Conflict in time

 Well the ring it was broken

And well the geese they had flown

And it was as if we had never spoken

Like a breeze down a deep old well

But if you choose yours over mine

You got know it was just a conflict in time

And I saw the language of token

Being spoken at the grand hotel

And I saw the window was broken

Just like our love cast a spell

Well if you prove you need me and mine

I can say it feels just like a conflict in time

And the fuse was lit in the valley

And it lit up the dark caves as well

And the turn of the shaft of the drill cut the draft

From the miners who tell

Me all about the sun dials that they miss trapped down there in hell

But if you blow out their candle and laugh down the line

You can't stand there and tell me it was too much to handle

When we both know it was just a conflict in time

Yes I thought I knew how you were stuck

Yes I lifted the bell, that hung on your photograph

Of you riding right into hell,

And I rang you on the telegraph

But the operator complained of the knell

When she rang off your voice came so soft

Saying darling well why can't you tell

That it is not just how you left that night

It was the light down the stair well

That flickered on and off, like a witch's cough

And I needed you to stay on the line

Well what I need it doesn't matter she said then the line went dead, 

she hung off

I knew then why the angels fear to tread

Because it's all just a conflict in time

Rabbit moon

 Who would have thought it

Miles after miles

The drunk could have caught it

From a football shirt pile

Who'da thought it

The still of the night

And the vital outside

And the chill moonlight

Who'd a thunk the beams be so bright

Like a rabbit that is caught by the man in the moon

Run on your moon walk rabbit

Run backwards through the cartoon frames

What's up Doc?

And Who'da thought it

There's a satellite with your name on it

Rabbit moon and rabbit star

That breeds like a harvest, harvester

A vested interest, arrest the vest

And take the costumes off the rabbit pest

Exterminate the bug, blast the rest

Kill them by the dozens

There'll be rivers of blood and harpoon moons

In shimmering skies

That are full of humpback whales

Singing sweet lullabies

And it is all just a fluke

With a lucky rabbit's foot

The charm's worked on the man in the moon

Because now he has rabbit's ears

And an itchy rabbit nose

And it twitches every time he lies

Oh look how it grows

And now it's gotten so long it's nearly reached the earth

Then all the men and women will walk up

The step of lies that gave birth

To the dream of everyone

That they may leave their lives

And live in a wonderland

If they but close their eyes

Tupac vs Meare cats

I am so English

I never had no hoes

No jumping joes

No drive by blows

In my local estate where, god knows,

I deigned to go

Roughing it, slumming it

With the mother fucking G.I posers

In their faux army costumes

Make you wanna consume

The exhaust fumes yo

No I never had the bitches

All we had were rhynes and ditches

Making dens in the hedgerows

Down St Mary's road yo!

Never had no shootings

Just Matthew Bennet with his mountain bike 

and loose shoe strings

He told us he had a self-balancing handle bar

But he had rolled up balls of clay so they rattled in thar

Playing cops and robbers on the curb

Never messing with no herb

We never turned any tricks

Only skate boards and scalextrics

Never shot no breeze

Only climbed in the apple trees 

I only wanted to be good

Looking out for my neighbourhood

Then my friend said yo can you dig it? I said " I dug"

He said -What you wanna be litter bug

For?

He said it when he came into the hood

Where I used ride with Matthew Wood

And the boys from Down's Orchard estate

Yeah the were rebels acting like jail birds outside their front gate

But I knew the Kirlegate estate posse

Were a match for those carboard hussies

No we never had no guns

Except the water pistols

That we got from our mums, yo!

Got from our mums

We never had no bronx, the bloods or the crips

But what we had was Millbatch, Bradley James, Charlene Hares

Who sometimes wore jeans with rips

That was where you went if you wanted to catch

A tennis ball to the head

Come out in bumps

That was the mother fucking dumps

Instead we had fields to run in and play soldiers

We had peat mounds to climb and roll down and over

We had play fights that never amounted to much

Until one day love struck, put a spanner in the works

Because then we all had to grow up 

Outside the doors

Outside the doors of the hospital, no help can you find

If you are the poor wretch

Who falls foul of an ailment or bind

The nurses cannot help you

And the doctors cannot say

Here take this poor chap

And be a good fellow you better be on your way

 

Outside the doors of the museum no artefacts or finds

Are safe from the curator’s prison or their stealing eyes

The Elgin Marbles are one thing, when Elgin lost his

Greece rose in applause, for the memory of theft cuts deep as lies.

