

Ben Johnson had sponsored him

To perform for the Queen

And she had loved his panache and bravado

But the forces of jealousy were quick and great

And rivalling acts competed for his space

Until he found himself ostracized for some minor disgrace

He was not as refined a courtier as he might have been

His acts they were audacious

Disappearances and then the revealing

And the source of his magic so mysterious

The religious fanatics began to question quite what he was concealing

They pushed him out of court

One day he was toast of all london and the nation

The next he was an abomination

He was forced to play the taverns

He drifted down squalid alley ways

The sounds of bow bells left his ears

And he was a cast out, to the rural condition

Being of strong constitution

And robust matter of fact way of thinking

His attitude and skill got him a new position

With a travelling circus which stopped him from sinking

The troupe consisted of a milleu of characters

From the sublimely beautiful actress, to the thieves of ill report

From troubadours with trombone tones, and mandolins with strings taut

They toured the village fairs, the country lanes were their companions

They slept in Gypsy caravans or under the stars as the notion took them

They were welcomed as fascinations

But sometimes shunned as charlatans or crooks

They carried no identifications, they lived by their wits and their looks

It was one night in little Thumbstead

That the caravan drew up outside the woodland's head

The fields hay was fresh in their nostrils

And the midsummer haze rested on brooks

The evening sun was setting down

And Miklos was preparing his show for the town

Checking his props worked, his devious mechanisms

Of fiendishly complex invention

They left the onlooker in some despair unable to work out

What was going on there, and beyond their comprehension

Soon the time came to go down to town

And set up inside the tent

The atmosphere was dizzy with jovial excitement

With men swigging ales and women tittering, 

The crowd swelled to enlargement

And gaiety and blessedness of the cider that flowed

And then Miklos saw the face of a lover he once knowed

"Nessie, what are you doing here?" he spoke

But he said it in Hungarian and it startled a few folk

What strange language was this foreigner speaking?

unlike the French tongue, the German or Anglo Saxon

The only other place they knew of mysterious words spoken

Was in the Latin mass, a practice outlawed and forbidden

Suspicions began to spread through the crowd 

and Miklos pulled Nessie inside the tents shroud

He firmly gripped her and asked her again

"Why did you follow me here from the Hortobágy plain?"

"I followed you Miklos to let you know

That you died for that day you left me alone with child

To pursue your great and wonderful dream

To be the court Magician to England's great Queen"

"I followed you here to say that your boy is now a man

He is a soldier fighting the Turks trying to defend his father's land, 

While you bleeding heart go and suckle on England's Rose

Oh you great pretender now how does your garden grow?"

Miklos turned away, in shame, this woman, his wife

knew not of his fame, nor indeed of his rise and fall in life

"One day I will win back the Queen's favour

As the finest magician living in all the Western World

But the trick to make you love me, is like a flame I eat that's curled

It's like a fire snake inside me burning a red hot ember

And I cannot escape the past, and now you make me remember"

"Your son Miklos will likely die this year

The Turks are over running us, we run away in fear

They burn our villages, babies from the breast they tear

And dash apart their brains on any rock that they find near"

"If we are not enslaved we are punished, humiliated or maimed

And to live life we must adopt Islam as our religion as well

You must come home now to help fight them

You must help vanquish from Hungary this hell

I know you have the ability to lead

And inspire a spirit to fight these Turkish devils !"

As Miklos was about to speak, his name was called out on stage

The act was about to begin, quickly he changed into the guise of a mage

The crowd was hot in anticipation and some rebellion in the ranks

The cider, Miklos thought, was getting to them, but for the chance to perform

He gave thanks

Some local girl he picked out from the crowd to assist him

In his magic trick

It was the end of the night, the fire flies were bright

And under the torch light he sweated from his flanks

The thought of his son never left him,

In fact it recurred as a bad dream,

What if he should die on the battlefield

Abandoned while his father pursued his mad scheme

The trick was one he had performed before

A simple one with a box and a saw

A trick of light and mirrors

Of sleight of hand, and lightening fast manouvres

That would see the girl's body apparently cut in quarters

By Miklos' own hand as he wielded his saw

Then by a miracle the crowd would gasp 

As the box's parts would be pulled apart

And the girl still alive with her beating heart, 

Would then be returned to what she had been before

But as the lights dimmed

And the girl climbed into the Magician's trap

Miklos felt a shiver, and the signs of a nervous attack

A panic, that turned into a mental gap

What if he had failed in his magic?

