When Elvis met Jimi
At the Lonely Waiter
Bringing him drinks
The purple was buzzing
The post was all broken
Returning to sender
Not really an option
The watch was watching
An’ time was almost saying
Excuse me while I kiss
You heartbreaking hotel
What an experience
Amongst the cutlery
An’ the crystal glintings tray
Ahead of Dr John
Reflecting on its surface
In his darker glasses
While Saint Joan
Was making passes
At the other jester
Behind the painted mirror
In the opposite corner
On the other inside
Of stained glass shades
Wrapped around
Equally coloured eyes
Like a matching pair
Of angels on fire
Hoping to light her fire
Before the wine poured in
And the flame was decanted
And she couldn’t get higher
This side of her fire
Where Neil Young never
Gets any longer older
His name is a blessing
Going with his territory
Where pearl sang the blues
She borrowed from Picasso
Before the gold rush happened
And all the haircuts
Vanished 'neath waves vanity
Where the longer is stronger
And ever so fashionable
In a Samson kind of way
Before the hairdressers
Kicked the windows in
The opposite direction
To Frank Sinatra’s hat
And that red red robin
Just kept bobbing along
In such an old fashioned
Very new kind of song
Stuck in the groove
Of fortified reverends
Heading for the exit strategy
And life on the fast track
So easily overtaken
By their Elvis impersonation
That leave the building
Very incognito ergo
It’s how they managed
Just like Rene Descartes
Used to sometimes play
In his laconic kind of way
Before he found that lost
Frank Sinatra hat
The Panama number
With a cute red band
And its jaunty angle
The geometry of stardom
He thought for a moment
Of being ahead an’ a hat of his time
An’ the stained-glass shades
Were so very existential
Tiffany’s lamps were jealous
As John and Paul used to sing
And that very lonely waiter
Only had that lonely tray
Eleanor Rigby refused used to say
Get father Mackenzie out of here
It’s his last chance to be Elvis
He’s innocent of everything
While this is still a building
The Apocalypse left a message
On his answering machine
Screaming get out of here
Architecture’s a threat to survival
There’s a whole lot of shaking
Going on everywhere upstairs
An the basement’s not much safer
Now’s a good time
To write your last letter
An’ send it to your lover
Saying that long goodbye
In the fastest time ever
(Someone cancelled the long player)
And nobody can be trusted
Not even your favourite ******
When the wind stops whispering
An’ you can’t make the distance
Say goodbye to your record collection.

Let me tell you something pilgrim
Straight and to your copied paste
That thing masquerading as a face
On the elongated ***** of your Janus
For you that’s just the perfect place

The world needs a dramatic critic
Like the desert needs more sand
And secondary literature more bland
Always needs another helping hand
To slap it on the key shaped shifter

In all things pertaining to writing
Bribery’s cool but flattery’s not
The way to fuel the imagination
Filthy lucre can be an inspiration
Filthy loookers a mere distraction

A journey to a place poetic of literature
Is for so few the metered pilgrimage
Undertaken by many a scurrilous rascal
Disguised in critical converse writing
So uncritically stereotyping themselves

The mother of all of typing errors
Dispatched by the gods to scare us
Into thinking they must be the genius
Scribbling down their magnum opus
By lining it up their own proboscis

Stained glass shades at the ready
Holy writ is on their sacred menu
In the cathedrals of the mediocrity
Their vicious verb is very acapella
Only the lonely write in melodrama

To be a critic is not to be in Hamlet
Or anything else that really matters
It’s a life disguised as a T.S Eliot
Hurling anagrams at the geniuses
Writing truth in all things beautiful.

