Death Cafe

What was Death like in school?
Was he a Goth, or a rebel or a sloth
Was he a lone ranger
Was death a she, a difficult person
tipping the cloth
Did anyone tell Death not to talk to strangers?
Did anyone try to make friends with death, try
To sit down in a cafe and just shoot the wind
Did anyone ever really get under death's skin?
What were death's parents like?
Night and Chaos
Now that must have been an awkward family set up
Perhaps at home they got on like a house on fire
But honestly I doubt it

Perhaps Death was prone to running away
He did not like his father's terrible rages
And sometimes when his mother entered his room
Like a wraith, he thought hang on
Someone's turned the pages
Put me back in the plot for a spot
I'm lost like a ghost in science fiction movie
I'm out of this world
Yet tied down by its chains
Things can be strange surely they can be rearranged
I guess, I'm only guessing though

Perhaps he was very well behaved in school
Not the one slouching over his desk
Perhaps he was first class
A high flyer
The person everyone just loved to hate
Or thought would do terribly well at his job
And imagine this you death snobs
Death must know virtually everything
There's not a corner of this world he hasn't
Globe trotted to
Neither is there an inch of our Psyche
He hasn't gained access to
He has a VIP card for most Venues
After all he's very well connected
He has a large extended family

Psyche in fact is a cousin of his
Quite often they have been enemies
Another mother, and an aunt per chance
He spends his summer holidays with
While Night is too busy in Arctic Norway
To look after him
Is Dementia
She can be a bit of a pain
Always forgetting his birthdays
Death days - she jokingly calls them
Sometime she even slips into a rage
You can't control her like a banshee world wind
Sometimes she's like a child playing with
Pomegranite seeds
Slipping them in and out her mouth
Not sure whether to eat them
But all this was decided long before her
By her mother -Mother Nature -The Four Seasons

And so Death goes out and trudges through the snow
Leaving no footprints anyone would know
- he's carbon neutral
And Politically inert
Though as a teenager he'd wave a banner of protest
Get under the shirt of Chaos his father
Who is busy causing merry hell in Parliament
Losing elections, rigging votes
Generally carpet bagging, gerrymandering
Pandering to the electorate
And making unwanted approaches to Elektra
his intern for the season

Death would come back from these marches
Down in the mouth, in need of a coffee
Or something stronger
And so he would lurch into a cafe
To fall in conversation with strangers
Just to talk about the word on everyone's lips, but his
(because he had none)
Him
That is one of his faults
He loves talking about himself too much
And so does everybody else
But they won't admit it to eachother
No neither themselves
Most of the time
Apart from on their own (or perhaps with their mother)
Because in crowds they talk about Life
'Being Alive' his son
'Lively' and Live-Wire the successful daughters
Vibrant, Life's wife
then Thriving and Full of Life
Really they are quite a smug family thought death to himself
But then he had Sex
And Sex and Death got married
Night and Chaos were so happy
And their first child Violence
well, he was a bit of a disaster,
No sorry Disaster was the second child
Then there came Calamity Jane
Doubt and Betrayal
And they had a whale of a time
It is a shame thought Death that this all had to End
But in Ending there is a Beginning
That is the cycle of Birth and Death
Birth, I suppose, being their unwanted twin
Who was adopted by the Life family
And went on to have many children of her own (thankfully)
Still Death likes to talk now and then in cafes
Sometimes in more private places
And you have to give him space
To have his say
You have to invite this guest to your table
Because he's there anyway in the background
And you'll have to make friends with him
one day
Perhaps not today though
Hey?

