Sittin' listenin' to old songs I used listen to when I was much younger
Songs I haven't heard... haven't played in such a long time
The first sounds that ever excited me, thrilled me as a boy
How they bring me back, stir up in me old feelings and memories long past
For a moment I almost feel like I'm back there again
I swear... I swear I can almost see myself
And feel myself... what I felt back then
It's like I've just gone down a chute, a Time Tunnel
And coming out the other side
I find myself back there again with you
For a moment I can feel your colours, your presence
Can remember your world, what you were going through
Can see all the figures, the scenes and the players.

Just like the rings of a tree
The Body and Mind, they too, hold memory
And Songs, their the conduit for getting you there, the conduit in-between
We link together somehow
We meet within the emotion of the song.

It's like I'm looking through some ghostly mirror
At a younger version of myself
I can only gaze at you in wonder
I was so different a person then
So young and innocent... and unprepared, foolishly brave
So small in the face of so huge and dark and threatening a world
With little chance... little hope of succeeding
I watch you, you look pained and ill at ease,  playing your songs over and over
Trying to seek some solace there
Then you rise to leave
I think I know where you'd be going to,
And I want to call out to you "No! Don't go there. You don't have to go there,
There's another way, a better way, a better place
I know! I have all the answers now...well some of them anyway
There's better choices for you to make"
And it's like you hesitate at the door and turn
And look back towards me
We look at each other... across the years
I can almost see your face
I want to reach out and embrace you
But it's too late... the song is over
You've turned and you've gone.

Y'know whenever I go to my brother's to watch a football game
He always brings out a lovely big platter of cheeses, with a selection of crackers
This and some hummus, nuts and potato crisps
Along with a nice cold beer
He really likes his cheeses does my brother
Me! I don't mind a bit of cheese myself
But Him, he's a real connoisseur.
Anyway last  Christmas I was looking for a present to bring him
And in my local supermarket, guess what, they had these lovely big platters of various  cheeses
Wow! I was delighted, that was his present sorted
No more traipsing around shops, tiring my poor feet out
And this was a good present, something he'd really like;
So I brought the cheese home and put it in the fridge
Next morning I was up early sorting out the presents, who got what
Putting them in nice Christmasy type bags
I then packed them in the car and took off,
An hour later I'm sitting at their table and we're talking about some poor celebrity movie star who's just passed away
Their saying he had some Brain disease, just like Alcheimers except it wasn't Alcheimers
My brother's wife is there trying to articulate, to explain
"It's like his brain had holes in it"
And I'm thinking "Holes in the brain, hmmm... just like...like a Swiss cheese"
Then, of course, I remember. "****!", I say out loud in front of them all,"I forgot the cheese, I left the feckin' cheese in the fridge"
Really ****** me off
Then I start thinking, that's actually quite funny
We're talking about Alcheimers disease and it reminds me I left the cheese in the fridge
What do you call that, is that ironic or what ?

What's a Paradox ? Sounds like a washing powder.

Wait! Is this a poem at all or am I in the wrong place ? (LoL)

Is this it ? Is this (to be) the One ?
....No! It won't work, it never does... they never do
It works for others yes!
But no! not for me
Have seen too many false dawns now
I won't fool myself again with thoughts of...
Thoughts of El Dorado land.

Just because I've found a new way
And it'll feel good for a little while
But then it'll go just like they always go
Those nice feelings that come
They lie to me, they laugh at me
Make a fool of me every time
Like a mirage
Dancing tantalisingly in the distance
Only to disappear once you grow near
I know their not going to last, not going to stay
They'll not take me... not take me to El Dorado land.

But still, maybe... maybe I'll celebrate all the same
Just for the hell of it
Make believe that this was surely IT this time
Yea! I'll get a little drunk and pretend, pretend I've found it at last
What I've always been looking for,
All those years of looking and never finding
Feeding on scraps, vague intuitions, funny dreams and feelings...
Even though I know it's not gonna work
Knowing that behind it all it was always bound to fail
That I'll always be outside those gates looking in
Knowing I'm not invited.

                          II

They talked of a land that was wondrous, marvellous!
Not something out there but something here within
Of a strength that was golden, that was yours and yours alone
That could never be stolen
A great treasure that lay inside... that lay within
I read their books, I studied their maps
And then I set out, I set out for El Dorado land.

