Eton Mess

 You can buy your way into England

You can be a great success

But the only thing you need to know

Is how to eat the Eton mess

Oh the Eton mess is never beaten

Oh the Eton mess is the best

There's only one road to the top

And it never stops

Its name is the Eton Express

Don't worry about changing your name girls

Don't think about marrying a lord

The only thing that matters in the whole wide world

Is if you ate at Eton with a knife and fork

No you're never gonna hit the big time

Not with connections like that

It doesn't matter if you're from London

And swam the Thames  from bank to bank

If you speak with an accent

Like Birmingham, or Scottish or Yank

The only things that stand up on the cream 

Are boys from the Eton rank

You can sail in on a ship from Canada

Or come in on the wind from a diaspora

You can serve in the regular army

Or in the Special constabulary

You can dress to impress 

Even marry a Princess

But the only true path to your success

Is to have dined on the Eton mess

Oh perhaps you should have come

In the Norman conquest

When land was free to a stern request

And they cut off your ear

And said listen to me here

We're your guests

Now serve us some of your mess!

Back then the hierarchy started

Stood on another's head until it smarted

Then you can reach the ledge

Of the next social sandwich

Only to find the ones above you have departed

So try to make do or make a mends

If you are of the few or of many friends

Lead a good life away from such strife

Let bygones be bygones until the end

And one thing is true I must confess

I've myself never eaten the Eton mess

Building bridges or barriers

 30 years across a divide

Territorial suicide

If you see us let us go

How sweetly grow the snow drops

In the New Year's snow

30 years of treading walkers

Dogs on leashes and deer stalkers

Treading softly never stops

Over the hills of the Snow drops

Where you put your barriers down

Where you lay your claim to this town's

Hopes and dreams, her fields and streams

You cut in belts of Green and Brown

But you who judge and deem, and measure

Across our land it seems at your leisure

Saying this is ours and that is yours

Is one good way to start some wars

And if you should let greed rule your heart

Then throw away your beauty and art

For nothing sacred can be understood

Unless to live in peace in your own neighbourhood

And nothing built shall be bound

Unless by the folly of those around

So this is England

So this is England

Walking down the High Street of a Somerset town

Shops are closing down

Or shut up already,

Walking with a dry mouth, parched

But The pub at the end

It hearkens no laugh

The bar is a dark place

The bar stools stand

Empty as a pocket

In an empty land

So this is England

I hear you say

What I had come to love

Has soon been blown away

In a wind of change

As across the motorway

The dust of dry fields

The corn storks decay

But this is Autumn, the voice of reason calls

And anyway what's the season, we

Still have the market stalls

And Artists crying treason

Writing written on the walls

Who's sold off this lovely land

The politicians or the fools?

Who voted for them in the first place?

