river blues

The stars are guiding me home
Its nothing political
I just don't know who I am
Somewhere between
Mother earth and
The horizon I span
A stretch of water
A River heard
The myriad waves
Like sheep I herd
With my oar
Collecting them only to
Ferry them away
Usher of tides
The coming war

What comes in I wonder
On the tides
What am I, flotsam?
Or jetsam?
From your ship
Where I was tied

Hauled anchor
Waylaid
Lied
And capsized
By the tempest
The Tsunami
The Temple bride
Of a watery world
Where I'm
Face down drowning
In space, I'd
Give my left arm for
A life buoy
She cried
And I swam to her rescue
The fescue starving waves
Of dissent
The mobs boil
Like shark infested water

Forgive me

Sand in my hands
I watch it fall
Towers that stand
I want them all
But then I sigh
On fortune's lie
Forgive me
Forgive me

The noble prince
Upon his steed
Rides across the land
Of the living dead
Book once wrote
That I have read
Turn their pages down
Turn them on their head

The colours drain
From the palace wall
Blood stains red
Empires will rise and fall
I cannot hold them in my hand
Forgive me that
Forgive me all

An angel treads
Outside your gate
She draws the line
Between love and hate
I hold my pen
Keep you in my mind
Then when I write
The Farm yard hen
The cuckold's fight
Forgive me
Forgive me

What strange days
Are these that past
Keep ringing the bells
Of freedom's cast
You hear them ring
From hill to hill
What is this love
That they do kill
A love like a swollen
belly's fill
Of the meal
Ever grateful

The autumn leaves turn brown and fall
The questions hang
Their answers call
In the dead of night
In the days enthrall
I watch them all
Forgive me them
Forgive me all

It's a backwards world

Dreamt of seeing a fox swimming
Then it became a cat, then it got out
Then a fox chasing a cat, and then it was a cat with a dog in its mouth it had caught
But it was still alive apparently underwater
The fox was duped by a chicken
Who had become the sliest of farmyard animals
Convening in corners
Brewing up schemes
Running cartels like the Mafia

Nothing seems to make sense anymore

Cats chase dogs
Cats like swimming
So much that the English Channel
Is full of them doing breast stroke

Dogs hang about on fences and walls
Balancing carefully
Or sunning themselves on window sills

The world is backwards
The birds are rowing in fishing boats
And the fish are flying above in the clouds

Moths tuck themselves up in bed at night
Catholics never have any guilt


Sheep chase wolves through the forest
Ferocious sheep stalk the hills

And Shepherds wear armour to protect
Themselves

Cats chase off Tigers

Wolves are family pets
Lions are nannies
And children keep sharks
In fish tanks

Children are in charge
Little Napoleons
And Churchills
And the politicians are in the play pens
Tossing about  hundred dollar Euro bills

The world is upside down

Back to front

Like a turtle with its shell
On the inside

The soul has hardened
The flesh is soft
Tree leaves grow to the shadows
And the roots sprout nuts

Buildings are falling over
And what lies down
Stands bolt upright

The Mountains melt like butter
In the morning sunlight

And Oceans freeze over
Where the camels now tread
While the deserts fill with water
Asleep in ruined cities
That were never made

Love's hide and seek

It should have been obvious
I should have cried
This love's an impostor
It cannot be denied
But did I turn and face the turning of the tide?
Of course I didn't
Truth hater
From her I run and hide

The cloak and dagger
Subterfuge
In the dead of night
The knife beneath the covers
That she slips into your side
Some where between the ribs
Just where the heart lies
Some spreading of the chest
That prises it wide

How I did not realize this when I was asleep
It must have been in a dream I missed
Or smuggled in a kiss
But it was carefully packaged
All the loose ends had been tied
But did I turn and face her
No of course I run and hide

There is a certain stealing
I am loathe to do
Steal the heart while undercover
But of course you pull me through
The black night of my shame
My guilt at having lied
But did I even name her
No, of course I run and hide

There will soon be no place
Where I can conceal my face
There soon will be no alley
Down which have not turned
Can there be a cross
I have not born or a prize
I have not sacrificed
Just the rag I have not burned
Which I hold over my eyes
But did I try to tame her
Of course I have not tried
It is just a game to her
In which I run and hide

Love is strange

Love is strange

It's a two faced thing

You stop it one day

The next day it begins

There's a stranger love than

This I'm sure

But it's just like a stranger

Who knocks at your door

Who does love know?

