The Queen of the Aquamarine

 She's such a middle class mermaid

She shops in Ocean and aquarium tanks

She thanks

Her postman for the letters from the blue lagoon

And swims into the underwater banks

Now I saw you had dated her too

She lost a few of her scales to you

With me I think she piled on the pounds

But in the end she was landed by a fisherman from France

Whatever became of her famous tail?

It glimmered in the sun, and in the

Fish market sale

When I asked the fishmonger to remove

Tail and the head, 

I think he must have misunderstood what I said

Because now my mermaid is dead

She was a middle class mermaid

From the blue lagoon

But she hadn't been back there in a blue moon

She had a mum and dad, and a sister too

Who was so jealous she could swim

With the Penguins at the zoo

Well I loved her then,

And she became my wife

But I never did know how she would change my life

You she told me once the sea was waving at me

But I never realized this meant she wanted to be free

And I stole away in a yellow submarine

To track her down, the Queen of Aquamarine

Then I saw she'd found her promised land

Down beneath the waves in the arms of Aquaman

Well she was middleclass mermaid

With the sea breeze hair, that blew with fresh mint

Smell in the air

And her toothpaste soul, it was so clean

That beautful girl, the Queen of the Aquamarine

Who Knew?

 Princes and paupers, skivvies and skanks

One road down skint street another

Day in the worm field of pout

Porous as Jesus on the Sermon

On the mount

Serpico in trousers

And a snake in a mexican hat

And sheepskin corruption

In the belly of the crow

Crawling in lower orders of

skid row

And I see in the lights

That are beginning to glow

My reflection in the eyes

Of those I used to know

What are these cathedrals of doubt

That grow

Up from the sewers

Where trout eggs sew

And uncertain notes

On their organs blow

Around the city drain pipes

For surely this is the one place

That's left

A crescent on a jacket

A sin of lifelessness

A cordon-bleu accompaniment

To swordfish stew

Whom the unicorns have been cooking

Well who knew?

The Walrus in the dental church is checking out the labour

And counting all the costs

Of being a super-saver

And if you can't save the whales

THen Aquaman needs you

To be his PA and keep his filing cabinet

In good working order

I charged you up like a light sabour and shone you through the dark

And it met with many of the stars

Whose wars were not with me but with the skylark

Who sang to St Luke in his hot bath

Who raised cold lazarus from his bed of damp bark

And sent him off on his midnight

Canoe

Down the milky river, but again who knew?

Who knew of hercules and his labour too

Or of the midwife whose breath was overdue

And bank balances weighed

And babies in carts

And supermarket slaves

And children who swim with sharks

And the kettle is boiling over

Because its been filled to the brim

Now the tea has to brew

And every patience is a virtue

who knew?

I met a man with a can of worms down by the railroad edge

He said I've been down every road in the world

But I've never broken my pledge

But the roads have broken

And the cart wheels

The chariot charities are tokens

Of deal or no deal

And if you believe what was spoken 

Then it forces you to steal

What was never yours to take in the first place

Who knew?

Like dogs in the park

Where the homeless man slept

And he is in abject dejection

And my own parle with ennui

Amounts to a certain British-Russian defection

Someone wishes me dead he said

Then talked to a dog on the bone

He licked his chops

Then smacked his lips and said

Now I think I'll go home

But it was the case of the spy who loved me,

And she would never let him win

He may take diamonds, he may take pearls

But he'll take the heart of the girl

What a sin!

To love a foreign man from a foreign clime

And bend to the whim or rule of the crime

It's a moral defection

And inbred introspection

That leaves Frankenstein's monster

Scratching his chin

Who knew?

Maglodi ut

 I'm in the land where they walk down straight

The dogs are the gods behind the garden gate

And I'm in a condo with a bottle full of hate

The dogs in the farm yard

They double up late

Calling us angels, calling

Pigeons on the lamposts

Carex in the garden

Tumble down Hungarian

buildings that stand on

Their last legs

Well I went to walk where

the dead don't talk

And the living all are sighing

And the breeze like chalk

Cut in circles and forks

Around the ones who were crying

They said you're a marked man

We have you in our sights

I said "I am what I am, now don't

forget the plan-

I won't go down without a fight"

But then the tombstones baulked

Under their ivy leaf storks

At all their words that were dying

It's a living language, a honey tongue

And the bears are off fighting with the dragons

In the grit on the dirt road lying

with butterfly wings and dead acacia blossoms

 

I see the Roma women calling to their husbands

Convicts inside the prison

And they call back darling what I lack

Is the eyes for you to be seeing

"Your children are here, come on shout to your daddy

Don't you know that he is your Father

And you are his sons

Though many horizons

Have set while he's been in prison

The children are well, another says with a yell

We love you the mother prompts the little boy 

To holla'