The one trick he wished he knew

Was how to make somebody love him

And their life renew

And as this thought rebounded inside his skull

He began to cut the girl's box as well

Then with a rush of realization he knew

He had forgotten to replace a vital screw

That meant the false box had not 

Properly slid into place

And as he looked to the wings

He witnessed Nessie's white face

For on the floor surrounding the box

Was a pool of blood the colour of a fox

A second later the crowd knew as well

And there was howling and whupping

And the scenes of a living hell

As frantic relatives, husband and wife

Fell over themselves to try to save the girl's life

And Miklos could only stand and watch in utter disbelief

Until the angry mob gathered round

To vent on him their grief

The harrowing scenes took a turn for the worse

As his Hungarian name was revealed

And in torture he uttered his native tongue of course

The sign of the devil, must be witchcraft or spell

Must have been plotting to kill the Queen of England as well

Turn the nation into Anarchy and hell

And so he was tried as a traitor to the realm

And also under witch craft laws was tied up to an elm

And whipped until blood came curdling from his mouth

And Nessie she begged them for mercy, if he would only renounce

But Miklos was so strong willed, he confessed he only loved the Queen

He had been trying to make her better,

He was branded obscene

He claimed he was no sorceror, just an honest magician

He had only smoke and mirrors, but no malicious intentions

They hounded him from Basingstoke up to Bayswater

They said he was the son of the Devil and Nessie was the Devil's daughter

They were to be burnt at the stake, their bodies drawn and quartered

A retribution for his mistake, for killing the girl a dunking under water

Their bodies they were flayed, women and men turned away,

Then they chopped them up, in a darkened corner of a forest buried them

Somewhere in Cirencester or it could have been leeds,

But that is where their bodies now lie, and why

This skull needs the help it needs

They got away with murder

They got away with murder

Don't you know

Today I heard the sad news

That the boys had turned to the crows

Their grime smiles

And mocking tongues

Made a mockery of law itself

Such insensitivty to life

In the hands of the young,wielded like a knife 

Their fathers they all shunned the law

We all know the bullies in neighbourhood

They are living nextdoor

None of them will do any good

They tried them

But the jurors were intimidated

And the Judge never abnegatted

The verdict

They commited the crime

But they still get away with murder everytime

The justice system is broken 

It is a sham

When no words of truth are spoken

Then darknesses fester behind the dam

There is a block in the river

And the truth will not flow

For certain forces of evil

Its better that does not go

For if there is corruption at the root

You can tell before long it will shoot

All the way to the tips of the branches

And the tree will grow twisted, 

as its green life blood stanches

If you let them get away with murder everytime

Its the job of the judge to not stand the fudge

They must cut to the core, to the quick

If there is a cancer growing there

Let them excise it,

Don't take away their tools

Or try to hide it

The truth will out in the end

But by that time how many lives will be spend

On the the pursuit of justice

Which is blind

She does not see colour, only equality

She does not seek race only equanimity

But when her hands are tied, you will find

They will get away with murder everytime

The policeman who was dragged for two miles

Behind the young crooks with their arrogant smiles

Where his mangled body was chewed, by violent swinging so crude

Who taught these young men to smirk

To take life, like snuffing out a flame with a snort

Well their own candles will burn in remorse

If ever they pay pennance for the crime that they shirk

I hope their guilt leaves them mangled and maimed

Like the lives of the policeman and his wife they have shamed

We cannot let justice seem a game

Or else flippancy and arrogance will grow untamed

Such a foul deed needs deterence,

It needs punishment as an example not a pretence

Because showing leniency now, later you will find

They will get away with murder, time after time

Jack in the box part 2

She picked up the box and replaced it
Safe in its hiding place
Just to one side of the mantlepiece
But behind the bookcase

I was ready for bed
So I retired
Heavy with drooping eyes
My brain had fallen into a stooper
I was swooning on the edge of surprise

