Jack in the box part 2

She picked up the box and replaced it
Safe in its hiding place
Just to one side of the mantlepiece
But behind the bookcase

I was ready for bed
So I retired
Heavy with drooping eyes
My brain had fallen into a stooper
I was swooning on the edge of surprise

Too much now had I seen
That I must shut my eyes
And allow my soul, to
Travel through the veil
That separates the truth from the lies

It must have been two in the morning
When I awoke in a cold sweat
A knocking and a kind of groaning
Had commanded me up like a pet

I obeyed this call like a madman
And followed in like one hypnotized
I knew not what I was doing
Only that it was my duty to surmize

Unnervingly, no other sleepers had awoken
And I was all alone down stairs
Even my footsteps were soft words spoken
When to the incessant knocking I compare

What could it be I asked myself, or I would have
If some rational thought was working
Instead I traced the sound to the front room
Pushed open the old door kept on walking

The old musty room was a token
From the Dickensian age
The books filled the shelves floor to ceiling
Each had a well thumbed page

Suddenly with my presence came the silence
Like an awareness of my own form had broken
The incessant knocking ceased, and I questioned
Whether from a dream I had awoken

Thinking this must be some result of
The strong impression of the skull the past evening
Mixed and conjoined with the concoction of spirits
I had imbibed I turned and was already leavin'

When suddenly the knocking recommenced
Now with an urgency quite immense
And a rattle and a surge that that book shelf was purged
Of titles I had recently been quoting

One it was a Frankenstein's monster
The other Shakespeare's Hamlet
As I held them in my hands,
 a chill ran up my spine
And I knew the box was now open

I cannot tell you now why, nor
How I found the courage to look
I suppose it was pure curiosity
Or some words I remembered from the book

But I approached the still rattling book case
And peered around its backside
And there on the floor was the skull box though no more
Was there any skull left inside

I looked to my left and my right
I looked under the case and to my fright
I saw the skull in the opposite corner
Determinedly facing the wall,

The rattling had long since ceased
Now what was left was a soft muttering beneath
The sound of an owl hooting ouside
The skull was distinctly grinding its teeth

With some trepidation I felt I could move
Formerly from the shock my bones had frozen themselves
But now I edged towards the open door
Thinking my self to remove for sure

Suddenly again without warning
The skull began to speak,
At first it was just a groaning,
But soon grew more strong out the weak

Take me back, it seemed to say
Take me back, take me back to my grave
They chopped off my head
And stole me away
Now I pray
Return me back to my grave

I want to live the life
That they stole
When they quartered my body and
Cut out my soul
Bring me back to life I'm pleading
Its in your hands I leave my needing

What was I to do
What was I to do?
How should I help the skull

I thought for one fleeting moment

Could I snatch it up

And lock it back in the box?

But then the thought occurred

The knocking would continue

Until forever and a day

And as if the skull

Some how perceived my thought

It turned and looked at me sideways

No there was no way I will be his haunt

I thought, and anyway surely I must try at least to save

Him from this torment and taunt

Why of all the men

Who could have been saved

Was he condemned? 

Who amongst us is better than him

What if it were I in his place?

Jack in the box

She said she had something to show me
Something so hidden and rare
That if I should just take a peep at it
A streak of grey shock should enter my hair

I waited in anticipation, of what she might reveal
And from a hidden place she brought out a box
Old as from a wartime appeal

She laid it there on the table, the clock on the wall
It struck ten
And as I opened it to inspect the contents
The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end

For what it revealed was ghostly
A remnant of a man long past
Hidden in the depths of the forests of time
No signature sign of a cast

The pieces of skull had been glued
Fixed together, each like a puzzle
But as I lifted it out the box it shewed
That the man was missing his muzzle

His lower jaw was in pieces,
But sure his occiptal holes
Still looked out at the world in its creases
Like time had wrinkled his soul

I held up my friend Yorick
But found not the words nor the ways
To express what it felt
To be given such a jolt
To my mortality on this special day

Death it wears many masks
Some are taken on roads, some on tasks
Some in the beds while in their sleep
How did this fellow meet his grim reap?

Should I be holding the skull
Of one who lived long ago
What was once trapped within
These airy caverns?
What experiences had these holes seen?
What graveyards or taverns
Had become his friends
And how did he meet his end?

Four score years of life and love
fifty perhaps there of marriage
How did he feel at the touch of a glove
How did he hold his carriage

Was he stooped or upright
Was gregarious or aloof
Did he always win at cards
Was he chasing down proof?

