The Green King

Near Yeo farm, the water
gets much darker
There is something deathlike
About these steel knives
Nothing can feel alive
In the land of the pike
This is just a death trap

Then I see a white swan
With her head sunk low
Swift and swallow like a cythe

 wet underfoot
Fields of wheat,
Cows that scatter
At trifling matters

The long track past Fresians
And all the world's reasons

Herons like the limestone
Crows like Egyptians
Go gleaning the fields
heads to the ground
Willows like sisters
Who knows where the wind blows

Somethings we lost
While others we found

I saw a heron the colour of stone
I stole her wings made them my own

I saw a heron the colour of stone
Standing by the rhyne all alone

I saw an old heron the colour of ivory
He was standing still as a statue made of memory

I saw an old heron like a tusk or a bone
Standing by the rhyne, standing all alone

The pigeons burst out
As I was walking home
I saw a heron the colour of ivory
Like a memory of a land I call home

I saw a heron like the tooth of a child
like the call of the wild
I saw a heron and it reminds me of home

The cows stampede
And they swish their tails
Down near Pilgram farm
On the low lands of Bagely and Theale
They don't make it easy,
But they don't make it hard

The sky is like limestone
and blue lias
Cut in by rain clouds
From a stone mason's compass
They don't make it easy
But nor do they stop it being so hard

Down in the marsh lands
Where the wind cuts the cards
And shuffles the cattle
and the buzzard shards
They don't make it easy,
But they sure don't stop it
Being so hard

I saw a deer stand in a field
The colour of orange peel

When the weather comes over
Across the mendips
Rain like a light mist descends
The wind that's blown
The green sea beneath us
Where the river Axe cutlass
cuts in its turn
The green heart stone

Like an emerald city
The hills shine so pretty
As thrones
As a labyrinth the fields and hedge
Criss cross below

And the weather comes across
In squalls
And throws the toss
Of which cloud will fall on us
And which will forego

Crooks peak in the distance
Trees walk down the beach heads
Dew drops fall on us
And we walk back home
With cold nose

As the Green king
On his hay stacks
Commands the sea gulls
And the rain
And the Green knight holding his Axe
Brings it down on the neck of Gawain

On the river Axe

Along to Marchy farm
Ignore the public footpath and
Follow the lower Axe to the left or West
You face down cows
Who frolick
And get excited
When they see you
You hear the farmers talking from behind the
Shed wall
Keep walking
It is trespassing
But only a minor offense afterall

Next slink down a little out of sight
The lower Axe meets the Axe proper
After crossing a maintenance bridge
Enter the next field and head north
Until you join the proper foot path then you are set

On the river axe
The crows are jacks
Scattered in the fields
Like pepper corns

On the river axe,
Nothing attacks,
Nothing lacks
And Everything is born

Westbury straight rhyne
Into it inclines
And the rustle of reeds
Where Veronica bleeds

Sheep under the solar panels
Sheltering from the sun
Laying down like lambs
To the slaughter
Technology's daughter and son

Thin, starved cows of Yeo farm
Resting under the Poplars
Who looks after the cattle?
I became depressed at the thought
And too much steel
The day wore on
I began to feel weary, and so turned back
As this was leading me further
From home
With a long circle to return by

Unoccupied water rat holes
In the bank
Like the caves
Of prehistoric man
Who might have washed
Their flint axes in this river
Hunting Mammoth near Cheddar Gorge

Old wooden bridge tumble down
See to your left Chalcroft hill crown
Then along Taylor paddock drove
Where I came unstuck
In the multitude of thistles
and rape seed and buck

I turned back and retraced my steps
Back to the river Axe instead
And headed East again
The going is easier
But watch out for the stingers
Hidden in the long grass

You reach another old bridge and the road
Head towards the farm of Knowle
Then pass it and cross onto the hill

Shire horse upon the hill
Flies buzz around muddy puddles
And cows stand on the prow
Baking in the sun
I chased one to pull some bailer twine
Out of its mouth - no thanks there

