Chances of

 I saw the Romans in their tower

I saw the holy ones who cower

And monsters under beds are sworn

To be in death what they weren't when born

And choosing life and spirit breath

The doors of reason's consciousness

Where tides are torn

On the seas high cliffs

Where land meets storm

As lovers' lips kiss

And broken on the wheel of chance

The plague is sworn

Unreal death-dance

To chew the corn

And spit romance

Under forlorn lover's glance

MAGPIE

 Magpie swooping like a loom

Along the yarn of the wind's boom

Up and  down from tree to tree

Oh how happy, oh how free

Mouse in my house

 A mouse moved into my house last week

It gave a squeak as it tried to speak

I tried Latin, then I tried Greek

But I was feeling weak

And I couldn't explain it plain

That this was my house and he hadn't asked permission to stay

But he stayed, I was lame

He moved into the room upstairs

He began making himself comfortable

At the table and chairs

And certainly the cupboard and the sink

I took a blink

And the food was gone

The Jelly and the scone

The Bacon and bun

But I don't begrudge him his fill

He has had a hard life after all

As a mouse

only now he's as big as a house

He fills the room upstairs

The floor boards creak, each time he squeaks

And it is beginning to drive me spare

He can't even fit through the gate

And I have to bring him his meal on large wood plate

Like a King of old

He holds court from his throne or his bed

And the mouse hoards have listened to every word he has said

War words

 I came unto a dry place

Full of skulls and stone

And in the lines of every face

Were the bones of those I'd known

And it was not as if a trace

Was left which came before

But these are the lines of my disgrace

Inside this bloody war

I held my palms up to the sky

And I did pray for rain

And all upon a lullaby

A butterfly it came

It landed down upon my hand

And unfolded out its wings

And I could see the hand of God

In every beautiful thing

Sky train

 Starlink,

Star train

Riding on a light beam

X-box Vox-pox

Hiding out in 99

diamond necklace

String of pearls

Wrapping round this old world

Try to cover try to place

Each and every lover

In the human race

We never fail to see God's face

Yet it is only a reflected grace

Starlight express, answer me yes

I'm ready to climb aboard

Father Christmas being pulled

By sixty reindeer in a train or 

Some kind of hoard

I thought it was the Russians with

A nuclear surprise

Then I believed it was the USA

Sending rockets into the sunrise

Blowing up the whole darned sun

The solar system and all within

But now I see They are going over Ukraine

I only wish they don't travel in vain

Travel by skytrain

Travel by sky train

Polar Bear

 I've been called out

By a polar bear

I've been called by a polar

He's a mean bean sprout

Without a care

He's a mean bean sprout

Without a care

He is with out ,without my tent

He is without, without my tent 

He is a mean, a mean man

I mean he's lean, as a tin can

I've been called out

By a polar bear

I've been called out

By a polar bear

And you can scream and shout

You can from over there

But without a doubt

You know he doesn't care

I've been called out

By polar bear,

I've been called out

By a polar bear

Real to Reel

 Real too real, that's what they say

It's real as a black hawk on a summer's day

Together we stand and divided we fall

Who's behind the scenes at the mirrored hall?

I walk with my eyes all bound up in chains

And Jade dragons are snarling at cold winter rains

The love of a lost one, a ghost who won't come again

It's too real too real for to give it a name

And time is an enemy oh but time is a trust

A fund of hegemony, and a loan of the dust

That falls in it's lines so binary as lust

You can drink down with wine

Turn it on or turn off

But not love

It floats as a bee on the breeze

And sails as a ship across choppy seas

And if one moment it is lost, the next moment we freeze

It is reel to real a love's matrimony

Monkey not a monk

 I'm a monkey not a monk

I've a pocket full of junk

I wanna put it in your trunk

Make you smell like a skunk

I am hunky not a hunk

I am chunky not a chunk

I am tonky not a tonk

I'm a monkey not a monk

I'm in a one horse town

I don't wanna let myself down

I'm in a one horse town

Don't wanna let myself down

Oh so won't you let me in?

