Factory patina

 Oh my factory patina

Oh my factory patina

Oh little star that shines

In that heart of mine

Oh my factory patina

Work 12 hrs a day

Just for the glory to give me my pay

Just for the story about me to say

How about it Senorita?

You want to dance on the factory floor?

You like my factory patina?

Shadows play on the factory wall

Where I park my Ford cortina

living on cider street

Living like an outsider

Always just out of reach

Living on cider street

Cars parked along the beach

Of this bobbing shore

vanilla ice cream clouds

In a pink blue sky's azure

Oh you like my factory patina

Well how about it Senorita?

Rosey apples shining sweet

All its juices running down the street

Dance in splashes of flashing feet

As laughter smashes up concrete

Living on cider street 

They made you in a darkened room

Compressed air and hydrogen balloons

All blown up with gas

Like a Zeppelin mass

Oh but you burnt so fine

Oh my factory patina

Just one coat on the boat

Where they're casting their vote

All to make the sun shine

Look at the shadows on the wall

They play like animals climb

This time of day in the sun's dying rays

Oh doesn't make your heart chime

Oh my factory patina

All the workers park cortinas

So how about it Senorita

Will you dance the factory line with me?

Up the conveyor belt of our dreams

Into the bottle of soda streams

Guzzling gas like limousines

I've got a rash feeling

Oh the red and the black

The red rust of night

In the lamp light

Black of the dust in the apple cart

That upset the boy

Who pulled the world apart

And ran about screaming 

His head off

And how about the green

On the cutting lawn

That little piece of wild

That made you laugh and yawn

In relaxation like a child

After the rising of the dawn

When the night has spun away its darkness

Oh factory patina

At the end of the world

When you can create no ark

To rescue boy or girl

From the encircling shark

That threatens to whirl

The whole thing apart

In a thrash and furl

And different kinds of cars

Just like jam jars

Full of sugar and lime

I ain't bitter no mama

I ain't no quitter either

I've got a heart that shines

In the rain and slime

As long as I'm with my factory patina

cider street

 This side, that side,

Every side you'll meet

When you're inside, you're outside

Living on cider street

On cider street they have your back

On cider Street you're scrumpy Jack

On cider street it's stinky feet

Walking through the sheppey leat

Everywhere another rose

Another garland another

Lily grows

You better beware before they

Stone the crows

Then frame you for their murder

And everyone knows 

Which way the wind blows

Blowing down cider street

I've got to take note

Oh I must take care

To count every vote

And number every hair

On the head of the dote

Who put me there

But the cream floats

On cider street

And if you ask me for a dollar

Well I'm sorry friend

I'll have to hollar

All things must go

Cause all things are hollow

Living on cider street

Give me a chest

And I'll show you the world

Keep me abreast

And I'll find you a pearl

But in great distress

I'd give you a twirl

While we're dancing

Down cider street

Give me a heart

Teach me not to sin

I'm playing a part

But I'm no linchpin

Right from the start

I knew what I was in

And its name was cider street

Millfield Enterprise English summer schools

 You know Millfield Enterprises will use you

Recycle you like pieces of trash

For them you're the shit

On the bottom of their shoes

But without you, they'd never make cash

Oh they sell an English summer programme

Like English is the prize, it's the goal

Of every parent and child

Who's ever dreamt wild

That for them the streets are paved with gold

Oh yes Millfield promises you everything

Oh yes they scoop the cream of the crop

For they have no scruples, they take Yen, Dime or Rubles

As long as the money goes to the top

Yes you've got to be in it to win it

And it helps if you come from right stock

No field hermit in their stella-biography

It's not geography or democracy but cock

Oh breed from the right family won't you?