Does love know me?

Is it something I do

Or something I see

Has it tracked me down

To the quarters of this sea

Was it a crime of passion

Or being bored of the city

The Love detective will find you out

Lock you up, throw away the key

It'll leave you in the ball and chains

Bound in irons, they'll shackle thee

They tell you yes

But you say no

No one to impress

Nowhere to go

Loves a stranger in no man's land

Love will rearrange yer 

With her hands

Turn you into a different self

So you'll be a stranger

Like nobody else

Always wanting to make friends

Loves new in town

It doesn't know how it ends

Nobody's shown love the big picture

It just goes where it goes

It's happy to meet yer

Love answered honestly "I did not know that"

When in its heart it's already

Thrown in its hat 

But you know it doesn't like to boast

It isn't like that

Shifting scenes

Everything that happens
Happens for a reason
The happening, the occurrences
Of fate
The stars turn on a steel wheel
But who turns them
Are invisible forces
Of love
And possibly hate
Possibly an analogue of love
Or an antithesis
An absence of it
Like Space
The space between
Us

The digital of love
Are 0s and 1s
The binary dialogue
Between two people
Each quantifiable
In strings and characters
That make sense to some
Arcane programmer
Like God

But the analogue of love
Is in fractions of a dial
That is turned
Its in vibrations of energy
In a field around us
In waves it comes
Similar in its difference
To particles and waves
In the quantum field

We two are entangled forever
On a molecular level
Our atoms somehow merged
Their bonds somehow stretched
To encompass one another
And it has left us this feeling complex
Perplexed us
Nothing can be done but to breathe
Through it

There are negatives and positives in the universe
And all energy must keep in balance
So if love is destroyed at the same moment
Somewhere else it is created again
The universe will never run out of this stuff
It is the opposite of space
It is the filling in of the void
It is the feeling that can never be destroyed
And we will see each other again
I promise

Pinocchio

Pinocchio grew up
You knew would
He would have to
After he became a real boy
He became a real brat
In boarding school
Though how could that be?
With Jiminy cricket
And Geppetto's wooden stool
He learnt some honesty
And truth
Actually he saved up
Cobbling together some money
And went off to study
Psycho-analysis
In Vienna under Freud
Jung was his Mentor
He treated others for the good
He made them better
Those who believed they were
Made of wood
And had wooden hearts that would
Never feel
He turned them on his lathe
Chiseled away, until their slithers
Of wood peel
Began to bleed
And he knew he had touched a nerve
And finally they could feel

Others were so light headed
They were strung to the ceiling
They were puppets of another power
But one without moral feeling
And he made them walk up the wall
He made them stand
And he made them fall
Until Dr Pinocchio made the snip
With his knife
And circumcised they'd go
Back home to their wife

So he had a good racket going
This shrink of a boy man
The only thing that got his goat
Was to think of his toy woman
She was no fun anymore
And he felt deflated
Every time they went to bed
She was far from elated

Of all the men of this world
I had to marry one once made of wood
You jump when we sit by the fireside
You think you might catch light
And when we're in the pool
You never swim just float driftwood -like

But most of all in bed when I check your trunk
I find the tree has been fossilized
And like a petrified stone its sunk
So come on my woodsman
Show me what your made of

So things went on like this for some time
It happened to be lucky for Pinocchio
That he had married Cinderella
And that he had made her
Instead of a glass slipper
Wooden clogs
She became the dutch woman from the paintings
The happy wife
And it was all windmills and canals
When they moved to Holland

And that pesky Prince stopped chasing her
He remained in Denmark
Biting his finger nails
Still afraid of the dark
But that is why the pumpkin prince
Had to vanish at midnight
He had to feed his dog
That would howl for his bone
And he let his hound bark
Until he got home

So by and large Cinderella was
Happier with her new shoe
She stopped sweeping up the ashes
For now fires were a no no
Unfortunately ten years later
She was to fall in love again
With a dancer of the go go
And she went went
Because she can can