Don't wanna live without sin

I'm a sinner not a saint

I'm painter who has to paint

I'm gonna cater for you Cate

I'll see you later don't be late

I am funky not a funk

I'm a donkey not a donk

I'm wonky not a wonk

I'm a monkey not a monk

Ice breakers - never start with a joke, always get them warmed up first

 I went to the South Pole and met some Gentu penguins there. We had never met before and it was quite difficult to break the ice.

I started by dancing the Fox-Trot, then the Tango-

But the penguins quickly told me that though we were near Argentina, that was not the dance they preferred. Instead they began Break dancing, I decided that that was a much better way to break the ice, so I joined in.

Will-power

 What would my mother's last will and testament have been

Before my step father changed it?

Life is but a dream

Closing the door

And turning the key

Dropping the letter in the trash

Because it won't be read anymore

The house is closed

And it will not be open again

The lights are on but nobody's home

Sacrifice or Your money or your Life

 The question it seems to me is:

What are we prepared to fight for?

If not for the freedom of a democratic people

Then what does our own democracy stand for

Does it only apply within the borders of the 

So called free Britain

Do we not stand for these same values abroad?

And if we don't - which seems to be

The political message we are sending then no wonder non-democratic

countries will expand naturally to fill the vacuum

We have only taken out sanctions against them,

We only think we can bargain for our own morality in money

We can buy off our own democracy if we are rich enough

But this is not a foundation of society, where the rich 

can live for themselves and the poor be allowed to suffer

This is not a value I subscribe to

Where is God in all of this?

Where are our Christian values?

We live in such a selfish culture that no one

wants to look at the greed and egotism in the centre of their own lives

No one wants to sacrifice anything

And this way without values is a slippery slope

It is a Russian landslide and we are standing at the bottom

Saying we built our house upon mud and straw

Perhaps deep down there still are the foundations

Of rock

But we need to rediscover thse pillars of strength before we can stand

up for anything

because at the moment the Western liberal democracies

Are having an identity crisis

That all their wealth has brought

At some stage we need to ask our selves the question

Is it our money or our lives that we value more

And what are the values we still believe in

That money can't buy

A tale of two snails

Once upon a time there was a garden

And in the garden, there were lots of snails

all going about their business in a happy sort of way

And all of these snails had a right-hand twist in their shells

I say all, in fact that is a bit of a pork pie

Or a lie, if you like, for there was one unfortunate fellow named George

 

George was a snail who would have liked to have been like the other snails

But alas he was different

His shell wound in the other direction - it wound left

This meant as he was making his way up and down the garden path

Though he nodded his head and would even have liked to greet

Or shake hands with the other snails he was passing

Their heads and bodies seemed to be twisted away from him

If they did notice him at all, it was if they happened to see a passing bird 

over his head and behind him, 

so really it was an accident

 

George so much wanted to get to know the other snails that he went out

Sometimes to their local pub - the other snails called this the Jam Jar

It was where they all hung out, it was quite literally a jam jar

Sometimes they met in the Broken Mug or the Elder hollow

But whenever George tried to join them, he found

He couldn't get in; he had the wrong kind of shell you see

It wound in the wrong direction, they said he just wouldn't fit in

 

Anyway, time passed and the other snails he grew up around they

met other right-handed snails and started families

On a snail date the usual thing is to walk around-

Sorry slither around a bit and maybe climb up a stem or two

To get a better view of the garden, 

Then at a romantic viewing point they would get a little closer

Very close in most circumstances

But it was always important for the snails to ask each other first

If this was what they really wanted and were they aware this may lead to baby snails

And most important of all which one of us should be the boy snail and which the girl?

For you see snails spend their whole lives going around not bothering about

Whether they are a male snail or a female snail

The thought hardly crosses their mind

Not until they find another snail they rather like and would like to know a little better

And then once they have shaken hands and had a chat one of them must pop the question-

Boy or Girl?

