I was sitting in my old rocking chair
Taking in the mountain air

All of a sudden I was filled with panic!
Oh no, for goodness sake!
not another earthquake!

But then these words I do declare
woodworms taken a liking to my chair
woodworms taken a liking to my chair

I rub the place where I had hair!
woodworms taken another rocking chair
woodworms taken a liking to my chair.

I was sitting in my old rocking chair
Taking in the mountain air

All of a sudden I was filled with panic,
Oh no, for goodness sake,
not another earthquake!

But then these words I do declare
woodworms taken a liking to my chair

I rub the place where I had hair!
woodworms taken another rocking chair.

tickling the rocks
dancing around woodworms
drinking tequila with dandelions
the floor is 
no place
for a young fern with ambition

beanstalk
said the big unfurling fern to the little unfurling fern
beanstalk all the way to the ozonosphere
if you endure
and you harvest the best sunbeams
and nitrogens
and you cheat at quizzes
you'll climb as high as that great rose
and you'll be happy and
strong
and powerful

but I am happy
said the little unfurling fern to the big unfurling fern
and I don't wish to be strong and powerful
and that great rose I've heard is a real
pig
and he doesn't share his Easter eggs
and he has no pride in his hedges
and he plays bad music really loud on
buses

this floor is the floor but it is
my world
and I like the woodworms
and the two leafed clovers who don't know their
androecium's from their
gynoecium's
and the dandelion - well
he drinks too much tequila but he has a 
strong heart
and if the world was on fire and everything was lost he'd share his
last
mini eggs
with all of us.

it is true - that I am small
but in my scrubby wisdom I know I know
that it is better
to stay down low
among cheap friends
and dance with ugly woodworms
and tell stories to bluebells
and play flute with the clovers
than it is
to grow tall
and handsome
and have only the spiteful rose for a friend
and have to listen
all day
to *******
Morrissey.

now there's a lad
said the big unfurling fern to the little unfurling fern
as the dandelion racked up the tequilas.

frying plantains in Tanzania
with rice - so much rice
ageing postmen with bus passes and metal knees
carrying keisters of it
a thousand different ways

slow walkers
married, always
frittering away chances or just
connected,
with the mortal coils of the market?

big coat on in the Kalahari

your scorpions absent from the guest list,
exiled.
the brown bears caged, but should things have
really.
come to this?

fierce heat.
fizzing geysers rumpled by grey fluorescent lights and
plagued,
by the speeding steam trains of their past that took them to
SO MANY GREAT PLACES but they only recall the
endings.
the crashing off the tracks,
the unexpected landslides

revolve
navigate the ridge and don’t funk from looking down.
it is better this way.

stamp the scorpions in.
£5 on the door.

take the free round and dance around their nimbus because even though you WILL NEVER
know them,
you would NOT
BE HERE.
without them.

your corner patch
a feral patch given over to woodworms and weeds
but a patch without chains,
shaded by roses suffering a kind of pressure you will never understand.

the naan breads arrived 40 minutes early and ruined your bath but
WHAT
A
PRIZE.

to exist in a rainforest where naan breads are possible.
and ferns unfurl,
then hang,
and rise again.

frying plantains in Tanzania
slow married women bearing grain

carry your cactuses out into the sun.
feed them.
watch them.

be naked with your scorpions and really feel the
football finals
the canal gates
the shooting stars, zooming by
through the windows of the train.

The solid front door remembers the hand that made it -
You are the key -
and the creak of the universe — it's your sole secret
You lean your dreams and future against it.
For its sake you endure the woodworms
gnawing through your heart
the reek of damp
the hammering of enemies and relatives.
(Long is the absence of light
that paints things awake -
Long is the presence of paint!)

You come home exhausted — from wherever you've been
the wind at your side — just as you wished
toyed with by traumas.

Once he made necklaces from seashells
colouring them with his own fairytales
once he made friends with strange frogs
- and all the while she's watching him
from behind the door /from out the window
(when she runs to pick him up
he will not raise
a cry!)