Mothballed fireballs

 There's a fire in the blood

And it's breaking free

There's these wires in the flood

Standing up for trees

For they've been burnt to a crisp

Like willow the wisp

When you tried to love me

In your way

But you're a dragon

Fallen off the wagon

Breathing fire

All day

I can't see straight every tree

Is flaming

And it's just that it's

Wherever your breath is aiming

I only want peace in the valley

And to consider the lily

But you see strange paths

Keep befalling me

Because I'm like a moth

I'm attracted to the light

And in the Winter I need to sit by firelight

But I realize now, 

I've slaughtered the sacred cow

Of friendship

Cos what I think I want

Isn't what I need

It's not a fire pill

But a water tablet seed

So that's what's on the bill

It's not a never ending cycle of greed

I need to step back and cut off

from the fire creed

I've had it with chasing dragons

I don't know how to beat them

And it is always I who's defeated by them

A river runs through it

 I just throw down the mantel of adulthood

When I remember the way

We used to be

When you were my brother

And we would run and play games in the street

I wish that I had been able to love you

Better than I have loved you since

But then the river ran through our childhood

And it was too late for our separate streams

To meet

Eldorado's moon

 Waking up in old Eldorado

To find you standing in my room

Waking up in Old Eldorado

And I want to dance with you neath the moon

Oh Eldorado the city of gold

But not until it got sold

Eldorado was a silver slice of the moon

And I remember a piece of me

Like a sliver that fell free

When you said you'd dance with me

In Eldorado

Oh and we have nothing to lose

Just our tangled lives

And these homesick blues

Well if you'll follow me

I'll follow you

And we can both dance neath

Eldorado's moon

Spinning

 She puts me in a spin

Don't know if I'm head or tails

I just know I should be coming in

But I keep going out watch the whales

It's a life that's a mystery in

What she means to me is like a hall of mirrors

And I get lost when I walk in

I think I'm seeing me, but it's her that's clearer

I would like a mountain scene

Or a volcano that's exploding

Then at least I'd know where I'll be

Instead of lost in this geography of despairing

Can you give me a golden key

One to the dress that you are wearing

Because I'd like to unlock the door

And then I'd know how we were faring

The sailor and the mermaid

 There was a sailor and a mermaid

A murmur, burble, bobble -e-o

She sang to him sweet songs she had made

A merry murmuring bobble-e-o

Hey the high seas and low the leas

Through the calms and the clams and gales 

High the low seas and Lo the mad whales

A murmuring mermaid mail

The sailor wrote the mermaid a letter

A burbling, gurgling gobbled-e-o

He was telling her how she should take off her suit

And walk on two legs through town-e-o

 Hey the high seas and low the leas

Through the calms and the clams and gales 

High the low seas and Lo the mad whales

A murmuring mermaid mail

But when the mermaid tried to walk on shore

Some bad men cut off her tail-e-o

The sailor thought his mermaid dead

So he killed these sailors in her stead

 Hey the high seas and low the leas

Through the calms and the clams and gales 

High the low seas and Lo the mad whales

A murmuring mermaid mail

Then the mermaid grew two new legs

A hermuring, murmuring whale-o

And She walked through town where the bad men bled

And she married her loving sailor-e-o

Old man

 I'm not Peter Pan

Getting to be an old man

Collect my Pension from the recycled can

Kick it it down the road

A few miles

Think about it, lick it like it

Fuck it, fight it

Take the pig to market

Park it

Leave it to rest

A dead weight

A string vest

Bullet proof

I digress

Invest or ingest

Some poisonous mothballs

At the perihelion

Of a 17th century ball

Where I leave my curtain calls

And hope that the Saint Pauls

Are waiting behind walls

In dark alleys

Not the Frogmen

Swimming in the ocean

I saw her like a fish in an aquarium

All distorted, sometimes big

Sometimes small

But I couldn't touch her at all

And it fired my imagination

But ultimately it was an illusion

Even if I thought I was talking her fish language

Was she talking to me?

It was all one sided

She was just talking to her own reflection

At most I was a curiosity

But I was just maybe a lightray

And when she turned away

I was gone

Out of the frame

And her memory

Perhaps we're all living in a fish bowl

Of sorts

I lie in bed and pray

Maybe I'll be good at sports

One day

Because I'm no Fisherman

Or even Peter Pan

Just seems like I'm an old man

A twinkling

 Oh we don't have much time

And it's gone in the twinkling of an eye

We all were just inklings,

Just twinklings in somebody's eye

 All we are are chances

Each day's a new chance before we die

All we ever were were stars seen

Twinkling in a dark night sky

So just remember that it all must pass

Like the mist upon the water

The fog will clear and you will see

All that you oughta

The love that's been was just a scene

Between someone's son and another's daughter

And it's all how come, and it comes undone

Unless you don't bring it to slaughter

Because we really never must

Kill a love that comes from lust

Or Does it come from trust?

But never let that turn to dust

Just hold the course

Though the tides may pull

And the moon is crying out in full

And the stars coming out to null

The feeling that this sky

Is only a twinkling in 

Somebody's eye

The million and the loss

Once I made a million

Then I made a loss

Once I had trillion stars

without a single boss

A nova with a rover

A lover who gave a toss

Once I had a million

Then I made a loss

But was it will or am I

just the dross

Just the seedless pines

That grow beside the sea

And toss

Their leaves down in line

Like the wild lions cross

The Serengeti climes

Before the fires floss

Once I had a million then I made a loss

But I don't regret the filling in

Of my time before I'm gloss

Frankenstein mon stir

 Frankenstein was my father

And he hounded me all the way

Yes Frankenstein was my father

and he hounded me to my grave

Like a red truck fighting fire

He chased me along the highway

Like a red truck, sirens getting higher

H e tried douse out all my flames

But his water it was killing me

Killing me all the same

Oh Frankenstein was my creator

And my creator I had to save

But Frankenstein was my destroyer

And now it is I who must be brave

Like the men who went before me

Many generations with guns and slaves

All bent on my destruction

It is creation that I must save

For if he dies

Then what am I?

What am I with no God to praise

And if he dies then so must I

For what am I?

