Buteo

Buteo, Buteo

Wherefore art thou Buteo?

On what holy wooded hedge

Where you make our hooded ledge

And wherefore do you fly?

Forever a convict of the sky

And conviction yes

More is the less

As with auspices make your pledge

Your blood bond to swear by

Vow your vows

Bow your heads

Here comes the vouchsafe

Of your lives

Give money, give roses, poses of heather

Black is the beak, brown is the feather

The air in some torpid atmosphere

Breaks like breakers of a wild sea

Snapping like a belt of leather

Sends up vapours

On whose thermals see thee

Oh how grubby are the praying hands

When they come together

Beneath wedding bands

And marriage yet between

Sky and land

Though thou art unknowable times of sand

For where do you come from?

Who is your mother?

Thy father is every falcon

Every hunter back to the age of man

But how many mothers can

Give birth to your skill

Your art is the destroyer

How learnt thou to kill?

Who taught you? Treacherous sky and wind

Tempest belly was thy womb

But land that keeps your harboured pledge

Vouchsafe in him

Your meat and bread

Father provider to a son born of the air

Always crossing the sun

But what cares the sun for poor Buteo Buteo?

He is forever a traveller

In search of his carrion loot

In search of dead gold

When the sun is treasure chest

Enough for this pirate

Who sails blue pastures

What more wealth can be searched for?

When wisdom is the treasure the sun has in store

And he but transmuted

The vessel of nature’s law

Sign giver and guide all those

Who worship him and him adore

Yet his auspice given, rewards

Neither love nor hate

But like the majesty of heaven

Reigns down equal upon those from His pearly gate

Questions Where AM I?

 On what enlightened bay

Do the tides of time descend?

On how sweet an afternoon

Of light astray

Can the scarlet pimpernel festoon?

Where do the oysters catch?

And where do the gulls loom?

In the fasted Lapis sky

Beneath the hay making sun

How does the bracken grow?

How weaves the stinging nettle?

Through what thistle do the finches whistle?

Or over what cliff is heard

The peregrines steaming, screaming kettle

How comes it that I am here?

For to tell what enters mine ear?

And why for do the black birds mew?

Or the crow caw, caw

Or why do the rabbits run, lapis lapidary

Lapin lapping the blue from the sky

The yellow from the chicken sun

The silver from the harvest moon

The white from the clouds undone

How comes it the temperate chain lies unbroken?

The wind to cool, the sun to heat

How is it that words left unspoken?

Best describe this nature’s beat

Ode to a Buzzard

Oh Buzzard

Harbinger of death

Augury man above

On your miracle, spiracle of breath

What did the Roman’s make of you?

You man of War, of ides

The soothsayers look up to see you crossing the sun

Of their dark days

Skull as a battle warriors helmet, visor down

Omen days

Buteo, buteo

Occipital holes, below heavy brows

Beyond is the world

Within the oracle of her mind

The subuteo men go walking beneath

And she is like a goddess

Who holds their belief

Come visit this isle of the dead

A suitable repose

To make your hunting ground

And roses’ bed

You are always above roses and poppies

Scavenger, scanner

Of starvation’s horizon

The hunger circumference of your vision

Which fades with the sunset

And its ring is set by the stone

Of the moon.

Ode to a Peregrine

 Forward, forward all ye sea cannons.

All ye barrages of the swell

Here I stand in my cliff cabin

Knowing ye intruders well

Forward, forward screech

Ye of impossible reach

The scream of alarm into your soul

So schooled in the art of the fooled,

I am a witch on a broom

A thoroughbred racing down a fell

I am an instant in your time

I wear the disguise of death,

My hues and clothes demark me well

I am your first and last breath

Peregrine am I,

The Lord of the sky

The high Sultan of the Salty Perch

In my crow’s nest

I am scarecrow, caw, caw

Black the congregation of my high church

Fall in ye gulls, ye gabbling ranks

Commoners take turns to fish the sea with thanks

I thank not the gel,

Nor its green brown pell-mell

I am as quick as honey, I smell with my flanks

These eves of rocks I chose for the view

Those shore leave in the docks show

Where my shadow sheaves

And time me on clocks

I make landfall before Eve

May pluck an apple for Adam

And let it fall from her sleeve

Hunting a pigeon on the wing

It is a smidgeon of a thing

For what I enjoy

Is to play with this toy

As a train racing track

When I attack

I smother and sting

With Talon and Beak

I rend skin from wing

Then back to the nest

I deliver the rest

I am the postman with the fastest letter

I am the messenger king

The carrier of carrion

The bringer of tides

Don’t shoot the messenger if you dislike what he brings

Whether evil tidings

Or indiscernible things

The message did not return one evening

The bird was not heard

The vital war time correspondence

Fell silent in my mouth

Yet its secret I kept safe

For I did not speak a word

Fooled myself

 I've fooled myself again

Schooled myself I'm vain

In the mirror of my mind's eye

I've seen me live and seen me die

On stage but always I must try

But I try and try in vain

All these tears fall down my pane

Like the years that fall like rain

As the leaves fall from the tree

I've fooled myself again

I'm Peter Pan, I'm Peter Pain

The love I've lost I can't regain

But in her ghost I see in vain

I've fooled myself again

We synthesize our souls don't we

The plastic you the plastic me

The Moon I see is made of cheese

I've fooled myself again

So show me something real in me

I want to know what it means

Am I just an actor in a scene?

I've fooled myself again

Dinosaur song

 First I was a live

Then I was petrified

Didn't know how to keep on living

In an Earth of fives

5 million dinosaur

Five degrees zero

After the five comets flew over

And one meteor blew

Oh the sky got awfully dark

And the sun it never grew

And Earth was like a black hole

And I fell into one too

But I'm just a tyranosaurus rex who

Got petrified in a landslide

And now I'm coming back home to you

Oh now yeah

Turn on the lights

Wake me up now

I've had 60 millions years of nights

And I'm ready for my come back

Ready to be the king who rules

Over this beautiful earth my friends

I wanna genetically modified

Samurai Sigh

 It's like a war between us

The body counts are high both sides

And blow for blow

We were friends now foes

We take an eye for an eye

But I am not looking

Though I seem to see

The Victory flag raised in the field

That separates  you from me

You have won the battle

But I have won the war

When all your sacred cattle

go walking out the door

Separate signs and diversions

And symbols in the dust

That come of steely incursions

In the hour our words rust

Give me all your versions

Of your truth I know are lies

And I shall hold them in my hands

And hold them up to rainy skies

Let them fall between my fingers

Let them turn into the mist

For only that now lingers

When I remember how we kissed