Worse things happen at sea

 A bomb went off in a parking lot

My best man married my niece

King Arthur was jealous of lancelot

Cyprus was ceded by Greece

Well all of these things could make you cry a lot

Some might have you down on your knees

But it's best to remind that I think you will find

Worse things happen at sea

Mount Enta blew off her top hat

Pompei got burnt in larva grease

The water in alaska will freeze if they ask her

And New Orleans the rains may never cease

Yet you've got to make the best of what you've got

Just carry on rowing keeping going don't lose the plot

For worse things happen at sea 

Northern lights

 In the north I saw the star

And in the North like a burning scar

across the horizon

Glazed so bright

The shimmering green Northern lights

Oh northern lights like an absinthe fairy

Dancing its tinkerbell

Dust so starry

In my ship I crossed waves like mountains

As in the sky were green lights like fountains

blooming over like a holy chalice

The rim of the horizon 

A broken palace

Let the hearts of Angels sing aloud

There I saw a castle in the clouds

Open season

Jarred the feeling in my mind,
Like a door left open,
I've slipped on a lemon rind
And the taste is bitter to tell the truth
Like when I trip over
And chip a tooth
Or lift the chip on my shoulder
And discover its a scab
Covering something older
Than an cold kebab
Skewering me through
With the rod I made myself
Standing in the queue
For God to check my health
When he does answer my prayer
I become a soldier there's nothing
I can't bear
But a cart wheeling
I go down the hill
The jacks have been thrown
When he broke up with Jill
Humpty Dumpty's crown
Is in pieces on the ground

And his mind is tripping
On banana skins
Forecasting shipping
Is how the play begins
Somewhere off the coast
Of the Shetland isles
A captain gives a toast
To a room full of smiles
And now he sees her ghost
In the corner by the piles
Of rope left over
After the fishing net miles

A gull looms above
As a wanton crow
Flies in a straight line
But with nowhere to go
Than Follow the ship
The Fellowship
Of Worship
In the sea
Of snow
ho, ho

