see through

 I am a ghost in this place

Change my name, same face

About turn

Black to white

Shades of beige

into grey stone 

Belated birthday kite

Lies on the floor

I am ever alone

How can I endure?

Swallows are swallowed

Up by a sky 

So blue

It hurts my eyes

I am lost in a vast ocean 

Like them

There's only one homing

Beacon

It's a construction of when

A false memory of the past

I've built a castle of it in my mind

Recently it's been so far away

I thought I could cut the bind

But it frightened me to lose my dream

I cannot live without it

So it seems

I suppose it is escapism

But don't wish to live

in this British live strem

Phoenix of the hedgerows

 I saw a Phoenix in the hedgerow

Unfortunately, it did make me head grow

I thought well, I must be an amazing twitcher

To have spotted such a blazing picture

Well unfortunately as well as this

This Phoenix he burst into flame

And set alight the whole bloody lane

Oh the hedges they were burning true

And the farmers they came out swearing blue

What on earth have you done there me lad?

I asked you to cut them hedges, not turn em bad

You turn em all so black and blue, 

burning embers through and through

Oh what am I to do?

I said but father, all I did, 

was I went along with me shears and snid

And snipped and snead

And then I lost me head

I saw a phoenix in the hedge

I thought he was but a pheasant (overfed)

Ah but that is me own fault

I was mere peasant

I thought: "What a kingly bird 

Could come amongst us ere?

I doubt he is anything so queer

He probably is but merely a pigeon

And that proved wrong

For more than a smidgen

He flamed and fired right up from the ashes

And the hedges clattered down in their stashes

Oh the oaks were in smoke

And the willows did billow

And the alders they smauldered, and smildered

Smoldered and pillowed

But the Phoenix he was bright as a button

He flew up high above em like cotton

And floated in the air, oh those cotton bud clouds

If only they weren't the smoke of all them hedges so proud

Oh me father he was sad from that day

He said son you disturbed the phoenix of the hedge lay

You should always give thanks to the hedge laying birds

And never cut them hedges down after April has turned

For the fact is that birds, they do like to nest in em

You can't blame em for being blessed in em

That is just how it works and you cannot say neither

There's nothing else to say about it, you must say dither

So you never should disturb the phoenix of the hedgerow

And you should always give warning to the pheasants so they know

And don't go snipping beyond the verge

Unless you've found out about that phoenix bird

The Crows of Shepton

 The crows are coming round again

And I'm sitting in the bower

The knives are drawn behind our backs

But the parliament's in power

A murder is a ripening

The time is coming soon

But who knows death

Is a harbinger bird

Who's crying out at the moon

I held a leaf

Like telephone

A nautilus shell alone

I talked to the sea

And my mother was there

In spirit but not in the bone

The flesh of the fish

Jesus was a skipping stone

He stepped so fast and far

It seemed

But then sunk when I got home

When I think of Jesus

He is a promise I have to keep

He is the others in the meeting

Who face me, lay their bets

That life is at stake

Will you take the wager?

The older you get the more you must play

But the higher becomes the ante

You need to join in or else you have lost

You must join before it's too late

The crows still sit on the rooftop

Crows are so human I think

When night closes in they want

The company, of another shoulder

next to them,

Another body, in a group

I don't know what it is about sharing

But you must speak to unburden yourself

A trouble shared is a trouble halved

But that is not even what it's about

It's about building a community

A communion of voices and spirits

Who see in each other similarities

Like the flap of a wing or a preening with beaks

The crows have flown off now at nightfall

To the safety of their treetops or chimney pots

Humans are much like crows I think

We each need our gatherings around

hot spots

Candles, or fires or sunsets

Company at the dying of the light

Courage in togetherness

Serenity in the night

Wisdom to let the day breathe

And let a new dawn bring a

new hope and fresh flight or fight

Hang to the left

 Hang to the left

Do you hang to the left

Or to the right he said

My father that is

And then he said

If you are a man then

Or that is what I heard

That is the gloss, the filter I put on everything he was

Back then

It was because I was trying to be a man

Whatever that was

When I was twenty something

So I drank and smoked a pipe

But I was just finding out who I am

Or was

But even that is always changing

Or perhaps never is

Because you can never see your whole self

The hand that holds the mirror

Is always hidden

Only in glimpses and snatches of other people

Can we realize who or what we do

Or are

That is why we must keep sharing

Stories and experiences

And keep listening

Seal of approval

 It was a Saturday afternoon when I heard you

You were calling from inside my wall

I thought at first how absurd to

Be stuck inside a place and then call

But of course that's what it is to be human

And I was a child once too

I climbed to the top of  an apple tree

And then didn't know how to

Climb back down for before tea

So I just waited up there for hours

Until my mother came looking for me

Then she encouraged me to climb down

The same way I got there

So I thought crow, crow what do you know

We can all get stuck in places we don't want to be

So Crow, crow what do you know

I'm going to try and rescue thee

Well it didn't work out quite like that

I actually sat down in my chair after gardening and 

Then heard it cheap cheap

I thought oh no there's a bird stuck in my chimney

What am I to do?

So I phoned up Shepton Vets

They suggested I phoned up Secret World

So I phoned up Secret World. They weren't in

So I left a message: there's a bird stuck in my chimney

Saturday afternoon about 4 pm

I should before going any further

That I've never had a fire in the fireplace

It's a rented property and they told me 

I wasn't allowed to, which I thought was unfair

I kind of see why now, but really it would be

nice to.

Anyway the chimney, I was told was sealed and

I couldn't open it. So I never tried

I never even used to come in this room

Well actually I did at first

Nice people

 Hammon was an ex dominatrix

Used to like to dominate

Now only in the Matrix

Cool dude 

Shades

Jacket like a Rapper

All wrapped up in himself

Like a Christmas Papa

Ama was a suplimatrix

But they were both really nice people

living death

 There are some things

I can't live without

Some Things slide off my spoon

And somethings I can't give any doubt

You know I want them like the moon

Oh but if you you've gotta live

Live now

Because

It's gonna be over too soon

Takeaways

 Give me the end

I want to know how it ends

Girl in the Chinese restaurant

I want to give you what you want

I want to know your name

I have a flame burning for you

The spring rolls too

Screw into the chop suey

And where am I left in

The whole milieux

I ask you how to be a writer

Send in your work

You seem to know what I'm saying

Without me needing to speak

I like that intuition

In one so young

I think we could do things together

Beyond the sun

And Another

 After some weeks of sobriety

I feel more on the level

Life lacks the variety

But I can live like a bevel

Sharper. more crystal

But life is dull as shit

And I long for losing control

Just to forget it

The fact is out of mind

Out of space away from myself

In a hidden place

It's better Ifind to have this

clarity of grace

The AA meetings were a hoot

Well they were great shares

Of dispairs and cares 

And powerful stories

Of rising up from the boot

From the bottom of nothingness

Desperation

That is the hell of an addiction

I do not wish to follow that route

So I keep shovelling coal on my stomach

To keep in suit

Windmill creak

 Corncrake by the lake

Corncrake, Corncrake

Her them quakers quake

Corncrake by the meeting house

Corncrake under the window

Where the widow weeps

Corncrake, Corncrake

Corncrake under the willow

Where the peat sleeps

I know you must be near me

For I can hear your call

But I'm trying just to 

eat my cereal

Snap crackle and pop

God save the Queen

 Oh they threatened to kill me

Oh yes they did

They said it was a mercy killing

Then they said if I didn't want to be dead

They'd put me in witness protection

Well I said that would be thrilling

I'm too tired to be witty you said

And I said I was too

But really what that did

Was kill the conversation

Because you said my stories were too long

You can die boredom if you like I said

But I'm going to finish what

I was saying to you

Then you took the gun

And pointed at my head

And you said 1 and count two

Mandy

 Oh Mandy, you came and you gave me a warning

And then you did it again

Oh Mandy then you banned me

From the academy of all your lack lustre friends

Oh Mandy pour me a shandy

I'm through with whisky and rye

Oh Mandy your artless bank needs a banksy

But he's already run dry

Oh Mandy, I'm thirsty, for the first tea

of the day in a dog worn afternoon

Oh Mandy it's like stealing candy

From a baby for you

Oh Mandy you make it look so easy

Can you teach me how you do?

