Your Shades of Mercy

 Hey little babe

The world turns round

weight on your shoulders

Pushes you to the ground

But oh the shades of mercy

Hey little darling

I am starvin for your love

And your gentle touch

Oh your shades of mercy

And the keys to the garden 

Hang by the well and I can see your

rocking chair bell

Ring in the shades of mercy

And the free sky above and 

The birds do tell, 

Which way is heaven and which way is hell

And oh all their shades of mercy

War museum

Visiting in the war museum

The black guns in their cases, you had to see them

And no smiles on the faces of the aces

Who shot down all those planes from the sky

 

Mud on my boots from the trenches

Blood stains on the suits and on park benches

What are we fighting for in these marshy stenches?

Where the bodies of our buddies lie

 

War in the eyes of the starving civilians

Is not the same as in the warlord's who counts his millions

In cartridge cases and ammo boxes and gold medallions

As bodies in black bags get flown back home side

 

I have seen the tanks a rolling through the forests

And the soldiers leap out in ambush down upon us

And the leaves fall like rain down on the trail

Where my buddies they will fail to return and walk by my side

 

So, as I walk in this museum of the war time

And I remember all the war masters still in their prime

The shells the burst like fireworks inside my mind

I am reminded of all the fallen I have left behind

 

There was never a more pressing need or rancour

Than in the armistice which came with a clamour

Of clashing steel, Kalashnikovs and falling pellets

Whose tinkle bells could be heard for the miles I ride

 

And my horse she is bold like a stallion

And my badges hang round my neck for my battalion

Who battled on in skirmish and in fire-fight

But when my orders came to leave, I took flight

 

Never happier to see the aircraft

Like an eagle that flew me away she was a freedom raft

And as I flew in the bird, I looked down at state side

And the fog it rolled in on the bay

 

You can call it what you like in the museum

Just pay your money take the tour you can see them

But don't you abjure or fight the season

Oh, you can't tell me war has a reason 

Anymore

 

Body of lies

 I was talking to a lady who was writing a sketch

She came outdoors and handed me the script

I felt alright then I had to sniff

And soon I was sneezing, into her papery bits

I said I'm so sorry but I'm allergic to comedy

Can't you see I come out in a rash

If you tell another joke I'm sure I will cough at you

And then the whole mother ship might crash

She said I knew you were funny but I didn't know how strange

When I said show me the money

I didn't mean give me your change

You better be careful for the next line's coming up

And the end is a deadline and it packs a punch chump

As she said that I started rolling around the floor

You see I was in stitches, but by that I mean sores

For my sides they were itching and my brain did abore

I said I think my nervous system is malfunctioning

I don't this funny anymore

Finally came the punch line and the end of the joke

With that I was at the washing line, like it would choke

She said it's got you in a choke hold, I gasped "I think that you are great

But please don't write another sketch or else, I'll end up dead or a worse fate"

With that she lay her pen down, put no more words on paper

And I left with a frown, saying good bye and see you later

"Not if I see you first" she said, just a throw away line, 

But that onliner was a curse, for at once I fell down

My heart gave way I had a cardiac arrest,

The police came to put it behind bars

But they had to call a Taxi

Instead a taxidermist turned up

And stuffed me full of paper shreds

You see the script writer had torn up her script

And with her waste jokes I'd been stuffed instead

And so now I stand before you

A shadow of my former self

Just a statue of a comedian made up of bad jokes

But it isn't all that bad, because the next day she went for a PET scan

She said is it all right if I bring a friend 

They said of course you can

So then she brought me - her own private dead pet

Well they put me in the machine, to see if they could get

Any funny sense out of my remains, but it seems as if 

I never had a funny bone in my body

What they did instead was re-read her old jokes

They came out better now they'd been jumbled around by taxidermy

It seems she was pretty funny, so there's life in the old girl yet

You bet, you little bunny, and she even married a vet

They spent many happy hours reading jokes

To elderly dogs in nursing homes for the guides

Some of them had gone blind themselves

And it was like the blind leading the blind

But enough of that because as they say

All dogs go to heaven, but perhaps not

If they've gone to Mars already, then robbed a seven eleven

They will probably go to Hell

With the Mars rover, but he knew things were going well

Up until they ran him over

But they say in Space no one can tell a bad joke because

There's no gravity just levity,

Nothing to bring you down

Only maybe roll you over

A minor role

 Rainy day in Cardiff the News in newport is bad

Have you heard the rumour in Caerphilly

That the road to the Gower is sad

Has anyone seen a smile in the valleys?

