Bodza utca 2021 Summer

 All the bells and the whistles

And the flights taking off

The shoes on the run way, the tarmac 

going soft

In the heat that feels like the street

got a cough

and is wheezing and teasing the trees to turn off

But the trees are shy and turn their branches away

As the birdies they fly from the nests where they stay

And the shadows crawl across the hours of the day

As Bodza street wakes in it's inimitable way

The dogs begin their barking and the trucks

begin to rumble and the whole earth shakes

But the foundations do not crumble

And the plane takes off, or a different one lands

As they groan in their descent, like the ascent of man

And there are some neanderthals and some who stand up straight and tall

And there are some cathedrals which ring their bells to cap it all

and then there is the pigeon calls who hum and burble coos 

in the leaves of the trees of the capital

And the burgeoning degrees of freedom stand

Like men and women shaking hands in separation April

To Self isolation autumn

The diggers and the straight laced boots of my degradation

And fastening don't get cute

Before seat belts became a regulation

Then car crashes and tobacco stashes,

Lie in the police station

Autumn sun

 The Summer's gone

The Autumn comes again

On a song, of falling rains

And if it's not right

Then no matter what you do

It is wrong, 

time and time again

Come undone

Come together like the dew

In the morning on the grass blades

When you flew through

The sky, oh you tern or curlew

When you flew time and time again

Come undone

Like the winter time that grew

wind and light 

Come apart again

In winter running

 In Winter running through the past

What lives are these, these lives that last?

And turn fresh leaves into the grass

What lives are these, these lives that last?

In summer, blossom crowns the crows

And all black death goes rolling home

When bones are dug and bonanzas known

What lives are these that rest in stone?

In winter running through the spring

Time's tap runs fast, what joy life brings

But in these days of autumn glass

I see darkly, dimly how all things pass

In winter running through the trees

Brave squirrels defending terroritries

And crouching ducks waddle down the lawn

As I walk out soon just past dawn

In winter running summer's sand glass

Hours, minutes, seconds pass

But I count no grains

For no grain lasts

Except the truth, yet no shadows it casts

In these winter paths

 In these winter paths

Where I wind from summer's laughs

The kiss of the wind versus the scarfs

All along these winter paths

In these winter paths I see my life 

In chandelier staffs

And coloured calfs on rolling hills of green

The ocean like a memory of a film scene

But real to real I had a head telegraph

Who told me sned the branches

Of the pines like giraffes

They bow their heads

Then nod as if at me to laugh

In these winter paths

In these winter paths

Looking back

Hanging around on the pavement
The tarmac, the weeds in the road
Walking up the lane to meet my old friends
Playing games riding skateboards
Chasing about in the estate park
The boy Matthew Bennette telling tales about his bike
That it had special balance handle bars
So that when he tipped his bike
We could hear something rolling down the metal tube
But we all knew that he was a liar
And he had rolled up mud balls to put inside
So it sounded like he had some inbuilt technology
When all he had were his lies
It was funny anyway to hear him say it

There were hawthorn trees with black sloe berries
That grew in late summer and autumn
And elderberries that grew on Tom's farm
When you squashed them they looked like blood
And sometimes we fought the high stinging nettles like soldiers
Cutting them down with bamboo canes
And sometimes we climbed inside haybarns
And made dens inside the bales
Until they all tumbled down on Tom one day and a scaffold pole
Hit him on the head
And he ran out to his mum and dad with blood running down
And he never cried

Then in the fields around Meare out past Down house
We went walking for miles with Matthew wood
And we came back and watched western movies
And stayed over night in his outhouse
And he ate pork pies with so much ketchup
I could never believe or understand why
We played for hours on computer games, pinball wizards
Or Samurai
Cannon fodder and his brother Ben Wood
Was the best at many things
And he had a really good bike

