The sailor and the mermaid

 Well the mermaid said to the sailor man

You got just what you deserved

For you have stayed upon the land

Left the woman you love in the surf

And the man spoke to the mermaid girl

I loved you then til the ends of the world

And I would have followed you as far as I can

But I am just a sailor and you are a sea pearl

Well what was it kept you on the shore?

You could have kissed me and been my amore

And turned yourself into a merman

Then we would have been seaward forevermore

Well I know you wanted me to be

This underwater fish, not a sailor on the sea

But the world I come from would relegate me

And cast lots to set my life free

Well why then would you stay

In that society of the bay

And their brackish words and their cruel tongues

On their sward's of land that run and run

Instead you could have seen the oceans

You are an idiot afraid of his emotions

Can't you see you're in love with me

And if you deny yourself then cursed will you be

For love it is not a trick of the light

But a bodily law of two souls locked tight

And when the soul is loose then it is lost

Like a neck in a noose or ship's ghost

So never deny the love you have 

for a mermaid is the best gal, it's sad

To see you've ruined the best years you'll have

On swigging beers with your sailor lads

When we could be happy

on the gad

Interview

 You're looking for a candidate

A cadet in uniform

Who will only answer yes

When you address his wardrobe

Who will march in line

And collect his benefits cheque

You aren't looking for

a rebel yet

Or someone with self-respect

You only want a jumbo jet

Or a dreadnought ship

Yes and you tell me I could make it yet

But you sure ain't looking for me

You want a hero

You want a public school cheerio

Or you want some young bullio

Ready with his rugby vest

You don't need a shakespeare

You don't need Some word smith

I can take it from the sound of it

You sure ain't looking for me

I better face facts

Or else have some heart attacks

That Britain is a farce act

And I'm not fit to play the fool

It's just case of tact

To be in school and follow the rules 

You'll grow up to be a good citizen

 To conform to all the bitterness

And the mocking humiliation

Of the class structure imposed on you

There's no escaping migration

What about reverse refugees?

Those fleeing discrimination

From the hands of British fools

The idiots in charge of institutions

Who govern to quell revolutions

By keeping the intelligentsia

Locked away with factory tools

And those of the upper classes

With all the money and wine glasses

Who only dain to play at farces

With their idiotic public school boy rules

Imposed on us through many chances

Seen on the playing fields or at dances

In which the social graces of life are schooled

How to beat your opponent with sheer speed

How to better them at greed

How to take and to succeed

How failure is but a weed

An unwanted look at nothingness

An emptiness, a bottomlessness

Some hole you never wish to go down

For there nothing can be won

Go....?

 It goes without going

It says without saying

It means many things

Like I’ve had enough

Or stop

Or start

It’s a kind of art

It is, it’s on, it’s off

The chart

I can bring it on a tray

It’s how I feel when I’ve too much to say

But can’t

Sometimes I feel I’m going to

But it’s the thinnest membrane

It’s always after something gives out

It never really gives in

It’s an excess of nothing

And something to begin

So don’t put your hip out

Or you’ll need to shout

Weasels do it

Pringles do it

Even the blisters

Of measles and shingles do it

Let's do it

Let's go......?..........apart

Frankenstein my father

 Frankenstein was my father

Mary Shelley was my mother

My household was unstable

I grew up on the operating table

It was a long lost book of childhood dreams

I wish to know better what it all means

He told me when I was one day old

I'd be one hell of a fella

A big strapping boy like you

is gonna knock the world out I tell ya

And my mother looked on me with some sympathy

but loathing 

I tell you all I wanted was her love

But she scathingly threw me rags for clothing

I learned to ride a bike and ski in the Alps

Albeit because my loving father had decided to kick me out

I mean I found out that after my mother had died 

he'd engaged another woman who was gonna be his bride

But you see to him, I was his greatest disappointment

He thought he'd created me in his image

But it was a distorted disillusionment 

My father, my father was God he said

And I have to ask: am I human, living or dead?

