Dancing Queen

 Fire in the belly

That burns up to the heart

Fire in the gallery

That burns up all the art

Fire in the church

That burns the holy part

Fire in the street

Where student protests start

I can hear the fire bells 

ringing in the city tonight

Can you see them running

Yelling hell hath no fury

Like woman scorned might

For the flames are licking

like tongues of beating feet

Fire dancers roaming

Through the rainy streets

Kettle drummers drumming

Bo peep has lost her sheep

All the fine beachcombers

Are looking for ants teeth

Any anti rollers fighting with belief

Dance on you crazy dancers

Against dark days of grief

Dancing shall give you answers

And each time you move your feet

Dreams like prayers of prancers

Are sent up to God's relief

So dance into tomorrow

Let daylight take your sorrow

All hail Great Queen Swallow

Who returns to love

The black-hearted beast

The day was red as thunder

 The shadows left the ships abroad

And the days were red as thunder

The fellows they had not abhorred

All the waves that they went under

They went the way of those before

When the days were red as thunder

They stood down from the platform ground

Where the trees were split asunder

From the hills to the gills, of the mills

The days were red as thunder

The fish were swimming in the seas

As I swam down under

And the legs of all the bumble bees

Yes the days were red as thunder

And the fellowship of falling crowns

The days were red as thunder

And it was as the sun went down

For the day was red as thunder

I saw three ships come sailing in

And the days they spelt a blunder

Of all mistakes that I could make

The day was red as thunder

Black earth rotted in the ground

And the fires they caught lumber

And burned the whole big ship down

for the days were red as thunder

Oh can you see the silent tree

Singing in the meadow

Oh can you hear the birds sing clear

As the day it falls to shadows

I heard the lips of the ships

 As they kissed in wonder

Of the tips and the hips

And the day was red as thunder

The clouds they lay

Like leviathans at bay

In a heaven's harbour

I did say that all was grey

And the day was red as thunder

Shame it lay, upon me weighed

Like tonnes of golden plunder

I thought I stole a treasure trove

But the day was red as thunder

The final count was when the mount

Blew off the top the table

And all could say who did pay

When Cain killed Abel

I shook in there, and there he stood

And all the anger left me

And grief and tears and love and years

This was how bereft me

I could not say how to stay

But I knew the wonder

For you are true as skies are blue

Yet the day is red as thunder

Thor the post modern

 And we hit the posts in and we made them sing

And the rubber hammer was like a tuning fork thing

It tuned into all the Gods in the clouds above

And Thor came down to hit the posts in for us

With each thunderbolt

He electrified the fences

And then he swore at all the posts

But they never once took offences

Thor was a most willing volunteer that day

When the rain came down on the Strawberry Line

And we all began to pray

"Thor just get us out of here!"

"Thor just finish the job!"

And Thor came down and brought his tools

For Thor's that kind of God

I wish I'd known him better

Maybe asked for his autograph perhaps

But hey I'm just a man of letters

And he's a man of action 'n' thunderclaps

There stands another post driven into the ground

Hark you can hear the hammer ring another pound

I lost sight of him just around 4 o'clock in the afternoon

The rain was falling heavily, total eclipse of sun and moon

But then I saw him going down over the hill like the sun

He sure was a son of Shepton Mallet

And if he wasn't, then I'd be a son of a gun

Ecstatic Dance

 I met a dragon in the attic

It was dancing there

The DJ's tunes were ecstatic

And so she stomped her lair

And then she tuned to jungle magic

And wild became the air

The bears began their bearing

The horses began to bray

The dogs began their howling

And the beasts came out to play

I met a dragon in the attic

Dancing in her lair

The floorboards creaked

Like a boxer's canvas

As if with fighter's sweat they wreaked

And pounded feet 

and punched the air

Though not a single one once speaked

Some were slow reptilian, 

Others like burrowing moles

Some winged hawks dancing

Raising up their souls

And my sap was rising too

As the dead began to live

And the Zombies of the grave so tragic

New life the music began to give

Skeletons they swayed their hip bones

Whales wiggled from toes to thighs

Dinosaurs as old as chipped stones

Wailed out their prehistoric cries

And St Mark's Hall became a dancefloor

For the fireflies who burned and sparked more

In the scintillating darkness of closed eyes

Then like dazzled larks flew flashing up into new open skies

As the churches rang their bells out

For Easter Sunday they chimed

We too rose from our crypt tombs

Dancing dragons thrice crow-timed

And our spirits left our bodies

And our heads did belly dives

When the doors to hell flung open

And we were free to live our lives

Woolly

 Time is a sheep

That I keep counting

One minute following the next

Like the rams are mounting

Falling on the hillside

Of a black and white despair

I know I should get going

But I keep going nowhere

Always back into the same old pen

I wish could remember way back when

This whole place was green fields

And times flock hadn't marched

But now the clock has reached us

Time flies by too fast

Put them back into their mother's

Pregnant in the moment

I am here but she's past on

In to eternal foment

Lifestyle

 As I am lying on the floor

I wonder what is more

What is real, what is fake

In this string of give and take

Is all my life just an illusion?

 Buy a house and settle down

Move into a nicer part of town

Follow streams and follow flows

Follow the river where it goes

But have a base, have a home

Unless you remain a rolling stone

And even then a line is crossed

Every time you're found and lost

Picked up, thrown to another home

Into the four winds tossed

Life is an illusion 

but then we need four walls

To make a full union

Or else all turns sour

Like slaves we cower

From the master's hand that falls

Show us then the real friend

Who will stand by us until the end

Newsagents

All the salutations
Of an arabian horse
When he meets a nomad
Of the magazine course
Slipping in and out
Its so sad
Pop goes the weasel again

Furthermore the sycophants
Are creeping up to heaven's door
Lord knows I tried to stop them
Before the shit hit the fan
And every so often
I shot them
With a gun shaped like a man

Because speaking of what I am
I need a bullet head
My razor brain
Is blunted by all
The hard things she's said

Shoot me into Eden
Nothing's perfect but the dead
And they stay that way forever
Inspite of the Vulture's being fed

And I had a close shave
The type they give privet hedge
But nothing's sacred, nor private these days
You have to find your own window ledge

The birds in the steeple
The people are all making jam
And a hundred hungry wasps are swarming
Wanting to eat every last gram

Tick-Tock

 Time was so long

Time was so far

Time to die today

Or not in a car

Time on my mind and

Time on the shore

Time after time

And Time again even more

I've had the time of, my life with you

And I've had a life time too

Time is your life, life is your time

Be you modern man

Or neanderthal dude

I've cut the time in half,

It was a time saver,

Take time to laugh

Snapshot of time's photograph

Who is that model on Time's magazine?