Declaring a balloon
At the airport
Jetting the setting’s
A fast slow business

Tito on the phone
He’s not Robert
Albert cross hot Burns
The dealings done

Alan Price, keyboard player
Opened beer bottle
On the piano
What an Animal

Bobby tuned harmonica
Guy wearing suit
Looking quite baffled
Wearing clever spectacles

Journalist at table
Gotta lotta nerve
Asked dumb question
Couldn’t recognise Hamlet


Donovan in a room
Crowd of other people
High on Newcastle
Wind catcher blown

Banana in the car
Nico on the right
Blonde on bland
Saint Joan unzipped left

Harmonica wailing
Guitar screaming
Words cascading
The music never failing

Penny on the breaker
A dollar from the maker
Renaissance artist
A hand held palette

Cinema on the Verité
Silhouette howling
Luminous in the dark
Shattering a shadow

A backward clocking
In a frozen mirroring
Chimed a reflection
As Time changed hands.

Written in flames upon flowing wine
There layeth a name writ in travesty
In a drama of such telling significance
Consumed by life’s sweet consequence
And Times eternally chiming paradox
Of perishing so young and so beautifully
Leaving nothing beyond each memory
Shrouded in the dust of fading history
Before emerging into present memory
Caparisoned in the flowing vestments
That truth preserves for future posterity
As each season passes with the leaves
Rock and stone mythology turn to dust
Conscience reveals that the one remains
Playing in the band which never fades
While others fade away into obscurity
It re-emerges to confront the future
Satisfaction doesn’t flourish on trees
And dying is the short fall to get free
From the repertoire of life’s destruction
Deals are struck stone down dead
Bread is money and time is history
Each flows and ebbs so differently
Six strings recording every mystery
Reincarnation’s a repetitive business
Transcribing every soul’s ascension
Through the darkness to eternal Deity
Where death becomes an act of beauty
Like scripture writing its own tragedy
Performed in the theatre of obscurity
Though some are born to die forever
Fame’s the endgame for all eternity
For all those sacrificed so beautifully
Bringing the gift of fire to humanity
As did the poets from another century
And other souls of a shared nativity
Born to struggle for the breath of liberty
Dragged from the cradle of obscurity
And propelled screaming into notoriety
By chance or effortless contrivance
Worlds gasped as they made an entrance
Caparisoned like hells electric princes
Promising everything except salvation
True nobility always honours promises
And this royal court was no exception
Street dancing was the new revolution
The architecture of all future premises
Constructed by the stones of rejection
Adorning the skyline of creation
Now dominates the line of convention
As worlds changed beyond imagination
In the caravanserai of destructiveness
Ringing around the three ring circus
Some souls surrender to the quietus
Falling down in the rising golden dust
As the troupe moves on so inevitably
Grateful to have known the presence
Of the prince of beautiful musicality
That raised an age into a renaissance
Changing time so sweetly magically
Some just wanted to play the blues.

A door is never open
It's always ajar

A song is never sung
(except by fools
who insist on interrupting
the sacred business of drinking)
It is only heard
In the distance.

A glass is never empty
It's just lonely.

Friends are never a friend;
They're only the next act
Of treachery and tragedy
(Doesn't that sound poetic)

Poverty is the person
Who stole your prosperity.
Prosperity was a similar
But infinitely less honest
Kind of thief
Charity is the one true thief
I'll drink to that
(Truth be told, I'll drink to anything)

Oh dear God stop me
From ever becoming religious
You owe me at least that much
IOU a Jack, a Jim an' a Johnnie
(That’s Daniel’s, Bean an' Walker
to the unbelievers among your flock
of sad unsinners)
Being unholy is kind of cool
Holiness is in the concept
Religion’s got nothing
To be holy about
It’s an empty glass.
Drinking's got spirit
Dear God of mine
Make mine a double
I'll believe in you twice.

(Thank you, Janis. Why don’t we jack that Mercedes Benz you keep singing about? You can drive an' I'll be your loveable but inadequate companion, just like Gabby Hayes. I can’t do Tonto. The Noble Savage is beyond my range an’ anyway, you won’t wear a mask. The world is full of lonely rangers, but how many wear a mask? Maybe we could go to Mexico an’ I'll apply for the Cisco Kid's job. He wears great hats. I'd look cool in a hat like that. Is he any relation of Billy...?)
  
