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

Everyone's a redneck around here

 Everyone's a redneck

Apart from me

Look at the way they sip their

G an T

Everyone's a redneck

Apart from me

I was talking to to their

uncle

But it was really their husband to be

Everyone's a redneck apart from me

They threatened to kill

me

For talking historically

He got up from the table and

decided to leave

Oh everyone's a redneck

apart from me

"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 Stephen Jarvis

 Mr Stephen Jarvis

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 

Miss Jennifer Parker

 Miss Jennifer Parker

Is a most elegant dresser

She's even a Fashion Professor

Dressed to kill in traitor's style

She'll catch you with her wiles

Walks as fast as a steam train or a car

There she goes, Miss Jennifer Parker

So trim the hem, and cut the shawl

And fill your glass with wine

So sew the sleeve, patch the heart

And follow the line til we shall part

There goes Miss Jennifer Parker

She's on her hands and knees

All day long

Pinning up a hem, trimming a sarong

She's in the store room mapping out history

With her pins and pleats

Kith and kin complete

With well written blurb

Never a wrong or missing verb

Then in the Front room she's window dressing

The models all stand there awaiting her blessing

They're ready for her and to be honest

She never puts bees in their bonnets

She'll stick it and pin it

She stays through thick it and thin it

There she goes Miss Jennifer Parker

So trim the hem, and cut the shawl

And fill your glass with wine

So sew the sleeve, patch the heart

And follow the line til we shall part

Miss Jennifer Parker

You go up and ask her

What's brighter or darker

She always knows what goes

What colours flow

What lines meet or cross like streams

Into the river of her fashion dreams

On point, like a dancer, a pinhole camera

That lets in just enough light to show

In polaroid, the cones and rods of colour and shade

Whether natural or man-made

Going back through the kings and queens of history

Going back through their stately home parades

Of the upper classes, mind not pint glasses

But the grape pitchers, she's in the sorority

A sister of mercy and the wine bar

It won't sound terse if I say she will go far

There she goes, Miss Jennifer Parker 

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

Archers

 It's inexplicable and lickable

So spickable and spanable

So fickle and fannable 

The flicking blood of May

When lords have loved the lady's bed

And Straws are laid upon their backs

And Camels weigh the light of day

By answers grey or white or black

When young thugs hail the coming rain

When old lugs pale then face again

The Age of change for it all looks strange

To eyes without lies and truth without pain

Yet follow me and I will lead you

To the driving range

Where golf balls fly

And it's tee at Four!

And no one's rearranged

Just wait for me in the garden and climb

The Trellis late

I looked for you beside the gate

And no one shook my fate

I looked for you in the darkness

And in the corridors of light

That filled with the tears

Of long lost steers

Who wander on into the night

So take the bow and string your arrow

Fling your fire lights

The silk worms are spinning clothes for you

That glisten in the night

love times

 I loved you left, I loved you right

I loved you wrong and in your flight

I loved you day, I loved you night

There's nothing left, you're out of sight

I loved your soul, I loved your body

I cannot control, or mollycoddle

The sense your life is precious light

I loved you dark, I loved you bright

So don't leave me now

I can't bear the weight

Of sorrow

Of the pain

It is too late

To lie to you now

Of the shame

Of the shadow

But how can my love be wrong

When I love someone so good and strong?

Everything must go

 Sometimes, everything must go

The windows are rattling

As spring winds blow

Clearing out the clutter of last year in tow

Dredges from ditches of ideas that flow

Sometimes everything must go

And it's like I need to let go

Of all those fugitive pieces I stole

Shards of hearts exploded

Glass animals collected in menageries

They all got shattered

Precious though they were

They are all dust in the desert now

Everything must go

Back in the Land of the living

 I'll let you know 

If I'm still in the land of the living

I'll see you tomorrow

I've never seen a ghost

In the land of the living

I'm glad to be back in the land of the living

Glad to be the black cat and not grave digging

Glad for your life hack that kept me breathing

Glad to be back in the land of the living

 Am I really? Yes! Well why?

I guess, it's that we were born to die

And all our days are numbered

But if I thumbed a lift with Thumbelina

For a little time her trampolina

If I humbled myself at her cortina

A courtly show for a fashionista

But nothing must glow as hot and cold as

The sun we are all under

We regret to inform you

That it will not rise tomorrow

Has never crossed anyone's mind

But for the fact that she breathes

I cannot detach myself so well

I've tried to pull her out of my heart

But the seed was planted, love kick started

And now it's banished by her rule

I fell apart for a bit, not sure if I'm

Together again, just yet

It's just a letter I write from the base of wall

Which I fell off last night

It was just my pride that's hurt, I'll bet

I'm back in the land of the living

And I'm trying to live without regret

The body snatchers

 Moving the mannequins

How do we carry them?

How can the body be spare?

