The thinking hill

 Under the hill 

And over the dale

The water runs on

In buckets and pails

And lamp lights glitter

The streets full of litter

Of the debris of the day of its flooding

Like getting blood from a stone

The mendips alone

Aren't places to roam

But men may atone

For sins they've committed

Or rights they've done wrong

The swords in the stone

Like the words in the song

And I have a home 

In the hills of Rome

Like in Bath the seven paths

All lead to one

Beneath the settled slabs

The calcite, limelight

The shining light shone

Flashing in the darkness

Of Remembering black swan

Gliding on the white lake

Of certainty throngs

Of people gathering above

In the busy world all day-long

But in the quiet echo chambers

The sound reverberates

It's a kind of cranium

a skull

Hollowed out by evolution

Of the water-blood flow

To breathe new thinking space

Into the timeless blue

This hill is a head

That has been contemplating time

And the world for millennia

Each epoch creates a new network

Of channels

Water was its neurons

It had water on the brain

The rain fell on its crown

And it began to think

I am a hill, a rock

But what is a rock

But a composition of chemicals

Elements and minerals

A body waiting to react

To the lifeblood of water

And in the thinking it loses itself

A part is washed away in the flood

Of passing thought through the passages of time

Yet the loss is like a growth

A thinning of the excess weight

Of past ideas, preconceptions

And judgments about the world

That proved false

Or only true for the time they were laid down in

No longer a present reflection of the status quo

Weathering the storm

 Can you hear the gushing sound 

Coming down the roads

The water babies on their bellies

With the frogs and toads

Flowing over grey stone walls

Filling up the gardens

We've thrown down all our cement bags

Now the bloody things won't harden

Out we dash with broom and bucket

sweeping back the waters

Then we lose the broom and think

This preparation doesn't cut it

what was it they taught us?

But who knew it would be this bad?

Who knew really what would happen

If the farmers take down trees and plough

Then surely water will start lappin

At your door and at mine although

You may live at the bottom of the valley

Of course we all know where the river will flow

It's just whether the river will sally

But one thing's for sure, we sure lend a hand

To help out others in need

Give them your arms and legs, hold a wheelie bin

Before it floats off down the street

But there's no need to play the blame game is there?

These things are just acts of God

Except surely we can mitigate against them

By not replacing forests with fields of sod?

Perhaps why not create some catchment ponds

That way it can slow down the water's flow

Some flooded fields further up would help bond

And allay the more tragic affects down below

Some kind of agricultural plan must be thought up

To prevent this ever happening again

It was like this ten years ago when the levels were caught up

Because the rhynes wouldn't properly drain

Why hasn't the environmental agency had 

a more stringent program of maintenance

Then we might have a case of Neptune's Staircase

Rather than a torrent, a deluge of complainants 

Let's try and deepen the River Sheppey

Make it deeper and broader

I'm sure the army of James Heappey

Would be more than happy

To carry out the order

Where's the bloody water gone?

 Who turned the taps off at Niagra?

I was planning to have my bath

You know it's run out steam

And now its just a trickle of a stream

The bloke who did it must be having a laugh

Who stopped Victoria's Fall

Well the smoke that thunders

Is never such a wonder 

When there's no bloody water on the wall

Well what has happened to my Angel?

She fell from heaven they say

Well by the look of things she's going to stay that way

What has happened to my Angel?

Did she decide the Earth was junk?

Well she's packed up her trunk

She said this hellholes drunk

All the water I had left and now I'm sunk

Oh what has happened to my Angel?

Now what happened to Iguaza?

And her 200 water babies?

She was mother nature

Now she's drier than mid Australia

Where will her babies get their nurture?

Who stanched the flow of Iguaza

Was it the fat Anaconda?

Who lay on his belly

When his body went to jelly

Like a conga eel on his back

Well what's happened to all her water babies?

Where did they all go

Two hundred and fifty three cataracts

Now that's a nifty little free fact

But don't act like you didn't already know

Who turned off the water to the world, hey?

Now we're as dry as a desert land's dead pool, hey

And if I catch up to the guy who is playing this joke

Well you better believe you'll see some thundering smoke

Red Burn

 Down from the dark, titanic mounds

Runs the Titans blood

Sometimes white as milk

Sometimes dark brown

Dirty blood from its deep arteries

Over salmon flesh, over cod yellow

Over the red Wrasse fish body

That heaves in the Glen

Whose gills breathe rain water

Whose lungs are damp caves

Whose Leviathan mass lies

In these watery graves

 

Whose back is a whale- une Roche Baleine

The whale bone ribs have been bent into waves

Whose oil and blubber are buried deep underground

And ambergris in its gut are the minerals yet unfound

They’ve been hunted by Geologists with their hammers like harpoons

Ready for the conquering like men who want rock from the moon

River

 The river babbles, shelves in clam-like semi-circles

These C letters it is spelling out

Constantly, clattering, changeling

Calling in chains

That run like white sausage strings

Over stone rails

Bulbous and fat as onions rolling

Down a cobbled hill

Chattering and chasing each other as children do

Racking and racing as horses out the stalls

All from the starting line over the head of Steall Falls