From there you run on down a wooded glen
Shaded and cool
With ferns and high banks
An old tractor wheel full of water
And the dry mud path scattered with dry twigs
And sticks

Then the tunnel opens out into sunlight
And the dirt race track is on your left
Follow another track until you hit the road
Take a right
Then dog leg-second stile on the left

Cut through a wild flower meadow
Farmers lifting high the bales
Hauling up upon the trailer
rolling on green pasture sailors
On their hay ships
like barges pulling through
drawn by grassy charges

Down moor drove to Bleadney
The smell of Chamomile
and borage
Bind weed flower white in the hedges
Bramble tight in the sedges

Bulrush tower like Massai sages
Swaying power of windrush ages

Twisted oak whose limbs are dancing
Old buzzard swoops above barren yellow
Entrancing, the limits of childhood ages
Time has moved on turning its pages

See the bridge at Webb's Rhyne
Tyres on the rhyne bed recline
Where little minnow take turns to dine
As part of the aquatic furniture

River snail hang suspended there
Like bats above a darkened lair
Foot prints stick to the sky
Walking on glass ceilings

Grasshoppers leap and jump in clover
They are the ones who think its all over
But then they land and can't understand
What all the fuss was over

With each step the field comes alive
With crickets singing
Bees buzz in the skies
Hopping from warm blades
Where they sun bathe
Their joints warmed up
In the summer haze

Shooting, teeming, darting
In the bow wave of my shoe
And scatter in my wake

Dandilion clocks tick on
Their seeds are sewn
The dock's rustic red
Waves  at Babylon

Buttercups turn their heads to the sun
While butterflies like petals
Dance and flutter on

And low down the bed of pink-white bind
Brings to mind, nature is kind
As the promise of sweetness
From underneath
The light hearts rising
From the mud beneath

Down by Marchy farm
The sheep quietly eat
From fields replete with fodder
From the hearth and home
Always living shoulder to shoulder
Though each will die alone

A little pheasant or grouse
Slinks behind the house
And youngsters are chatting down by the stream
The Lower River Axe again

Dry baked in ground
Cow pats,
The crows fly up like bats
They are chatting in parliament
And the voices of civilization surround
The signs of government
Return me to my senses

Pigeons coo, awakening
All is replete with fields of wheat and rye
An adder slithers inside 
The stone crevice of an ancient bridge
After it senses my footfall
Or the scent of rain
As from one ash tree to another
The crows flock back again

Deer leap

Deer in the bottom field
Like a room with a view
When Helena Bonham Carta
Is kissed by Hugh
And she is ravished
In the poppy sea
One step in the centre
Another out to sea
And she darts to the farside
Her fauns in tow
Bounding and a leaping
Through the tall grass they go
Well its one foot in the past
And another letting go
Tearing up the photograph
The one that you stole

I kept it in my wallet
I kept it whole
For all these years
I could have laughed
You oughta know
I had one foot in the past
The other letting go

The deer kept leaping
And then she froze
She looked my way a minute
While she paused I chose
I kept my distance
And she then rose
Like a snake in the grass
Kept biting at her toes

I started to advance
Down the hill
She turned on her heels
Then became so still
Like a glass of water
On a morning sill
That you lift and tip
To your lips
To swallow a pill
Suddenly like a reflection
In a troubled pool
She shatters in to nerves
Loses her cool
But not her chill
She darts back across the grass
Like a trickster
And her babies they are following her
A real fixture
Disappearing finally
Through a thicket of bramble
No idea
Where they went
I continued my amble

Blood down my drain

Rain on my window
Thinking of you
All of the green fields
Turning blue
The key is in the lock
But it doesn't ring true
Blood down my drain
For you

I wash blood off my hands
I hide the pain
Blood in my clothes
Its gonna stain
Blood in the carpet
Down the window vane
I wash blood down
My drain for you