wicked wick

 Down in the doldrums

Boring as humdrum

Winds don't blow

Roll em and rumble

Carole em and crumble

Waves they tumble and toll

Cleaning the foghorn

Dog lorn, grog torn

Rollicking railing and bowl

Octopus arms

Moonshine on the line

Mermaid or nun

The lighted wick

Burns through the night

Out on coal beach

The mermaid on a seaweed bed

A Wiki

A Timberman

To kill a gull

Shallow's shadows

 Hallowed ground

Oh shallow ground

Where the graves aren't deep

And the people lying in them

hardly can they sleep

Oh bury me not in hallowed ground

But bury me in the sea's neap

I have always been a ship swaying

In the harbour's tide

Rising up with every emotion

Going down as if I've died

But all it is is the ocean

And the moon who is my bride

And I've tried to love her

Deeply, deeply

But found each day

I'm shallow drowned

So bury me not in hallowed ground

But out in the sea of the shapeless sound

Ship-shape and Bristol fashion

 Light the candle wick

Spick and span

With the soap brick

Scrub man, scrub

Til the deck is clean enough to lick

Ship-shape and Bristol fashion

Haul on the bowline

Don't cross the line

Toe the line

Full sail flickering

In a cool night breeze

Reminds me

Of my home

in England

When the wind is in the apple trees

Ship shape and Bristol fashion

Better tighten your belt

Get a new ink blot

Watch how it's spelt

Watch how he knelt

Captain at his prayers

First mate on the boardwalk

Coming down the stairs

Everything is quiet

Save the swinging of the hammocks

Monks in their bunks

Ship-shape and Bristol fashion

Cooks in the galley

Slaves in our chains

Singing how green is your valley

They'll be singing in vain

Rum is in the blood

In the jug and the alley

Keel sliding perfectly

Like two legs in a foul

Ship-shape and Bristol fashion

Billie Piper Song

 Billie, Billie Piper, what made them want to try to snuff you out

Billie was a piper born in the Mendip hills

Born in the smoke stack hills

Where Breweries and carpenters drew up their bills

But God was his tobacco and he smoked his fill

He blow his smoke out of his ears and out his gills

Oh Billie, Billie piper the last pirate in the world

They never hung another, not for piracy killed

His life was a burning ember too hot to handle with skill

Oh Billie, Billie Piper should have his face on a dollar bill

Burn on up me lovers oh tear the whole world down

The world is cruel to those who've been robbed of their crown

He was once the supplier of clay pipes for the town

Worked from dawn till dusk making his clay pipes sound

No he never harmed a man, never did a wrong

Except for stealing to survive and making his life long

But for all the laws of England that were brought into play

He broke each one accordingly and they smashed his pipes of clay

Oh Billie, Billie Watts was a piper's son, he learnt his trade

Upon the hills and stuck onto his guns, 

forces of a tragic time, or an act of God?

Brought the smokes of nature to cloud over his life

We are each brought into this world a shining and entire

But we soon lose our gold, turn silver to bronze then expire

Nothing can prevent the waning of the years

But we can still keep on smoking and burning through our tears

Yes don't let the rain put out your fire, hold your pipes to the flame

Let the smoke rise higher, heaven is a long way off from our desire

We can only change what we can change, but all change sing the choir

I can hear the flag snapping on the mast

But is the flag of my country or the skull and crossbones that I hold fast

Sure we are just flesh and bones and not a nationality

To keep body and soul together holds a penalty

Have you ever heard of Billy Watts, He was a piper's son

Sure that Billy had some guts to do what he had done

They put him on a boat to Australia for stealing from someone

But Billy Watts was a fighter who kept fighting til he was gone

Oh Billy, Billie Watts look what you've done

Just stole two pigeons and some cloth, they found you the guilty one

Nothing much to speak of, but back then the love was none

He was tried and convicted and soon evicted to the land of the rising sun

Nobody saw him coming but they knew him by reputation

In a land where the criminals were charged with building a nation

Nobody asked him, they just made him work and toil

To bring in his daily bread he had to till the soil

But that wasn't work for a piper, nor one who could use his hands

And craft things finer than a vintage bottle of wine

He upped and he left that farm on Vandeimansland 

And he brewed bootleg liquor to sell on down the line

Oh Billie, Billie the piper, what made them punish you

You only did what you had to, did what you had to do

But they caught up with you, you gave them the smoke signal

But they never put out your pipe

Billie Watts- the last pirate

Billie, Billie Watts

The last Pirate of the time

In an age of floating clocks

Where water turned into Wine

He was sent on transport docks

For committing a petty crime

Well Billie, Billie Watts

Can you please tell me the time?

It's a quarter to four in the morning

I was born tired and yawning

My mother put on the fire in the hearth

There was warmth and there was mirth

At the hour of my birth

But the fire cried out the last laugh was mine

Oh Billie, Billie Watts will you please tell me the time?

For your story is a long one and we must know of your crime

Well my mother was a poor one and she soon died in time

I became an Orphan child oh but the fire blew wild

Still they gave me to the church in the village of my Birth

And Christ he saved my life on the path where lives cross

I was given to my new father Edward Watts pipe maker

Oh Billie, Billie Watts, will you please tell us the time?

How came you to be lost to this village of thine?

It was as the century turned that I began to learn

My trade that would set me up for my life

I learnt to make clay pipes and carved them with a knife

And the villagers smoked my pipes from all around

Oh Billie, Billie Watts will you please tell us the time?

How came you to be convicted of such a crime?

It is the summer of 1815 and the sky turned dark and grey

From volcanic ash by an eruption in Indonesia they say

Nobody bought my pipes and my masters were not paid

So I was laid off work and in that poor state I stayed

The weathers they were cruel it was cold and snow ruled

In Oakhill not a scrap of food could be spared

I had to beg and borrow and when that failed I could not swallow

And to feed my hunger I stole so I wouldn't starve

Oh Billie, Billie Watts will you tell us what time it is

Is it time for you to be on your way?