Too much now had I seen
That I must shut my eyes
And allow my soul, to
Travel through the veil
That separates the truth from the lies

It must have been two in the morning
When I awoke in a cold sweat
A knocking and a kind of groaning
Had commanded me up like a pet

I obeyed this call like a madman
And followed in like one hypnotized
I knew not what I was doing
Only that it was my duty to surmize

Unnervingly, no other sleepers had awoken
And I was all alone down stairs
Even my footsteps were soft words spoken
When to the incessant knocking I compare

What could it be I asked myself, or I would have
If some rational thought was working
Instead I traced the sound to the front room
Pushed open the old door kept on walking

The old musty room was a token
From the Dickensian age
The books filled the shelves floor to ceiling
Each had a well thumbed page

Suddenly with my presence came the silence
Like an awareness of my own form had broken
The incessant knocking ceased, and I questioned
Whether from a dream I had awoken

Thinking this must be some result of
The strong impression of the skull the past evening
Mixed and conjoined with the concoction of spirits
I had imbibed I turned and was already leavin'

When suddenly the knocking recommenced
Now with an urgency quite immense
And a rattle and a surge that that book shelf was purged
Of titles I had recently been quoting

One it was a Frankenstein's monster
The other Shakespeare's Hamlet
As I held them in my hands,
 a chill ran up my spine
And I knew the box was now open

I cannot tell you now why, nor
How I found the courage to look
I suppose it was pure curiosity
Or some words I remembered from the book

But I approached the still rattling book case
And peered around its backside
And there on the floor was the skull box though no more
Was there any skull left inside

I looked to my left and my right
I looked under the case and to my fright
I saw the skull in the opposite corner
Determinedly facing the wall,

The rattling had long since ceased
Now what was left was a soft muttering beneath
The sound of an owl hooting ouside
The skull was distinctly grinding its teeth

With some trepidation I felt I could move
Formerly from the shock my bones had frozen themselves
But now I edged towards the open door
Thinking my self to remove for sure

Suddenly again without warning
The skull began to speak,
At first it was just a groaning,
But soon grew more strong out the weak

Take me back, it seemed to say
Take me back, take me back to my grave
They chopped off my head
And stole me away
Now I pray
Return me back to my grave

I want to live the life
That they stole
When they quartered my body and
Cut out my soul
Bring me back to life I'm pleading
Its in your hands I leave my needing

What was I to do
What was I to do?
How should I help the skull

I thought for one fleeting moment

Could I snatch it up

And lock it back in the box?

But then the thought occurred

The knocking would continue

Until forever and a day

And as if the skull

Some how perceived my thought

It turned and looked at me sideways

No there was no way I will be his haunt

I thought, and anyway surely I must try at least to save

Him from this torment and taunt

Why of all the men

Who could have been saved

Was he condemned? 

Who amongst us is better than him

What if it were I in his place?

Jack in the box

She said she had something to show me
Something so hidden and rare
That if I should just take a peep at it
A streak of grey shock should enter my hair

I waited in anticipation, of what she might reveal
And from a hidden place she brought out a box
Old as from a wartime appeal

She laid it there on the table, the clock on the wall
It struck ten
And as I opened it to inspect the contents
The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end

For what it revealed was ghostly
A remnant of a man long past
Hidden in the depths of the forests of time
No signature sign of a cast

The pieces of skull had been glued
Fixed together, each like a puzzle
But as I lifted it out the box it shewed
That the man was missing his muzzle

His lower jaw was in pieces,
But sure his occiptal holes
Still looked out at the world in its creases
Like time had wrinkled his soul

I held up my friend Yorick
But found not the words nor the ways
To express what it felt
To be given such a jolt
To my mortality on this special day

Death it wears many masks
Some are taken on roads, some on tasks
Some in the beds while in their sleep
How did this fellow meet his grim reap?

Should I be holding the skull
Of one who lived long ago
What was once trapped within
These airy caverns?
What experiences had these holes seen?
What graveyards or taverns
Had become his friends
And how did he meet his end?

Four score years of life and love
fifty perhaps there of marriage
How did he feel at the touch of a glove
How did he hold his carriage

Was he stooped or upright
Was gregarious or aloof
Did he always win at cards
Was he chasing down proof?

