All the Hebrew Tribes

All the Hebrew tribes walk out

 Slowly in the morning

 Waiting for the birthing trout

In the river spawning

And as the shingle rolls about

The tide it goes on yawning

Sharing a bed with the sprat and sprout

The tiddlers go on pawning

Prawns come marching in their leg lace style

Cycling like a ghost army each ephemeral mile

As the sea bed listens

To the love locked isle

The trees were like mighty antelopes

Appraising a far off hill

Thinking it may be their last hope

To avoid the lions kill

The trees were like a shadow

Moving upon the wall

Where one looks like another

A  sparrow

A wolf in the garden

A face ready to fall

The trees were like a shaman

Who changes shape and size

One minute they are an eagle

The next a bear with brown eyes

We were walking in the shade of the leaves

That cut up the sunlight

So that shadows were like paper chain men

Dancing their marching jig on the ground

We were walking beneath when the heavens opened

When the droplets fell like boulders

When the caterpillar crawled on the mud around

And the mosquitoes alit on our shoulders

We were walking between our youth

And times past, one a bit older

But shared in this vision of childhood rare

Looking down from a bridge in to the water

Linking to a time that now seems much colder

A future of our bodies in a state of decay

When we went out walking the other day

We ate our lunch in the hidden enclave of the land rover

Rolling the same script that’s been turned over and over

His children, the family, poor sleep

Domestics, cries for attention

Keeping a relationship going

When we went out again the rain had stopped raining

He stopped complaining, I enjoyed the job more

Scrambled down the slopes

Held onto trunks, swung on others like lamp posts

Almost singing in the rain, when it came down again

We weaved between the Holly, made no great folly

Needed no brolly, gone far from melancholy

In fact felt quite jolly

Fruit Yesterday

Fruit yesterday

Fruit today

All of it rotten in some decay

Flashing crossing lights

Blink and speak

Panic stricken on a losing streak

Hope wrestles infirmity

Dope kestrels of eternity

Hover cope, like a kite on a rope

Cutting the sky in two

Minstrel speaking crows in rhyme

One caw, two caw, three in time

Flat line oblivion

A breast sheltered Powers

Reign down on me gently

Soothing rain showers

Allow me to cry

For God’s sake forgive me

For all and every crime

I ever did not believe in thee

I need your help now Jesus

I need what you bring

Guide me up gentle

Like a kite on a string 

The Christmas Turkey

The Christmas Turkey’s wrapped

All manner of beans and flying machines

In the tumble weed dawn

When the white horse rides

And the red nose glows

And all the selfless little elves

Take a good look at their selves

When sacrament of love is given

And the holy foundation of earth is riven

From the ground in its pillars of might

By the snows,

        By the wind that blows

By the sickle cutting corn in rows

        From the hands of Avenging Angels

When dawn breaks chorus

As the Greeks

Their furious selves hide from the weak

And salty earth is in the mouth

Because food grows plenty down south

And certain tribes are tucked away

Unbeknownst to the new light of day

Unless a word or two to say

Inside the ring of the horizon

Oh Powers mighty flighty staff

Come turn the road in range,  less  ways

To mock an Eden burning, yearning

For a false dawn’s door handle’s turning

Open up a witch craft’s furnishing

All bodies in blood and yellow

In blood and yellow

      They write themselves

Into the walls or hells

And out of holes or into wells

While the church bell’s chiming

And Tachygraphs of photographs

   That keep the heart in fits of laughs

Or sit like bulls upon their loves

And doze inside fresh meadows

And sallow tainted, scented dreams

Of things unbidden, ghosts unseen

The blood and yellow most obscene

Is washed from the windows of the soul

When tears come tumbling down

Like an ocean kingdom, when falls the crest like crown

To drown in air, the watermen stare

Up at the clouds of skies

Beyond the ring of the horizon

I don't think of you that much anymore

I don’t think of you that much anymore

I am in the merry-go-round world of rich and poor

Some folks find happiness, like an open door

But me, it’s like when I hear “such and such”

No I don’t think of you much anymore

I see the painted skies turn black

Then turn back into day

I see the crowded subway trains,

Change passengers then drift away

I see the birds flock in the sky

I wish I were a bird so I could fly

But why, oh why? I don’t need to cry

As I don’t think of you much anymore

I don’t think that much about you anymore

I don’t think that love will come knocking on my door

Now when I see you it’s to say

Hello, good bye, then I walk away

There’s someone somewhere waiting for me I’m sure

I don’t think of you much anymore

I know scientists have discovered new cures for diseases

But love sickness and the blues

Just leave me with blackened bruises

And if you say it’ll work today

I’ll jump out of bed and cry hooray!