Yes I was but a lad of eighteen when the law caught up with me

But I was old enough to know the score

They tried me in the docks and and instead of in the stocks

I was put on a boat bound for Australia

For the next six years, I worked with sweat and tears

And tried to build a life in Van Diemen's land

Life there was hard, but still, I could rely on my skill

That I had learnt back in my home village of Oakhill

Oh Billie, Billie Watts can you tells us what time you've got?

How you lived and you made a living down under?

I lived in this harsh land of devils and sea and sand

But still turned my hand to thieving

Something would turn my head though I'd known I was misled

I did the crime though still believing

I was lashed 200 times for my various crimes

And had so many scars I stopped counting

Oh Billie Billie Watts will you tell us what time you've got

For our clocks have all stopped at the feeling

It is 1821 and my new life had begun, When I married my Mrs Esther Wright

She was a convict just like me, and in our hearts we both were free

From the laws that robbed us of our homelands

I sold bootleg liquor and my boots were quicker, 

Than the lawmen who chased me up and down the country

But they finally caught up with me Even though I was free

And they put me back into a prison of their making

Oh Billie, Billie Watts, can you tell us what time you've got

For your time is running out and you must get going

It is 1829 and they've convicted me of another crime

This time a death sentence was pronounced upon me

So they put me on a government ship, and it set off on its trip

All the way across the seas to Cypress

But we were convicts born free and so we had to mutiny 

And fought for control of the ship and from our penalty

Oh Billie, Billie Watts, can you tell us what time you've got

For your crime of stealing two pigeons and a piece of cloth

Aboard we fought our captors, overwhelmed their capture

And in my Christian heart I could not harm them

For living is a trial and we must not live in denial

Of our true natures of brotherhood to all men

Instead we set them free on an island in the sea

And we set off on our pirate life to New Zealand

Oh Billie, Billie Watts, can you tell us what time you've got

And how you turned the other cheek and lived as a freeman

We journeyed round the South Sea to China, Tonga and Japan 

And lived our merry lives as a pirate and a freeman

Smoked many pipes, read my bible every night

And kept in my heart my homeland

Oh Billie, Billie Watts, can you tell us what time you've got

And how you made it back to your homeland

After such an exciting life, I missed my country's life

And I wanted no more the sea's adventure

So we returned to London docks and in the Thames were put in stocks

And I was tried for piracy like a traitor

But I never harmed my jailors and nor to my faith was a betrayer

But believing in doing unto others what you would have done unto you

Yet the law of England is final and I was executed from a high nail

They hung my body from London bridge as a pirate

In the city of the big smoke, I was a pipe smoking bloke

Who sang his last tune as the last pirate to swing

Oh Billie, Billie Watts now we know what time you've got

You've run out and now your bell has tolled

Yours is a tragic story, but still one of hope and glory

And life of a strong heart and spirit never sold

Shish Kebab song

 She was a shellfish seller

She sold shell fish on the shore

He was a selfish fella

He only wanted more and more

He ate too many shellfish

six hundred and sixty six to be sure

And she went right off this fella

As he was bloated when he floated she saw

She saw this selfish fella one last time upon the cliffs of Mor

And then balloon and belly flopped and was not seen no more

Oh what a selfish fella

To eat all dear Clemmies Clams

Now she shall sell jelly made out of yellow yams

There is no use in yelling, they say to her and swore

But her earrings are nautilus shells that sing of the swaying shore

So shell shocked sheltered shelly

Fell flat and flatly floored

The cat of catkin kevin

Who drew new blood with her paw

Poor poor Peter Peregrine

Peregrinated the parade

Picking off pecking pigeons

As they parambulated the promenade

Flashing like a farthing

The starving starling flew

As if out the gulags of Stalin

Into the freedom of the blue

Land and sea

 My hands get worse

My eyes can't see to hold you

In them

My hands, my hands

These organs

Of sense and touch

Storms and waves

Crash upon the shore

My hands are like the sea

Waving

My shoulders like the cliffs

My hips the boulders rolling

And my knees the pebbles crushing

Rounding to the toes of my feet

I am the land and the sea

I am caught in the sand

The land is in the heart of me

Man of Sand

Here I stand

a man of sand

which time does wash away

My only relief

From the ocean reef

Greets my face the cool sea spray

As each grain of belief

falls to the waves beneath

and a man mould of clay

A new man of sand

who now may stand

To greet a bold new day

Here I stand

a man of sand

One which the ocean may carol

but which part of me is given

which part has it stole

Which land locked heart the key?