I followed them as best I could
I tried, I tried but seemed to lose every time
I know - I know I did it wrong
I always do it wrong
Wrong is where I live I think
Wrong is where I come from
Probably Wrong is where I belong.

I'm old now
I watched and waited too long
And nothing much really happened
And no one...no one came.

To have lived and never to have seen, never to have known
El Dorado land.

I seen this ****** photograph once, taken in lovely black and white
A beautiful figure framed by shadows,
A beautiful young dark-haired girl naked
kneeling on a stairway
With one hand draped across her *******
As if protecting herself from something, maybe even shielding her heart
Her face, it is turned away to one side
And buried in her other hand
As if she's suffering some great distress or sorrow,
Far from arousing in me ****** feelings, this photograph
It spoke to me of something else
Something quite different and much more significant
More than mere words could possibly say
It spoke to me...it spoke to me of my whole life.

Her body there, so youthful, beautiful without a blemish
Her lovely contours and curves smooth like the sand dunes of a desert
Her beautiful face made sad
Her petite delicate little shoulders and arms
Her wonderful *******, her lovely tummy/belly, the roundness of her hips
The bones of her knees jutting out from where she was kneeling
Her thighs and calves resting upon one another
Her ankles and little feet tucked in behind
Here was Youth in all its glorious splendor... and innocence
With all its wonderful promise,
Strangely, it reminded me of my own Youth and my own body once
Before age and the World had done their damage
This wonderful garment thrown over our eyes and our bones
And I remembered myself as a little child, running across the beach... across the strand
And I was talking to my legs, saying, "Come on legs! Faster! Faster!"
And I was hitting my hip with my hand as if it were a whip
And as if my legs were those of a horse galloping
Just like in the old Westerns we used watch (on TV)
Yes! There was a time once when I used to talk to my body, a private little world I had,
It was my closest, my most intimate friend
You'd do it when you were alone like it was the most natural thing in the world,
You needed a friend to talk to about this strange world you were in,
And then I remembered the little girl next door
They used put us together playing, us children, us being around the same age
She was such a sweet little thing, the way she used to laugh and smile all the time
Like the cutest little kitten
The joy in her eyes and that smile of hers
Where was it coming from... somewhere inside, somewhere within
And then I remembered, I too had it once, that same joy, that same smile
It had lived in me too once... that bliss.

                              2

That photograph, it struck me as being something almost holy
It reminded me straightaway, it reminded me of the Garden of Eden story
The beautiful body had been the Garden you see
And in the Garden there was no fear and no danger
Like a little kitten lolling about, rolling on its belly and stretching itself out
Without a worry or a care
Without a cloud on its horizon
A beautiful magical kingdom before the Mind ever existed.

But now looking again at the photograph and at her face made sad buried there in her hand
Now the photograph was telling me
Suddenly, all at once, there came a day and a shadow
Something from outside, it had entered her mind, some ugliness from the world
It had disturbed her for the first time
And this was a new sensation to her
And it had frightened her
"How could such a dark ugly thing exist", she was wondering,
'And how can I live now with this in my world,
Now that I've seen it, it will always be there",
And then another memory came back to me, That of myself as a little child lying in bed
Shaking my head from side to side, even bumping my head against the wall
There was something there in my head I didn't like, something I didn't want to hear or see, something disturbing
I didn't want it there, I wanted it to go away
I wanted it to stop,
But it wouldn't stop and it wouldn't go away
And you realised it'd always be there like some shadow hovering in the background.

                                3

Now dark clouds were beginning to gather over the Garden and the beautiful Body
Now the World was coming and the Tyranny, the Tyranny of the Mind was beginning
The Gates of the Garden, they were slowly starting to close
Yea, the fields of Arcadia were fading, the exotic fruits and feelings there were being taken away
Its lovely sweet river of ambrosia would now soon cease to flow.

Like the Snow Queen and her Icy Blizzard, like a cruel invading army
The Mind had awoken now like a sleeping dragon and the World, it was coming, coming now to feed
Starting to pour in like through a breached dam
The World with all its books and its lessons, its rules and examinations
The mental world forcefully asserting itself
With its bullying cajoling teachers and its many humiliations,
The Mind weighing down hard now upon the Body, leaning on it, squeezing it and straining it
Pulling it this way and that, hither and thither
All out of shape, all over the place
Rivers of outside influences flowing in now
You were like a tiny boat tossed upon stupendous waves
Always at the mercy of other people's words
Blown all over the place
Sometimes, sometimes I just couldn't stomach it, I couldn't digest it
Sometimes I could only just throw it all up.

