One Easter Sunday Evening

The scents of jasmine vanish
In the halls where they speak Spanish
And the Banquets all are famished
Down the roads where taxis wait

With six pence in their pockets
And rolls of tenners
Photographs held in lockets
By prisoners and lovers

And Swindlers clean the carpets
Of Millionaires who ask for it
And antique dealers in markets
Hold up artworks to a glass

Four and twenty black birds
Follow out the ravens
Who speak nothing but death words
To the graveyard shift crews

And cockerels in the morning
Wear black for those in mourning
Heralding the dawning
Of a new day spent alone

In the tawny honey dew
Calligraphers they sew
New buttons onto old Bibles
Made of Stone

But I stand there waiting
To listen to lovers talking
From womb to tomb
They're fating
Every stepping stone

For the temples now in silence
Even the birds share no more violence
As the dream of Gerontius
The scurvy pebbles are thrown

And the potter at his wheel
As the pickers in the field
Unearth what was too real
For the inhabitants of Rome

I feel every ivy leaf
Fall like some coincidence
Of a half penny's incidence
As it spins like a silver moon

Unfortunates and cowards
Lock their loves in ivory towers
Wait for knights with white powers
To free them from black doom

Since Marshals ring up Burglars
To break into their particulars
And leave no trace of their vernaculars
As they speak upon their phone

I wish for heavenly bowers
In the sandpits of hell's dowers
Where the marriage of a Figaro
Is a wedding for God alone

I saw an eagle

I saw an eagle on the water
A pig going off to slaughter
A woman in a feint
And a killer with red paint
The writing on the wall
Says I'm tired of it all
And I want to escape
But I can't rewind the tape
It must play on and on
This same old funny song
Of love and life and hate
Of being too early or too late
But never quite on time
To make the perfect crime
To commit the killer hook
To a song or write a book
Never quite so strong
To right the thing that's wrong
I just left it where it fell
Let the whole world go to hell

The end of Beauty

That's the end of Beauty
The tram has turned
On its pretty-polly rails
Down a shadowed road

That's the sun left behind
Its over our shoulder
Rolling down the blind
Like down a hill rolls a boulder

And so I guess it must be true
The Danube really it is blue
Or green or brown, as a frown
Depending on the mood
Its passing through

Oh river throw up your arms and wave
Throw your children to the banks to save
Throw back the bottle tops
Rescue the slaves
We are chained to your bridges
Like martyred braves

Danube in the Bayeux
Your weeping willows cry
Leaf tears into your pools
When your river runs dry
But in this Spring season
Lush Green grow their flanks
That they trail in your flow
Like slender arms
Reaching from your banks

Danube is a season, ever changing joy
Restless without reason
The jobless to employ
River business seen to
They go home with thanks

Budapest Baby

I said do you think its a girl or a boy
She said what the baby?
No I said the city, pretty baby
Why can't you tell?
I mean isn't every city feminine then?
She said it has its city lights on the river
Its not masculine
It shivers, it shudders, it beats and it dances
It slides and it slithers its feet
it takes chances
Take the risk with me then, she said with a smile
I already did, I lost my head for while
Dizzy, dizzy, ditzy lady this city of Budapest
charming in its courtship
Its dirty unwashed cleanliness
Its apathy, its cool
It's thrown out all the rules
It eats you up and spits you out
Yes its a woman, no less
If it were Paris, it would Romance you
In a boulevard
If it were Rome it would slay you
In a ruin of a Roman yard
But it is Budapest, it is past its best
It is full of unbridled restlessness
It is young and dumb and silly
Then it is hobo Roman villa
It is stone broke and the rest
It is a face looking up in helplessness
Then it slaps you back in an angry passion
Yes it is feminine after a fashion
It is ungoverned freedom
A lack of control
It is laying back after an attack
But it has and keeps its soul
Somehow it bleeds into its river
Its dreams of a future
Somehow it blows on its reeds
A city song in a quiver
A warble like a song bird in a tree
The morning after
The night of joyous laughter
Cold, and bold and free

Barges on the Danube River

Barges on the river

Rolling slow

Like trains on their rails

On the rivers flow

Sun over bridges

Cars toe to toe

The sunlight shimmers

And I too must go

Perhaps I’m just a reflection

Fleeting as a ripple

Seen in the morning

A little tipple

A dibble dabble

Where the sunlight dapples

On the river out of Eden

Where Adam took a bite from the apple

I’m just a reflection of his former self

And Eve is no different she’s no evil elf

Its just that we tasted of the tree

Of Forbidden Knowledge

And found it impossible to hide ourselves

There should be no fig leaves

Nor need for this shame

Call a rose anything you like

We all recognize its name

And if it smells like love

It probably isn’t

Because the most beautiful flowers

Rot the fastest in the end

Torn Today

I am torn today

Like a newspaper into strips

Like an old man’s tendons from his hips

I am torn like a shadow torn from a play

Like the sun in the window on a cloudy day

I am torn in two as a philosopher’s stone

One divines of wisdom, the other

Of a love alone

I am torn like a flower

From a daisy chain

Torn like a lightening power through

The falling rain

Torn in a semblance

Into something new

Torn, reborn and moulded

Into something strangely Blue

Like as if Neptune had risen from the seas

And thrust his trident of life

Into the heart of me

The sun light and the moonlight

Are torn in two

Like on that evening

When I kissed you

The sunrise is definite and so much of one

That it could be the infinite at last has come

But it will fall again

This familiar flame

Like the torch of passion, the same

Sometimes it climbs high with her name

Sometimes it sinks in the misery of pain

But always torn in two again

Cutting Glass

All along the paths of stone
That bruise and hurt our feet
There are none who would throw us a bone
Among those we meet

So many so the wild dog howls
Up from the depths of hell's bowels
Its been rejects of them that prowls
All along the jetty

Sometimes out on the lake at night
The wild wolves roam,
Their homes out of sight
All alone their eyes are bright
Out on the lake tonight

Sometimes out in the deepest forest
Tigers roar, warthogs forage
But it is all in jest
Of every last homage
To Budapest
Or the road once promised

Sometimes in the dreaming spires
I catch a glimpse of burning fires
Spiraling up into the sky
Like tears streaming down from the Sun's eye

Sometimes I feel the hilt dig in my side
Sometimes it is a thorn
Sometimes a spike, mostly
It is the sword thrust from love
That makes me cry

Why do you always move the stairs
From the steeple?
Why always move the chairs
For all the musical people?
Why when nobody cares
Do the wolves show their wares
And sell their teeth?

Why in the crooked house
Where snow white sleeps
Does the wicked witch creep
and always preach?
About how trolls should not be trusted
And how Goldilocks is crossing
Over another bridge
Then she tires of her stroll
And reaches for the porridge in the fridge

And why is puss in boots stuck in
The smartest suits when you
Feel he is a Spanish kitty
Meant for ally-cat pursuits

There can be no let up for
The open can of worms
That Cinderella is left to hold
After the cigarette factory burns

She should have worked in a glass works
And held onto a zoo of animals
Instead she lent towards the prince
Who was consumed with financial windfalls
And sucked into Pumpkin growing
On the slopes of Kilimanjaro