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

King Alfred

Many times I've hid away

Many times I stand and fight

But if this were yesterday

Tomorrow would be alright

Its just been a nagging

this wilderness in the back of my mind

Someday soon I'll journey there

And see what I may find

I dreamt:

I was a great king in the past

When heroes walked the land

And ships carried two ton masts

When men were born and died in reigns

That neither victor nor defeated

Could buy in vain

This grist that etched old Briton

As was how we called her

Was beset with Tribes and Factions

Though in strength together I did bind them

For we faced a common foe

That of the Dane who's greatness came in tow

And not more did commoner or saint

Have the wear with all to weather that complaint

I being of Christian heart

Fought hard to see a peaceful way

But tethered to the mortal spell

The fates decreed another path to tell

And so into ditches up to our britches

We wandered now

Then finding a friend with a long canoe

Up the rhines and river we did plough

Coming at last to a fateful place

Named Athelney then gave up the chase

For thought I, with mind bent on War

The military advantage proved most likely to endure

With treacherous swamp and tidal rills

Surrounding us always even up to the hills

And no enemy could find or try to invade

An army so well fortified by barriers nature-made

Therefore there did we rest with what was left of our number

Until we could regroup and gather strength and make weapons of lumber

Then we might be the one with the power

Of choosing time and place to fight a battle

At what’s now called Alfred's Tower

The long nights passed

And my resolve it did last

Until I was ready

To charge down the Eddy

And whirlpool of damage into the Danes

They stood there now in the screaming battleground

 Which forever I'll see in my dreams

As match sticks on the burning horizon

And all did us surround

Like frozen mirrors their armour

catching the sun's gleam

Yet this symbol I saw rising above me

Was the risen Lord now on the cross

I know without doubt, the Lord was on our side

And, though battle and bloodshed were our lot

We would not come to great loss

So I remember well the Saviours Land

Who felt our weary footfall

Those levels of the Summer lands

And Athelney's borough above all

No rich merchants did abode us

For they were all lost at sea

When Briton's hour was at it's darkest

Who saved us were the poor folk of this sweet country

They sheltered and clothed our soldiers

Gave them food and warmth

And when time came to turn the tides of War

So too the waters they did part

Like the Hebrew tribes of old

When Moses led them away

The sea again did save God's people

Until their judgment day

And like the Tribes of the Pharaoh

The Danes were smothered in the wash

To show that all of the unworthy

Shall be dashed upon the rocks and their forces quashed

So let this be a reminder to all those who come here after

This land was once so holy

And filled with a people's happy laughter

That it's essence is in Nature

That will provide food enough for man

And protection when times are hardest

This holy sacred Land