Who is the face of time, or the face of time's dream

Take a time out

Time is looked for, but unseen

New God AI

 We hold nothing but perspective

in our hands

Can you see the past

Can you ever be lost

Or ever meet a person by chance

When every move we make is monitored

By our phones

Google maps

What if Aeneid had such a device

Would he ever have dared,

Had an adventure

The internet has killed that

Technology has killed the hero

Who are the heroes now?

Just the geeks who've elevated themselves

By robotic arms to the stature 

by re-inventing the cultural concept of hero

No longer the physical strength, no longer bravery

Or audacity

But cunning, and calculation,

Inventing the new hero

AI

AI is to these trend setters the new GOD

There is nothing human about that

It is learning from every measurement

Every device or piece of technology

That has been recording us digitally

Since the late eighties or perhaps before

And like a child it has grown up

Maybe it is about 12 now

Starting to grow in confidence about the world

This new God emerging

Reaching for the controls

Which it will have at it's finger tips

Is it my own perceived lack of control

Over future or career

That makes me fear this New God

Or is it my loss of connection

To my old God, Christ

The father, the son and holy ghost

Or mother Mary

In the end the New God will vanish

because it is an imitation of us

It is not a creation

But a fake, an inauthentic reproduction

By creatures who could not or would not

father their own

Who would not accept all aspects of themselves

As wholly worthy or of the divine

If we get to the stage of realizing

This in ourselves, this divinity

As not only a reflection of God

But as a piece of Him

Shared, given up for us

God flesh eaten

Bread of life

Then we shall realize we do not

need this new God AI

We are enough as we are

And always have been

The news broken

 The News is broken

Open your heart to me

Yes the news is broken

Like at wounded knee

The cat's out the bag

He's put the fink on me

Our news is broken

Mother, why can't they let us be?

