Another Day (Blue Sky) Dissolve Misheard Trapped By Desire Futility Angels Wake Up Pills Maypole Malleus Hidden

Heroes Kingdom of the Fallen God Leviathan In Light Misheard Passages Blood Eye Simple-Kind Caryatid Columns Mind-Raper Blue Parchment Rest Sing A Song Of Sixpence The Wind Blew Cold November The Dream Between The Stars As Far From Heaven Sacrifice Exposing Vanity Sad Eyed Lady Mnemo-Lung Under Side Revenants Stir Jewels Glisten The Boxer In The Dawn Time Collisions Is This Eden? Lest We Remember Death Counter Return To Sender The Night The Lights Came On Comic Sniper Rifle No Sale Uisge Dream Thieves My Pub The Writing On The Wall Thermopylae Dinner With Ghosts Some Tell Me

Instinct After All Who Would A Laureate Be? Factory Memories Just Another Ordinary Day Tyrant Machine Tenretny Where Dreams Go Blues From A Son Downed TV Burns Lovely Misery Blood On My Fingers We Go Together Art School Riot Cat Middle Class Chains

Another Day (Blue Sky) Vapour trails write across the blue sky; Two jets up there, somewhere, invisible to the eye. You crane your neck to see the white lines. Birds sing in the hubbub of desire, and territorial claims. You scent the life-green grass, still damp from the recent rains; Somewhere, behind some house, you hear the children play. A thump, a bump and joy turns to a kiss-and-make-better cry; It is another day.

Dissolve Around my neck the halter. Kill me, kill me. No slave, no slave. Death is the freedom grave. Only a game. Life. Poison me. Ill me. Keep clicking the cursor but you cant save. Dont say goodbye. Suspicion, not suspense. The knife jumps from the sink straight to my wrists. Vision dissolves into red mist. No sense. Flay my soul away. See the knife has kissed. And I am writing new runes in life blood. Life is fractured into a tesseract. The route of non-resistance leads to mud; Only the loneliest days let me act.

Misheard Shaken and stirred by the lies I have heard By the lingering guilt thats borne on a word I dont want to believe What I cannot conceive But the truth is I know that I havent misheard.

Trapped By Desire Waiting like a reptile, Kicking like a horse, The trap is sprung ker-plunk! And it is you, of course, Whos trapped by the plastic bars: A silicon prison Where all the warders obfusc Call it a benison And you will pay to play Giving it all away. The cell walls are neon flesh Pop up like a toaster Credit card guilty statements The invisible hoster Alibis, little grey lies Consume remnant wisdom And your goggle-eyes Are drawn to the pixel playground.

Futility Angels The futility angels, still dancing Although the etui is long gone Yearn for the return of the prodigal god An empty throne awaiting him. Feathers falling; wings plucked bare in despair Do they know theyre fictions? Existing only in misproved tomes; And in adult childrens prayers.

Wake Up Pills Take your Smarties, my little boy Although someones smashed all your toys You must be well, and never ill Ive sugared all these bitter pills Theres one for you, and one for thee And one to kill your fantasies; Theres marzipan, and other rhymes Make you happy all of the time Whatever you decide to do Dont you ever swallow the blue Or else you will wake up.

Maypole Round and round the maypole Full ragged did we run. Round and round, round again, Beneath the Mayday sun. We ran until we dropped Down to the hard, hard ground, And then, the music stopped, There hardly was a sound. We picked our bodies up And then we danced again Of fever did we sup, We drained the draughts of men. And then, the day was done, We danced ourselves away, But come next Maydays sun Well dance the dance of May.

Malleus Between hammer and anvil Forged and beaten Then drowned in the butte Enveloped by steam Annealed Out of fools gold, steel.

Hidden Heroes Where are all the good men hid? In the cake tin, beneath the lid. Pop the lid, and let them out; And watch these heroes scream and shout Then, when youve let them play Pack them back for another day.

Kingdom Of The Fallen God. The kingdom of the fallen god The passages of the forgotten son The sunset over the broken idols The sky is blood, the sky is blood. Rain over the mountains, lachrymose wind Unkind rumours of the whispering talk The seasons of a thousand fears The survivors of the golden years. New gilt on the graven faces Monarchs of these new races Kings of ignorance and failure Staring into the dying western embers. Legacies of dead heroes weigh heavy Burdened by myth the shoulders break Poisoned by belief, never knowing What has not been, nor will ever be.