Was there a meaning to his life at all?
How can you tell he was six feet tall?
He could have been a dwarf
He could have had one leg
Lost it in the Caribbean
While drinking a Rum dreg

He could have been a bank clerk
With an uneventful life
He could have earned a million
He could have killed his wife

There really could have been
A thousand and one possibilities
But now he is being held by me

Should I give him back
The death sleep he may have wished for
Does it matter where his body is
Or whether it was fished for

Was his grave robbed
Or did he donate his brain to science
Did they try to find the seat of his consciousness
Or did they dig out his soul all in good conscience?

Should I put him back in the box
Before I lose all control
And drop his fragile skull
On to this cold stone floor
Where is the museum label?
Will his name be
Anonymous forever more?

Starlight

The dogs are in the night sky
Following the plough
And Orion watches Artemis load her arrows
On the string of her bow
And the deer they are bounding
From Hesperides' white cow
Who is pulling us all over
The line separating then from now

This world keeps on spinning
The night sky is sewn
Like a spiders web beginning
From the moment it is grown
Eight legged star newly born
Twinkling like the eye
Of a Ram with his horn
Radiant as a jewel
In the crown freshly torn
From the new king
Who will rule forever

And these shooting stars
Keep throwing their
Weight around the world
Streaks of light of goodness
Here today gone tomorrow
Against the vast blackness of existence
We are immemorably hurled
Well its one drink to today
And one to the future

And they say the night is darkest before the dawn
Just like our love baby in the worst storm
Rocking like a good ship
On destiny's waves
When we kiss our lips
We become love's slaves
And they say the night is darkest
Right before the dawn

Away from prying eyes

Away from prying eyes,
Away from crying eyes
I'm going to get away
From prying eyes

I'm going...now
take me away from prying eyes
I'm on my way baby
Way into the sunrise

Well the birds can see me crying
And I want to hide my crying eyes
So take me away from prying eyes

You say stop your lying baby
But I can't see the wood for the trees
You say Stop your crying baby
Your Tears are just like willow leaves
Well if I think about dying
I know it will be you
My eye sees
Take me away from prying eyes

Take me away baby
Take me far from here
Take me away baby
Take me to where they hunt the deer
Where the moss is on the river stone
And the waters they run clear
And nobody is seeking to try to interfere
But still they try, when I dry my eyes
Take me away from prying eyes

I've been walking through
This a barren land
Where the people are crazy
They all want to steal your plans
Make what is ours theirs
If I sell my soul, I can buy their wares
But then I will have nothing
left, no cares
And it won't matter a jot anyhow
For who dares, wins, who doesn't dies
Take me away baby, take me far from prying eyes

Western Eyes/Madam Butterfly in London

She had eastern lips, and an eastern smile
But she spoke like Maralyn Monroe
From the Sunset mile
And I couldn't resist
As the sun was going down over the hill

She was a temptress dragon
Of a strange affair
She had diamond teeth
And long brown hair
And as I tried to catch her
She vanished into thin air

Was she Madam Butterfly
In the London square,
Playing all the theatres to
The crowds who stare
She had love like lockets that she dropped on the ground

And I picked her up in a bar one night
It was pouring outside, but the bar was bright
She was singing in her Eastern tones

And it ran right through me like the rain
I could feel my heart strings begin to strain
As she played me like she played everyone else
She was a master magician, a Madam of disguise
And I knew right then that I loved her sunrise
Like a star that has fallen down from the skies
I looked and saw, she had Western Eyes

Western eyes and an Eastend voice
She sounded like James Dean
She didn't have a choice
And If I wasn't mean then neither did I
For I loved her Western eyes

She had a China heart that could easily break
And porcelain bones that I could not forsake
And as I held her in my arms, I knew I could never
Ever drop the vase
She was never real, she was a plastic girl
And she could never feel, the fantastic world
Though all was a fantasy to her

She fell from the stars like an angel of grace
She left behind everything she knew
And her Eastern race
Just so she could walk through the london streets
She saw her face on the cover of every magazine
And in every cinema she played the heroine on screen
Her star was rising and crossing the Eastern sky

Well I met her later in a restaurant
But I had no idea what from her I did want
It was like seeing a person aknew
Like an avenging Angel she threw
Back in my face all the scorn
She felt from being born in the wrong place
When I said I didn't like what she'd become

She was married the next year to some
Travelling man, setting up business
Over in Japan
She had the face to fit the bill
She sold geisha smiles
And Chinese dolls
To businessmen with air-miles
Instead of their souls
And I knew my butterfly
Flew further away