                                   4

The Beautiful Body... Garden no longer, now just some hollow empty shell
The Mind alone was all that mattered now
All consuming and all devouring
The Body starting to buckle and to crumble
Underneath all that weight, the stress and the strain
Not knowing how to deal with it....lost and bewildered
Among the new feelings of emptiness and of pain
Overeating and undereating, unable to eat at all
Growing fat thinking that that could protect you from all the new fears in your brain.

                                5

The Body that beautiful Garden with its golden days
Were now long gone and forgotten
Thorns and briars had grown up in their stead
Just like some long lost fairytale Sleeping Beauty.
Made poor now and impoverished
I remembered... I had been a King once long ago back in my old Garden.

(The faint joys of the Mind y'know they were nothing in comparison
To what I'd known in that sweet Garden of old, that sweet Garden of mine).

Now when I look in the mirror I can hardly see myself anymore
But when I look at this photograph
I can see myself there.

She wore a Golden Salamander (brooch)
That's quite a lizard you got there, I said
"Lizard!" she replied quite affronted, "that's no lizard, that's my Golden, my Golden Salamander",
So what does it stand for then this, this Golden Salamander, I asked
" What does it stand for, my Golden Salamander!!! ", she almost shrieked, " it stands for Strength, Courage and Fortitude, qualities you've probably never even heard of! "
O! I replied, I thought it might have meant you were just one slippery customer,
"Well, what creature would you have to encapsulate your qualities I wonder", she said, "I bet you have none".
O! But I do, I said surprising her, and then...then I whipped it out, hidden behind my shirt, a necklace, I showed it to her.
" It's...it's a Scorpion ", she said,
No! I corrected her, it's...it's a Black Scorpion
She gave a little gasp, and then she started to stammer
" You... you're... you're not Him, are you, you're not the... the real...the real Black Scorpion "
Guilty as charged I answered with a little bow, at your service Mom,
Well suddenly her glass, it fell to the floor as her hands they rushed to cradle her face
And then she let out this fearful roar
"It's!... It's the Black Scorpion!!!"
Suddenly the whole room it went quiet, all the music and chatter coming to an abrupt halt as every head turned in our direction
Then the next moment... Sheer Pandemonium had broken out
As glasses were tossed aside, tables and chairs overturned as a hundred frenzied guests scrambled toward the door to get out
But...but it was too late, Me! I'd already...farted
You see I wasn't really The Black Scorpion at all, I'd only been pretending, messing about
Secretly all the time, all along I'd really been just...yea!
I'd just been The Blue Skunk, The Blue Skunk in disguise.

He died on the wires, electrified with fear
And riddled with cold religion from the gun-towers
He lay there motionless, all bloodied and burned
With one hand strangely stretched out
Like as if he were reaching out for something
Maybe some long lost freedom he'd once known,
And that look... that look upon his face.
Way in the distance across the fields, on the very edge of the forest
Some children were playing completely oblivious.
The Commandant, he came out and gathered us around
"Let this be a lesson to you all", he said, "no one gets out
No! No one escapes the Mind Camp".

                            II

O! How I wish I'd never read that book
Never come across it
How it haunted my days and chased me through the years
I just couldn't...I just couldn't get past it,
I had been lost, so lost in my head, so confused
Nothing made any sense
And there were monsters everywhere, monsters in the books
And there was no one there to help
It was like I was lost in a very Dark Wood,
But then one day I saw a light
I read words, words that seemed to point toward the truth
They seemed to offer hope
They spoke nicely and politely and smiled pretty smiles at me
They invited me back to their house
and welcomed me in
It was a nice looking house I thought
But the moment I stepped in, the door behind me, it was slammed shut and bolted
And it was like all the air, it was suddenly ****** out
And all the faces, they began to change, become distorted and grotesque
Now they only spoke to give you orders
You must do this! You have to do that! Or else!!!
And then they'd warn you of the terrible consequences that would befall you
If you didn't carry out their wishes, their demands
I...I was trapped, I couldn't get out.
It took me years to escape them
escape their clutches
I couldn't smile again properly or laugh for years after that
How its terrible shadow hung over everything I did.