So, you see snails are very open minded sorts of creatures.

 

Anyway, George or sometimes known as Georgina, depending on his mood

Had found another snail, let's call him Harold or Haroldina, depending on his mood

And they met outside the Jam Jar as George was sliding away

A little dejectedly

"Hey do you wanna slide with me?" Asked Harold or Haroldina

"Do I? Sure I do, let's get out of here", said George or Georgina

So the pair went off into the undergrowth together.

However, they weren't gone very long when Haroldina came sliding back out

Crying "Get away from me you freak! With your left-handed shell! And left-handed brain!

I don't know what I ever saw in you! Good night!"

George had only tried to shake Harold's hand

But you see he did it in such a strange way

That it would have never worked between them

They just weren't compatible, and Harold had turned away from him quickly.

 

George found the same thing with every other right hander he encountered

Since there were no other left handers,

George was alone in the world of the garden

Not only that but the snail "Garden Preservation Society of Traditional Snail Values and Ethics" 

decided to put up signs with pictures of a left-handed snail on them

And a big cross through it, this meant "No entry to lefties"

And "Keep out Left handers, go back to your own side of the garden!"

 

The problem was George felt he didn't really belong anywhere

He didn't have his own side of the garden

He only had himself. At last, it started raining and he could forget his woes and just hide inside home

And listen to the rain drops falling on his wicked shell

Was it really so bad?

He wished he never had it, or he could re-draw his spiral and straighten it out

And put it back on his back the 'right' way round.

 

But he knew this was useless and he must accept himself.

 

One bright sunny day the Entomologist Doctor Daddy long legs

Walked into the garden to visit his friend Mrs Cook

Who had baked him a nice cake? 

and they sat down outside in the garden and ate the cake and drank their cups of tea

 

All of a sudden Dr Daddy long leg looked down and there

Perched on the end of his shoe was a very unusual and interesting sort of snail

And this snail looked back at the entomologist in an interested sort of way 

"What have we here!?" The Dr said, "a very special snail I think Mrs Cook"

And he plucked George from off the end of his shoe

And put him in his lunch box,

You see George didn't know what to do, as he had never been in a lunch box before

And with someone name Mrs Cook nearby he was worried he might soon become lunch

He had heard of certain French Restaurants who were especially fond of eating snails like him,

Though maybe his bigger French Cousins were the unlucky ones.

 

Anyway, here he was in the lunch box 

when somebody dropped a leaf of lettuce in and he was happy as larry, 

if you could hear a snail laugh for joy then that would have been it

But it is very quiet you know, to our ears.

 

Unbeknownst to George, Dr Daddy long legs had examined his shell and came to a conclusion

"I think Mrs Cook that this snail maybe the only example of a left-handed snail I know of! Do you have any more in your garden?"

"Not that I know of Dr Longlegs, but you are welcome to have a sniff about, I've never really looked in so much detail at them."

"That I will Mrs Cook, thank you."

So Dr Long Legs spent the rest of the afternoon scouring Mr's Cooks garden searching for another instance of a left hander, but he never found one.

 

On the spot he asked Mrs Cook if she minded him keeping George for a while

Well I don't suppose he'll mind, no

So George was whisked away in the lunch box, quite happy to be escaping the garden he no longer felt was his home and where he wasn't welcomed

 

Well perhaps I'll meet some new snails outside of the garden wall, George thought to himself on the train journey back to Longleg's apartment.

 

Back in the garden, the other snails hadn't really noticed George's abduction by the Giant Bipods as they called them, or clumsyfeet sometimes. Only Harold wondered as he hadn't seen him skulking around the Jam jar for a few nights.

 

Back home long legs telephoned his friend and journalist Max Webber, well Max I think I have found it the hapax legomenon, the only example of a left-handed snail, it is like finding a four leafed clover!

Are you sure? Asked Max, well in that case the poor fellow's line will die out with him, as he won't be able to start a family with any other right handers.

