Shepton Silence

 The drains glimmer like celebrities

In the sodium light

And families watch them on TVs

On some slow Thursday nights

The tree leaves are turning yellow too

And a sickness hit me this week

I stayed in bed

As the world it sped

Past equinox and winter seas

Come along to Shepton

You're sure to suffer some shocks

Come along to Shepton

Where we've all been put in the stocks

They take vegetables

From recycling bins

And hurl them at you in the docks

And they judge you if you're an artist

And they judge you if you are not

Come to Shepton in the summer or 

While the Church bells toll

While the men drink cans on the gravestones

While the youths are playing vandals

And Van Gogh cut his ear off

I told you once why couldn't you tell

That these kind of landscapes may clear off

All other escapes from hell

I lay my cards on the table

Yet The dog ran off with my shelves

I built up reputation yet

I couldn't control all my selves

Don't personify all the animals

The Llamas on the hill are not Gods

Though they look like enlightened beings

Still you must look at the path they have trod

No I come back now to St Paul's Street

He of faith and of fire

Branding the love of a creator

Into the dogs collars of a choir

If I shove the book off the table

If I even try to call up a friend

The telephone exchange holds the cable

And we meet in the middle and end

If I yank a wire

will it hurt

All those vandals with candles

Down wells

If you live in the valley

Do you wish for

A higher home near the elms?

 Do your wings beat like headless geese

Following yet going in circles

The arctic is one I can think of, I guess

But not one I mean ever to go to

Underneath us are copper and fibres

Underneath us, are caves and dells

Beneath us the water is eating

Like worms in rotten apples

The rock is like their candy

In geological time it dissolves

Yet we like miners from the North

Blast holes along the stream bed

Waking from the long sleep

the dragon trapped there by the elves

And we burrow like scientologists

Into the heart of ourselves

But like dwarves our hearts are greedy

For the gold beneath the mountains

Like kings we can't rest in our sleep

Until our coffers overflow like fountains