Leviathan So wakes Leviathan, the Deep; A thousand new-drowned souls to keep, Forever in the blue they sleep, No more to cry; no more, I weep. So shakes the Earth, this blue-green clod; Is this not proof there is no God? No divine lies to ease the lost, No words enough to pay the cost. And all our eyes turn to the east, To seek some truth in those deceased; But all I see is only death, For in the end thats all thats left.

In Light In light He falls The morning son The Morninglord Into the dark Into the void His wings aflame His soul afire He fell Consumed by doubt Destroyed by faith Embittered by love that was answered not.

Misheard Passages He plays the celestine; dark travels in the misheard passages; Varied variance of the dead soul song Twin souls separated by desire and a hundred years, Reunited by a score to a never-made film. Blank expressions from the zombie audience Ticking boxes on their participant scripts. The curtain falls like thunder but nobody cares; The cinema has no verity anymore.

Blood Eye In the red sky theres the blood eye Gaze burning down The setting sun, day almost done, The sun gods frown. The rage of days, the final rays, The dying light; Into the dusk, Apollos husk, Encroaching night. The red will fade; the glow degrade Darkness descends; The eye has gone; and all is done; Everything ends.

Simple-Kind Simple-kind; Unbowed archings peerless and fearless unwind; The brevity-kiss of instant time And your fifteen seconds of fame; Another player in the game Another loser entombed in the same. The words uncurl into syllables And meaningless un-nouns mere sounds That chitter and chatter away beyond the banks of hearing. Deconstruction of the self Ego super ego id insanity bequests nirvana Melt away like summer ice Begone, gone, gone

Caryatid Columns The silent caryatid columns Stand sentry in the roofless hall Their faces gaze to the centre While you stare at the cold stone wall The marble blindness of their eyes Still seems to pick your soul apart And you are saying all your lies Well rehearsed within your heart But they dont hear, their ears are stone And they dont care for all your words Youre but a man of flesh and bone While theyre but toilets for the birds.

Mind-Raper The mind-raper in the cassock Is kneeling on his hassock Telling little god lies And dreaming of boys. Enlisting toys for his schools More lies to spread To the brain dead And other fools.

Blue Blue, Like the colour (You like the colour) Is how you feel (You like how it feels) The solace of depression Weighing your shoulders down. Blue, Like the unseen sky (Dont look up) Clouds curtain it No wind to push them away Even the sky frowns.

Parchment Virgin parchment tattooed By the inestimably rude Predications and dedications Of the stateless nations, Of the eternally abused The mongrels and the songstrels, The outside and the defiant Eclipsing other sons Their ministrations, Recorded in brief notations, Blogs unread by the living dead Who get their news and views From all the Page Twos. And the ink is not yet dry Before their exhortations die On the lips of the crips With the betting slips Who chance their souls with the lotto Get blotto but cant decide When faced with a voting slip.

Rest And now, when all is said, when all is done, Weve put away our toys, and had our fun, And laid us down to sleep upon our beds, To rest tired souls, and even tireder heads; To sleep forever; never more to wake; No dawns to see rise red; no fasts to break; Well rest until all thats left is barest bone, And rest some more, as bone is turned to stone.

Sing A Song Of Sixpence Sing a song of sixpence A pocket full of lies All the broken rivers Have burst inside your eyes Make a wish for sixpence A coin falls down the well Buy off the Goddess Fate Whos made each day a hell. A silver glint in darkness A song which no one hears You sang a song of sixpence It only reached your ears.

The Wind Blew Cold The wind blew cold, across the fold, across the heath and moor; A winter chill began to thrill my ageing bones; It numbed my skin, a medicine to salve this bitter whore Whose soul Ive sold a thousand-fold; just weeds and stones Were round me now; a broken how, a monument to death. A shiver ran as I began to think of things Like tombs of kings and golden rings, now lost. And soon my breath Began to frost; I sat on mossed old rocks, the wings Of one old crow above me, though I cared not for his flight; I laid me down upon hills crown and waited for the night.

November Where have they gone? All those days My spring time Slipping from memory Like hourglass sands Grabbing at grains As they fall through my hands But all that I have left Is the coming rime The grey days of November.

