Every ridiculous thing I did
every time I flipped my lid
Every crime I vainly hid
Who needs a mirror when you've a kid?

The ten percent I'd like to see
and every other part of me
Not what I say but what I do,
Who needs a mirror when I've got you?

we unleashed
a roomfull
of energy
didn't we
our songs
brief anthems
for happy strangers
the floor
rocked, bounced
under spinning bodies
we did that
we did
then spent
we left the stage
sweat wet
and hoarse
applause
in our ears
aglow
aglow
waiting
for the consequences
and finding
there were none.

tippity tippity tap
tap tap tippity tap
tippity tap tap tap
And
stop.

This is not it.
This is not art,
this is no way for me to start.
This glowing screen
this cold machine
can never catalyze my dreams into
                                       communication
                                                ­   conversation
or fire my
                                                            ­imagination (nor can
The mincing of a pen
across neat lines).  Writing only hurts my hand.

And so,
I stand.

Re-align the ol’ synapses
Click my fingers and my HOUSE collapses!
   And  THERE,
Planet Earth, with a grin, says,
“I dare you!  Throw form to the winds!”  And I,

I want to blast my words from the sky
with a big, black blunderbuss,
scatter the survivors to the four corners of heaven!

I want to ****** my fingers, scraping in the grit,
Frantically digging in the glaur and the grime for runaway rhyme

I want to haul my metaphors in, thrashing, from the sea
Hold them, know them, set them free!

I want my similes to flatten me
Like rhinos on the rampage

Tell me your stories, in everything you do
Make a bonfire of biros, a pixel pyre
And dance  your poems as the flames leap higher!

I want to write with my FEET across a Scotland-shaped sheet!

I do not want to be neat.

To tether in letters,
To file for forgetters.

Words on a page are birds in a cage,
Poetry unspoken
Life, unwoken.

Day 1
               Here's a fish.  Tuck in.

                   Thanks.  That'll feed me for today!
Day 2
                Since you like fish so much, here's a fishing net.

                 Oh!  Um, you know I'm actually a farmer.

                 Not anymore.  There's uranium in your land,
                  so it's mine now.  I'd take the net if I were you.
Day 3
                When are you paying me back for that net?

                 What?  I don't have anything to pay with!

                 Well, just give me all the fish you catch.  That'll do for now.

Day 4
                   Excuse me, sorry to trouble you,
                      but I haven't anything to eat now.

                  No problem!  I'll be glad to sell you some fish.

                  But I have no money!

                    I'll lend you some.  Here you go.

Day 5  
                    I'm afraid I need to repossess that net.
                     It'll cover the money you owe me, for today.
                  
Day 6
                   You don't seem to be giving me many fish anymore.
                   Have you forgotten our deal?

                  But I have no means of catching any!

                   Well look, see your neighbour?  He seems to have plenty.
                   If you were to, ah, borrow some
                   I would turn a blind eye.

Day 7
                    My neighbour has stolen all my fish!

                    The cad!  Tell you what, I'll sell you this gun.

Days 8 - infinity

                     More of the same.

Will you be the German
who is tutting through the shutters
as the trains roll by?
Will you be the Christian
busy ticking off the reasons
you can shut your eyes?
***** the left, ***** the right
this is everybody's fight
and we're battling the evil in our hearts
It's a long road to hell
but we know the journey well
and a hatred of the strange is where it starts.

Will you be enchanted
by the pretty little whispers
of the self-made man
Strutting on the scaffold
of the skeletons he shackled
as he made his plans?
Well his dazzling election
is a clever misdirection,
builds a figurehead to follow or defeat
Still whenever evil comes
braying trumpets, banging drums
it's the likes of you and me that keep the beat.

See our little kingdoms
slickly built to keep the guilt and trouble
out of range
Mastering the darkness
simply saturates the masses
with a fear of change.
We cajole, we corral,
who's against us, who's our pal,
Who's the sacrifice to calm the raging seas
Tides will rise, tides will fall
breakers burst against the wall -
It's our terror that will bring us to our knees.