In this government of crows

This murdering of Parliament

This place where no hope grows

And yet and yet I hear you say

This is Winter, it goes that way

Perennial seasons, people trying

To reclaim

The name of the rose

So this is England

Dig in your own garden and look after your own lot

Put up notices, beg for pardon

Give whatever you've got

Give as good as you get

And forget to pick forget-me-nots

For suckling bees at flowers

Could not count all of their stock

Store it in piles in larders

Fill up the honeypot

And save for a rainy day

For you know that happens a lot

Though we never spend

Even though today is no day to save

Gather it in at your wedding

Give it away at your grave

Yes this is England,

Hoarding your plot

And marking out the lines 

Where you go

Where you do not

And never throw a stone at a crow

Never break the glass houses

Because we've built them out of stone

And we've tied them on necklaces down blouses

Caught in the cleavage gap

Between two breasts boom and bust

Crying I must, I must, I must improve my bust

Yet leverage of whale bones, never

Moved the beached body off the beach

We saw the mermaids waving in the surf

We gave it a pauper's grave and tears of grief

This great flotilla of what was once our dreams

That came up for air once

But heard only screams

Yelling go back, go back

And warning us of the sand banks

But it was too late as The hull

Hit ground and broke the cranks

Yet this is England

We've landed

This place of our dreams

This isle of forever

Forever down flowing streams

Water, water everywhere, flowing down the sink

Water, water everywhere, and only beer we drink

Body Politic

 I guess what you saw 

When you opened the door

Was me forgetting my name

But I had to be sure

Each time I abhor

The way of getting the game

Sheets fall from the sky

Sheets of rain

And I cry

There in the corner

There must be the coroner

Of England's body in a foreign field

And he is trying to resuscitate it

England is flat-lining

It's fitting to be fit

No it is fit in ways I can never imagine

In ways that leave spectators to gaze at 

Football and rugby stadiums

And young people who fight

With their bodies at night

While in the day they train for the army

And these bodies go overseas for months

And sometimes return in black bags

While other bodies swim in the Adriatic

Or the sail yachts and attend parties

That are quite erratic

With the King of Monte Carlo

But my body has never done that

Perhaps in my mind that is a place

I visit in my dreams

Perhaps I hold a candle for the chances

Down the stream

Or for the memories of times which

Like diamonds gleam,

Gleam in the mud and the dust

Perhaps but in all honesty

I don't know where it goes

My body is this thing

That goes along in tow

And I must keep it happy 

Like England proper must be kept moving

And in good working order

In order for it to function well

Stop the economy and it will get sick

Don't listen to the doctors

They can be dicks

Listen to your body - the democratic one I mean

England proper - the body politic

The Demos or else the mob may rebel

You've got to keep it tickety-boo

Ticking along like a nice choo-choo

COVID12 - The Politician

You see mine is a fine line that one must tread
A little too stern, and you're dead
Public assassination
A little too soft, and you're kicked off the stage
To jeers of rage,
And then it's resignation
Yes its a hard life this Political calling

And 24 hours is a long time in politics especially in the middle of
A covid crisis, its a pandemic, for Jesus' sake,
Ok it was only an epidemic last week
We made a mistake, which governments are entitled to do - I think?
We have the best brains in epidemiology working on it at the moment
And we must time it just right, taking many factors into consideration
It was the boffins and egg heads who came up with these guidelines
I own them, alright yes, I take responsibility for the death toll
20000 lives, that's the prediction, but bloody hell who knows
Here or there a few souls slip through the net, that is wastage
Yes, yes, the are not just number or figures, they are real human beings,
Yes, and who will pay my taxes if you all shuffle off your coils?

So this is my line keep calm and carry on, we need to keep the country going
We can't just ground to a halt, stiff upper lip, suffer the assault
Like the beaches at Normandy - Oh no Dunkirk- no that was a withdrawal
Well you know same thing haul up the draw bridges, we're on our own
Great British Fighting spirit -do it for the Queen

Queen - What! I'm thinking of moving to Canada with Harry and Megan
They seem to know what in the hell they are doing - the only ones I feel PM, Hmm?!

PM - Quite right Your Majesty
Anyway its 24 hours later here are my Policy changes
Everyone must stay in doors
Damn we should have done this last Sunday cough, cough
Excuse me PM we didn't catch that was it an apology?
No, no I was just clearing my throat, got a little tickle you know
Blasted press conferences - journalists always trying to run the show
Well not on my watch!
So what about schools PM?
What about 'em Barry, hmm, no Tony no Giles, no Jim, yes Jim
Old Jim Bob of the Guardian!
Well, my, we go back a long way - ....sorry , yes right Schools!
Do we close them?
Yes right we must close the schools, all children to stay at home with their parents
But they still have to work PM
Right well why can't the grand parents look after them?
But they are in the vulnerable age category in self-isolation!
Right well you are splitting hairs now, do you want to catch this blasted virus or something?
Just get on with it - oh and Police are now empowered to use more draconian methods
We can fine you or arrest you for breaking the curfew
What about the Prisoners?
Well half of the prisoners will be set free to make room for all the members of the public who
Will be breaking the curfew in the coming weeks
So our streets will be a lot safer
Hey we might even draft in some of those released criminals to become a sort of back up special
forces team to back up the regular officers on the beat
Sounds like a marvellous plan

Anyway good night everybody, I'm feeling a little poorly
And think I will need to self isolate now
As you should to - everybody Bog Off and go home!

