English Roses

I asked for a Rhododendron
You called it a rose
Its a Rhode island baby by any other name
I suppose
The chickens were clucking
And the goose was getting fat
When you put all your eggs in my basket
And I began to wear it as my hat

Finally the golden egg has hatched
And its a hatchet job
Of Margaret Thatcher
And the banker, Rob
Together they've been growing
These gardens of English Flowers
And they've been turning up the borders
And twisting the halls of power
And the English Country Cottage
Is showing signs of wear
Its time for a Spring clean
Time to wipe the walls bare
Get rid of the stains and smears
Get rid of the shadows
Draw back the curtains
And open the windows
Let in the fresh air
Let the sun shine in the corners
And mind you tend
The English roses that grow outside their borders

Perfect Strangers

We were perfect strangers
When I met you
Then you took me in your arms
Now I cannot forget you

Honey this is what it means
To be perfect strangers
No need to explain things
Like lending coffee to your neighbours

Just giving to another
When the feeling takes you
This is what it means
When the music makes you

Perfect, perfect Strangers
No cracks or flaws
Just the melody changes
Listen to those open scores
No questions like why are you late?
Or who did you spend last night with?
I spent it with a perfect stranger

I wanna be perfect like you
I know I need the security
Of another's loving embrace
I know I need a mirror held up to my face
Because I don't like to see me
When I knock on closed doors
They never were closed to me before
But now I'm a perfect stranger

I'm just like you
The love we had has changed
Into something newly blue
This is what I feel
This is what I mean
The part in the movie reel
Like on the platform where they meet
The train is moving on and he appears from the steam
And she goes up to meet him
But its difficult like in a dream
They sit down in a cafe
In the waiting room of life
And over drinks discuss
What each will say to their husband or wife

They were perfect strangers
It could happen to anyone
Trying to start out from the middle
Is like going on the run
Together through life
They're in a crowded room
Two horses running on a shore
Beneath a crescent moon

They always meet up somewhere
Further down the tracks
When they'll be no longer Perfect Strangers
But Old friends just looking back

It always happens to somebody else

It always happens to somebody you know
But it never seems to happen to me
But then love struck its lightening blow
And scared all the fish from the sea
They ended up right on my plate
And so I sat down to a fish supper tea
Well it always seemed to happen to somebody else
And it never seemed to happen to me

But then love came down like a hammer blow
And it thundered in the chambers of my heart
I thought all night of the wind and snow
And in the morning my car wouldn't start
But it wasn't just that I suppose you know
It was because I had forgotten the key
Well it always seems to happen to somebody else
And never seemed to happen to me

Give me a letter, write me a part
I promise to be better, now's a great time to start
I fought and I fettered, down the highways and lanes
But it just seemed the go-getter was trying in vain
So I put on the brakes and I began to skid
Like a man falling, I became a little kid
Because the snow is appalling and so is the rain
And I feel my self stalling to stop all this pain
Well it always seems to happen to somebody you know
But never seemed to happen to me

The arsenals of guns, are shooting bullets at the sun
And the silver trains are gliding down the street
And fairies weighing tons are crying out their lungs
At the bodybuilders lying at their feet
And it always seems to happen to somebody you know
But it never seemed to happen to me
As the spark of inspiration, that came from negotiation
Tied me in knots that I couldn't help but repeat
Because it always seems to happen to somebody you know
but it never seems to happen to me

Time to say good bye

I've been trying to control the borders of my heart
Its Northern Ireland back stop was trouble from the start
It was the common denominator amongst all my problems
How could I open doors to the future negotiations
When she was still in there threatening retaliations

I'm on a mental Brexit
But in my hearts its a no deal
We'll part with some rejections
Or that's just the way that I feel
The European Union of our lives
Has experienced a rift
And its no thanks to you or me
Being so spendthrift
I should have invested more
In your fiscal policies
But then you shouldn't have expected me
To adopt all your regulations
You know I passed them as you said
But they conflicted with my own authorities
And conviction to govern myself instead

