A stranger is an exotic animal

A stranger is an exotic animal

He is not always what he seems

Mysterious from every angle

But look how the moonlight beams

And shines up his face now what an angel

Could a devil he be?

I mean no harm 

he says to me

But really his intentions are

Hard to be see

A stranger is an exotic animal

Tempting yet dangerously

I hold the two in tension

as they battle within me

A Liverpool Lass

 She's was a Liverpool lass

She turned off the gas

Got out of the house

And came down south

To getaway from it all

Getaway from the Mouth of the Mersey

On the ship of education she sailed

And the black sailor paled

She was one of these chips

On the shoulder

That floated

And failed and floated back up again

Into a better life where the little city droids

Buzzed around the town

Her boys were there living better than her fare

She was ambitious

From the lanes of poverty

To her rich uncle Tom Cobely and all

Inherited some money

Tasted the honey

And controlled her aches and pains

With the common strain of marijuana

Forgetting all the human stains

That wash away from her brain

When it rains

Manna from Heaven

Marijuana from Devon

To live amongst 

the unleavened lawns of Shepton

The blue whale blues

 I'm a wailing whale, I've got the blues

They keep coming up throwing their harpoons

They want to strip me of my blubber

Put my oil in a lamp and use my skin as rubber

Oh I'm a wailing whale I've got the blues

I'm a singing blue whale, I'm the blues whale

I've got no Sperm left in the dogger banks

I've got money to burn but no woman to thank

I've got the burning blue whale blues

Oh man I've got sharks all around 

They're taking chunks out of me

I try and shoe them away

But there's too many in the sea

Everywhere I look no safe passage can be found

I've got to move my pod to some sacred ground

But now I'm wailing

Oh a waily whaley

I've got the wailing whaling blues

I'm a blues whale as blues as can be

You should have opened a shoes shop

To see the blue suede sea

Velvet as an underground

Hear the sirens wailing at me

A wailey, whaley whaling blues

I've got the blue whale blues

I'm as big as a bus

And my name is gus

People climb on my back

But they don't get off

I've got the blues, the blue whale blues

Lost in music

 It was all just a little bit too good to be true

All you ever wanted was a bit of attention

The hawkers were out there

Selling tickets to the show

And you needed someone to hold your hand

I saw two horses dancing in the field

And the white horses roll on the ocean

And I don't know which I would rather be

Coming in land with a thousand others

Or just stuck with one single lover

No one is truly free, why would you want to be

Freedom means unbearable loneliness

And  that is no fun

But it is that versus responsibility of family

And duty and honour of marital service

Do what your body is designed for

There's an intellectual struggle for the woman in society

What does it mean to go against nature, God's will

It means the destruction of the world

Recycling Eve

After the book club

I went to the pub

But alone there's the rub

Compared to the bookish affair

It was like a lonely men appreciation society

There were men whose wives were on holiday

Men who'd been single most of their lives

Men with families who go there to mingle

Men who go there just to feel alive

And me why did I go to the open mic night?

Just to listen to the music and enjoy a pint

I had a pizza as well and it was a good evening

Not every night can be the night of your life

And I sort of went because I was talking to you

And you left to go home and I took my cue

Maybe a woman needs a home and a family

maybe a man does too, there's the tragedy

because they've got to be in love or have respect

for each other, I don't have anything else to report

the pub is place to share a table with a friend

When you find men and women cannot truly do that

That they really see each other as sport

Then I'd rather get lost in the music of men

Who are missing their loved ones

Than have be with the one who has torn my world apart

After I offered her sympathy and an already damaged heart

To have it thrown out like the garbage into the dustcart

I remember it's recycling day today

And I haven't put mine out yet 

Over and over

 Sperm in Alium

Know my onions

In the union partnered

Hares on the back of my neck

Leverets on my shoulder

Dogs at my behind

And hounds rolling over

Where can I find

Some peace of mind

While I grow older?