Was there a meaning to his life at all?
How can you tell he was six feet tall?
He could have been a dwarf
He could have had one leg
Lost it in the Caribbean
While drinking a Rum dreg

He could have been a bank clerk
With an uneventful life
He could have earned a million
He could have killed his wife

There really could have been
A thousand and one possibilities
But now he is being held by me

Should I give him back
The death sleep he may have wished for
Does it matter where his body is
Or whether it was fished for

Was his grave robbed
Or did he donate his brain to science
Did they try to find the seat of his consciousness
Or did they dig out his soul all in good conscience?

Should I put him back in the box
Before I lose all control
And drop his fragile skull
On to this cold stone floor
Where is the museum label?
Will his name be
Anonymous forever more?

Starlight

The dogs are in the night sky
Following the plough
And Orion watches Artemis load her arrows
On the string of her bow
And the deer they are bounding
From Hesperides' white cow
Who is pulling us all over
The line separating then from now

This world keeps on spinning
The night sky is sewn
Like a spiders web beginning
From the moment it is grown
Eight legged star newly born
Twinkling like the eye
Of a Ram with his horn
Radiant as a jewel
In the crown freshly torn
From the new king
Who will rule forever

And these shooting stars
Keep throwing their
Weight around the world
Streaks of light of goodness
Here today gone tomorrow
Against the vast blackness of existence
We are immemorably hurled
Well its one drink to today
And one to the future

And they say the night is darkest before the dawn
Just like our love baby in the worst storm
Rocking like a good ship
On destiny's waves
When we kiss our lips
We become love's slaves
And they say the night is darkest
Right before the dawn

Away from prying eyes

Away from prying eyes,
Away from crying eyes
I'm going to get away
From prying eyes

I'm going...now
take me away from prying eyes
I'm on my way baby
Way into the sunrise

Well the birds can see me crying
And I want to hide my crying eyes
So take me away from prying eyes

You say stop your lying baby
But I can't see the wood for the trees
You say Stop your crying baby
Your Tears are just like willow leaves
Well if I think about dying
I know it will be you
My eye sees
Take me away from prying eyes

Take me away baby
Take me far from here
Take me away baby
Take me to where they hunt the deer
Where the moss is on the river stone
And the waters they run clear
And nobody is seeking to try to interfere
But still they try, when I dry my eyes
Take me away from prying eyes

I've been walking through
This a barren land
Where the people are crazy
They all want to steal your plans
Make what is ours theirs
If I sell my soul, I can buy their wares
But then I will have nothing
left, no cares
And it won't matter a jot anyhow
For who dares, wins, who doesn't dies
Take me away baby, take me far from prying eyes

Western Eyes/Madam Butterfly in London

She had eastern lips, and an eastern smile
But she spoke like Maralyn Monroe
From the Sunset mile
And I couldn't resist
As the sun was going down over the hill

She was a temptress dragon
Of a strange affair
She had diamond teeth
And long brown hair
And as I tried to catch her
She vanished into thin air

Was she Madam Butterfly
In the London square,
Playing all the theatres to
The crowds who stare
She had love like lockets that she dropped on the ground

And I picked her up in a bar one night
It was pouring outside, but the bar was bright
She was singing in her Eastern tones

And it ran right through me like the rain
I could feel my heart strings begin to strain
As she played me like she played everyone else
She was a master magician, a Madam of disguise
And I knew right then that I loved her sunrise
Like a star that has fallen down from the skies
I looked and saw, she had Western Eyes

Western eyes and an Eastend voice
She sounded like James Dean
She didn't have a choice
And If I wasn't mean then neither did I
For I loved her Western eyes

She had a China heart that could easily break
And porcelain bones that I could not forsake
And as I held her in my arms, I knew I could never
Ever drop the vase
She was never real, she was a plastic girl
And she could never feel, the fantastic world
Though all was a fantasy to her

She fell from the stars like an angel of grace
She left behind everything she knew
And her Eastern race
Just so she could walk through the london streets
She saw her face on the cover of every magazine
And in every cinema she played the heroine on screen
Her star was rising and crossing the Eastern sky

