Low cost

Honey you're so low cost
Why don't you just get lost
You know you are so low cost
You walk in and I feel your frost
Creeping up my neck I want to scream
Into the pages of my magazine
No I don't mind about your baggage
Just don't bring to me your luggage
Now just get lost

Honey you're so low cost
Why don't you just get lost
You know you are so low cost
You kick me out like trash tossed
You might think we are just savages
But all you cause are ravages
Now just get lost

I don't see you anywhere joshed
Hiding behind the last post

Taken for granted

 Taken for granted

Basic and slanted like a tree in the wind

Of the wood

Slanted like the wood

The basic income

The basic good

Taken for granted,

taken for granted

I can see the cure

But I don't want to take it

I'm high on life

and the ride

Is killing me

in spoonfuls

of sugar

She was just some image on the wall

Stuck like a poster

Beyond it all

Yet in the centre

Of the feeling

Thank you

Thank you for the flower from India
I received her pressed in a cardboard shoe box
She had a Saffron head
Smelt of Juniper
Reminded me of the subcontinent
A pity she was dead
Thank you for the thought
From India sent
Mumbai street scenes
Elephant grass, high humidity
Of boggy marshes
The tiger's trail ahead
Thank you for these false dreams
The cut out conveniences
Of mind, snipped, cellotaped at the seams
To run the reel of old India
In my post-colonial, mobile-phone-rung mind

Gate Road

 Down to the gate road,

And beside the running brook

The gargling of sea gulls

As the starving starlings look

The road is cold

The frost takes hold

But robin cheerily sings

things unfold

He is bold to talk of happy things

And mist enfolds the hills

And clings to valley bottoms

It is sticky in the trees

Where the river sheppey rolls

But not forgotten

And we wander over storks of fields

We crunch in icy puddles

As spinneys of trees shine on hill tops

And the sun breaks through

As a yellow shield shining

Through bright dew drops

And snaking along the treeline

The sheppey does take shape

And lifts the pages of the mist

Like bed sheets from its face

The old oak with the spidery crown

Waits beside the gate

And we take turns to clamber down

Across a broken field stile plate

The post is rotten in the ground

It wobbles and it shakes

As we walk around the Lorax patch

Where the cocks crow as men of state

The hens are brooding in their hutch

Like glamorous fashion models

Kept there ready to lay such and such

A golden egg to bottle

As proudly strutting cockerels parade

Their fleeces, like dandified fops

Their ruffs like Elizabethan curls

The court of the Queen of chops

Off with their heads she cries

And headless chickens run a mock

And chicken feet run down the street

And upon the hills spill their blood

As the Cathedral peeps over the brows

Of hills which are vacant of cows

And streaming white whiffs of clouds

Float gently in the blue

I can see through these see through days

Can you see through me too

Invisible in the olden ways

Awaiting the tides of new

As I bend down to tie my shoe

A cockerel cries a murder blue

And digesting all that we've been through

I fill it up and bring it to you

You offer it back like your take affront

I take it back but not from want

I wish I could give, but what I have

Is taken up by the ditch grab

open ended

 What is it that you can grant me?

Do you have the power above?

What is it that you want from me?

My holiness or eternal love?

Well mater it's pretanatural

Well vater it doesn't matter

Well husband I am housebound

And Wife you have my life

I didn't mean that you say to me

When we have got our wires crossed

And why don't you sail out to sea

Where you'll be in the four winds tossed

And how can you answer me like

You were talking to my ghost

And how can you reprimand me

Like a sergeant at arms for leaving his post?

