The Gondolier's chat

 The Gondolier's song

You sticka ina de pole

You take a outta de pole

Hey presto

You are a Gondolier

Punting round the Venice canals

Blocking up the waterways

Punt the summer holidays

Punt oh punt away

Ye Gondoliers

Taxi drivers of the canal

LIfe for a gondolier is far from banal

Do you know who I had

In the back of my Gondola the other day?

South of Venice

This time of night

With this much traffic

You must be joking

My own worst enemy

 I fought him on the battleground

I found him out, I found him down

I brought him up, he beat me down

He's my own worst enemy

I bought him gold, but me he sold

Down the river bound in the hold

Like a product, a pound of flesh

I'm my own worst enemy

I fought him off, but he came back

All guns blazing, I should've guessed

He would attack

I locked him up under my bed

He's my own worst enemy

Some call him their shadow

They shadow box their soul

Some see him fly in through a window

Then break it when he loses all control

Sometimes I witness him in the mirror and

Ask myself, but I am unresolved

Whether to once and all do away

With my enemy, for without him

I would have little left at all

He kicks me out of bed in the morning

He slaps me in my face when I'm yawning

I try to drink a glass of water, he pours a bucket

of it over me

He's my own worst enemy

Orbit

 Living in the twilight zone

Nothing to me seems real

It's like my flashlight is on

But the wagon's lost its wheel

There's only so much psychic space that can 

be kept upon a hill

Eventually the bowl fills up

And then it overspills

And the witches they are circling

Upon their broom sticks in the night

Tying threads

And loosening them

As we're a sleeping tight

And we orbit each other 

like planets round a sun

Passing

sometimes like ships

Sometime together

Then alone as one

Each of us is a comet

An asteroid on its way

But the orbit round the solar field

Lasts 2 maybe 3 years they say

Then they come back into

our own gravitational  pull

And somehow we collide

inescapably like a fool

What is it we are all circling?

Is is some central sun?

Or is it a buried moon rock

Left over after each generation

Is it an empty sense of self?

Space is a vacuum they say

And nature abhors a vacuum

It must be filled in any way

Life is inevitable

It must carry on

Death just recycles

Energy back into the sun

The game

 Is it all just a game?

Just a game we are playing

Oh I wonder if you feel the same

It's just a game to me and you

Sometimes I feel shame

In the game we are playing

Sometimes I feel the pain

When I get hurt

Sometimes I take the blame

For the game we are playing

It's all just a game

Only a game, love's its name

You deal your hand

Queen of hearts

Am I Ace of spades?

I fall apart

Dig myself into an early grave

But I know my turn will come again

In the game we are playing

For love is like a year

Always turning, always changing

Sometimes love will grow

Like a garden for a showing

Sometimes love goes slow

Like an oak tree growing

But it's all just a game

Just a game oh love is growing

Like a willow it sometimes weeps

Like an aspen sometimes trembling

Sometimes love falls a sleep

On the wing a swallow resembling

But it turns, turns again

Like in the spring when they're returning

But it's all just a game

Yes love's a game we both are knowing

So do you or don't you feel the same

When I see in your eyes it's showing

River Brue

 Will you take me river Brue

To the other side 

Will you meet me at high tide

Where the Parrett meets

The Highbridge Clyce

Will you take me river Brue

Will you take me river Brue

I've been waiting on you

Will you take me by the Somerset rhynes

Will you take me river true

Will you take me river Brue

Oh I will meet you by the Brue

I will walk with you along her banks

From Bruton town 

To Meare's fine flanks

I'll walk with you my bride

Will you take me river Brue

Will you take me to the otherside

Will you meet me too, oh River Brue

Yes I'll meet you at low tide

Will you walk with me across the sands

Across the Berrow sands

Will you walk with me the paths of Brean 

And look out over the estuary

And look out over the estuary

Will you take me river Brue

Will you take me Parrett too

Will you take me out to Burnham-on-Sea

And will you meet me at Castle Cary

Will you take us to the other side

Will you take us across the estuary

Where's my Gondola gone?

 Where's my gondola gone

Where did my gondola go?

I parked it here yesterday

And today it's a no show

Where's my gondola gone

Where did my gondola go?

I'm just a regular punter

But don't call me an average Joe

Oh where's my Gondola gone

Where did my Gondola go?

Oh this is no fun

It's been stolen I should know

Oh where's my Gondola gone

Where did my Gondola go?

Oh was it Francisco

Or Tosca or Antonio?

Oh Where's my Gondola gone?

Oh where did my Gondola go?

Racing down the Venice canals

Is far from banal I know

But I need Venice Vice

Since my business partner's overthrow

Only 400 Gondoliers

One's a thief or syndicate Oh

Where's my Gondola gone?

Where did my Gondola go?

no it isn't nice, not like Venice

To be a Vice not a virtue

There should be a curfew

and no it can't be so

Where's my Gondola gone?

Where did my Gondola go?

Was it Don Juan, Carmen Electra

Was it Julius Caesar?

Christopher Columbus

Or Galileo?

Where's my gondola gone

Where did my Gondola go?

Birds

 An ordinary blokes poem of the summer

All the birds have buggered off

Oh what am I to do?

I used to feed them from my window

But now I haven't got a clue

I think they've found another sil

Or else another Gladys or Bill

Charley, Benny, Nigel or Gill

Bloody nosey parker I'd like to kill

If only I were a bird flyin' high

Oh how happy I would be

But you weren't Burt says Mary

You were born an ordinary baby

And now you're an ordinary bloke

Who's just wishing to be free

Listen says Susan to Harold

You should've been born a bird 

If you wanted to fly

Stop chasing rainbows off in the sky

There's people down on earth you know

Who care

Yeah says Harold, which ones, where?

They aren't worth the dirt

Under my fingernails

As I claw my way out the grave to

fresh air