Nobodies, everybody nowhere

Nothing to wear, no hair, no air

But graceful poises, not making noises

Standing so silently, spare

In use or out of it, in storage in the cupboard

Up in the attic

Wholly vacant like some static

The status quo of not moving at all

All hail human existence

Looking in the mirror at the dummy

The numb, dumb country bumpkin

The straw man, scarecrow

Worzel Gummidge figure

Come in to transfigure the interior design

Portfolio of foliage

Caught a cold you know like Coleridge

Walking out in the snow and storm like Keats

Cathy come home staring out the window

For Heathcliff

On the cold moors, the dale

That separates our homes

Mechanical walking of limbs

Legs and spare arms carried

As if by medical students to the 

Dissecting theatre

The autopsy of the dead relative begins

Where is she now?

Where is her soul, I can't find it

In her model's eyes

What do I want with her body?

With her imperialist grey skies

That have dominated me

From sunrise to moonrise

The set order of a regimen of lies

To get me down the endless catwalk of Winter

Into Spring

Looking in shop window reflections

To make sure I still exist

And have not been turned into

Yet another of her mannequins

On her archived list 

Forty something

 I'm over forty

I've got Dr Wolff at my door

Howling out he's got a cure

For my grey hair

I'm over forty

Now I'm a victim of time and fate

If I wasn't before

Well now there's no time to wait

You see my father was over forty

Before I turned naughty

You see he is behind a bullet proof glass plate

And history always comes to those too late

They tell me to inject caffeine in my pores

They tell me to believe in the male menopause

Well I believe, I have no cause, it goes

The same with Santa Clause

But I don't remember anyone getting on his case

About his over rosy cheeks, rotund belly

Or beardy white fakes

Why didn't he ever use Just for Men?

I suppose they wouldn't trust any dark haired strangers

Coming undercover down chimney ranges

Probably would have burnt him in the grate

Than suffer the indignity of a milk tray lover

Whose cover's blown as is his sperm count of late

But as I say I'm an over forty victim of fate

I'm an over forty son of

A man who's over eighty

Who's father never run the clock so late

But you can't say I've begun to hate

I still feel love could come by my gate

And we'd meet

At number 28b

 or not 28B

Two score and twenty four blackbirds

Baked in a pie,

on Pigeon street

And don't be late

Valentines

 It's when you love the wrong woman

Valentines is a traitor's heart

broken in two

Pieces of a queen's tart

Lay it on thick

Holding all the cards

She's ready to take their heads

Queen of broken hearts 

How I wish you were dead

I thought I loved a woman

But in fact I loved the wine

That's where thinking gets you

Thinking, such a waste of time

Back in Blighty

 Returning to old blighty

It feels oh so mighty

With it's castles and mists

And memories of being kissed

In the dams and caravans

In the Springs and the Wells

Where I sprung a Welsh leek

And held a Scottish thistle

And the teacher blew their whistle

And I ran to pick up the sandbag

And I can't run anymore

I've been run down

Until I'm sore

Primary school against the wall

Counting down

Turning around

Looking for the wolf

He's always at your back

Ready to attack

Coming back to good old blighty

What a mighty time we had

But who are the good

And who the bad

How can we forget?