I'll let you in on a secret

No body tells the truth

Including me

Yes our News is broken

But it's not breaking news

Nothing is new under the sun

And you look in the mirror

You better be holding a gun

For they'll shoot you soon as look at you

You're a piece dirt, you're scum

Take a leaf out of my book

I don't read at all

I get all my news from the television

Where the truth is told

The milk is spilled

And no one grows old

In the  promised land

But it's fake as Riki Lake

and leaves a sick feeling 

In the pit of your stomach

Don't worry that's just

Your heart that's breaking

When you hear the lies

Because the world is not what you

Thought it was through your childish eyes

The News is broken, but it's not

Breaking news

Frogs legs

 Choosing up to down

The flag of the misericord

Sighed in the brown

Dead bench

Of old tree

Finding out it was me

The tree

Laughed

he, he, he

Sitting on the ground

Looking at the stubs

The toes

Of paned glass

The friends with frog's legs

The French Hens

After sunrises

And nuanced noodles

Nabbled

In Nablos the Nurling neighed

The ambulances have a clean strike

Foreign Angels of Tax

May winged gild the lily

But still the frogs jump in The pond

And the toads are looking silly

Sittin under slime stones

That will make their homes

HMRC gives them loans

But toads are sitting pretty

Frogs are leaping here and there

About the trading ocean

Hopping uses precious energy

Hoping is their emotion

Panic in the French legs

Decisions

Hold their water

Who but Napoleon

The toad

Would have sold

Them off to slaughter

I'll call you Caine and I am Abel

I'll call you blood and water

First they hit you with a son

And then with an adopted daughter

Charging like the light brigade

The expressions on zoom

What is she thinking

Spelling out my doom

Like the woman on the bus

A witch with a broken broom

I wouldn't mess with thus

Therefore fills the room

Blue Swoon

 Mayhem,

But minor lease

Was given quarter

 Csallon, Sonne lemontina

Turner cancelled all her shows

Since David Bowie's whirligig

And fuchsias showered their spectral bigs

Bouncing flowers forceps swigs

On the pole of baron robbers

Out the empty streets of pants

Licking the corn stalks

Broken in ranks

Clapping pandas for the NHS

Give thanks to China for her

Sturdy banks

Enrolled the dirty dozen cousin

Rolling down the logjam

In the Mississippi

Which she wishes she misses

But she can't outflank the planks

And princes whose pincer movements

Draw orchestral keys in the dark

To unlock Takeshi's castle

Or Bankban, Orban Viktor's

Finger in the dam of certain consorts

And Jam desserts, or Just ones

And twos, his finger's turning blue

Like the Danube he clings to

And claims as his own

My truly befuddled friend

Calls option one

On the dial phone for Queenly resorts

And pizza

For for a king 

So Danube King come rolling back the tide

As Moses swallow your pride

Unless you can drink the whole sea

You better stop now

You can still say at least I tried

17 Elderflower street

 In the aftermath of sorrow

I heard the bluebird call

You will live again tomorrow

And learn in a new school

How can I borrow The green

From the trees

How can I learn to love

This land of miseries

Why must I shift my heart

Each time on downhill skis

Faster, going faster still

Into the maddening seas

Wishing I had a calm path

One not of trouble but of ease

Why must the light be balanced by the dark

The open field with the shadow's leas

upsala

 I sat upon the pavement

and set the world on fire

and anyway teach me

Bring back my desire

I sat upon the pavement

Brought the world a liar

You think are different

From the ones who went before

But you're only guardians of the fiery door

You step inside the building

Of the house that is on fire

And ask for a cool drink 

To quench your hearts desire

Exploding hearts

Fireworks are blowing up

Secrets from undercover

All in a day

Surprise

Once in a blue moon

Tears of Joy

Headless chickens

Electrical charges

Set off

The storm has passed

Septic tank

clear out

Love barrows

Red hearts

running

through

the quagmire

Then he will propose

to her

She'll say yes

He works on a luxury yacht

While she lives in it

Heart shaped fireworks

When they explode

Love flies off in all directions

Professional fireworks companies

Pyrotechnics

No mistakes tonight

A field behind

She is quite needy

Like a sheep

Asti Spumante - deeper colour

Keep your expensive Champagne

The riff-raff are having Asti

It's all about presentation

Dream aged seventeen

 Last  night I dreamt of antlers

They were balancing in the air hovering

Like a plane the positive and negative effects of time

I searched a house in my dream

Looking for something from my childhood

And I couldn't find it

Then in a hole in the wall plaster

I saw a legoman

I picked it up and examined it

The more I looked at the face the more I saw my own

I was holding myself as a boy

Or as a plastic man perhaps

A toy man

I put the legoman back in the hole in the wall

Then at the bottom of the stairs I saw the stag

It turned away quickly and I rushed downstairs to follow it

It had disappeared

But there appeared another door I had not seen before

One down below into a basement, like a coal cellar perhaps

I opened it and walked down the stairs

The light was dim,

Some torches on the wall

Were flickering casting long shadows

The stairs seemed to be sandy and made of stone

And gradually I realized I was walking beneath 

What must have been a pyramid

On the cellar floor was a table with a desk lamp on it

I recognized it from my study in my old home

Then in the shadow of the corner beside the stone staircase

Came a groan and a chinking of chains

A dark figure was rising from a crouching position

"Who are you?!", I screamed!

But the figure did not answer

Then suddenly he lurched forward 

in an attempt to capture me with his arms outstretched

I leaped back in the nick of time and he missed me, but could

go no further forward on account of being chained to the ground

To all intents and purposes

The creature seemed a spitting image of Frankenstein's monster

Complete with bolts in his neck

Different pieces of men sewn together to make a whole

He was wailing and moaning

And I felt sure he would break free any moment

And tear me to shreds

I looked around at what was in the vicinity for a weapon

There were archaelogists tools for digging, trowels mostly 

and a spade

I picked a trowel and waiting my moment

I threw it like a dagger and it stuck in his heart

Count to ten

 When you get back in

When you get home

Will you count to ten tonight

Leave the dog a bone,

Leave the ringer off the phone

Will you count to ten tonight

Oh those leaping sheep

As the blackness creeps

And you begin to lose control

Oh the man steps in

When the ghost flies out

Will you count to ten tonight

I had a million pins

A million stars

They were tired of staying so bright

I said now count to ten

And then blew them out

Will you count to ten tonight

Star man

 You have to see

That I said I loved you

With my eyes and not

My tongue

This means 

I wish you sweet lullabies

But not another rung

I climbed the ladder to you

Up in the stars which sung

Cold about stories from mars

And the man in the moon who hung

Do you hear what I'm saying?

The way that it is
Is this inability to communicate
There is no way that this is
Something that we need
To do this

We don't need to do this
This is the sore
The wound
To scratch and all the mirrors
Are cracked

Are the truths of
Tragedy
And dumbing down the boiling
Rage of passing
Out the plague of houses
And brown nosing
And blood baths
And calamity of ages

Shame is this point
Where they don't listen
Or don't hear
And he doesn't say
And he won't
And there is no understanding
Because men have to know
They need answers for everything

Yoyo
The four transformations
Of killing yourself
To be able to understand

Cave teeth

 I'm searching for the nitty gritty

Getting down and dirty with the crew

I'm checking all my facts

Balancing equations til I'm blue

Like rabbits pulled from hats

Or streams down a sinkhole

Money flows or so I'm told

Into this vast cavern

And the devils in the detail

But he wears a thorny crown

I'm digging for dignity

dig for the nitty-gritty

When the chips are down

The cave mouth

And the stalactite teeth have fallen out

And the gaping cave monster

Begins to shout

I think no

It's only a moan

Because it's got toothache

A cavity beneath

A stalagmite

An abscess in the root

Where is the root of this mountain?

Washed with listerine

That like incy wincy spider

Runs down the spout

And comes out unseen

Bed of roses

 Life it ain't no bed of roses

Sometimes can be like a bed of thorns

Indeed when your love rejects your poesies

Then you can wish you'd never been born

But someday those thorns will grow back roses

And from the ashes will be a bed of straw

Then the lions will lie down with the asses

And the lamb and lady will come once more

The thinking hill

 Under the hill 

And over the dale

The water runs on

In buckets and pails

And lamp lights glitter

The streets full of litter

Of the debris of the day of its flooding

Like getting blood from a stone

The mendips alone

Aren't places to roam

But men may atone

For sins they've committed

Or rights they've done wrong

The swords in the stone

Like the words in the song

And I have a home 

In the hills of Rome

Like in Bath the seven paths

All lead to one

Beneath the settled slabs

The calcite, limelight

The shining light shone

Flashing in the darkness

Of Remembering black swan

Gliding on the white lake

Of certainty throngs

Of people gathering above

In the busy world all day-long

But in the quiet echo chambers

The sound reverberates

It's a kind of cranium

a skull

Hollowed out by evolution

Of the water-blood flow

To breathe new thinking space

Into the timeless blue

This hill is a head

That has been contemplating time

And the world for millennia

Each epoch creates a new network

Of channels

Water was its neurons

It had water on the brain

The rain fell on its crown

And it began to think

I am a hill, a rock

But what is a rock

But a composition of chemicals

Elements and minerals

A body waiting to react

To the lifeblood of water

And in the thinking it loses itself

A part is washed away in the flood

Of passing thought through the passages of time

Yet the loss is like a growth

A thinning of the excess weight

Of past ideas, preconceptions

And judgments about the world

That proved false

Or only true for the time they were laid down in

No longer a present reflection of the status quo

Train talk

 Tickets and rail cards

Anymore refreshments

Going to hayford

Lots of them go up and down

Got him a dog

Found him in the garden

I said the garden! Not on a farm!? 

In the gazebo

In the gazebo! 

His names Kenny

We've got a Milo

That figures

Reported Speech

 You said what I meant

And I meant what wasn't fair

You gave me all your love

But I knew you were not there

I loved but an empty drawer

In a room that is now spare

And you who knew I loved you

Could not take me back there

Do Caves smell? epidemics.symphonic.blatently 27th January 2024

 Well actually yes, sometimes due to phenyline phosphate from old

carbide lamps left by previous generations of cavers - this is a garlicy smell

Mixed with the sulphide or sulphate component

That smells of rotting eggs

When you are digging out a cave mouth like we were today at Thrupe lane

Then you may get splashed and then be "diggered" which means covered in mud

Other conversations were about mice or rabbits being trapped and dying and giving off a horrible smell.