I tried to catch her then
At the wedding of a friend
And we held hands
At the maze's end
But when I kissed her her lips were as cold as ice
The cold in her soul, had grown into her bones
And her Eastern body wracked with westend tones
She was dying and her wings they began to fade

But when she tried to take off
I promised her not
To forget about me
And all that we got
But she gave me her smile
And she winked her Western Eyes

Will I ever see her again?
Probably not
It was a love over the season
Of an East to West plot
Sometimes there's no going back
To things that are lost

I saw her the other day
Just through the glass
I was inside , and she was walking passed
And thought, this was how it always did go
That love is like a butterfly you
Can't easily catch,
And when you do
It's too delicate, and its not going to last
So you must set it free and watch
It fly or else it dies

And you can love it
On the wing
You can love it in your hand
But try to catch the thing
And you can never understand
Only let it sing and see the sparkle
In her Western Eyes

Measure for measure/face-to-face

Britain is made up of classes
It is important you remember your place
If you have not been to the right school
Then you will be more like a disgrace

Those with privilege prosper
Those who have the right faces on
Their facebook account or Twitter
Will give a leg up to those they know
Then push the ladder down in your face

Small faces, large faces,
The Big heads of human races
The confidence crew
Who  backbite you
But it is all just to stay in the race

They don't care who they step on as they
Are making their way up
And even as they fall back down
Their friends are snatching their cup
And stealing their crown

This is Britain now, this is the green rolling hills
Of farmers lands, who have no plans to share
Only to exploit nature,
These are the Gentry who own the manor houses
Who play on the stock markets of the world
And roar like lions at all the church mouses
Who preach to them about religion
How it will save their souls
So they turn up to church on Sunday
To fill up the coffer's holes

And England's green and pleasant land is now
A feudal state, with more of the unfortunate
Precariats working as peasants to put food on their plate
And those with the upper hand
Who went to Oxbridge or Eton
Can dictate the rules, even news worthy opinion
And determine the course of the nation

And those without hope are those babes lying in the cradle
Because they have been born into Britain's lands
Where no charity could wager,
Them a better deal than
If they came from foreign lands
Because then they would be treated as tokenistic exceptions
And given places at the high tables

Wander out beyond its shores and you discover the corruption in every country
They say only in Britain can a person be honoured with equality
Yet in those wayward states, which are decreed,
The worst by liberal minds,
People's protection is enforced by a harsh brutality
Yet We in Britain have that same
sentiment of protection
Yet ours is backed up by far more ruthless crooks
Mostly who have gone to Eton
And of those their brutality is taught
In the school of hard knocks
That coming from the right family or background
Will ensure your measure of protection

It is better you come from foreign climes
So that you are not aware of the system
That grinds the working man down
That turns to dust the middle classes
That neither awards nor trusts
Nought but itself save tokenistic prizes
To save faces, small faces
Big faces savour the queen's graces
Who stands a top the totem pole that rocks
Us all to sleep in our places

And we are asleep, as a nation
We writhe, and toss and turn
But the pressure pushed down on the blanket
Smothers us, covers our faces
So we cannot breathe
The nanny state- that feeds us
That suckles us,
Then the tax system that takes it straight back again
When we have finally earnt enough
This is what necessitates the need for the classes
The leg up the socio-economic ladder
That gets you to a higher status
A better clientele,
The confidence crew of crooks
With the small faces

Then you go on holidays in the Caribbean
Find off-shore places with them
To hide your taxes,
And the secrecy grows and the clubs grow
Until we all wear masks to cover our faces

And they say face book is the great leveller
But it just enforces what already exists
The power structures
Then have greater powers
To manipulate the poorest
Like grist
To the mill
To grease the wheels
Of progress

The name of the rose

A lawyer is sweeping up the streets
Tidying the law suits away
He's leaving sentences down alleys
And finding evidence on motorways

And the judge is cleaning windows
Pronouncing all that is clean
As he wipes the soot from the slates
Drops the columns from a magazine

To the journalist who is always talking
In the cafes and the bars
To million dollar shoe shiners
Who have just parked their sports cars

And in between the sparkling gems
Of phineas Fogg who just stayed home
Are the television dinner house wives
Who are jetsetting around the world

And dogs who think that they are cats
Go chasing down the crows
Who know already that they are dogs
And have been lying down in the road

And it all boils down to the top
Which falls out the bottom of the bag
That the street cleaner found in his paper cup
As he signs another writ in the daily rag

Who knows who these people are
I'm damned if I should know
It's not up to me anyway
To adjudicate a dog from a crow

And even if I see them with my eyes
Can I smell them with my nose
Will I call a spade a spade
Or call another the name of the rose