It should be easier

Than being a soldier

But nothing seems to come

Down the river but boulders

Tumbling trying to crush me

And I have to be Atlas

To lift the weight of the world

It's not all bad, it's just the heart

If not for the love of a girl

But That is just foolish art

Dragon busters

 Lend me your ears

I need better hearing

I've got the ear wax blues

I'm hard of shearing

My sheep has been sold

My fleece it is flying

My niece has been bold

She's shera sighing

Into the flannel folds

Of flanders the soldiers go

Hiring steadfast gastropods

To carry Oedipus crying

Eyes like a waterfall

Footfall treading 

Gently on mountainsides

Cursed yet beguiling

Nonchalantly staring

Into the abyss

Caring not whether it's a hit or a miss

As Achilles goes down at the heel

Down in the mouth is Agamemnon

The Scylla talks too loud

Patroclus is yet smiling

and whiling away hours

The centaur sleeps in his cave

The minotaur has a headache

Stuck in his own maze

Theseus is climbing the stairs to save

Rapunzel who got stuck there on

A Greek holiday

It's all a basket case of bread

From better days

But my ear it is listening

To stories

From ear on ear

 I've gone stone deaf

My ear is cold meth

A frozen breath

On a winter morning

I'm a little late borning

The lambs hate fawning

It's a little trait warning

In a sky of blue

Coinciding with my new smoking

It's a box to put a joke in

And forget about until it

Surprises you later

Give it up now

Have you gone deaf to 

Your own common sense?

