Sound the claxon

 The people of Wells

Are singing their kells

And walking the path with their feet

The people of Shepton

Are blowing their claxon

And sounding a march in retreat

For you know when they join 

The two sides of the coin

Both will be facing defeat

For the Sheptonians are like stone

And the Wellsonians like bone

And it will be like when two tribes meet

So perhaps don't try to bridge the gap

That once fell from the map

But instead let sleeping dogs sleep

Woodland Elves

 Their faces grim

Without a whim

Of any form of Welcome

The group was set against itself

And all outside invasion

A clique set, an in-crowd

They knew themselves

They would die proud

And glory be for glorified be

Their one aim of their devotion

A strong team set to hold the bridge

They fought like rabid hamsters

Against the other side or set 

To rid the West Shepton monsters

They woodland elves bettered themselves

And like termites they invaded

And ate up all the goodly jobs

Just like our friendly neighbours

But why hate your enemies

Why not love them instead

Just because they invade the territory

You yourself have set?

No, wars have been started over lesser things than these

I guess it was up to us to defend

The bridge and fight for Jane and Steve

Of Mice and Man / Brick and span/ The Angel Gabion fan

 And the angel Gabion

Came down from up on high

And said I want a bridge here

Now get out your pigsty

Put down your hammers

Give the dog a bone

And build me some pillars 

out of rock and stone

But the people at first they built 

Them out of sand

And the good Angel Gabion

He couldn't understand

Why have ye builded me

These pillars of salt?

Do you not know

How the weathers will assault?

And the Lorries rumble

And the bicyclists vault

One crack in these

Will bring on a fault

And the whole bridge will crumble

And the night shall fall down

And heaven will be humble

She will lose her high crown

So if ye are not to let down

The plans of mice and man

Get off your arses

And make that bridge span

And build me some good gabions

Out of rock and stone

And don't put heaven in a rage

But make sure you pack them flatly

Inside their cage

Turn it into a smooth slope

We can follow with our eyes

And see it go gently up over the rise

And then together we'll cross the great divide

of the road to Pilton and reach the other side

But how shall we lay them 

asked one humble Sheptonian

And the man from Pilton he say

Lay man lay, 

lay them like great slabs

That the Cathedral stands on

They were built to last

And they hadn't even gabions

Just the master masons

And hand skills of the past

That surpassed all our expectations

But whose foundations still last

Yet we are not like the ancients

Neither in heroic skill or manner

But something of their way

Still passes on down the spanner

And we can still swing 

mattocks, shovels and hammers

And in the joints and limbs are feeling

At one with creation

And the intention of people to

Build something great

Whether resurrecting a railway

Or correcting a mistake

We'll soon get back on track

While the season lasts

And soon have the wheels rolling

Over the bridge running fast

And the people will be strolling

And admiring the view

And they'll thank their

lucky stars for we happy few

Who had the chance to build it

Or even just lend a hand 

in the spanning of the pilton road

Like in the works of mice and man

Rolling stones

 This is the road to somewhere

This is freedom mile

This is give me a handshake

And show me a smile

Lift and pass rock cake, clay cake

from the pile

Filling up gabions with mistakes

of a style

Broken hill makes for a prison of selves

Fragments of yesterday

Reveal themselves

In hillocks, and tussocks

In snags and strife

As they cut their trace

Into our life

The road to tomorrow

Leads on from yesteryear

Resurrecting

And grasping

For ideas out the air

But plans have been lain

And ideas sown

As each of us is rolling

And moving moss from stone

Lifting the weight 

like Atlas off his shoulders

Pushing rocks uphill

Like sisyphus and his boulders

But hoping for better

And hoping for new

Because we all write in our letters

What we hope to come true

The oil rig jam

 They call it the oil rig jam

Yeah you work for years on an oil rig

Tough, hard work for a real man

Gives you pride in yourself

You can say yeah I know who I am

You lookin' at me buddy? 

Call me Uncle Sam

But it ain't no good thing to carry that can

No they call it the oil rig jam

You see you got blood on your hands

Though it ain't red

It's as black as those thoughts that

Run through your head

When you think of the people and

habitats that are dead

All because of your oil rig jam

You see you can't expunge all the guilt

That is yours

Just by turning over a green leaf and start working 

Outdoors

Volunteer for community projects

Helping the poor

Yeah, now do you say I know who I am?