Oh Mandy

After the flood

Well I couldn't wait for the rain

And now it's so dry

I want it to start again

In a biblical manner

On the bibliotech panner

I'm sifting gold nuggets from the clutter

And the debris

It washed away all I said to you

It doesn't matter

Nothing matters

Before the flood

 I can't wait for the flood

My mind is so cluttered

Like a drainpipe that's spluttered

I'm muttering things

I can't begin or end

I need a friend or a win

But I've only got sin

And I need a purge

From God's lavatory

I need to be flushed out

Of this purgatory

It's a water closet held above my head

I know someone will pull the chain

Dead ringers in the land of the dead

We're all Zombies here

We're all walking around

Like some fungus

Has affected our brains

Oh for the rains

To wash us clean

Unfinished Jerusalem

 I'm in an un-tied kingdom

It's one step above a fiefdom

The pandemic was sunny

We all dripped honey

Of good intentions

Towards one another

Because we were all in the same situation

Let off the shackles

And we're free to the rugby tackles

We have no way to relate other than

One-upmanship

I must do better than my neighbour

We must rise above in rank

Or order

We must fit back into the class

borders

Keep the King at the top

But what you need is money

Look at these whores

Go after it

Jostling for position

But I am no better am I?

I am as greedy as the next son of a bitch

Southern

 Yes we're southern

Southern chickens

Southern humans

Southern slaves

We're not northern

No we're southern

Southern living

Southern waves

Southern people

Southern ways

Give us white bread 

In the morning

Give us fried eggs

In the day

Give us white legs

Without warning

Give us brightness

Of the day

Yes, were Southern

Southern living

In the sunshine

Making hay

Come the sun down

Finds us yawning

How to rake in

What we're paid

time goes

 I don't know where it goes

I don't how it goes

I just know the river flows

From me to you

I don't know how it grows

I don't know how it shows

I just know your garden grows

In greens and blues

I don't know where it goes

I don't know how it flows

I just know time it flies

When I'm with you

Football season

 I went to sleep in a living home

And woke up oh so dead alone

The compressors switched

And whirred around

As the confessors twitched

their words were found

All used like crisp

bags in the town

I believed housed 

loved ones

But they were

lost aground

As ships the land

Had swallowed whole

Like Spring, like Summer

And my soul

Statue of limitations

 If I just stand there

and do nothing,

What am I?

The Statue of limitations

Had had

 If I had had the time

Oh what I would have done

Placed a bet on the sun

Sucked the brow of a spectral cow

Fallen in love with someone

But alas my time has come

And I must be going on the homeward run

It's time to return from

Whence I've come

The clock has ticked away the seconds

down to none

I must leave, must depart

Through the corners of your eyes

And the chambers of your heart

But keep an eye on me

Keep me in your heart

If only a fleeting memory

For it's from there grows

A new start 

May Bug

 May Bug in June

You came a little late

The urge wasn't there to break

Through the earth's gate

Too soon

Well heaven is a June sky

Whether it is a day to live

Or a day to love and die

At least you must chance love

Before the dew drop evaporates in 

The midsummer hot air

The sun is riding high

The flowers are like violins singing

To the bees

The bees are falling drowsily

In the sleep of honey

Into the sea of nothingness

And everything

Young Crow

 Young crow in the chimney flying away

Come down my chimney

Fall down

Don't fall down

Come down my Chimney tonight

I know that you never intended 

To spend so long trapped there

Your nest wasn't best

So it crumbled down

Who are they to say you don't belong

In this town

Oh crow, crow

Where did you go?

And how did you come to be here?

Oh crow, crow

Where did you go?

And how did you come to be here?

Well you started up on top and then you fell down

Well that is just really queer

I think you should have already left town

So how come it is you're still here?

Oh crow, crow

Where did you go?

And how did you come to be here?

Oh crow, crow

Where did you go?

And how did you come to be here?

They say a crows flies straight as arrow

and never meanders no never

Even through the gaps straight and so narrow

He flies like a bird of the feather

Oh crow, crow

Where did you go?

And how did you come to be here?

Oh crow, crow

Where did you go?

And how did you come to be here?

Southern comfort

 the pressures down

the rain has fallen

On the town

It's so appalling

How we drown

In sorrow swollen

Like a swallow

Before its travellin

Friend in my head

 You used to be the same as everybody

You used to walk the same line

But now  you're sailing against the wind

Now you making up for lost time

You used to hold a flame for anybody

They just had to walk into your mind

You used to be the frame for any buddy

A friend to those into crime

You used to have the same name as anybody

You used cry the same game on the dime

You used fake the poker face

And now you just pour the wine

I wish you'd take advice from your long lost buddy

He's calling you on the telephone line

I should have asked you how was your bloody

Nose the last time it shined

Un-tied nations

 I'm an amateur at pentameter

I'm no professional at confessional

Not one's paying me for playing me

It's just a guest appearance in a sitcom

What it's saying to me is try harder

Or don;t try at all

so I shan't,

There's no such word as can't

But there is his Critique of pure reason

It went over my head like a duck

in shooting season

I can't see myself in the pub

It's an anxiety of rubber dub dub

I never wanted it

I'm hoping a bit of inspiration

But we're living in an untied nation

Nothin in the draw, but a lot screws and rubber bands

Oasis are a rubber band you pull them apart and they come back together again

My family are a rubber band stretched over the world

But I'm guessing the tension's too strong

When one of us dies, perish the thought,

Either we'll snap or be pulled back in again

just a collection of loops or strings

vibrating at a common ground

the speed of love and sound

Except back then we were a rubber band ball

and bounced along until it all unravelled

As it must all good things come to dust

And to distant places travelled

Our family of rubber bands

It always was a stretch

Like a game of throw and fetch

Bring back the stick to papa

Wait like a loyal puppy 

At your owner's feet

Give power to the one's you trust and

To those kings of the street

But I was too trusting by far

Hare on a hill

 C There's a man on the Am hill

G Getting away from it C all

C Trying to connect to some Am place and time before the G fall

F Looking to the horizon for C some hope

C Waiting for the C sun to be G rising F

Am For the moon F to let down Am  a ladder F rope

 Am To get outta F here, out Am of this F town

And C he's looking in a mirror G as the night comes C down Fmaj7 Csus4 C

A mirror of who he is,

Doesn't like what he sees

At last the tides slip away from the shore

And I've got to sail on that ship

I know there's nothing left to lose

I'm just like that man on the hill

Waiting for his fill

The Great Now

 The Great now

Is a feeling somehow

Of being alone

But not lonely

The Great now

I can't touch it somehow

I just know that when I'm alone

It's you who I love only

It's the great now

The time of our lives

In moments

somehow your words survive

In the secrets you share

Of your heart and its care

I know I'll miss you somehow

In the great now

You can't step in the same river twice

You can't turn back the clock in this life

So forgive me if I tried to reach out and hold

Something burning hot like love that would scold

And leave me cold

In the great now

But I'll walk on in song

I'll write you a line

From time to time

And if you should think of me

Again somehow

Maybe look me up in the Great now

Black Crow

 Down from a chimney the young crow fell

Down, down into hell

Trapped he thought no more to tell

But then

He heard 

The guitar knell

Ringing like a fire bell

To the rescue here I am

I dug up through the old ash pile

Dead ash tree

Burning flash free

Twigs and mortar fell around

But not a sight of Crow I found

Then a little voice called out

Here I am

Sometimes a bird falls in the land

Will of Odin's none can fathom

Was he real or was he a phantom

Then I had a bird in my hand

Cheap, cheap

It's all so cheap

You thought it was 

The Grim reaper's reap

But from ashes to ashes

No more The phoenix crow

Rose proud

Evil bird

They said

But that was all in my head 

Your nest wasn't the best

I'm gonna help you out of this

I'm gonna clear out all

The twigs and rubbish

You were so Young

So far yet to fly

How could I let you die

Flew out the window

Tried to get out

But it was shut

Black crow

I want to help you

Black crow

Black crow

There was bird in the fireplace

He had eyes that were black as the coal

pierced my soul

I thought 

through and through

You were just the babies

They said you were Cro man

Crow man

Cro-Magnon man

In a sphagnum moss land

Catherine's Wheel

 Sparks in the night

Everywhere around

Like lights in the dark

Across the country through the town

Well will you come on my carousel baby

Will you keep me turning around

Oh there is something that I can feel

When you set off my Catherine wheel

Oh Cathy come home to me Cathy

Come on fly through the whistling air

Where there is a will then there is a way

Oh Catherine turn my wind mill's sails

Make my millstone grind down the grain

We'll bake our sour dough loaves again

And in the morning sail away

Oh Catherine's real, shining like a firework

Catherine take the wheel

And drive our love onto foreign ground

Where we've never been

And they'll never find us

Refining the claws of a Hawk

Into Talons, oh Catherine

deep sea trawling in shallow bed rivers

 Hipsters with sisters

What of the brothers with lobsters?

