Upon Penn hill
Where the pheasant trill
Their startled bagpipe tones
I am alone on cobble stone
Where the bridlepath lays still
Where is the bride? Whose marriage is
It I am running to?
And where is the altar of marathon
Who will be my bride?
Upon Penn hill
Where the scruffy magic mushroom pickers glean
And hurry and harry the tuffts
That carry their magic bean
And the farmer who sits in his rover and scowls
And the mast's falling over
Because of the owls
The red planets are rolling down pen hill
And a mars bar a day will likely make you ill
The red planets are tumbling
Like bulls down the meadow
Rolling over dozing sheep
There is a war of bells
These red globes collide with churches
Knocking over towers, and school halls
And crushing cars parked in roads
Others swerve out their way
Out their way run the flock, the parishioners, the beadle and the cock
Who crows out his warning in tides of socks
That come falling from the farmer's wife's chest
The mushroom pickers themselves probably think they live on Mars
Wandering around the base of the Microwave tower
Sending them their digital waves, or beaming out to stars
Their mushroom addled brain saves all this as useable power
First they see the footage of the first man on the moon
Then Neil Armstrong is next to them feeding them from a spoon
Saying get better young man America will need you soon
When in reality they are in a Mendip field on a Saturday afternoon
Then suddenly a pheasant beater is perched upon a wall
Calling to his pheasant shooters with his favourite border collie
And as you jog the trees they toggle, in a sense they freeze
And rocks and salt all fill your throat with words you cannot say
And daleks from Mars remind you of those heady summer days
When all this dust, was just like lust, that fades into moon haze
And I can hardly hold it, the weight of boulders up the valley
The weight of feathers waiting to be exploded
By the shot-guns held in shoulders, or cradled in the arms
Of rich and upper class tories who love to tell their stories
Of how they shot down Mars with one moon shot
And wiped out the disease of the red spot
When really the virus like the pheasants came from
Jupiter instead
And Io was with Europa looking on shaking her head