The Dream Between The Stars Asleep, the great dark gulf around your ship, You dream of lives and words to some day see; A thousand years, you dream upon your trip; The silent waves of time, eternity, A thousand souls all dream upon this ark; A thousand other dreams of cats; of seas; Of children yet to be; a house; a park; And all the other things which dreamers please. The stars so far away, mere points of light, Gaze down upon this hope for mankinds fate This lonely voyager through this longest night Towards a hoped for, dreamed for, landing date, No sleeper knowing the dream is over, And that the system has long gone nova.

As Far From Heaven As far from heaven, as heaven is wide, Is where I delved, into the fell demesne; Down into the depths of the lightless days Where the madmans bones hunger for new flesh And where the sightless mendicant predicts An ending to all of ones grief and pains; But no one listens; for no one believes; Doubt bred in the cauldrons of deep despair, And only the liars are remembered. Down where the dead men go to sleep a while Before clawing back up towards the light.

Sacrifice An old church Older grounds Christian hymns Pagan sounds Pray to God And others Praise the Lord Earth Mothers False faith fades Blood on blades Sacrifice Sacrifice.

Exposing Vanity Beautys but a sheen on flesh it doesnt mean a thing Time scrapes the patina away Exposing truth. Chemical creams trowelled on They dont do a thing Except spread wealth away Exposing vanity.

Sad Eyed Lady Sad eyed lady of the Dylan Forever spinning old thirty-threes Stuck in a groove Waiting for the truth But shed get down her knees And pretend five more years of youth To be a sad eyed lady of the Dylan And hear that gravel voice Whisper in her ear Those words that have never been sung before All the records from first to last On the shelf in her fresh boudoir Chords change, a voice ages Never to be regained, no madeleine But this chatelaine still dreams of futures past The ghost of fain desire Still haunts the scene Rainy days but shes the only woman Dreaming of an Egyptian ring Wishing not that she was happy But a sad eyed lady of the Dylan.

Mnemo-Lung Across the fields inside my mind Id walk, and chat with Jung; The buttercups would bear me up If I was feeling old. Id close my eyes, and then Id find That nothing could go wrong My Eden is a holy cup A draught against the cold. All mankinds there, if but I choose The living and the dead And I can talk to any one A chit chat with Karl Marx Theyre my puppets, they cant refuse These ghosts inside my head. What great debates, what pointless fun! Within these dreamt up parks. If solitude is what I want And peace my one desire Then I will roam on verdant sward Or swim in deep cool pools. For all my hurts a new dtente, Battles done no more fire Ive killed all foes with mental sword And rid me of my fools.

Under Side The other side of the under side of the lets pretend The coin flip toss thats always lost in the acid, bitter end And you cant stand or understand even less comprehend Why she has left, left you bereft, why it had to end Sunshine breaks through the Venetian blinds A most unkind awakening And he staggered with the dagger from the sticking place The whiteness of his ghost features host to poison in his face His wife of greedy fire and base desire is lost to space Beyond the eyes, buried by lies, beyond all words of grace Sunshine breaks through the Venetian blinds As he stairs at the new flowerbed.

Revenants Stir The rumpy-pumpled sheets Still betray the night before exploits; The exhausted corpses Unwoken by sunlight Vampired by lust. Slowly the revenants stir To stumble over forgotten names And take new oaths against wine Detaching vestments from light fittings And red blushes from faces.

Jewels Glisten Jewels glisten in the light, as night Descends beyond the horizon of our desires And those embered fires glow weak, grow strong As it all goes wrong For those who seek to be among the throng Amber light from the torches on the walls Cascades like poison to the floor And I hear the mordant calls Of those who I thought long dead and buried in my head A skeleton in my closet and under my bed And the only colour I can see is torch-red Laughing like a whore I fall apart Nothing but a white coat baiting tart Nothing but Jean Paul Sartre And Derrida haunts the dance floor in the disco here Pronouncing a Ghost Dance fear I steer away from this madness Another day I will hear what he has said But the voices in my head Cry out for retribution No solution to this conundrum Only one more mystery of allusion.

The Boxer This is the hapless boxers lot; A nose which bursts in blood and snot, A broken jaw, two swollen ears, And eyes that burn with bloody tears; A cut above, a forehead scar, A jagged tooth, for that Jack Tar. Those are the prizes; the final purse A victory tour by long black hearse.

In The Dawn Time In the dawn time, between the fire and the sky; In the deep earth, buried by the soft clay; Began there life; began there all we say. Between the rocks; between the water lie. Dream a dream of life dreaming of living; Dream an oh so little dream of me Of walkabout on the plains by the sea Of growing into the past, forever giving.