If I am just parts, am I greater than their sum

And if I'm not a machine, then a human how come

Society rejects me, my own father baulks

I scare children in the park 

even the mirrors shatter when I talk

I am a hideous abomination, no love have I

Then what can a monster do but take revenge or die?

Dear Neighbour

Dear Neighbour

I'd like to express

My deepest condolences

For your thoughtlessness

It must be hard to be such an insufferable sod

I hadn't realized that I was living next door to God

Well you must be him or else why would you act like that

With impunity as if your actions carried no consequence

You are up all night, it's driving me crazy

Do you never need to work at all?

You must be driving Miss Daisy

round the bend, 

But look, let's make friends

the good book tells us

We must love our neighbours

So I say I love you X

Even though you are a pain in the neck

And think you are a great singer when you are really not all that

Believe me I've heard you in your kitchen

It sounds like you're strangling a cat

 And about you playing guitar at 3 am

Yes I can hear it and ahem

It woke me up and spoilt the rest of my day

In that it tinged my consciousness

And jangled my nerves and left them frayed

But I was nearly forced to cause an affray

So please let's not rehearse each night the last judgement day

Let's try and respect our differences

We cannot change each others' ways

It going to lead nowhere except entrenched positions

And fighting on all fronts

and really I'd rather make hay

While the sunshines

Than sleep in all day

For the night is meant for sleeping

Not your guitar play 

Broken down

 It's all broken down

It's all breaking down

From my toes to my crown

I'm all broken down

From my face to my eyes

I'm breaking like ice

Oh it's all broken down

What a surprise!

Cry baby, cry !

But don't break the china doll

Breaking, broke, all broken

Just mind you've not broken the mould

Pull all the pieces together

The debris of a crumbling tower

And build up Babylon brick by brick

feather by falling feather

Collect up the seeds that were scattered

Draw tight the strings of the purse

Close up the wound that was open

It's not yet time to call the nurse

All these things that were broken

Mend them and bring to repair

The shattered mirrors as a token

Of a lifetime of visual despair

But nothing that is gone is truly forgotten

Always its embers still glow in the air

No matter how lowly the ashes

From its cinders can grow a new care

People of Croscombe

 People from Croscombe

They barter and they bite

Just like Romans in an amphitheatre tonight

Oh people from Croscombe

They'd sell their grandmother's teeth

And still get a second estimate

For their own financial relief

Now I'm not saying people from Croscombe

Are cheap, it's just that they're mean

And will scramble round for every pound

And penny, even raid the wishing well

But that's just what comes from living in a dell

Like Croscombe

People from Croscombe

They strain for the Sun, because you see they never 

Really get it, they have to strain their necks at it

And they grow tall and thin like Sun flowers

People from Croscombe are heliotropes

They clamber over their neighbours' walls

They're so tightly packed like cattle in stalls

And have no greater pleasure than to bicker

Or discuss their neighbour's lives

There's nothing more satisfying than

Chit chat with the promise of knives

And vengeance is a dish best served cold

They've learnt that from living in some other metropole

Like London or Bristol any number you care to mention

But they've never forgotten their just desserts

Revenge for what was meted out to them by extension

And now they're in the bear pit, in the colosseum

They can watch their neighbours getting eaten alive by lions

Or they can bet on gladiators

For once they heard about a place called Rome

That there was some foreign power better

And they'll pay their tax and all

Be so tactical until their Emperor 

summons their services by letter

And then they'll dob in their neighbours 

For traitors

People in Croscombe, but that's only what

I've heard of them

I don't tend to think of them

Very much at all

They just ask me for an estimate

I say I'll see you at four

Then they want a quotation

I recite shakespeare 

When that doesn't satisfy

I try Mark Antony and Cleopatra

Then they get offended and say

 I only try to flatter

Oh I can't seem to gather

What the people of Croscombe

want at all