Socks

The giant falls upon his back
Then from him pulls
a lion black
Whose raging mouth
and lashing tongue
Has been the scourge
of everyone

The frosted beams and splintered branches
Of certain dreams after
Curtain glances
Whose home alone
And what are the Jones
Up to now?

 Four score years I've
been living these dreams
Waking up with nightmares
Giving me womanly screams

The socks in the wind
and the money in the pocket
Don't light up what I mean
After I stick into the electricity socket

Timing is all out
I want to shout but fail
My calls rebound within
Internal walls of self
Not rising above esteem
Like some pitying ocean
Swell cannot breach the brink
Of the harbour wall
Cannot flood the wishing well

Giant’s Table

 The Rocks have splodges, splotches of black

Moss spotted, lichen baked, the microbe rack

Faces that were once cracked

By the ice and snow

A shattered crown, a humpty dumpty

A Jack on a hill with a crow

And a crowing goes Jack now

His pock-a-dot tied up in a sack

A stick on his shoulder

A whistle on his lips

Hip-hopping over boulder

Tip-toe topping down dips

A slipping on wet stones

The rushing galling river glen

The flushing archipelagos

Of Moss, liverwort and lichen

The saxifrage in Saxon tongues

Lolling, lapping at the fringes

Watercourses bleeding through the rock

 

Water falling in dark singes

The high table land set in cloud shadows

Laid for a feast of the giant of the mountain

Yet his guest never comes

Never treads foot on steep path

Nor tows his flag pole up

Nor visits with his laugh

 

This cold place of Ghosts and stages

Actors rehearsing dead plays

Poets reading from never seen before pages

All is secrets up in this plot

All is hand tied

Mouths closed

You get what you’re given

And you’re not given a lot

 

These are the days on the thunder mountain

Where the crags are the stalls

And they echo their applause

In claps and snaps

And cracks in the atmosphere

In the buzz of the dead listening skies

In the hearts that crack and break up there

On the mountainside of the mountain lair

Goliath

 

Two pigeons I saw on wild windy moor

A floating and filling the air

Death held their hand

Like a skipping companion

Death in a Peregrine’s stare

 

The z car beeped inside the busy street

But Goliath was empty dead on his feet

And he toppled the bean stork

Where jack and his mother talk

And Jack has more business there

 

Goliath, Goliath why do you take thy rest

In the grass of the wild moor?

The children are going and their mothers are sewing

Clothes for you elsewhere

Why do you think this the time to blink

Can’t you see Jack has his medallion?

And he’s swinging it around

It's making that whirring sound

Soon he'll let it fly in your direction

 

Goliath went to Ireland

He walked along the pounding streets

And upon the causeway

He met Danny Boy in a hostel

And Danny Boy did try to kill him

First he sang his song so sweet

And then he sang his shrill hymn

And it was someone from six feet

Who threw the stone that killed him

 

Yes they buried dear Goliath

Down near the cliffs of Moher

They lowered him down as a king

As Lilliputians did with Gulliver

 

They pinned his bones between the rocks

As a shipwreck, like a warning

So that if any giants should show their socks

They’d be dead by the next morning

Lemon Curd Lemmers

Cats are afraid of water

Abraham was afraid to send his son to slaughter

I noticed a woman who was nervous of a little bird

Tell me why am I afraid of Lemon Curd?

Napoleon was a Giant who stood 5 feet 7 tall

But even he had issues with the shadows on the wall

And many in Mogadishu feel the need to cry I’ve heard

So Tell me why am I afraid of Lemon Curd?

I used to know a sailor who told me of the things at Sea

Many I could guess to face they wouldn’t bother me

But even this tough sailor thinks its quite absurd

Tell me why am I afraid of Lemon Curd?

Is it that its yellow well that could be the fellow

But no I don’t hide myself from the Sun

And its not that its a preserve about which I am Mellow

After all I can spread Jam on a current Bun

No, what I think is, that it is from a lemon tree

It’s truly that elementary

For a nasty incident happened when I was young

I was stuck up the tree for hours

Just sniffing at the fruit and flowers

When I saw dead black crow there was hung

Now I know it was a scare crow

But back then it was I who scared so

And the crows still circled about the Lemon Groves in the Sun

Ever since I’ve associated a dead bird

Every time I saw Lemon Curd

Which my point it proves

When life hands you Lemons Please recall these truths I’ve said

Don’t be bitter just make Lemonade instead

Because with it you’ll be cured

Just for Goodness sake stay away from Lemon Curd