You have to see
That I said I loved you
With my eyes and not
My tongue
This means
I wish you sweet lullabies
But not another rung
I climbed the ladder to you
Up in the stars which sung
Cold about stories from mars
And the man in the moon who hung
You have to see
That I said I loved you
With my eyes and not
My tongue
This means
I wish you sweet lullabies
But not another rung
I climbed the ladder to you
Up in the stars which sung
Cold about stories from mars
And the man in the moon who hung
I'm searching for the nitty gritty
Getting down and dirty with the crew
I'm checking all my facts
Balancing equations til I'm blue
Like rabbits pulled from hats
Or streams down a sinkhole
Money flows or so I'm told
Into this vast cavern
And the devils in the detail
But he wears a thorny crown
I'm digging for dignity
dig for the nitty-gritty
When the chips are down
The cave mouth
And the stalactite teeth have fallen out
And the gaping cave monster
Begins to shout
I think no
It's only a moan
Because it's got toothache
A cavity beneath
A stalagmite
An abscess in the root
Where is the root of this mountain?
Washed with listerine
That like incy wincy spider
Runs down the spout
And comes out unseen
Life it ain't no bed of roses
Sometimes can be like a bed of thorns
Indeed when your love rejects your poesies
Then you can wish you'd never been born
But someday those thorns will grow back roses
And from the ashes will be a bed of straw
Then the lions will lie down with the asses
And the lamb and lady will come once more
Under the hill
And over the dale
The water runs on
In buckets and pails
And lamp lights glitter
The streets full of litter
Of the debris of the day of its flooding
Like getting blood from a stone
The mendips alone
Aren't places to roam
But men may atone
For sins they've committed
Or rights they've done wrong
The swords in the stone
Like the words in the song
And I have a home
In the hills of Rome
Like in Bath the seven paths
All lead to one
Beneath the settled slabs
The calcite, limelight
The shining light shone
Flashing in the darkness
Of Remembering black swan
Gliding on the white lake
Of certainty throngs
Of people gathering above
In the busy world all day-long
But in the quiet echo chambers
The sound reverberates
It's a kind of cranium
a skull
Hollowed out by evolution
Of the water-blood flow
To breathe new thinking space
Into the timeless blue
This hill is a head
That has been contemplating time
And the world for millennia
Each epoch creates a new network
Of channels
Water was its neurons
It had water on the brain
The rain fell on its crown
And it began to think
I am a hill, a rock
But what is a rock
But a composition of chemicals
Elements and minerals
A body waiting to react
To the lifeblood of water
And in the thinking it loses itself
A part is washed away in the flood
Of passing thought through the passages of time
Yet the loss is like a growth
A thinning of the excess weight
Of past ideas, preconceptions
And judgments about the world
That proved false
Or only true for the time they were laid down in
No longer a present reflection of the status quo
I drink and remember the times
In the Hungarian pub with Dorka
With a beer and an unicum, and
An unicum and a beer
And her showing me around
And the excitement I felt about being in Budapest and meeting her
And everything was new and thrilling
And I just don't feel that now
Everything feels numb
And dead to me
I wish it wasn't so
But it is
Maybe I'm depressed
I probably am
Maybe it's that life is as thin
As a slice of
Parma ham
And the night seemed filled with possibilities
Only I screwed it up like I always do
Like a piece of paper
In the trash I threw
Away all the love I felt for you
All the love
Like a velvet glove
So soft to touch
But I've had enough
Of stuff
Like guilt and gelded reasons
And postures meant for older seasons
I've met an elf
Who said the self
Is not what you make
But what you shelf
And store like a cake
a wealth of the twelfth
night or aching tooth
I've tried to evolve like some
Elven flower,
But I must admit I lack the power
To dynamite the proof
Of life from out the quarry of expectation
Where I live my life
Forever tunneling into
Hard rock excavations
But when I was in that pub, my heart was
Sore because I loved another amore
But could not walk back through that door
And yet the feelings lingered
And so not in might to move on
I kept singing a slow sad song
Of a deep river along
Which we meandered together
But up on the surface
I was flitting as a wagtail
On a river bank
Hopping like a turn
Dancing the cucaracha with Dorka
While inside singing of Saigon
And Madam Butterfly
Who I loved, but had to leave her
Like a sailor in a song
Yes and now that river is slow and dirty
Murky waters
Over wasted lands
What's polluted and what I've tasted
Is like sand falling through my hands
There was once a sweet spot in my heart
It's true, and I kept it oh for only you
But not for long, like the morning dew
We must depart
We're through
And I always had to be the barrel
Chaser
Walking on the rolling wagon
And off the double spacer
Taking love like a leaver
Pulled down by the believer
In the pub or in the pew
But here's the rub,
I was always in love
With you
Tickets and rail cards
Anymore refreshments
Going to hayford
Lots of them go up and down
Got him a dog
Found him in the garden
I said the garden! Not on a farm!?
In the gazebo
In the gazebo!
His names Kenny
We've got a Milo
That figures