Journey to the East

 I'm on the midnight ferry from Dover

But I can't stop until it's over

Through the spider web of chance

I took my leave to visit France

And all the castles of the Sailing sea

All the shadows hanging over me

From Harfleur to Dunkirk

I left my home in rainy Southport

Well the road lay down in front

And Belgium and Brussels

they were stunts

all I needed was an actor

But what they gave me was a doctor

And the cure was inside of me

As the shore was sure beside the sea

Next the Autobahn of Germany

And the vignettes from BMW

But the man didn't speak a my language

So I lay on a park bench and wept

In exhaustion and fumes from car jets

And the wash of lorries

That drilled like insects

Into the very earlobes you see

As I sped down the E40

Only stopping to meet a friend

A fellow traveller where our paths did wend

And he a carpenter

Like Jesus Christ

Who carried a coffin for his sacrifice

To lay in wooden walls

And think of trees

As he slept in cannabis obscurity

But no rest for the wicked

And the devil drove me

On through picket white fence country

And lederhosen pastorality

Into the Danube bend near Regensburg

Where I took my rest

Like a falcon takes his perch

To lie on pavements

To catch a snatch of sleep

Where Gypsies

ruled the night parking lots

And East Europeans smoked and scuffed

Their trainers against curbs

The morning brought me creaking

To my knees

To pray for good travelling

Of the iron seas

As the tarmac stretched out perfectly

And Austria beckoned

Debts

Of all St Thomas' virtuosity

I met Vienna by the suburbs

And burbled like a spring water reaching surface in Hungary

Where I breathed a sigh of relief

To have a arrived with

Time to spare

Then drove to that county fair of Veszprém's

Sweet climes