Love is strange, love is bold

Love grows weary, then is old

But each grain new

My hand does hold

As if of silver, as if of Gold

And as this cursed melody

Rolls with tide and ocean wave

A man of sand

does too give way

To love bold, and love brave

Yet here I stand

a man of sand

And across the sea I reach

For to hold the hand

Of my love who stands

on the other beach

Time has ravaged each of us

The sands of time do fall

And what was once sand in your eyes

Now my sandy voice does call

Oh Love is but a shifting quick sand

Into it each man may fall

and who amongst us would reach across

Who would answer your love's call?

Devotional diet

 Goally, rolly

And a carpet of peas

Rolled up in a blanket

Set out upon seas

Fire and a banquet

Lamplit reliefs

Sugar candy mountains

Rotting young one's teeth

Rapacious raptors

And captors of belief

In capacious chapters

Read from pulpits beneath

Stone arches and bridges

Of a midnight's grief

When all the walls fall

We put up in good faith

Shattered the wrong foot

Chews its pavement of souls

Walking down the road

Of little self-control

Too much self-control

Leads to a traffic jam patrol

Where people cram in queues and ram

Their heads in petty polls

Changelings and shapeless things

Make jelly fish stands

Where octopus sell shellfish

And the selfish understand

Jealousy is a jellyfish

That stings and holds on tight

And will want to wrap its tentacles

around your throat tonight

But the beach is full of lost souls

And the sea awash with fish shoals

Diverting and divining the right

And searching in a rockpool for

Merciful relief

That all the pearls are oyster tears

Down along the beach

I walk my dog, my wolves are packed

Like sardines in a tin can

And the ice cream man he sells my soles

To footpads of the caravans

Which come past

Like camels cast

Ships' shadows out on the ocean

A followed fast

The murky mast 

creeps out of misty motion

My love is a lark, and sleepless dark

And dendrites of devotion

For thought sparks

The potted past in history's looking glass

Why do the seas, in constancies

bring back what we have thrown them?

