Dartmoor zoo

 Monkeys escaped from Longleat 

Pull windscreen wipers off cars

Have a fondness for Carwash machines

Think their bristly brooms

Their home

It's  a monkey puzzle tree to me

Pumas roaming the hills of Dartmoor

Dartmoor prison of brothers and nuns

The beast is on the loose, always

Prowling on the lookout for you

Like a lion

They beat the devil out of a man

And now he too is set free

Ready to step into another's body

Get out, get out I tell thee

The gulls in the sky

Black-headed ones flock

In large numbers

You can never call them sea gulls anymore

as Most of them have never even

heard of it, let alone seen it.

There's mould growing on my bathroom wall

Does that count as natural or unnatural?

I clean it off, but it reappears like a stain

Upon my soul

Out, out damn spot!

They bought a zoo

To show what could be done

With dollop of determination

And a side serving of salt and grit

And they did it

The animals were saved

As if by Noah

Still they are a little incongruous

On Dartmoor

Canned worms

 Canned worms

She looks into my deepest soul

And sees canned worms

Canned worms

Canned worms

She puts me on a hook

Dangles me in front of the moon

The silver fish leap up 

Bite little chunks out of me

Moon food, moon food

And canned worms

Hope in the rain

 The days they seem too long

Though not as long as the song

That the songbird sings on dunes

That ebb and flow with the moon

And I am caught between the shadows

And the curtains of the windows

Singing a tune for you

The flag is hoisted in the castle

I see the knights ride in

But have I pawned the dirty rascal

Who calls me back to the king

And the Bishop eying the Queen

Only a peasants rebellion will win the scene

What's done is done, what's been has been

Singing a tune for you

The day that Christmas came and went

Found me in a little tent

Praying for the windows

Into out of, round the bend

Of the road of good intent

Before I rode up to your window

And showered you with flowers

From the chimney sweep's chimney

Just singing a tune for you

Making up the last verse

Was like I had you on my shoulder

Singing to me lovely dreams not ever getting older

Only fleeting like the blizzards, ever getting colder

Until I warm them by your fire

Makes my mind a little kinder

Once again my hope is that I shall find her

Singing a tune for you

Frog-eye

 She sits and she composes her song

And all the birds , they go flitting along

And it skits, it scats and it throngs

With alley cats, the dogs howling too strong

And the train, the train rumbles on

The last refrain, she always gets wrong

And the frogs are leaping into her pond

And the birds are tweeting, while she keeps writing her song

Oh ribbet, ribbet

Rib-eye steak

In the time of Henry the Eighth

The Bishop had his eye on the market square

Looking out for bargains here and there

The Bishop's nose

The bishop's feet

Oh how they grow

In inches sweet

Yet he jumps back in his pond

Repeats, I have my eye on you

Ribbet, ribbet, ribbet

bleat!

Housing Project

 you sing of blue shoals

In deep savannah

You love in new roles

The asleep piranhas

But I am deep scrolls

And I am the Bahamas

Oh who do you think you are?

Singing Praise be Hosannahs?

The frogs on fourth street are hanging their washing

The dogs on low walls are already hogging

The cream cats on the sofa where the couples are snogging

Singing who do you think you are

With all this blogging

The new year is here,

It is what we all hope for

The fire brigade are on parade

Along the silver street serenade

The fountains

Of mercy they are overflowing

crying who do you think you are

(1/1/2021)

light

 Well the birds would sing

And the night disappear

It was the usual thing

The thing I like to hear

And it left me, with a feeling of glory

As the dance continued

And the storm breathed on

And the rain in it's legions

Dropped on us like bombs

But we found the meaning so clear

On our trail with the snails

across the garden path

And the creatures taking comfort 

From a water bath

I saw the Magpie's eye spy

An early worm

I saw an earwig leap at the crack of dawn

As a beetle creeps under a stone to stay warm

And it was a telegraph of buzzing flies

Upon the ceiling when I opened my eyes

All there ready to die or get born

In the cycle of life you don't ask twice

You take what your given including good advice

Its just that sometimes it would be nice

To be warned

If I am reincarnated as a bee or a bug

Then let me know the morning dew

From a night's dreaming there's the rub

Would I dream of being a human?

Does an ant have a fantasy of being a cat

Does a dog wish that actually he could have been a bat

As he chases butterflies through a field

Would a rattle snake that shivers rather be a whale

Would a leaping pony rather learn to sail

How do we know this is not what animals feel?