In morning

In the morning
The pavement unrolls in the morning
In the morning

The bridges unroll
From the night before
From the bright before
The light already is dawning

And they pack up all their lights
In the morning  from the night
Before
In the morning

In the morning
The bridges wrap up the lampposts
And they roll the steel girders
Like a scarf and they
Walk off down the river path
And leave all the people standin'
Wonderin' about
Who they are
Why they can't cross the river
No more
So they go home
Don't go to work

Under the arches
Where they stand up in starches
Like shirts
On a dirty washing line
Under the arches where
The people marches
To the men in their moustaches
Next to the larches
Where the river pines
For the ones who were there
And the ones who don't care
And the ones laid bare
In the lines

In the morning where the pavement unfurls
Like a carpets of tarmac curls
And the steams whispers up from the cracks
And the men with the loads
On their backs
Are hauling themselves
Up the tracks
To work
For the finger less gloves
To the grains in their palms
And the sands in the arms
Of their loves
Who they roll like an oyster
Against themselves
And turn their grit into pearls
As the pavement unfurls

In the morning of our lives
In the street car dives
Where the trams they crawl like
Snails
They crawl through the sprawl
Of the big city brawl
That breaks all their shells
With their horns and their yells
But the garden it keeps on a growin'
Like a flourishing thing
This kingdom of the urban king
In his concrete jungle
But the lions lost their tongues
On the bridge of no ones
And the animosity of a freedom
The anonymity of a freedom
Where they can forget themselves
In the jungle where they run
With the pavements in the morning

Hey, hey Mona

Hey, hey Mona
Won't you lend me your smile
I've been walking
round this phony town
And I can only
Fake it for a while

I see behind your lashes
Are the ashes
Of a love gone astray
In my mouth there's a sour taste
that I can't betray

Move out of that picture frame
I'm coming on in your way
I've got to make an appearance
They're all expecting me today

Hey, hey Mona
Won't you lend me your smile
I've been falling over myself
Mile after mile
The road is long and a heavy
load is on my back
Just touch me with your beauty
And I promise to keep on track

Hey, hey Mona
I've got the keys
Now your jailer is asleep
I promise to set you free
Just give me this one thing
That I am asking for
Flash me that smile of yours
Before you run out the door

Hey, hey Mona
Blood in my mouth
One tooth is broken
And all the moneys going south
Even you hanging up there
Are falling apart
Just lend to me your smile
And it'll mend my broken heart

A day to remember

The dog is like a restless moon
Always moving
Always moving
Its out of focus
Gone too soon

And the home we had
Its on the move
The removals men
Are trying to improve

Somme days long ago
In a field
Where the mud twists up
In the weeds
And the elder-flower berries
Are too visceral
To touch in memory

I see
In fragments
This listless beast
It rises
Like the Spanish Armada
On oceans like a bloody
horizon
Where the Sun bleeds
Out its yoke

And the reel ends
I'm back with friends
And the joke
Is on me
As I sit on the straw bale
The wedding has paled
In to the diffuse night
Storms rise in the window
The fires ebb in the hearth

All the dust and showers
Of yesterdays powers
Have lent us their
Forgetting laugh

And tragic is the road
But this is perception
It is nothing so true
As memory

These days

You say
These days nothing's built to last
And good things are a thing of the past
I don't think so
I don't think so babe


And you say
These days
everything is broken down
The king in his castle even wears a broken crown
I say I don't think so babe
Listen to what is being spoken in town
I don't think so baby

These days the shoe's on the other foot
Your arguments are faulty
You've been cooking the books
And I say if the glove fits
Then look
I don't think so babe
I don't think so

You say
The sun never shines
You say your place or mine
These days it seems loving is a crime
Well you know
I don't think so
I don't think so babe

These days the dogs in the park
Never listen when you tell them not to bark
And I never listen when the day turns dark
Well you know I
Don't think so,
I don't think so babe

You say
These days they seem so long
And these nights they don't last
And times seem to fly by so fast
Well I don't think so
I don't think so babe

You say so what if the earth
comes to its end
Well we've been such good friends
And you say its all breaking now
You know I don't think so
I don't think so babe

These days
Sunlight ripples on the river
But you say the river runs slow
I don't know
I don't think so

I did it for you

I'd do it for you
Through the flood waters of blood
I have waded
I did it for you