Collisions Collisions in a torus At near the speed of light; One particle into another Birthing more In search of God Or Misters Higgs and Bose.

Is This Eden? Is this Eden, these broken trees? This green turned grey, these poisoned seas? This air made foul, this loam we soil? These mounds of ash, a gift of toil. Is this Eden, this world I see? Where man has had his victory And cast aside the green of life And taken murder for his wife? Was that Eden, that fading place? No more the home of this doomed race For we have killed our only earth And have for food but bitter dearth.

Lest We Remember Lest we remember that other November We wear red poppies to help us forget So we can pretend to be human and humane While still sending off young men to die In wars that we know we can never win. Lest we remember that other November We fall silent for two minutes of peace Instead of shouting out our rightful rage At the injustice of bombing the hapless We dont talk about blown apart foreigners. Lest we remember that other November A red sea of paper flowers bloom on teevee screens In each lapel a bloodspot to assuage our guilt As newsreaders intone with false solemnity On the casualties of our past leaders hubris. Lest we remember that other November And the innocent sacrificed for pointless war We announce that we must never forget Without understanding what we should recall The decisions repeated in every war since. Memory without understanding is nothing The dead reduced to names in a book And I will not be a red poppy slave For I know what happened a century hence How could I not, when its still going on?

Death Counter The craven peerage of black feathers crowned The carrion lord becalmed by morsels red A-pecking at the eyes of the dead He is psychopomp and necro-hound Ill omen of the nearly heroes Forgotten and blind. charnel toys Nothing more than yesterdays boys Now all they are is noughts and zeroes. Nobody counts the dead these living days.

Return To Sender Lover letters returned to sender; Posted through a letterbox rattled by the wind He thought it was her knock; nobody there Looking out, up and down the street As a nomad crisp packet tumbleweeds And a police car lurks outside a home You know the kind, the armoured door and panes And you are still waiting for love For that swack moment to occur But all your letters are returned.

The Night The Lights Came On The twentieth, November, Forty-Four In this proud nation, still fighting the war; In Piccadilly, and in Leicester Square Through all of Londons many thoroughfares A switch is thrown, and lights come on No more do people fear the German bombs No more doodlebugs, and no more blackouts, No more defeats, and no more fears and doubts, This is the night the night the lights come on; For hopes one light thats ever, always, shone Forget old troubles, ones we have forsworn; This days the day that my mother was born.

Comic I hear the echoes Of stale laughter captured in The repeated show. Empty seats still reeking of Old tobacco smoke. A smile is forced upon us After all, weve paid. Soon the posters will be torn down And new names plastered up. On and on the old man goes. I dont get his jokes.

Sniper Rifle I wish I had a sniper rifle I wish I had a gun I know its but a little trifle This dream Ive just begun. Id sit up high And watch them die Crosshairs on a skull Id blow them all away Each time Id hit the bull.

No Sale The uxorious salesman shit-grins his way Into your house; Trying to double-glaze his words with svelte untruths On the necessity of purchasing his wares. You stare. He continues with his patois, The unending verbal diarrhoea Clatter of adjectives and lies But never once does he look into your eyes. You sigh. And for all your negatory responses You have no mercantile impulses He ignores the fact that you wont part With your hard-earned cash for his flashy trash. No sale.

Uisge That deathly elixir which runs of life From optic to glass From throat to soul From kidneys to porcelain Both enervates and elevates. The fallen apotheosis of the sometime seer With the prosaic resolutions to myriad Gordian knots The back-of-the-throat fire That burns away those fractured banes That haunt our daily rues. Come cup, come glass Never empty of that peated nectar That smoky taste I would forever drown.

Dream Thieves The dream thieves In their capes with no sleeves Their masks with no faces Footfalls no traces Invade like disease. They walk in your mind And steal what they find Leaving only the grey Erasing the fey Stilling the breeze. With scalpels they slice Excising the nice And staining with scars The landscape of stars With uttermost ease. They chain you to earth With shackles of birth And weigh down your soul That once flew the hole To flutter like bees. And then when you wake Their thirsts have been slaked But you have no dreams To inspire your schemes Youre drained to the lees.

My Pub A thousand beer plaques on the walls Oh, how Ive longed to see these halls, To be within this church to ale And taste all kinds, from dark to pale, To sup a porter, then a stout, To try each type the bar girls tout; And when I die Ill come back here, And haunt this heaven full of beer.

