Quarantine

 You better get ready to quarantine

If you wanna

See your family today

Let me tell you friend

That is has an end

But you've got to get ready today

We are living inside this bubble

Within the heart of the tube

And it is a little trouble

When you start seeing double

Through the hubble space telescope cube

I've seen these four walls

For longer than St Paul's

Has experienced his road to Damascus

But well I'm in isolation

With some fascination

At what these four walls mean to us

I've seen them again and I consider them friends

they are made of such visceral stuff

That one may go wrong on the road to Babylon

As if you hadn't suffered enough

And old Armagheddon was the end of the world

But perhaps it was only the end of the beginning

Because where we are hurled, whether a boy or a girl

Is into a whole new world that's worth winning

So take flight todary, spread your wings fly away

To Rome or the new Jerusalem

For unless you're a crusade, you should be well made

For the life into which you are winging

There will be shocks a coming

Andd rocks will be flunging

And flood waters will surely rise

But if you hold the the course true, and steer with the corkscrew

Then in the end you will open your eyes

Not going out (covid coracle 6)

 So I guess that is it,

I'm back in the square

There's no going out

I'm not going anywhere

And anyhow anytime

There can be few leaves on the vine

For the day is picked

From the tree of time

Well I'm not going out

And I'm not staying in

I'm forced to remember

All the places I've been

And it's not like December

No it's no kind of sin

If you forget November

And all the faces you've seen

Well I've got a party to get to at four

But it's not here now anyway, anymore

And I'll be late, if I stay, and I must stay I'm sure

I met a lot of people on my way through the door

But that was outside in, now I'm inside out or

At least I know beyond doubt, that out is in

For I put on a pout and stick out my chin

But it's not use complaining about the trouble I'm in

For the inside is out and the outside is in

Lighthouses

 Well I think I told you 

All about the day knots

They tie yourself up they do

But nothing like the night hots

It's like the spiders are walking over you

And they tickle your throat

Or like the shudder

When someone walks over your grave

Well I thought I told you

About the night hots

But they are nothing compared to the evening cots

They snuggle you up

In a wrap of contentment

Like you are a baby, they never meant it

Like you were the crack and they were the pavement

I think I told you about the evening cots

But they are nothing compared to the morning rots

They stink and the swole

Like a sewer's wide goal

Full of scores and points and winning joints

That creak and appoint a doctor to you

Well I think I told you about the morning rots

But why don't you see for yourself 

The noon tide tots

They play and they fluster

Like filibusters who hold kites to

The age of the middle roster

And then the curtain falls

And they all run back home

Well I think I told

you about the light house

That was where I spent my time

Lights going on and off

Warning and the rolling of the ocean

Outside

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