With no God to hate

Tell me what am I ?

going ever farther

hell is nearer as closer I am to save

And if he is my saviour, then heaven

help me to my grave

The sailor and the mermaid

 Well the mermaid said to the sailor man

You got just what you deserved

For you have stayed upon the land

Left the woman you love in the surf

And the man spoke to the mermaid girl

I loved you then til the ends of the world

And I would have followed you as far as I can

But I am just a sailor and you are a sea pearl

Well what was it kept you on the shore?

You could have kissed me and been my amore

And turned yourself into a merman

Then we would have been seaward forevermore

Well I know you wanted me to be

This underwater fish, not a sailor on the sea

But the world I come from would relegate me

And cast lots to set my life free

Well why then would you stay

In that society of the bay

And their brackish words and their cruel tongues

On their sward's of land that run and run

Instead you could have seen the oceans

You are an idiot afraid of his emotions

Can't you see you're in love with me

And if you deny yourself then cursed will you be

For love it is not a trick of the light

But a bodily law of two souls locked tight

And when the soul is loose then it is lost

Like a neck in a noose or ship's ghost

So never deny the love you have 

for a mermaid is the best gal, it's sad

To see you've ruined the best years you'll have

On swigging beers with your sailor lads

When we could be happy

on the gad

Interview

 You're looking for a candidate

A cadet in uniform

Who will only answer yes

When you address his wardrobe

Who will march in line

And collect his benefits cheque

You aren't looking for

a rebel yet

Or someone with self-respect

You only want a jumbo jet

Or a dreadnought ship

Yes and you tell me I could make it yet

But you sure ain't looking for me

You want a hero

You want a public school cheerio

Or you want some young bullio

Ready with his rugby vest

You don't need a shakespeare

You don't need Some word smith

I can take it from the sound of it

You sure ain't looking for me

I better face facts

Or else have some heart attacks

That Britain is a farce act

And I'm not fit to play the fool

It's just case of tact

To be in school and follow the rules 

You'll grow up to be a good citizen

 To conform to all the bitterness

And the mocking humiliation

Of the class structure imposed on you

There's no escaping migration

What about reverse refugees?

Those fleeing discrimination

From the hands of British fools

The idiots in charge of institutions

Who govern to quell revolutions

By keeping the intelligentsia

Locked away with factory tools

And those of the upper classes

With all the money and wine glasses

Who only dain to play at farces

With their idiotic public school boy rules

Imposed on us through many chances

Seen on the playing fields or at dances

In which the social graces of life are schooled

How to beat your opponent with sheer speed

How to better them at greed

How to take and to succeed

How failure is but a weed

An unwanted look at nothingness

An emptiness, a bottomlessness

Some hole you never wish to go down

For there nothing can be won

Go....?

 It goes without going

It says without saying

It means many things

Like I’ve had enough

Or stop

Or start

It’s a kind of art

It is, it’s on, it’s off

The chart

I can bring it on a tray

It’s how I feel when I’ve too much to say

But can’t

Sometimes I feel I’m going to

But it’s the thinnest membrane

It’s always after something gives out

It never really gives in

It’s an excess of nothing

And something to begin

So don’t put your hip out

Or you’ll need to shout

Weasels do it

Pringles do it

Even the blisters

Of measles and shingles do it

Let's do it

Let's go......?..........apart

Frankenstein my father

 Frankenstein was my father

Mary Shelley was my mother

My household was unstable

I grew up on the operating table

It was a long lost book of childhood dreams

I wish to know better what it all means

He told me when I was one day old

I'd be one hell of a fella

A big strapping boy like you

is gonna knock the world out I tell ya

And my mother looked on me with some sympathy

but loathing 

I tell you all I wanted was her love

But she scathingly threw me rags for clothing

I learned to ride a bike and ski in the Alps

Albeit because my loving father had decided to kick me out

I mean I found out that after my mother had died 

he'd engaged another woman who was gonna be his bride

But you see to him, I was his greatest disappointment

He thought he'd created me in his image

But it was a distorted disillusionment 

My father, my father was God he said

And I have to ask: am I human, living or dead?

If I am just parts, am I greater than their sum

And if I'm not a machine, then a human how come

Society rejects me, my own father baulks

I scare children in the park 

even the mirrors shatter when I talk

I am a hideous abomination, no love have I

Then what can a monster do but take revenge or die?

Dear Neighbour

Dear Neighbour

I'd like to express

My deepest condolences

For your thoughtlessness

It must be hard to be such an insufferable sod

I hadn't realized that I was living next door to God

Well you must be him or else why would you act like that

With impunity as if your actions carried no consequence

You are up all night, it's driving me crazy

Do you never need to work at all?

You must be driving Miss Daisy

round the bend, 

But look, let's make friends

the good book tells us

We must love our neighbours

So I say I love you X

Even though you are a pain in the neck

And think you are a great singer when you are really not all that

Believe me I've heard you in your kitchen

It sounds like you're strangling a cat

 And about you playing guitar at 3 am

Yes I can hear it and ahem

It woke me up and spoilt the rest of my day

In that it tinged my consciousness

And jangled my nerves and left them frayed

But I was nearly forced to cause an affray

So please let's not rehearse each night the last judgement day

Let's try and respect our differences

We cannot change each others' ways

It going to lead nowhere except entrenched positions

And fighting on all fronts

and really I'd rather make hay

While the sunshines

Than sleep in all day

For the night is meant for sleeping

Not your guitar play 

Broken down

 It's all broken down

It's all breaking down

From my toes to my crown

I'm all broken down

From my face to my eyes

I'm breaking like ice

Oh it's all broken down

What a surprise!

Cry baby, cry !

