Stripped
of all reality
wading out into the sea
for only I could hear the
sirens wailing
and
failing in the fading light
lost
the day turned into night

the shore became
a memory for me
and a man
walking into the sea.

They have split the adam ant atom again,
The voices they whisper to my cockleshell ear.
In a couple of moments we will go live,
To see the moon in the rear.

A cocktail quiescent scintillation of constellations gather,
Pools of flashes and twinkles in the sky,
When the music of the band changes,
I get that look in my eyes, And run to nowhere in fear.

Surreal in a dream, seems that reality
pools at the tip of a leaf,
Complexity in its veins channel the water teaming with life,
To the tip of all anguish and grief.

There it is suspended – dangling in the wind,
And someone bumps it ajar.
That calico cat of a man with a scar,
Comes from the dark side of the moon.

I will meet you there, up in the sky,
When the choirs of angels die.
And I Lucifer of society shall rise,
And be the new god of the skies.

The cats in the cradle, and the silver spoon,
The little boy blue and the man in the moon,
When will I see you,
I don’t know when,
We will get together then.

John Charles Buckley with his one man crew
set sail for Boston on the ocean blue.
With a makeshift sail and with favorable winds
they left Ireland behind and their journey begins.
Our cockleshell heroes soon lost sight of shore.
Not even a gull could they see anymore.
The days passed by slowly as they worked, side by side,
Slaves to the wind and the whims of the tide.
The Atlantic holds terrors,I cannot deny;
icebergs and fearful waves twenty feet high.
One starless night as they battled a squall
they were tossed like a cork with each waves rise and fall.
Sunburned and hungry, they started to drift
and their sense of time passing had started to slip
when they spotted a seabird, a sure sign of shore:
The harbor of Boston- their next port of call.
Their small wooden rowboat with the sail ripped and torn
was ******* to the dockside that September morn.
Heroes or Fools? I'll let you split the difference.
Theirs the smallest boat that had traveled the distance

Out on a liferaft looking for low flying aircraft and the
sea shells that sound like the sea.
I see nothing but water and sailors that caught a rough wave
and paving the way for a saviour to appear is the
rear admiral asleep and the course that we keep is
quite random it seems, gleaned from the stars and
the dockside bars, distilled by the gums that supped many a *** and
smoked a canteen of navy cut cigarettes, where will it end?

The admiral wakes, takes a reading, 'land sakes', from the parrot that sits by his side and we glide on through the sea, what will be, what will be
but what is
is what worries me.

On the cockleshell shore where we floundered and wore out the heels of our boots, we set down some roots built huts from bamboo to save us from sunstroke and the Lloyds bell was rung for lost sailors and *** and the admiral asleep in the rear.

I've been eating zebra cakes. Partly for the taste [creamed-up skies, maybe a swan or two reflected in a lake] but also for the animal on the package with his confetti and rainbowed smiles. Four days till Good Friday, lord.

In eveningtime, I sit inside myself and bang on the cockleshell walls with my ribs. Given time, the vibrations start to numb-up the cells of my nerves and lose effect -anyways. Sleep is with a machine who touches me through perfectly oiled axles and aching laughters. He doesn't hear me when i tell him I don't want his incisions and leaves knives by my bed to desensitize any qualms.

Last weekend, I didn't go home with the pineapple boys. I climbed through arms and fingers and faces, but my lover (machine) had since ascended - I kept asking which of the walls i could follow to find him, but They laughed and told me i was blind.

Often I sit at the soul’s soft reach
Where the tide sweeps in to a lonely beach,
Where the rollers roll and the breakers break
To tug at the strings of an old heartache.

Where the swell will rise till it reaches the sky
When it breaks with the spume, so white and high,
To race to the shore with a fume and a roar
Then retreats to the sea as it will, once more.

And then comes the girl I see in my dreams
As she wades in the tide to the waist, it seems,
I watch as she walks, her hair flying free
Her shawl dripping wet with the spray from the sea.

And each time I see her, down at the shore
I think of some maiden from old folk lore,
Her skirt in the water right up to the knee
She leans at the wind, but she never sees me.

One day he rose from the spume and the spray
A man grim-faced with his hair so grey,
He lurched from the water and reached for her wrist,
And when she resisted, he gave it a twist.

Then she called out with a voice like a bell
A sound, if you like, like a cockleshell,
I heard her cry he should let her be,
Not plague her with love, she’d like to be free.

I knew I should help, but the tide was high,
And where I was sat it was warm and dry,
He dragged her through rollers that covered her head
As far as I know, that girl must be dead.

So often I sit at the soul’s soft reach
Where the tide sweeps in to a lonely beach,
Where the rollers roll and the breakers break
To tug at the strings of an old heartache.

David Lewis Paget

It was two decades ago today when an actor took his final breath.
When he starred in Doctor Who, he starred in "The Robots of Death".
His name was Russell Hunter and he was born in February of 1925.
Next year would've been his 100th birthday if he had survived.
Hunter starred in nineteen episodes of "The Gaffer" and one episode of "Born and Bred".
People in England were sad twenty years ago today because they learned he was dead.
In 1976, he starred in one episode of "Play From A".
He also starred in "Daddy's Girl" and "Up Pompeii".
Hunter starred in "The Cockleshell Heroes" and one episode of "The Bill".
When it comes to forgetting him, the good people of England never will.

There's pine clinging to the breeze ,
The scrabble and babble of "easties"-
in the trees ..
A chorus of windbound ravens ..
All Hail ! The security of my warm winter haven ...
A frozen bell
A cockleshell
Two milk cans
Wind racked pie pans
A Farmers Almanac ,
a glass-top table half full-
of nick-knacks , this and-
thats , whatever and 'what on
earth's , the accoutrements of the blessed aged-
and the soon to be interred .. A once mighty sunflower scratches-
the porch screen ...
Thus , my steadfast , collective account of rural daydreams ..