No, uncle Sam

No more

Because now you're in the oil rig jam

Yeah you drilled into the earth

And pillaged her plunder

You raped the sea bed

Of all its life and its wonder

Just to line your own pockets

With gold thread galore

And to buy a four bed home

Near cathedral doors

You might as well face it

You've been working for hell

And the devil is your master

And he rings your bell

Everytime you hear the kerching

Of the cash register ring

It is sad to say it Sam

But you're in the oil rig jam

Thousands of gallons of crude oil spill

across oceans killing the sea life

They're drowning in your devotion

To the black gold you worship

And the master you serve

Oh you've gone and blown it

I hope you get what you deserve

Because you can't pretend now

That you're a big boy scout

When really it's your boys' toys

That have put us up the spout

And you have the gall

To tell me how to live my life!?

Environmentally sound

Like you're some saint without doubt

You're a hypocrite by nature and name

Sam

And that's why you're in the Oil rig jam

Blow your thistle down

 Thistle down, oh thistle down

Whistle down, oh whistle down

In the browning of the dill

On the frowning of the hill

Whistle down, blow the whistle down

Blow the whistle up again

Blow the thistle, blow the thistle, 

Blow the thistle down

Where the bramble and the thorn

All the places we have gone

Blow the thistle, barren down

Down and down again

Seeds are wasted, seeds have shown

Seeds have thrown and seeds have grown

In the places we have known

Oh thistle down, blow your thistle down

Blow the whistle down, 

blow the whistle down

In the happy stances

In the thrones of kings and queens

Where they stood in equity

Oh blow your thistle down

Blow your thistle down

England's Rose and Scotland's queen

Blow the thistle in between

Thistle crown, oh thistle crown

The crown that we shall wear

Is the crown of thorns of care

Whistle down, blow your whistle down

Blow it all over town

Running through the tunnels up and down

Blow the thistle down

Blow the whistle down

Hear them shoot upon their horn

Hear them shoot the new day's morn

Throwing out the old day's corn

Blow your thistle down

Whistle down,

Thistle down

Blow, blow

Your whistle down

Everything is on the ground

Just blow your whistle down

How do you know the raging winds?

Or the rains upon the skins

Any day that we have come and gone

Come and gone again

Thistle down, blow your whistle down

All these places we have known

Everything must go

Thistle down, blow your whistle down

In the places of the town

And the places grown in sound

Blow your thistle down

Blow your thistle down

Building bridges

Let's build bridges

Let's not divide

We have to get to the otherside

Make amends 

And be friends

For the road it can end

Too soon if we're not careful

So tend the edges

Trim the verge

Mind the ledges

Resist the urge

To destroy what we've create together

Forces of nature, or wild weather

can still smother

But mother, father, sister brother

All should gather, love one another

For bridges build new links and connections

Between communities under vivisection

And these are the ties that bind

So cross the bridges in your mind

A swinging good time

 Oh we had a swinging good time

Swinging on the Strawberry line

Swinging billhooks and swinging scythes

Swinging axes and taxes and tithes

Swinging dog poo in its bags

Into hedges makes Steve mad!