Eugenics and racism here

Of course if you're black then they have your back

As long as you're not black and queer

Look, just listen they're a charity

Look how needy they are

With their seven tennis courts

With their car parks full of plush cars

But no the poor sods who work there

Are not the beneficiaries of fame or power

They just screen the nuts, plaster over the cuts

To raise up their Babylonian tower

Yet somewhere their rich bankers are sitting

Eating fine lamb in luxury

Laying on the bed of ill-gotten gains

Invested in their so called charity

If you ever need proof humans are greedy

Look no further than Street

Let your eyes rise up to the hill there

And see what they call making ends meet

These lowly managers are cowards

Because these people worship the dollar

They want nothing more

Than telly and a cure

They'll stand up for you like a jelly

Under pressure it's not that they crack

They just put all the work on you like a donkey

And expect you not to break your back

If you think you have value there believe me

They are about as trustworthy as a bag for life

Made out of the hair brains and screwball

Ideas that cause them to jack knife

If ever they had a personality they leave it at the door

Because they are just one of many

In factory for the Rich kids to get rich more

So let them live in their homesteads

In their stately palace's greed

Let them shave every penny of the salaries

Of their inferior breed

What measure is a man?

To what scale can you measure his worth?

A pound of his flesh on the balances

Is it worth the sound of his mirth?

Sell your soul at what cost?

Sell it and work for the devil

For there's nothing of God

In those unholy sods

He only lives in the poor and dishevelled 

Tree of time

 As I walked out on a midday dash

The mighty oak on the hill side stashed
Like a Spanish Galleon full of gold
This relic of a bygone age so old

As I walked out on an afternoon dash
The sun was rising in the fields of Ash
The wind caught its sails and the ship did stand
Like spider on eight legs upright and grand

As I walked out on an evening stroll
the wind was blowing like a bell that tolls
And the Oak like a harbour for my soul
Kept me safe from the biting maul

As I walked out on a midnight dash
The Old oak was breathing as an octopus splash
Its heart was livng but only skin deep
For centuries unforgiving its secrets to keep

As I walked out on a morning's stroll
Its green crown was balanced as a Yorick's skull
Held by a Hamlet from a timely stage
Speaking his lines to the wind and an age

That is lost now unless on the page

Good Bye George

Living in the land of the dead

I met george the widower a few months ago, he had died, knockeddby a tram, his wife still lived across the street. It was difficult for him, the way it had happened - he knew it was an accident but couldn't quite for give himself. He saw his wife getting on with life. It was bad the way God or whoever, made him stay on after death, seeing her daily as a ghost.
The thing was that it was not all mangled body etc, it was his soul, in a corporeal form as it was before he had died, so to george it was even harder to accept his predicament -what is wrong with me, he often asked.
You're dead George I answered.
The thing is I was never sure whether I was alive or dead. I was definitely his familiar that meant I had to hang around him, we were just waiting for that cut off time, when I would have to go and find another soul to latch onto and he, finally might get peace ever after, but it seemed a long time coming.
Is this purgatory? He would ask
I mean I am just a cat, I do not have a deep metaphysical philosophy to back me up. Granted I've lived about 8 lives, and have only one more, so I should know more than the average Jo, or say a badger - but that doesn't mean I have knowledge of the inner workings of God's mind. You just have to be patient George.
That was it, that was all the comfort I could give.
Poor George
So mostly I spent my time walking along fences and city walls.

