Keep wandering

 I found you in the bar room 

And lost you in the pond

While I was eating Hemlock

Like some philosopher

But stones get thrown at glass houses

And I'm just one of those

You showed me how the world could be

Seen through another's eyes

It's just your kind of cutting room talk

Don't give the truth a big enough part

I just wish you well

From the bottom of my inkwell

Give me a pen to write my name

Perhaps I can remember it pretty soon

It's just this cell division

I'm having trouble with

Meiosis or Mitosis between your soul and mine

You see like a weed I clinged to your roots

Now I'm drawing the line

I've got to hope for a better view

One with new life assured

It's been a whole bonfire of the vanities

For me to see the clear light of day

Because truth has a terrible face

And sometimes to face it we must pay

A heavy price for freedom

But what hope is there is in mud?

I am just a tumbleweed who blew right into town

And I will blow on out again before the sundown

It's easy to speak in foreign tongues 

When you were born to wander far

And I must keep on travelling

Following my guiding star

Factory patina

 Oh my factory patina

Oh my factory patina

Oh little star that shines

In that heart of mine

Oh my factory patina

Work 12 hrs a day

Just for the glory to give me my pay

Just for the story about me to say

How about it Senorita?

You want to dance on the factory floor?

You like my factory patina?

Shadows play on the factory wall

Where I park my Ford cortina

living on cider street

Living like an outsider

Always just out of reach

Living on cider street

Cars parked along the beach

Of this bobbing shore

vanilla ice cream clouds

In a pink blue sky's azure

Oh you like my factory patina

Well how about it Senorita?

Rosey apples shining sweet

All its juices running down the street

Dance in splashes of flashing feet

As laughter smashes up concrete

Living on cider street 

They made you in a darkened room

Compressed air and hydrogen balloons

All blown up with gas

Like a Zeppelin mass

Oh but you burnt so fine

Oh my factory patina

Just one coat on the boat

Where they're casting their vote

All to make the sun shine

Look at the shadows on the wall

They play like animals climb

This time of day in the sun's dying rays

Oh doesn't make your heart chime

Oh my factory patina

All the workers park cortinas

So how about it Senorita

Will you dance the factory line with me?

Up the conveyor belt of our dreams

Into the bottle of soda streams

Guzzling gas like limousines

I've got a rash feeling

Oh the red and the black

The red rust of night

In the lamp light

Black of the dust in the apple cart

That upset the boy

Who pulled the world apart

And ran about screaming 

His head off

And how about the green

On the cutting lawn

That little piece of wild

That made you laugh and yawn

In relaxation like a child

After the rising of the dawn

When the night has spun away its darkness

Oh factory patina

At the end of the world

When you can create no ark

To rescue boy or girl

From the encircling shark

That threatens to whirl

The whole thing apart

In a thrash and furl

And different kinds of cars

Just like jam jars

Full of sugar and lime

I ain't bitter no mama

I ain't no quitter either

I've got a heart that shines

In the rain and slime

As long as I'm with my factory patina

cider street

 This side, that side,

Every side you'll meet

When you're inside, you're outside

Living on cider street

On cider street they have your back

On cider Street you're scrumpy Jack

On cider street it's stinky feet

Walking through the sheppey leat

Everywhere another rose

Another garland another

Lily grows

You better beware before they

Stone the crows

Then frame you for their murder

And everyone knows 

Which way the wind blows

Blowing down cider street

I've got to take note

Oh I must take care

To count every vote

And number every hair

On the head of the dote

Who put me there

But the cream floats

On cider street

And if you ask me for a dollar

Well I'm sorry friend

I'll have to hollar

All things must go

Cause all things are hollow

Living on cider street

Give me a chest

And I'll show you the world

Keep me abreast

And I'll find you a pearl

But in great distress

I'd give you a twirl

While we're dancing

Down cider street

Give me a heart

Teach me not to sin

I'm playing a part

But I'm no linchpin

Right from the start

I knew what I was in

And its name was cider street

Millfield Enterprise English summer schools

 You know Millfield Enterprises will use you

Recycle you like pieces of trash

For them you're the shit

On the bottom of their shoes

But without you, they'd never make cash

Oh they sell an English summer programme

Like English is the prize, it's the goal

Of every parent and child

Who's ever dreamt wild

That for them the streets are paved with gold

Oh yes Millfield promises you everything

Oh yes they scoop the cream of the crop

For they have no scruples, they take Yen, Dime or Rubles

As long as the money goes to the top

Yes you've got to be in it to win it

And it helps if you come from right stock

No field hermit in their stella-biography

It's not geography or democracy but cock

Oh breed from the right family won't you?