The mothers with prawns and shrimp BBQs?

What of the artsy fartsy fantasy banksy's

That fill up the treadmills in the gums for life

What of the lettuce fetishists

The cattle protectorists

What of brassica rubbing in the alchemist's allotments?

Give me a fashionista at Easter spring collection

But not summer in the wings of aerodrome convention

Give me necklaces at neap tide and bear hugs in Autumn

By big wall men who fill in gaps in the mortar

Supporting acts in Tarot card decks

Spun like lattices of gossamer spider webs

Not the main act, not the leading role

That takes class and control

Not my be sugared soul

Mary Poppin it on the dance floor

Around her handbag

Even if it was a glad rag

Where have all the hipsters awaiting hip ops gone

Long time in passing

Give me books I can delve in and dip my toes in

Reading like a bunting

A wag tail

I've been a dumb bumble bee dancing around strange flowers

Got hooked on a nectar

And locked up in towers

And it's been a mistake just to follow

Attraction

For that leads to dissatisfaction of soul

The farmers are nursing their night time herds

Weaning off mother's milk

It's been a diary of dairies

And I've not written a word in blood

But I've slaughtered most of the sacred cows

Around here 

And now I'm an outcast of my own design

I'm just getting ready to cut my ties

For none of these people reflect my style

I'm more a man on a hill

 seeing nothing but mirrors 

for miles and miles

I don't like what I see

But I've been lost in a maze

A minotaur's minor tour

of busy buses of summer haze

Rancour no more

 There's a sickness taken hold

And it's going down so deep

It's a sickness of the soul

It'll make the widows weep

It's a chill in the bones

It's a shadow on the peak

The sun's behind a veil

The birds don't dare speak

It's a sickness of the women 

It's all so ego driven

They hold their wands of power

And conduct their coven

They're stewing up some trouble

For that's all they want to do

They can never stop the feeling

Of their fingers turning screws

And changing and altering

And building in their image

A Roman empire

With a single figure

A Queen of the Nile

A pool of crocodiles

You can never out rancour

Those pesky art bankers

"I'm literally going to kill you"

 I'm literally going to kill you

But they meant it metaphorically

I'm metaphorically going to kill you

They said it while looking at me

I'm figuratively going to kill you

They had a small white eye

It fell out into their glass

And I think it was a sty

I hold you accountable for the millions

The millions who have died

I'm literally going to kill you

Like the Lockerbie disaster fell out the sky

Did I remind you of the half men and women

The flesh and the bones

I wish that I could wipe them

From your memory like a clean stone

But saying I'm literally going to kill you

Doesn't help you or I

Just take the log out of your own eye

But you accuse me of the stick in mine

Closing time

 I've got nothing more to say to you

I've dried up

Can't write a line

Everything that I thought was true

Turns out it was all a waste of time

They say the seas are green

And the sky is blue

I can't see

And I don't mind

Even if the whole world came to end

Tomorrow, honey

Sorrow, is just a word in time

So take back all the things I said to you

About love and heart in peace and wine

I loved you right from the start

But now that's just a shadow on my mind

At closing time

All the words that I gave to you

They fall like paper from the sky

In a world of paper airplanes

Paper tigers, paper men, and paper hearts

So easy to write your name on them

So easy to tear apart

And it's closing time

Take the flags from off the lamp posts

Take down the rolls royce angels from their stands

They are wanted no more

They've been thrown out and confronted

By the screaming crowds of the poor

At closing time

Sun at a glance

 Something in the sun on the freshly mown grass

Reminds me of the past

And I don't want to let these feelings pass

It's like the time of my life has slipped away

It's almost half gone and it's near the closing of the day

It don't wanna let these feelings pass

It's all going away

Like sands through the hour glass

I wanna fill each moment

With something I won't regret

Something I won't forget

Like just another day turning to grey

I don't want to let this moment pass

I don't wanna let this time pass

Without having my say

There's something about the sun at a glance

As it lays on the freshly mown grass

That reminds me of more innocent days

That reminds me of childhood past

There's something about the sun

on the freshly mown grass

Dead Angel’s Of the Railway

Clipped winged angels bow their heads in the garden

Sitting there decaying waiting for death

As railway drinkers sip at the tables

They sleep in communion like the argent and sable

With the railway sleepers and the drunk’s breath

Romano nosed bartenders serve out the beers

As from the same cup drink the true ones and pretenders

And radio silence cuts the rabbit’s ears

Across the noiseless countryside time is called

At closing time songs are sung through

And fly past towers of tenderness rhyme

That long ago a railway ran through here

When peat workers trudged their black shoes through snow

But all that’s left now for to show

Is the footprints of birds that dance on their toes

Yet when I have slept, like the railway sleepers

I am the rhine, the south drain, the rain

It is buried deep in a nerve bundle of the solar plexus consciousness

Calling me back there to live

At closing time

When the glasses clink

And the voices fall silent

Who will remember the dead angels in violet?

With their wings cut off as if from shame

Holding eternity in their palms

Old as the peat beneath them

Decaying so quietly without violence

Sometime close to dawn

When the midnight choir grows silent

And the rains pita- patter on the window

Then the shadow of a rush of thought

Has cascaded through consciousness

Like a waterfall of memory

So precious and startling as ice flow

So transmutable as vapours

Which flow around us

That the single state of being

Is as three, a trinity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit

Or ice, water and steam vapour

That before the dawn we are in phase all three

Bones in my head

It was a sad consequence of things I've said
That the bones on the plates
Read like the bones in my head
That augurs, soothsayers and witch doctors
Could not voodoo back the factors
That brought her

Now the doors are closing one by one
And time is frozen like the sun
And I'm calling back to those things
I've said
Just reading the bones inside my head

And he's dancing, he's dancing
He's dancing with her
She's chancing a smile
And he's being a cur
And after a while
The'll retire next door
But he's dancing, he's dancing
He's dancing with her

The following report came on the news
There'll be sunshine and showers
And hail storm blues
And the cats will be falling
And the dogs will be next
But then I'm only reading
The bones in my head

Hitch a ride

 Hitch a ride on a satellite

I'll be over to see you tonight

Otherside of the world is alright with me

Come and see what we have to do

All the animals in the zoo

I'll be flying over to you tonight

Get a car and feel alright

Drive about in the moonlight

I'll be over to see you tonight

It's alright if it's alright with you

 Hitch a ride on a satellite

Get hooked up in the starlight

Crossed our wires, but it'll be alright soon

Get a fly to fly me to the moon

And see you soon

Oh  Hitch a ride on a satellite

tonight

Walking like Buzz Aldrin

Getting out of this cauldron

Coming up to see you tonight

It's love affair on the moon

It's surface has got a boon

Yes it's a town I'll visit soon

With you

 Hitch a ride on a satellite

I'll be over to see you tonight

It's all going to be alright

so soon

Good Ship Shepton

 Shepton, Shepton mallet

It's a place I keep mind

Surely I'll go back there

one last time

Fight with a pallet

Trying to hold my line

Shepton Mallet

Gets you everytime

Is it the Ballet

Or the Opera in the Amulet?

No it's not even the ampule

Nor the lighted cigarette

It's a town like Alice

It's Shepton Mallet

Is it the high street

With its Haskins Skyline?

No it's not even ScrewFix

That peeks over my eyeline

It's the little insignificant

indiscreet town of roulette

Yes, it's our secret Shepton Mallet

Don't tell your friends

Or else the whole world would

Want to come here

To sample the ample armchairs

Of the Art Bank or 501 Bar

But I'm not raining on its parade

Or dousing it in petrol

I just want to fire the man

Who put me under its control

Just flip me, and hit me

Throw me out and quit me

If I see another Whitney Houston

On Whit Sunday talk shit at me

I'm gonna shoot so many holes

In Shepton's litany of hippies

in their shipwrecked ship

And ship shape let slippery

dogs of war slip

Until all the sheep die uncounted

in their sleep

The waters of time

 Can we meet, let us meet again

Down the line

Let us cross back again

The waters of time

Oh memory is a bridge over its river

And I'll cross it and meet you

Again when it's over

Can we meet? Let us meet,

once again down the line

Let us meet and cross

over the waters of time

And time is a river and it flows to the sea

Are we all just lost souls

In its vast eternity?