Each of us is given
just one minute and a million choices
every day
Struggle for the love
or love the struggle
of the jungle hunter gone astray
wicked wishes crack the whip
comfort loosens our grip
and a black and hungry vulture takes the air
Every road goes up or down
we can climb, or we can drown -
be the beast - or be the angel, if we dare.

The hills held their breath
as October came shouldering over them
suspending September's false summer promises
tugging the sodden sky behind
and charging the channels with boisterous foam

Remember your place, the season proclaimed
I'll lower the sky if I wish
Strip trees to humiliation,
grey their ridiculous colours -
Run
little people,
run
while I crash and scatter my cackling fun!

A day, a night,
then short relief -
the hills exhale
in pluming cumulus
like colossal conifers bound in snow
pointing at the beleaguered blue
and we, below,
emerge, remembering.

In the instant of creation
I am a channel of pure light,
translating truth from some wordless space,
forming the formless
and joyful at the privilege.

But then,
the thing clutches me
and demands attention
like an ill-bred child.

"Look, just go!" I beg it,
and off it scampers
but keeps returning
with news
of its own imperfection
and my poor craftsmanship.

Then it crouches on my shoulder
as I inspect the work of others
and whispers triumph at their failures
and hatred at success.

Until I start to fear beauty,
***** my eyes shut
and cover my ears, ashamed
of what it breeds in me.

So the call goes out:
every priest, imam, rabbi, shaman
gets the same message.
Comes to them like a dream,
but there's no denying it.

"That's it then, folks,"
goes the mesage,
"If you haven't got it by now,
you never will.
We're off -
You're on your own.
B'bye."

And it's followed by this hollow ringing,
the great screaming emptiness
of space.

So of course they get together,
discuss what's to be done.
And the funny thing is how quickly they decide:

"Suppose we'd best
just carry on as usual, eh?"

"Suppose so, aye."

Which is why
you never knew
this had happened.

A million people
marched on Whitehall
every footfall
was a trumpet blast
every placard
bore an epic poem
every eye
flashed righteous lightning
and it made
absolutely no difference
at all.

Camping out in Craig's garden,
four of us, thirteen or so,
and the daftness has given way
to important, dark-time talk.

Craig alone has a girlfriend, Paula -
he is a pioneer, entitled to ask,
"Fa dae you fancy, then?"
Inevitable question, social minefield

Answer, "No-one!" and you're a ****.
Give the wrong name,
and risk an eternity of slagging.
Tell the truth, and she might find out.

I go first: I have spotted a safe option.
"Ehm, I fancy Paula," I say,
and it's sort of true - she is a girl,
after all.

Chris goes next:
"Aye, I fancy Paula too."
"Me too," says Jimmy,
and we're all agreed.

We all fancy Paula.
We all fancy Craig's girlfriend,
and that's absolutely fine -
Craig seems satisfied.

And since none of us
has ever acted on such feelings:
since emotion does not yet imply intent
since there is no history of conniving,
of manipulating, of pursuit -
we are all safe and happy,
fancying our pal's lass.

Imagine that now.  Down the pub.
Getting on.  Marriages shoogly.
"Aye, I fancy your wife.
In fact, we all do."

Somehow I suspect
it would no longer be
the bonding experience
of that long-gone, pitch-dark night.

She doesn't rush to judgement
when my resolutions crumble
when my morals take a tumble
she can help them to their feet
She can hold onto the good times
when the bad times try to find her
try to deafen and to blind her
she dismisses their deceit
She has seen me as a ruin
when my failures all unmask me
when the black eyed dog attacks me
and I don't know what I am
When the human race deserts me
I'm rejected and reviled
I'm a helpless little child
still she lets me be a man
And I cannot long be broken
though the clouds begin to gather
When I realise I have her
And she calmly calls their bluff
And her wisdom reassures me
I'll have little call to save her
though I would return the favour
just to love her is enough.