Eugenics and racism here

Of course if you're black then they have your back

As long as you're not black and queer

Look, just listen they're a charity

Look how needy they are

With their seven tennis courts

With their car parks full of plush cars

But no the poor sods who work there

Are not the beneficiaries of fame or power

They just screen the nuts, plaster over the cuts

To raise up their Babylonian tower

Yet somewhere their rich bankers are sitting

Eating fine lamb in luxury

Laying on the bed of ill-gotten gains

Invested in their so called charity

If you ever need proof humans are greedy

Look no further than Street

Let your eyes rise up to the hill there

And see what they call making ends meet

These lowly managers are cowards

Because these people worship the dollar

They want nothing more

Than telly and a cure

They'll stand up for you like a jelly

Under pressure it's not that they crack

They just put all the work on you like a donkey

And expect you not to break your back

If you think you have value there believe me

They are about as trustworthy as a bag for life

Made out of the hair brains and screwball

Ideas that cause them to jack knife

If ever they had a personality they leave it at the door

Because they are just one of many

In factory for the Rich kids to get rich more

So let them live in their homesteads

In their stately palace's greed

Let them shave every penny of the salaries

Of their inferior breed

What measure is a man?

To what scale can you measure his worth?

A pound of his flesh on the balances

Is it worth the sound of his mirth?

Sell your soul at what cost?

Sell it and work for the devil

For there's nothing of God

In those unholy sods

He only lives in the poor and dishevelled 

Tree of time

 As I walked out on a midday dash

The mighty oak on the hill side stashed
Like a Spanish Galleon full of gold
This relic of a bygone age so old

As I walked out on an afternoon dash
The sun was rising in the fields of Ash
The wind caught its sails and the ship did stand
Like spider on eight legs upright and grand

As I walked out on an evening stroll
the wind was blowing like a bell that tolls
And the Oak like a harbour for my soul
Kept me safe from the biting maul

As I walked out on a midnight dash
The Old oak was breathing as an octopus splash
Its heart was livng but only skin deep
For centuries unforgiving its secrets to keep

As I walked out on a morning's stroll
Its green crown was balanced as a Yorick's skull
Held by a Hamlet from a timely stage
Speaking his lines to the wind and an age

That is lost now unless on the page

Good Bye George

Living in the land of the dead

I met george the widower a few months ago, he had died, knockeddby a tram, his wife still lived across the street. It was difficult for him, the way it had happened - he knew it was an accident but couldn't quite for give himself. He saw his wife getting on with life. It was bad the way God or whoever, made him stay on after death, seeing her daily as a ghost.
The thing was that it was not all mangled body etc, it was his soul, in a corporeal form as it was before he had died, so to george it was even harder to accept his predicament -what is wrong with me, he often asked.
You're dead George I answered.
The thing is I was never sure whether I was alive or dead. I was definitely his familiar that meant I had to hang around him, we were just waiting for that cut off time, when I would have to go and find another soul to latch onto and he, finally might get peace ever after, but it seemed a long time coming.
Is this purgatory? He would ask
I mean I am just a cat, I do not have a deep metaphysical philosophy to back me up. Granted I've lived about 8 lives, and have only one more, so I should know more than the average Jo, or say a badger - but that doesn't mean I have knowledge of the inner workings of God's mind. You just have to be patient George.
That was it, that was all the comfort I could give.
Poor George
So mostly I spent my time walking along fences and city walls.

Willow tree cry

Willow tree, willow tree cry for me

Willow tree, willow tree do

Willow tree on the pond

With the icy frond

Willow tree when the cold north wind blew

Willow tree, willow tree cry for me

Willow tree, willow tree on the bank

Willow tree, willow tree cry for me

Willow tree, your leaves show your thanks

Willow tree's bare in the wintry air

Willow tree has no friend

And in the winter throes when the north wind blows

Well the willow tree does bend

Moorhens scuttle along the track

Egrets roost bright white in black

As jackdaws in sweeping clouds attack

The perching boughs of the Egret's stack

Willow tree, willow tree cry for men

Cry for the coot and the little moor hen

Don't it look cute just like the little wren

Scooting about where the willows wend

Willow tree, willow tree cry for women too

For when they break mens' hearts they know not what they do

They blow the wind that makes the bough bend

And when the bough breaks the story must end

Willow tree, willow tree cry for me

And all love stories that have to be

That grow to the light, and stand up tall

Then when the time's right the tree must fall

Willow tree willow tree cry for me

Willow tree there's no looking back

When the north wind blows, you must let love go

Because time is a one way track