International Shopping Spree

 He was an international man of mystery

Then I think I saw him in Sainbury's

Next I saw him in Denmark

But he was pushing a shopping cart

Then they spotted him in Peking

Alas he was only doing his shopping

So we can conclude he likes food and travel

Not such a mystery then to unravel

Except next they saw him at an assassination

He was holding the culprit with indignation

Then he peered out behind the president

Helping the first lady with her rosette

The election was rigged

But it wasn't by him

His portfolio was loaded, it wasn't so slim

And all of them figure he had pulled the trigger

But he would snigger like Lord Jim

I was in iceland or Asda

I was wave-wasted in the bay of Bisque

Marooned off Camaroon in an Aucean 

The pigs had trotted off their schemes

To scheming ponies facing evergreens

And dogged determination 

Linden Johnson held his wenel schnitzer

Out for a Pulitzer prize

But oh I do surmise

A fall in plates

That stacked up on his garden gates

And swollen pride

And blushing brides in Eden

And Baden Powell

Told holy goats

To accost a cow on 

Dalmatian coasts

And more lured now

Than gory horrow

Of Hollywood Sundays With Mother Coyboys

Being abducted by Alien cows

Who are getting their

Own back on wiser brows

And beaten vows of rice pudding

Who are drowning now in 

All do - gooding

And cubbing, and clubbling

And cudding the pastures 

That roll

All the statures of stauettes enrole

Pfizer profiterole

Of profits in the first quarter of doom

It would be better if it never ended

For the vaccinators boom

But what bust, what straight jacket of trust

Can be wener scnitzel twisteed

Like a Pretzel, or into one

Gobenhetzel

Messerscmit bomber

Google dropper

Bouncing babies

Into a covid dam

But the jam has freezed and so are we

In the sea, the sea

Birdman and spiderwoman

 I had never really wanted anyone more

Than when I saw you climbing up that wall

Like a spiderwoman you were all threads

Black and white in your life's book well read

And you opened up the door

I stepped right in

Like a viking does

When he smells his victory showers

And I couldn't help but sin

I read about you later in the comic book store

About how you fought the alligator on all fours

How you wrestled him back into his cage

But the aligator man he soon came back

He only was on a flight to Japan which he highjacked

And it was his plan all along, he never went away

Well the superheroes must fight their foes

Enemies and nemisis inside black holes

For love is the champion and hate will not win

We need make a big hole and throw the demons in

Now spiderwoman she had to rush

The gas was burning heavy on the interstate bus

Not much time before her lover would leave

all in all I wish you the best

You gave me my heart back, but you took the rest

And as I wave good bye I see her cry on my shoulder

You know we both are getting older and time will win

You've got to get bolder don't give in

Take that flight and fly away

Birdman

Assassin's creed

 An Assassin lost his creed on the way to school

He found it once again in the bar

fifty years later

When the rent was due

And the bills they were surmounting him

He swept upon his steed

Back to the killing field

Mercy or my trust

Necessity is a virtue

Where sobriety's a must

I shall be the cold eyes who watches

Blood turn to rust

And let the dice fall where they will

For I was born to kill

All in all the quarantine of his friend was short

The target liked a game of golf

But he wasn't one for sport

He shot him in his hotel

Room over a bottle of vermouth

Yet of all the gin joints in all the world

She had to be his sleuth

She traced him by his barnacles

That had clung to him

His shells and empty cartridges

That smelt much like his skin

She longed for his touch

She wasn't asking for much

But an assassin's world is very cold

Too cold for her loving

She was out of luck, when the security truck came past her skidding

Suddenly though

He was there and somehow took control

He yanked her out to freedom far from the

Trucks patrol

She smelt his sleeves of stealing

She felt him move her soul

And he was done with thieving

But she was worth the goal

Her heart was gold and heaving

With the love beats that he stole

He left her in the alley

And the rain beat down her neck

She felt his love receding

And the feelings of reject

But far above the city

Where he was running along roof tops

His cape was wet

With some regret

And the sky which marked where his truth stops

Of the one he loved

Yet the garbage trucks

were burning their morning routes

The sun it started climbing as the stop watch

began to chime