Inner voice

Designer love

 Give me designer love

Cut to fit me like a glove 

no tearing seams

No fraying themes

That lead me down

The wrong cat walks

Displaying like a clown

My crown of dreams

Give me designer love

That I can wear and hold around me

But the wind has blown my cloak off

I've been the standing joke of

The town, the clown

Who cared for one unshared

By one

Or two or none

I've come full circle

In the whirlwind

Of chance

And ended up in France

With finance

but no fine romance

Only cattle fed

Catastrophe

But I'll let that be

Because designer love is not for me

I don't need her anymore

 I don't need her anymore

She was the ghost next door

I don't need her anymore

I've got the sky

I don't need to make a fly

Find out if it can die

I don't need to be that guy

Who squashes the poor

What is there anyway

But a little bit of fibre to say

I don't need her anymore

I've got my shoes

I don't need her anymore

I can walk across the floor  

over fields of corn feeling the blues

There's no tree to say goodbye to the sun as

it leaves the sky

I don't need them anymore

I've got their leaves

I've got the shadow on the hill

I've got the wind that blows so chill

I don't need her anymore I've got my guy

I've myself and he's got me

I've got his back and we are free

I don't need them anymore to lecture me

I don't need her crafty ways 

nor her knickers or her braids

I don't need them anymore, I've got me

I've got windmills turning round

Let's me know the storm has come to town

I don't need her anymore I've got the fields

And the fields are very pretty

Oh the fields are very good

I don't need her anymore, I've got me

There's the shadow on the hill of trees

So green and still

I don't need her anymore, I've got the trees

I don't need her silly games

And the way she chases flames

I don't need her anymore 

I've got me

I've got all I could wish for from the sky

But it's a bore

I don't need her anymore

I am free

I've got king arthur's cakes a burning

I've got Jerusalem's sheiks a turning

I've got India that's returning for the summer

I've got Noel Coward plays

I've got all of this charade

I don't need her anymore

I am made

I need not be so weak

And turn the other cheek

I don't need to stand and speak 

on a platform neither

It's all the sudden geek

In the keys of Melanie streak

Who strikes the vulnerable meek

I've got platters

And the powder on her cheek 

and the lines when she does speak

I don't need her anymore

I've got the ivy

I've got the storm clouds coming in

I've got the darkness before it begins

I don't need her cheeky grin

I've got the maple leaves

I don't need the high expense

Of sitting on her fence

And waiting for her to kiss me

I've been waiting there so long

That I must surely have gone wrong

And I've written many songs

About my labours

It's not easy to confess

When your life is such a mess

You have to grit your teeth and guess

What the right move will be

Do you shake your head and sigh

And look up into the sky

For the there might be a fly

who's coming over

There are ferns and there are thistles

There are green leaves and penny whistles

There are country roads that I can walk down

And I hold no man to account

For the costs will ever mount

And I am the one to blame

For all my misdeeds

But if I shamed her or me

In any way or shape that might be

I say forgive me,

Oh forgive me

I did it because I was blue

Because I wanted to be loved too

By the beauty that I saw shining before me

It was fair, but I was square

I have no care for her auburn hair

Or her eyes that that seem like dark coals

Burning for me

It was to get lost in the charm

That was her ghost

Yes she left me by the post

But she still lingers

I wondered if I was wrong

To have fallen in love with my own song

But I can't be anything but strong

While she is missing

My ever guiding star

The way she parked her car

And I thought that it was

Somehow an invite to me

I tried to send her many letters

Explaining how I would get better

by the time she cut her fetters

And fell close to me

But I'll be waiting on a dream

For that is a movie scene

And it never plays out

In this reality

There are fantasies and dreams

and causalities and streams

of consciousness that mean

You have to leave her

For it'll never do you any good

To try and be like Robinhood

And rob the rich to feed the wood

That's full of poor men

If I try to be like him

Well we know who's going to win

I have to just be like me and suffer

The consequences

We're all inside our own sweet heads

Well this is life

And we're not dead

It's just a point in time instead

While the river is still flowing

Useless

 I don't get anything but criticism

From him

He says I'm useless

Always abuses

There's nothing but cynicism 

from him

It's how he sees me

He only leaves me

High and dry

and cut and loose

And in the folly of the noose

I don't get anything from him

But criticism

He makes me feel

Sort of undervalued

And what I have

Is not worth an unalloyed view

And I've alluded to it before

He thinks I'm useless

Can I be useless?

 I push the iron door of work and worth

and like a horse I paw the ground

I'll leave my footprints there

I carry the baggage of family exposure

The luggage of history and all the composure

But really what do I have but criticism?

Yes I am useless to him

And he's useless to me

He has his own sense of priority

And his own needs beyond me

I don't think I need to bother

With another little cup of tea

In a meeting with my father

It just goes down the drain

like the sea

He says I'm useless

I say why worry?

What use is worry to me?

As the human tide of epidemics

And all the lies and cosmetics

Society is damaged

And I can't fix it on my own

But I can pick up a phone

And call a friend

It never ends

But I'm useless

and the only thing that matters

Is that I'm happy

being useless

I can't fix a pipe to save my life

Or clean a drain

Or find a wife

I can't seem to explain anything I mean

with the right words

I find it quite absurd that this should be the life of a bird

Such as I, such as I

Who just wishes to look at the sky

Who just wishes to walk in the trees

Be in nature and it's possibility

Because it's useful doing absolutely

Nothing at all

I don't want to have a great big job

and a ton of money to end up a slob

I don't see myself in futures stocks or shares

I can't even explain to you or him

How it came to be that I got thin on

breathing fresh air and just living wild

I feel that it is the time of day

When sundown hits the long highway

And the roads all claim to be leading nowhere

back home

and the sky written by the clouds

And the earth it is crying loud

Oh I'm useless, but I'm happy that way

I'm not sure what it is that they want from

Is it a new oven or a brand new telly?

Is it the modcons or the latest thing in fashion

You think I could be like someone else

And sit upon the fence or the shelf

I'm useless for the rest of my days

I don't feel much like paying money

There's the shadow of an affair and it's not very funny

I never had much cause to gripe and groan

there's always another road to walk down

There's always another stone to turn around

Another stile another hedgerow

What do you find on your long walks together?

That the world is small, we're all birds of a feather

We're all useless to each other until it matters

And What does it, yes what does it, what does it really matter?