Whose to say their dreams are not like yours or mine

Perhaps they dream by day while the sun shines

And that is what drives evolution

Because you have to have a dream, to make one come true

You have to cling to hope no matter what you're going through

And it's in these final lines that reminds me to sing

It's through the cracks as Cohen says that the light shines in 

Knit-knacks

 It was cut and run

In the sewing circle

She would sort out their mealy mouths she thought

With a swift joust here

A dagger, dagger stagger fall

There

A needle knit between the brows

Don't knit your eyes at me you cow

She exclaimed

As they blamed one another for the blood bath

Whose red satin scarf is that around your neck?

Not mine?

Not yours?

But your gaudy blood I expect

It is slash and burn

In the fabric aisles

Rollers torn, and carpets shorn

The rending of the cloth

The tearing of skin

The knitting

Of a dead thing

Into life

Taxidermist like

She loved her lover

She gloved her mother

Turned her into a leather cover

For her book on knitting yet

Birdie, birdie

 Waxwings in the supermarket car park

Directing the traffic

Seagull on the trolley

Pushing his family to go Christmas shopping

Buzzard at Mcdonald's picking up

his happy meal

Blackbird prittle-prattling in the planted pot

Crows flick-flacking on a lamppost

Below a pied wagtail strutting its stuff

Busy birds bush whacking the red berried trees

Off the M5 motorway service station pit stop

Crossing bridges

 The railway embankment rises

From behind the gardens of the estate

A long corridor of brambles and green leaves

The pale, pastel barks of the Ash saplings

That still sprout and grow vigorously

Goldfinch carousel about the branches

Each limb is like a path to another town

Another bud is ready to burst into life

But now waits in earnest expectation

Of the spring

Biding its time

On the Strawberry line

I am conflicted, in two minds

Because on the one hand we are bringing

access to the countryside, linking up

the hubs and nodes like a network

Of underground roots

And on the other these natural corridors

will inevitably be somewhat diminished

By the human wish to spread its own branches

To feed its own systems of growth

And repair its own faulty pathways - the roads

Industrial, smoke breathing cars

That flash and wizz past the parapet of the 

Once-bridge below

They will resurrect this bridge back from the grave,

And like an old giant remembering

Something of the spirit of the railways

Will come alive again

As people will walk their dogs along it

Will cycle their bring-a-bring bikes

and maybe the hedgehogs and squirrels

And scurrying things, will likewise

Cross the bridge and discover new worlds

beyond the boundary of the road 

Elsewhere

 Well the buildings they breathed, photosynthesized

In the forest of the city

Sky scrapers sprouted limbs

And stretched out to greet the new dawn

Bridges hummed in the wind

Giant bumble bees flapping their

Rotar blade wings

Danced between

These new plantations

Seeking out the giant flowers that the covered football stadiums

And Opera houses

Planes stood upright and preened themselves

Qantas

Pan Am, British Airways

Ducked and dived in the Hudson river

Where oversized water boatmen police boats rowed themselves

Up and down leisurely

Other plane-birds rolled around in the enormous dust baths of quarries

Cars became inflated beetles that opened out

mechanical wings and zipped here and there

And altogether elsewhere

The forests and the oceans breathed a sigh of relief

Because they could finally relax about

Keeping the whole planet going on themselves.

Don't pull the wool over your own eyes, it's all unnatural

 Who are those cows in the shed,

 Little calves lying on the ground, 

tags in their ears

Mothers looking down

Begging

Shouldn't they be in a field?

Shouldn't they not be carolled

But we all like to drink our tea

With milk

Therefore here's a dairy herd

Who are those sheep in the field?

Can you imagine them long ago

Roaming around by themselves

No particular place to go

Ewes separated from their babies

Sadly bleating on

But we all like a lamb chop

Or a leg of mutton

Even more we are keen on a woolen jumper

To keep warm in

You can't say that these are natural

Man's dominion of nature

But we do what we can and we must to survive

Except now that threatens the planet

Rose Dawn

 On the Rose dawn

Was when Christ was born

And Joy spread through the world

From the desert sands of Jerusalem

To the oceans beds of old Siam

Word was spread, yes word was spread

Jesus Christ was born 

The birth of the great I am

In the rose dawn I saw the light

Like a flock of birds risen in flight

And shoulders of lamb tender to the bite

Born was Christ Jesus and the great I am

Following the flock and flecking the fight

Little blood spots trail along corridors of might

And he carries the cross and he bears a shroud of white

Holiest of spirits come in deepest night

Yellow sun

 I felt a new sun rising

And I knew it was so clear

Yes I saw on the horizon

That you answered not to fear

And you stood up to your enemies

And you went forth with love

And you knew just where the anemones

 would grow down in the cove

And you fought for your love

You fought to live your life

And you never once did stumble

Nor did suffer kinds of strife

Yes you went onto the future

and you went on with bold heart

And you never stopped believing

Right from the very start

Yes you came onto the ocean

And you set sail out to sea

And filled your heart's devotion

With the hope of liberty

You met all those who would be

Who would be friends to you

And the yellow sun so lovely

In the circles that they sew

Come be a new horizon

And be then under the Lord

And shine on out your rising, sun

And shine on out your sword

And you can see on out the ocean

That the fish are clapping their hands

And they know that this emotion

Is a real thing for a real man

And they know that this is holy

And they know that this right

And they know that you will be there

From morning right through to night.