The Writing on the Wall Scrubbing away at the unfortunate truths Of the condemned rebellion of doubly damned youths The contracted cleaner of a contracting state Erases graffiti, the language of hate Demotic curses against the elites Spray cans not pens; walls not sheets Prosecutions will follow for anyone caught Send them to prison, of mercy theres naught Them and us and rich and poor, two widening paths You know itll get worse just do the maths A nation of sheep plays follow-the-wolves To death in the fold, and all it involves But what of those lies on green benches each day? The evil enacted that wont go away No cleaners for that, a partisan press Pretence of reportage, while mired in the mess And those liars lead on, in their ivory halls Condemned forever, by writing on walls.

Thermopylae Hot springs at the gates of Hades; Seven thousand stand against the horde King Leonidas and the Spartans Will not give way until they fall. Gorgo, in Sparta, awaits his return, His wife will see him on his shield. A king of the House Agiad Would never yield. Xerxes and his million men Offer life without honour Defeat without fighting They offer nothing at all. Battle is joined Spartan and Thespian fight side by side The sky darkens with The shafts of a million arrows The Greeks fight in the shade. For two days the Persians fail For two days the Spartans hold strong An army of Persian corpses Turn the springs red. Only betrayal defeats the Spartans Only betrayal slays Leonidas To the last man they fight As they have fought for two days now And two days will be long enough.

Dinner With Ghosts Sitting down with ghosts Empty places at the table Absent guests, forgotten hosts And those who unable Or unwilling to attend. Candles flicker in the cold Hollow echoes of better days Boards creak, wood old Six for dinner, no one shows. Flame reflected in the steel A tiny, burning, candle sheen The front door knock that never comes Rap twice for yes, once for no In this sance of your life. The windows rattle in no breeze But all your worries have surceased Mirrors unfrosted by your breath. Candles burn down, sputter out The sweet scent slowly fades And you dont move from your throne.

Some Tell Me Some tell me That I need the love of a good woman But Id rather have one whos bad. They dont know That I know what it is to be human And that is what makes me sad. I can see That which turns wise men blind And I know truth cant be defined. I am free Of the lies that so many find So many lies believed, and truth denied. I dont care That I am unhappy As it is better to be truthful than glad.

Instinct After All Industrial taboos in use all over the come-over-and-sit-yerself-down; All body parts already auctioned to the highest bidder; Separated on the screen from eyes these lies Have penetrated where other lies refuse to go Down into the soul and other holes: Down into the void weve dug and all we want to do is keep on digging. Endlessly voiding. Endlessly frigging. Got to keep active so we dont have time to think Pacify ourselves with drugs and drink Neuter with television and religious division. Dont look in the mirror lest we see what weve become; Dont look to the future lest we see what we have done; Remain in the past with imagined glories; But the real histories are always more gory. A school time story. Just Jackanory. And still the flesh is pressed and still it is displayed Get your money on the thing for which weve paid These things which we have sold And all former restrictions become offers All sins become desires to fill the coffers And this instinct to procreate is only instinct after all.

Who Would A Laureate Be? A ten year sentence, what offence has been Committed here? What criminal, what rogue, Who would a laureate be? To be condemned to invent false brogue To delineate regal fripperies, the Commemoration of state and church; Give him, her, a barrel of sack; For the troubles of rhymed research; For the few thousand few artisans Who will take the lines to heart Are but dreaming of that position Of that gilded misery to start, And the acclamation which rarely comes, However due; we are so forgetful, now, Of Shelleys legislators and rebels, The words unread while they still plough The loneliest of furrows. Yet still a thousand bards Dream of joining Davenant and Tate Shadwell, Southey and other names Now forgotten by this illiterate state; As though fame bestows worth on verse. Ten years of durance writing ditties For the dearest, aging Queenie; Before freedom for more deserving lines: Who would a laureate be?

Factory Memories The factory closed for the summer holidays Workers getting tanned in the Benidorm sun When they came back The factory had closed And their jobs had gone. Autumn descends into Winter And frost lies on the grass outside Near where the cars used to park. Vandals have stoned the windows. The roof has gone. Skeletal, stark, the corpse endures To remind the betrayed of broken promises And better times. Someone says the Chinese will take it over. But nobody believes those platitudes. All theyve got is the Jobcentreplus And memories.