There are six feet under
And a thousand above
The sound of thunder
From the wings of a dove

I have blood cast asunder
And blood in the tree
Its dripping from the branches
Dripping for me
But I do wonder
What can it all mean?
Blood in the vein
Blood down my drain
For you

Stand in the rain
Let it fall on you
Falling in pain
Of somebody new
Calling up your number
Calling it true
Blood down my drain for you

The sea within

There is a sea of eyes
That look up to the skies
And blink when you look that them
But they never blink at the sun

There is a sea of green,
Skirted by the dark unseen
Shadows and shades of hedges
The black balein bales swim
In the shallow yellow sedges

There is a hill of souls
Filled with little holes
Of shells from ages past
From a sea that did not last

The last sea that was forever
Changed geography
Topography and graph
Of this land
So that no more sea could stand the tide
And to the poles it went to hide
In ice

And it was as some end
When the forces of nature tore
And rend stone, from stone
Crust from crust
Dust to dust
And Ash well to ashes

But in an underwater threshing
It fizzled
And fettered, and threatened
And cajoled
The fish and crustaceans
Into mountains of white gold bone
Which it layered and striated
Fold after fold
And under pressure of time and sand
It turned them all to chalk
Into these limestone caves
And bank vaults locked with calcium
Carbonate
The Mendip hills foot at the gate
More ground down than
And oyster has shined her pearl
The rolls and curls
And ribbons of rock
Stand with words written through them
History
And they stretch on out
Into the estuary

Icebergs Ahoy

Well I guess I must have hurt her
Yes I got away with murder
But hey somedays that's just
The way things go

Well I ran on to the border
And said now I know you heard her
But you said you thought
That I oughta know

Well it happened on my watch
I fell asleep and I did botch
The one job that a sailor
Oughta know

Well I thought I heard it coming
That low and distant drumming
But the night was full of fog
And my eyes were full of snow

Well I guess I must have hurt her
Yes I got away with murder
And the criminal they brought her
Down below

Well the engines they were humming
And the sailors they were bumming
Cigarettes to bet with down below

A black jack game was running
And the thief he had great cunning
And he won his fortune
In the stow

Yes he guessed he might have hurt her
He got away with murder
But somedays, you know
Thats just the way things go

And he was just a passenger
Holding up the messenger
Who was running to tell
The Captain of the ice floe

But they never saw the danger
No they were safe asleep in manger
And it happened on my watch
So I ought know

Yes I got away with murder
I thought my medicine had cured her
And I rang the bells full stop
On the decks below

And they say that natures red
In tooth and claw
And all is fair in love and war
But it happened that her ship never
Reached the shore

And the ship it lurched sideways
And the Orchestra played
My Way
And I thought I saw Sinatra
Sing for sure

As the Ice berg cut the violins
They bounced and jumped upon the strings
And tore great holes in the hull
Of her score

And I guess I must of hurt her
Yes I got away with murder
But now I'm in the water
And nothing's like before

Well I hear the silverware clatter
Collapse, and shake the chandellier
The Piano is swallowing sea water
Like the shore

And it happened on my watch
I was dreaming of my scotch
And before I knew it a mountain
Had come in the door

Well the ship went down near Labrador
The cargo was jettisoned
The luggage was soaking wet on and soon
The passengers in life boats
In the flotsam

And I keep dreaming of America
America, my saviour
Who could save a wretch like me?
I keep swimming for that dream
For the land of the brave and free
Because I got away with murder
At the door

Goblin Coombe

The wind blows through the glen
voices carried on the wind
Of good/bad choice we can't mend
Where the fairy folk are ken
Gnarled and knotted in the sleepy glen
Quick sharp tongues of ice
Slicing through squeaks of mice
Chattering squirrels, patridge, hen
Hear the voices of the little men
Goblin, goblin, Goblin Coombe
Eating the turkey oak
By the light of the moon
Smoking bark
And evergreen den
Far in the milky dark
Of Goblin Coombe again