                          III

They got him in the tunnel, they dragged him out
He hadn't cared much about religion, any of that stuff
He had the Commandant worried
"If Hell and the Devil don't scare him,
This one, this one's a tough nut, a tough nut to crack...
I know, he smiled,  we'll turn up the heat on him
Yea, we'll get him with the Eternals",
So they hit him with the Eternals
Eternal this! Eternal that! Threatening him
But even the Eternals didn't seem to bother him very much
He just kept on going regardless
He was...simply marvelous! What a wonderful Spirit he had,
The Commandant, he had to think again...he mused
" Well if religion doesn't scare him, we'll have to get Science in
We'll get him with a Big word, some frightening idea
That'll crush him, bring him to his knees,
What about... what about the Subconscious Mind, you better watch out, the Subconscious Mind's about
It's always watching you y'know
Just like Big Brother, it's filing it all away
Better watch your step
You can't escape....
Or maybe... what about your genes, yes!
Your future is written in your genes
You have no power, you have no say
You can't do anything to change things
Sorry son, there's nothing you can do That's just the way it is
You just got to accept it"...
Yea! They got him in the tunnel, dragged him out
He'd suffocated, couldn't breathe anymore.

                           IV

He approached me one day in the prison yard, this other prisoner,
I only knew him to see
He came up to me and said "You've been in here a long time just like me,
I heard you're planning a breakout
Me! I've been planning one too,
I was thinking maybe we could go together
When we get out, we could go to the town, join the underground
We could find new words, a new language, build a new world
What do you say ?"
I looked at him and then I looked away
I looked through the fence, across the fields, to the forests, the hills and the mountains
I looked far faraway and then...then I said
"I want to go to a place where I don't have to hear any human voices anymore
No one to bully me or coerce me, entrap or enslave me".

                                    V

Yea, I thought, I'm gonna build myself a little cabin way out in the wilderness somewhere
And live there all alone, all by myself
I'll fish and plant my own garden
I'll live there simply,
And for the first time in my life I'll try and get to know myself
Without any fear pushing me or hanging over my head.

And maybe... maybe one day I'll hear a voice singing in the woods
A strange voice, singing in a strange language with strange words
Something I've never heard before...

A Nature girl singing, some little Indian girl
Innocent and smiling and laughing all the time,
So lighthearted and joyous, so free and unafraid
And maybe she'd see my cabin and come over
A little tentatively, like a little curious fawn deer
And maybe we'd strike up a friendship the two of us, using only simple words and signs,
And maybe in time she'd grow fond of me and me of her
We'd picnic in the meadow by the river in the sun
We'd lie there together the two of us just watching the clouds go by
And she'd sing to me in her wonderful strange words
And her fingers they'd gently stroke my face and my hair
Just like a little mother...and they'd speak to me in their own secret words...their own secret language, they'd say
"You're safe here, you don't have to run anymore".

There was something wrong with the adults I always thought
When I was young... when I was little
The Grown Ups
There was something, well something missing in them
They seemed a bit preoccupied, a bit faraway by times,
Maybe it was the great responsibility they had, looking after us
Or running after us, we used run around a lot back then,
Out on the beach under the big blue sky
On our way out to meet the tide
The wonderful colourful houses of the village seen from afar,
With the big chapel on the hill
And the lovely blue mountains of the headland sloping down to the sea
We'd be lost in the joy and excitement of the moment, thinking
"Isn't this wonderful, isn't it amazing, this thing called Life, Wow!!!"
And Mom she'd be there with us, tagging along
And on her face this kind of... kind of lonesome smile
There seemed to be a great sadness in them somewhere
They didn't seem to have the same joy that we had
Etched on their faces was something else, something haunting
Days of struggle and hardship... and pain.

Their own parents had died when they were very young
They used tell me, tell me gravely
"One day, one day we won't be here son"
And you'd go off to school feeling very tearful inside
Hardly able to do your lessons, mulling over those terrible words,
And at night in bed, you'd listen for their voices downstairs
And if you couldn't hear them, you'd get up and sit on the landing listening intently for their spoken words
So as to be reassured, that they were still there,
That they hadn't gone away and left you.

                      II

The adults they loved  to sit and talk and drink tea
We didn't like talking much, that was boring stuff
(We liked the biscuits though)
We wanted to be outside playing, up and about
Yea! We wanted action and adventure instead
Playing games, kicking football up the garden
Running down the wing, shooting for goal, scoring!
O! the thrill of it all,
Or playing soldiers, cowboys and Indians
Or down the beach among the rocks exploring
Whereas we probably lived a lot still in our bodies
And in the thrill of the moment
(I remember I used talk to parts of my body when I was very little, when there was no one else around)
The adults they seemed to live in their heads most of the time
Locked away up there in their lonely towers
Adults I suppose had decisions to make.