Just Another Ordinary Day Wake up yawning, parents bawling, Just the daily bad name-calling, A ruder klaxon, this alarm, It has not got one note of charm; Then you know the plates are flying Because yer mam has stopped her crying And you hear the sounds of smashing Plates are flying, plates are crashing Dad is ducking in the kitchen. Get up, go down to the bitchin Then youre accused, youve got no job They glare at you like youre a yob And theres no point in speaking out Cause all they do is scream and shout So you scoff your tasteless brekkie While parents argue about the leckie And all the bills they cannot pay More arriving every day. The hamsters just had babies, And you think the dogs got rabies Cos postie bit his somewhere south And now both are frothing at the mouth And your sisters become a Christian But you are not really listening Because all she does is genuflect and pray. And its just another ordinary day. Escape outside and its still raining But whats the point in your complaining? No one ever hears what youve got to say But you swear at the clouds, anyway. You wander round to see your beau This scag you know, a girl called Jo All you wants some tender lovin Without having buns in ovens So your girlfriends on the pill But you think it makes her ill As she shouts when she sees you And then she beats you black and blue Accusing you of faithless actions (God, shes gonna put you in traction) Jos got a death grip on your scrotum (She never bothers to hold your totem) You pleader and plead, youre a pleader Always been a tricky bleeder She relents, the grip is loosened So you escape, before its noosened You go down to this club you know

Its not that great, just a place to go Blag your way in, past the bouncers (Youve known tougher train announcers) In the club, fake youve got style Do three lines of Tate & Lyle Dance with a trannie on the floor You dont know what youve come in for So you waltz back out the club Youve never liked that heavy dub Go to a pub and spend your money On some lager that tastes a bit funny Maybe its cause its not been watered Usually its strengths been quartered You keep on drinking until it closes Drinking away all your neuroses. Stagger home, youre really shattered Not that such things have ever mattered Get your key out, and find the lock And that is when you get a shock Because you find the locks been changed Something which you dont find that strange So you bed down in the garden Not bothering to knock, no chance of pardons Too tired to listen to your father grouse Not knowing youre at your neighbours house. Flowers for pillows, you snore away, Just another ordinary day. Yes, its just another ordinary day.

Tyrant The tyrant behind the desk smiles like death Like a crocodile staring at his prey Willing victim that I am I smile back Wishing that I had a machine gun today I dream of a trigger slowly caressed My lovers finger squeezing out hot lead In my minds eye he jerks like a puppet Red fountains, he falls and I know hes dead And people scream and I dont really care Only a dream but how I wish Id dare.

Machine The machine god waits in the darkened halls; Silently, within those porcelain walls, He anticipates the prey not yet won, The soul to be weighed, and perhaps undone, Unravelled like some twisted skein of string, All to be judged must come before the king. The cases said, accused they stand, a dock Of iron round their souls; the grand baroque Inquisitor has sat, and judged the dead. The prey of this most bitter figurehead, The wheat which waits to feel the reapers scythe, Twisting in the wind, but it cant writhe Its freedom from the sharp cut of the blade; It is but grass before the reapers shade. All are guilty; the crimes of life many; Of sweet mercy there is never any. There is only the eternal machine, The unproduction line, our souls unclean, The perfect system makes us martyrs all, Uncaring as our shredded spirits fall, Into the abyss, no hope for all is Loss Once more, dear friends, the machine god ATOS.

Tenretny Astral bodies, fallen stars Helping them take off their bras YouTube mongrels, internet whores And do what thou wilt shall Be the whole of the law Pixel Crowley, electric gods All the lost boys odds and sods And see what thou wilt Shall be the whole of the law.

Where Dreams Go Where do dreams go, when they leave our minds? Where do they go to die? From what old tomb could we exhume our dreams? I dont know, said I. Perhaps they flee to a much better place Where we dont waste them. Leaving them locked away like dying roses Petals dropping like snow. Figments of a future weve turned away from Doors locked, keys thrown away. They have gone like the days of our youth Our hands are empty. Where do dreams go, when they leave our minds? I will see them, when I die.

