Mill on the Floss

 In olden times floss flowed freely through the countryside

Great rivers of the stuff as wide as the eye could ponder

And the people of the countryside, the poor folk

only had to shove their faces and their entire heads into the river to clean

Their teeth and wash out all the bad stuff and they all had bright shiny teeth

And didn't ever have to pay for dental care

But then one day climate change or else an evil king decided to turn off the source of the Floss

And we don't know where it is so that all could be found lying in the river bed or the marshes was this thin straggly string that folk inventively wound around bobbins and carried with them

Hence why now we have only this meagre reminder of what Floss once was.

The famous author George Eliot once wrote a tribute to the beauty and power of the Floss

Called Mill on the Floss which was in the days when the dental industry was so widely mechanized and industrialized they began making dental drills and tooth milling machines driven by it.

Please read it, it is interesting.

Night Heron

 Night Heron, night heron

Always in the shades

The black sunglasses

The black leather jacket aids

Riding around on your motorbike

You're as cool as a kid on the make if you like

Mending your triumph in the back of the pub

Going out later to the rock n' roll club

Night Heron, Night Heron

Always a rebel to the core

Build up your gang around street corners

Go round knocking on old folks' doors

Then you grow older

And like to start fights

Start carrying a blade on dark Friday nights

Black metal motorcycle club

Black metal heart there's the rub

Revving your engine down a Sunday street

Ruffling feathers if you know what I mean

The other fella's heavier he's tough and lean

But you've got an image to uphold it ain't clean

You've gotta get dirty and down in the mud

You'll never reach thirty, you're covered in blood

As you go droop-winged back to your nest

The black metal heart is not pumping the best

The dark metal shades are broken in two

And they hang from your beak, beaten black and blue

And there's blood in your eye and spit on your face

And your black metal wing is twisted out of place

But you know where you're going because you have to stay strong

You're going to the nightclub where they sing rock n' roll songs

Because you love to jive and dance to the beat

You're still the night heron that's walking the street

Bogman

 I am back now where I want to be

Lord I can die easy

As long as you bury me

In this peaty realm

I’ll become a peat man

Preserved

Just like we observed

In the museum

 

They dug him up

Like a timber

I remember

The juices of the earth

Were his blood

The memories

Of geological time of birth

Of his mother back in Mr’s Noah’s flood

 

What of his love in the distant past

What of his family and friends

Who knew this brother of the black mud

And who knew of his final end?

Love robbing

 love robs  the robin red breast

Love robs the robin of his breast

Love tears the heart out of the nest

Love robs the robin of his red breast

When the sun goes down

 When the sun goes down

You've got nothing to say

You've got too many aches 

And pains from the day

When the sun goes down

You've gotta rest your brain

It ain't no use in thinking

When the sun goes down

When the sun goes down

There are too many ends

Left loose, going round the bend

When the sun goes down 

You've gotta make your bed

You've gotta put your

Weary feet up and rest your 

weary head

You gotta make like the chickens

And roost in the coop

When the sun goes down

Get out of the loop

When the sun goes down

You've gotta rest your tools

Because you know your mama

Didn't raise no fools

When the sun goes down

You've gotta put up your legs

You' don't make no omelette

Without breaking some eggs

When the sun goes down

When the sun goes down

Don't shatter the glass

Not everything built was built to last

When the sun goes down

Get some good sleep

All things will pass

Like the things in the deep

When the sun goes down

Tesla on the 376

 I met Tesla riding the 376

Back up to Bristol, licking his lips

At the prospect of throwing sticks

At the university of dirty tricks

He told me once I needed a bride

He showed me how I had no pride

Then Freud turned round and said

Einstein's Died

And so has Ego in the world's tide

But superman sat upon a park bench

And when I looked around 

I saw a mensch who was talking

To a Nazi hench

About the stench of a cooking wench

It all erupted in World war three

And I hoped that Tesla didn't see

For lightning Conductors and

Time machines

Could drag him away from me

Portland Bill - Fish out of water -don't kill Bill

 Portland bill, Portland bill he was a friend of mine

But then he choked on the smoke

More bitter than a lemon rind

So we stand along the shore

Yes we stand in line

Because we don't want them to kill our bill

 We're keeping him in mind

Portland Bill, Portland Bill

Walking around your town

All I see Are faces

A lot of them look down

They say we don't want no dump trucks here

Grinding up our minds

With their drills and tyres whirring

With their hammer thumps in time

They say Portland Bill, Portland Bill 

He was a friend of mine

They say the council turned them down

So the company appealed

Bitter as a lemon rind

Sore losers for the underdogs

But it's big money

Sways the mind

Giving them security

Strangling

The voices of the kind

Because Portland Bill, oh Portland Bill

He was a friend of mine

the proposed Portland incinerator case: https://portlandassociation.co.uk/the-portland-incinerator/