I long for the mountains

 I long for the mountains

Where the grizzly bears roam

Where there's wood on the fire

And a path made of stone

Oh I long for the mountains

The mountains of home

Where the wood chucks twitter

And call out in tin tones

Where the miner's gold glitters

in the pans full of loam

Oh I long for the mountains

The mountains of home

I long for the mountains

where the fountains they shiver

And you drink up the water foam

Where the trees stand and quiver

And the leaves they shimmer like chrome

I long for the mountains of home

Where there's snow is on the caps

And there's ice in the stream

And you know all the maps

And the mice all look keen

On the mountain, where the grizzly bears

roam

I long for the mountains, the mountains of home

Where the kettle's on the fire

And the metals in the ground

And the beef is on the wire

And the moles are in the mound

I long for the mountains

The mountains of home

Where the dogs in the yard

And it's chasing the cat

Where the hogs looking hard 

At the man in the hat

And the child's a sleep under the piano

I long for the mountains

The mountains of home

Where the wind whispers softly 

Through the trees on the river

Where the father of time

He cries stand and deliver

And all of the pines beside they quiver

Oh I long for the mountains

The mountains of home

Facing North

Once I held mountain in my hands
But they turned to mountains of ash
Fell through my fingers like sand

Like an empire of dust
Blown away are the ghosts of lust
Blown to seed another field
Thrown out to birds the bone meal

Field of fish heads
Turning tail
Running through the burning hail
Stones are thrown, the first to cast
Will be the one who laughs the last

And crows count the merry pipers
Walking home on country roads
Reddening their apple vipers
For their wives to fill their calves

Spilling all the beans in saucers
Breaking bread with the cat
Whose nine tails like the vipers
Whip the cream until its flat

Down the road to elements
The natural gases heaven sent
But omnibuses carry on
As octopuses carry guns

And none stops a floating thief
As the moon rides the tide's relief

Mountains

Mountains are like nerve bundles tied up in knots

Tense packed strings of wires fossilized, baked

Bended, frozen

But before these feeling times of tumultuous floods

And bruising, burning, tortuous

Moments had been forgotten

They survived as eviscerated rocky facades

Flakes of time millimetres thick only

Lain down like rings in a tree

Buzzing in the Nerve tree

In the roots of the bundle of the body of the land.