Maybe there is a way said Longlegs. What if you put out an advert in your magazine and we called up the other media outlets, newspapers and the news and asked the public to send us their sightings or better still the real McCoy versions of left-handed snails. Then maybe he'd have a chance?

Mm, said Max

He needs a partner and a friend in this world. We must put out our feelers and put out a search letter and scour the whole of Great Britain for other left-handed snails, and if we can find them and invite them, then maybe George can have a family of his own one day. 

I don't like his chances, but perhaps we can make it happen, let's try our best and put an advert up in the paper.

So, they did just that. And once, they'd done it, it was remarkable. It did take several months, but then the first left-handed snail arrived who was very happy to shake hands with George. 

 

And here they were back in Mrs Cook’s garden again, and the entomologist had given them a special cordoned off area where only George and his special friend could stay. Her name was Henrietta, or sometimes Henry, depending on the mood.

 

And the right-handed snails had to look on enviously with their small garden mentality, they talked about them and spread rumours saying oh look at those two, once they start a family it will be the end for us all. What must they be up to?

 

So, George and Henry started a family and then there was a little left hander there as well. In fact, over the course of some years, George had helped make rather a lot of left handers, to the extent the entomologist had to give over half the garden to them.

Even more than this, readers of Max Webber's magazine - Snail Trails Monthly continued to send in their snail mail and to Webber's and Long legs great joy and surprise they received live left-handed snails all safe and alive, but a little shell-shocked from the royal mail snail delivery service.

Although this wasn't a plethora of snails or a panorama, it was in fact enough for George to keep making his own family.

So eventually George wasn't alone in the world anymore. They lived in this section of the garden, but soon they began to wonder what was outside of the garden wall and so George led his family a bit like Moses out of the garden.

So that is just what they did in a great exodus of left-handed snails who crossed over the border and searched out a new world to live in.

Some stayed behind, because they liked the garden. George was one of those who wanted to explore, he'd always wanted to explore his whole life, perhaps because he didn't feel welcome in the right-hand side of the garden. After many years of travelling and starting different families, like starting new businesses up, George returned back to his old garden, and he saw to his great surprise that the left-handed snails and the right-handed snails were living together quite peaceably in harmony. And he felt such great joy when he could see that they could all live together happily, and he went and joined them in the Jam jar, and they had a right old time chatting about things he had seen outside of the garden wall. 

Complicit

 You have to admit 

We are complicit in the Uk

With the crimes against the Ukraine

Everytime a business person accepts a shady deal here 

From a Russian billionaire or 

An estate agent arranges a meeting with a millionaire

To buy a penhouse suite in London

Or Prime real estate elsewhere

Or the same with the Chinese money

That floods into Europe and Africa

Or British tech firms

We have invited them in with one hand

Giving the signal come in we want your finance

We can be bought

We are greedy, that is our weakness

They know this

With the other hand we say come no further

Look at the mighty West, we have Nato

And our missiles will aim at you,

We want to spread our values into the East

End game- ?

 What is the end game?

They win,

Russia are stronger and more than a threat than ever.

We need to knock them down now

And we need to stand up for Ukraine

If the Hungarian government

won't we

then refuse to pay our taxes in defiance

lightning

 I remember watching the lightning strike over the blocks

Of flats in Veszprém

While smoking my pipe standing in my shorts

On your balcony

I was happy then with you

Why does love never seem to work out

Always going in different directions 

Like water streams

choosing their own courses

You can't ever predict what two people will do

And love strikes you

Like a bolt from the blue

When you are sitting in a Scottish lodge

reading your poetry to a group of strangers

And one person in the group

Is listening to you

Snail tale

 In the garden,

There was a government of snails

And the government said,

There can only be right handed (twist) snails

Whose shells wind in the right handed way

If there are any left handed snails here

Kick them out of the garden

Keep them outside of the fence

And throw them out of the gate

May they never come back in

If they must be here, they must be hidden

For they are an abomination of nature

And so George wandered around, or rather slithered around

because he was a snail, quite aimlessly

And he couldn't properly talk to other snails

They were always a little too distant from him

And therefore he found it very difficult to get on

And it was like driving a bus

When two bus drivers pass eachother on opposite sides of the street

But they can't talk to eachother because they are seated on the wrong side of the bus.

