Swimmer's cave

 while I was still young

I loved the truth and the gun

And all the youth poured

Out

Like gushing juice

From Over Niagra

Niagra, viagra

I have some vision of Las Vegas

And the nights are gone

But spent in Wild passion with you

Except

I was someone else

And perhaps

That dream is a book upon your shelf

But one day, some day

We have to live without

The confines of the pages

And book spine

I gave away in a glance

All the sea shells of youth 

That yet lie washing up

In the tide

I give you these cockel shells

nautiless, to listen into

And what you hear are echoes

of a sea I once swam in

Between the ears

 At last it came that I saw the light

The frazzled one of dawn

Too many nights of being alive

But at least I have been born

And seeing you

I brushed my hair

My fingers like electric eels there

Carried your thoughts and dreams

Into my consciousness salmon swimming stream

I fished for you

Down the years

And thought I caught you

Between the ears

Hearing me

But when I heard you

And your poetry

I had to leave

abandon

All the false dreams of youth

And ill pursuit

For you write a line

And it's not cute

It's searing and real

And it shows how you feel

I lay down my pen

And rest my case

Wooden man

There'll be blue birds over the white cliffs of somebody who used to like diving

Trip adviser score for Wuhan Wet market

Yard

Retiring like a dragonfly

He rules his kingdom

With an iron rod

There's no one above him

No one except God

And he gets to say who lives and who dies

With a nod of his head

Or a look from his eye

He is judge and jury

And the hangman

You can draw me in there

I'm a dead man

They tried me once

Below the flag pole

When they ran up the flag

So deep sank my soul

How long, how long,

How long you may ask

How long will I stand it

How long is my task

Will I abide and keep quiet

Hold my tongue

Let it pass

Well I find it so hard but I try it

The red man came to stand in the flame

And the yellow man too he did the same

Now the black man lived and died not in vain

But to the white man in charge

Its all just a part of his game

How long, how long will we wait to be free

Free from turmoil and flood and the blood of the the sea

Where is the love from which we can all be

With the wings of a dove flying like he

The coalman came to blacken my soul

And the hardman came to harden my heart

And I lost control of my horse and cart

And it pulled down the road where lovers part

How can, who can know his own fate

The garden of Eden, St Peter waits at the gate

But who will get there early, and who will be late

Now I don't have flower power, but I know Spring is a state

X-ray-ted

 The X-ray machine was broken

They scanned his body

But nobody had spoken 

And no one saw the flash

But they suspect the skeleton stole the negative

Someone saw a whitebone stuck out

Leaving the door

The heel bone

Somehow the machine jammed

And his bones got left on the photograph

The man stepped out - the flesh man part

And said - I feel weak at the knees

Then he collapsed into a heap of skin and muscle

That will take some explaining

Thought the radiographer

Call in the cleaner she will have to hustle

Then the matron who was keeping an eye on the place

Peered around the corner

And saw the skeleton

wandering down the corridor

Looking a bit sheepish

It's the first time they've let him out,

Observed one old patient from his bed

Looks a bit unsteady on his feet - said another woman

Sure they should have given him a frame at least

Come on on young fellow

And a buxom dinner lady guided the skeleton

Into the canteen, would you look at you

There's not an ounce of meat on you

Lets get you well fed

You look like you need a good dinner

Meanwhile back in the X-ray Department

The Radiographer said to the cleaner

"Put that man on ice!"

Right away Dr, which ice might that be?

Don't you dr me, I'm not your medicine woman

I'm a physicist I work with the real, the here and now

Time and matter, and right now Time matters!

Is it of an essence Doctor?

Yes shirely, it surely is, if we don't cryogenically freeze

This man's vital organs, muscle and skin tones

There will be nothing but mush left

To reattach to his bones

To the emergency heart transplant room now

And talk to the surgeon

They surely must have a theatrical solution

So they rushed the man's remains

In the cleaners mop bucket

All along the corridors of power

up until well they thought

Fuck it!

Let's go in here - the ice room

And this was the winter palace where

They hung up the skins of those patients

Unfortunate enough to have missed their insides

And also the insides which were missing their skins

Eyeball missing their lids

And even some frozen parents who were missing their kids

And were put on ice until their kidnapped children

Had again been tracked down

The British government believe it stopped them worrying so much

Which of course it did

And so they hung up this man in there to freeze dry

Right now that's done and dusted let's track down his old bones

They must be walking around somewhere!?

Another nurse comes out Doctor, doctor!

Don't call me that I'm a radiographer, call me Mrs X

Alright Mrs X, well Mr Ray has gone missing from your department

Oh no, not another one!

Who on earth turned that X-ray machine back on?

I told them it was faulty, I told them it was flawed

But would they fix it would they ever?

They told me I was bored

And had too much time doing nothing in the day

Just twiddling my poor thumbs

Waiting for an X-ray

Well it came

Like bolt from the blue end of the spectrum

Like lightening from the Gods, in Ultraviolet detection

It was Infra-dig and Infra-red and they might have called it a day

But instead they called me Doris X and my machine Mr Ray

It should have been Mr Ree you see they say, because noone 'ere knows how it works

But I do you see I got a degree

In Nuclear Magnetoscopy  - I can spin the particles

And weave them waves and caused a knitting thread

To ball up inside your head

I can Tell an MMR machine from a catscan

And I can PET a man and call him a dog

I can read your palms like I read your bones

You it's all written in the stars

and in the sticks and stones

So it doesn't matter what you call it

Just as long as you say

I am Mrs X and I'm married to Mr Ray

There can only be one explanation for why it did go wrong

And that must have been when that Mrs Jones brought in his little son

And he didn't want to have the X-ray unless he had his Ted

So he brought poor Ted in there with him

And poor Ted wasn't hidden behind any lead

So I think he got a blast full-force of a dose of ray

And now he is X-ray-ted and he has been on his way

I saw him fly down the corridor, 

Surely more super than any Teddy before

this Super ted 

Clapping hands and smiling to all the patients poor

Oh surely this must be the reason

Why Mr Ray has lost Mojo for sure

We must find and trap this Superteddy

Before he does unknown damage

Oh come my little pretty -

Do you mean me Dr?