Somebody like you

Here it is the mountainside

The moon like surface

Meet your guide

Its uphill from now

Be on your way

The wise pilgrim knows he cannot stay

Be up high, closer to God

The shoes on the other foot

And the horse is shod

First, there was a Tailor

And next came the Priest

But the crucifix jailor

Was not one known least

He was a soldier

A fighter like you

And like you he once was on a mountain too

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

Highlands in the Heart

My heart is in the highlands

The lowlands are gone

My mind is making no bones about it

If my love will not wait

Then I’ll not hesitate

And follow the three kings

Who do not doubt it – do no wrong

Come kisses and runes

Remember your tunes

That play as the bag pipes on stages

And the Loch is not forgotten

By the songs they have begotten

As by Pan who listens throughout the ages

Oh four is the number and the number is six

Who must remember to dance at the jigs

And follow the Pages

Who dance like the sages

And beckon on old ancestor wigs

The caber is tossed

The rope is tugged

And men will be men

In ghost or as rugged

Their faces show lines

Their fathers once wore

As their bodies old sinews

Strong as lions that roar

The place in Glen

Where these favourite men

Pulled hand over hand

Until they won

Echoed with their Heave Ho

The rope tight like a bow

The line that can never be broken

Back through the mists of time

To the devil’s very own crime

These mountains have echoed to fighting

Cain fought Abel

Joseph did his father

Abraham prepared Isaac for the slaughter

But as you walk up Glen Nevis

And shadows leave the skies

The sun sets all men free

In its lighting

Song of the Rocks

 Sat on a boulder

With a sac on my shoulder

Watching the river flow

The air grew colder

And I felt  much older

Remembering my time must go

Let go the past

Like a jet it is fast

And flies by just

So and so

I take out my glass

And look at the lass

Who told me my love

Must be slow

Oh come to the hills

Where the Buzzard shrills

And the birch bark peels its skin

And though time marches on

The last words of its song

Have yet to be fully writ in

With a song on my sleeve

And a one to believe

My heart is free as the crows

Who do all hurry on

In their black and white song

Just as the river that flows

Mountain Man

 Now you see me,now you don't

That often misquoted quote

When what you see is a ghost of me

It is but a footnote

Literally the mountains have turned into the man

The mole has crawled out of his hole

The iceberg has cracked and fissured alongside

The ocean of well-wishers

And if Mohammed can't go to the mountains

Then the mountain must visit him

Except the mountains are self-isolating

Under the new covid restrictions

They must all keep at least 20 miles apart

Peak to peak

We must not touch the rock

As it is a carrier of disease

Try telling Moses that

He's up there with his staff

As we speak

Tapping into the great unknown

The hard stuff

He likes being caught between a rock -God

And a hard place - the Earth

I'd like to say this is how

I imagined my honeymoon

Back on Earth

But Mars is proving a draw now

Of course

I long for the mountains

 I long for the mountains

Where the grizzly bears roam

Where there's wood on the fire

And a path made of stone

Oh I long for the mountains

The mountains of home

Where the wood chucks twitter

And call out in tin tones

Where the miner's gold glitters

in the pans full of loam

Oh I long for the mountains

The mountains of home

I long for the mountains

where the fountains they shiver

And you drink up the water foam

Where the trees stand and quiver

And the leaves they shimmer like chrome

I long for the mountains of home

Where there's snow on the caps

And there's ice in the stream

And you know all the maps

And the mice all look keen

On the mountain, where the grizzly bears

roam

I long for the mountains, the mountains of home

Where the kettle's on the fire

And the metals in the ground

And the beef is on the wire

And the moles are in the mound

I long for the mountains

The mountains of home

Where the dogs in the yard

And it's chasing the cat

Where the hogs looking hard 

At the man in the hat

And the child's a sleep under the piano

I long for the mountains

The mountains of home

Where the wind whispers softly 

Through the trees on the river

Where the father of time

He cries stand and deliver

And all of the pines beside they quiver

Oh I long for the mountains

The mountains of home

From the prison

looking down from the prison

I'm still waiting behind these bars

I'm still waiting inside the prison

And I see all the pennies rolling down the cobbled street

And I see the mermaids leaning up against the lamposts

And all them rough sailors telling all their lewd jokes

But the mermaids aren't listening

Looking down from the prison

In my life time I have committed no crime

Unless it was the one that took away my prime

Love is a free bird

But I don't pay it any mind

Not while I'm looking at it and listening

From inside the prison -Looking down from the prison

There are the sailors who come in on their ships

And throw salt into the wounds

Where women sway their hips

And I think of mountains when I kiss her lips

And I lie in valleys when she touches finger tips

But I can't be doing with gems glistening

Not from my home inside the prison

Yes I got your letter yesterday

And I wrote you one too

Just like the monkey from inside the zoo

I here that you're doing well

I am too, just a little bizarre behind these steel bars

Looking down from the prison

The heart inside of you

 I moved mountains, and I moved hills

I moved fountains and I moved river rills

I moved Eden and I moved Heaven too

But I just can't move the heart inside of you

Yes I don't need questions and I don't need answers

Well I don't need investors to buy up my life's chances

There is just one question so answer me true

Tell me how do I move the heart inside of you?

I've seen St Steven, and I've seen Adam

Drinking with Saint Peter inside Heaven's tavern

And I've seen Death who showed me how time flew

But still I can't move the heart inside of you

Yes I can move boulders up rocky canyons

And I can shrug my shoulders and I can outstand them

But there is one thing that I can't do

I cannot change the heart inside of you

Alpha Mail

The run was running out the back side of the linen
The sandals of diamonds
The damsels of the sand and
the random hands of
Fate and kate
And all the shape of nape
Under cape and dagger
I stagger Like a swagger
In the fake shake
I forsake the saffron make
Of Peace and pace
Of lace and dice
Of dace and lice
All among the hallowed homes
Howling like a hurricane around the mountains
Moaning like a lake in the low meadow break