I came to you with my arms open

And you took me in like I was an orphan

But promise me this don't leave me alone

In the night of terror forms shift

Like that planet around its axis

Fire dancers

 How can I say I'll miss you

When you were never really there

Just a ghost of someone I was meant to love

But loving fell into disrepair

Like a Hamlet and his father's ghost

I have suffered very much

From the slings and arrows hurled at my post

But you I never truly lost

You never were a real father, you had

Some place better to be

And if you see me foam at my mouth 

You'll know I'm mad at you dad

Was I meant to have all the answers

Was meant to make do with what I had

Oh well you would know I was a dancer

Through the good times and the bad

And if you should ask me,

Whatsoever I learnt

I'd say its better to be a fire-dancer

Than to stand still and get burnt

And if you should ask me

Whomsoever have I loved

Well I would say some women

But my heart yearns for heaven above

For there really is no living

Unless looking for the holy grail

And there is no sense in dying

Before you've set out on life's trail

So keep your hope in answers

That fall like manna from heaven

And keep yourself a dancer

As you step on seven to eleven

Yes and keep yourself a winning

And never think that you have lost

When you've loved so many women

Well what's another log to get tossed

Because we all must walk over

Those burning coals in the end

And we must all be fire-dancers

And in the final answer you'll find a friend

Because we pull each other through hardship

And storms upon the waves

And we know nothing but friendship

Is the salve by which we're saved

In the museum of modern love

Well I am walking in the museum of modern love

I am talking in the museum of modern love

In the museum of modern love

Well I am all alone in the shadows

I am all alone in the dark

In the museum of modern love

Where cattle are calling and bees are buzzing

Down the walls of the palisade

In the museum of modern love

In the museum of modern love

Where our hearts are art on display

And they are kept inside glass cabinets

Waiting for a visitor to pay

To see them in the museum of modern love

In the museum of modern love

You can see them, you can look but do not touch them

Yes you can see them every day

And the liars/Lyres are calling in the shadows of the walls

And cherubims are singing as their plaster friezes fall

From the museum of modern of love

Where the paintings are hung down the darkened halls

And the thunderbolts of ancient Gods

Crack and splinter the backs of winter wonder statues

And the pairs of footless shoes, and handless gloves

Stand or lie on plinths where majestic black horses trod

In the museum of modern love

In the museum of modern love

Venus has grown back her arms

And she is in the arms of Mars

Who's stolen hearts and cars

And the policewoman is throwing

Off her uniform

And Mr Universe is looking at David's statue

Like he is no good at sport

As if love is just pumping blood

Through an Iron heart

In the museum of modern love

And the curator is pulling down the curtains

Crying let the light shine in

And the dust particles settle on the quantum heart

Who says am I here or am I not?

Am I the air or the arrow shot?

Am I a wave or am I a dart?

In the museum of modern love

And so take your ticket and come on in

But keep your coat on, for the cold gets in

And the men falter, and the women win

In the museum of modern love

Where Picasso's poltergeist is thin

And slips between the paper leaves of the magazines

That are left on table tops in the gift shop

Where you can buy back a postcard of your heart

On your way out of the museum of modern love

Hawk Talk

 Well it needed to happen, that is for sure

The eagle has flown

But there's blood at his door

And as he does roam

There's the rub I am poor

But rich to have a home in The old Silvermore

The kestrel flew down to my hand

But quickly I saw he was a friend

And we talked like two hawks

Of life and our work 

As we walked out over paths wend

And the places we knew were many

In the hearts chapters we dropped a penny

Down the well of memory

To hear it echo what you meant to me

And I can hear your voice still

Ringing through the years

And she flew like a siren call

Like a screech through blood boiling skies

And it took a wrecking ball

To knock down all the cloud castles where I lie

And if there is some bird I must let fly

It is that of your ghost

Feather bed where I lie

Make a nest for my last post

But I cannot accept that I quit

Through this artificial bull shit

For Brexit is a lie, the truth is goodbye

Is hardest to say when you really mean it

Worn out pieces of trash

 If you are sure you found them

If the motor turns or claims

Then the service that will start them

May turn a key inside your brain

If you stand with both arms folded you know

You're sure to stand in vain

But if you stand with both palms open

Then here's a hoping they'll be your refrain

Don't stick it to the Major

You know he doesn't care

Don't stick it to Jimmy carter

When you know that he won't barter

No you know his name

His name is on the lion's mane

His name is in the working bane

In the living pain

And dying drain

That flushes out apostles from imposters

And the dossiers from the monsters

And it brings all the monasteries to the brink of disasterous

Corpuscles who wait in corpus Christi forums

Or museums of rust

And anti-trust fund babies

Who run around with rabies

And curtain off the Habeus Corpus of the law

Until we all say you cannot touch the spirit anymore

And they die in the gutter of what they utter

As the trains roll on in utter contempt for the law

And the politicians splutter their gonorrhoea swollen spores

Over the poor and cough and cutter up

The fish heads above their doors

Who stand guard for the hard sailors

Who've gone left their wives in the arms

Of those they implore to do more

Than they would in their plaices

But not so yellow as their soles, they sold

For a quarter of a penny more

And this is the quarter of an hour mark to heaven.

This is dialectically opposed to forgiven, 

Gibbons of gibbous moons

And loons and ducks and geese of all Canada held spent

In the arms race with the moose

But she went on the ice and drowned in a barrel twice as tall as

The tallest apple bobber and then she felt

Like she might explode, she smelt it and then she did it

Budgens Sent (Covid coracle 5)

 Standing in the queue outside

Budgen's post office

A man arrives in a mini

Painted like a cow

I point it out and how

Interesting it seems too

And a rock chick woman

Says it's a pig, and I say a choo!

A man says how dairy

And I say I beg your pardon

Oh I see you're punning free

And this is no place to bargain

One pun a day says me

Is all that I can manage

And he comes back: that's udderly awful

I say you've reached your punnage

Now more and more people want

To join the queue

The man at the front says

Are you for the post office

And if you're for the shop

Go on through

Though he is no charmer

He gets the job done that's all

While a lorry driver steps

Out his cab and asks is this

The toilet line -how cruel!

No, we say there is no queue for fuel

So, this is the only post office

Open in the whole of Wells

And we must all decide

To use it on a Monday noon as well

There is one lone teller

Standing at the stall

Fighting with the tillage

And telling his parcels one and all

When I have sent my tube of paintings

To my sister in Australia

I come out to some applause

The Rock Chick 

Who is the character

has held them all enthrall

And she is entertaining

You would want her on your side

If you ever were complaining

About a public service suicide

Because that is what this is

This crisis of public planning

Why we were queuing outside a petrol station

Being chaperoned and served

By chaps who make one unnerved

Because they've left their personalities at home

Oh for the kindly British post office assistants

Who had the time to talk to you like you were a human being

Rather than like motorists, who have just filled up their tanks

These skin-headed bozos don't deserve our thanks

Although they probably didn't expect to take on this extra role

Why not reserve it for a person who might sing a sweet carole

Perhaps they could chirrup like a cockney sparrow

And keep us all in good spirits while waiting

Rather than left examining our own bone marrow

Maybe play some music outside to keep the troops entertained

Anything but the rather banal forecourt that is rather inhuman

and pained