Willow tree cry

Willow tree, willow tree cry for me

Willow tree, willow tree do

Willow tree on the pond

With the icy frond

Willow tree when the cold north wind blew

Willow tree, willow tree cry for me

Willow tree, willow tree on the bank

Willow tree, willow tree cry for me

Willow tree, your leaves show your thanks

Willow tree's bare in the wintry air

Willow tree has no friend

And in the winter throes when the north wind blows

Well the willow tree does bend

Moorhens scuttle along the track

Egrets roost bright white in black

As jackdaws in sweeping clouds attack

The perching boughs of the Egret's stack

Willow tree, willow tree cry for men

Cry for the coot and the little moor hen

Don't it look cute just like the little wren

Scooting about where the willows wend

Willow tree, willow tree cry for women too

For when they break mens' hearts they know not what they do

They blow the wind that makes the bough bend

And when the bough breaks the story must end

Willow tree, willow tree cry for me

And all love stories that have to be

That grow to the light, and stand up tall

Then when the time's right the tree must fall

Willow tree willow tree cry for me

Willow tree there's no looking back

When the north wind blows, you must let love go

Because time is a one way track

Spiderman

 The spiders, the spiders are leaving

They're going to leave this fine town

They've wrapped up their trunks

And they're going to get drunk

Before the whole house burns down

Oh the spiders a rollicking drunk

And they're in a funk

With all the ants hanging round

Oh the spiders are leavin' this town

I wish that you could see them

In all their best finery

They've been dining at seven

Then they're legs eleven

On the wine of the pantry

They're looking for some flies to feed 'em

But nothing quite fits the bill

There's a blue bottle in a jam

And a long necked Daddy long legged man

But nothing a spider to fill

For it's time they are wanting to kill

Of course I am one of the spiders

I've got all the news, I'm an insider

I'm a newt in a pond

I'm turning James Bond

Into a family man

Well he's buying a white caravan

For every story needs a May king

Every character a rise and a fall

Is that a book that you're making?

Or is it just a rubber band ball?

Wrap it up in old Saliva

Wrap it in the leaves of the past

Autumn has gone

Like the plume of a swan

And you know beauty

It never did last

So hold your house in your purse strings

Hold you hands like shards of broken glass

Be careful of the mess you are making

For all good and bad things come to pass

Find your home on solid ground

Find your loan a love that will last

There's more for to atone 

than getting blood from a stone

And it's harder than a pain your arse

Rain

 Now the rain

It will make things grow

I know, I know I know

But blow me down, blow man blow

If it doesn't half make things wet so

Oh I get it, I get it, I get it and go

I get wet, and the wind does blow

But can't you just get it to go?

No, No, No! No? No!

It will stay, we'll let it

Nobody's yet found a way to vet it

So just let it go

Ai Aldi/self service blues again

 Oh give me miserable check out assistants

Give me moaning members of staff

Give me anything but these fake machines

Made of plastic, metal and glass

I want my shopkeepers to to be human

I want them full of their flaws

The only ones who prefer the drones

Are those who waive the miranda clause

Oh give me the those bitchy women

Oh give me those unreliable men

Because the good or the bad

They're all going to feel sad

When they're replaced by the self-service regimen

Yes the machines are there just for profit

They see nothing but notes

They forget themselves for these soul-less elves

Are what gives the politician votes

Oh skin yourself like the chicken you sell

Soon humans will come vacuum packed

We'll be sold on the shelves

As meat for the eleves

And they'll probably be self -stacked

Every row and aisle I wander

Is another vision of the future

Staff without social skills

Poor lonely shoppers

Old people death kills

By party poppers

Each birthday a drill

To bring out the hoppers

And collect another year's grain

But I am drained

As an Aldi worker

Wondering whether they'll work again

Oh come Luddites remember your name

Once we fought the machines

Well why not again?