 

 

Outside the doors of the monastery, you may find a monk

Who having got out of the habit of celibacy continued to get drunk

And staggering around in his gown, the others would not let him in

For outside the doors of the monastery all men are marked by sin

 

Outside the doors of heaven Saint Peter blows his horn

And announces to all the herald Angels that Christ on Earth was born

But he won't be allowed in heaven until he can prove his side

Does he count himself with mankind or with God above abide?

 

Or will he walk down to Hell and knock those doors wide open?

Telling all those lost souls that their lives are his as he has chosen

To live on in an afterlife and save those left from misery and strife

That Heaven's doors will not be closed to those who follow his advice

 

Outside the doors of the city, the outcasts beg and steal

And they fight each day for bread and water from which to make a meal

And no one can deny their suffering, yet the city folk turn a blind eye

Because outside the doors of the city well, you either live or die

The news is broken

Breaking news inside my bed

Breaking news inside my head

Breaking news and breaking bread

Don't worry the news is broken

 

Breaking me, and breaking you

Breaking what is false and true

Breaking good and breaking bad

Gets us so we don't know what we had

 

Breaking faces and make up too

Breaking car chases and cocktail screws

Breaking beaches and breaking seas

The ice is broken, it has broken free

Oh mother, the news got broken

 

Out the bag and out a mile

Into space like a missile

Breaking moon rock on the moon

Breaking mars bars, and bending spoons

 

No one tells the truth just lies

Getting like you can't believe your eyes

And no one knows which way to turn

Breaking students are too broken to learn

 

You can try shutting your eyes

But they just open upon new lies

Same old faces, and the world got sold

But nobody told the news of the world

Now the news is broken

Oh, how the news got broken

 

It's a sad thing to have to say

That the truth can't have its day

And sadder still to see fake news got its way

Oh mother, the news is broken

 

Oh mother I had to be sure

So I checked behind the kitchen door

No one fake is hiding there

 Yes the news is fixed like a stare

Like the horses and football matches

You can try to beat the egg before it hatches

But that won’t get you anywhere

Or you may choose to light the fuse and blow the news wide open

But its cover is already blown, yes, the news is broken

 

Well it is like in the morning,

when the sun comes without warning

Don't look too long into to its face

Because you'll go blind and they'll find no trace

You'll get lost between the lines

Like a sheep lost inside the pines

When the wolves of Wall Street howl

You will know the newspaper growl

 

Or you may lay down and play dead

Like the high ups and the plebs

Who ate whatever they were fed

Yes the new got broken

 

Oh the news is like a fine lace

That falls upon the world

And it should walk with grace

Like a lady wearing pearls

 

But instead, it is downtrodden, it is hidden in the mud

It comes from all kinds of places squirming, wriggling through blood

And we love the guts and gore

Oh we love the broken egg

Yes and if you should abhor 

Then you'll find you're dropped down a peg

 

Oh, the news, the news got broken

By the fishermen laying lines

Out on the public ocean

Trying to catch fish upon which to dine

 

And willingly and pliable the public take the bait

And swallow up with love and greed

All things they're taught to hate

 

Yes, the news, the news got broken

By newspaper men in capes

Out to save the world from

All those things we just can't escape.

 

Like living together without conflict

Living and loving a fight

Loving and dying to recover

From a sea sickness or a fear of flight

 

And the rules, the rules got broken

But that is quite alright.

Because the newspaper men were the ones who wrote them

And they're the ones who must be right

 

Yes the news, the news got broken

And I say it in the drowning West

That the Eastern tiger is growling

And is hungry for the rest

 

He'll devour all the sacred cows

And steal from the witch’s coven

The food that made a meal of vows

Set out in cookie cutter American ovens

 

Yes, the news, the news got broken

And now it needs a fix

But what is offered is but a token

No better than a Weetabix

 

So, sell all the stories now!

Sell them to the other side!

For they will be writing in their letters

About how no more Oxford commas they can abide

Yes, the news, the news got broken!