Well I met her later in a restaurant
But I had no idea what from her I did want
It was like seeing a person aknew
Like an avenging Angel she threw
Back in my face all the scorn
She felt from being born in the wrong place
When I said I didn't like what she'd become

She was married the next year to some
Travelling man, setting up business
Over in Japan
She had the face to fit the bill
She sold geisha smiles
And Chinese dolls
To businessmen with air-miles
Instead of their souls
And I knew my butterfly
Flew further away

I tried to catch her then
At the wedding of a friend
And we held hands
At the maze's end
But when I kissed her her lips were as cold as ice
The cold in her soul, had grown into her bones
And her Eastern body wracked with westend tones
She was dying and her wings they began to fade

But when she tried to take off
I promised her not
To forget about me
And all that we got
But she gave me her smile
And she winked her Western Eyes

Will I ever see her again?
Probably not
It was a love over the season
Of an East to West plot
Sometimes there's no going back
To things that are lost

I saw her the other day
Just through the glass
I was inside , and she was walking passed
And thought, this was how it always did go
That love is like a butterfly you
Can't easily catch,
And when you do
It's too delicate, and its not going to last
So you must set it free and watch
It fly or else it dies

And you can love it
On the wing
You can love it in your hand
But try to catch the thing
And you can never understand
Only let it sing and see the sparkle
In her Western Eyes

Measure for measure/face-to-face

Britain is made up of classes
It is important you remember your place
If you have not been to the right school
Then you will be more like a disgrace

Those with privilege prosper
Those who have the right faces on
Their facebook account or Twitter
Will give a leg up to those they know
Then push the ladder down in your face

Small faces, large faces,
The Big heads of human races
The confidence crew
Who  backbite you
But it is all just to stay in the race

They don't care who they step on as they
Are making their way up
And even as they fall back down
Their friends are snatching their cup
And stealing their crown

This is Britain now, this is the green rolling hills
Of farmers lands, who have no plans to share
Only to exploit nature,
These are the Gentry who own the manor houses
Who play on the stock markets of the world
And roar like lions at all the church mouses
Who preach to them about religion
How it will save their souls
So they turn up to church on Sunday
To fill up the coffer's holes

And England's green and pleasant land is now
A feudal state, with more of the unfortunate
Precariats working as peasants to put food on their plate
And those with the upper hand
Who went to Oxbridge or Eton
Can dictate the rules, even news worthy opinion
And determine the course of the nation

And those without hope are those babes lying in the cradle
Because they have been born into Britain's lands
Where no charity could wager,
Them a better deal than
If they came from foreign lands
Because then they would be treated as tokenistic exceptions
And given places at the high tables

Wander out beyond its shores and you discover the corruption in every country
They say only in Britain can a person be honoured with equality
Yet in those wayward states, which are decreed,
The worst by liberal minds,
People's protection is enforced by a harsh brutality
Yet We in Britain have that same
sentiment of protection
Yet ours is backed up by far more ruthless crooks
Mostly who have gone to Eton
And of those their brutality is taught
In the school of hard knocks
That coming from the right family or background
Will ensure your measure of protection

It is better you come from foreign climes
So that you are not aware of the system
That grinds the working man down
That turns to dust the middle classes
That neither awards nor trusts
Nought but itself save tokenistic prizes
To save faces, small faces
Big faces savour the queen's graces
Who stands a top the totem pole that rocks
Us all to sleep in our places

And we are asleep, as a nation
We writhe, and toss and turn
But the pressure pushed down on the blanket
Smothers us, covers our faces
So we cannot breathe
The nanny state- that feeds us
That suckles us,
Then the tax system that takes it straight back again
When we have finally earnt enough
This is what necessitates the need for the classes
The leg up the socio-economic ladder
That gets you to a higher status
A better clientele,
The confidence crew of crooks
With the small faces

Then you go on holidays in the Caribbean
Find off-shore places with them
To hide your taxes,
And the secrecy grows and the clubs grow
Until we all wear masks to cover our faces

And they say face book is the great leveller
But it just enforces what already exists
The power structures
Then have greater powers
To manipulate the poorest
Like grist
To the mill
To grease the wheels
Of progress