But don't break the china doll

Breaking, broke, all broken

Just mind you've not broken the mould

Pull all the pieces together

The debris of a crumbling tower

And build up Babylon brick by brick

feather by falling feather

Collect up the seeds that were scattered

Draw tight the strings of the purse

Close up the wound that was open

It's not yet time to call the nurse

All these things that were broken

Mend them and bring to repair

The shattered mirrors as a token

Of a lifetime of visual despair

But nothing that is gone is truly forgotten

Always its embers still glow in the air

No matter how lowly the ashes

From its cinders can grow a new care

People of Croscombe

 People from Croscombe

They barter and they bite

Just like Romans in an amphitheatre tonight

Oh people from Croscombe

They'd sell their grandmother's teeth

And still get a second estimate

For their own financial relief

Now I'm not saying people from Croscombe

Are cheap, it's just that they're mean

And will scramble round for every pound

And penny, even raid the wishing well

But that's just what comes from living in a dell

Like Croscombe

People from Croscombe

They strain for the Sun, because you see they never 

Really get it, they have to strain their necks at it

And they grow tall and thin like Sun flowers

People from Croscombe are heliotropes

They clamber over their neighbours' walls

They're so tightly packed like cattle in stalls

And have no greater pleasure than to bicker

Or discuss their neighbour's lives

There's nothing more satisfying than

Chit chat with the promise of knives

And vengeance is a dish best served cold

They've learnt that from living in some other metropole

Like London or Bristol any number you care to mention

But they've never forgotten their just desserts

Revenge for what was meted out to them by extension

And now they're in the bear pit, in the colosseum

They can watch their neighbours getting eaten alive by lions

Or they can bet on gladiators

For once they heard about a place called Rome

That there was some foreign power better

And they'll pay their tax and all

Be so tactical until their Emperor 

summons their services by letter

And then they'll dob in their neighbours 

For traitors

People in Croscombe, but that's only what

I've heard of them

I don't tend to think of them

Very much at all

They just ask me for an estimate

I say I'll see you at four

Then they want a quotation

I recite shakespeare 

When that doesn't satisfy

I try Mark Antony and Cleopatra

Then they get offended and say

 I only try to flatter

Oh I can't seem to gather

What the people of Croscombe

want at all

stormy night

 There's a baby crying in the storm

Crying save me Mama, I'm tired of being born

What is there in this whole world

Worth saving?

There's a man knowing,

Maybe thinking too much

Holding his woman

Away from his touch

Because, well the  half world is

Starving

And the storm blows on

And the baby's still crying

On a dark wet street

Where the mother is trying

To give it comfort and heat

And she tells it hush, don't cry

This world is dying

In these ruins you are lying

But you'll grow strong 

one day it won't be long

You'll build this world again

You'll do a better job than I

But I tried

And the storm blows on

And another baby, in a another town

is born  

The Hurricane's day off

 The Hurricane's day off

Oh take a day off won't you?

Stop blowing, I'm tired of hearing your moaning

The Hurricane rested with a pina colada

Down in Bermuda or in the Bahamas

Brahms wrote his Hungarian dances

All the jiggling ceased

The palm trees stopped waving in the dusk

The wild boars slept in the forests

I throw out my feelings in disgust

The Hurricane blew in gusts

Almost perspiring

Just smoking

Like an iguana

Lazy lizard lounge

Hurricane took a day off

To lie in the ocean sun

 

Death Cafe two

 Joseph and Mary at the death cafe

Discussing how

Their child is faring

Ghandi and Martin Luther King

Thinking of a trial at the big

Board Spring

Who has the keys to democracy

Or who has the keys to suffering?

Who has the keys?

They're in authority

Superiority extreme

But do they come to the death cafe?

Let's talk about capitulation

Let's talk about capital punishment

Let's give death row

A swing

By

On our way

To better things

Let's walk in light

In the path of Jesus

Let's throw out the blanket

Even though it freezes us

For to be cold is better

Than the warmth of sin

Oh let's talk about death

And other things

Death cafes

 Turned away by death at the death cafe

As if death is a club that only some are welcome

Even death didn't want me

In their clique set

Don't die among us we are superior beings

Turned away by death

I'm gonna have to live forever

In your Stalinist bureaucracy

Of brutalist NHS workers

And elderly, old age home carers

Turned away by death

"Your time hasn't come yet

You have yet to reach the heights

That we would have wanted"

Perhaps when you do,

Will you let us know

Then we'll consider your petition

To be let in the doors of the Art bank

Where it's ruled

By indescretion

And the self destructive instinct of

The meek on the make 

who try and hold vigil with their later selves

In some phoney seances

Who claim to be so mystical, spiritual

Or marvellous

That their coy apprehensions

Don't mask their great pretensions

That they think themselves

Better than the average for

Placing retributions on their poor

patients who've they've somehow mishandled

These are the middle managers of 

The healthcare professions

They come down from Bristol or Brighton

Where their enlightened ideas

Glistened

And their ideas are meant to dazzle us

Into trusting their intuition

But they are the selfish slaves of a ruined institution

That NHS that just eats itself

And all who come into its revolutions

Like a planetary giant

Sucking hapless asteroids

And passing neutrons

But why lose sleep over those

idiots

It's best just to avoid doctors and the self-proclaimed healers

They are just avoiding the reality of death 

Like everyone else

Whether by television, drugs,

Alcohol

Or even walks in the countryside

Nothing bears witness

Like the soul in restitution

Just don't turn me away

From another bloody

Death cafe

ressurrection

Jewels

 The Great Heist

The Zeitgeist,

Walking the gallery corridors

Walking the faces

Looking a them through their bars

Prisoners in the Louvre museum

Take the jewels

Hanging from the necks of the mules

Hanging from the necks of the new Aristocracy

Was it the French Revolution?

Whose jewels were they?

When nothing is holding together democracy

When the threads of trust in humanity

Are breaking, rotting in the corruption of greed

Rotting in the complacency of money

What do these signs and icons of culture mean?