What does it really matter anyway

 

Path through the glades

 So the shadows have been shifting and there's

A way through the wood

And what I understand

Is the path must be good

Not Hailing away to each song that's sung

From the tree tops

The killed birds

By the woodsman are hung

And fallow deer rest 

In the hollows and glades

And I will visit there best

On some holiday

It feels a vest of armour I wear

When the screaming crows hollar

From their self built blockade

I'm used to the figure

Or the grand larceny ball

Of colourful folk

In their shades at the hall

In their tokens of blessed

Sovereignty calls

I awoke to the woke

I lay down with the laith

That turned me a yoke

That I shall carry as I path

A new path through the forest

Where once I knew graves

New shafts of daylight

Have broken the shade

Rolling heads

 Before I knew you

The walls were closing in

The heads were rolling 

From the shoulders

Before I knew I called to the trees and they

Answered me

Now the strumming of the wind

Leaves me cold

Counting roads

 Counting roads 

In my head

I get confused

And mislead

North Virginia

Tennessee

South Carolina

Kansas city

Mounty mother

Wears a shirt

Beaver skin lady

In the dirt

Chasing crazy

Spiral paths

Who knows where they lead

This map's a farce

Counting roads

On my toes

No ones knows

Where they goes

I'd like to be happy

But stone the crows

I'm only counting roads

laissez-faire

 The clocks have run down on the night

on the town

the train has run out of steam

And I wear a frown

But I can be clown

For a moment of fun and good cheer

would they be there 

For the heart and the hare

If their own lives

didn't allow such laissez-faire

I remember you in the grand hotel

Before the storm had swallowed us whole

You wanted the fun, but not the gun

It was just a little bit too

Silver tongued snake to tell

The taste of ashes

I've been eating ear waxes

And the lost words

In lost conversations

Everything fell in the grand hotel

That night when your

love was not mentioned

And the sanguine hearts

Who falsely proclaim

They will tear us apart

Again and again

Well I know no false start

Nor legs that remain

I going to depart 

when I've recovered my name

Yet the angels have ridden roughshod

Over the shoes you have shod

I was your running horse

But you never bet on me

Who won that race?

But the wind and the sea

I never wanted an ace

Just an eternity

But life lives at a pace

Of uncertainty

and all the colour runs from your face

In my earnesty

For in honesty there is grace

but no urgency

And sickening disgrace

Leaves its vagrancy

On the town's distaste

At my flagrancy

Can I replace her

By own agency?

I needed a manager

But did I blame the sea

For waving at me

In inconstancy

And turning up flotsam

And all this debris 

Pink roses

 In the Uk we had Storm Eunice

In Hokkaido there was lots of snow

1 metre deep

Sunny, storm

windy and snow- that's a blizzard

South West

I have 3 children grown up

and 7 grandchildren

I love Gardening

and walking in the forest

Blue flowers

Lavender

Russian sage

Tall

What kind of soil? loamy, compost manure

mulch and fertilize

Wildlife

rats 

Snow drops, Crocuses

April early

Daffodils

Look at birds, watch the deer and foxes

Hares

Other company - 

webblio

In college I majored in

I practiced every day in English

When I was 40 I decided to study English again

I had a correspondence in Education 

I went to England when I was 40 

Volunteer for guide dogs for the blind

Some volunteers went to visit the English association and my English was ok

Two years ago I found I could study

I Like dogs

3 years ago my dog died

Labrador and golden retriever

failed guide dog

Barking too much, 

My husband is a guide dog trainer

After he graduated college he visited Akido, he knew guide dogs for the blind

Many English subjects, conversation subjects like drama and literature.

