Buccaneer

 Well I went away on a ship of pride

But my sail buckled on my ride

I thought oh God how can I abide

So I sailed back to my bed where I lied

I played, I played and sang my lungs

But nothing, no sound did ever come

The quiet beckoned, I was succumbed

By which I wished I'd never sung

I lay, I lay and read with stories and words

And filled my soul with myth and swords

And loves of Gods and dreams of men

And women's beauty which had no ken

And even this, it lasted not long 

for no peace came to me in song

Just pain and suffering no balm could ease

The suffering of loneliness was my disease

The love went missing from father to son

Some lack of capture needed so long

Some hole left before time had begun

Before life had realized I was made wrong

No thought could muster

No home for the spirit

Am I cursed as Custer

To forever wander, not win it

The battle is over, I've lost that love

Whether the wars of heaven

Can call me above

I wish no more from this earthly realm

I can find no joy in mind nor body alone

And I look for nothing in anyone's eyes

If I had a shotgun I think it would tell no lies

Easy on the eyes, but hard on the heart

 I went down to where the sea nymphs part

She was easy on the eyes but so hard on the heart

He said I want to try a bar where the people are

She was easy on the eyes but so hard on the heart

It was to my great surprise when the singing start

She was easy on the eyes but so hard on the heart

I sucked on a strawberry and chewed on a tart

She was easy on the eyes but so hard on the heart

Listen to me he said just wait until the best part

She was easy on the eyes but so hard on the heart

Changing places

 I found a place where lovers meet

It was just a pub down the street

And the blue times rang

A strawberry bell

The rainbow cupcakes

In garlands fell

And petals curdled in the milk

That churned a summer thin as silk

And struggled vowels

Spoken by infants at the growls

Of cats and parents

Gaggled-geese robbed Peter

To save Paul

In pools of grease

And myths of Saul

And teeth gave virtue

To empty strands

Where billowing forests

Burnt and sang

In cinder voices

And ashes cried

Their lidless eyes

To the skies

That no one spoke

That babies sighed

And peering smoke

Filled with lies

Evaporated

Purged

The fake laughs

Echoed

Nothing was chequered

Even the flag was yellowed

And people walked

But walked nowhere

For aims were useless

To their cares

As nothing but a river meandered

And God came back

And men and women haggled

Over bits of silver

And rags of silk

And we continued to drink

an alien milk 

Play on

 If music be the food of love play on, 

play on

If music be the food of love play on, 

play on

If music be the food of love 

I will hear you like a dove

play on, play on, play on

I met her in a chance hotel

She was there feeling well

I knew I couldn't

See my love so strong

I saw her where the willows weep

And the copper leaves of the beech

They landed on my head on the steep

The pillow of the sky was there

It was blue and I was square

And I knew I had to play on

Play on

I ate the food of love and it

Was sweet and was better it

had no ever bitter taste begun

If music be the food of love play on, 

play on

If music be the food of love play on, 

I noticed I was going well

I thought I was like William Tell

But all I ever was, was too strong

For the kite is in his sky

And he's looking down

With that eagle eye

If music be the food of love play on, 

And it doesn't matter how you go,

You could be a cricket

or a grasshopper jumping in the grass so long

so long

It would be the breeze to tell

That's written on the church bell's knell

If music be the food of love play on, 

I hear them softly sweeping

up the clouds where he is creeping

And the chimney it was keeping strong

The bellows with the arches played

The fire through the old arcade

If music be the food of love play on, 

play on

If music be the food of love play on, 

Listen to the hearth rug play

It was playing some charade

Of love and lovers in the song

in the song

But it was too much for me to take

I had no love except mistakes

If music be the food of love play on, 

play on

If music be the food of love play on, 

play on

If music be the food of love play on, 

Castle Rock

 Around Castle Rock

Like a giants frock

The sea, dresses and undresses

It twice a day

Twice a day it is exposed by the tide

Its two naked cliff trunks

Like twins forever tied

A natural fortress bearing the brunt

Yet its moat abandons it

With the river’s violent shunt

They stand like vast stone legs

That once held a giant’s torso, but not now

Only the Greater black backed gull eggs

Its arch like a mouth swallowing

The river, greedy for its hollowing

Out, to be gone forever

It says my time is come

The last ice age, never took me by chance or design

And I can’t wait for the next one.

 

Castle Rock

These elephant legs without a trunk

Steady as a Flat Holm Monk

Rock of ages, Peter’s chair

Strata stages,

Oddballs

Oddballs

Got to stick together

In the billiard halls

Everyone one of us knocking about

No pocket to fit it

Wrong shape 

We stick out

How can you call us those name like that

Too cruel

This world where shame

has no business

To walk about

It's a crazy contagion

Of America first

And their values of selfishness

That's misled the worst

But we had no other route to succession

We had to choose a leader

America was progression

But they never really gave

Two hoots about anyone

It has always been a giant supernova

Galaxy

Sucking up the smaller satellite countries

In its gravity

And spitting out its ores and strange technologies

Serving some strange Gods

They have inherited in Indian territories

But it's a bone shaking constitution

Of diverse realities

And our own culture is laser cut

And spiralling apart

Like a hologram of hearts

That shimmer and shiver, 

And tremble in society

In self-deluded imagery

In self-serving idolatry

Joke 55

to decelerate - to stop eating celery in your diet