Often Mom would find it hard to keep up with us
We could get away with a lot of things with Mom
But it was different though when Dad would come home
Then the atmosphere in the house would change
There'd be this strange tension
The Dads they were strange ones
They were like that Rodin sculpture "The Thinker" (a man bent over thinking)
You'd watch them warily, and move around them very carefully and quietly
You'd have to have your antenna switched on
You didn't know which mood would be on them
Whether they were going to be gentle or flare up like a firestorm.

The Dads they used to drink beer and black stuff, the Guinness
Sometimes they'd give us a sip
Ugh...the taste of it, it'd give you the creeps
You'd think " How do you drink that stuff and Why!!!
It wasn't sweet like orange or lemonade
It was another mystery, the strange world... the strange world of the adults.

(Once while walking along the beach we came across this well dressed young man fast asleep behind the sea wall
Lying on the cold ground, a few empty beer cans beside him
Of course we didn't know yet about people getting drunk
We were very puzzled at this scene, we looked at one another baffled
Why did he want to sleep there for ?
Did he not have a home to go to and a bed to sleep in ?
What we were looking at was the World... the strange world of the adults).

The Dads they were always watching the News and talking politics
Once when we were on holiday down the country at our Auntie's place
We were outside playing football
While my Dad and Uncle were inside drinking and talking politics
Arguing heatedly about who was right and who was wrong
Suddenly they both appeared in the doorway, all smiles and strangely jolly like
They said they wanted to join in, in our game
Something they'd very rarely do
I remember looking at them and thinking
These people...these people are in pain
I was so afraid they might fall and hurt themselves
I thought them that fragile
I was afraid to tackle them properly for the ball
I thought I should only pretend
Should let them win, let them score a goal
"Maybe then," I thought, "maybe then they'd be happy".

                          III

They seemed to be always trying their best
But being reined in by their limitations
One Christmas I remember, I wanted things, exciting things, toy soldiers, electric cars, a toy gun
They gave me this small model passenger plane, wasn't even a War plane (no fancy machine guns or rockets)
And this cheap little plastic antique globe of the world thing
I looked to see was there any treasure marked on it, but no!
I was so disappointed, these were ****** presents, not what I wanted at all
But when I looked in their faces, at the expectancy there
Them expecting me to be overjoyed and delighted with what I'd got
I felt this huge pity and sorrow for them,
So I smiled back at them and pretended their presents, they were the best presents of all.

                            IV

There was this tragic sadness about them, the adults
Almost like they weren't feeling the joy anymore, that for them the magic had gone out
Like the little child within them had all but died
You realized that what you were feeling was probably something they no longer felt
They were off lost in some other world
Overrun with cares and worries and fears  
Yea, there was something wrong with the adults I always thought
When I was young
When I was small.

(Scene: A funeral service, at the graveside. Two mourners talking to one another)

Duncan died then, so he finally gave up his goose.

< (disapprovingly) Gave up his ghost not his goose! >

Tis sad, very sad.

< Aye, maybe twas for the best, I heard he'd been sufferin'... He's gone to a better land now. >

(Looking at him amazed, having not heard properly) He what ! He's gone where!! He's gone to the Netherlands!!!

< He's gone to a better land!  a better land!! A better place!!! For fecks sake! >

(A lone Piper starts to play a lament by the graveside)

(after a few moments listening) I love the sound of the poops. A lone **** in the wind....He's a fine wee pooper that lad.

< He's a Piper not a Pooper!
(under his breath) Only Pooper around here is you. (smiles to himself thinking) A Super Pooper. (smiles even more) A Super Duper Pooper. >

Y'know he was quite a pooper himself in his day, was Duncan. I can still remember his pooping well. A Prize Pooper was Duncan, his pooping was often the talk of the town.

< (sadly & dreamily) Well, no more will his...his poops be heard around the Glens. Only silence now and the wind....o'er the heather, the fields and the crags. >

I'm not a bad pooper myself y'know.