You see we're not all the same,

We're not all symmetrical or we're not all perfect

Some of us are right handed and some of us are left handed

And we can't all be the same, but generally in fact always

The right handed snails could only start families with other right handed snails

Because they liked the direction

And it just meant everything together between them worked better

The thing is there were also the sort of snails who were left-handed in the world

And even outside of the garden where George had been born

It's just he didn't know it.

So for now he slithered around and tried to avoid

Eye contact with the other snails 

Who all shunned him and he felt like a pariah

He was stuck on the wrong side of the fence

So as I was saying, the other snails started to put up signs as well

with a big snail on it, like a left handed snail whose shell twisted the wrong way

and a big cross over it and they said, no he's not allowed in here

Sometimes there were these jam jars left in the garden

And the snails all liked to congregate in them and all have chats

and be very socialable, except when they saw George coming

They all turned their shells and ganged up on him so he couldn't get in

And it was very difficult for him.

One day a friendly snailogist or entomologist - one who studies insects and molluscs - which is what a snail is - Dr Daddy Longlegs

was wandering about the neighbourhood

He decided to go and see his friend Mrs Cook who had just baked a lovely cake for him

and her other friends

Mrs Cook and he were sitting outside in the garden having a cup of tea and enjoying the sunshine.

When the entomologist looked down and saw upon his shoe an interesting looking snail

Who was looking up at him in an interesting sort of manner.

Cocking his head to one side and extending his eyeballs out on their storks

And he said to himself, that's strange that seems like 

The most unusual snail I've ever seen  in my life

And he picked up the snail from off his shoe and put it in his lunch box 

And in his lunch box he took a closer look and could see that his shell

Had wound the wrong way, it had gone left instead of right

He started to look about the garden and tried to find some other snails

"Do you know that in your garden", he said, "it is full of right handed snails and

This one snail here, who I think I shall name George is actually a left handed snail?"

"How unusual", said Mrs Cook, "what does it mean Dr Daddy Long Legs?"

"Well what it means is that this poor chap unfortunately doesn't have any friends

And he won't be able to have a family with anyother kind of snail

Unless they be lefthanded snails"

So tragically that was the end for poor George

Or so he thought as he listened

So what the Entomologist did then, was he took George with him

And took a photograph and said to his friend the journalist Max Webber

Look what we have here is a very special snail

So special indeed that there may only be one of his kind in the entire country!

"How incredible!" said Max the journalist!

But if it is that would make it the Hapax Legomenon

Do you mean the Happy Legomen's mum?

No the Hapax Legomenon, it's the only instance of something

Well the fact is this snail, he needs a partner and a friend in this world

So we must put out a search and scour the whole of Great Britain for other left-handed snails

And if we can find them then maybe George can have a family of his own one day

Well I don't like the sound of his chances, but perhaps I can help, said Max

We can put an advert up in my paper!

And so they did just that

And once they'd done it

It was remarkable

It did take several months

But then the first left handed snail arrived through the post

Who was very happy to shake hands with George

And here they were up in Mrs Cook's garden again,

After Daddy Longlegs had brought them back and put them in a 

Special cordoned off area where only George and his friend could stay

And the right handed snails had to look on enviously

And talking and spreading rumours about them saying

Things like oh look at those two

What are they doing in there

And so George and his friend actually started a family

And then there was another left-handed snail who was their baby

Which was remarkable

In fact over the course of some years

Even more readers of Max Webber's magazine Snail Trails Monthly

Were sending in their snail mail

And in the post little boxes Dr Daddy Long legs discovered

To his great Joy and surprise that they were sending in Left Handed snails

Now even though this wasn't a plethora of snails

Or indeed a panorama, it was  in fact enough for George to keep making his own families

And so eventually George wasn't alone in the world anymore

They lived in this little section of the garden

But soon interest grew in the outside world

And they thought perhaps these snails

Could live outside of the garden too

And so that is just what they did

It was a great exodus of left handed snails who crossed over the border 

And searched out a new world to live in.

