Dolls house

 There were two actresses living in a house

They would

be dolls in a house in a film

We think they are normal

But they are small

And behind them the Scenery seems strange,

With props continually being rearranged

And then the camera pans out and we find

They are just props themselves

In a dolls house

And that it was all just an illusion

Love and life

Unless somewhere is sacrifice

TV dinners

 All these lives

That live in the screen

Where are they now?

 Whose fortress so keen

Does hold them and hold them

Or give them a scene

Oh the angels of darkness

With their night vision so keen

All of these actresses

So fortunate and dumb

Whose strong stage appearances

Have rendered us dumb

The lives of the livid

Are bubbling beneath

But whose lives

So softly

Like a lamb's heart do beat

Where are the Voikador's

Or the Roman's of Crumb?

I love not

The Wicked whores

Or the agents of hum

I long for the days of yore

When the basketball thumbed

And the joystick

Of Amigas

On Road Rages hummed

Oh this was my feel good

Off licenses joy

To hold onto

Dogma

  I was dogmatic

As I attacked the attic

With my dog and bone

Rang static, through heaving clouds

Of coulds and shoulds

Of which I must atone

And pile drove my piles of paperwork

Down to the factory run by berserks

Who swab and test me like a dog

I cry down boy to the nurse

But she doesn't hear

My dog-eared cries

And yet like a family sized box

Of varieties, I sort of take a dog leg

Into doggerel like a mongrel

Fawning, forced from my race against

The clock, by the fox

 

And release the dogs of war

Because it is a dog fight out there

Or so they say on Albert Square

And what do I know?

I'm just a dog who sits

In front of a box

And waits for air

To remind me its time for a walk

Do the 'walk the dog' dance in the park

Doggie style, no that's something else

I'm thinking of a dog collar I have to wear

The commissioner? No the Bishop? Yeah

And the actress, you know the one

From Lady and the tramp

And the dog training camp

Bad bitches or some kind of ramp

That they racked up to a fever pitch

And I'm too strewn in strudels

From a sky full of smorgasbords

To care, because

It's raining cats and dogs

You guessed it folks he's here

Your one and only Disney character

Dog cartoon Pluto

And then you say - but he wasn't a dog was he?

Yeah, true blue, down to his last inch

He took it by a hair's breadth to win 

The competition at Crufts

Well hair of the dog you say

Yes.. well who am I to argue with

A contradiction?

The fact that all these dogs seem to understand

Nowadays, is how to roll over, fetch, be a good boy

But nobody is saving Joan of Arc,

None of them are running into the flames of

A burning building to rescue poor little Jimmy

No they've not been trained that way,

Even if their instinct is to rescue little Timmy

Then their training says otherwise

Be afraid, be very afraid when poodle grooming

Becomes prime time television viewing

You know either something is seriously wrong

With society or we are in a pandemic and lock down

Or both

Who let the dogs out?

