Modern Living

They took away your life

When they built the bicycle

You no longer rode a horse

They took away the animal, and they gave you a car

And said now you must work like a horse

To afford your car

Because your car will save you time

And give you a life

They took away your job lifting boxes in the factory

And put a robot there in your place

Then they told you get educated, work from home

You’ll have more life, more leisure time

When you work on a computer

Controlling the robots that now do your job

Telling the computer what to do

You’ll be better paid

So you can afford a better life

You go to a gym called ‘Life’

You buy life-time membership

You buy a lifestyle

You buy your life back

So that you can exercise it on machines

That look like horses

Which is what you would have had for free if

In the first place they hadn’t taken away

Your horse

Poetry to Take Away

He took to his heels
He took it to heart
The way that he feels
The way that it starts
Just take to the airways
Take to the stars
Take over the byways
Take over the cars

Take off your garments
Rip off your clothes
Take off somebody
In somebody's pose
Take to drinking
Take it apart
For the sake of thinking
For the sake of Art
Take all he's giving
Take what is yours,
Go make a living
Go take the doors
The wheel is broken
So is the horse
Take the horse to water
Take the bull by the horns
Take me away in a hand cart
And take my pay but don't take my part

Take it from me, you're better off out
Take it from her, she knows all about
Take it with milk, with sugar, with stout
Take it before a meal, take it quick without doubt
Take it easy, or you can take it hard
Take it cheesy, take it from me, here take my card

Take it as it comes, take your tum tums
Take him to task
Take off the mask
Take the iron from rock
Take the wine from the cask
Take to the wing
Or take to the fields
Take everything
Don't take what's fake
Take what's real
Take it with a pinch of salt
Take the wheel
Its a cinch, its an assault
On the senses of what one feels
Take it on the chin
Take to your pins
Take me away from all these visions of sin
Take a snap, take shape
Its a rap, its a take
Take the tape and play it on
Take that, take two
Take five,
And then you're gone

Alienated Autopsy

I've had an alienated autopsy
They've taken a look inside my body and soul
The've put a camera up in endoscopy
Looked inside the blackest hole
They are a swapping my knees for a mummy
Tutankhamun's lost all control

I'm having an alienated autopsy
Everyone knows my business but I don't know their's
They spread it around the world
In glass cabinets
Marched me to top of liberty's stairs
They make a speech about my bones and flesh
They go out, leave me alone
I've had an alienated autopsy
And that's why tonight I'm staying home

In the midst of life we are in death
In the middle of this sentence, draw a breath
Every nerve of my body, says I love somebody
But its better if you don't know the rest
Oh I'm having an alienated autopsy
Diddly dum,
And its high time that I went home
Diddly doom
If you cut me one more time
Yes it would be a crime
I think you better put me back inside
My tomb

Now that ship has sailed

Well I thought that you had gone to sea
In boat as clear as glass
You unfurled ropes with the windlass
To escape you never failed
And I thought that we might have one more chance
But now that ship has sailed

Well in kind I caught the capston
In kind I held the mast
And in my mind the latches I made fast
But the storm it still hailed
And as I stared out I took one last glance
But now that ship has sailed

Its not enough of oceans
Its not enough to laugh
The pain of my emotions is half
Of when my crucifix is nailed
And I thought that I'd have one last stance
But now that ship has sailed

Fire on the river

There's a fire on the river tonight
And its burning like a quiet candle light
And its taking all our sins
All our worries and fears, its purging
There's a fire on the river tonight

And the river runs through the land tonight
Its like the blood in the hand of the right
And it will flow through the fat
Through the body and the flesh
There's a fire on the river tonight

And all these dancing flames
Are like tricks of light on the brain
Now you see the sleight of hand
Make the fire disappear
But the river will send another wave
And then the vision is washed clear
There's a fire on the river tonight

Only free in dreams

The bags blow down by the river
And the ducks paddle through the stream
Mud cakes up on trees, and I am only free
Oh we are only free in our dreams

The cheering crowds shout for the footballer
To score his hat trick in the half hour
Oh but if he were true he'd be a golfer
Pushing caddy trollies over flowers
Yes we are, we are, we are only free in our dreams

Everytime I sung to you I knew
The great moose in the sky was looking down
Every beaver in Canada had on his brow
A certain frown
Now they're blocking up the streams
With their logs and trees
And we are only free
In our dreams

I shot a bullet hole through the wall
And the air whistled in cold and clear
I always knew someday I'd fall
But I never knew that day'd be so near
Yes we are, we are, we are only free in our dreams

Come lay beside me honey take your rest
Your feet are so weary and so cold
You've been walking far beyond, beyond your best
And now you need a love that's bold
The animals are howling in the wild
It quiet in the wood, it is so old
And I am going there to follow the stream
Where I am only free in my dream

Carparks in Angel land

They're putting up carparks in Angel Land
Where angels once walked
Now men are greasing their hands
With the dirty money
And the golden bands
That they pass around now in Angel Land

They are rolling their dozers down the main roads
They are swinging their cranes and carrying their loads
Where angels once walked softly, they now look on in dread
For Angel Land is a place they now fear to tread

They're raising their structures, erecting their towers
Blocks of offices for foreign powers
They are building and bumping and turning their heads
In Angel Land where angels now fear to tread

Gone is the gentleness of thought or action
They are using their heads in cold calculation
Compacting the soil, with blood, sweat and tears
Ignoring their consciences or the angels' fears

They're putting up carparks in Angel land
And paving the paradise God's made with his hands
They're doing it today, it'll be gone by tomorrow
When the only angels in the land will be walking in sorrow