The moment is ripe for the taking

if we don't the chance won't come again

Ai is here on the making

And soon is gonna be king

Then we'll have no digress 

Than to try to redress

The terrible changes we're making

Whatever the weather

 I think it must have been 

When the rain fell down

That I again thought about us

When all the rivers of trust ran away

And the trees fell into the flood

I think it must have been don't you think

Some kind of act of a God

Who threw us both together

Before the weather

Turned us both into mud

I've got to stop the shock waves

The foundations of the Earth are shaking

Echoing in this vast holy globe

Through all the holes we are making

It's got to be a question

Don't you think if sadness is worth the living

If kindness just ends up digging you holes

Into which we're both sinking

Where as cruelty and rules

Can make us both fools

To be colder and more alone than ever

When I look to those who recover themselves

Each time they look at the weather

The Westerns and the Easterns

Part 1 

And they laid the black snake on the ground

The gravel was thrashed all around

With its tail like a whale, a fluke-like flail

We could not fail to gasp at what he'd found

It lay coiled up under the bridge

Such an adder as this none could miss

A giant constrictor oh what a restrictor

Of voices and lips it would kiss

Hercules wrestled the black viper

The fight went back and forth like a wiper

First it was his, then it was hiss

And none could miss that snake sound

Oh but the path filled with laughter

As finally the snake gave up its ever-after

And said a hissing prayer then it rose in the air

And laid back down on the ground

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Part 2

Jason came out to Westbury

One day just as the lambs did lay

And the sheep in their golden wooliness

Bleated along the Strawberry way

Some wolves I saw a stalking

And an Argonaut felled one with a thrust

Then they fought the skeletons

That came dancing up the road in the dust

Jason soon helped in the laying of 

a mighty pipeline that lay

All the way from the Phoenician isles

Down to the Strawberry way

The culvert had been dug

By many hands before him

The Argonauts with the merry seamen

Heavy black pipes they lugged

Oracles from Far Orient-Easton

Came walking predicting the weather

And their dogs like howling hyenas

barked at the end of their tethers

Those Westerly westerners of Westbury Way

Charged mighty high words in the air that day

For this salt track nearly broke the camel's back

When the strawberry liners made hay

Achilles could have twisted his ankle

Agamemnon probably will

Helen of Troy with her entourage of boys

Is sure to pick up the bill

Somebody asked for a pick axe

Somebody for shovel

Somebody asked, he wore a mask

And I think that he lived in a hovel

Hitting hard bedrock with a wrecking bar

Laying down and going to sleep

The only ones not with a headache

Were the bleating, baaing sheep

When we finished laying piper Alpha

Alpha piper piped up and called for the pub

So we pootled on down to the Westbury arms

And we drank while we thought about grub

Not much of note really happened

It was another day for the argonauts

We could have shot for the stars

And hit the moon, but instead we did what we ought

There was a hovering sparrow hawk

And there were many wild flowers sown

I think that I should have done more work

But as it was time already had flown

Land and sea

 My hands get worse

My eyes can't see to hold you

In them

My hands, my hands

These organs

Of sense and touch

Storms and waves

Crash upon the shore

My hands are like the sea

Waving

My shoulders like the cliffs

My hips the boulders rolling

And my knees the pebbles crushing

Rounding to the toes of my feet

I am the land and the sea

I am caught in the sand

The land is in the heart of me

Waver

I hesitate on the shore

The tide goes out

Then comes back for more

And I'm in doubt

And then I'm so sure

When I see you waving at me

Oh waver, waver lady luck

Waver in Waverly Hall

Waver like a hand

You play in a game

Waver like a tennis ball

First it's in my court

And then it's in yours

Oh is this a kind of sport?

I'm really not sure

When love is a waving game

It's now love- all

At a quarter to four

And I'm on the line serving

While you're the other end

Waving 

Crying out late call

Let, will you let me?

Forget? Never shall we

Deuce, by God

The Umpire stalls

Waving, waving

New balls! new balls!

Waver, waver lady

Waving me goodbye

Inside of a minute

I just want to cry

It's a crying shame

Love is a waving game

And the wave just passed us by

I'm waving at you

But I hear you sigh

Waver, waver, oh waver in favour

First you're standing

Next time you lie

But it's all in the truth

Of the contract in the sky

If it's waving at me

I know it's my turn

To die

Waving, waving

I waver, waving hello 

and while I'm waving goodbye

In coconut hall

 In coconut hall

It's all been a ball

In coconut hall

I don't know who to call

I think I'm ready to fall

In love

With you my dove

In coconut hall

Clip clop, clip clop

Can you hear the horses trot

Faster faster like from a disaster

They've shot

Bolted in the parlour

Better call the barbour 

For the fork beards chopped

In coconut hall

No palm trees lopped

And we all sway on

The Caribbean breeze

In coconut hall

I'm not

a leopard who can change his spots

On command, on the spot

But now it's too hot

now,  let's live

not sigh

In coconut hall

self

 Burning in the reef

Of self-actualization

I fell asleep in the belief

In self-unification

When all my parts 

Fall into place

Like self roomification 

And I enjoyed the windowshelf

Like Chagil illustration

To move and not be moving

To hold and not be held

The emptinesss of compartmentalization

Doors that open to hell

Negative feelings are like a prison

That contain the moon and the stars

And they try to break through the glass ceiling

But instead they smash through the living door

I asked for a long glass of water

And the builder who was building the floor

To get up from where I sitting

To go and colour the South Russian war

Isn't genocide 

See-through

Aren't my aliens more

Than the dogs in the yard where

 a barcode

tells them that nobody's there.