I ask myself again and again, but after listening

To the song on repeat I am still unable to solve

That profound mystery

Dog-darn it

Boogie Bay

 Jezebelle the nun she cooks the books

She looks down the rifle sight

At words in her book

And each letter is like a light

She forgets to remember to write

When they come in the night

To seek out her quarters

And I have missed my train

I have kissed the rain

I have handed over my money

In the short haul plane

And they are tying on my parachute

So I may fall again

Now I hope 

That I land on my feet like a cat

And not head first into pain

The boogie nights

Of silent street

Rolling days of hilly sleep

That are gained in increments

Like slow orchestral movements

Let me take you to Boogie bay

And the starving

Staple of stolen care

Let me take you to boogie bay

We'll run our own kettle shop

And shine shoes there

We'll perform brain surgery

And give you a new heart

They'll take away your kidneys

And replace them with kid art

They'll shave your Jerico

And topple your Jeronimo

And Domino your diamonds

Through doorways in the dark

They'll break the crust of parkland

In a following

And their dialectics will make you fall apart

In dialogues eclectic, or electric like her smart

She'll click her fingers

Yes she will, she'll hurl you

From the apple cart

And stake a claim in corruptibles

Like a razor blade dart

And shore enough the sea will scoff

At all your glimmering jewels

She'll roll them til their edges scuff

And shine them like your shoes

So let me take you to boogie bay

Where the whales have the time

And they keep it in their tails

Where the mermaids do recline

And fat and folding sailors who

Have spent too long on land

Will look out of their sea side windows

And begin to make their plans

Let me take you to boogie bay

It cannot be more than a day away

And we will score our good time there

And we will hold aloft a flame

And flax and flecks

And shocks of seals will still be making play

When we go down hand in hand

To the sands of Boogie Bay

Jack in the box part 3

I decided there and then

I would know his ken

And bravely strode over to appraise him

As I let down my hand

Like a gangway he climbed on board 

To the port

Holding him as Hamlet

Once held Yorick so

I asked him alas what his name was

And how he came to be this John Doe

He answered his name was Miklos Kundra

A Hungarian travelling magician

That he had been touring this land

In the year 1597

Not long after the great dissolution

All had been going well for him

London had been his home

He played on the great stages and theatres

Of the Age

He had known the great playwrights

Shakespeare and Christopher Marlowe

Ben Johnson had sponsored him

To perform for the Queen

And she had loved his panache and bravado

But the forces of jealousy were quick and great

And rivalling acts competed for his space

Until he found himself ostracized for some minor disgrace

He was not as refined a courtier as he might have been

His acts they were audacious

Disappearances and then the revealing

And the source of his magic so mysterious

The religious fanatics began to question quite what he was concealing

They pushed him out of court

One day he was toast of all london and the nation

The next he was an abomination

He was forced to play the taverns

He drifted down squalid alley ways

The sounds of bow bells left his ears

And he was a cast out, to the rural condition

Being of strong constitution

And robust matter of fact way of thinking

His attitude and skill got him a new position

With a travelling circus which stopped him from sinking

The troupe consisted of a milleu of characters

From the sublimely beautiful actress, to the thieves of ill report

From troubadours with trombone tones, and mandolins with strings taut

They toured the village fairs, the country lanes were their companions

They slept in Gypsy caravans or under the stars as the notion took them

They were welcomed as fascinations

But sometimes shunned as charlatans or crooks

They carried no identifications, they lived by their wits and their looks

It was one night in little Thumbstead

That the caravan drew up outside the woodland's head

The fields hay was fresh in their nostrils

And the midsummer haze rested on brooks

The evening sun was setting down

And Miklos was preparing his show for the town

Checking his props worked, his devious mechanisms

Of fiendishly complex invention

They left the onlooker in some despair unable to work out

What was going on there, and beyond their comprehension

Soon the time came to go down to town

And set up inside the tent

The atmosphere was dizzy with jovial excitement

With men swigging ales and women tittering, 

The crowd swelled to enlargement

And gaiety and blessedness of the cider that flowed

And then Miklos saw the face of a lover he once knowed

"Nessie, what are you doing here?" he spoke

But he said it in Hungarian and it startled a few folk

What strange language was this foreigner speaking?

unlike the French tongue, the German or Anglo Saxon

The only other place they knew of mysterious words spoken

Was in the Latin mass, a practice outlawed and forbidden

Suspicions began to spread through the crowd 

and Miklos pulled Nessie inside the tents shroud

He firmly gripped her and asked her again

"Why did you follow me here from the Hortobágy plain?"

"I followed you Miklos to let you know

That you died for that day you left me alone with child

To pursue your great and wonderful dream

To be the court Magician to England's great Queen"

"I followed you here to say that your boy is now a man

He is a soldier fighting the Turks trying to defend his father's land, 

While you bleeding heart go and suckle on England's Rose

Oh you great pretender now how does your garden grow?"

Miklos turned away, in shame, this woman, his wife

knew not of his fame, nor indeed of his rise and fall in life

"One day I will win back the Queen's favour

As the finest magician living in all the Western World

But the trick to make you love me, is like a flame I eat that's curled

It's like a fire snake inside me burning a red hot ember

And I cannot escape the past, and now you make me remember"

"Your son Miklos will likely die this year

The Turks are over running us, we run away in fear

They burn our villages, babies from the breast they tear

And dash apart their brains on any rock that they find near"

"If we are not enslaved we are punished, humiliated or maimed

And to live life we must adopt Islam as our religion as well

You must come home now to help fight them

You must help vanquish from Hungary this hell

I know you have the ability to lead

And inspire a spirit to fight these Turkish devils !"