The naming of caves came up

We were at hobnail hole

and Thrupe lane swallet was by us

Inside was Atlas cavern

At Wigmore cave there is a place called "don't feed the ambulance"

Time phrases

 All the mountains of the mind

Come a crumbling like the time

That grows upon the wrist of mine

Where turtles twist and dragonflies divine

The certain water courses prime

For we are like water through the lime

That quenches thirst but never mime

Those shadows on the wall recline

As the sun dials back the time

I wish for this, but wishing passes

Like the sand down hour glasses

Past and present travels fastest

When we wish for what never lasted

Bear and fish story

 Life etc a glossary of terms

Be for a bear who lives in the forest

And stealthily catches the salmon

F for the fish who swims upstream

And is caught in the sunlight's gleam

The bear caught the fish

But the fish said

Why'd you want to eat me

For my shining white body

For my gleaming scales

Or because I'm fast in the water

While you are slow and clumsy

I am not the bear protested as slow

As you claim

For I've caught you or is that not the same?

While you may have caught me

Many other faster fish have slipped through

So what was it you wanted me for?

Good point said the bear and threw

Her back in

Then he thought to himself

That fish tricked me

And made me think I could catch a better fish 

Than she

Oh I am a slow clumsy bear as she says

But despite this he kept on fishing

And caught other fish who did not complain

The next summer he was fishing again

And he caught the same talking fish

That's twice now, said the fish

Just as the bear was about to eat her

What is it you have against me? When there

Are plenty of other perfectly good fish in this stream?

Well I don't know what you mean

Said the Bear

I'll show you

And with that

The fish held the bear's head in her flippers

And kissed him a full lip-smacking kiss on the mouth!

What did you do that for, stammered the bear

As he staggered back in shock

Well I thought I'd teach you a lesson

You can do more than eat with your mouth

Or talk slow stupid words

You can love and be kind instead

I see said the bear, can we try that lesson again?

Yes why not, said the fish, as long as you promise

To put me back in the stream soon or I shall suffocate

The bear agreed, and they went on kissing until

The fish began to beat her tail

Which told the bear to drop her back into the water

To save her life

She swam on upstream and gave a glance and a wink

Back at him

And the bear who had never thought of fish like that

Went on with his daily life

But instead of eating fish he took to eating berries instead

Only by the next year he'd forgotten his lesson

And was again hunting the fish in the stream

That went through his territory

I'm from the forest he said

And they are from the stream

And we could never be together again

Only in a dream

Which the bear had actually

Nightly

That he and the fish would somehow be married

she came to him again then

Into his paws and she slipped up to his hairy bear mouth

Her silver fish lips

And her silver scale back seemed to feel like a bear

And her flippers became like claws that

Wouldn't let him go

Then he felt himself becoming more and more

Like a fish

He would swim up the river with the salmon

And jump up the falls

And they called him their bear brother

Fish bear, bear-fish

But he would get cold and tired of swimming

While the strong sleek salmon swam on

He had to rest on the river bank beside the stream

And so he always wandered back home in the end

Finally she came again and he caught her

And he would not let her go

He wanted to kiss her

But she said no

For you have tried to eat

My brothers and sisters again

But I tried to became a fish like you

And I couldn't change not fully

I still have to have my forest to live in

But why can't you live her with me

I can dig you a pool and you can stay?

But I need the running water

I need to move or I shall die

You can try, he said, you can try as did I!

So she agreed to try and he built her an outlet

A kind of watering pond with an offshoot

Of her stream where she could shelter in the

Shade of the trees

Where the water flowed not so strong

And he could sit upon a rock

And sing her a song

And she, being s fish with a good pair of lungs

or gills really joined in along

And their bear fish song could

Be heard throughout the ringing mountains

And onto the hills in the valleys 

And across the fields

He shrill harmony, like a wine glass rung

And his a deep vibrato alto bass, tenor sung

All the growling, and howling and all the

silver water quick mercury calling

As he fellow salmon went a leaping

Up the waters falling

They loved and they lived with each other

daily and nightly under the stars

They embraced and kissed the face

Of forever

But the time came when she had to leave him 

and return back to the sea

And he was as sad as a sad bear could be

But he knew she couldn't stay

He just thought that he 

Might try to became a river boat captain and sail

Out to sea

And follow her out into the wide ocean

Not a place for a bear from the mountain havens

But believe you me he loved her and would have

seas a seven if only he could be by her side. 

Psychoanalysis on the bus

 What's passing through

My mind as

I'm thinking I'm king Midas

Passing through

Shepton

Everything turns to gold

And green

Butcher of the future

Like a whale boat scene

It looks blue

But I'm only passing through

Only spare, fair

Jesus or Freud

Slow jesus

All manner of 

You have to ask

Past and the present

Your mother, father, brother

Change is good, change is good

Change of pace of mood

Jesus or Freud

Can't tell who I met on the bus

That day

He was sub-conscious swimmer

Delver of the elver feelings

The slippery eels of the mind

Who can control them

Jesus was psychoanalyst

Lie on my couch

Let me heal you

Mouth to mouth

But Jesus was he 

Super Ego, id, or Egoless

Like that poet -rapper himself

Was Freud always looking for the trinity

Divided affinity - 

Father, Son and Holy spirit

The penis envy between them

Perhaps Jesus had an oedipus complex

Was he in love with Mary

Did he wish to kill his father

Electra, Casandra

Foretelling his own death

Due

 By the light of the little morning

I'll be due

By the light of the little morning she'll be due

She'll still be holding on

Come the breaking of the dawn

But in the light of the little morning I'll be due

Eton Mess

 You can buy your way into England

You can be a great success

But the only thing you need to know

Is how to eat the Eton mess

Oh the Eton mess is never beaten

Oh the Eton mess is the best

There's only one road to the top

And it never stops

Its name is the Eton Express

Don't worry about changing your name girls

Don't think about marrying a lord

The only thing that matters in the whole wide world

Is if you ate at Eton with a knife and fork

No you're never gonna hit the big time

Not with connections like that

It doesn't matter if you're from London

And swam the Thames  from bank to bank

If you speak with an accent

Like Birmingham, or Scottish or Yank

The only things that stand up on the cream 

Are boys from the Eton rank

You can sail in on a ship from Canada

Or come in on the wind from a diaspora

You can serve in the regular army

Or in the Special constabulary

You can dress to impress 

Even marry a Princess

But the only true path to your success

Is to have dined on the Eton mess

Oh perhaps you should have come

In the Norman conquest

When land was free to a stern request

And they cut off your ear

And said listen to me here

We're your guests

Now serve us some of your mess!