dark gains

 We don't realize we have have fallen

And raised the demon of War

Through worshipping the money God

Our own souls have become poor

And in each untidy corner, forgotten

And left sore

A little bit of darkness grows

And creeps under the door

Ill-gotten gains and more

Ill-gotten gains

What blood money

Can put our dignity to shame

For out the other side of happenstance

The colours soon will drain

Showering on the heads of ambition

Ill-gotten gains.

Spit

 Cuckoo, cuckoo

He says spring has sprung

Cuckoo, cook who?

Who has rung?

Cuckoo spit over

A pint over

A pint?

No bird could

What are you talking about?

The places that I want to be

 Lights on the river

And boats on the sea

These are places that I want to be

Stand and deliver

What you mean to be

Come back and haunt me

Notes that don't waver

Trust's constancy

These are the spaces where I want to be

Sing me a quaver

I'll sing in your key

Then together we'll savour

Life's urgency

She's gone again

 She came

and now she's gone again

A long walk

In the blistering rain

A short leap

Does a leaf feel pain?

When it falls 

From its stem

But she's gone again

I used to look in the mirror

Of the sea

And sometimes I'd see

A mermaid staring back at me

But she came on the tide

And she left in the rain

It's been a good ride

But now she's gone again

My heart is a tanker

A floating on the ocean

And I don't know if I should

Thank her

For showing me such emotion

But I must pull into a dock 

To repair my hull and frame

I loved her when she came

But now she's gone again

I sat in the yard thinking so hard

My time had come and gone

Like a passing swan on a lake

And if I thought I'd done something wrong

Made some kind of mistake

Well I'd write her a song

From my prison

But the walls are too high to hear

Someone singing inside

And even if I hadn't cried

She'd have known I'd lied

Still I break the rocks until I'm freed

From these chains

I loved it when she came

But now she's gone again

A certain 

Ten cents

 It was a ten cent city

Hell bent on destruction

The lip of the pin down alls the hair

It was a tent city

A city of resurrection

And skirts that lifted churches

Up from the shadows of dispair

It was a pauper's paradise

A gold digger's salvation

At the corporate price

Of little sanitation

And they sold their wares

Just as long as their stares

On a field of nothing

And a hiding to nowhere

Always you

 Yes it was there

Was it water

Was it wine

Was it yours

Or was it mine?