What time was left, to him bereft

Another tower to climb

And another marbled court yard

another palm enfringed balcony beneath

Where the object of his death watch

was slowly brushing his teeth

He slipped the knife below his chin

And sprayed the wall in red

And paint that dripped upon the pavement

offered his relief

A picture of you

 And you are on the chair over there

And I am down on the street

And the photographs of a life laid bare

Are fluttering down at my feet

Oh these pictures of you

with your smile so sweet

Oh those pictures of you

And I thought it was a clean sweep

That I looked like your father

You had to laugh

That you reminded me of my mother

You tried not to gasp

That perspective keeps covering the same piece of glass

On the shoulder's of giants, like chips off the past

And hey you with your Soviet block

And your ice pick ready to heave and to chop

Off the last shadows in a sky of memories

And each is a picture, a picture of you

So now as I'm leaving down the avenue

The hot air balloons are sailing out through the blue

And the lakes  where we visited and you anchored your heart

On jetties where the waves washed your camera lens apart

And the aperture opened like a window

To your soul

And I saw freedom is only possible

If you have a good place to start

Like in those pictures, those pictures of you

Your Shades of Mercy

 Hey little babe

The world turns round

weight on your shoulders

Pushes you to the ground

But oh the shades of mercy

Hey little darling

I am starvin for your love

And your gentle touch

Oh your shades of mercy

And the keys to the garden 

Hang by the well and I can see your

rocking chair bell

Ring in the shades of mercy

And the free sky above and 

The birds do tell, 

Which way is heaven and which way is hell

And oh all their shades of mercy

War museum

Visiting in the war museum

The black guns in their cases, you had to see them

And no smiles on the faces of the aces

Who shot down all those planes from the sky

 

Mud on my boots from the trenches

Blood stains on the suits and on park benches

What are we fighting for in these marshy stenches?

Where the bodies of our buddies lie

 

War in the eyes of the starving civilians

Is not the same as in the warlord's who counts his millions

In cartridge cases and ammo boxes and gold medallions

As bodies in black bags get flown back home side

 

I have seen the tanks a rolling through the forests

And the soldiers leap out in ambush down upon us

And the leaves fall like rain down on the trail

Where my buddies they will fail to return and walk by my side

 

So, as I walk in this museum of the war time

And I remember all the war masters still in their prime

The shells the burst like fireworks inside my mind

I am reminded of all the fallen I have left behind

 

There was never a more pressing need or rancour

Than in the armistice which came with a clamour

Of clashing steel, Kalashnikovs and falling pellets

Whose tinkle bells could be heard for the miles I ride

 

And my horse she is bold like a stallion

And my badges hang round my neck for my battalion

Who battled on in skirmish and in fire-fight

But when my orders came to leave, I took flight

 

Never happier to see the aircraft

Like an eagle that flew me away she was a freedom raft

And as I flew in the bird, I looked down at state side

And the fog it rolled in on the bay

 

You can call it what you like in the museum

Just pay your money take the tour you can see them

But don't you abjure or fight the season

Oh, you can't tell me war has a reason 

Anymore

 

Body of lies

 I was talking to a lady who was writing a sketch

She came outdoors and handed me the script

I felt alright then I had to sniff

And soon I was sneezing, into her papery bits

I said I'm so sorry but I'm allergic to comedy

Can't you see I come out in a rash

If you tell another joke I'm sure I will cough at you

And then the whole mother ship might crash

She said I knew you were funny but I didn't know how strange

When I said show me the money

I didn't mean give me your change

You better be careful for the next line's coming up

And the end is a deadline and it packs a punch chump

As she said that I started rolling around the floor

You see I was in stitches, but by that I mean sores

For my sides they were itching and my brain did abore

I said I think my nervous system is malfunctioning

I don't this funny anymore

Finally came the punch line and the end of the joke

With that I was at the washing line, like it would choke

She said it's got you in a choke hold, I gasped "I think that you are great

But please don't write another sketch or else, I'll end up dead or a worse fate"

