The world is a beautiful place

The world is a beautiful place

The world stands up in grace

The world shags backwards

All the faces of disgrace

And all the flowers of the city

Are so pretty in their place

The fogs are lifting

Like liquorice canals

Flowing like the pony-tails

Of men in white vans

Shagging like grey suits

Of the pick-up brigade the

Flat caps that never stayed

The he never came back

Leather jacket shade

Of black

The plasterers with grizzly jaws

And fags hanging out of their mouths

The motorcycling husband and wife

With their kid in the sack

The hoodies

The workmen, the chinned hardmen

Who walk like cockerels with their

Shoulders pushed back

Jutting their jaws like the titanic

Ice breakers

Ready for an attack

The music lovers with their head-phones in dancing

To their own tune

And then the girls with their blue dyed hair

Strands cut like records

The baseball caps in reverse

The noble ruck sack wearing youths

The couples in earnest pursuit of life

And love and meaning

And the wind in the red curly locks

Of a young man who faces his life alone

The survivors

The strivers and the thrivers

Rubbing shoulders in the same street

The world is a wonderful place

I believe

In the smile

Of chubby cherubs

The dirty grey brown hair

Of old mother hubbards

Who peck the ground

For their meal

The world is a beautiful place

I still feel

Earthly moments

The trees are frosty

And the water starts

To kill me softly

In my warm, warm heart

And I need nothing

But the day to start

For I’m delaying

This chilling part

The crime is open

And my legs disappear

Someone has drawn

A chalk outline of when we were here

My heart is missing

And the wind whistles clear

Through the hole blown

By the bullet of your tear

Now I used to have you

But we screwed that up dear

The cows are lowing in the fields and the deer

Are always going where the dew is clear

In the mountains where the wild rivers steer

I used to know you

Like an itchy ear

I used to scratch you

Just show you my fear

Of ever losing what I used to hear

The beat of my chicken heart

I used to thatch the cottages around here

Be on the roofs with my straw brain

Leave me lightly, just leave me the rain

I’ll listen slightly in my door-way again

The token of yesterday is the key to today

We use it wisely to unlock the pain

I wanted nothing more from you than to say

That you love me again and again

I used to need you to pull me apart

You used to feed my cold, cold heart

I used to starve you just to let the process start

Of trying to drown you in the apple cart

I used to run through the market place

With everyone knowing me by my face

Now I’m in the stocks at midnight

I’m the great disgrace

Trying to call you out from your hiding place

Well you can hurl at me all your insults

You even as a churl tell me to revolt

Against the feudal lords who run this place

For we’re just peasants working by his grace

The crops are growing and I feel alive

The seeds are sowing and I know we’ll survive

It just been showing since the weather took a dive

A little water fell like manna from the skies

Missing persons

Line 2 to Örs vezér tér
Always so spare
So warehouse care of passengers
Like messengers to the King of Rubbish Dumps
Like Sisyphus pushing a boulder up a mountain
Like trusting a Monk
To be responsible for fiscal policies of a nation

And Pensioners rub their noses
In their mobile phones
Play games like children
While children have already learnt
How to take control of their lives
And make demands on their parents
Like little mercenaries holding captive
Love
Spilling everyone's identities over the internet
Like a cold soup of ideas
Somebody made years ago
Then froze in the freezer
Until they had run out of food
And now its all we have to eat
But what's the use?

Because when the case is closed
And the trails run cold
All the detectives reveal
Their true clothes
And in the case of missing persons
There is nothing left to lose
We are already missing
From the story
Of the Golden goose
Of Narcissus I can only say this
We object to his vanity
But at least he was obsessed
With his own humanity
Some form of being human
Even if the sin of pride
Yet artificial identity
Is no place to hide
When we lose our flesh and blood
To digital noughts and crosses
And there is nothing left to wipe out
Of us but our ideas of our losses
Then we will become
The man in the mirror
Or the image in the pool
The fat man getting thinner
The ghost and shadow
Dancing on the wall

Coal eyes burning

Coal island bound
On the ship
On the rocking waves
I'm on my way
To the black coal face
I will work in the gutters
The shores of respite
Will heal my soul
And my ship will be scuppered
On that island of coal
I've hurt and I've suffered
For the whys and the Hows
The whos and the whats
But if I had to tell
What it was I learned
I can't say a lot
Apart from how and when
To be a fool to myself
When someone rings a bell
I jump
When they start to yell
I slump
Like a puppet on string
Held by you

The puppet island sailors
Are calling now
Writing letters
To the roving butterflies
That are blown across oceans
Whose pupae have squirmed
Chrysalises shake
In the mid Atlantic wake
Of the Ships
That go sailing by

Eye and I

With one eye I am laughing
With the other I will cry
When I find the pieces come together
Of the puzzles in my mind

The mask it slips like an actor's
When the stage is bare
When Tragic and Comic factors
Look up from the audience and stare

There are no more tickets left
The show is about to begin
But I can stand there in the drama
While one eye sheds a tear
And the other spreads a grin

Who can see beyond the face
Who can crack the mask
For the wearer hides in disgrace
The questions he fears to ask

And when finally they are answered
The mask can be allowed to slip
While one eye will be filled with laughter
The other shows a trembling lip

From two parts we are made
Mother and father put together
The lightness and the shade
The sunshine and bad weather

Take out from the equation X
Then Y has no place
See the execution of sex
The chromosomes of race

The black and white of colour
Where creation finds its space
One eye open wide in laughter
The other closed in sad embrace 

Mr Yesterday

I am Mr Yesterday
Pleased to meet you
No, no after you Mr Today
I've already been here before
I'll tell you what you need to know
All the things you should remember
Just like the things you said you'd forget
Like Christmas shopping in late December
I'll remind you of the self you thought you'd left behind
But remember that I am you yourself
Just bear that in mind
I had your thoughts the other day
They churned and turned and whined
About all the places you will go in forward or rewind
I'm telling you this Today,
To your self you must be kind
Just don't forget to remember everything I say
And don't put off until Tomorrow
What Yesterday already did find

The river that flows

Fisherman sitting looking in a stream
Thinking of all the fish he's seen
Some they come and some they go
Down by the banks of the river that flows

Some he's caught and some let go
And it all depends on how far he throws
Some swim fast and some swim slow
When his line he casts he soon lets trow
Down by the banks of the river that flows

Orange glint of a dawning sun
Just a hint of the knowledge it knows
In the tree sits a big black crow
Sitting in the shadow of a big black gun

Some birds come and some they go
Down by the banks of the river that flows

Pigeons flutter into the sky
Ducks stay hidden down below
Fisherman thinks how the good men die
Some they come and some they go
Down by the banks of the river that flows