< (smiles)  I bet ye are. >

< (thinks to himself) But the heather will bloom again, and the children, they'll play in the meadows.>

I was thinking if ever I went to Bethlehem for Christmas
Then Bethlehem would have had two Stars
I'd be there shining mightily like I do
And all the people, they'd suddenly say from afar
Look! Look yonder...yonder lies a Star
There's another Star, another Star in Bethlehem
Look! He's in there drinking, drinking at the bar
He's just having... just having himself a jar
The Other Star...the Other Star of Bethlehem.

And then they'd all gather around me excited saying
You're the Other Star, the Other Star of Bethlehem
And I'd say "I'm the what, the Other, the Other Star of Bethlehem
Well that ain't exactly very flattering
Maybe I don't want to be 'the Other Star'".
So I'd think for a second
"Why not call me instead, call me... the Czar, the Czar of Bethlehem
Then the Star could be the Star again
And me! I could be the Czar
The Czar of Bethlehem".

Wow!! they all said in unison,
You're the Czar, you're not the Star
You're the Czar
The Czar of Bethlehem.

As a little child you used dread going up there on your own... to bed
Climbing those stairs all alone, all the time getting further away from the light down in the hall
With every step it was like your fear would increase tenfold
You could hear your little heart beating, pounding away inside
Beyond the bright hall light's promise of safety
Beyond there... lay danger... the darkness
The Darkness at the top of the stairs.

For you knew they were waiting there for you
Hidden a little way back in the shadows, on the landing
Evil elves and goblins, cruel giants, trolls, wicked witches and fairies... the Wolfman
They held nets ready to catch you in
And sacks slung over their backs, to bundle you into
Ready to steal you away from your family,
Like the Ice Queen on her sleigh
Ready to spirit you away to some Ice Palace faraway
To a world all frozen, turned to cold
A great prize was a human child.

Even when you'd got to bed, you'd hide your little head under the covers
Listening fearfully for their murmurs
You knew like in Dr. Who the Daleks they were coming
They were just in your wardrobe waiting,
And underneath your bed, silver Cybermen too
With their cold expressionless inhuman metallic faces
You'd lie there shivering, your little heart turned sideways in fear
You were just a little child drowning, drowning in a sea, a sea of monsters.

                            II

Looking back on it now, looking back
The Darkness, it was innocent, completely innocent
It held no danger, no fear and no monsters either
It was only the world that had coloured it so
Painted them on the screen of your imagination
All those scary TV shows, those dark fairytales and religious stories  
Yea, it was only the world that painted it so
A world so ignorant of the inner life of a little child...a little boy
A world obsessed, a world in love with... with Monsters.

But why then...why did you beg to be let stay up late with them, to watch those scary shows
Knowing you'd later have to face that lonely walk of fear up to your bed upstairs
Probably accompanied by some new monster, some new terror gleaned from that night's show
To add to your burgeoning collection
Why? Why this fascination with scaring yourself, with hurting, damaging yourself ?
Why did you want that for yourself ?
You wanted to be like them, didn't you, the grown ups, the older ones,
This is what they did and this is what you thought you had to do as well
You looked up to them, these were the people you loved, that you aspired to be like one day
So you had to do what they did too,
You wanted into their world and to do this you had to like the things they liked too.

And so, your innocence as a child was overthrown, denied
It was something to be ashamed of,
Something to be reviled and ridiculed and hated
It was pilloried in the marketplace
And all the monsters instead, they were installed.

                       III

I remember as a little child when watching TV if you thought something scary was coming up
You'd rise and say "I don't think I want to see this bit"
And you'd go and hide behind the chair, occasionally peeping out, waiting for the 'bad bit' to be over so you could return.
I remember too when very little, the first time I seen a Halloween mask, a witch's mask my brother put on
How I cried in terror, I was terrified every time he put it on
I thought he'd been suddenly transformed, that some dark kind of magic had been performed
That he'd changed into a witch, that reality had become distorted into something grotesque and ugly and evil
How scared I was.

Just imagine that.. imagine a being so little, so fragile, so sensitive...so pure of heart
That the slightest aberration, the slightest thought could hurt it
(Could this be where we went wrong...the lonely god).

Way up on his pulpit, a ranting preacher raves
About devils and demons and dark things everywhere
"It's the truth, it's the truth", he shouts, " it's in the book, it's in the book!!! "
Before him his poor congregation lies, all numbed and terrorised,
And no god whatsoever, no god at all to be seen
Only maybe a God of Terror, another monster.