With that she lay her pen down, put no more words on paper

And I left with a frown, saying good bye and see you later

"Not if I see you first" she said, just a throw away line, 

But that onliner was a curse, for at once I fell down

My heart gave way I had a cardiac arrest,

The police came to put it behind bars

But they had to call a Taxi

Instead a taxidermist turned up

And stuffed me full of paper shreds

You see the script writer had torn up her script

And with her waste jokes I'd been stuffed instead

And so now I stand before you

A shadow of my former self

Just a statue of a comedian made up of bad jokes

But it isn't all that bad, because the next day she went for a PET scan

She said is it all right if I bring a friend 

They said of course you can

So then she brought me - her own private dead pet

Well they put me in the machine, to see if they could get

Any funny sense out of my remains, but it seems as if 

I never had a funny bone in my body

What they did instead was re-read her old jokes

They came out better now they'd been jumbled around by taxidermy

It seems she was pretty funny, so there's life in the old girl yet

You bet, you little bunny, and she even married a vet

They spent many happy hours reading jokes

To elderly dogs in nursing homes for the guides

Some of them had gone blind themselves

And it was like the blind leading the blind

But enough of that because as they say

All dogs go to heaven, but perhaps not

If they've gone to Mars already, then robbed a seven eleven

They will probably go to Hell

With the Mars rover, but he knew things were going well

Up until they ran him over

But they say in Space no one can tell a bad joke because

There's no gravity just levity,

Nothing to bring you down

Only maybe roll you over

A minor role

 Rainy day in Cardiff the News in newport is bad

Have you heard the rumour in Caerphilly

That the road to the Gower is sad

Has anyone seen a smile in the valleys?

Not for a week or two

But the sea gulls still fly by making their sallies

In then out as time flew

I have seen the merry-go-round and I 've been on the swings before

But it's all roundabouts down by the coal mines

Where the caged canary cries cuckoo

I have seen the jamboree

And the elephants march from the zoo

And old Eliza empty his trunk

Back when the junk was new

Now they are selling second hand guitars

With their strings like trip wires

for musical burglars 

As they are taking down notes and holding up cars

Throttling their throats and smoking cigars

And gypsy swans go roaming

Across the fields and fens

As jugglars are telling jokes

To jaguars and jens

And Jesus has a supersoaker

Which he uses on his friends

They are wet without their boats

He don't get their votes when it ends

I saw a piano hanging from a nail

And I pulled it out but the piano man went pale

He said

 You must put it in again

You need to plug the hole

There aren't enough parts as it is

In this key for a miner's soul

So I put it back

And saw it was dark

Then I heard the canary

And it was singing like a dwarf

Down on the wharf

Where they bleed the fairies

They said bring us in our cargo of wings

Let me see their steel

And if it flies then it's a thing

And if it sinks we fail

So the fairies wore their steel wings

And each fell in the water

And the mine owner said

That's what you get

When fly without a tail

Surely said the miner's daughter

They should be given another chance

To be seen in a photograph

Or wash up on the shores of France?

Put them back in the mine he said

And they can glow down there

And help us find our precious coal

Before we both go spare  

Paper planes

 A paper plane

Dropped a paper clip

From blue ink jet sky

With paper mache clouds

Printing out rainbows

In black and white

And dropping ink rain droplets

Onto the blotting paper ground

Where a strawman walked

Wearing a straw hat

And he walked a straw dog

Who was getting rather fat

And he drank Pimms

From a plastic straw after that

In the garden of his straw bale house

When at the door a pig turn up

Carrying in his trotters a little paper cup

And he said can you spare me a drop of that

So the straw man invited the pig

Inside his straw house

Before the ink jet rain began to fall

From the sky printer clouds

Just then a paperwolf appeared on the front lawn

And said, I'll huff and I'll puff and I'll blow your house down

I'd like to see you try it said the straw man

These walls are four feet thick and you're not a bellows man

What you'd need is a good blaze

But even that is a push

Because the reeds are bound so tightly

That there really is no air gap

And the paper wolf howled

As he ran down the runway

Of the paper airport

To catch the paperplane

Out of the paper city

Where the wind blew through

The straw houses

And along the wooden streets

Where paper trees

Stood

Writing poetry to themselves

Written in their bark

And upon their fallen dead leaves

Jesus is around me

 Jesus is around

me

He's in front of me,

He's beside me

and behind me

Jesus is in the air

tonight

Oh to be near Jesus

Everyday and night

Oh to hold him next to me

I'll be like a bird who takes flight

When I need you Jesus

you're next to me on my right

And when I am bereft you see

Him on my left saying

It' gonna be alright

Oh he's around, he's around me

Lightning calls

 There's a clap, clap in the morning

And it wakes you up from sleep

And as you climb out to the morning

The windows begin to weep

And the polecats stop their snoring

And the fat dogs lose their barks

As the thunder rolls are peeling

And go carolling through the dark

And the television house wives

They fall to their knees and pray

That God will stop his anger,

And leave his wrath for another day

And the soldier races from his cabin

And brings his deaf ears into the street

Saying is that the drummer I hear calling

Or am I just a dead man on my feet

And the fires stop their wailing

As the engines turn and beep

Because the sheep are on the hill pretending

They haven't just lost little Bo Peep

And the Bo bells are ringing

As the rain begins to beat

Against the windows of all the people

Who stare out into eternal heat

And the steeples dance with lightning

Inviting it to come down and greet

All the people who are now frightening

And running down the raging street