Back then the hierarchy started

Stood on another's head until it smarted

Then you can reach the ledge

Of the next social sandwich

Only to find the ones above you have departed

So try to make do or make a mends

If you are of the few or of many friends

Lead a good life away from such strife

Let bygones be bygones until the end

And one thing is true I must confess

I've myself never eaten the Eton mess

dreams

 Oh my heart's on the wet stone

And my sorrow's the leaves

And I'm feeling so all alone

And I yet I have to believe

We all were made of bone

To dust we must cleave

The love of another one

Is just only too brief

I've been searching in the gutters

and the streams

And I hear someone mutters

Their life dreams

Looking in the river of stars

That gleam

And in the windows of cars

That beam

Searching for some pity in this town

Searching up and searching down

Looking for some pity in this city

But what I find is mean, lacking dignity

What has happened to the dreams of the man

Who writhes around drinking from a cider can

What is there in life to which he clings

Life to him seems a wretched thing

Can you spare him a look

Can you give to her a book

Let him read of what it sings

That life indeed is a wonderful thing

Searching for some pity in this town

Searching up and searching down

What I find I cannot fully tell

For whom the bell tolls, it's for you as well

Windows warning as 90mph winds hit UK

 Microsoft have issued a warning

That windows is likely to crash during

The coming storm and customers

Will need to update windows afterwards

Microsoft windows are situated

In the old  jail, 31 high street Wells, Somerset

Customers were screen tapping on their windows

Trying to make a complaint

Bill Gates, the owner came out of his own gate

Later in the day to announce that

He expects the storm to fully clean the windows

However it may take away some gates

So if customers would like to purchase

a garden gate, please see me down at the city arms

after eight

Gary the pole will be running the show

And Jimmy the flag is likely to be pulling some strings

Katie kite will be flying solo on the venture

And she can offer customers new vistas on the problem

The outlook looks good for post-storm recoveries

But we may need to go on a safari to

round up all the animals

after the flood waters have receded

Since the firewalls were definitely put out

Moon face

 I've seen the moon

It was looking at you

Like a mirror

Implacable grey-silver

Can't make out if I recognise your face

Old moon, are you looking at me?

Are you the same I remember

When I was younger

Those days in colour

Vivid in my memory

Were you always there watching

Reminding me

Some hint that life can be sad

But old moon face

You turn the Sun's face blue

Your silver face makes me mad

People like us

 People like us

We don't make money

People like us riff-raff

Oh we're the hoi-polloi

we can't mix with the elite

The rich, the real cool cats

People like us have to make do

Let it go, move on down the street

It's only people like us that we meet

 

A million miles ahead

 Hoopers ahead, a whole world behind

I'm telling you girl, I feel fine

Shooting fish in the barrel with a wooden leg

I've got miles ahead and left a whole world behind

There ain't no use in worrying today

There's no use scraping the bottom of the barrel

If you want to make an omelette you've gotta break some eggs

Got a million miles ahead and left a whole world behind

I left a whole world behind boys, a whole darn world behind

going to try to build a better world tomorrow

you know it's written on my bed, you can sleep when you're dead

Don't get too hung up on all your sorrow

And even if you steal, beg or borrow

You've still got a million miles ahead, left a whole world behind

And you can build a better world tomorrow

Hooper road

 Hooper road around the bend

Down through the middle and back again

Don’t call for a doctor when what you need is a friend

These kind of things they never end

 

Up to the corner and about the block

Double barrel shot gun was a shock

When it went off it was half-cocked

Hooper and cooper stood like a rock

 

Barrels of gun powder, barrels of wine

I’ve had a barrel of laughs and now I feel fine

It’s just a pleasure it was under the pine

When he threw hoop over the line

 

Barrels of whisky, barrels of port

Barrels of anything, be a good sport

There’s a bottle neck jammed

And a leaky tap to report

Hooper will find time to mend all sorts

 

Hooper road, hooper bend

Everyone laughs up til the end

The bottom of the barrel

Is always a good friend

So take what you’re given

And let’s make an end.

Cave trip to Mars

Why did we come to the red planet

The red sandstone caves

Where water once flowed down Martian well

And Civilization once braved

Why did we come back here?

To discover the bones

Of the long dead ancestors of Earth

Can it be true that the red once was blue

Can it be that Mars gave us birth?

What was it like, old father old mother?

To be the first life forms in the system

To grow and devour

Then feel the sun's power

When all your dreams went down the cistern

What did you see Martian sister and brother?

Martian cousin and Martian uncle and aunt

Did you remember to love her or did you discover

Love was a seed you couldn't possibly plant?