I wish for a boat to row out to thee

and pull you back in

From time's arms to me

Endless flowers of the night

 If the night's an endless flower

If the starlings cease their shower

If the rain is halved in power

Then we can begin again

Where is it that you've been off to

Journeying around the globe  too

Was it where the Linden bowed so

Low in the morning air

Can you bring the railway sleepers

Oh I wish to rest like them keepers

Of time and souls that roll you

Along their iron tracks of care

Always rolling wheels turning

Pressing pistons steaming, yearning

Like the spring's eternal emerging

Endless flowers of the night

Dead statues

 Brought down by cowards he said

Making a hole in my head

Brought down by fools

Making a hole in my soul

Outward on the plains of the dead

Living the life I had lead

Out there in the rows of Angels

Living the life of which I had aimed for

Lost in a park of tombs

I wandered back into my room

Hoping to find light in the doom

I fell in love with a ruin

I'm living with dead statues

In your stead

I'm loving Angels in the land of the dead

I'm walking miles just to get away

From the dread

That I'm on the road

Angels fear to tread

Schrodinger's cat's vet

 The problem with Schrodinger's cat

Is he is both alive and dead

Schrodinger brought him

in to see me, because he was worried

He kept him in a box you see

I said Hey schro, what's the big idea?

Why don't you open the box

And let's have a look

Well we did and he was dead

I said hey schro, no problem

So sorry bro

But your cat's dead, I said,

But give him a proper burial

But Schrodinger a crying he said

I know he is now

But wait a minute

He closed the box then opened it

And Hey presto, his cat was alive

I couldn't believe my eyes

I said Schro, what's the big idea

Are you some kind of magician

Abra cat abra or are you making some kind of joke?

You switched the box right

In a puff of smoke

He said no joke, and no switch

My cat is black

But he don't have no witch

It's quantum dynamics you

see I'm an only physicist

You mean you're only a physicist?

Just plug up the air holes

Sure as sure that cat's got no soul

But it's still gotta breathe

He said no it don't

It don't matter

When I close the box

It's both alive and dead

And I can't tell which is which

Alright Schro enough about witches

This cat is straight out of hell

It must be a devil or a saint

A miracle worker

and I don't have the skills to

Put him to sleep if he'll only 

wake up alive in the morning

Maybe he's a sleepwalker

and he's not dead, he's just asleep

Stunned

He just gets over-excited when we see him

And he freezes?

Schrodinger's cat's blues

 I've got the blues today

But because I'm wanted dead or alive

My mug shots up

On all the circus posters jive

I'm even in the coffin coughin up a fur ball

Next I'm dancing dixie

On the tightwire highball

It's all a game of chances

And Like a cat I've got nine lives

But he keeps pulling me back

From death when I try suicide

He never let's me die, like there's a law against it

He puts me in his magic box with cyanide

And says now let's see you get out of this one

Cutie

I say who do you think you are?

Dr Frankenstein? Or Schrodinger

Stop acting like a mad scientist

And just give me back my alchemist

I'm way out on a limb here

And you're throwing me bananas 

When your should be calling the fire services

Get a ladder and a rope

I'm stuck up this mad scientist's tree

He's lost his mind

He keeps trying to murder me!

Ok cutie he says just one more thing

This time play dead

I wanna see if I can give your vet

A heart attack to see something shocking

Is it not enough that I'm in a superposition

That I'm vibrating on a quantum string

That Heisenberg thinks I'm a dog

And with him it's a sure thing

He took me to the greyhound track

And told me to start racing

Blossom

 Apple trees in blossom

Pear tree too

It's the season to visit

People watching too

Sit in a cafe, watch the world go by

One eye looks out

The other to the sky

It's too hot to think

In the sun

Too hot turning pink

Melting the road tar

Rain it has come and gone again

It's nearly time

May day comes around

Not even sure

What it means anymore

I'm not even sure

What I've found

I'm just beginning to 

Learn the score

To the music of my life's

background

Friday nights

 It's the road to ruin

It's the lump in your throat

It's this town and all its brewin

Witches in the moat

It's the fast cars

And the showboating

It's the night of endless hex

If I shoot you will you shoe in

Another bottle down your necks?

I have cut all my losses

And walked out on my bosses

I have signed my final cheque

It's a powder keg exploding

In the offices you inspect

It's a holding game of cards

It's a shifting of charades

The scenery has changed

But backstage it's out on deck

I have nothing to give you

But a sorrowful bag of change

I've spent all that I've had 

On making myself so strange

My doctor tells me I am lonely

He tells I'm depressed

But I love you only

And so he loans me 

a bullet proof vest

He says protect your heart

There's a stabbing contest

And a circus of knife throwers

Waiting for target practice

It's a Friday night in Shepton

The boys with their toy cars are out

The girls they hang around them

Because it's all about the shout

I'm too shy to stay there

It's a young man's world

I prefer my guitar to

Having my heart broken

By another girl

Still that is what I tell myself

As I hear the traffic pass

What else is there but

To wait inside 

Wait for time to shatter

The glass

The children of men

 Drifting off into the slumber of the years

I ask myself the number of my fears

And what keeps me tethered onto this earth

Besides the woman my mother who to me gave birth

The chilling facts

Recall the acts which monsters

Hide beneath their beds

And bring out to read about

The dominion of the children

And they take down the giants

They conquer what cannot be

The missing part of childhood

or latent homosexuality?

What offers up the reasons for the curse

Than the single seasons

Time must rehearse

And flog until its dead

The lifeless corpse of the horse

But what shall we make of reckoning

Each life affirming jerk

The freedom of the sperm is grounds

For marital divorce

That women are not free

We know of course

But what freedom have men, who are chained

Locked down from their emotions

Free to act, without come back

Yet attacked by religious institutions

Yet all responsibility rests with women

Whether for the men or the children

They awake, and push and pull the universe

Yet cannot tear its fabric

That is their curse

And men's curse is perhaps inverse

Without real power, in the house

In the hour

Their recourse is in destruction

Of course

And they burst and they flower

But to create is only our

Saving grace

In the seed of art

Or in the seed of sperm

But womens' creation is far greater

In opposition

They must harbour and hold

And nurture the creature

While men must demand to be heard

Through impotent rage

Or on the potent stage

They choose to tread

Because no woman hears their voice

Their mother instead

Or has their sister read

Their books or listened to their choice

As the daughters assassinate their fathers

And the sons blot out their mums

All this turns in the mill of life

And time like a steam roller

Rolls on

It only leaves the impression of the man 

And woman

Locked in a love pose

Flattened on the tarmac road of eternity

Like murder victims

Drawn in chalk outline

Burnt shadows

While over their bodies

Run the children

Who will themselves

Catch up with time in the end

Monthly

 March or die, April or bust, May travel West, June eat the dust,  July there's no rest, even in August, September is another test, October turns to rust, November wear a vest, December is a lust, January go away, February is just.

Welsh Rugby

 

The Welsh women's world rugby team were lined up ready, they kicked off, scrummed and mauled, rummaged around in their handbags and the winger was running to cross the line for a try when suddenly her waters broke and she went into labour. Almost immediately a young women's rugby star tot was born. The babe was passed from arm to arm as somebody had lost the rugby ball and the rest of the game went off without a hitch. I am a fan of women's rugby, but I draw the line at kicking babies into touch, that is a cruel sport and could end in ruin, or certainly a lawsuit. 

It was a veritable blood bath, the women's rugby match against England, in sympathy at least three other pregnant players began giving birth to even more mini women baby rugby players, and they multiplied. Soon the whole crowd in an outpouring of estrogen married to progesterone were giving birth to babies, everywhere women and babies seethed enmasse, the commentator really did not know how to describe the scene of indescribable carnage but also unbridled joy and emotion in a place no man was allowed anymore. A seen of almost holy miracle. The immaculate conception and immediate birth of children from all the fifteen aside rugby team.

Shark attack

 The boy took his father to the hospital with a broken arm after a shark had slapped it with its fin

They were able to cast it for him

Not only did his arm star as an extra in Holly oaks , but it was also used as bait on my next shark fishing trip.

Finally the hospital gave the father a cast of his arm from plaster of Paris, as plaster of London was all sold out in B and Q. The Venus DeLillo was unhappy because she was armless in Seattle, So she settled on a settee in Gettysburg, an armchair in Mac Donald, and divan in Burger King. The one armed bandits of New York and New Mexico were highly jealous.

