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