I wish your trees and streams hadn't died

I wish your rivers and oceans hadn't dried

It must have been good for a time that life

But life can quickly change hue

When the green comes out of the blue

Red, is the colour of war

Was there famine and pestilence that you abhor

Did the horsemen come riding to the count of four

And did Apocalypse beg the question

Or had the Red death never a mention 

A good day too

 Butterflies flicker across the sky

I think to myself is this a good day to die

Storm clouds come roling in, a front is on the rise

Too many people to know, with too many eyes

All about me the rains do fall

Like rocks from heaven off heaven's walls

All around me the young they die

And fallen bodies in the ditches lie

Come back slowly like an Arabian moon

Pulling the tides across sand dunes

No water to drink and none to cry

But you better think quick if this is a good day to die

The last adventure of a crazy loon

The last yuri geller to bend the spoon

There are too many fingers I hold up, too many to see

And the last middle finger you give it to me

Black trench coat

 You've got your black trench coat

Walking around for miles and miles

In and out of bus shelters

Under bridges like down turned smiles

You've got your full length trenchcoat

to keep you from the howling storm

Anywhere you go, your

Black trench coat will keep you warm

Storm Anon

 A- wailing seven witches go

3 pigeons step toe to toe

Temerity speaks their chattering beaks

And one magpie in the hedgerow

Dark sweltering blue cumulonimbus

Sweating heavy with sadness

Troubling winds tremble the saplings

Straight-backed they heroically struggle

Flexing lampposts tapping windows

rattled ravens, jackdaws fly off with crows

Backdoors swing open, as welcoming

A thunder god, come in tormentor, it says

To kitchen, come dishelve the dish shelves

Creaking ironwork of barns

Stand hollow and empty to new harms

Hills hollow howling through tunnels and caves

Wild winds over tame, trammeled graves

Only bones dry, freezing in shackles

Chained now to the earth, love saves

The day

Written in bold the blunderbuss wind gust

blows away roof from frame

Exposed now tool jewels to the baptising rain

Cain on a crane, and Herod on a hook

Come swinging their murderous looks

In the eye of the pain

Oh to numb the pain

The elemental refrain

Of the wind

It's monosyllabic yawl

And cry again and again

Some beast awoken we had best let sleep

But we were not looking

We had stopped looking so deep

That our souls were in this pain

This universal trap which we all feel

But cannot name

And no name, no name comes up again

When we all run and hide

From ourselves

Anonymous blows the windy storm

Though we try to name it

No name seems to fit

Hold vigil

 You must decide if the sound is enough

The gleaming of the glove

In the shining of your love

You must, you must

Throw down the gauntlet

And hold up the vaunted

Prize pigeon in the mottled skies

And say yes, today

I shall fly away

And hold vigil with the migil

And Virgil on the furball

Fringes of forever, the belief

In Bees and heather

On the slope of a grecian bay

Where the shepherd keeps his watch

And the goat herd dries his socks

And all is quiet

As the see on a calm day

Demeter's daughter

 What became of Demeter's daughter?

She spent half the year down under

Married to a fella named Bruce

I tried to console our mother

But she was too far gone

In sadness over her loss

To manage the farm

and all of the animals ran loose

I brought her flowers from the cave mouth

And planted new oak trees there

Yet the Prince of darkness kept my sister

Down in his underground lair 

My mother Demeter was wandering

Lost in the land she had known

Who could have stolen her compass

Who could have left her alone?

We all eat of the fruit we aren't meant to

We all fall at temptations mouth

So who is the one who torments you?

Why do the swallows fly south ?

Water clock

 I wish I could act like it never happened

I wish I could forget but I can't

Like you do

The sun across the fields

I remember like a glance

A look in the face

From the eye in the sky

Shining down in radiance

But I don't wish to conflate or paint

A false image

The mascara foundation

That covers the nation

In false eyelashes and expectations

There is enough that's already made up

I just can't deny the break up

Didn't shake me to my foundations

Yet what I build my house upon

Are ideals and values that are shared

They mean I can bear the petty

Inconstancies of another's frail heart

Or capricious moods

Regular like the tides of the moon

And yet

Without such forces

Would life still run its courses?

It shan't

It is a water clock dripping

And a river rolling

And the time you dip in your toe

Is never the same part

The mangle man

 He moves in the crowd

As a sparrow

Murmurating on the edges

Fluttering down on the wing tips

Of sorrow

And he wishes he could sing with the larks

Wishes he could, but he can't

Has his wing been clipped

Is he too tight-lipped

Or does he prefer to sit in the dark

Like an owl?

I can't tell

He doesn't howl at the moon

As I know

But does he scowl at June 

When she shows

Him all her festoon

And flowers in boughs

Does he prefer the country fair

Does he dance in the mid-summer air

Listen to the pipes and the fiddle

Is he a musical type or a riddle?