Plasterers of London and Paris unite, we're all getting plastered tonight

The Fisher king

 I met some fishermen in the showers

Of April on the pier

They said March or die

I said how can I

When you've covered my DNA queer?

You've queered the pitch

You've tarred and bitch

You men of roads and gears

You've rolled my soul

In stones and potholes

And I've come up covered in

leers, jeers, 

I've risen up like a mountain

But my head has been eroded down

And now all that's left is a reptilian husk

Of the royal stem which once wore a crown

I met the fishermen

They said do you like fishing?

Are you going fishing

Well are you?

In Weymouth, I said,

some do, he said

He had this sweaty loss on him

This punter's cruelty

Of the King Arthur in Glastonbury

It's like a sickbed

They use a Noble name

And the customer's think 

Somehow through Osmosis

Or through drinking the beer

That they've absorbed some of his might

And right and Majesty

But it's built on a poisonous well

And they are drinking from a poisoned chalice

And if they're looking for the Holy Grail

Well they've found a town called Malice

I don't think Glastonbury is well

Down there it's a fishing port

It's a hard place, it's a cruel sport

Fishing

They would be better off calling it

The Bait and Tackle

As that's all they end up doing

Trying to catch each other out

Laying traps for unsuspecting fish to bite

I met some fishermen 

and asked them how they bait their fish

They said we can use maggots, worms, flies

Mosquitoes

Depends on what size Fish

The prize determines the size

Of insect

I said how did you learn to bait like that?

They told me years of practice

And night school

We had to join a guild

The FOMB

The FOMB I said pray what does that stand for?

Fear of mis-baiting? I suggested

No they said it stands for

The Federation of Master Baiters

Oh I said you must feel great pride

They nodded and carried on

Of ladders and dreams

 You reach the top

But you can't break through

So you get a job 

On the wrecking crew

Glass ceilings 

And waterfalls

All breaking up

When you swing your ball

You're climbing up

The ladder with the angels

Some are climbing down

With broken wings

We'll meet them on the ground

When the choir sings

Of heady stuff

Of being enough

Of what fire brings

Courage and love

Of human things

Of beggars and fools

And Heroes and kings

Morris-men

 Who are you to say what's right?

Morris man with your bells so bright

Jingle, jangle, tingle tangle

Me up in your music tonight

He was the son of a Morrisman

He danced all night to the band

And kissed the girls in the caravan

He was the son of a Morrisman

Don't sweet talk me pretty

Or sit on my kitty

I've been hitting the sticks

Since the age of Six

And I'll dance you to heaven

If you given me seven

Or give me five in a pat-a-cake jive

I'm the sweet talking son of a Morrisman

It's the bells and whistles

It's the great charade

Of the chardonnay 

And the grape parade

We're dancing today

Like it's the first of May

I'm 19th son of a Morrisman

My father's name was Morris

He drove a Morris minor

His father's name was Boris

He was Major then a miner

In the Russian steppes then the gulag

Then he did the goose step

In the jet lag rag

My great grandfather Morris

was a florist in the Dutch colonies

Not far from the forests of the Aborigines 

Where he danced with the originals

And learnt all the Abba signals

Beat his sticks upon the glass

windows of widows

A cruel magic

 He is gone, 

the magician Jonny Miller

It was his final trick

A disappearing act

Like he pulled a rabbit out a hat

But it's second hand news

It comes to me like a rumour does

Whispered

Gossip,

Shock

Most things appear and vanish

Like that

But she is the magician I know

On a sunny day she can make it snow

She is a keeper of secrets

In the sacred circle

It comes to her, easily

Like a hotline to God

To the Gods

I'm always praying

It's like a condition

Or my conditioning

She never does,

as I'm aware

And yet she is closer to

The holy crew

She just lays it bare 

on the table

Her cards

and wins the lot

Like a sweepstake

I have to take

 a back seat

 in the auditorium

Of her dreams

And mine

While she's on the stage 

she shines

But to me she shines more

when off it

She's got the magic

touch for sure

I'm off stage left

Looking to score

a draw

On her fiery breath

But the world is cruel

And fame is a test

And if you seek it

It may destroy

What soul you have

left

You saw yourself in half

And tie yourself in knots

All to feel the audience

Laugh

Or cry

Or cough

Or hold their breath

Or scream or shout 

Or cheer

And it will kill

You in the end

For there's magic

Over here

It's getting late

 It's getting late

Too late to care

It's getting late

And I want you there

But I can't hold a gun

and watch you stare

Me in the face

While I leave you bare

It's getting late

Too late to care

All the people in their houses

With a little hope

Watch as the wind blows in their blouses

Like a sail snapping rope

It's getting late and 

I don't know

How to change the cards

I show

I'm losing ground

It's stalemate

It's getting late

Too late to go

Upon witnessing a young man in Shepton Mallet trailing behind

 Walking with my bitches

bitches, bitches

Keeps giving me stitches

stitches, stitches

Cos they walk so fast

fast, fast

I can't hold up my britches

Britches, britches

My pants fall down

down, down

All over town

town, town

So I try and them pull up

up, up

But my bum it itches

itches, itches

I trip over my hoes

hoes, hoes

And over we goes

goes, goes

And we land in dem ditches

ditches, ditches

So now I don't walk with them bitches

bitches, bitches

But I work at the old people's home

home, home

Where they walk more slowly

slowly, slowly

Come and visit me homey,

homey, homey

5 in a row

 Bombs in west Bradley 

5 bombs

In a row

Molotov bread basket

Undertaker 

I was an undertaker 

He was an over taker

Who reached heaven first?

There was a speed limit on the stairway to heaven 

But an escalator down to hell

Treason , the reason of a tree. When arguing with a tree it's always a good idea to suggest it be treasonable and to stop barking orders at you. Do trees actually like to be weed on by dogs? They may just see as a bit of watering and quite like it, instead of getting mad. You can't assume all trees are untreasonable. 

A canny mason

 He was a canny mason

Very good with stone

He even carved a basin

For my very home

 I knew him as a greyson

But he soon showed other tones

He wasn't just in shades of grey

But black and white and brown

Oh he was a canny mason

And built all the buildings in town

Carved and hewn the face on

Every facade of regal crown

Mermaids on the balustrades

Lions on the coronet

Ask him not of gunpowder plots

He'll likely hew you from the neck down

But buy him a sack of wine

Let him weigh the stone in his palm

He'll tell where and how to place it in

The wall 

Then they'll all fall down

Inspiring work

 The steeple jack came

What work are you in?

I'm in spires, 

oh how inspiring, I'm an aspiring steeplejack you know

Oh really? What line of work are you in?

I'm a roofer, I only do flat roofs,, but I need to branch out

Extend my self

It's about the elevation, 

well only do it if you're inclined

Oh I am inclined, very much inclined

I look up at the church roof and think

That tower needs something

Oh and I don't mean cornices or more gargoyles, no sir

It needs a little je ne sai qua

A spire?

Exactly

A spire to reach to the stars

To touch God's hand

Well let's not get carried away

Say are you busy these days?

Well, I'm running from one spire to another near enough

Oh a steeplechase?

You could say

Well I know of a church, the damn spire just fell off

Crack and came spiralling down

Caught a parishioner totally unawares

Mrs Beeching , terrible thing

She never did have a head for heights

always afraid to climb the tower's spiral staircase

and Now she has spire for a head

Not very inspiring, 

She has a steeple through her temples

She finally got the point

Unfortunately it struck her too late

Well the thing is the cockerel hit her first

She heard this whirring

And the weather vein span down like a helicopter

It had fallen off

North, South, East or West, it kept spinning

She was dizzy with which way the wind was blowing

Then?

A golden hen, finally came home to roost

Well you should be careful not to keep all your eggs in one basket

My dear man it was a cockerel, not a chicken, a golden cockerel

My wife is into cocks too,

I beg your pardon? Cock-a-toos?

No cockerels, the weather veins

She paints them, gold leaf you see, we do a double act

I take em off their high perch, and she gives

Them a new lease of life

That's rather gilding the lily isn't it?

Well, it's rather gilding the cock

Ah the man with the golden gun

Oh your veins are so glorious I see

weather they are or Whether they are not

Is not for me to say

She's the weather-woman 

and I'm the steeple jack

Actually Perry the stone mason is my name

Though I'm also into flying buttresses

And my wife is Jemima the gold leaf artist

She's up at the crack of dawn, painting cockerels like the sun

So you are into butts and your wife is into cocks

Well good day to you sir!