We'll try our best
but there is a point
after which all our efforts
to convince you that the world is good
people are kind
and that you have every right to be here
can't counteract the flood that blasts forth
from your wretched night-spun home.

And the hope we offered
seems cruel
as it disappears from view.

One last thought, vanishing child -
try not to take anyone else with you.

Six in a row,
coincidental in itself,
all screaming at me
like the audience at a pantomime:
"Look behind you!"

So I do.
And there's still nothing there.

It would be
a psychotic friend
who would look at the work
you choose to share and say,
"This is *****!  You should be ashamed,
You'll never make a living from this,
you fool!"

I like you:
that means, I like what you do
and I like the fact that you share it.
Remember this when your art makes me smile -
it does not necessarily mean that you are a genius

It simply means you have a friend
and that might be enough.

Some may achieve
objective experience
and a final, infallible arbitration of good and bad.
But I like it
when art and life hold hands
and stroll off into the sunset.

Four feet by six feet,
good black soil
in a good back garden.
I stand, transfixed.
When I was six,
this plot was purgatory.
It could swallow
a sunny afternoon
without mercy.
It stretched, relentless,
an Amazon of weeds
with no beginning
and no end
and I would spend
hour after miserable hour
merely looking
at the horror ahead.
Punctuated here and there
with a desultory dig,
a scrape at the surface,
dock or dandelion
briefly inconvenienced
as the whole, howling,
heaving hoard
of grinning, gobbling green
grasped me, held me
in sticky-willie stasis,
a chickweed choke-hold
between buttercup buttresses.

Today it's tiny.
I could sweep it clean
with three good strokes
of the ***.

So I stand, at once
amused and wistful
lamenting not
the verdant self-pity
but wishing I was still
so easily convinced
of eternity.

After the fifty-seven-trillionth year
of my damnation,
I couldn't even remember
what had been so great
about my neighbour's ox.

Let's have a conversation
we've never had before
where I dazzle and surprise you
and you pin me to the floor
and the world falls out of order
in a new and perfect way
and we wake up on the faultlines
of a fascinating day
Well I know you have it in you
for myself I'm not so sure
as my hinges they are rusty
and I can't unlock the door
We have calcified in comfort
we have fossilised in fate
and I want to shake the sureness
before it gets too late
And it's not that I'm not grateful
or would rather be alone
but we owe it to each other
not to cast the world in stone
So let's have a conversation
we've never had before
let's take the wrong road home, love
and remind ourselves there's more.

A scientist
on TV
was watching an abandoned bear cub
search for its mother.

The scientist knew
where the cub's mother was.

"I'm not sure
how much I should intervene,"
he agonised,
"or whether I should just
let Nature take its course."

As if
his kindest instincts
and his burning desire
and ability to help
were not some of Nature's
most glorious bits of work.

I was dragged
out of trees, off ropeswings
away from friends
every single Sunday of my youth.
The big grey church
filled with frumpy hatted snobs
lit through windows covered
in incomprehensible verse
held neither wonder, peace nor fascination.
Long, agonising sits,
trying not to giggle with my brothers
and praying only for the ordeal to end
did little to fill me with reverence.

But there was a place.
There was a building in whose hallowed hush
I felt the truth of awe,
a place where universes were revealed,
imagination ignited,
questions answered clearly
and not with twenty tons of sludgy obfuscation.
The library.
I loved it even before I could read,
and afterwards, well -
it still seems incredible
that such a place could exist.

Time passes.
And the fact that the powdered old cows
can still fill the church each Sunday,
fill the collection plates,
sing their ****** songs and go,
while rows of empty shelves
gather dust in the ghost of the library
simply
makes me
want
to weep.

Sixteen children watched
as I played a video of unimaginable horror.
The planet misbehaving
water turning into tumbling concrete
boats heaved up mountainsides
helplessness too small a word.