I went to Hungary - coffee cups - Herend

Veszprém 

Pink roses

Crockery  -

Whispers

 Darling that look in your eyes

tells me that you whisper

That true whisper

Darling that look in your eyes

tells me that you whisper

To me

Every time you speak time flies

I could be in golden vespers

I could be a bold trespasser

Everytime you speak time flies

Everytime you're speaking to me

Every drop of light from you mouth

Every turn or change of your skin

Everytime I'm just flying south

Waiting for winter to begin

Darling that look in your eyes

tells me that you whisper

That true whisper

Darling that look in your eyes

tells me that you whisper

To me

Case closed -exhibit a

 I don't want to say it, but I'll say it anyway

I see her standing there

In the way, in a way

I see her standing as a model 

In a muddle saying i don't want

To be mollycoddled

I see her standing there

She is still as a manikin

And I don't know what's

going on under her skin,

under her skin

But I feel she comes alive

When I catch her eye

I feel she changes from plastic

To real

Yes I can play her fingers

Because they are like keys

I think she's like a skeleton

And I think that I must see

And I know that her bones

Are electricity

And on fire

And that we are already ashes

I can see her standing there,

An exhibit in her own show

And who can make it

As an exhibitionist

I can tell you I can see you

Through the lens of a lover

And the lens of her friend

But I'm only, Joe lonely

Just an observer in an exhibition

of her, yes I'm only passing through

reading the artifacts, oh so true

I've got to believe, what my eyes are saying

now

Exhibit b

 And in the hall of mirrors

The exhibits stand

Look what we can see 

Held in our right hand

A golden gun to shoot me

To shoot you and him

Two hands the silver bullet

Whose gun is going to win?

Somethings are golden 

when you look at them

from afar

Soon diminish in splendour

The more close up they are

You are neither of those

The closer I get to you

The more I want your skin

Every freckle on it

Every curve

And every grin

Exhibit A

 I'd like to draw the court's attention to Exhibit A

It's been drawn out for the jurors as if she's made of clay

I think you'll agree she's made of sea

I'd like to draw the court's attention to the article on the agenda

Let's call it mistaken identity or a case of forgotten gender

Exhibit B, you see, exhibit B

Everything in this courthouse is a kind of evidence

The swooping judge before us he'll hammer his gavel of common sense

I see the gun before me now, this is exhibit C

And everything that's drawn around outside the melodrama

courtroom 

Shepton Show

 

