4 am bookshelf

 It's 4 am and I am

sleeping on the shelf

My book cover slips, I take a dip

But I can't recover myself

I know I fall, against the wall,

I know I'll hurt myself

But I must read between the lines

On my pine bookshelf

There are few bees who follow me

There are few victory posts

I cannot tell if I know full well

If I have rights to boast

There are but steeds with rights to read

There are but colts and gelds

I know full well my otherselves

Are left on old bookshelves

I seize the day, but suffer not the attacks of fools

Who fool themselves and others into thinking Life is cool

Of course we live in times and places

Of a covid rule

But what I can abide the least

Are references to school

I see the shadows and wait a while

For the sun to go down

And every romantic fact

Speaks out from each new fangled part of town

That England is never dying

But only in an image of ourselves

That what we seek are romantic acts

Reserved for our book shelves

Covid Coracles 4 -Corvidness

 Ravens and Rooks keep the castle

They hold the castle keep

But the black crows, in thorny rows

Can catch no feather bed sleep

They chatter and they cajole

They caterwaul and holla

They cat-call through the wooded deep

And in the tree trunk hollow

They scratch and they nuzzle

nibble and they peck

They pick fights with black night

Until the owl turns on her neck

Until the cows have all come home

Until they roam and roost in loam

And clay and mud and sticky chrome

Yellow of metallic piss

Yet the hill fort still squawks and portcullis

Gates are dropping

The drawbridge is drawn above the moat

And the Bishop's eyes are popping

The Egrets stalk about the cows

The herons pose alongside crows

Pretending in their statue clothes

To stand for liberty and freedom

But under them the corn storks do not grow

They rot after their heads have rolled

And all lie down like dominoes

Arranged like iron filings

And who is the rich magnet

Who has attracted their maze gaze?

Who has got them singing

Amazing grace?

Is it Trump or Biden?