Because it’s not broken bones they need to cure

But love’s cool words that cut and tore

But I don’t think of you that much anymore

The fire flies of night are bold

They fly their tales like in stories told

Of knights in colours defeating the black

Well I can still believe you might be coming back

But I don’t need to go and do that chore

As I don’t think that much about you anymore 

It's more than I can do

It’s more than I can do

Not to fall in love with you

It’s all my hopes comes true

All my horizons turned clear blue

It’s more than I can do

In the course of a true love’s affection

I have pursed my lips and followed your direction

But to keep on after you

Well it’s more than I can do

Beyond the night time’s steep tower

Where the moon rules its awesome power

I have freed the caged bird, off it flew

To keep him locked up, well

It’s more than I can do

The diamonds in the rock face sparkle

All the tin faced soldiers darkle

To see them march beneath starry banner

And know I once marched there too

Well it’s more than I can do

I must meet the world’s demands

Must do and follow its commands

But if I can or will it’s true

It’s more than I can do

The steeple chase, the wild goose

I caught him once but turned him loose

To keep a thing so long, belonging

Beyond some right curfew

It’s more than I can do

I saw you once in the hall of mirrors

Dancing like a phantom nearer

Until you caught my eye, your beauty beholden

With your fish hooks gleaming golden

But I had to let you fall right through

It was more than I could do

The colours of the rainbow glimmer

As on the sea, the Sun’s golds shimmer

A fishing boat trawls the lost ocean

To catch a fish like you

Yet it’s more than I can do

I hold my hands, my heart stops beating

The furnaces turn iron cast sheeting

That slips between the hammers

And the fire’s heating

The old below us the other we create a new

But it’s more than I can do 

The Whimsical Wood

In the whimsical wood

Is where the dove cot stood

Away from light and power and Magic

It grew too cold and soon was tragic

Then the whimsical woodsman came along

In his way with an axe

He sang his song

And levelled the trees which had stood there long

And let the light shine in

And the dovecot stood

In the whimsical wood

Just waiting for a dove

To fly down from above

And give it a sign it was true and good

Finally one day when the woodsman was asleep

Down flew a pair of doves

The dovecot to keep

And they made their nests

With a ‘coo’ and ‘cheap’, ‘cheap’

Gently rolling their soft vowel sounds

To the woodsman asleep

Inside his dream he was wide awake

Aboard a great Ark, like Noah did make

And along from the skies came a wandering dove

Who dropped an olive twig in his palm,

And spoke of love

All around him was a flood

Like around the dovecot stood the wood

And he knew not just about what business he should

Unless it was to speak of love

And as he did the waters receded

Just as the trees that once he had seeded

And his Ark it reached the land

Well then he awoke from his own dream

To find who had spoke, was a dove on a beam

Coo-cooing here and there

They flew in a pair

But startled when he moved

And flew into air

Come back, come back he pleaded and pleaded

But his cries they went unheeded

So he sat back down in a torpor

And stewed like a tea bag left too long in the water

Finally he grew black and bitter

What need have I of trees?

Without love nor Birds nor bees

I may live in my wood of high walls

And if another high tree falls

It will not be by my hand at all

I will live here in the dovecot

Penthouse Quarter

So he laid down his axe

And began to relax

Inside the walls of his new dovecot home

That evening on the breeze

He thought he smelt the smell of the seas

He saw the rustle of the leaves

Then in the dovecot’s eves

Spied his first love

The dovecot owner’s daughter

‘Hey there come down’

He coaxed her

She gave a coo, fluttered and flew

And he saw it was a dove

Returned not the daughter

Though sad, yet relieved

To find hope in the eves

He fed the little bird some grain

And it was bad he believed

To build high walls of pride made of leaves

Just to hide and cover up his pain

So he resolved the next morning

Without further warning

To break the spell of longing

On the whimsical wood

He took his axe and his belongings

And set out through the thronging

To carve out a new pathway made for good

The going it was hard

Often times dangerous

At night he stood guard

For wolves or bears, quite treacherous

Underfoot sometimes rock or stone

From the sky sometimes thunder

Rain or blistering Sun

Down valley and up hill

He used his woodland skill

To make a path to freedom

From the whimsical wood kingdom

Past the hives of honeyed bee-dom

To the land of shrilling shrill

Once his path was made

He then became afraid

That, others might tread down his road

But determined not to be a toad

He would carry the load

And deal with the consequences

Be they light or shade

One day while he was chopping

Near a time he thought of stopping

A lovely maiden upon him strode

She looked like sunshine popping

Through the leaves as they are dropping

And his heart it gave a coo like in a dove’s abode

She smiled and sat down near him

He stopped when she began to sing

A song of love I have been told

And from that day his heartache mended

No more high walls of Pride to be offended

What’s more the doves came back

To their woodland hold

Beggars Belief

What do Beggars Believe?

When they sleep

The only possessions they keep

Are the content of their dreams

Do they believe in the foundations

Of a society of nations

In the consciousness stream

Tell me what do Beggars dream?

Do they dream of a land

Where they’re called a Human

Not judged by their ability to work or have use

Where they’ve not gone beserk nor are shown such abuse

Tell me does a Beggar believe

That the answer lies in bottle

And when they’re on a drunk

Are all their hopes sunk

Or are they free in their dreams

Like a stick in a stream

To float away from their junk

Tell me how must a beggar become real?

Is he a mystery, lost like the stars

In the sea

Is his the life of a Tramp

An envelope with no address

A letter but no Stamp

And does he still have some hope?

Or to some dark sin must he confess

And is his Sin any worse than our own

Is it more or is it less?

What deserves he of his present situation

Are past and future, just out of his creation?

How will the Music score end

Will he find a friend

Or sound his Bum note