Australian Film

 a Possum's creed

a cross between Muriel's Wedding

and Assassin's Creed,

a very popular Australian dram/action film

Flounders in Flanders

 I saw her there in a chestnut chair

She looked like a widow with willow stair

She stared out the window, she was hidden windrow

That billowed and bellowed her pain pellets spare

I saw her there like a crooked chameleon

All bent like a stick insect changing her feeling

Coloured hair like a maniac, bold and brash as an anorak

Crazy psychology of the sociopath's lair

I saw her there she stopped me in the doorway

All guardian of the universe her sphere of blue shit

Like a globe of becoming a purple mist succumbing

Combing the beach for wasted lives they have quit

I saw her there, but she is a little hitler

In charge of nothing but a dream that is wished

Who knows what to believe in, I don't think odd or even

Are numbers she's gambled on just bad waters fished

Her name it is Mandy, her banks they are sandy

Shores where her ship is scuppered and wrecked

So she started a bar for Amazonian pirates

And she banishes all those not on her wish list

Just ask for your hard hats, there nothing is stolen

Just ask for your dry tongues, just ask don't speak

Unless you've been spoken to by the Queen of the showroom

Just a Caribbean dive full of drunk fools and old fish

Iranium Uranium

 Iranian uranium

Oh it hurts our craniums

What the fucking hell is going on?

We've been living under an illusion

That our human rights are God given

Or at least preserved by a universally acknowledged law

But none of that is real, we're just lucky to be

On a small island that helped give birth to a Titan:

America

What saves us from obliteration is just the King's coronation

That had a lot of pomp and circumstance to it

That appeals to a dictator like Trump

If we weren't historical winners, white, westerners

Then certainly our lives would matter less

We can be living in this peaceful bubble

Until the war outside knocks on our door

Ultimately it's about survival,

Who will get the good stuff

The reality is America are not afraid

To go after what they need and want

Trump will be considered a prophet

A martyr

A winner who won a war and took oil off a regime of low to middling power

Before they became too powerful to resist

What makes me sick is saying he is a religious figure

That God is on his side

Well strength and power is

Perhaps a belief in God and the Christian way

Helped

However, framing this as a crusade

To Christianize Iran seems wrong

Really because of live and let live

However their regime abuses it citizens

Iranian uranium hurts my cranium

Machete

(Heard accompanied to the sounds of a machine clanking

and chomping, cutting and pressing, slashing

pressure release in steam and rising and falling, crashing 

metal kettles and plates, like a steam train that can't be late

a machete machine)

 I only want to tide things over

Oh I only want a bride to be a wife

It's not just a four leafed clover

I only want a knife to cut through life

Oh so won't you be my machete

Match eatty like a parrot or a kite

always flying over my shoulder

Always on the lookout for some strife

Oh Machete, match eatty, cut

and slash through the undergrowth

You can cut a path through the trees

You can cut, cut unto ourselves

Get us free from our ties which bind

Oh Match eatty Machete

Cut my hands off and use them as ashtrays

I'll be your gorilla in the mist babe

if you'll only give me your kiss

I'll even waive my rights to habeas corpus

Corpus christi stigmata of the wrist

Run a nail through my feet babe

And hang me up on my own crucifix

Oh match eatty machete

Cutting through the hearts on the list

What am I to do?

 What am I gonna do

Now you say

"I don't love you"

When my whole world feels

As if it's over

Oh yes it may be true

That I can live without you

In that case my lonely days are over

Still what am I meant to do

Now you say

I don't love you

Must I wander forever

The whole world over?

I'm shooting arrows into rainbows

I'm blowing bubbles at volcanoes

I'm throwing boulders over waterfalls

Just to see if I can shatter their illusions

Oh what am I to do

Now that you say

I don't love you

Am I really a hopeless bum 

On the sidewalk?

Well that's how you make me feel hun

So you better run, if you see me coming

I'm a son of a gun out for some hunting

And I'll shoot you too, if I see you running

Just tell me where to aim my gun

I'll be coming for you

Oh What am I to do?

April fool

In jest - many a true word is said ingest:

You banter, I canter

You chaff, I chafe

You fool, I muel, and mew

Said in fun, I reach for my gun

You tell a gag, I reach for the rag

Disgrace, lose face, egg on my face

Just jape, I try to escape

You jive, and I barely stay alive

You make a joke, and I am like a whiff of smoke

You jolly broom man, drunk on life

I pull out my brolly, wait for rains' strife

You josh, I am flotsam and jetsam awash

You kid, I bring the sacrificial lamb of I am

And it's just a quip, but I equip myself with weapons and armour

I'm readying for war games

You wisecrack, and I break, I snap

I'm on the edge, like Iran

My finger hovers over the button

Just then a leaf falls from a tree

And upsets the balance between you and me

yuck you say, get a sense of humour

I was only pulling your leg

In jest you say that I shouldn't care

this jibe, or that haze,

When you jeer, a tear falls from my eye

When you mock, the grace of God in shock

I shake at your rag, tag rally, 

Laughing down the alley

Always on the razz, 

But which is the better way?

My quiet, way, of restraint

Or to let loose every day

In bitterness or not to rib, 

To ridicule, tease, it's mean

But what if you don't fit in

To society's mould

Then how the world unfolds

In caricature, of prophets

lampoon the man in the moon

parody, and get carted away

For being a bit mad,  a little loon

satirize as a Satyr , never satisfied as a martyr

Has to always go that one step farther

To prove your point

And have the last laugh

Story

 There should be some kind of story

There's history

There should be herstory

and then mystory

And yourstory

And we combine them all to tell a story

And remember that it's only a story

That it's all just a story

And that it doesn't matter ultimately

Or that it matters deeply

But we can let it go

Because it's all going

and it's all coming round again

Where does the story end?

It never ends

Because it never started

Or it always ends

Because it's always starting

Again and again

To be retold

Detective Tight Ladder

 I was getting my tools together to go

Window cleaning 

When I noticed a pair of tights in my ladder

How did they get there I thought 

I have no explanation

Had I lent my ladders to John, the cross-dressing, transvestite window cleaner?

No, that was last week, he had given them back, ladderless

Tight-ass the builder also borrowed them

He could have got his tight ass stuck in them

But did he wear tights?

The plot thickened, and so did my porridge as I stirred it and pondered

Pondered and stirred it

Then it hit me, there was that lad the other week, he had borrow it for his

Amatuer dramatic show, they had been building the scenery and erecting 

and painting the backdrop

Aladdin tights, that was it, a cross between the Arabian nights and Billie Eliot

So in the end he had a ladder in his tights, 

And I had his tights in my ladder,

The mystery was solved

Orc world

 Fin estre - end of the world

Fenetre  - Window

Orc estra = world of orcs

An Orchestra of Orcs

A Romance for Orcs in three movements

High and dry

 I really feel like I'm in a living tomb

Encased

Self-sealed, hermetically

Like a hermit

Waiting for what?

High tide?

For the river to rise and bring me new life

Just on the shore line

Lapping at life

Dipping my toes in

Wading in the shallows

Afraid to venture into the deep

To swim, push out and explore

Up here I'm high and dry 

Strung out on a washing line

Caught in a fishing net

In my own tackle

My own hooks and bait

I've caught myself

And got tangled up

I need to cut loose

Break free and just swim

Escape

There is nothing for me in these waters

No life or hope of interesting work

Maybe Bristol, if it's doesn't drive me berserk

The Emporium of Past lives

 Pandering to Mandy

Why do we pander to Mandy

Why do I meander and pander

Like a river of pandemonium

Into the mandated Mandy kingdom

Of utter strangle hold dominion

She has on social currency and fuel

Like in the strait of Hormuz

She's got her claws around it

Choking, she's about as crazy as Trump

In her utter blindness of vision

No multi-channel options like Netflix television

Just a Mandy towers, mini Mandy apprentices

To carry out her bidding

A pit of vipers, a stinking compost of rot

And corruption

A seething bed of vice disguised 

as community relations

A necromancy of diplomacy

Casting evil spells from a witches coven

Getting her evil elves and fairies

To dance around her sacrificial table

Oh Heathen whores who unholy dance

Burn, burn in the fires of chance

Kitchen utensils

 Spoons: they can dish it out, and they can take it.

Bowls: they can take it, but they can't dish it out.

The meaning of Brief encounter

 Perhaps the film is an answer to the question:

Where in this clothes shop do you keep the underpants?

