Strawmen and donkeys

 It's all an amalgam of a certain dismay

The braids of an album of your courtly way

The chains and the chagrin that turns us to grey

Don't fade, oh don't fade, no don't fade away

The love that we've known has been in buckets and spades

And love is a greasy pole we must all climb in our way

But choosing between you and the bright highway

Of I know, oh I know that I cannot stay, no I cannot stay

The stars in the night sky they've all gone away

The dust in the grain barns, the fields of clay

All of it's hardened to a mask made of hay

And now I'm the straw man, now I'm the straw man

Who must break in my way

Shoot through me sorrow, shoot through me wine

But I must now swallow the bitter pill that's mine

Yes I must bite the bullet and face up to the truth

That you'll never love me in a jacket that's bullet proof

Talk to me of hardships and stories untold

I've been given twelve lashes for stealing your gold

I borrowed it from the rainbow, because the rain was too cold

And the leprechaun didn't want it, he said it was sold

Dimmer Dump

 I saw the legs of a super model in Dimmer dump

And the rump of a sacred cow

And the hide of a Buffalo

And the lights are getting dimmer

The load cannot wait

For we are all dumping

Down the road to Heaven's gate

I saw Naomi Campbell and Ricki Lake

I Saw Donald Trump in Dimmer Dump

His hair was grey and his goose was got

I saw the Loch Ness monster with her lump

All of it thrown out in Dimmer Dump

I wonder who turned out the lights

On Marylyn Monroe, who threw the javelin

On Achilles last throw, who was the weakest link

Who one day just had to go

Oh you can see them now in the Viking Thump

It's a hammer blow in Dimmer Dump

Don't hold on to your purse strings too tight

You never know when money may give up the fight

You don't know about plastic, metal or glass

Well we all eventually get recycled at the ass

And it's been a lot of hot air, it's inflated egos flat

It's the wind knocked out your sails

When you're wearing your favourite hat

And they'll throw you in leg first because that's the economic curse

And nothing really matters if your pump don't pump

You'll end up in tatters down at Dimmer Dump

Magnolia blossom in the street

 Magnolia blossoms fall down at my feet

Magnolia blossoms fill the late Shepton Street

Blooming in a figurine of pink and white

Falling like a higgs boson beyond the realm of light

Standing outside of time, this tree

 Yet stands because standing is hour or minute free

Yet standing is tolled by eternity

And one day this tree will neither stand nor be

And so it sculpts out its life

And so it must create a beauty

Because all of its existence is quite tragic

And all we have is the magic

The magic of the here and now

Farewell to arms

 farewell all you people

you moses of light

farewell you scare mongers

who hunger to fight

farewell non-believers on your road of flight

And leave me to sweet slumbers

and the roses of night

I've been where you're standing

and seen what you see

And it's not for one moment

that I'd swap places with thee

It's all just a grossness of blatant hypocrisy

So go where you're going and leave what's mine to me

Farewell the soothsayers

False prophets of light

When the true dawn breaks

Then it will overcome the night

And if what you're knowing

to you seems right

Well those are just dead seeds you're sowing

Which will never reach the light

Good night to your lands

And your lanterns of peace

Bring out the war bands

Let their fighting never cease

For the foreign lands engulf in flames that increase

With each profit margin bearing the mark of the beast

I hope to see this land

Once recover its soul

And it will do in our hands

When we make steel and coal

And once again can raise a flag

of our sovereign self-control

To determine our course as it stands

Beyond the turbid rigmarole 

cats eyes

 In the beginning, it was all light, 

light of foot, speed of flight,

 love was winning, love was bright, 

we were beginning to feel the night,  

everything even, everything odd, 

all of it's believing in the path we have trod, 

through the city's lights

I've seen us changing like traffic lights, 

stars rearranging in the sky's night, 

crossing and weaving inside and out, 

but our thread always strong never leaves us in doubt

You've been my cat's eyes

When the city's lights go out

Where do we belong, except in the city of light?

Faces of people, places we've been, 

chases round steeples and somebody's dream,

 all of it equal in a love unseen

Until your eyes start shining

And I can see through the night

Beautiful cats eyes in the city of light

Cats eyes shining in the dark

cats eyes shining in park

I blink once, blink twice

I can't believe my sight

You're my cats eyes shining in the night

You show me your cats eyes

in the city of light

Your cats eyes, my oh my, oh my

Your cats eyes my, oh my, oh my

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