Blues From A Son Out of Mississippi, out of Hazlehurst; This May-child is Memphis-bound, Nineteen eleven, gifted to Earth, Julias son with the God-given sound. Son of Noah, son of Dodds, Now the childs in Robinsonville, And Spencers the name hes got, Living with Ma and Dusty Willis. Jews harp, and then harmonica, Running with his good pal Windum, He goes back to his old monicker, And they called him Robert Johnson. A guitar falls into the young mans hands, The strings plucked by the delicate fingers, Of this small-boned music man, Women drawn to this young singer. Charlie Patton, and Willie Brown, Help out Robert with his blues, But young Robert well, he gets it down He gets the whole thing through and through. Did he walk to the crossroads one night And offer his soul for the devil to use? As long as he became the best in the world Did old Nick become that young mans muse? Up jumped the devil but Robert stepped down And hellhounds never caught his tail His gift was greater than Up or Below The human part that never can fail. And though he died young hes forever alive Immortal on disc, eternally young, Out of the speakers his voice will keep coming While we all grow weak those tunes will stay strong.

Downed Drowned Downed In gin. Everything is swallowed in the Ginnunga Gap The world serpent devours all And Odins ravens fall. One eye Unblinded Unbound Ragnarok fills me The end of all that there is. Soon I will be in Valhalla The Valkyries will come for me And I will find solace As I down mead Among heroes all.

TV Burns My eyes are burning with the visions I see The daily death toll thats shown on TV I close my eyes but the visions remain Etched on my retinas in full colour pain My ears still hear the toll of the dead The numbers keep growing, keep haunting my head And helpless my eyes flicker open again A foreign wasteland, but the meaning is plain And I cant do anything to end the pain.

Lovely Misery I am the jester on the plastic-covered cards; Laughing at your disparate poetic retards, The sing-song rejection of your bardic inflection; Just another failed writer washed up on the shore; The confection of your affection is betrayed For money and a quick shag behind the bus shelters. And is this life? Is this what you want to be? An alcoholic interlude between each misery? My life subsumes into mystery My sex lifes ancient history And nobody loves me for who I am Nor for whom I might one day be So I recede, into my lovely misery.

Blood On My Fingers Ive got blood on my fingers Wish I knew where it came from Ive got blood on my fingers It tastes so copper-sweet. When I think back to what Ive done I cant think back to what Ive done Ive got blood on my fingers And I cant think back to what Ive done. Im gonna wash away the evidence The waters cold and it numbs I wash away the evidence Wish I knew where it came from. Theres no blood on my fingers But still I let the water run Wish that I could numb my mind That I could think back to what Ive done. There is no permanence, only death Nothing last and nothing lingers We are mayflies above a stream Ive got blood on my fingers I see it still, though it is gone I cant wash away what I have done Ive got blood on my fingers And my crime cant be undone.

We Go Together You are Shakespeare to my Marlowe Im Clark Gable to your Harlow Youre the peaches for my cream Im the coal, and youre the steam. We go together like all those things; We go together like all those things. Youre the chalk, write on my board, Were both notes, together a chord. You are the sunshine of my dawn You are my Queen, I am a Pawn. I am a glass, you are Champagne You fill my life and make me sane. We go together like all those things We go together.

Art School Riot Theyve broken crayons on the floor Theyve spilt vermilion by the door Its glass now crystal trod-down dust Its hinges rent, revealing rust And somewhere someone thinks to scream To shatter wide the teaching dream The tutors dead stabbed by a brush And now more screams break through the hush And sirens, too, can now be heard Come to arrest this scene absurd But murder done cannot reverse So send instead for some black hearse Or shrinks to pick apart the mind Of he who framed this art unkind A riot and a murder cruel On Monday morning in the school.

Cat I smell a mouse somewhere behind the skirting boards I wait Patient Claws out And listen to the birds outside theyll get theirs soon enough I know hes put the cat food down beef-flavoured Whiskas But the desire to hunt is hotwired in my blood A microcosm of scents explode in my nose My ears prick up But its only birds on the TV not real the real deal I will kill this mouse Leave his guts scattered around the house Because thats what I do. I am a cat.

Middle Class Chains Breaking the chains on your middle class brains You have nothing to lose but your pension But thats something which you dont mention Worry about the car, tax and the drains The NHS and the buses and the trains But you dont ever voice your righteous dissension No! Its long past time for intervention Its tome to saw against the grains Rebel, rebel, and kick against the pricks Against the cuts and against the allied fools Against their laws and all their unwritten rules Against the Lib Dem cunts and Tory dicks Against all of their clever-clever tricks And not be subject to their enslaving tools Those laws drummed in at uniform schools Tear down their cosy mildewed politics Rebel, rebel, and snap those mental chains Free each rebel thought of your middle-class brains.