When culture is a society fraying at the seams

And what resonates are the drums of war

But war that is waged behind the scenes

And under the cover of a dark web

Of subterranean tunnels we've allowed them to burrow

Beneath our feet, within our homes, into our screens

We've creates these holes, this vacuum

No wonder them evil has grown 

in what nature abhors

In our crazy idea we could put the world on hold

When it was only the West that drove that myth

That it was greatest standing on the precipice

No wonder they stole the jewels from the museum

No one was guarding the national treasure

They complacently thought we live in a fluffy make-believe

There was no need to defend against evil

Conventional sinner

 I'm so conventional

It's not intentional

I'm a conventional sinner

Sit on the bench an all

Learning my French an all

I'm just a conventional sinner

I'm so conventional

Pick up my pension an all

Sit on the fence getting thinner

Nearly fall between bar stools

I can't hold my drink at all

And my conversation's all loser and winner

I just believe in what the last person said

That's the opinion that's stuck in my head

What does it matter if someone is dead

This is modern day Britain

Until they knock on my door

Asking for my signature

I'll be a conventional sinner

Holding my own counsel

With my four white walls

Oh I'm just a conventional sinner

Don't ask me if I think television is fair an all

If it truly represents our society

Or if it's all just engendered

Engineered false society

According to the narrative of the winner

They're the ones with the loudest voices,

Because that's how democracy works

It's not about fairness

Or some lies of equality

It's about shouting and strength and dominance

That's why I'm apolitical

call that conventional

I just don't see the point in invention

of winners

When we're all just sinners

Angel feet

 I sat there laughing

While you were sitting loving

And all of heaven fell

Like tears

And shattered like laughter

Around our feet

And I knew you to be an Angel

Who I did meet

And all was holy silent

Along the midnight street

Yet I sat there laughing

Not ready to believe

While you were sitting loving

Wearing my heart on your sleeve

I cried into my breakfast bowl

While you championed the weak

I swear that you had taken my soul

For I had forgotten how to speak

And all was loud and busy

Out on the daytime street

And I forgot what made me whole

While you had made ends meet

You were my Angel then

As I went on a midnight stroll

And future was only a figure of speech

And the past, a catching look

And the present some glimpse of my soul

I read about in books

How can you hold a candle

To me anymore? I burn

And low

The embers turn back to coal

And I can't think of you

No more

I heard an Angel's softly passing feet

 And I hid behind a door

To me my heart did beat

Maelstrom

 Well I fell down the maelstrom

Yes I followed you down

My ship was in a hail storm

Stronger than a cup of tea

And you were in a clipper

All the way from the China Sea

Well the maelstrom is a real big deal

It'll put hairs on your bum

And it'll make you feel

Like you don't have a mum

And you don't want a meal

So never come to the maelstrom

Now the female strum is of another order

It's like a collie so pet it but only the border

Because if you enter into that whirlpool

You'll never make it out alive

And you are a bloody fool

Now if you should succumb

Think only this of me

That there was some foreign whirlpool

Whipped up a writhing brothing sea

And into it went my log book

My sanity and me

Because you'll never be a shanty man

When you're a she shanty singer see

Yes she was a shanty man

She on the fence holding the can

Singing in her defence

I didn't lead you on

On down into the female strom

Get a hold of yourself

You bloody landlubber

And put back on the shelf

Your bloody soul rubber

The stars are all bucking

Because this ship is ducking

Down the rollicking rolling maelstrom

The Strawberry ship

 I used to work on the ship strawberry

A liner over from Cork

I would sit on the mainsail yard arm

And eat with my knife and fork

But since the wind's been a blowing

I think we've gone off course

It was a circumnavigation of the world

But now it seems like a race for one horse

Why do we follow the loudest

Like sheep in a valley we wail

Guide me home oh my shepherd

For I fear the blowing gale

But it's because we live in the bowels of the ship

And hardly have reason to rise

Above to the main deck

Where they say such we risk our neck

And will pay for it with our lives

It is the little gravity well

We must overcome

To escape the mouth of hell

And not be brought back into

Those shark infested waters

All invested by harlequins' daughters

Who think they're the Queens of the dell

Now our captain he got side tracked

He listened to the voice of the sirens

Who were calling to him back

Where they live  on their little island

Like stranded sheep he thought

I as their shepherd must rescue them

But it was a blood sport of course

And he ended up digesting them

And this indigestion brought him

Back to the strawberry liner

Where he was neither a finer captain

Nor a captain of liners

Only a tuner of tunes

Beyond hot air balloons

that look like submarine miners

Believe

 No, I don't think you should believe

In all the foreign lovers that you leave

The stars are a gate to a world unseen

No, I don't think you should believe in all you've seen

The penny drops but I can't believe

That you've opted for foreign leave

Since all the cops have buttoned sleeves

And all their tears make flowers sneeze

I should have stopped to wind the clocks

I should have held the nettle longer

I should have stopped in more docks

I should have been a fire brander

But colour me this way

Or paint me that

I'm just the ship's kettle or the ship's cat

Maybe I don't have the mettle

to swear or scat

But the lovers leave their answers

On my doormat

It's been hard to get going

And so hard to leave

But I can't believe it was snowing

On Adam and Eve

I can't believe where we're going

Is just a reprieve

I think the wind's blowing

And we are all just leaves

Missing in action

 I tried to make it as a lover

But all I became was a thief

It was like I volunteered for a war

But all I got was a peace

Can you show me the door

Or shall I take my own leave

I'm missing in action

I'm not a verb at all

Unless it's a lack of belief

The shadows fall on the wall

And I see your face in relief

It's like the sun cut its stall

Went off to join the police

For they are criminals all

These lovers who softly walk the streets

Am I the mad one alone

While they're the living beast?

I can't show you my scrawl

It would make any sense

I tried to draw them all

But I drew an offense

Because at the society ball

the crystal chandelier broke

And we're all in pieces on the floor

Where the bishop once spoke

I moved a king but he thought it a joke

I told a queen a sad tale and she began to choke

On the vodka martini that a rook left in her yoke

Well we all are the cattle

rising in the midnight smoke

A man Rhyming with Rev

 Oh he's a singing bar of chocolate

Oh he's a greasy spoon

He thinks that he's the fulcrum

Around which turns the room

And yes he's a crooner

You know he sometimes needs a tune

But you can't tell him sooner

Because his heads the size of a balloon

Yes his name rhymes with rev

And he's turning a screw

Mind out for your head

He'll try and knife you

He's all daggers and sycophantic

Grins at the women

He'll suck all their pearls

Off their necks as their swimming

There blows the blubber

He's a floating in the ocean

He thinks he's so musical

But he's devoid of emotion

He's just rude, yes he wishes he was jude

But he's obscure as his food

Wilderness part deux

 I'm watching Simon Reeves in the Congo jungle he's looking at Bonobos 

I'm happy to see them.