On the road to Taunton

On the road to Taunton

Just down Pedwell hill

I remember the fields

Where we used to roam

As teenagers on the common bill

On the road again, the smell of manure

The stone houses are the same

The bus ticket price has changed

But it all seems familiar

There’s a layer of dirt in my mind

A layer of dust I can’t reach above

Feed back from my body perhaps

Clear thinking doesn’t happen

When you’re down on the levels

You need hills or seas for that

This probably is why farmers are manipulated

By politicians’ wicked games

It’s the plains people, the beautiful plains

But they are like animals unthinking

White cows graze in the morning sun

Frisians in another one

As black and white as politics seems to some

The rows of Ash and Oak

The clouds like streams of white smoke

The close-cropped hair cut of tree-lined hills

Sticking up above Sedgemoor

A road sign reads Little England

I think that’s about right

Then the bus stops outside the London Inn

Builders’ white vans, the Westcot Close

The grey dull council houses of Margaret Thatcher’s ghost

On the bus are admin clerks

A gypsy looking man

A grumpy frumpy woman who keeps sighing

We pass Burrowbridge hill

Where King Alfred burnt the cakes

What would he have made of our mistakes?

Cornfields growing, farmers still have a stake

People must still eat, it's just the slice of bread is that of cake

East Lying, but so is the West

The dams of the reservoir, where six

Years ago this was a flood plain

A sea because of poor maintenance

Because we’ve taken the trees from off the hills

North Curry, Stoke St Gregory

The Thankyou for driving carefully

Signs – the yellow light upon hedges

The Outwood Newton, the pasty-faced man burping

in a sickly way with ginger hair

The large red brick houses of childhood memory

And the dark green hardwood groves that fill

The valleys where we drove

Like time is running out for us

And this like a fat snotty man with head phones on

We are oblivious to nature

We just make our internal machinations public

In a most crude way

A frumpy but respectable lady gets on

Outside a respectable well/trimmed beach hedge

And everything becomes more well/trimmed and neat

Worthy lane, North End, so must the South but perhaps not yet

House 66, Hamlea, DV Direct vehicles on Tarmac drives

Caravans on them and paddock close

The England flag waves above garden gnomes

Humps for 350 yards – I think that doesn’t sound enough

Try 10 years

Weak bridge -bound to be,

Let’s build a Euro-bridge

But we have Euro tunnel-vision

Hyde lane, Vicarage way

Around the Mulberry House and bush we go

Irish back stop is illegal

Just like a super state of two eagles

Can’t figure it out, like a boy scout

We’re lost but we will survive and make do

And the bus fills up with college types

As we pass the Baptist Church

Taunton 3 miles, Illminster 9

Cross barred gates, sunlit fields

Herb Robert dancing in the breeze

The woman I thought looked fed up and was sighing

Turned out to be deaf and she was signing

Just using her hands more than normal, than I would expect

Like some of us on the white cliffs of Dover semaphoring

Across the English Channel our SOS

But it just shows how long I am in the neck

Polka-dot black spot on white blouse walks on

Elder in the hedgerows singing a swan song

Gold rings in her ears and purple lips

As if death might have kissed her

Held her hips

Then the brutal masculine reality of progress

The Earth work road team digging up paradise

Diggers and cranes and pile drivers knocking

On shingle, gravel and uncovered red brown soil

Here we are in Taunton the place the journey ends

Londis, silk mills, inflatable theme parks

No left turn, no U-turn for Brexit into the Service Road of self-respect

The Holly bushes and the Ivy thorns and the hair dressing apprentices

All on the roundabouts over the black brook

The parks, the broad roads, bus depots and crofts

Here is the place that the journey stops

Long time No Sea

The burnished coast

Green as a pea

Hungary boasts

An inland sea

Where the Holy Ghost

Is in no poverty

The manicured devils finger nails

Ripened claws

As the moonlight pales

Walking east from Minehead’s Pier

The glassy sand, the grassy dune

The monthly moon in Luna phase

As a night sky on Holidays

Easter Fete of spraying water

Over the daughter the Mother, the bride

Or father’s pride

By the boy, the man

The man over board

The Buoy out at Sea

Lost asking in return for saving a wilting flower

Can you with a Piros Tojak (red Egg) save me?

Long time no Sea

In Hungary

Landlocked but knows the Loch, the lake

The lace of Gossamer

Webs like a misty white sea

Over fields or meadows

Where the swallows and swifts

Are the fish

The insects the creel

The whales the loafing cows

Treading through the long grass swells

Like monks saying vows

And little gofers like dolphins

Popping up their heads

Sharks like foxes

Sniffing out ways to be fed

The Sea is the land, the land is the sea

Because what we’ve planned

Is what we can be

And what is possible

There’s no impossibility in endless ocean

In rolls of Mountains

In the fractal geometry

The Partial differential equations

Of change time geology

In topography of sky, sea and land

Interchangeable as three dimensions

Of Space or time

Stretched intermingling

Through the human mind