He he cries back, I love ya, though the lack

Of seeing is like I'm dying

In this living hell, where everyday gels into

The next and the next one

And it's all just a rap

I've been caught in the trap

Of being a young gypsy man caught in the system

It's the same as well for those who ring the bell

The prison yard bell it is chiming

And their crawling along the floors

Their rapping at the doors

And those prison walls they are climbing

But the bell still tolls for one and all

The bells of freedom are a ringing

One day the siren calls, will not herald what befalls

Every young gypsy man in the system 

They come out again, the family, this time

Another young boy is with them, he is getting

bored and restless sitting on the grass

Scuffing his feet in the gravel

Sending up a shower of angry stones

To heaven

On my way back after they are gone

I see they have scrawled with pink and blue chalk

We love you Apa (father) on the side walk

While I hardly dare look or listen, but I must

To the sounds the men make in the prison

As the daylight dims on a hot Sunday evening

And they face another night in the cell

Without his family, whose graffiti on the pavement

Is the inverse of his own howling sentiments

To the government

This is justice, this is the consequence

For the criminal all life is denied

Outside visiting times, if there are any,

And the high prison wall that keeps him

Mightier than thou

 Mightier than thou

I really do not know

Mightier than thou

Coming on so slow

Well I hear it when you talk

Like the winds do blow

You are so Mightier than thou

Outside my window

Whistle for me honey

I'd like to hear a tune

Whistle for me honey

By the light of the big full moon

Well Magnolia in the swamps

And the hanging vines and broom

They're so mightier than thou

On a Summer's afternoon

French fry me baby

Give me a liquorice spoon

Let me take your medicine

I'll be coming home so soon

I can even taste it, clear as I hear the loon

Who goes crying in grapes

And howling at your moon

Who chose you baby, to stand for right or wrong

Whose needle did you crotchet for it to turn out bad?

I've been to the desert and I've sung my desert song

But now I'm returning to the table lands

And for that I should be glad

Monday

 There's that time in the city, when it all stops

When the fury of the hour is over

When it looks like the day will relinquish

Its headlock hold, and the penny drops

Then the wind stirs in the trees

The hammer blows continue

Deep rumblings of trucks

Are heard again

Engines start

And drills brrrr into walls

And voices continue to chatter

Like a thread in the stitching of the universe is dropped

And we all stare at the dark matter

Has the creator a synaptic gap

That's a little too far to leap?

Or has he or she simply taken a nap

Had 40 winks or a sleep?

Whatever the answer it's Monday today

And here comes that start the week feeling

I should have washed the sheets over the weekend

I should dusted the walls or ironed the ceiling

But it is a loss I'm afraid my good friend

Time has crept up on us again

There's more to be done under the sun

More of interest that this start the week squealing

Wandering

 And Mercury came suddenly,

And Saturday did sluice

Into the old rapsodies

Of a summer and its juice

Through the water melon gateways

Rolled the conquered goose

Ridden by an elf or a goblin anyways

He didn't suffer any fools

I should have held you like a candle

A loft as a guiding light

Instead I let you be my handle

And turn my days to night

I had to escape your clutches

I had to escape your farm

Get away from Chiken hutches

And women doing me harm

I know we all harbour

Our good intentions

To rest

But what becomes of the forest farmer

When his words

Fail in  lifelessness?

He must move on to pastures new

He must plough the green highways

There is more to do under the sun

Than stay put at home anyways

So I am off I make a beginning

I venture

Where others have roamed

But it's all not the same

To be in the game

You must wander far from your home 

The rise and fall of the clown

 He was so high

As high as a clown

But from being so far up

The only way is down

And he slipped on miss buttercup

And a banana skin on the ground

And he fell from the trapeze

And caught the disease of the drowned

Don't you tell me he didn't love the highs and lows

As he swung through the crowd

On his finger tips he did go

Tip toeing like a ballerina

Then growling like a bear

Ferocious as a Hyena

Then as sweet as a lover's care

Oh he had the crowd in the palm of his hand

They were lapping it up

They were begging for more

And he kept them titilated on the edge of their seats

He was hansel, then Gretel,

Then the old witch with the sweets

He led them up the garden path

And they were baying at the door

Howling like the Hungry wolf

Who cries out for her lair

And just when they felt they'd had enough

He let his act fall

He played his hand like a maestro stands

As the audience applauds

But that was all then he thought

Now nothing's like before

Now I am in Neverland

And they've gone and closed the stable door

My horse has bolted

And I forgot to climb on board

It will all go unnoticed

Like a shadow in a darkened land

I am abandoned and forlorn

I call out to the prairie and

A lone coyote answers my call

And I am left singing kareoke stanzas

To my shadow on the wall