A bed of snow

Well the sun came down
Every step of the way
And Heaven seemed
Such a long long day

Paradise was lost
Along the way
But regained at great cost
To the ones who would pay

You see I saw the demise of the skies
That day
That fortune smiles on us guys
Down the blue highway
But in the end who wins
When nobody pays?
I've got golden luck
I'm sure
But its on a silver sideways

The more you see
The less you understand
Well that's just like me
My love when I show you my hand

Try and read the palms
They'll be blowing in the wind
To the sound of the Caribbean

An impostor has been sleeping my bed
He told me nothing when I asked him
What was inside his head
He was like an actor
Who had lost his script
The words come out
But he's no idea how they'd been writ

I ask why he needs to swallow his pride
He tells well its best to put those old things aside
I say from my standpoint we all look the same
He said they sure do when you're inside the game
Try looking at things from the outside
And so I started by removing his dark glasses
So I could tell when he lied

The London Rain is falling

I don't love you in the rain
No more, no more
I don't love you in the rain
Amore, Amore, Amore

I don't love you in the flood
No more, No more my blood
I don't love you in the flood
Amore amore, amore

I don't love you in the down pour
No more, no more
I don't love you in the down pour
Amore, amore, Amore

How about the tear drop fall
No more, no more
How do those tear drops fall
Amore, amore, amore

Give me buckets I'll fill them with love
No more, No more my Lady
Give me buckets filled with your love
Amore, amore, amore

when the lights go out

You'll see everything so clear
There'll be nothing to be a fear
When the light goes out

When the light goes out
There'll be nothing to shout
There'll be no wind about
When the light goes out

You may hear that thunder roll
You may fear you'll lose your soul
But don't doubt
He'll be standing on the roof top shoutin'
When the light goes out

Too many men have bought a pen
They write but they're not wrought
They've gone out and sought
What they ought
But they still doubt
When the light goes out

Don't be one of them
The sureness when
You're full
Can be a balm when you're near harm
When the light goes out

So humor me and let me see
You in the dome to come
Where figures in their Roman robes
Will beat upon a drum
And herald in the tribune
With the best of news
Who sees how things stand
In the desert sand
When the lights go out

Muscles and Molluscs

As I went paddling down the Duna
The trees were like a graceful dream
The river bank looked like a scene
From Autumn
All the leaves turning brown from green

As I went paddling down the Duna
The young men passed me in their boats
Athletic bodies
Muscles bulging
While I in my own craft
Tried hard to stay afloat

As I went paddling down the Duna
All the birds flew over head
There were Cormorants
Passing in Vee forms
ducks parading in the shallows
The Autumn chill had risen
To the clouds
And dissolved into sun shadows

As I went paddling down the Duna
Suddenly a quiet stretch
I saw a crow playing a game
like fetch
It would pick up this shell
And in its beak fly a few meters up
Then next it dropped it onto the pebbles
As if to smash the shellfish guy

As I went paddling down the Duna
I turned my boat around just there
So I could watch this little miracle
Of evolution everywhere
On the fifth attempt
He'd cracked it
This crow could pull out
The mollusc
And so happy I could have shouted
Well done Crow, what a clever Guy!

Hoopoe

James saw a Hoopoe
Flying high above
Funny to be on an island
And not to feel love

He caught it on his I phone
Him phone Her phone
He and She
This Hoopoe was caught
In a net whoopee!

James saw a Hoopoe
This is all I can say
It was many years ago
From here an eternity away

I call back to my past
My bird song echoes
But it will not last
As all the love
That we must one day
Let go of

The Hoopoe
Was as transitory
As a cloud shadow

He picked out its dimensions
Zoomed into its pixels
Like some wanted fellow
A felon escaped from prison

But it had no talons to speak of
Only this strange head
And then of course a distinctive call
To recognize miles and miles
Above the island of the dead

How many skulls have reverberated
This sound?
Called out for another's answer
Thinking themselves
The only other Hoopoe around

How many wood pecker skulls
have hammered the tree
And cracked like nutshells
Before they can get free?

How many skulls hear the ringing bells
How many hear the poetry?
Just the Hoopoe
Just the Hoopoe?

Face of heaven

Somewhere under an eastern sky
I'm floating
I'm diving
I must survive
I'm swimming
And the stars are my guide

Homeward bound on the tide
The river is the determiner
the pull

Through

I look up
And I must remember to forget you

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