Swinging dogs and hogs and do

Swinging horses, boar thistle and ragwort too

All about on a Friday morn

While Jane was swinging her strimmer at the corn

Grasses and weeds and dandelion dawn

That brightened over the ridge rise

Where the orange men marched their bridge with pride

Detecting swinging bricks and bats

Detecting swinging cricks and cracks

Everything was swinging 

We had a swinging good time

As the birds were singing

In the sweet sunshine

Strawberry fields

 Well the time came again

That a train visited the hills

The train of volunteers

Driven by their common wills

Through

Long forgotten glades

Fields of silver

Fields of gold

Fields of bronze

Fields once sold

Now bought back again

All for the train

All for the memory

All for the future

All for the history to be

Tied up like sutures

Never leaving a loose end

Never knowing what's round the bend

Or down the tracks

The strawberry fields forever

Life on the line

 Johnny's on the line

He's getting no sleep today

They don't like you for your personhood

They call themselves the Robinhoods

The Forest rangers

The track defenders

But the fruit gets squished in their grips

As insult off their red lips trips

They'll use you on the Strawberry Line

They'll take your body and soul

They'll tie you down and wait

Until across you bicycles roll

Don't go and sell your body

For the price of their coal

The respect you'll earn, will not burn

Hot enough fires in your soul

They talk in their drivel

Of self-aggrandizing fame

To keep alight their own torch bright

While the light house is aflame

Everyone wants a beacon

A dream in which to believe

Come and be a follower

You might give but you won't receive

Not unless it is their scorn

From the early morn until the Eve

For their crown of thorns

Is always worn

whether borrowed or whether thieved 

The Heart of Wessex

 Haul away to Salisbury

I'll not be back today

We load the stock

With brick and rock

And Quarrying we may

Well Johnny's on the line ma

He's a rolling car

The buds are blooming in the sidings

The broom and Buddleia

They get on board at Weymouth

They alight thar at Frome

And by the time of Castle Cary

Well there wasn't any room

They've been a holidaying

Down the Heart of Wessex line

But it's alright, the car is tight

Johnny's rolling all the time

Well haul away to Salisbury

And back to Cattistock

We hit bad weather 

At Marston Magna

And Rolled back to West Radstock

Now nevermind Bathampton

Westmoreland or Bath Spa

It's Limpley Stoke

With the Freshford folk

Who'll climb into his car

He never knew a girl before 

Like the one from St Anne's Park

She could quick draw

And from her maw 

She drew a big dog's bark

It was called the Heart of Wessex

the beating Vena Cava

The artery, the pulmonary

The vein and semi quaver

If ever there was a left leg

They'd call it Weymouth Quay

If ever blood went to their head

In Temple Meads they'd be

Now here's the heart of Wessex

A pumping people home

Up and down the West Country

From Salisbury to Frome

Now speaking of a right hand

Across to Clevedon pier

Upon the Cheddar Valley line

All drinking Strawberry beer

Upon the Great Western Railway

Isambard Kingdom Brunel

He built the bridge across the Avon cliffs

Johnny knew him very well

Now Johnny comes a walking

Down the tracks that he once rolled

The tunnels where he blew his whistle

Along strawberry hills he strolled

Now the beating heart of Wessex doesn't

Pump no more of his blood

But the tracks that once held his stacks

Are now covered in his mud

Yes Johnny's in the cab

Shovelling the coal

And he's the steam of fires seen

As the rolling stock does roll

And the body is not working

But it's still living mind and soul

And the ghost of Johnny Firkin

Still hauls down on the Wessex roll

That's about the Scythe of it

 Now Scythe me down

Ammerdown

With a sweep of your blade

The axe falls in the hay

Like the battles now past

And on a cool June day

As the snails slimed the grass

We not so grim reapers reaped

What lay in our path

Reap what you sow

Don't sow what won't last

The seeds of summer days

Lie in the earth of autumn past

Now scythe me down

Like heads of grass

Seeds heads, pop

Tall storks clasp

Lie like sticks

Of warriors past

Now scythe the clover

Scythe the thistle

As time scythes the lover

And the last train's whistle

Blowing passed

Like seeds in the air

Scything go the swifts

And swallows without a care

Scything in the willows

Twisting over the pond

Scything down

The stinging nettles

Of their magic wand

Giver of the poisons darts

Scything go the ants at heart

Cropping through the leaf

Scything pincer teeth

The Westerns and the Easterns

Part 1 

And they laid the black snake on the ground

The gravel was thrashed all around

With its tail like a whale, a fluke-like flail

We could not fail to gasp at what he'd found

It lay coiled up under the bridge

Such an adder as this none could miss

A giant constrictor oh what a restrictor

Of voices and lips it would kiss

Hercules wrestled the black viper

The fight went back and forth like a wiper

First it was his, then it was hiss

And none could miss that snake sound

Oh but the path filled with laughter

As finally the snake gave up its ever-after

