river of songs

 Rivers and streams

I came down from the mountain

into the stream

I was in the follow through

But it rushed as it gleamed

Like golden glitter

Like in a dream

I didn't know I was in the river

But it was only your jet stream

It took me up through the valley

Down the fettered rhines

I nearly felt better

As I saw the green hills

I didn't know where I was going

Only where I'd been

Well I thought it was a river

But it was only your jet stream

I socked a punch at the moon

And knocked out the sun

It fell like a balloon

Down on everyone

Soon we were covered

But the river it flowed on

Well I called it a river

But it was a sea of song

Nyolcas - the buckled wheel

 Took my bike to the bicycle shop

The one on Kada ut

The guy there was like "I don't speak English"

I'm not even gonna say hello

He wore this dark mask on his face

This plaintiff unmerciful look

As if he accused me of stealing his rainbow

That a Siamese twin should know

He cycled back to his banana republic

Of being alone

When I think of all the cruel things

People say, my heart turns into a stone

This land is not a kind one

This is pick a bone

This is smile and you get kicked in the teeth

This land says "Leave me alone!"

What is the point of helping these folks

Who care not a tuppence for me

What is the point of giving them taxes

So with their laws they can

Stop me being free?

I am sure such a land is a murder field.

I am sure they'll crucify me

If they knew what I thought

Of their dumb ass navigation

Through the world of democracy

This place could be the worst in Europe.

This place is a Soviet Stooge

It is biding its time for an invasion

Then with Russia it will cause a deluge

And pack up the Warsaw Pact

And write for treatments of treaties at home

And put right all that Trianon put wrong

And finally end up all alone

No the wheel doesn't turn straight

It's bent, bent as a copper

It has been beaten

By the forces of state

Its spokesmen are out of whack

By a whopper

And you may Big Mac your way to the top

On European subsidies

But if you take from the Robber barons of

The East, from your debts you'll never

get free.

So why don't you straighten out your own wheel

The wheel of your democracy

Because until you give the spokespeople

Full freedom of speech

All you'll get is a jelly state that will wobble

and topple

And if you look to your own people to fix it

I'm afraid they're as corrupt at the bottom

as they are at the top

You need a new system of administration

If you want this corruption to stop

Identity

 It is a bit of a come down

But I'd come to expect this of life

In its lifeless distress,

The clock ticks on but I'm not bored

I've just become like the stone on the sword

Waiting like a weight

Heavy as a date gone wrong

But this is meant to be my song

I was a someone, once

But that was all pretence

And I should not be afraid

To throw off my disguise

My make up had started to flake

And there was a small dark look in my eyes

And a sense of the fake

The imposter crept into my skin

I had to drop all the lies

So that was when then

I lost everything like Trump

I must admit defeat

Perhaps it does take more courage say

I didn't win

And return tail between my legs back home

To England

Because I never wanted this ego

This ID that was created by circumstance

Inflated opinion of one

Who is a native English man in a foreign clime

But really I'm

nothing special, just one who had a chance

And took it.

But back in England I am nothing

To speak about

I will need about a year of hard graft

To turn things around

And get back on my feet financially

And now there is a slim window of opportunity

I may be able to grasp

If only I can let go of Hungary and my ID

Low cost

Honey you're so low cost
Why don't you just get lost
You know you are so low cost
You walk in and I feel your frost
Creeping up my neck I want to scream
Into the pages of my magazine
No I don't mind about your baggage
Just don't bring to me your luggage
Now just get lost

Honey you're so low cost
Why don't you just get lost
You know you are so low cost
You kick me out like trash tossed
You might think we are just savages
But all you cause are ravages
Now just get lost

I don't see you anywhere joshed
Hiding behind the last post

Taken for granted

 Taken for granted

Basic and slanted like a tree in the wind

Of the wood

Slanted like the wood

The basic income

The basic good

Taken for granted,

taken for granted

I can see the cure

But I don't want to take it

I'm high on life

and the ride

Is killing me

in spoonfuls

of sugar

She was just some image on the wall

Stuck like a poster

Beyond it all

Yet in the centre

Of the feeling

Thank you

Thank you for the flower from India
I received her pressed in a cardboard shoe box
She had a Saffron head
Smelt of Juniper
Reminded me of the subcontinent
A pity she was dead
Thank you for the thought
From India sent
Mumbai street scenes
Elephant grass, high humidity
Of boggy marshes
The tiger's trail ahead
Thank you for these false dreams
The cut out conveniences
Of mind, snipped, cellotaped at the seams
To run the reel of old India
In my post-colonial, mobile-phone-rung mind

Gate Road

 Down to the gate road,

And beside the running brook

The gargling of sea gulls

As the starving starlings look

The road is cold

The frost takes hold

But robin cheerily sings

things unfold

He is bold to talk of happy things

And mist enfolds the hills

And clings to valley bottoms

It is sticky in the trees

Where the river sheppey rolls

But not forgotten

And we wander over storks of fields

We crunch in icy puddles

As spinneys of trees shine on hill tops

And the sun breaks through

As a yellow shield shining

Through bright dew drops

And snaking along the treeline

The sheppey does take shape

And lifts the pages of the mist

Like bed sheets from its face

The old oak with the spidery crown

Waits beside the gate

And we take turns to clamber down

Across a broken field stile plate

The post is rotten in the ground

It wobbles and it shakes

As we walk around the Lorax patch

Where the cocks crow as men of state

The hens are brooding in their hutch

Like glamorous fashion models

Kept there ready to lay such and such

A golden egg to bottle

As proudly strutting cockerels parade

Their fleeces, like dandified fops

Their ruffs like Elizabethan curls

The court of the Queen of chops

Off with their heads she cries

And headless chickens run a mock

And chicken feet run down the street

And upon the hills spill their blood

As the Cathedral peeps over the brows

Of hills which are vacant of cows

And streaming white whiffs of clouds

Float gently in the blue

I can see through these see through days

Can you see through me too

Invisible in the olden ways

Awaiting the tides of new

As I bend down to tie my shoe

A cockerel cries a murder blue

And digesting all that we've been through

I fill it up and bring it to you

You offer it back like your take affront

I take it back but not from want

I wish I could give, but what I have

Is taken up by the ditch grab