Birds of tomorrow

 Like birds of tomorrow

We fly apart

But together we tether

The wings of the heart

Needing no reason

Than the sky to depart

Like birds of tomorrow we fly apart 

Lady

I woke up and found myself listening to Top of the Pops

1986, Chris De Burgh was singing

Lady in Red

I love you 

But the walls of peace are falling down

I love you, but this is such a very

very small town

I cannot say you're my lady

Because you're somebody

else's instead

I love you,

You've made me crazy

You were my lady in Red

I've never seen you looking so lovely

As you do everyday

I want to turn to you and say

You are amazing

It's hard for me to stand by

And see you with some other guy

It's like a twist in my heart

You've tortured me apart

I was your patsy

In the assassination of your past life

You needed an assassin

Someone to blame your love on

And it either was going to blow you apart

Or it was going to make you more strong

Well you're a woman, that's your love song

It just turned you more into you all along

You're like a folded samurai blade

In the heat is where your strength is made

And what am I but the turner, the swordsmith

The one who loved you but can never carry you with

Him 

On your eternal motorcade

You are amazing

But I can't worship at your feet

As I suffer my defeat

Though I may have to retreat

From your campaign

You've signed the order

Brought the law forward, 

Sealed

The border

And I'm stuck in Mexico city

 on the train

going south

Over the Sierra Nevada

So I've never seen you looking so lovely

As you did that night

But you're like a mountain

Going out of sight

My lady in red

But the bumblebee's flight

Has ended now

Miami Mallet

 Miami Mallet

It's no Ballot

They've taken the tickets for the free Chalet

The heat hits you like an iron hammer

The street greets you, you start to stammer

Miami Mallet, Miami Mallet

I can't hardly stand it

Gotta get me out of this inferno

It's like a towering tornado

Of heavy heat flow

Overpowering pallette

Of scorching reds 

Miami Mallet

Beats on all our heads

Time's flies

 Time opened his flies

And let it go all over the world

Yeah time really let it flow

He must have been holding on for so long

He must have drunk so much of whatever it is he drinks

To make time his excreta and waste product

I can't believe we have to live in this fellows urine

When we find we're just living in a stream

Sit down Father when you piss on the world in your toilet

Said misses Time

You make such a mess of the Carpathian basin

And you splatter time all around the equator

It really takes me a goodly time to clean up

And I've better things to do with my time, Time

Timothy Time flagged, let the rustling leaves of his hair

Fall down

Forgot all about time

Dropped despairingly onto his bed

Mrs Time came in and said

Why so down Time

Why not get up and go out instead

Take some time out

Take the clock for a walk

Take the clock by the hands

And seize the day

Dream of 8th-9th August

 I dreamt I was escaping my house in Meare

And all the faces of good cheer

All the good and all the bad,

I ran, I ran down to the river 

Down the slopes

Landsliding way

And across the rotten planks

Of building sites gone astray

And flood in green stagnant water

All of the memories to me were short

But the flow

Of the river was fast and keen

I tried to hold on to rock faces

While avoiding the neighbours eyes

And not wishing to fall into bad graces

The judgement of others on the divorce

The swallowing river dragged me with it

The red gills of seaweed or ferns up the canyon walls

Did Meare ever have canyons? I can't remember at all

And above I saw bridges where the people walked

But I was trapped beneath them, I couldn't escape

The flow carrying me further along in time

It's personal

 

If I have been an arsehole

Please know it was not personal

I’ve just been feeling recently

Like a wheel spinning out of control

I’ve just let myself down

In so many ways

That I can’t keep count of the hurts

I’ve suffered and inflicted

Trying to prevent damage to my soul

I’ve got a sensitive disposition

It’s a blessing and a bind

I’d say I need a dressing every time

I speak my own mind

It’s not as if anything ever mattered to make me cajole

The good intentions I’m feeling

Always seem to lead me into trouble

I’ve tried to act holy, then I’ve acted shit

I’ve been accused of grand larceny

For the stealing of my own grit

And I’ve grit my teeth in a bubble gum way

Before I bit the dust

I was all about the time I’ve been double crossed

But trust is a rubber band you can’t stretch it too far

It’s not like a streetcar named desire

That’s a tail of a shooting star

Always disappearing on the horizon

Just out of my reach

If I can I’ll go surfing then you say life’s a beach

It’s better to be careful than to really go for gold

Everytime I tried that

I found the prize had already been sold

I’m always knocking up against barriers I find

And pretending they are entrances to a new corner of the mind

But I should have come to expect that the good just seeps away

It’s like a plane expending fuel never leaving the runway

I wish I could see you in the light that we once knew

But that was just an illusion like Cinderella’s shoe

I gotta make the cut

 

I gotta make the cut, I gotta make the cut

I can’t bust a nut,

I’ve gotta make the cut

There are no ifs or buts

There are no quips or tuts

I've gotta find my guts

I gotta make the cut

It's gonna be a hard road rising

It'll be the hour of my horizon

I'm gonna struggle in uphill toil

It'll be like a slope covered with oil

I gotta make the cut

I gotta push on to the hut

At the mountain peak

Where the poets speak

I gotta make the cut

Hail Mary

 I tried to see the light

And eat the humble pie

I tried to peel the flight

Of the bumblebee fly

I met a streaming knight

Who told me I could die

So I stayed in dreams all night

Until the Earth did pass me by

I saw a screaming kite

Fall from a darkened sky

And lay with leaves so light

They made me want to cry

I fell in worlds of light

That changed my waking mind

And tears so beaming bright

Rolled from my crystal eye

Mirror man

 I tried to save myself in this place

Keeping in my place

But the selfish hunger

The jealous dragon

Began beating its wings

restlessly

I looked myself in the mirror and thought

I saw the elvish ears twitch

The sign of the devil

The demon looked me in the face

And led me away from the path

Of righteousness

There is only strength in the fellowship

I thought I could handle it alone

But I can't

I need a higher power

Care home blues

 You sit around with dying parents

Who is talking to you?

