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 strem

Phoenix of the hedgerows

 I saw a Phoenix in the hedgerow

Unfortunately, it did make me head grow

I thought well, I must be an amazing twitcher

To have spotted such a blazing picture

Well unfortunately as well as this

This Phoenix he burst into flame

And set alight the whole bloody lane

Oh the hedges they were burning true

And the farmers they came out swearing blue

What on earth have you done there me lad?

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

You turn em all so black and blue, 

burning embers through and through

Oh what am I to do?

I said but father, all I did, 

was I went along with me shears and snid

And snipped and snead

And then I lost me head

I saw a phoenix in the hedge

I thought he was but a pheasant (overfed)

Ah but that is me own fault

I was mere peasant

I thought: "What a kingly bird 

Could come amongst us ere?

I doubt he is anything so queer

He probably is but merely a pigeon

And that proved wrong

For more than a smidgen

He flamed and fired right up from the ashes

And the hedges clattered down in their stashes

Oh the oaks were in smoke

And the willows did billow

And the alders they smauldered, and smildered

Smoldered and pillowed

But the Phoenix he was bright as a button

He flew up high above em like cotton

And floated in the air, oh those cotton bud clouds

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

Oh me father he was sad from that day

He said son you disturbed the phoenix of the hedge lay

You should always give thanks to the hedge laying birds

And never cut them hedges down after April has turned

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

You can't blame em for being blessed in em

That is just how it works and you cannot say neither

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

So you never should disturb the phoenix of the hedgerow

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

And don't go snipping beyond the verge

Unless you've found out about that phoenix bird

The Crows of Shepton

 The crows are coming round again

And I'm sitting in the bower

The knives are drawn behind our backs

But the parliament's in power

A murder is a ripening

The time is coming soon

But who knows death

Is a harbinger bird

Who's crying out at the moon

I held a leaf

Like telephone

A nautilus shell alone

I talked to the sea

And my mother was there

In spirit but not in the bone

The flesh of the fish

Jesus was a skipping stone

He stepped so fast and far

It seemed

But then sunk when I got home

When I think of Jesus

He is a promise I have to keep

He is the others in the meeting

Who face me, lay their bets

That life is at stake

Will you take the wager?

The older you get the more you must play

But the higher becomes the ante

You need to join in or else you have lost

You must join before it's too late

The crows still sit on the rooftop

Crows are so human I think

When night closes in they want

The company, of another shoulder

next to them,

Another body, in a group

I don't know what it is about sharing

But you must speak to unburden yourself

A trouble shared is a trouble halved

But that is not even what it's about

It's about building a community

A communion of voices and spirits

Who see in each other similarities

Like the flap of a wing or a preening with beaks

The crows have flown off now at nightfall

To the safety of their treetops or chimney pots

Humans are much like crows I think

We each need our gatherings around

hot spots

Candles, or fires or sunsets

Company at the dying of the light

Courage in togetherness

Serenity in the night

Wisdom to let the day breathe

And let a new dawn bring a

new hope and fresh flight or fight

Hang to the left

 Hang to the left

Do you hang to the left

Or to the right he said

My father that is

And then he said

If you are a man then

Or that is what I heard

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

Back then

It was because I was trying to be a man

Whatever that was

When I was twenty something

So I drank and smoked a pipe

But I was just finding out who I am

Or was

But even that is always changing

Or perhaps never is

Because you can never see your whole self

The hand that holds the mirror

Is always hidden

Only in glimpses and snatches of other people

Can we realize who or what we do

Or are

That is why we must keep sharing

Stories and experiences

And keep listening

Seal of approval

 It was a Saturday afternoon when I heard you

You were calling from inside my wall

I thought at first how absurd to

Be stuck inside a place and then call

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

And I was a child once too

I climbed to the top of  an apple tree

And then didn't know how to

Climb back down for before tea

So I just waited up there for hours

Until my mother came looking for me

Then she encouraged me to climb down

The same way I got there

So I thought crow, crow what do you know

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

So Crow, crow what do you know

I'm going to try and rescue thee

Well it didn't work out quite like that

I actually sat down in my chair after gardening and 

Then heard it cheap cheap

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

What am I to do?

So I phoned up Shepton Vets

They suggested I phoned up Secret World

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

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

Saturday afternoon about 4 pm

I should before going any further

That I've never had a fire in the fireplace

It's a rented property and they told me 

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

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

nice to.

Anyway the chimney, I was told was sealed and

I couldn't open it. So I never tried

I never even used to come in this room

Well actually I did at first

Nice people

 Hammon was an ex dominatrix

Used to like to dominate

Now only in the Matrix

Cool dude 

Shades

Jacket like a Rapper

All wrapped up in himself

Like a Christmas Papa

Ama was a suplimatrix

But they were both really nice people

living death

 There are some things

I can't live without

Some Things slide off my spoon

And somethings I can't give any doubt

You know I want them like the moon

Oh but if you you've gotta live

Live now

Because

It's gonna be over too soon

Takeaways

 Give me the end

I want to know how it ends

Girl in the Chinese restaurant

I want to give you what you want

I want to know your name

I have a flame burning for you

The spring rolls too

Screw into the chop suey

And where am I left in

The whole milieux

I ask you how to be a writer

Send in your work

You seem to know what I'm saying

Without me needing to speak

I like that intuition

In one so young

I think we could do things together

Beyond the sun

And Another

 After some weeks of sobriety

I feel more on the level

Life lacks the variety

But I can live like a bevel

Sharper. more crystal

But life is dull as shit

And I long for losing control

Just to forget it

The fact is out of mind

Out of space away from myself

In a hidden place

It's better Ifind to have this

clarity of grace

The AA meetings were a hoot

Well they were great shares

Of dispairs and cares 

And powerful stories

Of rising up from the boot

From the bottom of nothingness

Desperation

That is the hell of an addiction

I do not wish to follow that route

So I keep shovelling coal on my stomach

To keep in suit

Windmill creak

 Corncrake by the lake

Corncrake, Corncrake

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