Through the darkness
As the sunlight faded
And swam through pools of sharks
I did it for you

I moved the chairs as the musician
Swears
At his notes
And the stars fall to the floor
I swept them all up
And brought them to you
I did it all for you

And He is a liar and a cheat
Who treats me like meat
On the butchers table
But I went to him too
I did it for you

And there's a house of cards
With a king at the top
And its falling down
Because they're all
On the take
And even the Queen is in love with a rake
But she wears her frown
Like she wears her crown
On a slant
Oh I thought I can't
I thought I shan't
But I shall
I did it all
For you

Because the joker of the pack
Stabbed me in the back
And now the Jack of hearts
Is bleeding
And he has thrown the dice twice
Across the hall of ice
Where he's reeling
In the feeling
Of all the paradise
In the gardens
Where he's been strolling
When the Ace of Spades comes rolling
Digs a grave, the size of a knave and him
And asks him to keep vigil

But he can't
He shan't
Wear the clothes of the emperor
When the sun comes up
He's left town
And the king has lost his crown
Its been stolen
And the Diamond suit is swollen
I did it all for you
You know its true

Draft and the tribes of Tumbleweed

And pubic hair begat Hairball
And Hairball joined with Bedding-Fluff
And together they brought forth Fluff-ball
Fluff-ball begat Tumbleweed
And tumbleweed did blow into the dark desert lands
Under the bed where he lived for many years
An Ascetic existence
Until the tribe of dustpan went searching him out
And war did Dustpan make on Tumbleweed
So That Tumbleweed
Became greatly diminished in both tumble
And weed, but was still at essence tumble weed
And so He rolled into Corner lands
Of Skirting board mountain ranges
There ravaged by many a storm sent by
Open Window, to punish him for not
Hiding himself well enough in the desert
No, nor was he spiritually rich
So that he must suffer more hardship
Until he learnt to Obey the law of Draft
Draft coming and going at night
Mysteriously
The Draft works in Mysterious ways it is
Oft said
Here Tumbleweed did grow strong again
And gathered around him others of closely related
Though Distinctly Different families
That did help him multiply
And increase in number, such that soon
Tumbleweed became King of the Corner lands
And did set his face against the tribes of Dustpan
Most stoic like and fierce was he in his demeanor
That some thought true madness reigned in the kings head
But after many wars were won, and the tribes of tumbleweed
Had multiplied again and again
So that Tumble weed begat beard shavings
And Beard-shavings begat nose-clippings
All were said to be Magnificent warriors
And did battle against broom, and brush

But then in the cities of dust and lice
Such licentious behaviour could be witnessed
That lo, see the Tribes of Tumbleweed have lost their way
As one Soothsayer Dinner-droppings was heard to say
And the mighty Draft shall smite them down
But nobody in town did listen to poor Dinner-Droppings
And on one awful day
He himself was wiped out and smeared across flooring lands
By Slipper-sole
So Draft, much angered now that his prophet whom he sent
From up high Dinner Plate
Had been ignored by Tumble Weed City
Sent forth his mighty Weapon, and brought forth his Vengeance
Upon them In a double Whammy of Biblical proportions
First the Doors of Heaven Did open
And a mighty Engine of Draft Breath did breathe
But like unto a dragon with red body and neck of most
Monstrous long length
And at its mouth it breathed not fire
But sucked up Air
In epic proportions such that few of the city escaped its voluminous belly
There was much Gnashing of teeth,
And grinding of wheels, as it is wrote in the book of Henry Hoover
Who recorded Draft's avenging Angel with like name

And it raged like thunder sound rolling all around the mountains
Of Corner land and did decimate Tumbleweed's golden city
Where they had lost their way and worshipped the Filth and Lice
 Of this place instead of the true word of Draft

And after this those who did remain
Fled into the desert lands again under the Bed
To live meagerly for many a season until
They could once again earn good favour with Draft