What in the world?

 The berries are bobbing on the rowan tree

The corn is cobbing, in the sweet acre breeze

And I am jobbing like a busy bee

But the parishioners all hold their tissues and sneeze

Oh what, what are we coming to?

What in the world is it coming to?

The flames are fanned, and the Earth's down the pan

And another horse passes on a Japanese fan

There's a statue that's a fallin'

A Greek vase is appallin'

Hiding from Apollo's gaze

Who wanders through the fallow glades

Thinking of him and looking for you

Oh what in the world are we coming to?

And the jumbo in the air is stallin'

In the sirens with long hair are callin'

Take me once, they say, take my cue

What in the world are we coming to?

I hold my breath and count to ten

But I'm afraid to open my mouth again

And if I see pigsties or sheep pens

I close my eyes and count my hens

The farm yard is all accounted true

Yet what in the world is it coming to?

And we all look lost in a maze

The shallow sharks, swim in the misty haze

And jellyfish sting, on the holidays

We all forgot were once sacred

It makes you think it's the end of days

With famine and pestilence and malaise

And summer time screams its short serenades

As the musicians all pack up their parades

What in the world are we coming to?

What in the world is it coming to?

When you hold out your hands

Then bring them together in praise

Some people leave you, and it's the pain that stays

Memory Lane

 It comes at four to knock on your door

It taps on your window pane

But you're not sure, and you feel poor

When there's nothing to lose or to gain

On a trip down memory lane

And it can take years and bring only tears

But for some it's their favourite game

As they cry in their beers or cover their ears

On a trip down memory lane

And you hold your gun in your hand

Raise it and level your aim

But you can't quite figure

To pull that trigger

On that trip down memory lane

And they hold you in their sights

They come in the depths of the nights

They fuss and they fight 

About who's wrong and who's right

On that trip down memory lane

And it can just seem so rosey

Yes it can season your pain

You can write it in your poesy

Or it can drive you insane

But nothing's half as bad

As the laugh's you once had

To remember that feeling

Can send you a -reeling

On that trip down memory lane

And they'll pass onto you the old hammer

And say strike the bell on the hour just the same

When that church bell tolls

And you lose all control

On your trip down memory lane

And they'll tell you to leave them

Then the ghosts will call you back again

And they'll kiss and show spite

In the new morning light

If you begin to forget their name

And the sun will shine bright

And the dogs lose their bite

On your trip down memory lane

Why should you listen to me now boy?