Loneliness in a glass
It's an urban myth
An’ a rural hype.
Drinking's only a curse
Morality is a disease
Curses are like glasses
You can lift them
Ever tried to lift a disease?
Aphorisms; don’t we just love 'em
Especially when we hide behind 'em.
(Is The Lonely Ranger
An aphorism in the making?)
They're a sign of conversational fear.
An’ fear is just a sign of itself
When it's got nothing else
To be fearful about
I think I'll have another drink
Before I start talking about Fitzgerald
And Malcolm the Vulcanologist.
Good word, vulcanologist
Impressive in the right company
Must remember to use it again
On the next innocent abroad.

Nobody loves you when you're just a poor drunk. A few people love you if you’re a clever drunk. But everybody loves you if you're a rich drunk. You've got a friend in every pocket, and that's what friends are for. Your relatives live in your wallet ‘an we're not talking photographs here. You can only trust your enemies. They at least will be true to themselves and as treacherous as only an enemy can be. Truth be told, there's truth in wine, but a sadder truth is: we all tell lies. The wine just makes them more delicious. We can all drink to that. The rich are never drunk, just unsober. Only the poor can be driven mad by drink. (It's the only experience of being chauffeur driven they'll ever have.) The rich are merely inebriate and eccentric. Class and euphemism are always so reliable. It’s a very rich language we have here; in every sense.

Especially when we talk in clichés
Even with perfect strangers
(Why are strangers perfect?
Are they some kind of deity?)
Clichés are a wonderful thing
When you have four fingers
Of blessed rye in your hand.
‘Only the good die young.’
That’s a great ole cliché.
‘Been down this road so long
It looks like upper street again’
That’s an even better one, I think
Bob Zimmerman’s brother in law
Didn’t get ‘round to being related
According to the romantic plan
“That’s not a cliché, that’s an
urban myth”, said the stranger
When Dante met Janis it was
Downhill all the way for them
Thank you, John Milton
Where would hell be without you?
In ever decreasing circles
You might say, an’ then again
You might not bother to say anything.
Intellectuals are sometimes lonely.
Perhaps you don’t speak to strangers
Even perfect ones in dark glasses
Who are unafraid to look in mirrors.
Let me buy you a drink in a darker glass
Did I tell you, me an’ Janis are
Heading down Mexico’s dusty way?
Elvis and Marilyn are living there
They were secretly married even
To each other's each other self.
They were all set to become
The King and Queen of America
But the constitution wouldn’t allow it.
Norman the Mailman’s going to write
(That’ll be the day dream all believers
Try to avoid believing in too much)
A bestselling an’ hard hitting novelty item
About it all, with the built-in revelation
That their kids were kidnapped
By all those dead Kennedys and ……
Is the floor getting closer or am I collapsing?
An’ what did you say
Your name was, Mephistopheles?
That’s a cute name. But why are you
Smiling at me in such a strange fashion?
Make mine a double; what’s your poison?”

Quietly as that opening flower
Still and aesthetically unfolding
How are we to know of existence
Enveloped in nature's bower
Hidden from visions understanding
Or minds grasping searchings
Lest nature herself reveal
Secrets beyond our comprehension
Concealed in realms of vast dimension
In that most finite of spaces
The sacred chamber of colour
Shaped by mystic knowledge
Of some vast unknowable
The mystery of creation eludes us
Perhaps as nature intended
Until we find true ourselves
Less selfishly complicated.

Walk nine miles
and then one more
food is always far
to feed a hungry family

Borrowed shoes
is what we wear
food brings us closer
distance is always shared

One single bowl
in many hands
food travels in circles
in the geometry of hunger

Three silver coins
for a loaf of bread
food is richness
in the common currency

Nourishment never lies
in empty eyes
food is truth
economy is the falsity

Food is what we are
food is what we become
eat and we are eaten
in the consuming society

Without food everything
becomes nothing
food is always
something for someone

Hunger is never
a lack of food
it is the greedy denial
of soul generosity

False is the equation
that doesn’t add up
food by the number
of hands left empty

Food was the first
of created things
in the origins of Eden
hunger was the second.