Song

She reads to me in murderous intent
poems of virgins
and black hearted clergy
tales rabid
of the hells for me cemented
in cancerous eternities demented
and what pleasured pains implicitly
await me.
She speaks to me with arson in her eyes
torch scorched ballads
of torment
and sonnets filled with rhymed disguise
that do in their pretty words belie
their silken soft and sinful stroked descent
She sings to me with murder in her eyes.

A Shore At Grasmere

beside the singing waters edge
a ballad low to lure the mists
came from the softest silver ebbs
and, oh! my soul dare not resist
the poetry of lakeland’s ghosts
which permeated on the airs
in lyrics man has long since lost
yet still may in these wild hills hear.

Good Friday Song

I laughed with Leonard Cohen
on Good Friday afternoon
we prayed to old Jack Daniels
that Death would visit soon.

The old bartender took the call
and in a crying voice did say
a toast to friends both here and gone
for Death had passed away.

He’d taken black on Monday morn
maudlin as the heaven’s host
and lost his purpose in a dream
of a thankless holy ghost.

And though he prayed on Tuesday
Wednesday, Thursday too,
on Friday took a glass in hand
and knew that he was through.

So lost without his faith no more
Death rose once from his bed
he grabbed his pistol from the drawer
and put a bullet in his head.

LOVE BANANA

to be sung in a calypso style to the tune of Galway Bay

Be sure to write your love songs on bananas
cos kiwis dont go easy on your pen
and if you make a mistake with your feelings
you can peel the thing and start over again.

on the minstrel (who has his fancy lost)

my fancy falls not fair today
from poesie and bright thoughts I stray
the darker humours undermine
my desires to sing and rhyme
of more bright and lustful things
which into most morning bring
a cheered soul that skips its way
into fair fancies of the day,
so rather than for verses strain
I will from vain attempts refrain.

twelve lines

I walked through purple heathers wild
their heads washed fresh with dew
and in their perfumed boudoir
I wrote this song for you
I sang it as the sun gave way
to fogs upon the glen
and even o’er the mists of time
I’ll sing it now and then
whenever heathers breathe the air
and sigh their last bouquet
my thoughts within these simple words
is all I’ll have left to say.

Faux Folk Song

St. Patrick sailed from Tithebarn Street
or so the story goes
and sailed across the Irish Sea
a thousand years ago
and all the snakes in Ireland
did quiver in their skins
as they’d heard St Paddy
had come to do them in.

St. Patrick sailed from Tithebarn Street
in dark old Liverpool
where woodlands fell as sailors tell
for ships the seas to rule
and on board such a sturdy bough
he sighted Eire’s green
and all the serpents quaked and shook
he’d come to do them in.

The Children of the Flowers (a song for David Crosby)

the children of the flowers
have left the golden canyon sides
and though the sun keeps shining
no more will she awake their eyes
to azure mornings’ gilded haze
of love, we are bereft
for the children of the flowers are gone,
yet echoes of their songs are left

Sing Again

sing again pastoral songs
of endless dusks of gold
as keepsakes for my autumn’s end
before the year grows cold
to memories of summer’s lost
and their ballads’ echoes die
beyond the faint remembered phrase
of an old man’s wistful sigh.

A Ballad Begins

close thine eyes of heather’d bliss
and sleep ’til springtime’s green
let night seduce you with his kiss
and cast the darkness out with dreams

unfinished