Rainbow

 Now you see me,

The birds have flown

And I can see the blue dome

Up above the clouds so high

Like a rainbow in the sky

And crows are flying to the boughs

To find shelter from rain sloughs

And all the fresh fish of cuttle shore

Are raining now on my front door

I asked you once I asked you twice

If this was our earthly paradise

But you said boy

Why must you be coy

Perfection is a reflection

Of inner joy

But imperfection

Is the sign of inner peace

So try to accept what has been given

And let your suffering cease

And the rainbow comes out 

Shoots under the weather cock

Like a scarf around the neck

Of St Thomas' Church steeple

All the bold bally insects

Go buzzing in the sun

And the men and women are free again

And the birds start to chirrup again

As they know the rain clouds

Are on the run

Budgens Sent (Covid coracle 5)

 Standing in the queue outside

Budgen's post office

A man arrives in a mini

Painted like a cow

I point it out and how

Interesting it seems too

And a rock chick woman

Says it's a pig, and I say a choo!

A man says how dairy

And I say I beg your pardon

Oh I see you're punning free

And this is no place to bargain

One pun a day says me

Is all that I can manage

And he comes back: that's udderly awful

I say you've reached your punnage

Now more and more people want

To join the queue

The man at the front says

Are you for the post office

And if you're for the shop

Go on through

Though he is no charmer

He gets the job done that's all

While a lorry driver steps

Out his cab and asks is this

The toilet line -how cruel!

No, we say there is no queue for fuel

So, this is the only post office

Open in the whole of Wells

And we must all decide

To use it on a Monday noon as well

There is one lone teller

Standing at the stall

Fighting with the tillage

And telling his parcels one and all

When I have sent my tube of paintings

To my sister in Australia

I come out to some applause

The Rock Chick 

Who is the character

has held them all enthrall

And she is entertaining

You would want her on your side

If you ever were complaining

About a public service suicide

Because that is what this is

This crisis of public planning

Why we were queuing outside a petrol station

Being chaperoned and served

By chaps who make one unnerved

Because they've left their personalities at home

Oh for the kindly British post office assistants

Who had the time to talk to you like you were a human being

Rather than like motorists, who have just filled up their tanks

These skin-headed bozos don't deserve our thanks

Although they probably didn't expect to take on this extra role

Why not reserve it for a person who might sing a sweet carole

Perhaps they could chirrup like a cockney sparrow

And keep us all in good spirits while waiting

Rather than left examining our own bone marrow

Maybe play some music outside to keep the troops entertained

Anything but the rather banal forecourt that is rather inhuman

and pained

Cathedral city

 We are transformers

Now I am a robot

Now I am a cathedral

The ghost of a 

Cathedral

The wall of stone

The forest like a father

Mysterious alone

The sky like my mother

Hole punched through the dark

With these imperfections

That allow through the starlight spark

Give me the chewing farting cattle

The bending pole of mars

Magic mushrooms on the hill top

Just don't take away my heart

I used to have you

Now I know not what I lost

nor why I ever wasted

The chance at love's cost

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