Well we were there

The bread was spare

I took  nothing

But your time

I am a thief of that at least

Time robbery was my crime

pieces of a life

That we'd been through

I kept the chunks

That belonged to me and you

Now it is washed

In deepest blue

It could've been me

But it was always you

Pastor of Muppets

 In life it seems you can either be a master of puppets

Or a pastor of muppets

Real people

 People are people

They've got to live

All about the mulberry bush

With a bottle full of fizz

In the eighteenth hole

Putting off the green

Who cares scares in the bunker

In tears, in tears

Living in the real world

Real people, real people

I want to be real

I'm an imaginary deal

Let it rip like thunder

The sport of the cracking willow

Feel the rain upon my face

Keep the wind as my pillow

Name

 You can say I'm better

Or you can say I am the same,

I would love you better if you could 

remember my name

Name, I want to live forever

No, I want to die in a flame

Come on write me a letter

People remember my name

All away

 Away, all away now

Oh you throw it all away

Well I've seen it all before

Like a desert floor

When you've thrown

It all away

Away, oh away now

Throw it all away

See that open door

Watch the ocean pour

When you have thrown

It all away

Away, all away now

You have thrown it all away

Well in the roll of a dice

Between the fire and the ice

When you've thrown it

All away

Away, oh away now

Throw it all awy

Like so many times before

Could've been rich but now you're poor

Because you've thrown

It all away

Snowdropping

 Drip, drop

warmth of Spain in your pale cream

Milk white warm 

And sadness for the year that's been

But like a mother's breast

Full of life giving

For the year to come

Miniature brothers

Miniature sisters go

walking through the forest

Praising the cool silent winter Earth

Healing flower footsteps

Bloom in their path

Praising the life of this good Earth

What purity you can read

In their books of green leaves

Standing up like flutes or reeds

But heads bowed down

In prayer, humility

Or perhaps

Just loving the Earth

As it smiles on them

In it's darkest months

Growing them in its womb

Like eggs, their bulbs will

burst forth in birth

Growing strong with Mother Earth's milk

Snow white babies crying out in joy

Snow white children running through the woods

In their snowshoes girl and boy

Telling all the fairy tales of childhood

Road hump

 I've got the road hump

It's sticks in my ear

Like a sugar lump

I want to swallow it clear

But it goes, thump, thump

Every time a lorry comes near

And my chair just jumps

And my windows shake with fear

I've got the road hump

I've been living here too long

The road hump that just rings out strong

Like a beef steak rump

That's too tough to chew

I've got it stuck in my gut

Like some kind of glue

That road hump

Like a bump to my head

That road hump

Gives me bumps in my bed

It's like a slow jump off a high cliff

I need to vote Trump or else smoke a spliff

Ash

 I can't stand to see the Ashes fall

Though I know our backs are up against the wall

I can't stand to hear the Ashes fall

Another ax, another chain and ball

In our hands the keys to all

Will we understand when nature calls?

I can't stand to see the Ashes fall

All the Ash leaves, all their keys

Keys and locks, locks and keys

Another lock, one more key

Another prisoner is set free

In their limbs one disease

Take wind or whim, brings them to their knees

In our hand one more ball

In our mouths one last call

Who will answer the Ash's need?

See the fall of the twin bladed seed

One more flock of birds flown free

One more hawk flies across the sea

But one more knock on the Ash's door

Then another, then one time more

Can't you save the Ash from death's maw

Can't you help save just one more tree

Ship at sea

You are  like a fire that must blow up to stay alive
Consume the wood of your surroundings
But now this bare room
Is black and charred
And I was your fuel but
You have burnt my heart away
I have no more love to give you
I have no words left to say

I know things will never change
That between us lies
a chasm and into it you've thrown
All the love of our abandon
And all the wood of my heart has kept on burning for you
But now it is a smouldering pile
of ashes without a spark

And now the room has gone black
there is nothing left for us to see
Who will light
the way between us
When the way is lost like ship at sea

Horizons

 All's well they say

Down in hotwells

All's well

Like a mermaid's

flag

The love that was flown

In the rotting fish crown

Soon will be worn by the hag

And the man that was bright 

And full in youth

Must search for the will

To survive

There are more than ships

On the horizon

That go down

When you close your eyes

I see in you all that's infinite

That we give it away down the line

Our children inherit the Earth

But what will it be worth in good time?

No, for ours is not for saving

Ours is only lived in our own time

The future belongs to those others

Who will have to live with our crimes

Yet they will have love and courage

Theirs is youth in its prime

And where we may wish to run for cover

They will fight on with hearts that shine

And now as I'm leaving

I say adieu

All the stage is worth living through

And fighting for a chance to save your brother

And fighting for a chance of love one more time

Cold snap whip lash

The clocks are striking on the hour
For what I've done I've no word power
To put pen to feeble page
The last good men have left the stage

And in their stead are Angels standing
And Ghosts of those of understanding
And piercing through quick silver fog
Their ideas like arrows fell the hog

We all are currents in the ocean
Sometimes swelling with emotion
Sometimes drowning being pulled down
By forces created by Neptune's crown

And linking now more than ever
The tides are turning like the weather
A cold snap lashes inside like terror
But warm blood flows under skin of leather

Sure enough they stopped him
Before it was too late
The openers out trumped him
Outside the pearly gate
And he could not get in
Nor could he climb the wall
Only stand appraisin
While paradise did fall