And Stephen who lived on the levels
We used to get on in school
We laughed so hard about vampires
When we had to make a haunted house game
Then when I visited his house
It was full of Star Wars toys
I'd never seen so many in my entire life
And we played with them for hours
But really I never liked Star Wars
But the funniest thing about Stephen were his lies
We used to tell eachother stories
So many that we made up
Each more fantastic than the one before
So that when we told of what we saw
Neither could have believed their eyes
It ended one time with a story of what animals we had seen
Recently, maybe a deer he said
Maybe I had seen a hedgehog
He had seen a badger
And then suddenly he told me
He had seen a Gorilla in the ditch nearby his house
And possibly a vampire as well

Then there was Millbatch where nobody went
From Downs Orchard - the better class estate
Millbatch was the rough end
Where the older kids lived
And Matthew Lambert who was very tough
And his brother Roger who used to pull the legs
Off Daddy Long Legs in School
And now he is carer for Somerset County Council
Working with people with Learning Disabilities
Go figure

Then down on church road, where the water reservoir was
The plastic coated chicken wire mesh that you could reach inside
And that lane was were the bully kids played and made
Their dens there
And we watched out for them while making our own
But there were rumours and whispers around
That she blew somebody somewhere
That he beat someone else up
And little pieces of knowledge fill your brain
Like into a water cup
and it makes up your world as a child
It tells of the big towns out there
And of the boys and girls you thought were so wild
Who now all have grey in their hair

Fire on the barrow

 Do you remember when the fire came ?

The burning bushes, grass tufts in flame

And so long sang the thrushes, the dew berry the same

I remember said the rabbit of the barrow

The fire lighter's shame

We ran scrambled, all the animals

The little snails in their houses succumbed 

Somehow said the sparrow, things now

Seem so different, just a passing dream of tragedy

Commented the hedgehog of the hedgerow

Simple like a melody, but a chorus of fiery tongues

Licking and singeing the branches of the oak

The elders and the brambles soon went up in smoke

The fell was swept, the dale dealt a terrible blow

Dancing in the twigs and lifting peat sods

Where we trod with hopping tip toe

The hawks circle above, no meal of mouse or shrew

They were but cremated martyrs on the altar of an autumn dew

Only a little farther the survivors had to trudge into adjacent treelines

Foliage to shelter in and watch the holocaust of barrow down

Autumn love

The salt came up like a wave in the mouth
The river of tears always did flow south
And the bitterness of years
Bit the lip of what I couched
In kind words in soft skin of the apologist's pouch

And the time for regrets has come to pass
Nothing more to forget than the what's in the looking glass
The sound of nothing, the rush of air
From a vacuum to the vacuum of an utter despair

I wish I had held autumn and kept the fire kindled
I wish I had stood near the fire as the daylight dwindled
But I was fool enough to be self swindled
I stole the time I killed the calf who had been saved and brindled


All the sales of hearts came washing in the rivers warmth
Like an assault of the senses via the folk of

I held autumn like an air
Of a cloak of understanding
Putting it on as one does a glove
To feel the warmth
Or touch of the velvet
And sinking into that
Autumn of love
In which leaves fall from
Winter wind chilled trees
And she like an autumn
Garden I have visited
Whose secret is safely hidden
Though I must search to find the key
Lies in wait at her gate
In the comfort of the dying
Of the year to greet me
Like a changing season

