Lost for words, they're burning the books

Salisbury plain in the rain

And the foreign hoards

The hair dresser in a Salon

One of Seventeen

They were different there

They told her she talked too fast

She needed to slow down

I asked her if she knew any blacksmiths

No

There weren't so many horses in Salisbury I concluded

The conversation 

Began to feel awkward

Though perhaps that was started when I tried to pay

With a fire damaged book

I mean barren down

That's where I found it

And I didn't want to go

in there empty handed

She was sweeping up human hair

and I was dropping charred words

And paper on her floor

From Collins 500 word search puzzles

I like the idea that the word search survived the fire

So that when we are lost for words

At all the devastation in life

We can keep searching for them

And eventually we might solve the puzzle

I hobbled back into the rain on my crutches

and got the twelve pounds out the bank

To pay the nice hair dresser lady

She told me the bull dog statue was for the Bath and West

The fire, I didn't see it

Only the black singed earth

The smouldering and then the smell of sulphur

Addictive somehow

Barren Down

A Barrow

The dead may now be cremated as well as buried

And you can see the Glastonbury Tor

It is torn from Autumn brown

They're burning books in Shepton Mallet

The fosse way

They are turning the pages

of history black

They're making a stink

Painting it pink

And the Goblins are wanting it back

The green fingers 

Of book worms

The witches are running in turns

Hailing the flax

Railing the haystacks

Smoking like chimneys in packs

They are burning the books

In Shepton Mallet

But don't tell them

They can't read them

Their libraries closed

And the Filo fax

Is out of order in poets corner

And I'm having one of my attacks

Roman Roads 

All along the spine of hills

Open and close like chapters

Read in geological time

Strata of line and verse of rock

The meter and rhyme

of ticking geo clocks

But the stage coaches rolled on it

Reading between the lines

The wrong side of the tracks

Came from the Frome side

All roads lead there perhaps

And maybe they paid in kind

In book bind, double blind

On the summit of knowledge

When you know it all

You find out you know nothing

So Burn your books by the pallet

Burn them in Shepton Mallet

Burn them tooth and nail

I'll go over with a fine tooth comb

To find these lost words

In the ashes of Canard's Grave

She had kittens

 She had kittens

You said

I said boys or girls

You said both

I imagined an impossible world

Kittens, really, from a woman's womb

I hope they are normal

I mean as normal as wombats at Wimbledon

As whimbrels at Wombleton

Angry fur balls

Or merely sage

Wise beings, these kittens

At least on the page

the be-all and end-all

 the be-all and end-all

 

the most important thing:

We all agreed that winning was not the be-all and end-all.

Moo cows

Moomins

Moomax

Moopin

Primax

Mirrormoo

Shoe wax

Shimmershoe

The largest event in Northern Europe

The Dinosaurs never saw it

The flammingoes

Parrot style

Filming

Carrots while

Waiting for oranges to turn red

And Robins where do they go

In the summer hey

Ball on ball, on ball

Like Newton and his apples

Je m' apple

Give me an apple

How do you like dem apples

Appellation trails

What mint tea could bring

Starving

Of oxygen

Hot street

Like water into wine

 When the banks were brought down upon us

And the Bakelite sheen wore off 

I pore my heart with a watering can 

But as I watered the roses of my garden

What came out was only blood

And when I opened my veins with a knife from B and Q

What came out was water

I say, who knew?

Well Who knew was Wessex water - when they imposed a hose pipe ban

We had to turn our blood into water

And then our blood was turned into wine

Well what a miracle did unfold

As the valleys all dried up

A man there walking on water

Except he did it in a drought

and in fact he walked on pillars of salt

And he built his home on pillars of sand

And oh shake my hand some more

For this water is the blood of the land

And if you ban my blood

Well I might as well slit my drains

And let the water flood

Until the arrival of the rains

Third party fire and theft

 It was the third party I went to

And I really wasn't insured

For fire theft and damage

Oh I really can't get bored

First a man blew up the kettle

Next the water mains burst

Then I saw a rusted piece of metal

But it was gold of course

The lady had left her jewellery out

Well what a dope I thought

It surprised me not

When I heard the shot

And knew I had been caught

I was the thief at the party

I was the fire starter

I was the sod, the act of God

My blood was what caused the flood

Insure me if you like

I'm going to prison for stealing a bike

There is not much you can untie

From a story made of knots

Toy Poi

 Poi what's your reason?

Poi to go round and round

The joy of the season?

The sights and the sounds

Butterflies,

Wabbage Kites

Savage knights

On horses bites

The power and the poison,

The poison and the power

Chasing in circles, in circles

round and round

Fly after the sun, 

Fly towards the light

Its moth dance

Poi father riding in the clouds

Poi son dripping from the needle

Anecdotes, speaking antidotes

Castle clock

 The castle walls of Bishop's rock

That tick away with tidal clock

And listen on a body engraved by time

Listen to the water clock,

Time it rolls on

Ever the peaks and troughs ensue

Lapping at the laces

sapping at the shoe

Clapping hands in races

Of the egg and spoon

Holding up your swimming aces

Letting flags of colour croon

Body mark of the waves

The Bishop's hats, the white slaves

Driven by relentless whip

Driven kind or thirsty at the water's lip

I'm a high tide, and then a low

Pulled by the moon in tow

None can escape its sway

I'm waist deep in time

The further out I wade

Time's ocean laps the shore

And ripples underwater tones

If this air we breath is living

Then underwater is the sinking stone

Forever marking river bone

Ever reaching for the sunset

Scrambling an infinite egg

The gold we tried to gather

The rainbows loot we never get

Sun brows knitted, finally release

And time like a knife cuts us loose 

Into a land of blessed peace

Can we ever touch the sun

Or find the horizon

Some time when I am neck deep

I will look to you

To hold the tides of time back

Oh just before we both shall sleep