Half life of your care

 Won't you tell me

How you're spinning

In the radioactive isotope there

Won't you tell me, the half life of your care, oh yeah

Is it 50, is it 40 ,

Is it around 20:20

What do you need? And what do you you dare, oh yeah

In the foreground

In the fairground

In the far sound from somewhere

Won't you tell me, the half life of your care?

How long will it take for me to decay

Like a jailbird, like a mocking jay

In the forest, in the thickest wood

Or neighbourhood

See diffraction like an x-ray

See the cathode tube and particle spray

In the foreground television there, back in the day

And the white noise, and the signal,

Getting lost in the Mendip hills

Give me microwave, give me ultrasonic care, oh yeah

In the photograph, of exposure

I can see I'm getting older,

Who will still be there?

I'll give you guesses, maybe two or three

Show you infinity, and eternity

But just show me you will still be there

Oh you can tell me, probabilities

You juggle the uncertainties

Just hold my hand, if I despair

Firefly, burning in the night

Photons flying at the speed of light

When Time is sidewise

Train carriage doesn't look so bare

I try to hold you but I'm lost now

In the spinning, forgetting everything

Entropy and chaos, Magnetic resonance

Bring me back into the foreground

I can touch you on the shoulder

Radiotherapist, radiographer 

Tell me what is the half life of your care?

Shepton on Show

 Behind the scrape the hotel slates

Fall from the roof that stand up late

Into the scoffs of hate and rebuke

The pavements soft from puddles of puke

And Shepton stands above it all

The show of hands is ready to fall

But play your cards right late at night 

See the lands of firelight

Where burning men and women fight

Like flames of candles flicker in plight

Shepton, Shepton on show

Shepton, Shepton on show

The windows full of birds and bees

And Coloured snow and worms that seize

The books they throw at the libraries

And the jokes they tell in the reggae-ease

Of Shepton, Shepton on Show

Behind the handpicked frieze

The bright rainbow is covered in sleaze

And thoughts which show the summer's ease

No greased elbow or lock-jawed keys

So cling to the clinker of unspoken word

Fly away like a jailbird

And say what you say without being heard

It's a world away from castle and sword 

Shepton, Shepton on show

Sniffing sponges

 You said to me this what you are

Don't be a shrew when you're a shining star

You need not fear for where you are

You are in Shepton Mallet

Don't sniff my sponge or make my clunge 

Oh so final in accounting

There are no puns, to rhyme with guns

Or even out of banking

Do not make use of goats or sheep

Don't sniff around the border

There no ships that sail beneath

The out of way recorders

Don't sniff my sponge you say to me

Don't sniff my colour on TV

You can taste salt or umami

But don't you sniff the sponge of me

I care not for your crowing tongue

You lisp like Mister slow income

You hear me go, but you don't know bum

I fear you sniff my sponges

Don't clean up so you can see glowing

surfaces and hunches

Oh windy-winding hingey-grinding

Out of all expenses

I see you go down on the snow

And leave your foot print in clunches

You make such fantastic curries

That you eat as your lunches

When we are there the snow does fall

And under foot it crunches

But there are so few rhymes to rhyme

With you and sniffing sponges

I should go back, I should not stay

I should get flak, but not I'm gay

For being what I am and say

You keep on sniffing sponges

So be a good boy now and go

Out on your own in bunches

Oh follow your nose, just like god knows

But don't go sniffing sponges

There are so many words to rhyme

With house and horse and lunches

But so few now we must admit

Which rhyme with sniffing sponges

The Plastic surgeon's BBQ

 At the plastic surgeon's barbeque

On the 19th of November

I had to attend the bash

There were supermodels and women who waddled

Because their pockets were so filled with cash

There were hips which lied

And lips which never told the truth

Because they hid under the botox lid

And fake booby traps were the proof

As I wandered around the congregation

Who had gathered round the grill

The band were playing Radio head

And sounding kind of shrill

And the heat of the coals was scolding

And the sausages sizzled and fried

And the fat burnt down into the fire

Like from a burnt sacrifice

Who are the Gods you worship?