Regurgitate the waste and hate

We've robbed and de-robed them

The shadows cast and I am last

To leave the rotting lotion

Of foam stuck fast to friends faces past

I once loved with deep emotion

The restless ship

 I am the ship that will never reach port

Sail all night for the pirate's sport

I am the ship that will never get caught

Well I sail all night, and I sail in the morn

By the morning light I'm still sailing on

Yes I am the ship that will never reach port

All the times that you have thought

I am the ship that is sailing on

To the endless seas far from the land

And I sail over the horizon

And I sail on from the dunes of sand

I am the ship that will never reach port

For I chase the fish can never be caught

Well I chase him south and I chase him north

Yes I am the ship that will never reach port

I am the ship that will never reach port

For I follow the rainbow for the gold I sought

And I sail through rain and I sail through snow

And I sail through the desert sun that I know

I am the ship that will never reach port

and I fight in the wars for the sailor's sport

And the devil knows my name but I am never caught

No until my fame tells the tale of my sort

I am the ship that will never reach port

And I carry no anchor and hold my court

For the kings come to me for to get taught

How to run the game like the devil's sport

I am the ship that will never reach port

And I keep them guessing just as long as I ought

And there is no answer, no answer can be bought

With their pots of gold and their rich consort

And I never reach the final goal

Yes I am the ship with the ghost like soul

I am the ship against the rainbow

That chases the light, that chases the snow

I am the ship that will never reach port

Through the many wars that I have fought

I am the ship that will never reach port

A sailor's life is for the devil's sport

Down to the south where humpbacks are caught

Up to the North where ice cuts life short

I am the ship that will never reach port

Well the sabres swing, and scabbards fly

And gull on the wing will teach us how to sigh

And the swords they flash and the sailors cry

I am the ship that keeps fighting til I die

Yes I fought on through the wars of old

I fought to the rainbow for the pot of gold

I fought to the ends of the earth you see

For I am the ship on the rolling sea

And it rolls on down and it rolls on wide

And it rolls forever to the bright sunshine

And it rolls there now and it rolls so fine

And it rolls on down to the bright sunshine

Yes I am the ship that will never reach land

And I never touched sand and I never held a hand

I am the ship that will sail alone

Through the times of the age, but never reach home

I am the ship that will never reach port

I will sail all night and I'll never get caught

And the fires on the raging seas of time

And I'll never stop, never stop while I'm in my prime

And I wend and I wander through the days of olde

And the seas are coming and the seas are cold

And the waves are breaking on the ship's stronghold

The ship that will never reach the land

For the love who will never hold my hand

I am the ship that will never reach land

I will keep on sailing for as long as I can

I put down no anchor and ask the help of no man

Yes I am the ship that will never reach land

I ask for no quarter, no quarter from man

I am given no help except to stick to the plan

To be the ship that will never reach land

I am the ship that will never reach land

I am the ship that will never reach port

For I'm chasing the fish that will not be caught

And we chase him south and we chase him North

To the river mouth and round the horn

And the sailors shout and bloody oaths are sworn

In the dirty mouth of babes fresh born

They cry we are the fish who will never get caught

Through the summer drought or the winter storm

And I heard him out yes I heard the sails torn

He was the tavern tout, a drunken sailor of the morn

And spoke his story through the windows cry

Ribbons of the sea

 I saw the rising ribbons from the sea

I saw the rising ribbons from the sea

I saw the raging waves

And the lifeguard who saves

And Neptune's daughters 

Who were twins

I saw the father

Like Poseidon

I saw the mother like a coral reef

Beside him

And down beneath

The surf on the cliff

I saw the river sprites

Who were twins

Born in a place and in a time

Far gone over

Beyond mine

The life I have been given

No other shall be shriven

When I saw the rising ribbons

From the sea

Autumn love

The salt came up like a wave in the mouth
The river of tears always did flow south
And the bitterness of years
Bit the lip of what I couched
In kind words in soft skin of the apologist's pouch

And the time for regrets has come to pass
Nothing more to forget than the what's in the looking glass
The sound of nothing, the rush of air
From a vacuum to the vacuum of an utter despair

I wish I had held autumn and kept the fire kindled
I wish I had stood near the fire as the daylight dwindled
But I was fool enough to be self swindled
I stole the time I killed the calf who had been saved and brindled


All the sales of hearts came washing in the rivers warmth
Like an assault of the senses via the folk of

I held autumn like an air
Of a cloak of understanding
Putting it on as one does a glove
To feel the warmth
Or touch of the velvet
And sinking into that
Autumn of love
In which leaves fall from
Winter wind chilled trees
And she like an autumn
Garden I have visited
Whose secret is safely hidden
Though I must search to find the key
Lies in wait at her gate
In the comfort of the dying
Of the year to greet me
Like a changing season

Night and day

 Hear the owls of night

They are poets burning bright

Each new sound a hundred more

They do set fire with bells aroar

Their loquacious tongues

do sing the hymn

Before the bat king (hung in the rafters)