And said a hissing prayer then it rose in the air

And laid back down on the ground

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Part 2

Jason came out to Westbury

One day just as the lambs did lay

And the sheep in their golden wooliness

Bleated along the Strawberry way

Some wolves I saw a stalking

And an Argonaut felled one with a thrust

Then they fought the skeletons

That came dancing up the road in the dust

Jason soon helped in the laying of 

a mighty pipeline that lay

All the way from the Phoenician isles

Down to the Strawberry way

The culvert had been dug

By many hands before him

The Argonauts with the merry seamen

Heavy black pipes they lugged

Oracles from Far Orient-Easton

Came walking predicting the weather

And their dogs like howling hyenas

barked at the end of their tethers

Those Westerly westerners of Westbury Way

Charged mighty high words in the air that day

For this salt track nearly broke the camel's back

When the strawberry liners made hay

Achilles could have twisted his ankle

Agamemnon probably will

Helen of Troy with her entourage of boys

Is sure to pick up the bill

Somebody asked for a pick axe

Somebody for shovel

Somebody asked, he wore a mask

And I think that he lived in a hovel

Hitting hard bedrock with a wrecking bar

Laying down and going to sleep

The only ones not with a headache

Were the bleating, baaing sheep

When we finished laying piper Alpha

Alpha piper piped up and called for the pub

So we pootled on down to the Westbury arms

And we drank while we thought about grub

Not much of note really happened

It was another day for the argonauts

We could have shot for the stars

And hit the moon, but instead we did what we ought

There was a hovering sparrow hawk

And there were many wild flowers sown

I think that I should have done more work

But as it was time already had flown

Thor the post modern

 And we hit the posts in and we made them sing

And the rubber hammer was like a tuning fork thing

It tuned into all the Gods in the clouds above

And Thor came down to hit the posts in for us

With each thunderbolt

He electrified the fences

And then he swore at all the posts

But they never once took offences

Thor was a most willing volunteer that day

When the rain came down on the Strawberry Line

And we all began to pray

"Thor just get us out of here!"

"Thor just finish the job!"

And Thor came down and brought his tools

For Thor's that kind of God

I wish I'd known him better

Maybe asked for his autograph perhaps

But hey I'm just a man of letters

And he's a man of action 'n' thunderclaps

There stands another post driven into the ground

Hark you can hear the hammer ring another pound

I lost sight of him just around 4 o'clock in the afternoon

The rain was falling heavily, total eclipse of sun and moon

But then I saw him going down over the hill like the sun

He sure was a son of Shepton Mallet

And if he wasn't, then I'd be a son of a gun

Nature line

 In the brambles underfoot

The brash that's slashed with bill hook

As volunteers go rolling by

Swinging slashers and hedge trimmers high

Hear the sound of What exactly?

Slow worms crawling through the debris?

If this is nature unbound I ask thee

What next will they find to tell ee?

I saw a Robin, that I did

Hanging around the neighbourhood

He was interested in the action

The hewn stalks of bramble were his passion

He flew amongst the swinging workers

Willing to do what nature shirkers

Would not do, but oh we few

We merry few the strawberry line crew

Still you mention where is nature?

Well, it's thorns and rotten tapers

Of fallen trees long since died

Heads in the earth, fungi multiplied

Purple patches, even velvet ears

Grow on dead logs rotting near

And they crumble underfoot

Nature found it hard to look

But after humans abandoned it

Soon started bramble that didn't quit

And now we come to reclaim the land

Nature gives us a helping hand

And palms us back this great high five

Saying come and take me I'm still alive

It is something that doesn't want to die

It will strive, and suffer and survive

And every change or drop in pressure

It will respond more robust and better

Ultimately it holds all the cards

To life's big mysteries we find so hard

Railway silence

 The ducks on the sharp pond

The eye of the ice

The glittering tear lake

There bitterns shy twice

And Egrets and Herons

Stalk upon the fronds

Crushing and stealing

The icing on the cake

The glittering tear lake

Where blue sky cries

Into the fears and mistaken

Lullabies

Out shoot the swallows and in the branches starlings twitter

All above the glitter

Of the glitterati lake

Come see the birds swoon in their dazzling displays

Play fiddler on the roof tunes

As we walk the golden highway

And the yellow brick road shines

But there's no way we can stay

As I see the Tin man from Japan

Pick up his bucket and spade

And the black lion roars in the railway sidings

And his iron coat soars

And his bronze mane shining

Like a Sun pirate coruscated

and laid out on the plain

Dorothy is skipping doing a dance for the rain

And I'm on the platform waiting for the last train

But it left several hours ago, and my waiting is in vain

Still the rocks pile sideways and the Wizard of Oz calls

Here come the fortunate ones who have climbed

Over the walls