How can we ever be sad

Except what else do you do here

Kiss the salty sand

Wait for one gland after another to pack up

Take up the slack and bear the share

The burden

It's no curtain to draw

No blanket of sack cloth to wear

Nothing is for certain

It's all fair

Love and war

You've been trained for

Ever since you grew up

In good old blighty

They train you to be mighty

Have a mighty heart

And to save the ones you love

For you to play your part

They told you how to live

How to run the game

How to take and how to give

And how to feel love and shame

And that's why blighty's in your bones

That's why you are always called home

But that's why you must escape the chrome

Nelson, the brass buckles

The shining buttons and waistcoats

The statues in museums

You saw history through

Like a peach black wind through hair

But love was a cummerbund

Of your joy and despair 

A good boat

 She's a good boat, she's a good boat

She's a very good boat to me

I like her lines

I like her curves

I'd walk her planks

But I'd always swerve

She's a good boat for me

I want to row right onto her ocean

It's like she's the vessel of my emotion

She carries me oft, hard or soft

Let the waves lash or the winds us blow off

Course, of course

I'll hold her straight, because I'm tied to her fate

She's a good boat, she's a good boat for me

I think we could float on the raging sea

She's a good boat, she's a good boat

She's a good boat for me

like bombshells falling on windmills

 Like butterflies' eyes

Falling eyelashes from the skies

Like bombshells falling on windmills

Like sky thrills filling

The windowsills

With sly shys, with nice guys

And dolls

And ice cold

souls

Like bombshells

falling on windmills

Gravity lane

 Gravity lane

Fallin down

Down on my luck again

In gravity lane

Wishing well quarter

I threw a dime in the water

Gravity pulled me in

I forgot how to swim

Won't you pull me out

I don't wanna drown

In the town 

where it rains 

forever and a day

Down gravity's lanes

Gotta walk on the moon

I'm gonna leap pretty soon

It's gonna be like a swoon

But it might take me til June

Cos here gravity's thick

Just like your lipstick

And I could float on your lips

Only your rip tide rips

And gravity pulled me down

Don't wanna wear this crown

It's heavy as horns

My little crown of thorns

So won't you tear it off

I love you hard not soft

But I can't wear your cloth

It drags me down to earth

And I need to be free

Cos I'm made of gravity

The phases of the moon

She I can't follow

Up and down like a yoyo

There's the new moon

Better let her know now

She, I can't follow

Silver thread to her bed

The Waning Crescent

She's the lady in red

She, I can't follow

I'm like a rainbow on the blink

The Third quarter 

She gives me a wink, I think

She, I can't follow

Her summer swallow

The Waning gibbous

Her wax wings I kiss

In her wax work museum

And the full moon

Was I a loon crying at noon?

Was it a neap tide

Was she a true bride?

Had she lied? We all lie

It's just the phases of the moon

It's only true at that time

The waxing gibbous 

She was melting like a candle

Too hot to handle

I never tried

The first quarter hid us

Occluded from the light

I saw a polaroid flash

I saw a polar bear dash

Across a wire and I didn't care

The Waning crescent slid

Down our throats

Like a lemon slice

Like a glass of wine it disappeared

Brought into focus

The sharp taste

Bitter as leaving your lover

And that's how I follow her

like the phases of the moon

After the glitter had fallen

 After the glitter had fallen

The ball had stopped spinning

The music turned off

The costumes were hanging on their hangers

The models had danced their socks off

After the manikins of bodkins

Had scaled the omphalos of night

After the slim ones, the trim ones

Had returned their souls to the light

After their bodies and shoddies 

Had shouldered their blames and their shames

After the love of their eyes had smouldered

In their ear's last refrain

After their mouths had powdered and chowdered 

and lisped their clasps undone

Then I knew that I was older, but not

colder for the sun had still shone

As the hall let down its decorations

Like a dog shaking off

As a christmas tree moults its needles

So spring crept into our midst

And winter was a burnt out candle

That really no one could handle or miss

Still I knew I was a vandal for the words

I'd used when instead I should've kissed

Yet Jesus still lay on the cross

And Mary Magdalene cried at his feet

And all the holy wine had cost

The word forgiveness spread on the street

Lily

 C I give you all my love, F Lily

G I give it to you for C free

C I'll give you all my love, GLily

F Yes, your heart is the C key

C I'll give you all my love F Lily

G Without you F I'm all at sea

G Oh so give me all your love

C Lily

C I've seen you like a dove G

F In my dreams, in my C dreams

C I've seen you like a dove

G Who I've set free

C And though you're G flying away

F I know you can'tG stay

C But still I'll give you all my love

G Lily

C I've seen the stars shine G above

F And held your hand, C I held your hand

C I've seen the diamonds sparkle

F like jewels in the sand

G And you are quite remarkable

C Oh yes, my little miracle

G I'll give you all my love

C Lily

Reused love

 I used to love you

Like an American loves Paris

I used to love the allure

The romance of you

But now I am embarrassed

Because all you ever were was a false messenger

You told me straight , but I never believed

You loved not him but her

I used to love you

Perhaps I still do

Just like I love a mountain

I've seen while passing through

But now I don't want to walk up its paths

I don't wish to explore the view

I used to love you

But now I'm sure 

it's not true

You did nothing wrong

That was my thing, I felt too strong

It wasn't you but me

I loved someone who was

already free

I thought I'd save you, but he

He has been a slave to you

And you to he

It's not that I see a golden cart come round the corner

With all the promises you made to him

Look like a pyramid, but taller

I think you lied to yourself

That's all and I came along for the order

You served me a dish of cold radishes

And expected nothing but a mourner

Well I can't be sad when your relationship has died

Because in my eyes it was all lies

no matter how hard you've tried

If you think I'll mop up the pieces

Or offer pity to those who have cried

I couldn't be the man in that city

So lonely that I could have died

You've used and abused his love

He's used up now and you've sucker punched

The blues out of him

While he's mourning his system

Of doubts, and about that he's listing

Just look at the way you have kissed him

The back of the neck

Like you're paying his cheque

You better bet that it was love you missed in him

I cannot love you, I'm disgusted by this betrayal

It's all just a home movie portrayal

Of love gone awry

But I'm an honest guy

I'll tell you, I can't stand to see this low railing

It's better to kill him than help him

If you love me, then there's no sense in the whelping

He's a beaten dog, let him lie with the hogs

I have no more pity than is self effacing

I love you still it seems, but it's physical

It's not what it means

I'd love to be close to you

To know and play host to you

But the most of you

Is the tail end of what's been