At the end of the year

 Corn Stalks fall at the end of the year

and the crown of thorns bleeds in the ear

And the Holy sworn are not here or near

As the corn stalks fall at the failure of the years

And the brown earth mourns

And the leaves they cheer, for the end of the earth

The end of the year

And they hunker in holes, and they hold us so near

Where the corn stalks fall at the end of the year

And the teeth they rot and they go back to the ground

And the farmer's lot is not to be found

And the crows in the cot, and doves make their sound

At the end of the year when the leaves all turn brown

When the leaves all turn brown

And the sloes do come out

And the black berry's crown and then they do shout

And the willows they whisper and the birches they breathe

And the wind is a lister of the hills on its knees

And the nettles they sang and they danced in the breeze

And its all going down like a ship on the seas

Where the leaves turn brown and they catch in the eaves

And the corn storks fall down with their ears and their sheaves

And are scattered to the floor where the Robins are thieves

And they glean and they go, in step and toe, 

finding what they can find and never know

And they haul all the ground, and hold up the snow

As the corn stalks turn brown at the end of the show

Yes, the year's closing down, and everything must go

Lost for words, they're burning the books

Salisbury plain in the rain

And the foreign hoards

The hair dresser in a Salon

One of Seventeen

They were different there

They told her she talked too fast

She needed to slow down

I asked her if she knew any blacksmiths

No

There weren't so many horses in Salisbury I concluded

The conversation 

Began to feel awkward

Though perhaps that was started when I tried to pay

With a fire damaged book

I mean barren down

That's where I found it

And I didn't want to go

in there empty handed

She was sweeping up human hair

and I was dropping charred words

And paper on her floor

From Collins 500 word search puzzles

I like the idea that the word search survived the fire

So that when we are lost for words

At all the devastation in life

We can keep searching for them

And eventually we might solve the puzzle

I hobbled back into the rain on my crutches

and got the twelve pounds out the bank

To pay the nice hair dresser lady

She told me the bull dog statue was for the Bath and West

The fire, I didn't see it

Only the black singed earth

The smouldering and then the smell of sulphur

Addictive somehow

Barren Down

A Barrow

The dead may now be cremated as well as buried

And you can see the Glastonbury Tor

It is torn from Autumn brown

They're burning books in Shepton Mallet

The fosse way

They are turning the pages

of history black

They're making a stink

Painting it pink

And the Goblins are wanting it back

The green fingers 

Of book worms

The witches are running in turns

Hailing the flax

Railing the haystacks

Smoking like chimneys in packs

They are burning the books

In Shepton Mallet

But don't tell them

They can't read them

Their libraries closed

And the Filo fax

Is out of order in poets corner

And I'm having one of my attacks

Roman Roads 

All along the spine of hills

Open and close like chapters

Read in geological time

Strata of line and verse of rock

The meter and rhyme

of ticking geo clocks

But the stage coaches rolled on it

Reading between the lines

The wrong side of the tracks

Came from the Frome side

All roads lead there perhaps

And maybe they paid in kind

In book bind, double blind

On the summit of knowledge

When you know it all

You find out you know nothing

So Burn your books by the pallet

Burn them in Shepton Mallet

Burn them tooth and nail

I'll go over with a fine tooth comb

To find these lost words

In the ashes of Canard's Grave

This is England

 The sheep are lying down now

Resting under the oak

And it is so English and free

And there is peace on the hillside

And in the valley

And whenever you hear the sally of the guns

It is not for anyone but the nuns

Who are shooting into heaven above

And firing out their eternal love

For this is England in a green, green land

This is England in a blue, blue time

This is England everyday of our lives

It is like folded ecstasy, 

Folding and unfolding in infinity

It is unravelled plentitude

and every kind of habitude

The crows know it's free

and they are so black

And the ravens in the trees

And the buzzards they attack

And the knights round the table

They talk of their king

But that was all such a long time ago

For this is England

This is England

It is so corrupt with corrosion

Finally earning its place

In the world

This is England, this is England

The smell of the cold

And the hawthorn trees

This is England

The collaged beaches

And the brownfields down to the sea

You can see it in the finer details 

of a Turner painting

While it is smeared about like Colman's mustard

Upon the ruins of the grating

This is England in our time

This is England

Thistles and pines

Broken horses and broken cows

Oh they are walking not straight

And all the houses of broken vows

It is there now

This is England following the plough

Making all furrows

All the burrows inside ourselves

This is, this is England in the hillside

Where the rabbits are all mating, none have to decide

This is England and they're all on benefits 

but that is good for the government

This is England in the Spring time

It is England in the Autumn time

This is England every noon and afternoon

And in the morning, and it is when you awake

for the sake of love

This is England and we can't go wrong

As long as we keep on singing our English song

This England I am robbed by you

And all the white van men in the afternoon

This is England and there are no voices

But the black and white choirs

Singing their different tunes.