Why I'll curse and I'll claim

I had too much to drink 

And my memories all turned pink

When the reality it's just not the same

Well I'll swear to you I remember

I'll force the winds of November

To blow me off track, so I can get back again

To my trip down memory lane

Truffle hunting

 The dogs are like my mistresses

So mysterious and dark

And they fall like shadows ministries

As the dogs will lose their bark

And fallow land of signatories

Welcomed in the park

I call you Kate

You take me late

Into the foaming spark

Smothered in apostrophies, and epiphanies that are

Cheering as in race horse stands

Where Greyhounds battle hares

And calligraphic letters

fall

Under bed steads

Some say a name to me

And the roses turn their heads

I listen to her heart beat

I call the telephone

And failing this, I am amiss

And wish just to go home

There once was a life of surfing

And one of quarrel road

Where quarries quaked with hard rock cakes

Trapped between sea and stone

And chattering fish in calesthenics

bite of more than they can chew

And it all rolls under the waves which wash

Over me and you

Can you hear their barking,

These dogs that howl and pone

In pow-wow smoke signal talk

Whispers on the bone

And blankets that could smother

Instead lift and hone

Our eyes from blinking tears of onions

Or guests we've never known

Crying in the disco,

In the retro lounge

Tears fill the piss bowl

And turn the white milk sour

The dogs are barking at the crow

And in a hedge the fox does cower

While men upon electricity pylons

Turn on and off the power

I should welcome this and that

I should suck and hack

But the cough sweet I chew on

Is like a lyre heard true

The fences now are flaking

The towers crumble down

And sounds which are heard

Down the street are only the dogs

now

Don't look now

 Don't look now,

But the street is far behind

We have left mother earth

And are in space you'll find

Its a long way down there

For you and all mankind

Just be glad you have found her

As eternity is a bind

The quarantine is over,

Now its back again

In and out of cages

Faster than round the bend

Its a murderous intention

An itch I have to scratch

To find the key holders pocket

And each hour check the watch

What can we be if not trees

Letting down our vines

The leaves will fall also so free

As Autumn finds her climes

And accommodates us in her bosom

Mother nature's nest

I've been let down

The planet's sold

And I must find my rest

I take stock of the photographs

And handle table legs

The varnished slides and phonographs

Of times of broken eggs

And if I dropped the juggling balls

It was because I saw her beg

And the ghost of her came through the wall

On a thousand China pegs

To those who would see me burn

 I do not want your towers of Babel

I do not need your

Street cars of desire

Your news paper cuttings

On coffee table mornings

Or friends keeping distance

In the supermarket mourning

The loss of a good friend

It's a shot in the dark

But I want life

That no computer screen can spark

I'm sick of the zoom calls

The death on the skype

The fifty yard high walls

Of Microsoft teams is a lark

Who ever enters a room of fifty people

and really gives a shit

What the tart at the front barks?

I want the intimacy of closed spaces

Cafes with small faces

And shop thieves at large

I want the risk that someone might rob my wallet

Then I can stop it

And feel cool as a shark

I want the loss, and I want the gain

Don't give me the dross

Of Microsoft window panes

I don't need their figures their statistics

Their frame

Their constant approval,

Their constant fame

Give me something real

I can write about that stuff

When people do unpredictable things

And fuck off

Or say damn it I've just had enough

Because I have of this virtual existence

Bugger off

I can already tell the kind of feminist tosh that will spout from the mouth of that

Crass oxbridge toff

Or she was brought up up in Surrey

And raised over in Spain

And now has enough nouce to run down my drain

I don't need her opinions

I don't need her high shame

Of slavery passed down through generations

I'm not playing that game

They are all pretenders

To massage their egos

But underneath it are machinations

That would equal Iago's

You can call me the moor, Desdemona's my maid

But at least when I look in my soul

It's home-made

And I shall not forsake the tribe of my nation

Who has given me my pride

In a certain fascination

With things that are green and alive

And last long

And are not just the passing fancies of

Babylon 

Funny Ha ha

 Now I'd like to say that you were cool

Like cucumber 

But more a tool

With an itch to get her number

Don't be a snitch

It's way past slumber

This party's over

Like an over boiled egg

It's turned hard 

And I'm going to bed

I must be up at the crack of dawn

Oh that's a funny one

A Brazilian, like a pussy that's shorn

Well sheep shaggers aside

You really took me for a ride

I spent far more

Than my beer budget can abide

And now I've installed your bloody fridge

Some bastard from America

Is gonna use it for his bridge

Damn it I'm drunk and that doesn't rhyme

But anyway

Life's like that

I fucks it up time, after time

And if you haven't a penny

A hapenny will do

And if you haven't

A hapenny, then boy

You are screwed

Love in the afternoon

 love, love in the morning, love in the afternoon

Love, love like a steam train whistle that's blowing

Love like the face of the moon

Love on the island, love on the bridge

Love in the aisle and the supermarket fridge

Love in the fountain, love in the mist

And love on the mountain where we first kissed

Love going down and coming up soon

Love in the afternoon

Are you going my way, walking across the room

Hiding in the shadows, in the dark gloom

Come out from the curtain, put down the broom

Cinderella on the highway sweeping over my tomb

Well the ball is still rolling but it'll be midnight soon

Love never goes my way, still there's love in the afternoon

Love like a joker, changing his clothes

Love like a smoker holding his nose

Can't stand the waiting for the summer in june

Love in the autumn wearing red shoes

Love like the falling leaves on sand dune

Love could be late to blossom, but soon it will bloom

Love in the flotsam, in the jettsam like a melody's tune

floating like a harmony, love in the afternoon

Love can be weak, love can be strong

love cheek to cheek, love's a love song

Love let's you speak, but doesn't need words

Love's what you seek, when you listen to the birds

Love is so sure and love is so soon

Love stands in your door, like a charm or a boon

Oh love, love in the afternoon