The name of the rose

A lawyer is sweeping up the streets
Tidying the law suits away
He's leaving sentences down alleys
And finding evidence on motorways

And the judge is cleaning windows
Pronouncing all that is clean
As he wipes the soot from the slates
Drops the columns from a magazine

To the journalist who is always talking
In the cafes and the bars
To million dollar shoe shiners
Who have just parked their sports cars

And in between the sparkling gems
Of phineas Fogg who just stayed home
Are the television dinner house wives
Who are jetsetting around the world

And dogs who think that they are cats
Go chasing down the crows
Who know already that they are dogs
And have been lying down in the road

And it all boils down to the top
Which falls out the bottom of the bag
That the street cleaner found in his paper cup
As he signs another writ in the daily rag

Who knows who these people are
I'm damned if I should know
It's not up to me anyway
To adjudicate a dog from a crow

And even if I see them with my eyes
Can I smell them with my nose
Will I call a spade a spade
Or call another the name of the rose

Love on the run

Brown cows in the meadow
Following the sun
Brown cows in the meadow
Following the sun
Well black crows in the shadow
Got love on the run

Well we're like those cows baby
Just following the sun
Yes we are like those cows honey
Just following the sun
We don't know where we're going
But we've got love on the run

I went to church on Sunday
I said God bless my soul
I went to church on Sunday
Said god bless my soul
Well it will be worth it to me someday
Well I'm just a love sick fool

I tried to shoot you baby
But the bullets went right through
I tried to shoot you baby
But the bullets passed through
Now I drink you baby
I drink your love by the shotful

You kill me baby, you kill me everyday
You kill me baby, you kill me everyday
And you'll be killing me tomorrow
Just like you kill me today

Humanimal

It's a bad habit
So don't do it
You're not a rabbit
Get through it!
Yeah you're not an animal
So don't do it
It's a bad habit

You could be a Panda
Eating shoots and leaves
Then you see a tasty animal
Makes you give up what you believe
He's a vegetarian not a carnivore
And you're a human not an animal
So don't do it
It's a bad habit

You could be a Giraffe
On the prairie
Head in the clouds
Like a fairy
Well come back down to earth
See your human worth
You're not an animal
It's a bad habit

You could be a monkey
Throwing banana skins
Trying to trip up others
In their times of sin
Well you're not an animal
Since Adam and the fall
He bit the apple
It's a bad habit

You could be an elephant
With his long trunk
Happy when he's relevant
But not when he's a drunk
You see he forgot
To remember he's an animal
But you are not
Don't do it,
It's a bad habit

You could be a flammingo
Standing in the pink
He can stand on one leg
After he's had a drink
But he's an animal
Don't be a fool
Don't do it
It's a bad habit

So lock up the zoo
The human's out his cage
There'll be hell to pay
And put heaven in a rage
You're not an animal
So don't do it at all
It's a bad habit
For all creatures great and small

Omen Bird

Buzzard sitting on the high branch
Vulture of the corn
Hunched shoulders like a miser
Shrugging at the oncoming storm

Weather front like a spyglass
Into tomorrow's dawn
Buzzard sitting on a high branch
Calling his tidings to warn

Augur bird of all he's heard and seen
Calling to someone or something in the green
Buzzard sitting on the high branch
Waiting there with eyes keen

Buzzard sitting on a high branch
Waiting to get born
Well he hasn't got a nest of his own yet
But he's building one well shorn

Buzzard sitting on the high branch
Waiting there as the sky is torn
Thunder will come and the rain on the run
He'll still be sitting there by Sunday morn

Buzzard sitting on the high branch
Looking out into the sky
Waiting and wondering,
Wondering and a waitin'
But he never does know why

Bernie's Birthday

Like a busy bee she buzzes from flower to flower
Like a hairdresser she trims the fringes
On her gardening binges
She's parched from the hospital green
She needs some real corridors
Of nature's power
So she dives in
Like a swimmer
Like a garden warrior of weeds
Battling on her knees
Tooth and nail, clawing at the earth
For all she's worth
She is a crusader for the cause unseen
But to tame the wild,
To play the game with mother nature
We have all seen
But like a general she commands the daisies
To stand upright and strong
She waves her hands at daffodils
They turn away from their own reflection
In the pond
And look her way, the cabbages wilt under her
Intense gaze,
As the lettuces give up the ghost
Go to seed
Let us give thanks and praise
To the army of one
That is Bernie, battler of the weed
On her birthday

