River Severn

River Severn, River Severn
Severed heaven
At the pearly gates
Your locks the Brunette, Brunel Curls
That flow and Furl
Along your banks

River Severn on a journey
Through the mists of time
Turn back the clock
At the Bristol docks
So the river creatures chime

River Severn, severed from heaven
Flowing out of Eden
Through the bearded bushes grow
Narrow, widen, even
All the gulls that fish you
All the cormorant crews
Crows in rows that haunt your flanks
Swans that pose upon your banks
Carry the roots of inner earth
The heart of caves
To the river mouth of course
Far from ignoble birth
In the hilltop source

River Severn, severed heaven
From a Seventh Eden
Bows down from the midland crown
Between Wales and England

From source the mundane force
From little becomes a lot
Into the trees of noble seas
The Blood clot
Breaks through waves of life
Muddy foot prints in clay
Sinking skin of arterial
Reeds poke up as aerial
Let little birds fish
Has bigger fish to fry
The river in quiver
From the rain darts of the sky
Down the ponds and lakes
That stand beside in half hidden tree stakes
That let the flood-lines shake
The field levees break
And out in all the miserable din
As Winter breaks the icy grin
And spread its cold shiver across the skin
Of river-land

There it is beneath the skin din
Rustling its shoulders
Rolling blood over mud over blood
Over boulders
Slipping its slight artery out to sea
Bleeding its inheritance of land
Bleeding its rain heart
Its cloud song
Sky banks let its savings out
Spending all its cash
On one last ditch attempt
To splash, flash or smash our contempt
For law for the claw that
tries to rake back the sea

It tries to take back the land
In its never ending battle ground
Playing its hand
In Neptune's tidal sand
In the Kraken's fighting stand
With its seven heads of heaven spewing
Severn mouths of seven wells
From the Seven fallen Angels
Conquering seven seasons of hell

each one feeding, snatching at the next
Until the river Severn has severed and broken all their necks
And the river dragon is finally dead

Yara, yara Shepton Mallet

Yara, Kingsland, on the escapade
Through the knuckled arches
Of the walled arcade
Munching on the Myrtle of a Thrush
in pale pose

Purring in the nettles
Cooking on the rose
Succoured and suckled,
Adroit to unknown sun
In the French dressed Troubadour
Letting off steam
Sheep in folds
Folder deep
In the paper leafed field

Roman numerals of chicken runs
Pertinent permanence of setting suns
Leaving behind like nuns
Of to find a wedding