The jungle looks uncomfortable with biting insects

and swamps

Someone, a friend from Hungary

Said she'd gone to live in a rainforest

I volunteered today on a disused railway track near Shepton Mallet

It was a bit of a wilderness

Oak trees growing

Just nice to look at the trees with moss on them

We put up a dog fence to stop them running into the private forest

Which you can look at but not touch

I wonder if we create these private wildernesses

Here, where you need to have money to own or experience 

wilderness

For myself to have the privilege of experiencing it

I must volunteer for free

To build a road essentially for people to pass through the wilderness

Probably because we need to walk in nature

More than anything else

We need to do it

But essentially Wilderness in this country is privately owned

I think that essentially I'm part of a middle class attempt

To declassify the countryside

But really it is a reclamation

of an industrial road

It had a societal or manufactural function

It also had a commuter and tourist function

It brought communities together.

Whether there was any true wilderness there,

I don't know

It was probably all farmland for hundreds of years

what makes a wilderness?

That it has never been in contact with humans

Because certain tribes have contact with deep jungle territories

Therefore it is not wilderness

However, that it is not in contact with the wider world

Perhaps is more the point 

She's gone

 She's gone

The day is done

Who won?

Who lost?

 I've forgot

she's a ghost

It's just

I wish

I'd known

And was free from

repentance

Or guilt

She's gone

There's nothing more to lose

I saw a cloud

Pass by

And a trail in the sky

Say

I could choose

But it's not me

It's not my mind

It's my heart

And there's nothing

but the blues

She's gone

Now I have to 

turn her

loose

Marguerite

 Marguerite your light is so unique

You're like a beacon shining on mountain peak

Marguerite when I'm in darkness

Then it's your light I seek

Oh thank you from the bottom of my heart

Marguerite

I once was walking down a road

I didn't know my beginning

I didn't know where it goed

But I fell into the wayside

Like many a fellow before 

But you always pulled me up

And set me in good store

So thank you

Wilderness 2

 Trying to write about wilderness is like trying to look at your backside in a mirror

You know it is there somewhere, but you just can't seem to see it.

I think wilderness exists in the mind

It is the other

Sometimes the strangers of a town are the wilderness

Sometimes the people you know in a town

Are a wilderness too

But often we escape into nature to get away from society

A forest walk or along a hill top can be freeing

It's not wilderness exactly just away.

Perhaps true wilderness is being separated from civilization

And having only nature

I've felt very free walking in the Blue mountains on my own with just a bottle of water in my rucksack

I met another hiker some hours later with his backpack full of water and he thought I was mad to be walking with so little water.

I suppose if I had a good knee I would be doing that again,

But I've broken it and now the idea of being away and relying on

my body to run or walk enough without extreme arthritic pain

means I don't want to consider it

garden of Eden

 Wilderness in the garden

Taming the garden of Eden

The garden is really the closest thing most of us get to the wilderness

The fact is if left unattended the weeds grow over us and we have to fight to survive

So even outside our front door we have wilderness

We really, when we are older or frail, rely on others to fight off the wilderness.

There is an interesting paradox here, in that peace of mind can come from order

And yet to throw yourself into the wilderness of forest or jungle with near abandon is also

freedom and freeing.

Though of course you need to learn or know how to survive. And it is only human to try to bring order out of chaos. Even these tribes in the Amazon are sweeping up and keeping their homesteads clean and tidy and there is order in the community. To think otherwise is delusional and I'd say too much the basis of green or hippy thought. You cannot function as a society on such an individualistic basis in my opinion. 

You go into the wilderness to escape people and find people living there. They live in more harmony with nature though. I only want to live and be around real nature not just agricultural lands but Scotland and mountains. And forests. 

So dark

 Am This road ain't no E7  good

Am This road leads to E7 doom

Am So dark, G7 so dark, C so dark

Get off it while you still can

We don't need to follow the caravan

It's so dark, so dark, so dark

This road leads nowhere

This road leads to despair

So dark, so dark, so dark

Well I never knew your name

And you never needed mine

And if someone is to blame

Blame it on my heart

It's so dark, so dark, so dark

Well if you want to follow the light

Well you should learn to fight

But just keep your dreams in sight

while it's so dark, so dark, so dark

Bat my cricket

 Will you cricket my bat

Or bat my cricket

If you pull down the battens

Or mount upon the cricks

When the clouds turn to patterns

When the dusk turns to pitch

have you ate a bat, have you bit an itch

Have you blacked your cat

With the paint of a pinch

Or salt and peppered the wicket

Made all the cricketers sneeze

And fall over their white picket fences

Down upon their knees

Is the umpire of empires

Finally a sleep on the breeze

Because the silly mid is off

On his

Holidays in the land of sunny seas

Willow-the-kiss or the English cricket bat love affair

 I kissed an English cricket

Oh it had such long legs

It folded them beneath itself

And sat up straight to beg

Leg before wicket said the umpire

Not so said I 

I couldn't get my leg over

And the over just flew right by

I tried to bat it away

But it came back all hammer and tongs

Trying to play its grass fiddle play

It was all violins and Ned Sheeran songs

But at least I wasn't caught out

Playing away from home

Yes I kissed an English cricket

In the grounds of Frome

You see, it said, I've got my ears to the ground

That's how it reeled me in

It said I think we're on the same frequency Pip-squeak 

and Hey I've heard you sing

I said, how come? What you just hang about

Late at night waiting for your prey like some kind of freak?

No, I said, you give yourself away 

everytime that you speak

Well cricket bat, cricket bat riddle me this

Why did the cricket play its fiddle then kiss?