I asked after a while

But they turned to me and pointed to false idols

Standing in a magazine Style

Kournety Love, and Kurt Cobain,

And garage and of grunge

And all those Pops stars who made their names

After taking somekind of plunge

But they were never fake I said

Never plastic, though man made

They were the real thing like a choir that sings

Carols on Christmas Day

But in their expression I could see no understanding there

Their faces were taut like tennis rackets brought

Down on the ball to bear

Hard and like a lion

Rearranged like a puzzle

Lumps that began to shift

As a harness around a dog's muzzle

You see the plastic surgeon's bbq had begun

To destroy his own wax works,

And slowly they were all melting

As a candle does in a church

And the next time I turned they had become

Just pools of melting silcone

With some bones, that shone alone

Which attracted the dog's attention

And the plastic surgeon was on his knees

Thinking of his own destruction

And how would his customers ever pay the bills

On their own reconstruction

Never speak of this he said

For this is a tale of the living dead

Who wished for correction on what was fed them

Through false images on internet or television

That pool there was an instagram influencer

And her over there was a lottery winner

And he was a fat cat who wanted to be thinner

But it was all to no avail

For this is living dead told in a moral tale

Don't get too close to the flame

For like the moth you will

Burn

See their ashes and you'll learn

The true price of celebrity's fame

I asked him if the sausages were burnt

He put them in a bap and I said haven't you learnt

You need health and safety at an event like this

He said his fire officer had fallen off a cliff

I said what a faux par, no he was driving a car

And he was a crash test dummy

I said is everyone around you fake today?

Well I thought it couldn't hurt it was my own birthday

I invited them here and now here they'll stay

Buried under the patio

Well at that I decided to take my leave

He told me not to wear my heart on my sleeve

I said it was in the right place and he

Offered me some plastic surgery

Down at St Aldhelm's well

 And if you want a land of peace then you can tell

I will meet you down at St Aldhelm's well

If you have forgotten Forget-me-nots or the chimes of Bluebells

Then come meet me down at St Aldhelm's well

If you want the sound of choirs or the toll of church bells

Then you'll find them down at St Aldhelm's well

And the inhabitants of the village there happily they dwell

For they built their homes by St Aldhelm's well

And they sow the fields, gather yields and peas they shell

As they live their lives out by St Aldhelm's well

And the trees bear fruit and the livestock they can sell

All because of the waters at St Aldhelm's well

And it springs up from the hill and runs down in the dell

As the trees take their fill from St Aldhelm's well

They lack not for lumber for trees grow in great number

And their strong trunks they can fell

As they grow thick and fast, just like ships' masts

And you can find them down at St Aldhelm's well

None are diminished after the day's toils are finished

None feel oppressed by evil or fear hell

For they pour water from their jugs and they fill their cups and mugs

And all drink deep down at St Aldhelm's well

Around St Aldhelm's well

 The creatures on the church tower

Running round and round

Protecting the inside from the powers that surround

No evil shall not step inside and all shall beware

To fear God in his house, to come with mortal care

The arrogant shall not be given passage there

Or the wicked or conceited done down by their own care

Only the humble shall have their pass

And all this will not be a grumble of the past

Oh the gargoyle and the dragon in the mouth of the lion

As they reach up out of pits where the fires are besieged

And the unbaptized child who is dragged down into hell

Oh be fearful of the priors around St Aldhelm's well

Come stake your claim in leaves and fallen human souls

And don't take what you don't believe or what you can't control

You shall know the fires if you can't make it whole

Oh come see the priors around St Aldhelm's well

He walked for many hours trying to find his chair

A throne of all God's powers, a throne that is just there

And this is how it came about, it came about in prayer

Never waking time, but in seasons of care

And they all want a water wheel out of their care

Cos it springs up for the villagers, it springs up out there

And yes they brought it to our place, they brought it to our home

When the water came face to face with the enemies of Rome

And they brought it from the land unto the ferned hill

And it sprung up out of hand into St Aldhelm's well

Oh how can you see this place of fettered times

You walk inside the ancient hills and under the sweet sunshine

In the shadows of the ancient ones, by the shadow of the church

Overgrown by many trees and plants that holds its perch

Hold me in your arms St Aldhelm's well

And bring me water charms and quench the fires of hell

Will you drink? Will you come to me? And fetch me sweet liberty

And falling from heaven like rain into the sea

Lucy

I said to Lucy -"Can you make it clear?"

Cos I don't understand quite what I hear

Tell me straight was I early or late?

Lucy said "Let me elucidate"

"You were late, you were late, late as hate

Late as love at love's gate

You were late, you were late!

No need to contemplate

You were late in your love for this

Lucy date

I said to Lucy, I'm just so wrong,

I'm so sorry that I wrote this song

"You should have come to me before

You shouldn't have waited outside my door"

Oh Elucidate, a Lucy date, e Lucy date to me

Lucy make it clear, Lucy make me see

That it was just a loose date for me

There were wrongs and there were rights

And there were songs and there were fights

And Lucy and I, we couldn't get on

So we went our separate ways, on 

a long cold Wednesday

Long ago

The very next day we got back together

I wrote her a song and she wrote me a letter

She said to me why do you want to be free

 when you could be with me?

I said Lucy, oh Lucy can't you see oh Lucy

It was all just too late, now Lucy let me elucidate

Lucy yes or Lucy no, oh Lucy come and Lucy go

Lucy's loose as a free bird crow 

That's flying across the sky I know

Oh Lucy, why don't you come to me,

And we'll be 

so damn good ,well just like Robin Hood

When there is nothing to fear or to hate

Oh Lucy just elucidate