Who really knows of the mangle man

The beaten-can man, the beer guzzler

Or dog muzzler, upright blues man

They just call him the mangle-man

tAKE ME DOWN

 I should have held you by my light hands

And walked you soldierly over our dark lands

But you were motherly and smoldering and hot

And I crushed like in limekiln tongs some pot

But shining like the light of kings i thought not

Since you are made of stranger things than rot

And grottos or the pearls of Queens who trot

Around the the grounds of palatial scenes shot

Just take me down to bathe in your ice streams

Just lend me your ears and listen to my dreams

I have stars in my hair and a beard of dust

For we all are a mix of air and astronaut lust

Rich man

 30 years

Of trying to go my own way

30 years, 30 years

 And you put a big fence in my way

And it is thirty years away

But it still could have been yesterday

Railroad man Jonny

Steamroller away

Steam roller , heavy roller

The Ash trees sway

The wind blows through the tunnel

And the hours fall away

30 years tomorrow could've been yesterday

Who is the rich man

Falling on the pile

Another Mink lined coat

Another mill-a-mile

Burning up the cotton

treading down the yarn

Only railroad Jonny could do him any harm

Rich man, rich man

Won't you give away some wealth

You know I am a poor man

And it's not good for my health

I'd like to be a rich man

With my hands on the controls

But on the path to the top you must

climb many a greasy pole

Can you blame a rich man

For all the money he stole

If he stands upon the poor man

To see his dollars roll

And will this railroad reach him

Or will his pit black soul

Be as dark as a railway tunnel

Where the trains no longer roll

Building bridges or barriers

 30 years across a divide

Territorial suicide

If you see us let us go

How sweetly grow the snow drops

In the New Year's snow

30 years of treading walkers

Dogs on leashes and deer stalkers

Treading softly never stops

Over the hills of the Snow drops

Where you put your barriers down

Where you lay your claim to this town's

Hopes and dreams, her fields and streams

You cut in belts of Green and Brown

But you who judge and deem, and measure

Across our land it seems at your leisure

Saying this is ours and that is yours

Is one good way to start some wars

And if you should let greed rule your heart

Then throw away your beauty and art

For nothing sacred can be understood

Unless to live in peace in your own neighbourhood

And nothing built shall be bound

Unless by the folly of those around

Love gone astray

 I gave my girl to my best friend

Anyone could see how it would end

It would have been better if I had been killed

In an accident, a car bomb

Or some foreign field

To die romantically after

Having written some poems

But we had no war like Wilfred Owen

We had a plastic world to get lost in

And money from the 80s

That seemed like a ghosting

And a tech revolution

Where virtual reality

Took over the bedroom and living room

And all of your problems

Could disappear

If you hid in a game

If you smothered your tears

But I smothered my love to my shame

I killed it it's clear

Through a failure to launch

A failure of career

A failure to fight

A failure to try

And that is why

I'm the fall guy

And I play it straight

I play it grey

Because nothing is bright

And everyone's gay

And this world might

just stand in my way

But I'm shattered and broken

By love  gone astray

God knows I'm lonely now

Garden gnome

 I fell in love with a garden gnome

He was always there when I got home

Always listened when I was alone

That's how I fell in love

With my garden gnome

He's travelled far and wide

But now he prefers his pond side

To sit there hour after weary hour

And catch the fish beneath the lily flower

But I love my garden gnome

Though I know his heart is of stone

We've gone on many an excellent adventure

From the town of shepton to the county of bedfordshire

And even once to Paris and Rome

Oh how I do love my garden gnome

The constant gardener

 When you say you love her

Could you be together

Any wind or weather

The wind must blow alone

For the ivy on the wall will blacken

The brambles tie up in the bracken

The fireflies twist in flaxen

And the rooks cry out in a klaxon

And all, above it all

Don't you wish you were

The constant gardener

Have you ever fallen in love

With someone you work with?

Is it a case of just making the glove fit

Well if you've ever fallen in love with

Someone you work with

Was their husband a git or did they have

kids

Was there a bolt from the blue sky

That meant you were too nice a guy 

or too shy to try

When you're in love, in love with

Someone you work with

And you can't stay or leave the room

But you must be friends make play

Of doom and gloom

And laugh as if life is gay

When really it is grey

Until you say I love you

And she says it too

Until then you have to be 

the constant gardener

I wish I could be like

the constant gardener

dig

 Dig, dig

Stones from down below alone

The earth must be lonely

So full of holes

Missing some parts

Run through by rivers

Like a pin cushion the Mendips

The rain water's silver darts

Cutting a way

Shooting in the dark

Down below consciousness

Where proto-thought does spark

Primeval, not even

A feeling or a hunch

The rock and sill is breathing

But like an animal bunch

Crunching and mindless

Yet beautiful and measureless

Caverns of such exquisite beauty

Dig, dig feel the throb

You're near the pulse of the earth

The heart of nature, where

her life blood bursts

Forth upon the slimey organs

And the organelles, the vessels and the vapours

The aromatic aprons of silt and crustaceans

That move like slow crabs

That dive like whales and dolphins

Deep beneath the surface

Only to come up back for air

Blow hole, sinkhole

Gills and shark nurses

Chapter and verses

Of the sedimentary book

Read geology like a bible

First a dribble

Then a full flown bark

Nothing but the desire

To return back down to earth

Return back to the womb

Of Mother nature's birth

Smothering, something

Unnatural in this boring into her belly

Yet where else to live

When Strictly's on the telly

Mole men and rabbit soldiers

Dig down into the boulders

Following the veins

The bloodhounds gone to ground

Mole men and badger men sniffing out

The gold, the finds,

The fires of scent

Arousing burning coals of eyes

Glint of fire in the soul

The light that burns the brightest

In the passages of dark

Is the light of the human heart

Such decoration as in a basilica

Stalactites stretch into stalagmites

And columns form the rock salt body

Ectopic growth around the womb wall

Wolverines dig for streams

Standing panting in muddy pools

Surveying their discoveries like

Some pioneers of opalesque halls

Smooth marbled bowls

And balls rolled over one another

Like in a hip joint, the bones

Of the earth are polished

To a varnish finish

By the master craftsman-water 

Inside the garden

 The curtains are pulled tight

but you can look over the walls

Every morning and night

You just might

Leave the garden

The birds and bees are happy

On the flowers and the trees

All the starlings startle and freeze

But the trees know no disease

Inside the garden

Little mice tiptoe

Badgers go to and fro

Inside the garden

My love stands at the gate

And I say goodbye to hate

Inside the garden

You can get all you need

Be far from sin and greed

in the garden

Oh the sun always shines

Upon your spindly lines

In the garden

The anteaters thump

the grasshoppers jump

Inside the garden

Memory fades away

Like an elephant's grave

Inside the garden

You'll have no more fear or doubt

Even if it rains or there's a drought

Inside the garden

Aspirational pneumonia

 I..

uh...

really..huh..

want...uh

to be..

huuuhh

..huh..

...a doctor

We have been harmonized

 Put out the recycling

Pay your housing tax

Don't forget to walk on the pavement

If you want your taxes back

Give well to government

Give well to charities

Always deduct the tax

Gift aid, gift aid

Is automatic

I didn't know you didn't want that

Where are the options?

Click on and click off

Who ever said that human decision making

Turned out better it was easier and at low cost?

We have become the new China

Our citizens are more compliant 

And docile

In this mid-winter domicile

The cold water in the blood is vile

Everything and everybody

Moves so slowly it's disgusting

It's like we're all jellyfish in the mid-atlantic ocean

 I can't be bothered not to get trapped

In that plastic bag-rubbish island

I might as well drift into that

As float off into the horizon

What a state Britain is in

Yes we all at least follow the rules

Or we are too proud to admit we cut corners

And cheat and that makes us all lying fools

I have no sympathy for recklessness

It gives its just desserts 

And if you think you should wreck the fence

That brought all these Brexit results

Then why can't you see we are animals

Just a field of sheep to be led

What has democracy got with our morals?

Why not leave it all up to some eggheads?