Briefs on counter

Badger sett free

 I'm so black and white

Black and white that's me

I only see right and wrong

The grey shades don't occur for long

I wanna live like a colour TV

I wanna trade in my coat

I've been picking up my giro

On the unemployment lines

Benefits to badger

Wildlife welfare cheques

They treat me like a charity case

On the breadline, I wanna break their necks

All the money goes on car parks anyway

These well wishers, it's true

But why don't they just try living for a day like we do

On the Badger Breadline

Hard lined, and hard nosed sniffing out grubs

From under a rose

What I like I'm stubborn until I get it

I'm unimpressed by their cameras

watching where my Sett is

How would they like it if I set up shop outside their home and started filming

everytime they come and go?

Noting what they eat and when and even every time they take a shit

There's no dignity in it

Anyway I'm changing, the emperor's changing clothes

I'm going to paint myself a rainbow badger

See what Chris Packham and his wildlife crew

Will do

They'll probably pull their hair probably re-write natural history

They'll put it down to badger stress from living on the breadline

He didn't turn grey, just for badgers, he turned multicoloured

Like a TV with its wires crossed like a satellite on the blink

Like the moon shone a disco ball of sparkling strobe lighting

And I just let myself go and danced like Grease Lightning

I just slicked back my rainbow locks and rocked around the BBC garden

I just let rip my rainbow ship and it sailed off into the horizon to harden

I've had enough of living like a pauper

I'm gonna live like Cindy Lauper

Because Badgers just want to have fun

Badger breadline

This one's going out to all my 

mustelids out there

All my polecats, weasels, stoats,

All my skunks from other mothers

My pine martens and otters

Keep it real brothers

Sacred is the Murray mint and humbug 

I'm just another badger on the breadline

I'm just another badger on the breadline

I'm just another badger riding the badgerline

It's from Frome to Rome and it is on time

I've got to get myself together in time

I'm just another young badger living on the breadline

You wanna roll with me, you've gotta take the punches

You wanna eat squirrel well we'll have worms for lunches

We ain't buying our meals from Greggs or subway

We're lookin in fields, digging up dead stumps anyway

We can

Just another young badger on the Breadline

I'm talking about breadline, dread-line, that homeless feeling deadline 

Always on the run, ready, get Sett, go!

Watch the farmer's gun

Always lookin for our badger cave

Better make sure we don't dig our own grave

Living underground, away from busy traffic sound

Below and beyond the blue yonder

When we come out its starlit wonder

Black and blue the heavens chew

Over our immortal questions we ponder

Who was the Holy Badger Father

Head of our Order

The brotherhood of the Badger

Jean Paul Sartre 

Came from Secret World 

Rescued By the Abbot

Came to live in the habit

With Run away rabbits

But he brings them all in

When he gives his sermon

All the animals sing

Hail to the king

Hail to the brotherhood

Order of the skunk

Hail to the Holy Badger

High up Holy Monk

Storm at sea

 Oh your teeth are chattering and your cage is rattling

And I can hear your glass ceiling shattering

Well outside is the rain

And inside is the pain

Of my heart crashing against yours

Like some Viking longboats

Clashing oars

Pandamonium all aboard

This ship of success

Break through the storm

Until you see the sky

Wild wiley loon

Flowing along the cutting edge

Of the blade of your love

That falls like a lightning strike from above

Right into the heart of me

Through the storm's eye

Joke 678

 I went to a peanut farm and asked them to tell me how they grew them, in a nutshell.

Bowsprit

 I wake to the sound of traffic

Buzzing in my ears

Busy bees so hard at work

Goes on and on for years

Where do they get to while I rest?

A few more miles up the mountain

Pushing the boulder as Sisyphus

To reach the eternal fountain

Well I'm down here in my hovel

But I don't bow and I won't grovel

It seems like spit is rain off my shovel

I'm staying home today

I only like librarians

I want a woman who will tell me my book is overdue

And the loan I took out needs returning

I need a woman is it you?

But so long as I'm learning, she'll keep my pages turning

She can't be book burning it's true 

You can beat me with your shoes

You can beat me black and blue

But I only like Librarians

Oh there are all kinds of women in the world

There are secretaries, C-sections, and sectarians

But there is only one who'll do

Yes, I'm talking about you

Oh I only like librarians

It must be the way they files their books

Oh in alphabetical persuasions

Colour coded or by title it gives me titillations

Yes I only like librarians

Oh there are women builders, gardeners and enterprising

dancers, 

Engineers, teachers and farmers too

But beat me black and blue

Cos none of them will do

Oh I only like librarians

Oh there are many kinds of races in the world

There hispanic, European, Black or Asian

But I don't mind the skin tone or colour

It's the way order books shelves that matters

Oh I only like librarians

Throw away love

 I threw away 

Yes I threw it all away

I threw away the love I had

Why I should've taken the good with the bad

But I squandered my chances

On fleeting romances

And I threw away the love had

So don't follow in my footsteps my lad

For you may never love another, it is sad

To say that you have life only when you have a wife

That's the truth, It's no colouring of the truth

I have lived the life and am the proof

I threw away, yes I threw it all away

I threw away the love I had

There aren't any more fish in the sea

 There are no more fish in the sea

Whoopey

Yes they've completely run out

And who do we have to thank?

Oh overfishing the doggerel Art bank

Yes there's no fish in Auchan

Aucan, not any at all

They've all swum up the rivers and stayed

There beyond the waterfall

When they say you can find a fish easy these days

What the hell do they know?

They are basing it on movie reel parades

From when they were in Fish Schools

Back in the 1960s

It's all good

 It's all good

You've got wood in the hood

Wood in the hood, wood in the hood

It's all good in the neighbourhood

It's bad, you got twigs in the bag

Twigs in the bag, twigs in the bag

Well it's all bad, you got twigs in the bag

Twigs in the bag is all bad

Don't fret, you;ve got strings in your net

Strings in your net,

Still a chance you can catch a fish yet

Catch a fish, yet, Don't Fret

Come back home, I'm waiting for Rome

Waiting for Rome, Waiting for Rome

Shepton Shearers

 The sheep shearing season is short in Shepton

So short in Shepton it's stepping on septums

And September is too late for conception

In Shepton the sheep saw a ram

A ramming went Rambo through Rotterdam and

Ramsbottom, a Rutting a tutting a Solitary Sam

Who settled in setts where badgers made bets

On mother hubbard's long laboured lamb

Oh but not to be ham, the pigs they globe trotted

And Forgotten the begotten Ramsbottom Ram

They cried out oh Dad, Delivers us Do

From Do da days dallying daily with dew

Wren story

 Straight as lace she walks

As an arrow down the catwalk

Tartan tinged with mace

The pace of hell and scarper

Escape the rate race

Come out West

Where the air is clear

And all that forgotten grace

Will return to ring in your ear

Sing little wren of the hedgerows

Sing and show that you matter

Sing because the cruel wind blows

And will tear your nest to tatters

Hold on little wren, your home

Is a growing thing

The buds will blossom

The wood will lengthen

And protection come in Spring

Hold true to the hedgerows

And eek out existence here

Raise some young

Or hold the one

That you feel most dear

Tragedy is a circling crow

Hungry for its meal

So fly, fly to the deep hedgerow

Or hide down low in the field

Fakery

 I've always wanted to work as a faker

And I finally got the job at the local fakery

I have to get up at 3 am to start faking.

