Dancing Queen

 Fire in the belly

That burns up to the heart

Fire in the gallery

That burns up all the art

Fire in the church

That burns the holy part

Fire in the street

Where student protests start

I can hear the fire bells 

ringing in the city tonight

Can you see them running

Yelling hell hath no fury

Like woman scorned might

For the flames are licking

like tongues of beating feet

Fire dancers roaming

Through the rainy streets

Kettle drummers drumming

Bo peep has lost her sheep

All the fine beachcombers

Are looking for ants teeth

Any anti rollers fighting with belief

Dance on you crazy dancers

Against dark days of grief

Dancing shall give you answers

And each time you move your feet

Dreams like prayers of prancers

Are sent up to God's relief

So dance into tomorrow

Let daylight take your sorrow

All hail Great Queen Swallow

Who returns to love

The black-hearted beast

The day was red as thunder

 The shadows left the ships abroad

And the days were red as thunder

The fellows they had not abhorred

All the waves that they went under

They went the way of those before

When the days were red as thunder

They stood down from the platform ground

Where the trees were split asunder

From the hills to the gills, of the mills

The days were red as thunder

The fish were swimming in the seas

As I swam down under

And the legs of all the bumble bees

Yes the days were red as thunder

And the fellowship of falling crowns

The days were red as thunder

And it was as the sun went down

For the day was red as thunder

I saw three ships come sailing in

And the days they spelt a blunder

Of all mistakes that I could make

The day was red as thunder

Black earth rotted in the ground

And the fires they caught lumber

And burned the whole big ship down

for the days were red as thunder

Oh can you see the silent tree

Singing in the meadow

Oh can you hear the birds sing clear

As the day it falls to shadows

I heard the lips of the ships

 As they kissed in wonder

Of the tips and the hips

And the day was red as thunder

The clouds they lay

Like leviathans at bay

In a heaven's harbour

I did say that all was grey

And the day was red as thunder

Shame it lay, upon me weighed

Like tonnes of golden plunder

I thought I stole a treasure trove

But the day was red as thunder

The final count was when the mount

Blew off the top the table

And all could say who did pay

When Cain killed Abel

I shook in there, and there he stood

And all the anger left me

And grief and tears and love and years

This was how bereft me

I could not say how to stay

But I knew the wonder

For you are true as skies are blue

Yet the day is red as thunder

That's why mum's gone to iceland

 Yes mum's gone to iceland

She's left the neon lights behind

The adverts and the hard won

Victories of being kind

Yes mum's gone to iceland

I see her in the shelves

In the frozen freezers

With the salmon en croute

I should have gone there with her

Should have tailed her like a hound

But I couldn't bring myself to be there

I was a vain and angry child

I thought she was weak for being left behind

I was ashamed of the sadness that I felt in her eyes

For it all is still in iceland,  in the frozen isles

In the exploding geysers, in the shipwrecked paradise

Yes mum's gone to iceland, and it's the end of the world

But only the beginning of tomorrow for another boy or girl

Born in spring like the swallow

Born to cross desert or sea

Yes the bird has flown to iceland

Now she's as free as free can be

Gone fishing

 Don't confuse an angel with the hand of God

Though they may tread lightly not on my dreams have trod

The cusps and the auspices of a fragile frigid key

That rings out in the silences of a murdered tranquility

I charge you with the licenses to kill given us to obey as law

With the private alliances that sell the homes of the poor

With all your wretched violences and a crop of quarters more

Torn by bubonic balances and fought out in religious war

The sweet terror of death laps longingly at the shore

The risible visible fire shows, spark the darkest core

The shadows of ambulances raging down the street

Heavy in the night violations of the keepers' peace

Make me blind in boldness, bolt shut the door on sin

And Cast out the devil's kindness into the hole within

The Frames of the window leave a pain in me

For my see-through soul is grinning at the animal sea

And charging like a rhino or extended like a giraffe

The tectonic plates of day crash like storm-blown telegraph

Fly me off to the end, make an end, now what would that be?

To see all heaven in a rage at a little fish caught out at sea

Eats chocolate flies

I learnt something new about bats the other day

Oh yes Harold, what was that?

Well apparently they eat chocolate

No, they don't do they?

Yeah not half, they can't get enough of it

They ea' chocolate in the air

And even when they are trying to avoid crashing into an

Object, 

Why would they crash Harold?

Well, they've got very bad eyesight , you never

heard the expression blind as a bat Maureen?

Oh yes I have come to think of it

Well anyway by way of seeing better

and thinking cleverer they have a nibble

on a bounty perhaps or a flake

A flake!

What kind of a bat carries a flake with them?

Well something anyway in one of their pouches

and then they can avoid the object

....Doesn't it strike you kind of funny

How they suddenly see like a blurry image and 

then somehow have time grab a bite of chocolate

And then that gives them the boost of eyesight

and quick manoeuvring power they need just in time

Harold?

MMm

Not to mention, if you try storing a flake in your trouser

pocket, you're soon just going to end up

With chocolate down your trousers!

Perhaps Maureen..

Let me see that article Harold

That there word is echolocates not eats chocolate

They haven't got time for that Harold

It's sonor you know like on the submarine

And it isn't an excuse for you to eat any more bounty bars

You've have two today already.

When you can echocolate and fly around

catching flies in the dark

Then maybe you would deserve another bounty

But until that time, the cupboard stays shut!

Time's illusion

 And time was so locked away

And time was all we had to say

Time to say good day, 

Good bye

Time has flown away

Time's a bird in the sky

And Time's a magnate

Ready to attract the hangmate

Hanging in the Square

He died, So did she

It was only yesterday

Or was it tomorrow,

Or will it be

Oh dementia has time to borrow

Nothing lost and nothing's gained?

Hey nothing will ever be the same

But nothing is

Or Everything can change

And it will do

Or has done

Or simply time is a ransom

For a king

For Gold or Green

Or life or profit

Or nothing gained like change in pocket

Or holes in cheese

And why oh please Time is

An illusion to me

Thor the post modern

 And we hit the posts in and we made them sing

And the rubber hammer was like a tuning fork thing

It tuned into all the Gods in the clouds above

And Thor came down to hit the posts in for us

With each thunderbolt

He electrified the fences

And then he swore at all the posts

But they never once took offences

Thor was a most willing volunteer that day

When the rain came down on the Strawberry Line

And we all began to pray

"Thor just get us out of here!"

"Thor just finish the job!"

And Thor came down and brought his tools

For Thor's that kind of God

I wish I'd known him better

Maybe asked for his autograph perhaps

But hey I'm just a man of letters

And he's a man of action 'n' thunderclaps

There stands another post driven into the ground

Hark you can hear the hammer ring another pound

I lost sight of him just around 4 o'clock in the afternoon

The rain was falling heavily, total eclipse of sun and moon

But then I saw him going down over the hill like the sun

He sure was a son of Shepton Mallet

And if he wasn't, then I'd be a son of a gun