Maelstrom

 Well I fell down the maelstrom

Yes I followed you down

My ship was in a hail storm

Stronger than a cup of tea

And you were in a clipper

All the way from the China Sea

Well the maelstrom is a real big deal

It'll put hairs on your bum

And it'll make you feel

Like you don't have a mum

And you don't want a meal

So never come to the maelstrom

Now the female strum is of another order

It's like a collie so pet it but only the border

Because if you enter into that whirlpool

You'll never make it out alive

And you are a bloody fool

Now if you should succumb

Think only this of me

That there was some foreign whirlpool

Whipped up a writhing brothing sea

And into it went my log book

My sanity and me

Because you'll never be a shanty man

When you're a she shanty singer see

Yes she was a shanty man

She on the fence holding the can

Singing in her defence

I didn't lead you on

On down into the female strom

Get a hold of yourself

You bloody landlubber

And put back on the shelf

Your bloody soul rubber

The stars are all bucking

Because this ship is ducking

Down the rollicking rolling maelstrom

The Strawberry ship

 I used to work on the ship strawberry

A liner over from Cork

I would sit on the mainsail yard arm

And eat with my knife and fork

But since the wind's been a blowing

I think we've gone off course

It was a circumnavigation of the world

But now it seems like a race for one horse

Why do we follow the loudest

Like sheep in a valley we wail

Guide me home oh my shepherd

For I fear the blowing gale

But it's because we live in the bowels of the ship

And hardly have reason to rise

Above to the main deck

Where they say such we risk our neck

And will pay for it with our lives

It is the little gravity well

We must overcome

To escape the mouth of hell

And not be brought back into

Those shark infested waters

All invested by harlequins' daughters

Who think they're the Queens of the dell

Now our captain he got side tracked

He listened to the voice of the sirens

Who were calling to him back

Where they live  on their little island

Like stranded sheep he thought

I as their shepherd must rescue them

But it was a blood sport of course

And he ended up digesting them

And this indigestion brought him

Back to the strawberry liner

Where he was neither a finer captain

Nor a captain of liners

Only a tuner of tunes

Beyond hot air balloons

that look like submarine miners

Believe

 No, I don't think you should believe

In all the foreign lovers that you leave

The stars are a gate to a world unseen

No, I don't think you should believe in all you've seen

The penny drops but I can't believe

That you've opted for foreign leave

Since all the cops have buttoned sleeves

And all their tears make flowers sneeze

I should have stopped to wind the clocks

I should have held the nettle longer

I should have stopped in more docks

I should have been a fire brander

But colour me this way

Or paint me that

I'm just the ship's kettle or the ship's cat

Maybe I don't have the mettle

to swear or scat

But the lovers leave their answers

On my doormat

It's been hard to get going

And so hard to leave

But I can't believe it was snowing

On Adam and Eve

I can't believe where we're going

Is just a reprieve

I think the wind's blowing

And we are all just leaves

Missing in action

 I tried to make it as a lover

But all I became was a thief

It was like I volunteered for a war

But all I got was a peace

Can you show me the door

Or shall I take my own leave

I'm missing in action

I'm not a verb at all

Unless it's a lack of belief

The shadows fall on the wall

And I see your face in relief

It's like the sun cut its stall

Went off to join the police

For they are criminals all

These lovers who softly walk the streets

Am I the mad one alone

While they're the living beast?

I can't show you my scrawl

It would make any sense

I tried to draw them all

But I drew an offense

Because at the society ball

the crystal chandelier broke

And we're all in pieces on the floor

Where the bishop once spoke

I moved a king but he thought it a joke

I told a queen a sad tale and she began to choke

On the vodka martini that a rook left in her yoke

Well we all are the cattle

rising in the midnight smoke

A man Rhyming with Rev

 Oh he's a singing bar of chocolate

Oh he's a greasy spoon

He thinks that he's the fulcrum

Around which turns the room

And yes he's a crooner

You know he sometimes needs a tune

But you can't tell him sooner

Because his heads the size of a balloon

Yes his name rhymes with rev

And he's turning a screw

Mind out for your head

He'll try and knife you

He's all daggers and sycophantic

Grins at the women

He'll suck all their pearls

Off their necks as their swimming

There blows the blubber

He's a floating in the ocean

He thinks he's so musical

But he's devoid of emotion

He's just rude, yes he wishes he was jude

But he's obscure as his food

Wilderness part deux

 I'm watching Simon Reeves in the Congo jungle he's looking at Bonobos 

I'm happy to see them.

The jungle looks uncomfortable with biting insects

and swamps

Someone, a friend from Hungary

Said she'd gone to live in a rainforest

I volunteered today on a disused railway track near Shepton Mallet

It was a bit of a wilderness

Oak trees growing

Just nice to look at the trees with moss on them

We put up a dog fence to stop them running into the private forest

Which you can look at but not touch

I wonder if we create these private wildernesses

Here, where you need to have money to own or experience 

wilderness

For myself to have the privilege of experiencing it

I must volunteer for free

To build a road essentially for people to pass through the wilderness

Probably because we need to walk in nature

More than anything else

We need to do it

But essentially Wilderness in this country is privately owned

I think that essentially I'm part of a middle class attempt

To declassify the countryside

But really it is a reclamation

of an industrial road

It had a societal or manufactural function

It also had a commuter and tourist function

It brought communities together.

Whether there was any true wilderness there,

I don't know

It was probably all farmland for hundreds of years

what makes a wilderness?

That it has never been in contact with humans

Because certain tribes have contact with deep jungle territories

Therefore it is not wilderness

However, that it is not in contact with the wider world

Perhaps is more the point 

She's gone

 She's gone

The day is done

Who won?

Who lost?

 I've forgot

she's a ghost

It's just

I wish

I'd known

And was free from

repentance

Or guilt

She's gone

There's nothing more to lose

I saw a cloud

Pass by

And a trail in the sky

Say

I could choose

But it's not me

It's not my mind

It's my heart

And there's nothing

but the blues

She's gone

Now I have to 

turn her

loose