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