It is important
to bring the world into the classroom
and I put my misgivings aside
trusting the children to understand.

They had seen the images already,
could say 'Tsunami',
didn't laugh, though the scene was ridiculous.
I was proud of them.
Perhaps we will write to Japanese children
and wish them well.

Ten minutes later,
Harvey pushed Aaron off his chair
and all hell broke loose.

Okay, we're all thinking it -
"Is that all the summer we're going to get?"
Here's the rain again,
wearily familiar.
But hey,
at least some things are constant.

Part of the black magic
is broken.
Words
which flew free as starlings
are now tethered
to faces
and I can picture you writing,
redrafting,
chewing your pencils.
People;
just people.

By the night-light's orange glow
I hold you,
Long after you have settled
Jealous of the years which wait
to take you from my arms
To schools and shorelines,
to woods,
to streets,
to parties, parks and pubs
While here and now, all you need
is my heartbeat
in your ear.

The fact stalks through my brain,
weapons ready
to destroy the preconceptions
with which it disagrees.
My natural defences are bewildered,
programmed to allow it through
but dismayed at the havoc it wreaks
and the wreckage of belief.
Finally, its work achieved,
it hunkers down,
crouching like a spider,
defensive, fearful,
waiting for the day
when it, too,
is superseded.

I find
waking
at 2am
provides
a convenient window
for two or three hours
of pondering
on my myriad shortcomings
as a husband,
father,
teacher,
writer,
musician
and human being

Conveniently uninterrupted
by the slightest opportunity
to do anything
about any of them.

Through the passion, the anger
and the bold assertions
it may be hard to see
that I would rather not be talking about this

And the wider I spread my arms,
and the louder my voice becomes
the more I long for silence
and a solitude which asks no confirmation

Opinions are contagious
language, a game which you lose
by explaining that you don't want to play

And each concession I draw from you
each square of common ground we find
is one step further
from the hilltop I wish I was on
alone,
if you don't mind.

Wee, sleekit, cowrin', tim'rous nation
Don't get ideas above your station
Take heed the rising indignation
You've unleashed -
You've had your little conversation,
Now haud yer wheesht!

Aye, very good, there's been a swing
and Salmond, he who would be king
believes you'll have your Arab Spring -
But who's he kidding?
Just settle back 'neath mammy's wing
and do our bidding

So what? Your little movement's grown
Brainwashed by Alec's endless drone
You'll never make it on your own
But we'll protect you
There's monsters in the great unknown
They're out to get you!

But don't believe us out of fear
Rewards will come if you stay near
Unthought of riches will appear
And never stop!
For starters? Why, just lookee here -
This lollipop!

We think the course that would be kindest
Is put this ugly thought behind us
And focus on the ties that bind us
The blood, the soil
(And since we're pals you will not mind as
we nab the oil!)

We've all enjoyed this wee distraction
You're an amusing little faction
You've had your day of satisfaction
But now it's crucial
We get Great Britain back in action -
Business as usual.

You are bored and tired
on a day that dazzles me.
I am distracted, impatient
on a day that calls you forth.
My achievements are old news
and you shrug.
Your achievements
are not the ones I wished for you.

The world is unfolding before you.
The blinding light you brought here
is dissipating far and wide
and I blink – was that a dream?
Did I stop it all for something?
Did everything change for something?

So the painful, slow unpicking begins.
I know it from before,
as my dad became a separate thing,
a man I like but do not need.
The years as nodding strangers
telescope ahead
as the brief, blissful bubble
of you and me as one
collapses.

Let me hold you one more time.
Let us feel each other’s heartbeat
one more time.
Let this be what we mean
when we shake hands as men,
when I pass the phone to your mother,
when you drop off the kids and go.
Let us have a speechless moment
when we remember what was,

and stake our separate claims
to the future.

