Hooper road

 Hooper road around the bend

Down through the middle and back again

Don’t call for a doctor when what you need is a friend

These kind of things they never end

 

Up to the corner and about the block

Double barrel shot gun was a shock

When it went off it was half-cocked

Hooper and cooper stood like a rock

 

Barrels of gun powder, barrels of wine

I’ve had a barrel of laughs and now I feel fine

It’s just a pleasure it was under the pine

When he threw hoop over the line

 

Barrels of whisky, barrels of port

Barrels of anything, be a good sport

There’s a bottle neck jammed

And a leaky tap to report

Hooper will find time to mend all sorts

 

Hooper road, hooper bend

Everyone laughs up til the end

The bottom of the barrel

Is always a good friend

So take what you’re given

And let’s make an end.

Sidcot Swallet – Burrington Coombe Nov 9th 2013

Down, down into the deep

Into the depths of the hills which sleep

Earthly death the temporal bowl

The bowels of the earth

The hell hole

Dark and black

Damp not cold

Warm as bark

From the fires below

Down we go, down, down, down

Down to the depths of the pits dark pole

Rock that’s round, slime and mould

Warm and black don’t lose your soul

Farther back, farther still

Reaches the slack of the Mendip sill

Subterranean rivers run

Inside the place hid from the sun

Farther back and farther still

Runs coal black the rocky gill

Breathes the stone lung

Its wet warmth not chill

Yet eerie stack upon stack the boulders fill

When so far down

Beneath the crown of the hill

When above you lay the weight of a hundred ton sill

What drives you down is an impossible will

It draws you down

To the world beneath

To cavernous clowns

Who hurl your belief

Into echoes around the hideous relief

Where a voice may drown without knowing a grief

Where the fantasy stalactites like acrobats stow

And chastened as sleeping bats roost under bows

Of roofs a thousand feet below

Below, below, to and fro the arches bend and breech the throw

They lend a spectacular frieze

As in a cysteine chapel we fall to our knees

And reach such wonder lust as only heaven must know

A man must be humble, crawl and lower like a snake

Slither on belly, on back on sides between cracks

Around bends without using his eyes

Just feel with his feet

Trust to the unknown

For it is in refusing to accept defeat

That for our greater sins we atone

Earth Quacks and Doctor Ducks

 Friends in high places

And a song to believe

Wiping their faces, with the heart on your sleeve

Can you draw aces, with a sleight of hand

I didn't know the places where they gamble their land

A friend indeed is a friend in need

And too many ducks to breed

Give me a false friend, show me the decoy

There is an Earth quake to a avoid 

When your boots shake to destroy

Those towers of Babel in a foreign land

The songs that stand taller than anyone can

Yes it was murphy's law I knew it had to be his

As I walked in the bar and asked for a fizz

We don't serve women here, you have to bring your own

Not necessary to own your own home

Get what's coming to you

If you survive the ordeal

Maybe God will punish you

For ordering that meal

Maybe Christ will have mery

And on bended knee

You'll know the value of certainy

In life's inconstancy

When the chips are down

 Will you still love me

When the chips are down

Oh the trees are now green,

But as I have seen, soon they will turn brown

So what I want to know is,

will you still love me

When the chips are down

I heard from the owl that it is night right now

And the sun it has gone down

Well more than that prayer or feather of your care

Will you still love me 

When the chips are down?

When the chips fall down boys

When the chips fall down

I'll pick you up

And set your crown

When the chips fall down

And out beyond the steaming morning

And the Church bell's chime

The storm that brews, it calls a warning

Of a hard and trying time

Will you come to me in my hour of darkness

Will you come to me and say

All the things good and bad in bargaining

When the chips are down?

Doff and Don

 Doff and Don were two great friends

One came off and one came on

The ones who didn't were forever gone

When Don and Doff were there

The sun forever shone

Don't go said Doff

I must said Don

So Don ran off

To Babylon

And Doff flew off to the sky of blue

And listened to French

As gum he chewed

And sung a song that went doobie doo

But Doff loved Don who never knew

Take off your hat, said Doff to Don

No put it on said Don to Doff

I can't take off my cap or cape

Said Don to Doff around his nape

A tiger hung or maybe a snake

I really don't know what to make

Said Doff to Don about the shape

Of his heart beneath the Sun

Which shone too strong

Which shone too strong

Role Play

 Honoree talking to her faux professor husband:

Well darling

We've lived a very middle class life

and nuzzled up,

cozzied up against our middle class friends

Talking about Jamie oliver

And all the different kinds of Chilli

available in the Waitrose supermarket that money can buy

Our money darling, our money can buy us choice in the supermarket

I can just hear the nasally tone of voice

When each tries to sound more horsey than the next

Sebastian and her

Each coming from working class parents who have tried to make it

No, have made it into the landed classes

Will pay thousands of pounds a term to get their children into 

a private educations

and the Diana whose father worked hard his whole for money

For what

To make money but contraditorarily to preach

About how it is the root of all evil

Diana has a plain idea of the security that every woman seeks from a man

- that he should make enough money,

So she looks for this,

And Sebastian her spouse had been looking for just that sort, the sort who are looking for a monied

father figure, the sort who can provide,

Except he, he never quite can finish making money,

Perhaps there was an eating diorder in his family,

Or a sign of family out of control, trying to stay in control of the finances,

Because he only cares about making more money, his mother's wish

And having more food,

Ah the stability

Then you've made it

The class system

The fool

George, performing

the childlike role for the teacher

The naughty child who can only find fault

No he is generous and warm, mostly like a teacher,

yet, that is also what George is looking for

a father figure,

always the absent father,

And then why not throw it all away and move to a classless society

Like Australia

Poem for Marguerite

All the places I travel to
Time is free at no cost
Ashton - from ashes to ashes
To the poet's wood (Audenshaw)
Where Auden talked with Bernard Shaw
Even the weavers wove their web
In Droylsden where waters ebb
Then flow into the miller's dough
of Milnrow
Thrashing at the fresh hay of Newhey
A deer stalker passed by the way of Derker
And a freeman took his land in Freehold
Who knows why you'd risk your success in Failsworth?
Newton Heath and Moston are the best towns to get lost in
In Monsall, they sell moon rock on a Sunday morning
In Crumpsall they can buy it back again out of season

Of course you can get your arrows fletched
And your bowstring stretched
in Bowker vale
And some pom-pom girls will make you bouquets
In Pomona
If you feel the need to rest a while
Drop anchor in Anchorage
Its a strong foothold for a gentleman suitor
On his way to Ladywell
Where the finest dames are known by name
To wash their hair
And chambermaids collect their buckets of water

Be careful of the Vikings who invaded long ago
We paid their levees like their toll
When we travelled on the Dane Road
And the wives of Stretford are hoiking up their britches
As they cross the waters
Tip-toeing to Timperley

The summer birds are nesting in the eves of Martinscroft
Because the green leaves grow in the withies of Wythenshaw

And everybody knows a rolling stone
Gathers no moss
It only feels its loss
When it stops
In the shade of shadow moss

Csaba

I am writing this
For a guy I know
He's very cool
The type is true
Daisy chains and pipes that flue
Through his big literary brains
Like geese that flew, like winter rains
And summer hazes
As Summer fields of daisies
And swallows following mazes
Through and through
A deep brain
Like a deep river rumbles over rocks
But is silent in its secrets
It holds in its depths
Its surface is still
It is cool

And immediately we know
It as our other selves
Like a mirror
A quivering river's reflection
Showing the imperfections
But the figure
Is walking away
With the black crows
The ravens road
Down the green valley pathway