Some stayed behind because they liked the garden

George was one of those who wanted to explore

He'd always wanted to explore his whole life

Perhaps because he didn't feel welcome in the right handed side of the garden

Eventually after many years of travelling and starting different families

A bit like starting new businesses up George retruned back his first garden

And he saw to his great surprise that the left handed snails and the right handed snails

Were living together quite peacably

In harmony and it was such a great joy when he could see they could all live together happily

And he went and joined them in the jam jar and they had a right old time

Chatting about life and the things that he had seen outside of the garden wall

Middle man between the devil and the deep blue Europe

 War

It is now the use of the word

In the news since

The rest of the world will soon feel the effects of rising fuel costs

What havewe been missing?

We thought we could return to a former world

But everything has changed

Nothing stays the same

But at the end

Russia will come out stronger

In terms of land and resources

When they capture Ukraine

But what will be next for the border with Europe

The hard borders with Poland, Lithuania, Romania

Or the soft border with Hungary.

What will the result be for militarization in Europe

And if Hungary don't militarize

Then what will happen to Budapest

Hungary is Nato

It will be strategically important for the West

But also Russia

But also Orban will play the middle man

He has invited in the Russian money

Oligarchs etc and also Chinese money

And money talks

Word of tomorrow

 

preprandial

[ pree-pran-dee-uhl ]

---

adjective

before a meal, especially before dinner; anteprandial:a preprandial apéritif.

Pigeon Man

 I am praying for the right concept

To come into my mind

Undulating dove or was it a pigeon

That swoops down from the tree

Across the field

Looking out I cannot see 

If I am he

Or he is me

Up and down

And back and forth

Trying to stay on plan

And still push forth

Word of the day

 insuperable

adjective

   formal

UK 

 /ɪnˈsjuː.pər.ə.bəl/ US 

 /ɪnˈsuː.pɚ.ə.bəl/

 

(especially of a problem) so great or severe that it cannot be defeated or dealt with successfully

Don't Panic captain Good Manners

 I don't think our moral outrage

Means a single thing against Russia

No matter what pictures of burning buildings

Or murdered children

It is not as if he doesn't know what he is doing

He is proud and cannot suffer

humiliation on the battlefield

It is the main basis of his political ptency

And the support of his generals.

He threatens nuclear war

And then says he will agree to talks

While at the same time advancing his troops

We cannot trust a single word he says

And he will not stop until he has achieved his military objectives

The West will have made him a pariah by that time

But it doesn't matter when he has the support of other

Dictatorial regimes such as China, 

Syria,

North Korea, Iran

And any one who will now see the benefit of having nuclear weapons

We can no longer say 'This is not our war'

Or 'It is the Russian people who need to take Putin down'

If they were capable of that, they would have done it by now

But instead he has grown stronger, and 

The threat he poses is already inherent in our society

In property, investment and in his spies ability

To poison our citizens on our soil

We have stayed quiet and stood back for long enough

If we don't act now,

Then the aligning states which are within Nato will be under immediate threat

And as the Ukrainian politician said

'What signal is this giving to other dictators with nukes?'

You can advance and get what you want

If you continue to threaten with your nuclear weapon

Concealed behind your back

while walking over territories you want

Taking whatever you want

Getting nearer and nearer

While we say -'Stop there or else we won't be friends with you anymore'

Stop or we won't be your customer

When they are the supplier who has a monopoly on the market.

But there we are perhaps the west and Nato pushed too far

and toyed with Russia and this is the result

they underestimated him