To the cat clung tight in doors

stretching its carpet claws

And to each sound my ear is a tuned

As the play of light on your face by the moon

And right be right

wrong be wrong

You too my love

May hear the owl's song

Thought at night is there by right

Thought by day may go and play

Though I love the evening time

And run to it with body and mind

My love is free

As the roots of a tree

For in the day the truth to find

And yet it also must be true

That as night follows day

So I follow you

And being as one who sees

 but does not say

I will keep you a secret

from this to the last day

And comfort is blind

To the trials of love

It is good it might find

In the darkness above

A light of star to guide

While the night we abide

We pray that the day

May be more merciful and kind

So scurry not

To the scarecrows lot

With flightless birds from the sea

Blue caesars

 Blue caesars

St Peters

Concubines

and turbines

turn wood from heels

to the eels

of salad dressing rebels

in the sinking sun

of a million buns and tokens of love

drugged by the stuff

that call to your heart

Totem pole dolly girls ready their seeds

to prayers and missions

in the countries art museums

That hold vases of flowers

As if earthly powers

Could some how

their seeds lay to rest

In it's appalling jest

Of some prison convict

Of who's innocense he protests

Inside the judges chambers

I lay my case the best I can

There is no equality in this world

Except the grace which is Natures Rod

The country parks hold festivals

The towns streets are full

Love transcends this wearied world

As each generation calls man God

Then fights for rights to rule

Each side believes they are top dog

The heinous crime that was His murder

Has left its mark on the faces

He created

In the pool of tears that Man is standing in

What leaves our flesh but love and sin

To lead the selfish to the test

Of nightmare or dream

Contested by the seas colours

See the grey turn into green

See the flag ships on them rolling

Confused when green turns to blue

And there is no line between

heaven and ocean

when there is no boundry

which walks beauty's line

The Train wreck of my heart is swollen

In the voices of the wind

But who's shirt now have I stolen

When I see the colours run from black to red

Upon the turf where we tread

Upon the roads that leaves the sod

When we eat the bread that bitter tastes

When the grain is small and shriven

As your love when you feel mine

What is this law

that nature has writ

That all good things die

But to save our lost wit

So too shall the bad things

die though not so quick

What are the laws that man has made

In place to confirm his face

In Godly Halls

Yet where does his dominion reach

As man is stranded away from God

Upon the other beach

He killed his God

Sometime back in the days

When capitalism breached

The walls of his holy house

Then layed so too by his self love

In his bed of roses

Yet his bed has already forgotten

Mans existence,

The years have trodden it out the way

We are each divided from another

By the time that our love does decay

Only one love when reached

Can fulfil the vacuum that

lies under the sun

There is just one love, only one

And that commands its law

With iron rod

That which transcends the bonds of time

The love in one universe alone

That Spiritual love of God

Man of Sand

Here I stand

a man of sand

which time does wash away

My only relief

From the ocean reef

Greets my face the cool sea spray

As each grain of belief

falls to the waves beneath

and a man mould of clay

A new man of sand

who now may stand

To greet a bold new day

Here I stand

a man of sand

One which the ocean may carol

but which part of me is given

which part has it stole

Which land locked heart the key?

Love is strange, love is bold

Love grows weary, then is old

But each grain new

My hand does hold

As if of silver, as if of Gold

And as this cursed melody

Rolls with tide and ocean wave

A man of sand

does too give way

To love bold, and love brave

Yet here I stand

a man of sand

And across the sea I reach

For to hold the hand

Of my love who stands

on the other beach

Time has ravaged each of us

The sands of time do fall

And what was once sand in your eyes

Now my sandy voice does call

Oh Love is but a shifting quick sand

Into it each man may fall

and who amongst us would reach across

Who would answer your loves call?

sea biscuit

 Oh the sea in all its flippery

And skippery rhyme

And Majestic Omaha

Of forever pines

And coastal rampages

Punctilious primes

And Rapscallion scales

Pear peppered wine

Well thought of good gold shrines

And leagues of legless lines

Caught in fishermen nets

Nettled but not in time

Of Shallow shelves of shellfish

And forests of frolicking fronds

And hours of anchoring urchins

And swathes of swallowing swans

The sea in all its peaches of beaches

That teaches us of time

And tides under neath of us

Needles stacked in seconds of clime

Sea fog

 They talk about sea fog and letting go

I can't see clearly to the land

They talk about white grog and hurting hands

Living with dinosaurs

And relics of bygone lands

They talk about sea fog that rolls in from the coast

The dirty men who love a ghost

The shattered, spent

And turned up hulls

Wrecked on the rocks

Of overdose

They talk about sea fog

And I can't see clearly

Through the melt water mud

Of frost and ice

I feel the pelt of rain

And The Celt in me smelt

Pain long before the dinosaur bones

Were turned up,

exposed

They talk about sea fog

And a withered hand

Holding a torch of freedom and

Perhaps the most I've ever wanted

From this land is a home

They talk about sea fog

And feeling gross

In far flung corners

And roller coast

Ers

But I switch off the forecast

And watch the football news