But what you must understand is
Its a question of constitution
I cannot go against my own will's resolution
They were written down in laws
On the manuscript of my soul
But you tried to steal it
You are a thief of control
So that's why I must leave you
Its written in the golden stars
There are a ring of 12 of them
On a blue flag,
Like the heavenly bodies
Sometimes our paths must cross
But I cannot always be calm Venus
Sometimes I must be warlike Mars
In our negotiations that soon will close
I will try the path of least resistance
I suppose
And it should be not a question
Of my wrong or right intention
But whether we want the best for each other
Do not try to determine my future
It is in the will of the people
Living under one steeple
One church
But its still a question
Whether we're all singing from the same hymn sheet
And if our leaving song is a discordant lurch

Lions of lives are roaring

Thunderous applause of the salt
encumbered shoes
That walk like
Pirates walk the plank
And give no shoulder anyway
To the crocks that give way
As they balance along their flanks

It must be seen to be believed
How strange it seems to finally see
To wake up in the world
As if from a dream
Of the long encumbered sleep

I never slept well
Why couldn't you tell
Each day in heaven
Was a night spent in hell
But somehow we got over these
Disastrous things
And somehow
It just feels so raw
Like peeling back your skin
Then sprinkling on salt
Or rubbing your wound with
Lemon
It stings, it is sore
Like I've shut my fingers in the door
And I carry no truck with that queen anymore

No I played my joker
And she played her ace
And in our game of poker
I got egg on my face

I did so wrong that I can't ignore
This feeling I have in pocket
This string on the purse of my
Rich understanding
Has come loose
And all the coins have fallen
To the floor where I'm standing
And I can't sit down
And I can't let go
And I've lost my crown
But must still act in the show

It seems I have cut off my own nose
At last
Just to spite my face in the glass
Where too much self analysis
Is useless as grass
To a cow who has lost all her teeth

I wish there were some safe place
I could go, where we would all laugh
And it'd be on with the show
But that ship has sailed and she
Has moved gone
Because I marooned myself on this island
With a madman's song

If I might say it
I don't know me well - not well enough

Foot steps on the street

All the chrome horses had run around
Their courses
And are now leap frogging
Over the hedge
And the drivers are waiting in the
Queues anticipating
What sentences will fall
From my head
They are blocked up
Like a Mental Brexit
There is no road map to my
Soul
And I am lost in this city
Where the girls are so pretty
I have fever that is hard to control

If I've said it once
I've said it a thousand times
She will not call
She is wasting my time
I'm backed up against and iron clad wall
And the rust is peeling off
Blood red

The sentences fall,
with no trouble at all
I have to stoop down to pick them
Off the floor

And the park lingers on
In its cold tree song
For the old men
Who wander unfed

Unfed, unfed
They are going to bed
On the benches, in the
Galleries of bushes
Under the hedges
Where the birdies
Befriend them
With reveries of lives
Long dead

Long dead, long dead
Inside their heads
With reveries of lives long dead

Peeling back the tarmac
Taking up the cobbles
Digging beneath the street
Where the old beggar hobbles
Where the old beggar hobbles

And underneath the sooty street
The earthen sand stare
Are the graves of those long gone
Those bone people who lived before

Before, before
Those who lived before
Those are the roads that they tread
But are they the same
As we walk in vain
Are all our footsteps
destined instead?
Are all our footsteps predestined
instead?

Horses trot
And graves they rot
Horse hooves just clip-clop
Their certain air
Of a midnight lair
Where the past walks down the street.

All the Saints today

Come on Saint George
Set down your grey hair
Set down your false disguise
You're in the Angel's lair
But there's a devil beside

And Saint George you should know
About the times she's lied
And it isn't fair
The times the maiden's cried

But oh Saint George
You know the truth can't hide
You're in the dragon's lair
Pick up your shield with pride

And I think you should know
There's a devil there
But an Angel beside
So set down your grey hair
Pick up your sword with pride

Now the flames that scare
Fly from her mouth and fried
All the saints held there
To the stakes where they're tied

And I think you should know
How much the other saints tried
Saint Andrew's bear, Saint Patrick
Down on the snakes did ride

But its all the same
In the dragons lair
There's an Angel there
But a devil beside
So pick up your shield
Fight back the flame
Loves a battlefield
Where all the saints have died