Conditions are prime
preservation will occur
as another murky layer
settles and sticks

The smoky dawn
holds no redemption
harsh words have left
their scorch upon the tongue

In one room, he lifts the toppled glass
In another, she straightens sheets, silently
A careless word, a glance
might prove the unwanted spark

No explosion will follow,  
not with this black and bitter tinder
Only a slow smoulder,
a quiet, crawling conflagration

Amber light in the quiet kitchen
sees him unscrew the cap
tip the whisky down the sink,
penitent, confessional

Dull thoughts
of drunken microbes
a mirthless smile
and a bottle, as empty as the gesture.

Don't be scared, little thought!
I saw you, keeking out from behind some triviality
Reluctant to disturb me
(you could see I was tired), but please,
don't go, don't go!
I think we've met before?  Some years ago
When I was less careless with my time
And slower to retreat along well trodden paths.
I'm afraid I'm not the host I was,
but wait - at least remind me of your name?

Are you a vanished love,
Neither finished nor fulfilled?
Are you the speechless schoolboy view
From the summit of Ben Alder, won
By twenty miles of peat bog and scree?
(No wonder you feel a stranger here
In front of my T.V!)
Are you a question to which comfort was not the answer?
Oh please wait, I nearly have it!
You're a song, begun but forgotten?
You're something I meant to say to someone, once
You're a friend, a parent - a reason
For loving this great wide world

Don't go - don't leave me here
with Simon Cowell, cheap wine
And no momentum!

"No, my friend," he said,
gently amused,
kindly patient.
"It is a fool who looks at the hand.
The wise man looks at the moon."

I felt ashamed,
but eager to redeem myself,
I turned my foolish gaze to the moon

Whereupon the hand
slipped into my pocket
and swiped my wallet.

And look,
there's the tree where we sat
with our arms entwined -
no hint of guilt,
just a love
that was no-one's business but ours.

All that stuff
with the snake and the apple
came later.

Take a picture quickly, love
we've got to get back to the kids.

I woke from hazy kingdoms
to a frost-shackled landscape,
two boys to dress, feed and wrestle with
and a million undone things.

Shirt and trousered, stepped outside
Set my engine running
to clear the icy windscreen
and the radio ranted over the smokey wheeze
about a world ablaze and changing

My senses crisped like the crystalline verge
light shone unfettered through my eyes
And I was excited afresh
by this beautiful world
and my place in it

Driving breathlessly to work
through the glinting freeze
I passed a lost cartographer
who was looking for his path
in a book about maps.

And I will not write about writing.
I will not write about writing.
I will not write about writing.
I will not write...

There's a commotion
on the top deck of the bus.
Lost in thought
I take a moment to register
as an old gent stands up and says,
"Does anybody ken that wee boy?"

I look to the street below,
and there you are,
proud, red-faced and beaming.
You'd caught up with the bus
on your scooter
just to wave me away
one last time

Your grin has lit
every face around me
as you catch my eye, delighted.
Brimming
with a simple love
I wave back
and we pull away.

The bus may leave you behind
but I carry you with me
through streets all bright
with your presence.

At 9:15 this morning
you hurt your brother and lied about it.
It was an accident!
He did it himself!
Every variation casting up a veil between us.

The victim, too young to lie,
brokenly identifies his tormentor
and I am speechless at the act
and the denial

But I remember.
I remember the impulse too well -
preserve yourself!
No-one saw, they can't be sure you did it.
The theatrical collapse into self pitying insistence.
I remember how easily
I could convince myself of my innocence
and the hopelessness of others' incredulity.
Ah, ugly times.

So I understand, but it still hurts.
Not because I can't trust you now.
Not because it seems like a moment ago
that you, like your victim,
had no inclination to deceive.
Not even because you must take me for a fool
to try it.

It hurts
because in the midst of the forest of wishes I have for you
one wish quietly crumbles:
the wish
that you
will be better than me.

1) - My Life as a Disabled Gay Black Woman

I choose my food
based on personal preference.
I enjoy preparing
and eating it.