Static Swans

White swan black peat
What contrast of purity
The lamb bleats
The polar bear's ferocious teeth
Black swan white peat

Turn on, turn off
The television static
In a graveyard cough
So gravelly and grave and sooty
And sweep
So much blurring, fuzzy channels
I can get no sleep
White swan, black peat

Like a plesiosaurus
Of the ancient stage
Long necked nessy,
From Walter Scott's page
White knights, black page
Black night, white sheet
White swan, black peat

Never say never again

You can be what you want to be
And I will always be your friend
Just put the past down to History
And Never say never again

You  might be this big soldier
Playing with your big toys
You might  be getting older
Like the men grown far from boys

But you can be what you want to be
I will always be your friend
Just Never, no never,
Never say never again

Never, no never
Never say never, until you close that door
Another door will open, it doesn't
Have to be the end
So Never say never again

Never, no never
Never say never, my emerald friend
You a like jewel in the crown
You might see those rain clouds coming
That's no reason to frown
Never, never,
Never , no never
Don't you ever, say
Never again

Snag-Life

Snag-Life, I just snag my life away
Everytime I think of stopping
That snagging feeling stays
And if I think about tomorrow
I know I'll be snagging just like today
Its a snagging sorrow, in March, April or May

Snagging through the Winter, on Spring and Summer days
Snaggin in the Autumn, in those dying auburn rays
And if I think of stopping,
That snagging feeling stays
Well that's Snag-Life

Snag-Life that's about the size of it
I've got wood chip down my collar
And White paint in my spit
If I had a dollar for every snag I made
Well I would be a millionaire
And I would sit upon a throne of gold
And not on this rickety old chair
But I am just a snagger, just a beggar laid bare
You try and stop me snagging
When I got soot dust in my hair
That's my Snag-life

Well I've got blue paint on my ear lobe
White paint up my nose
I'm sending out my snagging message
All around the globe
Snagging in the doorways, snagging round the rose
Snagging in the garden, on the roof top on tip toes
And everytime I think of stopping
That snagging feeling grows
That's my Snag-life

Well my finger nails are like black plumbs
From all the hammer blows
My snagging feeling lingers on
Like a love loss only knows
And I must be wicked because no rest ever slows
Me down in the thick of it
Until my brows are furrows
And I try to plough through the worry
But like flurries of snow
The snags they just snow ball me
Black and blue like the crows
And you can read all about it
In my Snag-Rag
I publish it on Tuesdays
When I talk of my Snag-drag
And it comes out on Sundays
When I blow my nose
Black and White between the lines
Where nobody ever goes
Now yes sir
That's Snag-Life

Shovelling Sand

Shovelling the sands of time
Shovel off this mortal coil
Soon the sand will blow over the line
Sand in my eyes, wind of toil

Soon the wild wind will whip
The sands from their heap
And I will build another sandcastle
On another shore of sleep

Sleep, sleep, the long eternal
Sleep in the sandy bay
Sleep like a sandman
Coming from the grains
Under the bed of hay

Sleep is a doorway
Into the land of the dead
Sleep upon your sandy pillow
Sandy Sue go rest your head

Filling the sand bags
Filling the hand bags
Throwing the women over my shoulder
Carrying them like a fireman
Out of the tower of older
Burning like a conflagration
Like a funeral pyre
Sand is thrown onto the flames
Sand blasts blown much higher

All the grains of time will stand
Will stand shoulder to shoulder
And the seconds
And minutes and hours
Will fuse into one
Glass Tower
Shine like a chimmney plume
Rising up to heaven
My glass elevator
My Siege of time's power

But no name, no fame, no nothing
Can make a war on time
Eventually the cracks will show
And the tower will shatter

Then all the pieces will be returned once
More to the shore
Washed up in the tumbling waves
To become sand grains once more
Blown across the face of graves