As Miklos was about to speak, his name was called out on stage

The act was about to begin, quickly he changed into the guise of a mage

The crowd was hot in anticipation and some rebellion in the ranks

The cider, Miklos thought, was getting to them, but for the chance to perform

He gave thanks

Some local girl he picked out from the crowd to assist him

In his magic trick

It was the end of the night, the fire flies were bright

And under the torch light he sweated from his flanks

The thought of his son never left him,

In fact it recurred as a bad dream,

What if he should die on the battlefield

Abandoned while his father pursued his mad scheme

The trick was one he had performed before

A simple one with a box and a saw

A trick of light and mirrors

Of sleight of hand, and lightening fast manouvres

That would see the girl's body apparently cut in quarters

By Miklos' own hand as he wielded his saw

Then by a miracle the crowd would gasp 

As the box's parts would be pulled apart

And the girl still alive with her beating heart, 

Would then be returned to what she had been before

But as the lights dimmed

And the girl climbed into the Magician's trap

Miklos felt a shiver, and the signs of a nervous attack

A panic, that turned into a mental gap

What if he had failed in his magic?

The one trick he wished he knew

Was how to make somebody love him

And their life renew

And as this thought rebounded inside his skull

He began to cut the girl's box as well

Then with a rush of realization he knew

He had forgotten to replace a vital screw

That meant the false box had not 

Properly slid into place

And as he looked to the wings

He witnessed Nessie's white face

For on the floor surrounding the box

Was a pool of blood the colour of a fox

A second later the crowd knew as well

And there was howling and whupping

And the scenes of a living hell

As frantic relatives, husband and wife

Fell over themselves to try to save the girl's life

And Miklos could only stand and watch in utter disbelief

Until the angry mob gathered round

To vent on him their grief

The harrowing scenes took a turn for the worse

As his Hungarian name was revealed

And in torture he uttered his native tongue of course

The sign of the devil, must be witchcraft or spell

Must have been plotting to kill the Queen of England as well

Turn the nation into Anarchy and hell

And so he was tried as a traitor to the realm

And also under witch craft laws was tied up to an elm

And whipped until blood came curdling from his mouth

And Nessie she begged them for mercy, if he would only renounce

But Miklos was so strong willed, he confessed he only loved the Queen

He had been trying to make her better,

He was branded obscene

He claimed he was no sorceror, just an honest magician

He had only smoke and mirrors, but no malicious intentions

They hounded him from Basingstoke up to Bayswater

They said he was the son of the Devil and Nessie was the Devil's daughter

They were to be burnt at the stake, their bodies drawn and quartered

A retribution for his mistake, for killing the girl a dunking under water

Their bodies they were flayed, women and men turned away,

Then they chopped them up, in a darkened corner of a forest buried them

Somewhere in Cirencester or it could have been leeds,

But that is where their bodies now lie, and why

This skull needs the help it needs

Master of puppets

The shadows of the past
Play puppets on the wall
Strange animals run fast
Monsters are there ready to fall

My hands cannot hold them all
My fingers untie
I am tired of all the acting
Tired of the charade, the lie

I see her in grey approaching through the white
Each time I think I may stay
She turns on another light
And it illuminates my mistakes
It casts doubts' shadows against the wall

My own past is merged with her's
And I cannot see clearly at all

There must be some reason for its standing
This cinema of life
Like I am watching my own play unravel
Like she is an actress, And I am
An editor, making the cut with my knife

The scene of us together rolls around and around
The film reel feels, like a loose end
That must be tied
I am the puppet master
But I do not pull the strings
My shadows dance without my asking
They are autonomous things

Have I responsibility for what they do or say
After all am I not just a puppet myself
In this strange shadow puppet play?

The American Corner

 A little piece of heaven

A slice of the American pie

A report of the news at seven

Your own private cloud in the sky

Come here to read, or unwind

Come here to leave behind

Those hours of nine til five

Dolly Parton eat your heart out

Now the American Corner’s come alive

Pieces of the American dream

Gradually fall into place

They fill in the Hungarian scene

Where reality wears a different face

Yet we all wear masks here

We’re all part of the carnival

Some clown sheds a tear

Another actress shines a knowing smile

The American corner revolves around

The spirit we can all better ourselves

And the queen of that dream

Is Bogi who's seen sitting, working hard

At her computer among the full book shelves

It’s a place of Education

A place for rich and the poor

It's egalitarian Librarian

Is partly fraternal, a little maternal, 

Showing us the score

Giving us the US quiz, to improve our knowledge some more

So roll up, roll up come join the parade

We're marching through the town

People of every colour, creed or shade

Everyone is equal and we all have the right

To pursue our own happiness

And to fight the good fight