I set my home up
in a manner I find agreeable.
I find my partner
rapturous and infuriating
in almost equal measure.

I would lay down my life
for my children
and I fear the world
on their behalf.

I endure
and enjoy
a particular set of experiences
which will never be repeated
but can be broadly understood
by anyone
with a passable degree of empathy.

I speak for no-one
but myself.
I am more involved
with the here and now
than I am
with centuries
of cultural history.

I modify my behaviour
based on the company I am in
and there are aspects of my life
which are no-one's business
but my own.


2) My Life as an Able-Bodied Heterosexual White Man

See above.

"They don't come to the glass
when the people aren't here",
the woman tells us.
But we are here,
and they are entranced.
It is odd
to be watched,
acknowledged.

They are expectant,
swimming in our reflections.
The rays,
back and forth and eager;
sharks, watchful and aloof;
a cleaner wrasse,
distracted from his task -
they hang there
in mastery
of their medium

A shoal
of unanswerable questions,
still watching
as we shuffle off,
dumbfounded.

Behind one door of course
is a giant room, indistinct
colours coming into focus
shapes forming meaning
patterns establishing
coalescent understanding
huge, oh huge!

Another door reveals
hard edges, firmer lines
things to lift and move
a catalogue of voices
swaying rows of figures
regulated, rigorous

Now a third door
opens on a shared space
merging pictures
hybrid hopes
budding, blooming
memories of the first door
memories of the second door.

Many more passed
and one more opened
on a tiny room
senses shrivelled
fog and white noise
an anteroom, a cell
grim and hopeless, sure

But always, the corridor.

When did I stop looking for music
which would shatter my world view
colour the lines afresh
reach spiderstyle from dream to daylight
clatter from the heavens, incomprehensibly fresh

and start settling, instead,
for anything
which doesn't actively **** me off?

In early days, man strode
beneath wide wild skies
reading the landscape with understanding eyes,
forgetting the paths of the women and children.
Wood and hill he paced,
silent, stealthy, alone,
solitude his defence against idleness,
solitude the means by which the Earth spoke to him,
and the state in which experience, memory and thought
bred music, poetry and story.

Times change, of course
and I begrudge not one second
in your company.
But if I willingly submit
to being sounding board for your day's plans;
to being a climbing frame for the boys,
or to answering the question,
"What are you doing?" with smiling candour,

Then perhaps you can forgive me
if I happen to spend
more time than you
in the one room in the house
with a lock on the door.

Periphery drifts
it fades and crumbles
colours seep and blend to brown
music slips
to crackled static
turn it **** it turn it down

fragrant spices
chilli, cinnamon
clart and clog the dusty tongue
lock and bolt
the shrivelled heart
on all you loved when you were young.

High in the mountains the sunlight is hitting the snow
stillness turns to sound
White becomes crystal as water's beginning to flow, man, flow
seeking level ground
There stands a man with a hand to his ears
He is trying to learn from the water he hears
And he's watching it flow, he is wanting to know
what it means to him, but
Maybe this time a song about a river
is just about a river,
would that be so strange?
Water runs deep but it also runs shallow
and I dig the shallows today

Racing through highlands as if no tomorrow will come
time goes for a ride
The more that it carries the slower the water will run and run
flowing deep and wide
There stands a woman who can't get across
She is sad at the thought of the speed it has lost
And her hearts starts to stir, there is meaning for her
She is sure there is, but
Maybe this time a song about a river
is just about a river, would that be so strange?
Water runs deep but it also runs shallow
And I dig the shallows today

And you are a symbol, my love
You symbolise yourself to me
The stars are like the stars above
and the ocean's like the sea
I only want surfaces
let me believe my eyes

Finally losing identity, reaching the shore
watch what happens then
Water evaporates, flies to the mountains to pour and pour
all begin again.