The heart's road

 When I go away I try to forget

All of those pieces of memories of regret

When I go away I can hold them at arm's length

And say you cannot hurt me, you cannot touch me

You cannot hurt me today

But I always come back, back to the fold

To the font of the cradle of birth

I always return to the home and the hearth

And the place where I first knew the hurt

Now you can be travelling a long weary time

You can be holding his hand or mine

And this can be our way together or apart

But that's just the road of the heart

When I am travelling down the country mile

I look for the clouds, then I burst into a smile

When the sun is all shining and the birds are in song

Then I'm reminded that nothing is wrong

When I am travelling along a steep hill

And the ridges are vast with an emptiness that chills

Then I see your hand in the sky high above

And I know it's all just a plan of your love

When I am travelling through dale and through den

And the trees they grow over and they are my ken

I know you're near me, because I feel at ease

With the summer behind me and the autumn's breeze

When I am travelling far from my home

I can forget all of those feelings I own

Nothing is stronger than the pull to return

From where I've been travelling the heart's road that burns

The way the seasons change

The bee on the clover

The white cliffs of dover

Oh, how the seasons change

 

The feathers in the fields

float as I feel,

The heathers on the hills

Hail out their shrill rills,

 

The spiders webbed catch,

The rain drops and thatch,

Their eggs which hatch,

Their plan

And this is the way, though it may seem strange,

Yes, this is the way the seasons do change,

 

The buttercups and the daisies lie round all quite lazy

They flop, and they fillet and fidget Miss Maisy,

Who walks in the fields and feels the chills,

Of Springtime and Summer draw near

The Winter so far off, yet spinning its jar of

Strawberry jam and rhubarb conserve

 

The dance glades are glancing, the grass blades are dancing,

The dragon flies lancing, the ladybirds lay,

The roses are chancing, as France is romancing,

The meadow so sweet in the smell of your clothes

And Summer is trancing, entrancing and glancing,

The snakes so slicing, sliding and gliding away,

The sunbathers are bathing, in new sun they're savouring,

And ages are wavering through the waves of the day,

And oh, it seems strange to you, 

But this is the way the seasons change they do,

 

And the fathers are fathering, and feathering, tarring and tethering,

And lathering and lithering and clowning and clawing

And the silage has been mown, and the mowers have been sewn,

And the beans are sprouting, and the seeds are grown,

The furrows are furrowing, deep in the burrowing,

the rabbits are tunnelling under the crows,

Who are squawking and talking in parliaments walking,

and gawking at all of those they know

 

And we are so baffled by spring's nature raffles

And summers they trifled and truffled in troves

And everything's glancing, the new season's dancing,

The midsummer's tower has toppled in throes,

Down it shall fall again to Autumn's dark wall again,

But too soon to those shadows and shades that they've known,

In every springtime a hint of the winter,

In every winter day a new summer grows

And it may seem strange, but that is the way the seasons change,

 

The grasses are flopping, and the thorn bushes popping,

The grasshoppers hop-hopping in the long summer shows,

And the clover is bursting and the bees they are thirsting,

For a flower supper and nectar cuppa in rainbows

And it may seem strange, but this is the way,

The seasons do change.

Nobody sings the folk songs anymore

 I woke up in make believe

I walked down into the street of autumn leaves

Where nobody sings the folk songs anymore

I past by the chestnut seller

Who was roasting his nuts for a fella

He said why you can't ignore

Nobody sings the folksongs anymore

I past up the street from him

The wind was blowing, the sun was thin

A film of sadness it filled my eyes

And I couldn't see through tears

That fell like rain through all the years

And I thought why nobody sings the folksongs

anymore

I crossed over the street again

To visit inside an old inn, 

I knocked upon the door 

and walked within

There were many fellas sitting there

Drinking beer to their despair

They said nobody sings the folksongs anymore

Where have all the good men gone?