The bat was swung both ways in the sky

Before the ball had dropped while we were young and high

But what goes up must come down

And now I see batman that I've stolen your crown

I'm a fielder

I'm in the long grass

I'm mixing up my metaphors 

Gone for a duck not a pass

It's the beautiful

No, it's a game of two halves

No, it's just long and drawn out

With boredom and laughs

And many beers are consumed

And it's easy to miss

When a bat and a cricket 

at dusk share kiss

Shepton's Social classes

 Ah they'd like to think they're all equal

With their community hall

That their musical apparatus

Is nothing but a money making machine

Go then to their counter and pay your silver dime

Thirty pieces ought to do it

But mind they better shine

For the devil's in the detail

Or he's hidden in plain sight

It's about the traps and pitfalls

That's how he leads you into plight

You think that you have joined them

Their mysterious homogenous set

Like a gel of becoming

The eager flesh eating ambitious pet

Has started to devour them

In fact it's eating them alive

I went to see them becoming

But they turned into a beehive

There are the tulips of the field

The well healed crew

Who have grown out of universities

designed to build the few

Who will always grab the top jobs

Who will always succeed

Perhaps because they are obsessed

With the professions they need

To give them some kind of haven

A home to call a nest

Or a chance to claw at Eden

And find indoors their rest

I should have known the doctors

In the houses by the poor

Oh who could play at good neighbours

When the animals are at the door

And then those transient musicians

Whose egos are their fuel

Or their sheep of instrumentalists

Who follow in true tormentalist 

school

Then there are solicitors, dedicated

And disciplined who rove around the town

In range rovers with their friends

The accountants on their wings' smiling crown

Happy to be deputized by the king

of the scene or queen

For they hold the keys to the bank vaults

And will only open them when they mean

Throwing down the gauntlet

The glove makers and drapers

Go around as carpetbaggers

For the local general elections

Campaigning also are the merchants

And investors in foreign steel

Who always have a plan

No matter how generous they feel

Because you know their philanthropic

Tendencies do mask

The hidden skill and dark intentions

About which we're all too afraid to ask

So accept their charity we do

And volunteer our time

In thought that free social credit

Is not a form of nepotistic crime

And yet it greases the wheels

Of this strange little town

That is simply a microcosm of 

Any city in England

With less interference or notice

From the higher governmental climbs

It's that these enterprising fellows

See some rich vein of self-making advantage

They they can tap into

So they leave the hurly burly of the city

And retreat into a safer queue

Where it won't take so long

To reach their life goals

And why deny them the attainment of pleasure

Even if it costs them their souls

But many go to church to absolve themselves

 of their crimes

For this has already been said before

It was best of times, it was the worst of times

So dig out your suitcases and threaten to leave it all

But you turn your head and see instead

That Rome still has time to rise and fall

So you may as well stick around

Long enough to see what happens

And what that will be

I can hardly see

For the log is still jammed in the cabins

We had a field day

Listen to the birds she'd say
I'm listening, I'm here I'm very much ok
In your loving arms
The touch of your lips
Makes me feel good
Up from my toes to my hips

In this world of over confidence
Arrogance and harm
She walks gently like a healing balm

She skips like a child
She sips at flowers
She let's me sleep for hours
Until I forget I'm in the wild

In a field, just a field
With Oak trees
A little wood stretching along the lower perimeter
The best place in the world for me

The only place her beautiful face
Can be forever
Like an  imprint of our bodies
That we left in the grass
When we leave

Good bye to that

I have been missing you
In the words of those unknown
I had thought our time was done
But you go and dig up a bone
It's ancient history
The thought is lost and gone
Well almost until archaeology
Of un-reason
Has brought it out in the light of the sun

I had thought I had lost
The last flames of the fire
The embers of a ghost of heat
Had burnt down in my desire
More than this
I'd said good bye
To all we'd known or done
It's just you had to dig up the bones
Again
And bring them out in the sun

Good bye my friend
Of those times gone
I can yearn dryly
Like one burnt in the sun
I can reach wildly
Or with dwindling desire
To touch the flame of our love
With the touch paper
catching fire

Fox trot

 The fox shot out of the entrance

And he sprang across the road

His wily wild head, lolling tonge hanging red

And a grin of his face saying overload

He grinned the laughing grin of a joker,

But crazy intelligence of a poker

Player from the barn, who takes chickens

By the yarn, tells of the wild dreams

Of a yoker

He cuts clean like a suit

Fires his brazen canons in salute

To the Sassy salty sea

Wearing orange sash of the bear

God-like as hesperides or Loki

A fallen angel star, picked up in a bar

Propped up by a whisky sour

The head of folded hair

The face of livid care

The wild wily fox crossed over

From SARS to Mars

 From SARS to Mars

So they came from out the rover

And in a great distress

The masters of their destiny

Or the Mistresses of distress

They saw and oh how phoney Phoebe

Lied in her nocturnal caress

Combing the skies like a pair of skis

Fitted for lifelessness

But come on home on your ponies

Oh you boys of the Wild West

For Mars is a showroom of the homies

And the people

Under some duress

They dress their Dunes in frills

And knickerbocker glories

Rock the Mars bar tune

And Roll in the Red sea stories

The man in the mask

The masks and the gloves

I needed ask, who it is she loves

And who wears the make up

and who wears the mask

Well the straw dogs bale

In the sun so pale

And there is a lipstick stain

On your mask

Who have you been kissing my love?

With your face so covered and blue

Whose clinically tested face accessory

Has been making contact with you?

Stay your distance

Don't over step the mark

Its full of hits and misses

But you've seen kisses in the dark

Now who, yes who

In the near or far

Do you love

The man in the mask?