Friend zone

 I tried to be your friend

But it just seems like in the end

I'm extra cargo, out in Key Largo

Jettisoned from the jetty

No more need of confetti

It was a dream on my head not a crown

But a cloud,

Just vapours of my stale air

Like inside a bell jar

All I saw was you

It's like you obscured my view

And I saw through your hue

Oh January

You're always looking forward to April

That foolish month

That opening of the year

Let's look forward to it together (They said)

We're going to plan to get clear

Together

Each year

(They said)

I'm born looking into the abyss

The darkness

Of a holiness

No idea how to conquer fear

So confused by the dichotomies

Wish my birthday meant a good thing

But it means a twisting changing

Like a rope twined until it's tight

And strong enough

Then doubles up and coils

Almost in a knot

It unravels

But needs the space to do that

That's me

Like cargo in Key Largo

Jettisoned out to sea

Mr Clockwork

Arriva Coco arvis

Stepped into a Tardis

And went back fifty million years

To a land of dinosaurs

And minotaurs

And a place without no tears

It's a steaming jungle out there

It's a kettle full of fish

It's a piece of urban furniture

That is an artwork he can't miss

And flying through directories

The birds have found their perch

In alcoves and near rectories

Where alcoholics go to church

He's bound by books and fakeries

To drown his human woes

But finds in sound bread bakeries

His soul food fills his holes

I should have been his friend

I should have held the knife

I should have shattered the mirror

That would end his strife

But I made a mistake

I've dulled the edge of life

With broken hearted bottle's

Recycled absent wife

I've lived with joy and sorrow

I've come out feeling blue

There'll likely be rain tomorrow

And I've got a hole in my shoe

So if you have a love 

Don't trade it to the winds

For fat or thin, the dove

Will fly and never come again 

Love labours day and night

 Trying to find the words

To say I love you

But nothing seems to come to mind

It's like it was just on the tip of my tongue

But now however much I look I can't find

Searching for it in books I've read

Looking for it in signs on the street

Seeking it in the faces of people I meet

And in the pavements I tread

Nothing seems to work, no

nothing seems to work

The more I seek, the less I find

i'm wearing the same shirt then rolling in the dirt

And I wash away the stains from my mind

Yet nothing seems to work, no nothing seems to work

Even if I say it, you cannot hear

It's like at the pitch of a bat

Oh the dogs all have my back

But it never rings a bell in your ear

Yes my love it labours day and night

At the coal face of your heart

But I can't seem to break the ice

No matter how hard I fight

The hammer blows, they echo below

And up the valley resound

But no matter how I work at it

The right words I have not found

So I'm going on strike

I won't work for dirt

The love I have is in my shirt

It's on my sleeve, I still believe

But this just can't be right

For my love it labours day and night

A lack of diplomacy

 He was a diplomatic diplodocus

Long necked hocus pocus

Ranging around like an evil wizard

On his high horse like a terrible lizard

Willing to wager the country's treasure

All for some new shoes made of Spanish leather

Left the foreign office in a state

Ordered his love like a takeaway plate

Shining his star, but shone it too late

Oh that worrisome bore

Of diplomacy's fate

Beef

 He said I've got a beef with you

I don't wanna beefburger,

Don't wanna commit murder

It's just this thing that you do

You've been out on the tiles

For miles and miles

And now you're drunk as a screw

I have a beef with you

You come here in your state

And throw up on your plate

You shake and shiver and vomit

Can't you try a washer or gromit

Put a cork in it won't you

Yes I have a beef with you

Temp

 Temporary

You're one in a million

Hard to catch

Just like a cloud

You evaporate

Like a ghost

I could walk along your coast

All day

But you're so temporary

Temporary

We all have to grow

Change from the first things we were

I can't tell

If this is heaven or hell

Or if I'm in purgatory

As you're so temporary

Indigo bay

 The river floods with our blood

Like wine

All indigo in hue

And you, I miss you

In the river of indigo

The swollen towers of pride

Have fallen down beside

Its banks

And all the children have cried

All the mothers given thanks

I have no other lover

I want to make you mine

But I don't want to steal you from another

I have only our precious time

There is nothing left beside to say

Except the river between us flows on

into the Indigo bay

Early morning serenade

 It's 3 o'clock in the morning

And I'm making my way to you

Walking along the pavement

Like the bones in a skeleton crew

Fighting to stand alone

Stand on one leg or maybe two

But the grave is calling me home

And I don't want to go without you

Looking forward to the sunrise

Holding my heart in my hands, it is true

Guessing that you'd see in my eyes

That I truly love you

Hoping to God I can see you again

Maybe just as a friend, who knew

The depths of longing and pain

I've gone to over my love of you

Jokes upside down

 I worked at an undertakers once

It was a nice little Urn-er

A tree surgeon - a Tree who likes to cut

off people's limbs

 I put the vet in the car, he was getting old

And I brought to the Cat's

The cat was very nice about it as I sat the vet

on the table and the cat patted his head

And stroking his ears

The vet seemed to like it and calmed down

And then the Cat administered the deadly serum

My island in the sea

 There's a land I want to visit

And it's sinking very fast

It's an island way out to sea

There's a place I'd like to be in

And it's a blinking on a mast

And it's a rocking on the rolling sea

So come and see me on my island in the ocean

Come and visit or forever set me free

For I have no more use of the mainland

Oh that pained land where love just conquers me

I am leaving, I am leaving

On the next ship from the harbour

I have nothing left to tie me here

There's a place where I'll be safe from

All that love's lost and laboured

And I'll not return til I have forgotten her

So come and see me on my island in the ocean

Come and visit or forever set me free

For I have no more use of the mainland

Oh that pained land where love just conquers me

Treasure

 Upon your cliffs I have kissed

Your thrift

Your spare ribs of a ship wrecked hull

I've hugged your skeleton crew

And thought I knew you

Bones and all

But what did I know of

That rattling chest 

Where you keep your heart?

Treasure

Your speedwell fell

fast as a peregrine

Your glass back

Was a waterfall

Broken trembling

Your arms

Were a figurine resembling

And I have fallen

In the spray of your sea cave

And drowned beneath your teeth

Which you keep

Behind the shark's jaw

But I don't think of you

So much anymore

Footprints in the sand

 When you're on your own

And you feel let down

Like a wheel of chrome

In an all white town

When the crows have flown

And your levee's down

And your river's flowed

And the water's brown

Hold out your hand

So you won't drown

He's a walking on water

Wears the thorny crown

Won't you Save me Jesus

I need your help right now

I'm on my uppers

My last supper's drowned

In poisonous wine

I'm wearing the lepers frown

They've all left me to suffer

In this one horse town

When the fear creeps in

It floods your heart

You don't know where to begin

You can't hardly start

I want to believe in him

I want to believe in Art

But my patience has worn thin

Just like the ice on the Dart

I'm walking along the beach

Two sets of footprints in the sand

Then there's only one

I don't understand

Where has he gone?

Why's he abandoned me

In my hour of need

He's off out to sea

But it's not true

I'm not alone indeed

When you think it's only you

You see he was carrying me

To build a boat

 God said to Noah

Build me a skiff

Noah said I might but only if

God said quiet I make the rules 

There's a flood coming you don't know

about, so try to go to boat school

No ifs or buts, here are the tools

Bend me some planks

Curve me some ribs

Look Noah

Just get off your butt

And build me

A bloody big ship

So Noah said right

I've got one bloody night

To build God this boat

Pride

 When you think that you'v got no further to fall

Hold on for you are still attached to the wall

Of pride

And it's a slippery slope, the higher you climb

The further you fall

So try to be humble that's all

Try not to let the seed of greed grow tall

It's ever ready in a fertile heart

Corruption sinks in and the rot starts

But stand guard against chaos and disaster

Brian the ferryman

 Brian the ferryman

If anyone can the ferryman can

I wanted to cross over the river

I wished to cross over the sea

Just so I wasn't a lily liver

And a brave sailor man I would be

I tried it by boat on my lonesome

But I came unstuck at the oars

I didn't know which way to row her

And so I circled right back to the shore

Oh next I thought I would swim it, 

But I put one toe in and ouch

A crab had only gone and bitten it

So I turned round and acted a grouch

Just then I saw my friend Brian

Hi Bry I cried, it was outdoors

Howdy do di me young rapscallion how can I be of help

Well my boat I've scuppered and bare feet suffered

So I shan't be swimming through the kelp

So Brian can you help me to cross over the water 

I can for I'm the ferryman,

I can I'm slippered away

It'll only cost you a farthing

Then you may be on your way

Nearer or farther he wouldn't say

But Brian the ferryman can

Take me across the bay

Canned heart

 Who's that knocking on my window pane?

It's just the wind, again and again

Who's that knocking I thought it was you

I can't find the words

 To say I'm sorry

It's just the wind,

 It'll have to do

Who's that opening my heart like a can

To find another heart shaped man

My heart is just a fruit in a can

For you to eat, eat it up, lover woman

My Caroline

 Oh my baby Caroline

G My peace and my war D Am What do you wish for Emfrom this Red Wine?A7 DTo Compare your blood to mine? [Verse 2] G What if, what if, if so your human woesGcould all amount to the indigo C D Bm EmFlowing river under the bridges of VeniceC Am EmBeneath the Gondolas' oars [Verse 3] C D G C My struggle and my torment Am C D GOh God grant me deathG C My baby Caroline, what a pity, G Dwhat a pity this love is in this cityGWhat a pity