No one

They just say it's heir apparents

Who take the glory from you

Affidavits , Cindy Crawfords

Executors of the will

Let me sleep

I'm slipping northwards

Ever rolling hill

Charge me up

And roll me backwards

I don't want this life no more

I've got nothing

From talking parrots

Who mutter negligible things and swore

They knew me before the years had passed us

And wiped the memory

Like a scar

Buccaneer

 Well I went away on a ship of pride

But my sail buckled on my ride

I thought oh God how can I abide

So I sailed back to my bed where I lied

I played, I played and sang my lungs

But nothing, no sound did ever come

The quiet beckoned, I was succumbed

By which I wished I'd never sung

I lay, I lay and read with stories and words

And filled my soul with myth and swords

And loves of Gods and dreams of men

And women's beauty which had no ken

And even this, it lasted not long 

for no peace came to me in song

Just pain and suffering no balm could ease

The suffering of loneliness was my disease

The love went missing from father to son

Some lack of capture needed so long

Some hole left before time had begun

Before life had realized I was made wrong

No thought could muster

No home for the spirit

Am I cursed as Custer

To forever wander, not win it

The battle is over, I've lost that love

Whether the wars of heaven

Can call me above

I wish no more from this earthly realm

I can find no joy in mind nor body alone

And I look for nothing in anyone's eyes

If I had a shotgun I think it would tell no lies

Easy on the eyes, but hard on the heart

 I went down to where the sea nymphs part

She was easy on the eyes but so hard on the heart

He said I want to try a bar where the people are

She was easy on the eyes but so hard on the heart

It was to my great surprise when the singing start

She was easy on the eyes but so hard on the heart

I sucked on a strawberry and chewed on a tart

She was easy on the eyes but so hard on the heart

Listen to me he said just wait until the best part

She was easy on the eyes but so hard on the heart

Changing places

 I found a place where lovers meet

It was just a pub down the street

And the blue times rang

A strawberry bell

The rainbow cupcakes

In garlands fell

And petals curdled in the milk

That churned a summer thin as silk

And struggled vowels

Spoken by infants at the growls

Of cats and parents

Gaggled-geese robbed Peter

To save Paul

In pools of grease

And myths of Saul

And teeth gave virtue

To empty strands

Where billowing forests

Burnt and sang

In cinder voices

And ashes cried

Their lidless eyes

To the skies

That no one spoke

That babies sighed

And peering smoke

Filled with lies

Evaporated

Purged

The fake laughs

Echoed

Nothing was chequered

Even the flag was yellowed

And people walked

But walked nowhere

For aims were useless

To their cares

As nothing but a river meandered

And God came back

And men and women haggled

Over bits of silver

And rags of silk

And we continued to drink

an alien milk 

Play on

 If music be the food of love play on, 

play on

If music be the food of love play on, 

play on

If music be the food of love 

I will hear you like a dove

play on, play on, play on

I met her in a chance hotel

She was there feeling well

I knew I couldn't

See my love so strong

I saw her where the willows weep

And the copper leaves of the beech

They landed on my head on the steep

The pillow of the sky was there

It was blue and I was square

And I knew I had to play on

Play on

I ate the food of love and it

Was sweet and was better it

had no ever bitter taste begun

If music be the food of love play on, 

play on

If music be the food of love play on, 

I noticed I was going well

I thought I was like William Tell

But all I ever was, was too strong

For the kite is in his sky

And he's looking down

With that eagle eye

If music be the food of love play on, 

And it doesn't matter how you go,

You could be a cricket

or a grasshopper jumping in the grass so long

so long

It would be the breeze to tell

That's written on the church bell's knell

If music be the food of love play on, 

I hear them softly sweeping

up the clouds where he is creeping

And the chimney it was keeping strong

The bellows with the arches played

The fire through the old arcade

If music be the food of love play on, 

play on

If music be the food of love play on, 

Listen to the hearth rug play

It was playing some charade

Of love and lovers in the song

in the song

But it was too much for me to take

I had no love except mistakes

If music be the food of love play on, 

play on

If music be the food of love play on, 

play on

If music be the food of love play on, 

Castle Rock

 Around Castle Rock

Like a giants frock

The sea, dresses and undresses

It twice a day

Twice a day it is exposed by the tide

Its two naked cliff trunks

Like twins forever tied

A natural fortress bearing the brunt

Yet its moat abandons it

With the river’s violent shunt

They stand like vast stone legs

That once held a giant’s torso, but not now

Only the Greater black backed gull eggs

Its arch like a mouth swallowing

The river, greedy for its hollowing

Out, to be gone forever

It says my time is come

The last ice age, never took me by chance or design

And I can’t wait for the next one.