Not for a week or two

But the sea gulls still fly by making their sallies

In then out as time flew

I have seen the merry-go-round and I 've been on the swings before

But it's all roundabouts down by the coal mines

Where the caged canary cries cuckoo

I have seen the jamboree

And the elephants march from the zoo

And old Eliza empty his trunk

Back when the junk was new

Now they are selling second hand guitars

With their strings like trip wires

for musical burglars 

As they are taking down notes and holding up cars

Throttling their throats and smoking cigars

And gypsy swans go roaming

Across the fields and fens

As jugglars are telling jokes

To jaguars and jens

And Jesus has a supersoaker

Which he uses on his friends

They are wet without their boats

He don't get their votes when it ends

I saw a piano hanging from a nail

And I pulled it out but the piano man went pale

He said

 You must put it in again

You need to plug the hole

There aren't enough parts as it is

In this key for a miner's soul

So I put it back

And saw it was dark

Then I heard the canary

And it was singing like a dwarf

Down on the wharf

Where they bleed the fairies

They said bring us in our cargo of wings

Let me see their steel

And if it flies then it's a thing

And if it sinks we fail

So the fairies wore their steel wings

And each fell in the water

And the mine owner said

That's what you get

When fly without a tail

Surely said the miner's daughter

They should be given another chance

To be seen in a photograph

Or wash up on the shores of France?

Put them back in the mine he said

And they can glow down there

And help us find our precious coal

Before we both go spare  

Paper planes

 A paper plane

Dropped a paper clip

From blue ink jet sky

With paper mache clouds

Printing out rainbows

In black and white

And dropping ink rain droplets

Onto the blotting paper ground

Where a strawman walked

Wearing a straw hat

And he walked a straw dog

Who was getting rather fat

And he drank Pimms

From a plastic straw after that

In the garden of his straw bale house

When at the door a pig turn up

Carrying in his trotters a little paper cup

And he said can you spare me a drop of that

So the straw man invited the pig

Inside his straw house

Before the ink jet rain began to fall

From the sky printer clouds

Just then a paperwolf appeared on the front lawn

And said, I'll huff and I'll puff and I'll blow your house down

I'd like to see you try it said the straw man

These walls are four feet thick and you're not a bellows man

What you'd need is a good blaze

But even that is a push

Because the reeds are bound so tightly

That there really is no air gap

And the paper wolf howled

As he ran down the runway

Of the paper airport

To catch the paperplane

Out of the paper city

Where the wind blew through

The straw houses

And along the wooden streets

Where paper trees

Stood

Writing poetry to themselves

Written in their bark

And upon their fallen dead leaves

Jesus is around me

 Jesus is around

me

He's in front of me,

He's beside me

and behind me

Jesus is in the air

tonight

Oh to be near Jesus

Everyday and night

Oh to hold him next to me

I'll be like a bird who takes flight

When I need you Jesus

you're next to me on my right

And when I am bereft you see

Him on my left saying

It' gonna be alright

Oh he's around, he's around me

Lightning calls

 There's a clap, clap in the morning

And it wakes you up from sleep

And as you climb out to the morning

The windows begin to weep

And the polecats stop their snoring

And the fat dogs lose their barks

As the thunder rolls are peeling

And go carolling through the dark

And the television house wives

They fall to their knees and pray

That God will stop his anger,

And leave his wrath for another day

And the soldier races from his cabin

And brings his deaf ears into the street

Saying is that the drummer I hear calling

Or am I just a dead man on my feet

And the fires stop their wailing

As the engines turn and beep

Because the sheep are on the hill pretending

They haven't just lost little Bo Peep

And the Bo bells are ringing

As the rain begins to beat

Against the windows of all the people

Who stare out into eternal heat

And the steeples dance with lightning

Inviting it to come down and greet

All the people who are now frightening

And running down the raging street