The real you went walking leaving me with someone else
We sat around and chatted telling lies about ourselves
For only killing time it didn't matter what was true
As we waited for the real you

Minutes turned to hours turned to days and turned to weeks
Nothing left to say but still we felt the urge to speak
The one who took your place began to grow, she grew and grew
As we waited for the real you

The real me went looking, sadly I was left behind
To formulate opinions and pretend a state of mind
We thought of words that matter, of love and hope and trust
As we waited for the real us

So here we are and here we're wasting time on what we've lost
Our real selves a notion from a disappearing past
And even though we wouldn't know them if they ever came
We'll go on waiting for them just the same

"You know,
I used to ask myself the same questions,"
said the old man
with a smile.

They had faces and bodies when I was young,
and they were rare -
Maybe once a year, a joke would be ruined
by a walking sneer,
my unselfconscious laughter curdled
by their pitiless scorn.
But, young and sure, I'd bounce along,
leave them forgotten,
and look for the good.

Blessed to expect
that people were kind,
I unshackled them,
disembodied the derision,
unhitched them
from reasoning, living beings

Left them free to gather
in geometric clusters
lurking on the edge of sight
like burning after-images
of a cruel sun

Wordless, sightless, lifeless
empty, ******* spaces
glimpsed with a shudder
on the best days -

gathered in consumptive clouds
on the worst.
Unseen by my companions
they eat my ability
to explain or expel them.

They are there
if I acknowledge them
or not
and in time
they make a nothing
out of everything.

In each other's heads
We all of us plant seeds
Some burst into roses
And some to tangled weeds.

Not here
and not now.

At the black bottom of the loch
layers of forgotten days,
long dead, long lost
stir

Though the surface is glass
ruffled by no wind
tideless, seeming safe,
wait -

At any moment
the rot of what was thought
safely buried, hidden,
may rise

And the deeper it was drowned
the bigger bursts its ghost
smashing the reflected sky
forever

My back is to the loch
I walk untroubled hills but wish
that I could turn, raise hands, shout
"Stop!"

And help you.
Only help you.
I wish
that I could help you.

Be careful with her
her heart is a balloon
and it wouldn't take much to pop it, doctor
Well I wait and shiver
and I pace this sterile room
after fifty years I can't have lost her

Well I was seventeen and she was twenty four
We were at a protest march against the Korean war
I can see her with her placard held aloft
An anger hard as ice but skin so
skin so very soft

Be careful with her,
that skin is paper thin
and it wouldn't take much to tear it, doctor
Oh please deliver,
don't let this pain begin
Fifty years, I can't have lost her

We never married though our parents thought we should
We knew that you couldn't improve on anything this good
Well traditions don't seem quite so foolish now
If you know of one to save her
won't you please just tell me how?

If this is twilight
then give me darkness
for I can see too much
No-one to turn to
No-one who knows me
and no-one there
no-one there to touch

Oh be careful with her
I never cared enough, I know
I need to tell her
I'm still so much in love

An old man
sits
alone.

We don't beat hate with hatred, you know.
You just corral them with contempt,
get their defenses up, their bile flying.
Let folk feel beleaguered and defined
and you strengthen them tenfold.
Look at the ****** church, for Christ's sake.

They can't all be bad. They just can't.
There must be plenty decent folk
rocking themselves in darkened rooms
disgusted at the devastation
their party has wrought on the country.
Looking for a way to save some face.

So here we are. A national holiday,
an amnesty on regrettable social views
and rampant self-interest - Hell,
we've all helped out our pals when we could.
Go find a decent Tory. Open your heart.
Leave your partisan badges behind.

In gentle, soothing tones, explain,
"Your party's ******, mate.
They have no plan. You really don't want
to be with them when the dust clears.
If you keep voting for them, you're an enabler -
it's like handing a bottle of meths to an alkie."

They don't need to join your party.
They don't need to change their views on anything important.
On national Turn a Tory Day, all we ask
is that they stop voting for these dangerous morons
so they can get to **** out of the national consciousness
and let the rest of us clear up their mess.