Is it just that like the corn

They now must lie down

To rest after summer's vitalness

Into a winter of repose

In order to be again reborn

Covid Coracles 3 - tipping the iceberg

 Ok so it's the end of the iceberg

Democracy has been frozen

But now we have the ice pick in Biden

And Trump has gone off again

blowing his own trumpet

But there will soon be too few people

To listen

The Champagne is on ice

The real pain is twice

As bad as that imagined

By those in paradise

But noone can travel there anyway

Under the Covid restrictions

So, so long Saigon

And the paddy fields

They've brought all the chocolate ducks

For the old folks' meals

Well it's been a golden girl reunion

For all that we feel

But Cronos the Titan father

Still eats his young

And cantilever brakes are applied to 

The economy by a prime minister

Who would rather be in prison for petty larceny

Than be the one responsible for this high scale

robbery of democracy

But hold on says Trump- the unfortunate one

You stole my line -that's my one

I invented cruelty, lying and malice

I gave you all the rabbit holes

Like I was your Alice

And you were my mad hatter

who had gone bananas

Down at the Havana restaurant

Where the Mayor of New York

Julianni, he knows what he wants

But it's not on the menu

Only a sting operation

Of the greatest retinue

And in Avenues of pines

Who continue to cross over the line

From Mexico to El Paso

Juaez to Miami

We are sticking to the numbers game

And counting our names

Like we don't know who to blame

And just blame the blacks or the Jews

or the Catholics or gypsies

But we see that is only the tip of the iceberg

It is only balanced on a razor blade's edge

If you really want to know

Who won the election

Just talk to your neighbour

over your hedge

Covid Coracles 2

 The students rest inside the cage

Suspended several fathoms up

In a tower of burning rage

And resentment at the government

The simmering pot is brewed

As Susan goes into the kitchen

She makes a tea for herself and Jude

Who obscurely is dressed as a chicken

Susan it seems is more of an egg

She will crack and then she will beg

Not to be fried

But get scrambled instead

In the wifi waves now exuding

But Jude the chicken

Is happy in her brood

Her feed is flung and her food is chewed

And the pecking order of housemates

Has been established

As they settle down in the hutch to roost

They ought to be doing their homework now

But there are no tutors nor lecturers anyhow

For whom to owe some accountable reason

Their absense or presence or being

They ought to be watching some lecture online

But who has the motivation

To keep inline, when humans and chickens

Are social creatures

Not meant to be caged

In faceless building features

And university is a place

To be free range to experience change

And strange and wonderful things

But no

Not today

They are like string beans

Just hanging around

Waiting for events to unfold

Or for them to be picked

Or left on the vine

But online

It doesn't matter

We are more faceless than time

And if the clock should strike the dreadful hour

When the tower of chickens

begins crowing not to cower

When a cockerel leads them

In a rooster line

Out of the cities

Into the prime

Green pastures

To live new lives

far away from their work

laying intellectual eggs

Killing time

Then perhaps the nation may once again change

As the seasons on the face of the earth

Change the hues of the leaves

And rotten corn storks

die and make room for 

Fresh shoots to grow

But we are all feed for worms

Which all chickens well know

Covid Coracles 1

 The day began the same

They were burning the bonfires of their vanities

Again

The effigy of me

That so many years has passed

Guy Fawkes, of course

Who else jack ass?

I guess you could say I was the virus then

The genetic mutation

From the all English gene

The hidden priest

Behind the scenes

Laying down libations

But liberation must come at a cost

From tyranny

Or tyranny's ghost,

For we all are haunted by those we love most

And everyone must have a ruler

But your God and my God

They are the same

My religion differs in more than just name

But essential truths

Burn one pure flame

That love above all is the name of the game

So as you burn me remember

That love never dies

That a coup d'etat is in everyone's eyes

Even just a twinkle

In the heart but a winkle

That grows

And sucks on the blood of England's rose

A canker, a cancer

A busy bee dancer

That buzzes between our ranks

And stings our flanks

And answers our thanks

With a death watchman's handshake

And the pikes are resting against the wall

The heads on the spikes

Stand on London Bridge

As warning to those who would

hanker for change, or fidget

In the restlessness of revolutionary fervour

My own body in an iron maiden

Dripping Catholic blood of martyrs made

And fireworks fly into the sky

In the Arena of the damned

Under the houses the gunpowder is still stored

Some fuse is lit, by the nations poor

Who rebel and quit

But the crowd want more

No matter who has paid em

Hurt me

 Come on don't you shoot me

Donut don't, donut don't shoot me

You know you are my sugar coat

Ohdon't don't shoot me

I've heard the goat, and I mustn't gloat

But it's not a patch on me

Oh I hear you now, through the crowd

Like a sea

Yes I can hear you loud, Just promise

Don't hurt me

Don't shoot me down, like the other planes

With your artillery

Don't let me burn my crown of thorns

In the burning tree

Oh don't, don't, just please

Don't hurt me

I'm not some kind of a doll

You can pull and push around

You can't eat my heart like it's a cruel art

That makes you feel profound

Oh don't, no don't

No darling won't you stop hurting me.

Hold me

 Where have you gone?

Well, oh,oh dear

Where has it gone, well oh,oh dear

Where did you go

Oh oh oh dear

Where have you gone?

She was down, I saw her go

Down to the river

To drown her woe

Why did she, where has she gone

She is not here

Only the swan

And the swan swims

On a lake so clear

Where has it gone, why is it not near?

Well I went down

Oh, oh oh dear

To the soul town

Oh, oh oh dear

And I saw her swim

In the river clear

Oh let me go, I want to go too

Down to the river

Down to the river with you

Let me write you a letter

I'll write to you dear

I'll write where did you go?

I'll write it so clear

Oh where have you gone?

Oh,oh oh dear

Where did you go?

Oh,oh oh dear

And can I come too

Down to the river with you?

Well she lay down

Oh,oh oh dear

By the river so clear

She said now you must deliver

Your letter to me

You better send it today

For it's too late tomorrow

To say the things you must say

That we don't have time to borrow

So tell me so clear

So hold me near

I'm telling you dear

My letter will bring you but sorrow

I'm going away

I'm going today

I'm going away

I won't be back tomorrow

So hold me so near

Down by the river so clear

And and tell me today

How you will still love me tomorrow

Now I see her so clear

Down by the river she swallows

As she holds back her tears

And saves them for tomorrow

Because I'm going away

And our time I can't borrow

So I write her a letter

But it only brings her sorrow