The toad in the hole

The toad crawled into the hole
Deep in the coal
He went down the mine
Out of the sunshine
Just to recline

But for a thousand years he slept
Like sleeping beauty
Oh what a cuty
But ugly

After this time
Such a crime
The Earth was finally eaten by the sun
It got so hot
That chaos ensued
Asteroids tumbled
Meteors flew

And a rock the size
Of Manhattan grew
In the telescopes of the brave last few
Which spelt out armagheddon

When this did happen
Much of Earth was flattened
And the face of the earth grew a frown
The other side
Which faced out to space
Was shot clean out like a crown

Now in the meantime
Old toady was sleeping
Such a deep slumber
He did not hear the thunder
Nor rending of rock
Nor the earthquake shock

But finally he stirred
And began to want to go outdoors
Only to find no escape by his paws

The dark coal face was not much companion
But if only he knew he was in space
He would much have preferred its abandon
Than to instant oblivion

So he waited it out
And he waited, and he waited
Until as if it was fated
His rock touched down with a crunch
Onto a new planet, just before lunch

Needing some breakfast
The toad packed a punch
Of several G
But at least
At long last he was free

A crack appeared through the cold rock
And a strange blue light
Shone down in a shock
His path opened up
So he climbed out of doors
Following the blue shimmer
As effect follows cause

Onto the funny, sandy, yellow surface
That wobbled like jelly
Under the cold coal face
The horizon looked like
a labyrinth's spectacle
He was spell bound by the perfection
and by a large obelisk receptacle

Just knowing he was the only one here
It occurred to him he was still living - what a miracle
Against all odds, on a floating sod of earth
A mere toad who had trod, an uneventful road
Became perhaps the last remaining earthling
In the whole sky of stars that were twinkling

What must his family think, were they proud?
Perhaps...the question fell silent
although in his mind it was loud
Where are they now? and for that matter
Where was he?

As far as he could see
This planet must be free of all life
The next thing he thought
Was that he ought'a find some water
So off on a hike
This son of a pike set
It was not long before he met
Another monolith sort of cliff
Then he saw a fountain pour from a rock
Just as in a water-closet when someone pulls out the cock

It looked fairly strange
But then he re-arranged
The fragments in a kaleidoscopic sky
The clouds that looked metallic began to cry
And their purple rain
Fell on his brain
Until he thought he might die

From a far off field a strange dark shape lurked
It was in the guise of a hovering wraith
And with a quick jerk, he turned
To see himself returned to the rock
Which to him had given birth

The wraith was outside in the cold swollen sky
Waiting for someone to speak with him
Just then a passing fairy happened to land upon the dairy
Of the black lead cows who were happy with good mirth

Our hero exclaimed, Mighty Fred I am named
And let spill his story of Earth
A quiet long time passed after his words
Had been gassed
And he thought perhaps the Wraith had gone home

"Well can't you explain", said the Wraith with no name
"Why on Earth you chose my planet to land on?"
"No I cannot, by Saturn's rings, provide you with those things
I have no reasons why for my rhyme
I am a toad, stepped out of time
From an age of strong sunshine
To this strange planet of metallic worth"

Just as the toad was speaking
The purple rain which had been piquing
His mirth, gave some kind of birth
To a black beast which within him had been sleeping
Suddenly he grew, like mountains from a shoe
Many feet in foot hills, those that don't measure mole hills
And whole-heartedly he knew that he was new

What stood before the wraith now
Was a Black Prince that was leaden like the cow
And it proved that indeed from small things may come surprises
And if sleeping beauty slept
This was something she even did not expect
Since the toad's ugliness was not kept
He was no longer an earthly reject
But a Prince among the Wraiths of the Galactic Bowl
Then again this was the story of the Toad in the hole