Only stand appraisin'
While paradise did fall

I long for the mountains

 I long for the mountains

Where the grizzly bears roam

Where there's wood on the fire

And a path made of stone

Oh I long for the mountains

The mountains of home

Where the wood chucks twitter

And call out in tin tones

Where the miner's gold glitters

in the pans full of loam

Oh I long for the mountains

The mountains of home

I long for the mountains

where the fountains they shiver

And you drink up the water foam

Where the trees stand and quiver

And the leaves they shimmer like chrome

I long for the mountains of home

Where there's snow is on the caps

And there's ice in the stream

And you know all the maps

And the mice all look keen

On the mountain, where the grizzly bears

roam

I long for the mountains, the mountains of home

Where the kettle's on the fire

And the metals in the ground

And the beef is on the wire

And the moles are in the mound

I long for the mountains

The mountains of home

Where the dogs in the yard

And it's chasing the cat

Where the hogs looking hard 

At the man in the hat

And the child's a sleep under the piano

I long for the mountains

The mountains of home

Where the wind whispers softly 

Through the trees on the river

Where the father of time

He cries stand and deliver

And all of the pines beside they quiver

Oh I long for the mountains

The mountains of home

Long ago

 Long ago, long ago

Well it must have been a life

When I had my girl at home

And long ago  

Well it must have been a lifetime ago that

I took to the road to roam

Well I'm still that man walking down the highway

Yes from my path I have not strayed

Oh long ago, well now

It must have been a life time

That I left when I should have stayed

Long ago, well it must have been a life time

Well I just couldn't follow the plan

Well it was long ago

Oh it could have been a life time

When I was your only man

Tell me how long

Can a man wait to be forgiven

For the words he says

And tell me how many days

Must I be a-counting

Til I can return to what livin

was

Long ago, yes it must have been a life

When the world was filled with diamonds and dust

And now it's a grizzled world with dark sun rising

Over the lands we love and trust

So tell me how long til I will see my horizon

Broaden to the red rose of dawn's rust

And tell me how long til I will see you rising

In your bed clothes at the dawn's early musk?

How long? Well maybe it'll be a life time

Yes how long must our love rust

Nothings broken

When I have spoken

Like the birds at the sun's rising

To a new world of love and trust

Facing North

Once I held mountain in my hands
But they turned to mountains of ash
Fell through my fingers like sand

Like an empire of dust
Blown away are the ghosts of lust
Blown to seed another field
Thrown out to birds the bone meal

Field of fish heads
Turning tail
Running through the burning hail
Stones are thrown, the first to cast
Will be the one who laughs the last

And crows count the merry pipers
Walking home on country roads
Reddening their apple vipers
For their wives to fill their calves

Spilling all the beans in saucers
Breaking bread with the cat
Whose nine tails like the vipers
Whip the cream until its flat

Down the road to elements
The natural gases heaven sent
But omnibuses carry on
As octopuses carry guns

And none stops a floating thief
As the moon rides the tide's relief

Red fox

 I saw a red fox, just

chillin' on the hillin

He looked so happy

like Just after a killin,

killin' a chicken

Skulking away

Like he was making hay

But he was in the field

In December not the month of May

I saw a red fox just a chillin' on the hill

and I saw a brown box

just millin in the mill

Nobody asked the cockerel

If he was crowing for the sun

Nobody even noticed

The day was nearly done

Coal tits

 Under the arches the coal tits dart

Around the quarry they flurry

Down over that little bit of swamp

Where the railway men's waste was dumped

Over the piles of rubble, brick work and industrial trash

The leached-into, the sodden ground, near the river, brown bushes grow

That make homes for the Coal Tits, they flit and dart between them

And hang on to the brick work

With their little claws

In the embers of December, they are the spark

In the grey rainy Novembers, they come again like filaments

of colours in the filigrees of green and brown, agricultural hedgerows

In the borders of the town, where the dogs and dog walkers

go around

Not forgotten about

But just hanging around

Like a resident nobody knows

Except you'd miss their sound

Because they're like a loved one

In the fabric of the town

A backdrop scenic prop

Except they chose to stop

There who knows, what senses

Just an ideal bit of real estate

To live beneath the arches of the viaduct

Close to where the Sheppey flows

Nature line

 In the brambles underfoot

The brash that's slashed with bill hook

As volunteers go rolling by

Swinging slashers and hedge trimmers high

Hear the sound of What exactly?

Slow worms crawling through the debris?

If this is nature unbound I ask thee

What next will they find to tell ee?

I saw a Robin, that I did

Hanging around the neighbourhood

He was interested in the action

The hewn stalks of bramble were his passion

He flew amongst the swinging workers

Willing to do what nature shirkers

Would not do, but oh we few

We merry few the strawberry line crew

Still you mention where is nature?

Well, it's thorns and rotten tapers

Of fallen trees long since died

Heads in the earth, fungi multiplied

Purple patches, even velvet ears

Grow on dead logs rotting near

And they crumble underfoot

Nature found it hard to look

But after humans abandoned it

Soon started bramble that didn't quit

And now we come to reclaim the land

Nature gives us a helping hand

And palms us back this great high five

Saying come and take me I'm still alive

It is something that doesn't want to die

It will strive, and suffer and survive

And every change or drop in pressure

It will respond more robust and better

Ultimately it holds all the cards

To life's big mysteries we find so hard