Why have the walls of Babylon been broken

Down by the Pagan masses there

They cried 'We can't believe our eyes

The world got sold to our surprise'

Nobody sings the folksongs anymore

I asked the woman in the corner

Who was sewing up her husbands shoulder

Crying out like she was newly born

I said what on earth is the matter?

Why can't you explain the patter?

She told me nobody sings the folksongs anymore

Well outside in the light again

I met a strange immortal friend

Who glowed in his presence like a fire

He said walk up the road a while with me

And said we shall see what we shall see

But nobody sings the folk songs anymore

We walked upon the clouds that were lit

By the sun's rolling chariot

And we saw the world before us born

A new like on every corner

An old strife to every donor

And I know nobody sings the folk songs anymore

Well poverty it rings its bell

But nobody answers that knell

No nobody comes to wake the dying poor

They work for hours in their fields

For to scrap up a meal

And nobody sings their folk songs anymore

There are two faiths to guide you by

One is your heart and the other's the sky

And if you follow one you can't ignore

The place that we all come from

The one road to Babylon

But nobody sings the folk songs anymore

---------

I tell you that you are like me

And I am like the apple tree

That grows, grows its rosy green fruit

And nothing more can answer it

Than an apple that has dropped and split

And nobody sings the folksongs anymore

And now as I'm leaving by

I kiss the sun, and I kiss the sky

For they were the subject of what I adore

And the birds were talking in their praise

Of a world they've known in better days

And nobody sings the folk songs anymore

Love in the afternoon

 love, love in the morning, love in the afternoon

Love, love like a steam train whistle that's blowing

Love like the face of the moon

Love on the island, love on the bridge

Love in the aisle and the supermarket fridge

Love in the fountain, love in the mist

And love on the mountain where we first kissed

Love going down and coming up soon

Love in the afternoon

Are you going my way, walking across the room

Hiding in the shadows, in the dark gloom

Come out from the curtain, put down the broom

Cinderella on the highway sweeping over my tomb

Well the ball is still rolling but it'll be midnight soon

Love never goes my way, still there's love in the afternoon

Love like a joker, changing his clothes

Love like a smoker holding his nose

Can't stand the waiting for the summer in june

Love in the autumn wearing red shoes

Love like the falling leaves on sand dune

Love could be late to blossom, but soon it will bloom

Love in the flotsam, in the jettsam like a melody's tune

floating like a harmony, love in the afternoon

Love can be weak, love can be strong

love cheek to cheek, love's a love song

Love let's you speak, but doesn't need words

Love's what you seek, when you listen to the birds

Love is so sure and love is so soon

Love stands in your door, like a charm or a boon

Oh love, love in the afternoon

Snag-Life

Snag-Life, I just snag my life away
Everytime I think of stopping
That snagging feeling stays
And if I think about tomorrow
I know I'll be snagging just like today
Its a snagging sorrow, in March, April or May

Snagging through the Winter, on Spring and Summer days
Snaggin in the Autumn, in those dying auburn rays
And if I think of stopping,
That snagging feeling stays
Well that's Snag-Life

Snag-Life that's about the size of it
I've got wood chip down my collar
And White paint in my spit
If I had a dollar for every snag I made
Well I would be a millionaire
And I would sit upon a throne of gold
And not on this rickety old chair
But I am just a snagger, just a beggar laid bare
You try and stop me snagging
When I got soot dust in my hair
That's my Snag-life

Well I've got blue paint on my ear lobe
White paint up my nose
I'm sending out my snagging message
All around the globe
Snagging in the doorways, snagging round the rose
Snagging in the garden, on the roof top on tip toes
And everytime I think of stopping
That snagging feeling grows
That's my Snag-life