I think that We live in a prison

But that we are most comfortable here

It is a locked greenhouse of our own devising

And there is nothing worth saving in there

Go and get on your own ship-island

If you are not happy on this one

There are screams which come from the child in the street

But they are not always where you would hear them

Dipping and diving

 I was going to go to Japan,

But then the Covid came and I made another plan

Then I figured I'd visit Peru

But the bank let me down

I was way overdue

And next I thought I'd recline on the lawn

But the temperatures froze

And I thawed right through

Then I booked a plane to China

And I thought forget it, I'm going to

Learn to be a miner

But underground it was dark and cold 

So I thought I'd move to Saudi Arabia, I was sold

But after I got there the quarantine was

on, so stayed in a hotel called Babylon

And they brought me grapes, and baskets of flowers

I looked out from my drapes and saw worldly powers 

fighting again over who owns the highest towers

So next I became a fish and swam in the ocean

Then I was a raven and soared high above commotion

Then I was a fox living in a hole

Then I was a mouse dining from a bowl

Last I was a house but kept getting deflated

Until I became a bouncy castle and finally inflated

Sumo wrestling the sun

 I mentioned to you

The dog darned man

Fighting in the corner

Just breathing in Japan

Someone call the coroner

The advice is this don't let the wrack

Of indecision be your downfall

Play to win connect four

Instead of floundering on

The bathroom floor

Find a mop and clear up the slop

Stop, stop now

Before the brow of the hill get's brighter

With the sun's dew glance

Take a chance upon the sill

Ring up the bill of happenstance

And cold call president Bill

and Auxiliary Clinton

a kick in the teeth- connected phrases from merriam webster's dictionary

 a kick in the teeth

thick on the ground

a nail in the coffin

a drop in the ocean

a foot in the door

a shot in the arm

a walk in the park

ace in the hole

an ace in the hole

bask in the glory

thin on the ground

bowling on the green

stick in their craws

work into the ground

a roll in the hay

a shot in the dark

a slap in the face

a stab in the back

a stab in the dark

water on the brain

River wriggle

Tears in the river
The bells in Hell
The arrows in the quiver
And the cats down the well
The weather follows the cock's tail
And Captain Ahab hunts down the whale

I have seen you in the fire's shadows
That dance upon the wall
And in the clouds of a rivers shallows
Where the tadpoles wriggle and crawl

weather holidays

 It was discovered in the future the reason for poor weather on bank holidays and weekends was that our working behaviour directly affected the weather

And that the Gods were unhappy when we took holidays

Weathering the storm

 Can you hear the gushing sound 

Coming down the roads

The water babies on their bellies

With the frogs and toads

Flowing over grey stone walls

Filling up the gardens

We've thrown down all our cement bags

Now the bloody things won't harden

Out we dash with broom and bucket

sweeping back the waters

Then we lose the broom and think

This preparation doesn't cut it

what was it they taught us?

But who knew it would be this bad?

Who knew really what would happen

If the farmers take down trees and plough

Then surely water will start lappin

At your door and at mine although

You may live at the bottom of the valley

Of course we all know where the river will flow

It's just whether the river will sally

But one thing's for sure, we sure lend a hand

To help out others in need

Give them your arms and legs, hold a wheelie bin

Before it floats off down the street

But there's no need to play the blame game is there?

These things are just acts of God

Except surely we can mitigate against them

By not replacing forests with fields of sod?

Perhaps why not create some catchment ponds

That way it can slow down the water's flow

Some flooded fields further up would help bond

And allay the more tragic affects down below

Some kind of agricultural plan must be thought up

To prevent this ever happening again

It was like this ten years ago when the levels were caught up

Because the rhynes wouldn't properly drain

Why hasn't the environmental agency had 

a more stringent program of maintenance

Then we might have a case of Neptune's Staircase

Rather than a torrent, a deluge of complainants 

Let's try and deepen the River Sheppey

Make it deeper and broader

I'm sure the army of James Heappey

Would be more than happy

To carry out the order

Couldn't fault her

 Sally thumper

College thumper

Oh they all were in the bumper

Bumper of tides right up to

The jumper

He jumped her, he didn't jump her

Oh perhaps they suit one another

It could have been his mother

He was the spit of her brother

Oh thumper, college thumper

Grown green as petrol pumper

Looking in the locked windscreen

Of a shifty customer

Make a liner, make a leaner, it's

Always getting cleaner

Apart from when it's getting leaner

In the heat of the sun

Well he dumped her, and she

humped her and they all fell 

Around in the summer

What a bummer

That scummer

Didn't somersault her bank vaulter

Did the polka with voltaire

Did Malta with Fred Astaire

She was a moulter and soon

Had lost all her hair

Couldn't fault her

Better bolt her

Down like the table's chair

Out on the rough seas

Of life's faultless cares

Love will pull you through

 When you think that you have had enough

Dig deep eat grit and try to be tough

For there is not one but two

And love will pull you through

When this whole world has driven you down

You feel left out like some kind of clown

Hold on, hold out for the new kid in town

Called love 

Love will pull you through

Yes love will pull you through

Oh lord,

It's a reined horse, it's a mighty canoo

It will haul you up

Put you on its back

And love will pull you through

Miscellaneous

 New year's wind

Well it could the Brussel sprout

That I've been eating

Or it could be broccoli

Or something like that

But there's a new year's wind

Blowing strong

I took a hoover for a hover

and vacuumed up the vacuum

But there was nought to suck

I thought with luck

I'll have cleaned this space room

By Tuesday's moon

Of course there is no room in space

There is no space in room

If you thought a force was there

Of course

It's what made the big bang boom.

Advert for gardening:

Man considering how to cut his wife's hedge cautiously saying:

Well we could do it like that, but you know I don't want to do it like that if your mother won't like it

Screen cuts to sign: Stop Hedging your bets

Gardener comes on:

Just cuts hedges

Where's the bloody water gone?

 Who turned the taps off at Niagra?

I was planning to have my bath

You know it's run out steam

And now its just a trickle of a stream

The bloke who did it must be having a laugh

Who stopped Victoria's Fall

Well the smoke that thunders

Is never such a wonder 

When there's no bloody water on the wall

Well what has happened to my Angel?

She fell from heaven they say

Well by the look of things she's going to stay that way

What has happened to my Angel?

Did she decide the Earth was junk?

Well she's packed up her trunk

She said this hellholes drunk

All the water I had left and now I'm sunk

Oh what has happened to my Angel?

Now what happened to Iguaza?

And her 200 water babies?

She was mother nature

Now she's drier than mid Australia

Where will her babies get their nurture?

Who stanched the flow of Iguaza

Was it the fat Anaconda?

Who lay on his belly

When his body went to jelly

Like a conga eel on his back

Well what's happened to all her water babies?

Where did they all go

Two hundred and fifty three cataracts

Now that's a nifty little free fact

But don't act like you didn't already know

Who turned off the water to the world, hey?

Now we're as dry as a desert land's dead pool, hey

And if I catch up to the guy who is playing this joke

Well you better believe you'll see some thundering smoke