Oh Come

Oh come to Fort William

The town of the fight

Where the timber men are drinking

The black brew through the night

And the factories are frozen

But the tourist bus rolls

Like an unending horizon

Of the carnival of souls

Come to Fort William

A very hard place

That is trapped between a Mountain

And the actions of Grace

Where woman may walk softly

Where a man is in disgrace

Because that is the nature of the whole

Human race

Give over your line drawings

Nothing is sublime

None more so the etchings from an unquiet mind

You poor mawkings

You Maoists of state

Who hunger for your purse strings

To bring up to date

The nurse in the court yard

The prisoner’s dock

The sentence that has thought hard

On the passing of the clock

The rain buffets trees

The rain will not cease

It comes round the lees

And leaves to the east

The tide is a miracle line

That shadow softly treads

The gull which glides has followed its threads

And it falls on the window pane

In tiny necklace beads

Which have clothed the clouds of heaven

Then by a tempest hurled

There is a queen there some place

Who has lost her jewels

Then they adorn the flowers

Hang around necks of cows or mules

The rose is spotted

In its pink promiscuous haze

It overshadows the cow parsley

On the hedge on rainy days

And we all call softly

Come back to life

And the master of death

Stands and sharpens his knife

Aonach Mor

Aonach Mor

Northern lights that are amazing

Like a green fire that’s blazing

Above the Mountain hearth beneath the sky

Jagged skyline like rows of teeth

 Rising up from those soft gums beneath

Always pushing, stirring, nudging

The sky not budging

Pilgrim clouds are rushing turning

To be nearer their destination

In the cold of Mountain heights

The stars come out like diamond kites

Twinkling, shimmering in silver sprinkling

Like star dust glimmering

Shining down

And then the cold air

That’s blaring, sneering, snarling

Staring hard down

The wind which bustles, hustles, rustles

Rampaging tussles of heathery ground

In its stampede, walkers impede

Deer hunker into the hollow some more

When they arise the mornings bright

With frost that bites

Before it thaws

And the air it fills with steam

From the nostrils of the stag

As he stands beside the stream

Drinks its cool water from off a crag

And his harem of does that follow

Tread lightly, nimbly through the fallow grass

As winter grips into his hollow

His antlers stand hard, as a guard stands fast

Ever battling the coming storm

Built of granite, Mountain born

Open hands of thorns inviting

Call down rains from Heaven’s fountain

Implore the Gods of the grey peaks whitening

To keep his coat of fur from lightening

That keeps his strong heart warm

Sermon on the Mount

Up in the mountains

Where the honey runs sweet

The Glen is heather lined like rows of springy seats

Feathers of an Eagle are found on a rocky crag

Pine trees sway in the breeze

As if a billowing flag

Up on the rocky paths of stone

Where the carrion crow hop

And pick apart the rabbit bone

Or a sheep’s eye goes pop

Where the temperature freezes

In the spring breezes

And an April shower shows in snow

That a fool may be locked in an ivory tower

With a Raven or a crow

What do you want to know of Mountains?

And why do you ask?