I saw a falling star

I saw a falling star

And bit my lip

My heart beneath your scar

It gave a skip

And all the glass jars

Began to slip

The night I saw a falling star

I bit my lip

In the place of a kettle drum

To the hanging halls of Kingdom come

The sallow Queen wipes her brow

Thinks of her place in heaven now

Well she fell

Oh yes she fell

You oughta known it might’ve happened

The day I crossed your path

For the morrow, yeah tomorrow

Is like a star yet risen

And tonight, we hold tonight

In between teeth tightly bitten

I saw a falling star

This morning

While the world was early turning

And the waves pulled by the tide

Rose up, let go as one who has cried

Tomorrow, yeah tomorrow

The West is there to borrow

In the east are presents burning

From the Sun whose star is yearning

To be falling like you too

On with the Show

In the cold hunted moon hanging low

Like the a hangman’s noose

Over cold harbour bridge

And the sweet summer rose

That has doffed its fair cap

To be petals to the Devil and the coal scuttle cat

To the wintery scene of the levels

Which the ice queen peruses like lovers in bondage

And the dandelion trees full of starlings

That corner the darlings

And the buds of the flower

Then as if a cruel North wind did blow

Destroys with its power

And a flutter on the breeze rise the starlings

Like dandelion seeds

And then on with the show

While bare and alone stands the tree with its branches

The summer a long way off with its rose

The winter peeling her bark in its throes

But still the Majestic dance goes on

So on with the show

The name of this Eden is chances

The sweet swelling ring of the bells

The Colonel and the Lady are dancers

So the good song of the evening goes well

And a courting goes John of the Marshes

To the town fair he has gone with the Belles

And Donna was seen with the Marquis

Whom she showed her fine, handsome hair

And the bard of the evening is laughing

And the mystery fairy folk are all there

For John with a belle is now dancing

And so long has she held his bold stare

So the evening buds are a blooming

And the morning floods are still there

But as the level’s lovers are crooning

The Silver fairy folk are in their lair

And the blood of the brothers is on the tide

The tears their mother has cried

Calls why can’t we go back to the evening

When neither a brother did care

And their wives are a-busy a-mourning

Their lives are of widowhood bare

And of the music that filled the good evening

How they wish for its love back on the air

So the fairy Folk dance on the shore line

They break the crisp foam in their hands

The Lovers come again in the evening

And the Levels is again a fine land

Jesuit Justice

All about the shirts shout

And passers- by exclaim

In voices loud as a newborn’s howl

Pass around their name

The hapless crew are wandering through

Careless is their ditty song

Of high fluting pleasure castles

Where they rest all day long

And they say that wickedness never rests

While these Babylonians were at the game

Their facetious smiles and wrinkled brows

Never turned to see their selves in the mirror

Or else turn back from their ruinous road

No they were stubborn and lazy as a toad

They came back here not so long ago

Full of misery and sad song

For their loves had flown to go

And their children had passed on

Now the loud of shirt are of tattered rags

Tatterdemalion

And their dollar bills fill just paper bags

Much like Pygmalion

Still their pride and vice

Are twice as nice as when they once were seen

Walking the castle palisades

As a pleasure palace’s King and Queen

Magistrates of the soul go by

Penny thieves, hope and vultures cry

Misanthropes tie ropes, about a dignified neck

As revolutionaries pell-mell their executioners peck

Little holes in the foals, Like a goalies check

And lace wizened purls round girlie curls

To invest in a gull ringed dove neck

River Queens

I wandered as pale as a sheep

Afraid of sleep

Of death

As a nettle amongst sick roses

Falling over myself in unspoken morose(s)

Witching the ‘you’ tree beside the Yang river

Which sang Ying as a shiver on a ghost

It began to believe in the God seed

But Jack high on speed ran it up the post

I wandered, a grief I knew not where from

Betrayed me like a mirror to a shadow

Respected no ill spectre of unforgiven love

Inspected all god pieces as if gold in a glove

She salmon pinked my insides

Yet stones I threw from the bridge

And watched the black water flow through

As if the stars had born you

And I had been waiting

All of my years

To catch a petal and let a stone go

So what ‘s the matter Queen Jane

The look of mercy is plain again

Ann of neck and sleeves is worn,

Her cares have Jasmine vipers bitten

And shy is smitten and sworn

Neptune's Circus

An Egyptologist came by camel to Camelot

Came to Neptune’s circus

Rode in there with green apparel

Climbed down the cliff side staircase

Left the land of sand and stone

Exchanged it in for sea and cross bone

Saw clown fish laugh

And clams applause

As the long decked raft

Broke in the shark’s jaws

Watched booming white comets of surf

Shoot up and spray

Like Pennies dropped down to earth

And fireman octopi with their long hoses

Bedraggle the Angel fish who stride with Moses

And see the sea part then like curtains

Closes

After the Israelites depart

From under Egyptian noses

And he came to Neptune’s circus

It was worse now that he had purpose

And the thoughts and the thrills

That burbled in the rills

On the outskirts

Of circus Marquee

Like the frills of lady jelly fish

Who came to dance the dark Fandango

In the light fantastic of the underwater

Universe

Or the solemn hermit crab

Who crept with all his red fingers drab

In the cuticle of minutiae of telescopic beetle burrs

The Egyptologist stopped

Mouth agape at the dead Sea

Staggered like a sand dune to Galilee

Those place of the hieroglyphs

Were seemingly these gyro cliffs

That turned around a merry go-round

Or carousel

And in the fairground grinding organ music

Spoke of oysters, barnacles and other molluscs

As he stared at the starry night above