 

You shovel shit down on Fleet street

Where the mighty flagships meet

But it’s not the end of the world that taste sweet

But the lies that set off the whole darned fleet

 

And you can look into the mirror

And try to figure how to get thinner

But the world is small enough

For the daily news to reach the rough

 

Out on the golfing green

Where the Rolls Royce and limousines

Are parked by the eighteenth hole

Where the newspaper lost its soul

Oh mother, oh yes the news is broken

A Cat’s tale

 The cataclysm of Catholicism

Is they did not recognize the schism

Until it was too late

and the cat had already been let

out of the bag

The Cathode ray tube made a killing

With the cats and rubes

Who searched for gold in the klondike

Where the wild cats growled up in the mountains

And spilled rivers down cathedral-sized

Chunks of quartz

Oh but a fleck here, and flick there

only constitutes a smattering of gold

But is enough to send cations screaming

Across electrode gaps in test tubes

Of the prospecting cat

This could be the catalyst he thinks to himself

Of a great change in my life

In which I become a fat cat, a millionaire

And strike it rich in the Yukon valley

But he didn't have cat in hell's chance really

Still that never stopped him dreaming

This cool cat, with the whiskers like steel

That bristle whenever someone mentions a meal

Or a plate of gold, or a mother lode

That is hidden under the hill

 

Catatonic now in the biting cold

Shivering in his steel shack

That has but one cat flap frozen shut

No chance of attack

By roving wolf packs or mountain lions

bearing teeth and swishing tails

When somewhere down in a southern state

The cattle are trailing along a lush green path

And the cat laughs, thinking of that

Then caterwauling he guffaws

And throws off his cape

The biting wind nips his nape

But he preens himself wide awake

And shakes off the sleep

 

Of all the catastrophic avalanches that could befall him now

He thinks not one bit, doesn't even wink

Instead takes a sniff of his catnip, and pip-pip, tootle-loo

He's off again into the wild blue

Yonder

The mountain peaks in wonder

He spies through cat's eyes closed as slits

To the snow in the sky

But then wide and dazzling bright in surprise

As he wanders over the old claims he has staked

The light snow fall is but falling in flakes

And the above the White river, he sees

The quartz that makes him shiver

And a thrill runs up his spine

And he is over come with joy

and catapults down the line

With his shovel and his pick

And in the hard rock he begins to dig

Deeper down and further still

Until he thinks he might need a drill

Then six feet under he reaches down

And follows the vein

That runs through the ground

Into a tiny nugget he holds in his claw

But these are but the hors d'oeuvres

Not yet the main course

Yet after only a little more time

That golden sunrise begins to shine

And his face is like a morning glow

As he is lifting up the huge mother lode

Yet behind him a shadow shifts

Is it cloudburst or another grift

Out to steal what he did not earn

Another cat burglar out to crash and burn

 

A bullet flies like a silver bird

And hits our cat with crash and purr

Cat falls flat and doesn't stir

Struck in the back by cuckoo cur

And down slinks the burglar

Into the pit, salivating like a dog

Dribbling spit, hungry for the gold

that is like a disease

And in his fervour and desire to seize

He forgets to check our cat is dead

And swift as a pigeon a pickaxe to the head

The burglar is down in the ground bleeding red

And cat with the mother lode climbs free from the grave

The hole is through his fur coat, but his organs are saved

Back on up to his shack he rolls 

Singing to the birds his cat carols

And happy as a cat who has got the cream

He retired back down where the meercats dream

Catastrophe

 The cat came in and got the cream

She licked the split, likety split went down like a dream

Then she spilt the milk, oh alabaster silk

Running like a nose all over the quilt

And the cat just froze, and the woman screamed

My dream, my dream, my kingdom for a fire hose

To spray the cat, but the cat soon scrammed

Knocking over a watering can, and taking with it

The kettle flex, which pulled along the perspex

Of the kitchen work top, toppling a mop

Until it reached the china vase

At which point my memory jars

Full of shattering, and the clattering of iron bars

Which rang out blue murder, sacre bleu

More wreck and damage could not be made

By a cat herder, on his way to the pound, waylaid

With his screaming contraband over turned 

With tails and claws, coming out of all his draws

Than this utter cat catastrophe.

Oh what's that I hear you mutter

Poor little pussy?!

No sir, no I say again neigh

This cat with her bells and whistles

Has gone too far on this day

Never again shall she dare to enter in

My wonderful sparkling clean kitchen 

and yet I hear her scratching little claws now

Under the door  just above the prow

Of the step, she purrs and meows

And inch by creeping inch, she is inveigling

herself back in

And soon she will be sitting pretty

As if butter wouldn't melt in her mouth

Poor little pussy, come and have some milk