 

Castle Rock

These elephant legs without a trunk

Steady as a Flat Holm Monk

Rock of ages, Peter’s chair

Strata stages,

Oddballs

Oddballs

Got to stick together

In the billiard halls

Everyone one of us knocking about

No pocket to fit it

Wrong shape 

We stick out

How can you call us those name like that

Too cruel

This world where shame

has no business

To walk about

It's a crazy contagion

Of America first

And their values of selfishness

That's misled the worst

But we had no other route to succession

We had to choose a leader

America was progression

But they never really gave

Two hoots about anyone

It has always been a giant supernova

Galaxy

Sucking up the smaller satellite countries

In its gravity

And spitting out its ores and strange technologies

Serving some strange Gods

They have inherited in Indian territories

But it's a bone shaking constitution

Of diverse realities

And our own culture is laser cut

And spiralling apart

Like a hologram of hearts

That shimmer and shiver, 

And tremble in society

In self-deluded imagery

In self-serving idolatry

Joke 55

to decelerate - to stop eating celery in your diet

North Sea Seal

 I'm a North Sea seal

I need my meal

I want my fishes as my dishes

I'm a North Sea seal

I'm sealing the deal

No North Sea oil

For my fishes will spoil

No North Sea oil

For my fishes will spoil

Stop taking my skin

It's mine to begin

And I'll wear it, fair it

Like a sea faring ferret

I'm a North Sea seal

Making a deal

I'm making a steal

It's a cinch, it's a stink

At a pinch, in pink

Corncrake girl

 

She was a corncrake girl

From the Western isles 

On Canna she scanned 

The horizon

Just a Corncrake girl

Looking for a new moon rising

Talking about :

Corncrake, cheese cake

Make no mistake

It's a hard baked

Cornflake

Corncrake girl

The corncrake is a bird with a most unusual call

It goes - rickety, rachety, rickety rachety

Like a rattle at a football match

I'm talking about a corncrake girl

Corncrake, cheese cake

Make no mistake

It's a hard baked

Cornflake

Corncrake girl

Cosmetics

 The trainee beautician

enrolled on a course named cosmology

But she thought was cosmetology

Then she discovered the beauty of the universe

and manicured the arms of spiral galaxies

She massaged the figures of a neutron star

And waxed the legs of a nebula

Then she came home to ma and pa

And said I want to be an astronomer

A love entire

 I was out

Out of touch

I needed you and your love

I was near

But not near enough

And I missed you

and your love entire

It was dark

But I saw the light

I was on fire

You were the spark

You showed me the way

Through your love

It was a love entire

Anytime

That I turn around I don't see you

But then when I'm not looking

I find I'm near you

You must be a magician

You've got me bewitched

Anything you wanted

It would be my wish 

And the heart beats

But skips a beat

Like in a foreign country

I'm in a strange heat

I don't know if it's the truth

Or if I'm a liar

I just know the proof

Is in a love entire

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 stream

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

Hear 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

Collectibles

 She was just another piece in his collection

Just another exhibit possession

But the crowning glory the coda of his life

The music played on it was the music

Of his hot wife

The only thing was she never possessed a soul

She was a beautiful China doll

She was a Russian doll of many selves

Strip back the onion layer

There she was same person but smaller

younger, more child-like when sick

She was just like the ballerina

Dancing on the music box stick

Dancing to his records

She wanted to be owned, looked after

She was afraid of death

And old age. Time was a jester

Who played a cruel trick

Despite her beauty 

Or in spite of it

He took away that which she was most

vain about, proud of

Her smile

Which blazed like a sunrise

Across her face

Yet he was equally vain

For having her in his collection

Keeping her in her place

In the glass cabinet

Is love the freedom of expression

Allowing the bird to leave its cage

To fly where she wishes

And with whom she chooses

No for it's a social contract

It has bounds and limits

Perhaps I was beating the bounds

As they still do, to frighten the birds into the sky

Where they can be shot down by

The hunters

I asked her what would you like to drink?

She said "Your soul"

I think she already has drunk mine

She has kept herself young

At my life's expense

And drunk up my blood 

Like wine

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