Well my finger nails are like black plumbs
From all the hammer blows
My snagging feeling lingers on
Like a love loss only knows
And I must be wicked because no rest ever slows
Me down in the thick of it
Until my brows are furrows
And I try to plough through the worry
But like flurries of snow
The snags they just snow ball me
Black and blue like the crows
And you can read all about it
In my Snag-Rag
I publish it on Tuesdays
When I talk of my Snag-drag
And it comes out on Sundays
When I blow my nose
Black and White between the lines
Where nobody ever goes
Now yes sir
That's Snag-Life

De streets

As I walk the chagrin streets
I listen to the sound of my feet
I hear the owl call
And the leaves fall
In a line
You know its no crime
If you say your place or mine

In the restaurant your eyes look into mine
I hold the feathers of the owl tonight
And you eat the leaves that autumn spent
But there is one thing I can write
Your place or mine

There are two things I know
one
Is to lie to nobody
The other is everybody lies
They just lie to themselves

If I had the courage of angels
To walk lightly to the stars
I'd had left long ago
But I tie my ankles to these trolls
And chained to toads

Just then the talk it moved to
Another home
The brass it shone
From memories polished
On the mantlepiece
Of my dreams
As I drift off into sleep

Such are the lions of peace
That keep the corners
Of the castle
Tongueless beasts
That have no voice
Just like me
I have no choice
But cross the bridges
That I burn
And never fear to fall
into the river
But must go on into the stars

The chagrin streets

I walk the chagrin streets
where the autumn leaves fall
Listen to the beat of my feet
To the silence call

The restaurant was a cold dish
I eat my revenge
And the road does fork
On a knife's edge I cut my bone
Underneath the cover
Of a night spent alone

The lamb joint the weasel nose
The final point in our wedding vows
And as the sun rose
I heard you say your place or mine

Send me flowers

Send me flowers from her grave

You know I'm tired of being brave

I can hold no candles to a wave

Send me flowers from her grave

She has died but I can save

A piece alive I never gave

I'll tell you one thing I won't waive

Send me flowers from her grave

The world is lit in a special light

It comes where I sit these words to write

I could've hit I could have fight

But I keep it hid in myself tonight

The autumn rounds like a cannon ball

What goes up soon down must fall

And in its arc it forgets to call

The shallow shark of the swimming pool

So send me flowers from her grave

Promise me primrose salvage me sage

Pick me a bouquet of rosemary and thyme

And let me smell their scent divine

Of Lizards and Lights

I didn't follow you on that parade
The flight of the libertines
I must admit I was too afraid
Too afraid of what might have been

I was gone in all sorts of ways
Before you
Before you or I
Had stepped out the door

I was in light
I was in shade
And I didn't want
Those changes anymore

I'm like a chameleon
Who changes his skin
To fit into the environment
He is in
And the Autumn here is changing its hue
So I can turn too
Out of blue
Into a shade of orange

You in your groves
So Olive
You in the grooves
of your skin
You in the cracks in the pavement
In the paper bark that's wearing thin

Throw your clothes in the fire
Salamander be born again
My twin
We should have been brother and sister
But in the war
We know neither one of us can win

The oak grows bare on the hillside
The Cypress trees blow in the wind
The candles flicker on the window's ledge
As I pledge this poem
a Hymn

The long summer

Its time to look back
Now I'm not trying to compare
Nor even trying to understand
The things that I cannot bear
To even hold within my hands

It just leads to some despair
Of despots, generals, the common man
But if you tell me I will lead them
And together we can make a stand

Don't forget you owe me nobles
I borrowed your bottle
From the Arab sands
Where knights in white cloth
Ride full throttle
On their camels over land

Should you ask me for for their number
None will come when I feel number
Than a candle in a wax work tumbler
Rolling over rumplestiltskin

Last night I saw a ranger
Flying high above
The sea even looked
Stranger then
As if not the face I love
Autumn in Hungary
Warmth in the sunlit streets
Nobody moves out of your way
Nothing poetic to say about that