There was an old man of Blackheath,
Whose head was adorned with a wreath,
Of lobsters and spice,
Pickled onions and mice,
That uncommon old man of Blackheath.

I found your black tie
Between the warped slats
Of the dresser drawers
And a curled
Photo
Of you in Blackheath
Smiling
A hopeful day
Head filled with the universe
Limitless
But that was you
A dreamer they said
And all around you
Harder types
Their spades clanging
With symphonious legerity
For the few bob
They drank on Friday.

You left that place
And moved home
To the frozen sod
Of your birth
And still you smiled
Your fists knurled
Around a shovel
Splitting turf for the fire.
And all around you
Harder types
With reins and whips
They only sought to protect you
From the pain of wanting
What you could never have.

But still I loved your stories
You made me believe
That the cawl and grog
Was pheasant and port
And everyday an adventure
A bud on its axil
You made me
Into you
A dreamer
A sybarite
And all around me
Harder types
Eyes stuck to their shoes
So they can watch their step
And charge me to
Watch mine

The singles game had the power to change,
all it requires is believability
and prosaic earrings with stories about Turkish exes,
welcome together in a taxi to Blackheath
home to Father's Anchor butter
and her  tireless Cat Stevens dreams
an open secret she's got an addictive habit.
Gin and on off days  
Tobacco for cultivating asthmatic lungs.
Could never understand was this an
altering cry for help.

He wants to marry me
in all of my poverty
so I put my glad rags on
skipping to the words of the gun

He wants to marry me
then to take me to Blackheath
there he wants to beat me
beat me close to death

Let the bells ring out
for he wants me beaten
he wants me to bleed
crimson joy falling from my sweet mouth

He wants to hate me forever
so he gives me a ring of barbed wire
then he smiles like the Devil
and beats me up again


By Christos Andreas Kourtis aka NeonSolaris

151
1 I was small among my brothers,
and the youngest in my father’s house;
I tended my father’s sheep.

2 My hands made a harp;
my fingers fashioned a lyre.

3 And who will tell my Lord?
The Lord himself; it is he who hears.*

4 It was he who sent his messenger
and took me from my father’s sheep,
and anointed me with his anointing-oil.

5 My brothers were handsome and tall,
but the Lord was not pleased with them.

6 I went out to meet the Philistine,
and he cursed me by his idols.

7 But I drew his own sword;
I beheaded him, and took away disgrace from the people of Israel.

I flamed out over Blackheath,
fell into a blue funk
fizzled down to earth,
sunk into depression and
learn't a valuable lesson.

Don't fly to high with your wings on fire.

The president of the residents committee took pity,
pointed the way into Emerald City
and me with no brain thanked him all the same
and went on my way.

Flame on and back on song with a fire in my heart,
Blackheath became the part of a story told to
fire eaters and juggling the truth just a bit
I lit the highlights with sights I had seen.

The wizard who was
was a master of verse and
could curse like a trooper,
never believed a word that he heard and
relied on his eyes which were failing though green with the light of the madness of night and with lips that could curl strands of hair stood there in the marquee full of wizardry and laughed at me.

Don't fly a kite full of lies when the wizard's eyes are on you,
falling through again, flame off and feeling blue again
I do the same again
and drop.

There was a young man from Blackheath sir,
Who carried his tool in a sheath, sir,
    With a practiced quick draw
    He would see, he would saw,
But he always wound up underneath her!