Prison

 Could it be that I lay dying

Could it be that I've been slain

All I see as I am lying

Are the ones to whom I blame

I hear the sounds in the cathedral

Mystical voices raised in praise

Of the one who keeps on shining

Though the days be numbered and are named

I see the fog lift from the river

I see the lights of dawn appear

And if you call me by my number

Behind the bars I my face sees clear

Just lock me up

Just unlock me

My heart is blocked

By immoral grease

I search for absolution

Wash me clean

Purify my release

All along the cold horizon

Warm sun rays begin to reign

Like a king in gold and iron

Shining out in His name

I see my light come shining

gaol keeper

 He was out on the wing he was in the midfield

He walked the square mile

His legs he did feel

Open air and the blue tent

The blue tent of sky

Was his pitch as he hitched

Another prison lullaby

Sleep softly sleep quiet

Behind

Your hard Iron bars

See wisdom in miles

As the jailed bird jars

Sing like a Canary inside of your cage

Smell gas Or the oven

Or the times of our age

Where is he, how is it?

And where does it come from?

On the Western front

Front, under the shadow of a gun

A cannon rings out

In the new days sun

But sing softly Canary

For we've only just begun

Goal keeper, gaol keeper

Between the posts

Hold your line

Don't let it cross

The shot of Holy Ghost

For if he comes in

He'll surely

Kick down the gates of hell

And let all those lost souls

Right out of their cells

Gaol Keeper

Gaol keeper

Now where is your soul?

In the dungeons

Or is it deeper

Right down in hell

Hold the ball that you've caught

And don't let it fall

To the ground

Kick it hard

And back over the wall

They are playing

They are playing somewhere outside

The match whistle blows

And it's a game of two sides

The voices they yell

But of course you have heard

With your eyes like a buzzard

And Your ears like a jail bird

Gaol keeper, gaol keeper

Shepton Mallet Prison

 Prison is a prisoner now of the town

It has been snared caught out by time

Kept preserved like a jar for its spirit

Of suffering, for tourists macabre sense

Of right and wrong, mistrusting themselves

Tempting themselves

To touch a darkness, they are afraid, yet thrilled by

Psychodramas played out

Within four walls

But what happened to them?

The ghosts, sure some died there

Were executed

For others it was their home

They did their time moved on

They are outside now

Trusting in the saving power of justice

And the reforming power of incarceration

The negation, the absence of life

Where liberty is a privilege not a right

Where is the prison? The town, the society

In which they do not fit

Are they locked up to keep them away,

Or to keep us away from them?

What is a wall, but an osmotic barrier

Through which they can still see

yet keep the time more preciously

Every hour can seem like a day

To try to make it work, make time pay

Learn a skill, learn to read or write

Learn the value of life

It is a school, in some way the hardest lesson

Was it a blessing?

Was it a fate worse than death?

A social death surely

Night guard

 Black to black

In the night of the guard

The world like a sire to the last

Broken on the hill

Of becoming

Salt fire and ash

In the mouth of the south

While the North looks down its nose

At us

And the soggy bottom of a marsh

Swells and swelters and sweats

In the beads of cookie cutter mountains

Beds alight with the embers of love

And grave yards that glow in the dust

Houses that smoulder after the floods

And Kitsch curt right courts exploding in blood

How can you hold onto the one that you love

How can you ask me when it's good enough

If you don't know by now it's a shame

But it's all just throw of the dice in the game

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

To those who would see me burn

 I do not want your towers of Babel

I do not need your

Street cars of desire

Your news paper cuttings

On coffee table mornings

Or friends keeping distance

In the supermarket mourning

The loss of a good friend

It's a shot in the dark

But I want life

That no computer screen can spark

I'm sick of the zoom calls

The death on the skype

The fifty yard high walls

Of Microsoft teams is a lark

Who ever enters a room of fifty people

and really gives a shit

What the tart at the front barks?

I want the intimacy of closed spaces

Cafes with small faces

And shop thieves at large

I want the risk that someone might rob my wallet

Then I can stop it

And feel cool as a shark

I want the loss, and I want the gain

Don't give me the dross

Of Microsoft window panes

I don't need their figures their statistics

Their frame

Their constant approval,

Their constant fame

Give me something real

I can write about that stuff

When people do unpredictable things

And fuck off

Or say damn it I've just had enough

Because I have of this virtual existence

Bugger off

I can already tell the kind of feminist tosh that will spout from the mouth of that

Crass oxbridge toff

Or she was brought up up in Surrey

And raised over in Spain

And now has enough nouce to run down my drain

I don't need her opinions

I don't need her high shame

Of slavery passed down through generations

I'm not playing that game

They are all pretenders

To massage their egos

But underneath it are machinations

That would equal Iago's

You can call me the moor, Desdemona's my maid

But at least when I look in my soul

It's home-made

And I shall not forsake the tribe of my nation

Who has given me my pride

In a certain fascination

With things that are green and alive

And last long

And are not just the passing fancies of

Babylon