                         IV

So, will you not come back then, back to the Old House
And amid all the dust and the cobwebs, find me again... still there,  all alone
Will you not dare lift this veil, this veil of shame
And look again upon my face
That which the world so greatly despises
This terrible terrible innocence
Do you not remember me, once, once upon a time
Am I not fair of face...not lovely... a thing beautiful to behold.

Is there not one who would do battle for me, champion me
Like St. George and his dragon
Shield me from the fiery onslaughts of this world
Is there not one who would come
Is there not one.

My life, it's like a Night Garden
The flowers all folded up
Grown cold and deathly looking in the pale moonlight.

Me! I've just been dreaming... dreaming of the sun
And all the colours like in a painting
How they'd run

How they'd light me up inside, from within
And how I'd smile, just like I smiled back then.

I've just been thinking, thinking of the fun...all the old fun
And dreaming... dreaming of the sun.

(I've just been sitting here in my Night Garden just sitting here waiting... waiting for the ghosts to come).

Sometimes you just gotta laugh the situations Life puts you in
Standing there stuck in the train, jammed in with all the others
'Cos the previous train had been cancelled
And now the crowd was too big to get a seat sitting down
I'm pushed up behind the back of this young girl's head
She has a pigtail or what was formerly a pigtail
It's been cut rather abruptly, truncated prematurely and then tied off
So that what's left of it now sticks out directly from the back of her head
And it's stuck right into my nose,
And of course, she's speaking to someone in front of her
And she's nodding her head up and down as if acknowledging
   her friend's words
And sometimes she shakes her head the other way
As if acknowledging her friend's negative feelings as well
So she's going Yes...yes....yes! up and down
And No...no...no! the other way
And my poor nose is being mercilessly swished up and down, back and forth, all over the place
It feels like a shoe being shined or a car in a car wash
And it's tickling me something terrible
And I'm there desperately wiggling my nose
Trying to avert an itch or a sneeze coming on
And secretly hoping no one is watching this
Because I think I'd look real foolish if they are,
And I'm also thinking to myself "I know I could do with a bit more human contact/ intimacy in my life
But this... this is ridiculous,
And then I start thinking of this Site and all the lovely tender intimate poems I've read
Those lovely hugs and kisses, sweet cuddles and caresses
Those warm embraces and even warmer entanglements
And I'm thinking " Well that's just typical isn't it, others get all those lovely things
While I get something... something weird like this.
But then y'know after the first feelings of awkwardness and discomfort have worn off I start thinking
"But it is rather funny though" and then "actually it's probably the highlight of my day"
Gradually I find myself warming to this little pigtail
She's blonde (another blonde) like some lovely Swedish thing
With my nose buried in her, I get her scent, her sweet perfume
I breathe her in deeply
Then I find myself getting a little aroused
And I find myself almost talking to her, giving her a personality
"You mischevious little Pixie, you flirtatious little Trixie
You like to see me suffer don't you, the way you hit me back and forth
Baby you're so vile, but hey! I like your smile
Come on! Hit me again harder!
I'll never submit to you, you'll never rule me"
I could almost see her, some cold ice Lady wrapped in furs brandishing her whip
But then suddenly it's like I hear this...this little reply coming back at me
I think I'm starting to hallucinate
It says "Feel my scent, it's heaven sent. Here let me warm you up a little"
As again I feel the whoosh of her whip
"You *****! you *****!! I say defiant
"Hey there Serious Boy" she says, "afraid to be seen talking with me.
O! what'll they think, what'll they say Oooo Whooo!
Who cares, who gives a **** what they  think
It's just me and you here now, just the two of us
What about it Serious Boy, what do you say
Won't you come out and play, come out and dance with me
O! you're so buttoned up
Come out and laugh and be silly with me
O! drench me in lovely laughter and wonderful silliness
Big man in Poet land
Wanna hear some of my poetry
" The secret of the sun
   It's written on my ***
   Wanna see my secret ***'?"
"That's bad poetry" I say
Ignoring me she continues
"Through my eyes the door to adventure lies
Hey Boy! Let it swing, don't hold it in
Just let it dangle, dangle like an obtuse triangle"
I had to smile, "I like it Baby, your poetry, it really... really speaks to me"
And then she looks deep into my eyes
"I bet your magic wand, it's like James Bond"
She has me smiling and laughing to myself, she's so...so too much
And I'm totally lost in this, our magical converse
But then suddenly...suddenly the world, it interrupts, our train it stops,
Some people get off, then she reaches down to get her bag
She starts to leave, to move toward the door
"But you can't go, we were just getting acquainted, we were just getting to know one another"
And it's like she gives me this one last wistful smile
And then she's gone, heading off down the platform
I was gonna go after her, follow her out onto the street
But I knew her owner, she'd probably soon start to twig
She'd turn and accost me "You're following me, aren't you, why are you following me ?"
And I'd say "I'm not following you, I...I'm following Her behind you. Back, back in the train we...we"
Then she'd start to scream "Stalker! ******!" and then I'd be grabbed, set upon
The police would be called and I'd be hauled off, dragged before some Court
Some Judge, he'd be looking down at me sternly, "What do you have to say for yourself ?  How do you plead ?"
And all I'd be able to say would be "Lack of fun, your Honour, lack of silliness, lack of... warmth in my life
My seriousness and indecision, their slowly killing me, like a tight gripping ivy
Their strangling all the joy out of my life
How do I plead ? Loneliness, I guess, loneliness in the first degree".