We stand as old as Moses

Mountain Ash grew his staff

Dwarf willow were is companions

The eye bright shone his way

Tormentil cured his stomach aches

And his food improved by bay

He clambered like a picking monk

Choosing herb and flower

The mountain ringlet butterfly

Bought him rings of flight

Through sun’s power

He danced among the butterwort

And down a cooling den

A mountain buttress had over shadowed

As a church may do a garden

He found between the cloven feature

A wriggling running rill

Giving rise to heath bedstraw, Ladies mantle

Celandine and daffodil

Everlasting were the purple flowers

Geranium in lush tussocks

Damp and wet the spongy peat

Facing out with Carex

These were rain mountains

The sky did shower with her gifts

These were old Gods now forgotten

But for the passing swifts

To these Moses walked in sandals

To these vigils made by Pilgrim candles

From these now we turn our head

As the living do from the dead

And yet these Gods yet survive

Holding Oberon fairy lives

Like Ransomed kings

From Widowed wives

They bleed their suffering waters baptised

From these Gods we draw our Nourishment

 River’s swell and Glen’s green Blandishment

Even now electric bulbs and bells

Are powered by their hydro wells

We call it ‘green’, call it man’s invention

But it is just the Mountain God’s intention

To keep his children well with water

As the fatherland set free the river daughter

And we drink and think with laughter

How well this Mountain does us look after

Facing North

The Cliffs of the Tower ring their bells

With Starwort Saxifrage

And Alpine Speedwells

The walls of the castle are highest with might

And the route by the ledge is demanding of plight

This fortress mountain in a blanket of Snow

Becomes a strange moonscape only intimate confidents know

And flourishing well down to their roots

Are the wood rushes and sedges, grown where the burn fills your boots

Little dwarves, little gems on a Rhinoceros hide

 Like some marvellous adornment to a most ugly bride

Yet the clouds are her veil

And when they sometime move aside

They reveal like a sail

Her soft and delicate side

But, then, her Majesty in Cathedral like organs

Are played by the wind demons

Who move beneath her brogans

These smooth Ballein features

Like slippers worn smooth

That lie like sea creatures

So still that never move

Her buttresses are ear-marked

With climbers rings

Yet even these tracks well harkened

Have not been fully listening

The sheer imagination that gave rise to the plan

Is pure intimation of what He will do, He can

His design shows such majesty it is beyond mortal words

No mind can comprehend though they visit in hoards

Just to be among greatness, to walk on its mile

To feel the rock of ages, cracked in a frozen smile

To let the Mountain know

That it is worshipped in homage

Come wind, rain or snow

They will seek out rare saxifrage

The Windy Top

Aspen Tremble in the wind

The Willow up turn their silver skin

Among the Yorkshire fog that sways

Upon the hill Dun Deardail way

A moving spirit whose pitch and toss

Is that invisible force to which

The grass seeds are at a loss

What makes the wind blow?

Why do we feel these molecules

Become our consciousness?

Our minds are the grassy fields

We have flesh that is of the earth

And souls made of the wind

And when the wind blows

We may lose ourselves like

The mind set free from the skin

I sat upon Dun Deardail hill

And listened to the wind

The sun was an eye

In the blazing blue sky

And the summit’s voice all surrounding

Down from their crests the cold cries flew

As messengers with some God given truth

And they laid their wordless meanings down

On the grass blades of this hill fort roof

The foggy sway of the seed heads

The bend and lilt of the wild flower

Showed just how nature would obey the voice

Of the Mountain’s power

The wind was blowing still as I left

And followed the winding path down

But I had been warmed on the Fort’s sunny crest

That sat on the hill’s head like a crown

How do you know the Sea?

How do you know the sea?

It is salt packed

Resin baked in obscurity

It is floated

Pine –goated, sure throated liver

Which sings for its meals

From the God-cloud giver

It is rain-hungry swaying mountains and mounds

Which sway in the graveyard of heart thumping sounds

It is beneath the surface and underneath the skin

The greatest secret ever kept from the opening

How do you know the Sea?

You cannot really know unless you’ve searched

From the Loch to the quay

Running on the Mountain

Thunder on the Mountain

And a rumble in the heart

Blood curdles in fountains

The red burn sunders apart

Everybody is running

I want to run too

I want a beginning in some place new

All my life is running

Together through the stream

Like Salmon swimming

Uphill trying to reach the impossible dream

Everybody is running

And time is running out

The bream is fresh

With new life I don’t begin to doubt it

Union Road

The union is undressed

It lies naked as a flower

Here and there the clouds graze low

As planes beside a tower

The mists of the forests sweep down

As sleep descends on Fort William town

And the black loch lies like a dragon

Deep in the confines of his bower

Black are the pools

And cold as a throbbing heart

Eecking out the stress of the years

The way an urchin eats a tart

Gorging on the succulent moss

And sobbing on the green rock

The mountain bleeds with pine seeds

The way a bread loaf falls apart

Living on Union Road

I’m living on Union Road

But we are so divided

My mind is two sided

And this country is in the jaws of a shark

A tree lies like a match on the slope side

Then a thousand more over the park

But a puff of smoke by the rail side

Is enough to cause a forest to spark

Puff on old Billy, puff on

The rebels are hauling their chains

You can hear them in the falling rains

Laying the sleepers to Lanark

You can feel the Jacobites march

That footfall in the Glen through the dark

Now that Scotland will be free once again

All it takes is a steam train to spark

Oh the Union is undressed

And lays like a flower in the cold

Standing as the Thistle grows

Ever new to the fight

Ready for  a war with the Rose

Living on Union Road once again

Yes I’m living on Union Road

There is method in the madness

And tears in my sadness

While I’m living on Union Road