Business of the Gods

 Oh tragicomedy of a business

When at the foot, the soldiers march

Pulling the great bull

for the offering

Pulling the fatted calf

Up the ramp of the pyramid

To feed the Great God Ram

And after all that work and sweat

You realize you have little recompense

For such labours or tolls

The man in the sky ain't counting that high

And the sheep in the deep vally fold

Go running and bleating

Because it's all self-defeating

To try and kill off your soul

With work so demanding

That the bodies your handing

Over are your own at the end of the role

I could have killed

And Yet I control

Such urges as the splurges

Of profit and loss

To not giving a toss about

What the Rich men stole

As they live on the yachts

Or court tennis or squash

In their white plimsoles

But keep me from going under

The thunder of Thor God of War

Keep my head on the stave

Of no buy but save

For it's the inalienable right of Mars

To blink like a beacon in the stars

It's raining on me

 A sparkling, spangling

Of self dusted pain

I've stayed in the tragedy

While the comedy has gained

A comedian in rain

She tells her jokes

In little spurts

One liners that

Come out like

Cruise missiles

Sent to destroy

All the boys and all their toys

Floating

Of in the world of grey

I wish she could be

Commander of my heart

Battleship destruction

On a course for Pluto

And all those rallied rapido nuns

Who search in their pockets 

For guns

At border crossings

Because each crossing is a crucifix

On which we get hung

Out, or straightened out

Like a lead roof tile

Beaten until all doubt

Leaves us blind to the facts of life

And we realize it was she

Mother Teresa of Calcutta

Lady of the Black Hole herself

Who pointed south when she met wealth

and they doubled over, begged, and genuflected

To be in her grace so well reflected

Yet nothing can suffer their reprieve

Ready to fly?

 Falling in

And Falling out

Here's the thing,

I'm feeling stout

Ready to Win

At the Roundabout

Of love and War

Or there abouts

Whereabouts?

Here he shouts

There are the louts

And the lay abouts

Don't care about

Or delay in doubt

Of expectation to fly

Or boredom with boarding

Black rose

 I called her morning

For she was bright

As daylight

She held me in her boughs

Like a tree somehow

Caught in the day

Like a noon thorn bush

That grows to the afternoon

How should I love

Such a black Rose

As thee?

The baby is rocked

In the cradle lay

So sweetly

So sweetly

Passed the lullaby day

And sweetly smells the arbour

Wherein her love grows

Oh but what of love's labour

Over such a black rose

floods

 floods of tears and floods of joy

Floods of beer that can destroy

And tear a life like a cuddly toy

Oh floods run clear that do employ

worker bees and Queens deploy

The floods of wings in fixing things

And all faces of the crowd sing

The projector

 The projector comes down to earth and shows people slides

Arnold Schwarzenegger has to fight him

Corked

 The dogs are walked

The lamp lights shine

The telegraphs talked

Over the country line

And I am corked

Like a bottle of wine

Spang-dangled

 Boiling in

And out

First the trivial pursuit

Of doubt

Then the carver's knife

Bullet bitten

For a bulletin

Shooting down

Crossing out

And brown belt

They kicked ass

In the dining room

Breakfast cart

Fugue spoke

Spang-dangled

For the banner

Of the band-bangled

Forcep, intercept

Interlude on the tube

The precept of gratitude

A rain cloud

Fell from heaven above

All singing this song

Of the wrong kind of love

I left her

 I left my mother in Japan

I left her Tokyo

I left her in the blue Havana

Cafe in Borneo

She fell asleep in Bucharest

I put her on a train

She arrived in a parcel In Budapest

And I cried my tears in vain

I left my mother in Miami

And on the streets of Vancouver

And she was a pearl on the cold Scottish shore

Where the Eagles swoop and the yammy

Tides are washing her like a shell

I left her so I'm going to hell

To find out if I can find her well

But she's probably going to heaven

I left her somewhere off Lundy

I left her on Tuesday

Found her on Sunday

And it is a pool of retirement

fund pay

That the sharks are all circling round

And nothing remains 

But the bullet

It's so hard to chew

Not much remains but the brain

Where once such intelligence grew

You say you can save my soul, well who, knew

Who knew did you?