Yes of course I mean you Shirely,

And don't call me Doctor!

I am Mrs X, with my mean and perhaps dualistic X-ray machine Mr Ray

I won't let them take you away from me my love

It is lucky you are mobile on four wheels

We can just disguise you as a trolley and wheel you out of here

Shirely you can be the dead body ok!

Anything you say Doctor, I can do a good impersonation of a corpse

Of course you can Shirely of course you can!

Right next stop the morgue and from there to the outside car park where we will load

Mr Ray into my van.

Super-ted you won't escape my clutches now ah haha ha ha ...ha!

My Directory of Bleeding Hearts

This is my directory of bleeding hearts
She sits in her bed waiting for the cold
To touch her leg
The cold is her Mr Man
The only one she invites to warm her egg
And he comes also
When the dawn is breaking
And half herself is in the other world
And the other is still clawing
To make it up with you

And on the shore
The waves are crashing onto the land
The flooding waves
Are stretching their ringed fingers
Deep into the sand
Losing their precious jewels and
Moonstones Somewhere only
Time and God understand
As we walk our feet
Along the shore
leaving footprints
In the sand

The cymbals clash
The drums beat
The thunderstorm
echoes down the street
People hide indoors
But one goes out to meet
The rain
Tap dancing soles
Diamond feet

She splashes up the puddles vein
Like arteries of falling rain
She follows up the steep hillside
And as she goes she slip slides

Oh always pain, this pain inside
This mortal frame where we reside
Can we cut out a hole for our soul
Can we let it bleed without control?

Can she escape? Can truly I
Rise above mistakes
Like a cloud in the sky
But I am a fake, just a model guy
I stand by the lake watch my hopes fly

Like geese, like bleeding hearts
Forever sewn-flown into the sky
I remember the pattern
How I was sewn into you
My patchwork heart
Your needle and thread
Pulling the pieces together
I thought were dead
Making the quilt
We will lie under in bed
Free from faking guilt
Just the roll of thunder instead

My cotton wool eyes
In the blue, blue skies
Sometimes the verdant green
Of all the islands we have seen
Sometimes vermilion of the dark valley
The villainy of passion
The 3 am street or alley

The yellow of a tram
That we speak on
Conversations of nonsense
Let you know who I am

The silver grey of rails
That run across this land
That neither of us can escape from
The train wreck, rubber neck
Tin pan alley man

The bite of remorse

 The con climbed over the wall

He scaled the razors and barbs

And miraculously those little sabours

Left his flesh unharmed

The he ran with the spirit of a rabbit

Darting the spot lighted eye

The search the perimeter horizon

He was determined that he would not die

Next after swimming the short moat 

He found himself in the cemetry

At least when they measured his pulse

They'd note no unusual telemetry

So not to be down beat, he let his heart and feet

Rest a while

And the hint of a smile

Began to creep across his face

This graveyard was a god send, the peace and quiet

Ensured he'd be undisturbed for at least another few hours

Except then he remember, tomorrow was the Day of the dead 

There would be women bearing flowers

And men bowing their heads

At least for now he could rest in peace

Or at least that's what the tombstones said

He was overcome by tiredness and drifted into sleep

The veil of the other world opened up

And in his dreams he could peep

He saw the ghosts of his loved ones

Uncles aunts and cousins

And then he noticed something stirring in the bushes

But he was paralysed by sleep's soft bosoms

Suddenly a twig snapped

And he was jolted awake

Wide-eyed and blinking

He surveyed his surroundings

and it was all he could do to stop thinking:

Someone is watching me!

..Or something...

Nothing moved, and the night was still

But then a scurry a movement quick as a flash behind a grave stone

And then again it popped out two furry ears

And his nerves were allayed

Just a rabbit he softly spoke

And all tension left him as he got the joke

The lucky rabbit's foot, he remembered in his pocket

And rubbed it for good luck

Somebody up there must still love me

But as he looked up searching the night sky

Through the branches of the lime tree

He seemed to see two green jewels starring back at him

Unlike any stars he'd witnessed before

Then the realization dawned

Oh God a figure in the branches above

But it was too late

It, whatever 'it' was

Had swooped down upon him

And its superhuman strength had wrestled Joseph to the ground

It seemed a swirl

It was over in a flash

The creature had sunk its long fangs

Into his neck and was drinking his blood

Joseph began to feel weak

As his strength was leaving him

But it was beyond him to speak

Greed nation

 I think we're turning German

In our cars, in our cars

Shaped like pandas and podgy rabbits

We race around like contented Chinese men

We have the veneer of China,

You are what you consume

After all in the technology, the

blatant and obvious over consumerism

Because what else is there to do in a vacuous life

But grow fat

Body building

And mechanizing ourselves

Just the rich grow richer

The poor stay where they are

Watching the fat cats driving their cars