And they said it's you

He's been talking to

They say that rumour has it

Well rumour owns the house on the hill

And rumour lives in your father's mansion

But rumour doesn't know well

Where your love does dwell

No, rumour only follows the current fashion

And he says fairwell, to the dale and the fell

And the man behind the mask

No he doesn't know well

Just who you do love

And rumour is afraid to ask

So suspicion does swell

In the circles they can't tell

Just who is the man in the mask

I will be writing this down

Some years from now

And the case of murder she wrote

Because its clear to see

When she is wild and free

Who the muses take to task

But only God knows

Which way the wind blows

And who is the man in the mask

The Brown Water Brook – Of a December train journey from Bristol to Aberystwyth

 Brown water in the brown brook

Flowing fast like a runaway crook

Swallowing hollows

Peaking on the tree lines

Of Alder, Ash and Willows

Grasses systemic in fields

Like primitive rice

Turning to boggy marsh land

And edges of birch bark

Damp and dark

With wet cloud covering everything

Up to the hill tops

Hedges black and dark,

Border fields there,

Crows in a pair

Tip toe and muzzle the earth with their beaks

Nowhere near the brown brook with the white crest peaks

Then the brook washes down again

And is seen from the train

Like a mane

Of a wild horse

Flowing down the mountain

Where Christmas tree shaped skeletons of birch fill a valley

Like forgotten Christmases past and lost to memory

Only sighted from a journey, East to West

To the Saturday noon, the moon past it’s best

And Ivied trees slender,

Others covered in moss

The dead brown of leaves

Lends a feeling strong with loss

And shadow to a crumpled land

By the wind and weather

Yet I am a changed man

Like the wind carrying a feather

It is a hope for the land

As back to view comes the brook singing

As it tributaries a larger river

As I see sheep on the hill side running

Scared from the train

The brown river running fast

With the falling rains

It is yellowy cream of churned butter,

The surface scum

That tumbles and turns

In troughs and gushes then

Like spreading fingers departs

And then it leaves the train’s route in yarn spools

To only standing water in pools

And Black slate walls

Damp

Then reeds and long grasses,

In the marshes by Macunthlyth

And Dovey Junction, fen land high

Firs in mist and fog and the sense of height

Mountain tops beyond sight

Hidden behind a curtain, a veil of white cloud

Then flat ground, flat as a fen

As the lay of an ocean bed

The wide flat river passes

Like a Mississippi over the plain

A solitary chapel on a promontory

Of a little headland into the flood bed

That is green with grass but not lush

Brown as well

And sculpted up into gentler hills

The brows of tarmac roads

And grey/white stone built houses

Start to populate and change the landscape

Into modern houses

Community greens and football grounds

Then the brown babbling brook appears again

And look as it follows the train

Down to the sea

Criss-crossing under bridges from

The crow’s path

Turning the Ystwyth

Into Aberystwyth

Justice

Justice is like a flame
Burning in dark night
My enemies weigh-laid
But I find might is right
What can be the fate
Of one whose lot is plight
The thorn that grows upon the tree
Bleeds dark red on white
And from the sceptred isle
To the monarchy of hate
I row my river boat
Down lanes to pearly gate
She dons her crown
I take it, not a minute too late
For the Queen does frown
At the merriment of state

A follower of the king
Came by his banquet table
To present to him the crown
For to prove that he was able
Get up you lowly dog he says
Go fetch me a pitcher of wine
But after he brought it to the man-god
For his adventure did he pine

My liege I am an adventurer
My turkey bruises well
When left to ruts and ditches
The snakes belly does swell
He must take on witches
Fight dragons and ogres as well
Or else his eternal itches
Will cause him infernal hell

Indeed young man then go on
Your mortal steaming quest
Just bring back my pearly daughter
Whose been captured by the Vest
Oh my pearl cried the Queen
And fell into a quivering dream
She sits in the underworld
Ruled by the dark prince Bream

Bream oh bream
His tokens have a wall upon my body
His fishy scales
Like mighty whales
Send shivers down my spine
He has no sense of time
And even his living is a crime
For none too soon
Shall I swoon under his pescalian

prime

Sunset on Somerset

 It was in the year 1819

The darkest year that had ever been

Billie Watts was a pauper scrounging for scraps

But the law was a torture and he took the raps

No one would buy his nice clay pipes

And the crops all died and he reverted to type

They never saw him for the good man he could be

Oh but if they did would they ever have stopped him being free

Well they're doing the same thing now to you and me

the establishment would like to keep us under lock and key

Than allow a free spirit to live in the air

Oh yes he stole a pigeon, they didn't care

He stole a piece of muslin, they barely lifted a hair

And then they saw him as a troublemaker

And transported him down there

He stole a pigeon, and they threw him in prison

Down in a cell he stewed

Down there to Tasmania and Van Diemen's land

Where only the hardest men and women can stand

And if you weren't hard before they made you that way

Because you had to survive or dig your own grave

Oh can you see over the prison walls?

You're building a new country but a prison for your souls

And if you could own a single plot of what you bring under control

Well could you see the sunset before the darkness falls

Lords and ladies of land

 When you pass

As sure you must

Will I look on your grave

And see that you've survived upon

The dust your parents saved

I hold all you land lords and ladies

To be poisonous viles lent

And spilt your toxic blood

Upon the land that I have rent

I owe you nothing but my soul

My liberty's at ease

I'll grate you down the drains

With gust of the wind

Or gentle breeze

You are nothing more to me

Than brown and fallen leaves

From the branches

Of your family

Who happened to love thee

I shall not stand on circumstance

Nor with pomp

bow nor serve

My dignity does not allow

Me to reward

What was never earned

So go your way

And please depart

From the path that 

I call mine

For nothings left

But what I deserve

Since I must walk

My own line

Manikin's kin

 If you say yes, I'll have to go

But I'm not a manikin

Only for show

I'm a real man

You need to know

But if you say can

Then I must go

Down the shoot, one more time

Bring a bottle

Of red wine

Because you know it's in my mind

This psychic buzzard keeps

Swooping by

I think it's an augur

But that's in spring

And we met in August

Where do we begin?

Now that it's ended I need to know

Should I stay for the fashion show

French exchange

 Now I don't mean you're delusional

It's that you're diluvial 

In a manner quite effluvial of

Certain schizoid type

For your French exchange

When young, hung

Like a ripe

Plum around the gum

Of the girl on

The bike

Who you saw but did not like

Only the smell and the hum

Of Paris or a bum

Or a scent of the drum

When the sun beat its thumb

On the edge of your skull

In the bus where the droll

Hypocrites type

Their soul out

And write

I think you're delusional

Why'd you have to look like that?

 Yes I saw you have some new shoes

Well are they blues shoes or are they black?

Because one of them suits you

And the other one makes you look 

Like a cat

Well yes, nice to see you too

How do you like my new hat?

Well it could be from the top draw for sure

Or he fetched it from the back (of the store)

Well anyway, how do you do?

Oh, Why'd you have to look like that?

Yes it makes me feel so rich and then so poor

When I see you walking out of his front door

Because I know you're with him for sure

Or oh is it for the long haul? Baby tell me more

Why'd you have to look like that?

I could move to the other side of town

And you'd never see me kicking around

With a frown underneath my new hat in brown

And this top hat would have it's bottom turned down

Oh why'd you have to look like that?