No you needn't say for you don't get pay

For doing what you're supposed to do

You are the same non-believer

Who bit the bullet of faith

Well did it serve you to leave her

When you went and got egg on your face?

And we're all in a traffic jam now boys

All time has come to a stop

For I left to go and buy an ice cream

Just from the snack shop

When I got back she was swimming

When I got back with the pop

And I could see the sunlight

gleaming over the water wave tops

I guess I must have left her for the last time

Just when the carousel stopped

And I climbed off the dancing pony

And then dizzy I just dropped

The Bells of St Peter and Paul street

 There's a lot of to and fro in the tower

Where they ring the bells of the power

They ring them for freedom

They ring for the kingdom

They ring them for heaven

And the might

There's a lot of up and downs

In the bottoms

It's as if some borough

Had turned rotten

Still they ring them old bells

And the people know full well

That ballot paper's not been forgotten

They go back and forth down the street

All the shades of Eden in relief

The colours of colour blind

When you look inside your mind

You can see some kind of grief

Oh but then you hear the bells

In the church rung

Soft like mercy's rains

That soothe the day's pains

And you remember your belief

The Bells of St Peter and Paul's street

Two bells

 I met two bell ringers in a pub

One said to the other now here's the rub

While you push down, I pull up

Ain't none of us gonna know how to ring the cup

And they drank from the brim

They filled their bells up to the rim

They drank like the clappers

And all the happy slappers

Came in

The bell ringers of the church 

Joined the game

They crashed their bell like pints

And spilled their notes from great heights

Heard in heaven's powers

Those folk of the bell towers

Bothered, seven bells were knocked out of them

The fire engines rang

The big bang explosions of the bells sang

And as the birds of tomorrow

Dawn broke their wingspan

They began in the sorrow

But together they swang

Two bells swinging

Two bells singing

Two bells ringing

In time

Two bells together chime

The other side of beauty

 The other side of beauty is the pain

You can feel it everytime it rains

You can try and walk away 

But you'll come back again

Because the otherside of beauty is pain

Yes you better do your duty to beauty

You better do the same for your pain

If you don't know you have a cutie

That you've stolen all the booty

Then look again

 the otherside of beauty is pain

There is a wrong to every right

There is a fragility to might

There's a shadow to every light

And a dawn to every night

A wrong to every right

The other side of beauty is the pain

The other side of beauty is the pain

There once was this guy Narcissus 

Women said "I wish he would kiss us"

But the kisses he gave they were all in vain

For the other side of beauty is the pain

Nothing on his lips could he feel

No love to him seemed not so real

Just to prove love did exist

His own reflection he did kiss

And so he turned the wheel once again

For the other side of beauty is the pain

The otherside of beauty is the pain

And Mona Lisa stands in her picture frame

You can see her smile it is a little strained

For the love she'd known had passed

Now only love's brush strokes last

For the other side of beauty is the pain

Yes in each smile, in each love that laughs

There's a beauty that must fade 

Like photographs

And when they say you're made

It's enough to draw the shade

For the other side of beauty is the pain

Two lovers they took a walk through a field

When one said to the other let's and  take a meal

They picked flowers and grass

And oh how sweetly the hours did pass

But the other side of beauty is the pain

For he had to join the foreign legion

For that was the custom of the region

And so their love did pass,

Just like sand through the hourglass

For the other side of beauty,

the other side of beauty,

The other side of beauty is the pain

The other side of beauty is the pain

Everytime you love another

It's something you must discover

That hidden behind every doorway of the mind

The two faced Janus is the same

Yes the other side of beauty is the pain

If you look inside of Eden's doors

It's there for all rich or poor

The beauty is the winner

But pain's the cold dinner

The other side of beauty is the pain. 

The tree of Good and evil

Like Robin hood and the devil

Ever since the love was forgotten

The soft fig fruit had turned rotten

And the apple fell from the bough

And it's still falling now just like a sacred cow

For the otherside of beauty is the pain