The Heart of Wessex

 Haul away to Salisbury

I'll not be back today

We load the stock

With brick and rock

And Quarrying we may

Well Johnny's on the line ma

He's a rolling car

The buds are blooming in the sidings

The broom and Buddleia

They get on board at Weymouth

They alight thar at Frome

And by the time of Castle Cary

Well there wasn't any room

They've been a holidaying

Down the Heart of Wessex line

But it's alright, the car is tight

Johnny's rolling all the time

Well haul away to Salisbury

And back to Cattistock

We hit bad weather 

At Marston Magna

And Rolled back to West Radstock

Now nevermind Bathampton

Westmoreland or Bath Spa

It's Limpley Stoke

With the Freshford folk

Who'll climb into his car

He never knew a girl before 

Like the one from St Anne's Park

She could quick draw

And from her maw 

She drew a big dog's bark

It was called the Heart of Wessex

the beating Vena Cava

The artery, the pulmonary

The vein and semi quaver

If ever there was a left leg

They'd call it Weymouth Quay

If ever blood went to their head

In Temple Meads they'd be

Now here's the heart of Wessex

A pumping people home

Up and down the West Country

From Salisbury to Frome

Now speaking of a right hand

Across to Clevedon pier

Upon the Cheddar Valley line

All drinking Strawberry beer

Upon the Great Western Railway

Isambard Kingdom Brunel

He built the bridge across the Avon cliffs

Johnny knew him very well

Now Johnny comes a walking

Down the tracks that he once rolled

The tunnels where he blew his whistle

Along strawberry hills he strolled

Now the beating heart of Wessex doesn't

Pump no more of his blood

But the tracks that once held his stacks

Are now covered in his mud

Yes Johnny's in the cab

Shovelling the coal

And he's the steam of fires seen

As the rolling stock does roll

And the body is not working

But it's still living mind and soul

And the ghost of Johnny Firkin

Still hauls down on the Wessex roll

A plague on all your houses

In the dawn of Budapest
The city sleeps
I get no rest
The wind whistles up the streets
Where babies are born a new

And in each house a plague

Sin cities

 Sin city

Budapest, and Bristol too

Paris and Naples

Are too Staples of the choir

Singing the Sin city song

Tokyo is dirty

Prague is a nest of vipers

And New York ranks among the wipers

Clearing mud and crud from screens

What is this sinful sordidness

Seedy alley and dark doorways

Tempting sailors and young men away

From the light side of the road

London's greasy underbelly

Athen's heat strung out their poor

Shanghai's dizzy sparkling lights

Hongkong's techno neon nights

Sinful cities where their snakes bite

Their dogs bear their teeth white

Like lady's of the night whose skin shines bright

As their pimps bark through the dark

From purple suits and fur seats

And twinging red lights that blink

On and off

City limits, borderlines

Who crosses over? Who loses themselves?

In those cities of sin

Perspective

 The Ying and the Yang

The otherside,

 all opposites attract - love

all opposites repel - politics

The private

and The public

Always between the two

No one can help

The twisting turning

Turning

In the world at war

Turning in the family core

Because all is a storm

And all is calm

In the heart

In the chaos

All is change

And ever has been

Shepton Open Gardens

 Following the trail train

Like a bee come

and gone again

Threading through

The prison garment button holes

It's harder to escape

From cloth

Cloth-ears

And stone imprinted on the sack

The wrack of tears

It was just a widow's window

From where prisoners leer

The sadness hardens like mud

In the sun

It cracks

And new shoots have begun

To spring up between

When it goes soft in the rain

My face her face

The mud or clay

It doesn't make much

Difference at the end of the day

Trudging to the gardens

It was a pleasure

I must say

To walk up the steps of hallowed houses

Painted gay

And hold like a thistle your love

On Labour's day

When the work stopped

We all walked round

To give thanks and pray

Tell me how you did it

Made this hydrangea climb?

Or that Campanella

Spread out like that?

Tell me how you paved the path?

Or made a standing stone?

Or took a building made of glass

And called it your home?

Tell me did you paint your gnomes?

Oh did you sew those seeds?

Did the Georgians clip their hedges?

Had they the green sleeves?

Did their finger tips turn brown, then 

More yellow and green?

Oh tell me why do you where a crown

When you are not a queen?

Oh so la de da, oh so lady Grey

So the Singing night jar

In the tree of Bay

I think it's a Viburnum

Perhaps cotoneaster

Ten weeks, ten sacks

Ten nettles later

Seven letters to the council

Should turn 'em

Oh I love your Verandah

See how the turf does lay

Just a soft mattress

Oh see the lambs lay down in the hay

Watch out I think there's a panda

Hiding in the bamboo

Shoo, shoo, you fellow gerrymander

Setting up your signs of blue

Look out nobody's weeded

Oh but it gives a natural hue

I prefer it when it is needed

For it gives us something to do

Though we strive for perfection

There we usually come up short

And if you ever knew yourself

When you were young and foolish

Did you always do what you ought?

But we are given a license to F*** up

At that age

It's just to keep repeating the same mistakes

Only leaves you looking like you're missing

a page

When you're lacking a pen and ink pot

Yes though it looks like the rain

The pigeons

Still queue on the sill

And Even the crows

Know what they know

That it's only time we're

all trying to kill

Jackass and father's day

 Balls to boules 

the posh French prats

Off with their, off with their

heads

The Queen of Hearts

The Queen of Tarts

Baking all day again

The bishop farts

In his castle keep

Surrounded by the rain

The vain moat

The holy goat

The smoking Bent piranha

It's getting past a joke

I cannot gloat

As I'm sat here wearing

Pyjamas

Stick them up their ......

It's a piece of cake

The jack could fit

Up their ass

Jackass

Bishop's palace

Bishop's eye

We bouled them out we did

His eyes were balling

Like a kid

The Bishop had a log in his

Pull it before you

Talk about a stick in his

The green was oh so perfect

So unlike Eden

You couldn't believe it

Sacrosanct halls

Well painted interiors

Smelling of the lush value of superiors

Or those who give themselves

Just so much self-esteem

As God doesn't give them

This is Ego's dream

Riven from the arrogance

And pride of Hallowed halls

Where hypocrisy is the bride

And the Wedding vows are called

Just so You know The place I mean

It's the Bishop's Palace

Wells

On the Bowling Green

The self-preservation society

They're called

All things come to those who wait

It's just the time is lean

And As the time gets thinner

So the Greed gets mean

As you realize if you're a winner

You must swallow your pride

The problem is the tongue

Gets in the way

And you end up saying what you

Should not ever say

You see that's the way a beginner begins

Believing in the almighty

He realises he has everything to learn

Still at the age of ninety

Because it's not about your coat tails

Or the way you dress your pudding

But it's all about the summer days

And the mess you make of gooding

All the good and all the bad

All tied up in your old dad

Our father who art in Bruton

Hallowed be thy name

Humdinger

 It's a humdinger

And a bell ringer

A hum dinger today

It was a humdinger

A dumb singer

And a gunslinger today

They say don't finger

The harbinger

Don't you linger at bay

Get yourself a good winger

Make sure she's a bringer

And get yourself on your way

It was a hum dinger a real

Gun slinger

That shot down my baby today

Full finger, pulled the trigger

And soon my baby did sway

It was a humdinger

Like a sling-shot slinger

That laid Goliath in his grave

Thrown by David slayer of tyrants

Who stood up to the giant's tyrade 

He was a humdinger

A bell ringer

The shot down my baby today

In the shade of Sherwood forest

Where the holly trees stand with the bay