Oh we fell out and he fell in

And I don't doubt that he'd like to win

But we've got about you've put me in a spin

Oh why'd have to look like that to begin

With or without, I need you like gin

I want to bake you like bread

In my heart's oven even

Because you've got dough eyes

That make me knead to grin

Oh Why'd you have to look like that?

Oh why'd you have to look like that?

Corncrake

 The lowland scrub where the corncrake croak

Like a buzz on a cockroach's throat

Like a disco, a turn up to vote

In the booths of policemen

When they ring the yard on the phone

Oh the lowland reeds and the heathery belt

Where the corncrake hides in his feathery pelt

And the cornflakes fly and the cocoa pops melt

To the rice crispy cries of snap crackle and Celt

Oh lay myself down for to hear the Corncrake

On the isle of Canna where the canned worms wake

And they opened and wriggled around on the make

For the blue sea glistened but I never saw the Corncrake

Modern Man

 Modern man

He dances

Modern man in trousers

Could lose some weight

Gain in love not hate

Yes, he's a modern man

He's out there on the town

Living life as best he can

Yes, he's a modern man

He'd shoot you down

If he liked it

But he'd rather

Dance with the bouncers

Yes, he's the modern man

Needs a beer

In his stomach

To keep

The butterflies

Turning into caterpillars

And then a Chrysalis 

Yes, he's a modern man

She's got a new friend

 She's got a new friend

I don't doubt it

She's got a new friend

I want to shout it

She's got a new friend

And it don't mean much to me

I wish I could win

Her in the end

But I know that now

I'm just her old friend

Yes she's moved on

Like a ship in the sea

And I'm out here on my island

well I'm not complaining

And I'm not drowning

I'm just sorry to see

Her ship leaving me

 She's got a new friend

I don't doubt it

She's got a new friend

I want to shout it

She's got a new friend

And it don't mean much to me

You're not my type

 

E You're not my type G-E

Am I call it hype A G

Dm7 A little Am7 drunken Dsus4 D Tyke

Am Kind of tripe G-A

E You're not my type G

 

E I like it black

Am I like it white

E You're not my type G

 

F You think you're Zebra

C I don't like stripes

E You're not my type G

 

You know a leopard

Can't change his spots

Well this old beggar 

looks strange not hot

You're not my type

 

I like to write

I don't mean left wing

I don't mean right

E You're not my type G

 

I just think you should choose

To get on your bike

You're not my type

 

I wouldn't ride you

It's not my like

So just walk in my shoes

You're not my type

gardening lines 2

 Can you disencumber your cucumber?

Or disentangle your runner beans?

Or extricate your carrots

from their unpleasant scene

Disencucumber me means

Just removing my cucumber from your vines

For I got it stuck there when I crossed some lines

Forgive me, I didn't realize I confused your bed with mine

At least we can say the grapes had a good crop

And we did enjoy the wine

I shouldn't think to tangle up

Again in your runner beans

But they do keep running on and on

If you know what I mean?

I should like to disembarrass myself

from your brussel sprouts

But they keep looking at me

And beyond that I have no doubt

I could never leave the allotment

That lies down next to thine

But I'll probably

Be put right myself

Because I seemed to have crossed the line

Owen Parfitt of Shepton Mallet

 Owen where you going to?

Owen, Owen where you going?

Owen, Owen where you know it's snowing too

Oh and the wind is blowing strong

Owen where you going to?

For it's here you do belong

Oh Owen where you going to?

You've been gone so long

I wish that I was knowing too

Where it is you've gone

I haven't seen you in many moons

And the blue one's coming on

I need you in my life Owen

I need you to be strong

So Owen where you going to?

Oh Owen now where you gone?

Owen where you going to

And Owen where you gone?

You had a great adventure didn't you

When you were so young

Many battles you fought in

And many women's hearts you won

Now Owen where you going to

Oh Owen where you gone?

Your body it is broken too

I can't believe it's gone

The loving and the fighting

In the corners have undone

All that mother gave you

That nature that stood strong

Oh Owen where you going to?

Owen where you gone?

Listen to the heart beat of the Sheepey call

Listen to the fast feet run along the prison wall

The padding of the white sheep

Across the green grass fall

Owen why'd you fall asleep

Before you could count 'em all?

Sometimes in my dreams of you

You return back home

But in them you're a younger man

Without a broken bone

If I could mend your broken heart

I'd fix it in a blink

Bring back the twinkle in your eye

That shone when you'd wink

But I am no magician still

I'm just a woman in a window sill

Asking Owen where you going

Owen what was your will?

Gardening tips number five

 Give a man a hoe

An his weeds won't grow

Give a man the heave-ho

And either the weed is so big that

He needs help pulling it out

Or you are firing him

Little Prick of Love

 

C G F

C G F

Am C G F

C G F                              

Oh C little prick of F love I can feel C yer

Oh C little prick of F love nice to meet C yer

I've Em got a Am little prick of love And it's trying to F greet yer G

                                                    

Oh Am you don't like G injections F And you're afraid of blood

Well C this is divine G intervention C My little prick of love

 

It'll C only hurt a F little C And yes it will bleed                                 

Em But just like a Am needle F It is going to G succeed      

At Am combating G your love sickness F You know you suffer a disease

Dm You can't love C another F Without starting to seize

F   Em-F                         

So C let me F give you  C My little injection

I'm Em just like Am a doctor F You need G examination                                          

Am And it could add C years to your life  F Or it could set you free

Dm My little prick C of love will F look after you, you’ll see

C   G F

C G F

Am C G F

C G F                             

If C I were a F snail  It would be C minute

So Em just think you're lucky AM And don't F get cute G                   

If Am you want to get C ahead You know you have to F push                           

Dm And my little prick of C love Is like a F thorn on a sloe bush                                               

Am Sometimes the sloe gin G comes so thick it's a sin  

Dm Sometimes the bush is F so hard to get in                                              

Am But with a little back and forth F A little pull and shove                   

G That's how you'll feel my F Little prick of love

G  F G F                         

C Oh little prick of F love I can feel C yer

Oh little prick of F love Now we’re togeth G er                                            

Am We’ve got a little prick of C love And it's now and forev F er        

Our Am little prick of G love ties us togeth F er

C G F

Am  G F

Am C G F

Am C G F