And y'know I still look for her in crowds and in trains, my little blonde Miss Pigtail, I'd know her anywhere.
And I still remember that day we had together and all the fun we had on the train.

Who are you people ?
What is this place??
It's ...it's incredible... it's amazing !!!
The most amazing thing I've ever seen
   in my whole life
Ha! Ha! Ha! It's mad...yea! it's crazy
It's Night...right!! But here! Here! a
   whole City in broad daylight
People going about their business...
   faces I've never seen before
What is this place! Who are you
   people!

I'm asleep but... but I'm awake, wide
   wide awake
I'm here! Now!!! Looking out... at this
    right here before me
It's strange...'cos I don't feel like I have
   a body or a face
It's like I'm just an Eye...an Eye looking    
   out
But look! I can move, I can move
And I'm tired, tired of these dreams, I've had them before
What good are they, yea! their
   fantastic and all that
But their useless, quite quite useless
You know what I'm gonna do,
I'm gonna go up to one of these guys
   and I'm gonna grab him
Gonna shake him! Shake him hard!!! Make him help me.

So I go up to one of them, this guy, and he turns and
   looks at me
He looks right at me...
"Back in my world", I say, " back there,
   I work, I suffer, I struggle
Every day trying to keep body and
   soul together
Can you help me? Won't you help me?
   Won't you..."
And... and he looks at me with these...
   these anxious eyes
With real fear in his eyes
I say "What do you see when you look
   at me.  What do you see ?
(A mortal man from the world of men)
Why do you suddenly look so afraid ?
What... what do you see !!!"

Out of a **** he made Great Art
It was no ordinary **** no!
It was straight from the heart, that
   ****
It had lain too long in the dark
Now was it's time to start
To make its bid for freedom... and for stardom.

It flew like a dart that **** from the
   heart
Like an arrow strung from Cupids
   bow
Little did it know how luminous it'd
   glow
Becoming one of the Greats in the
   Farting Canon.

It was probably the greatest **** poem
   ever written
In my own humble opinion
It was very daring and it smelt of
   onion
It was certainly the fairest fartiest
   poem I ever seen
If it was one of the three Musketeers
It would have to have been
   D'artagoine.

It inflated like a balloon, blew up like
   a great glass bubble
Then it popped and headed off
   toward England
Flying further afield than any ****
   had ever flown
It touched people's hearts, bewitched
   every nation
Resounded around the world
Yea! was heard in every Kingdom.

It flew long, it rounded the Horn
Like a Lark, that ****, it soared and
   sung
It was no boring old ****
It was far fartier and fruiter than that
It was a King of Farts
Way above the fartiest of farters and
   all the farting Arthurs
It was the real King Arthur
The King Arthur of all farts and
   Farters.

A real Belter was that **** that came
   from the heart
That had all the Angels singing in
   their cloisters,
A real work of Art just like Mozart
Or remember... remember your
   Shakespeare
"Hark! A ****, a ****! Whereforth art ?
    Thou ****"
It played its part, that ****, yea! it
   wielded its Excalibur.

O! there's nothing I'd rather do than lie here blowing sweet bubbles next
   to you
You! on your little flutey flute flute and
   Me! on my big Bass Trombone.

O! Bake me a cake of your lovely
   sweet ****
And I'll eat it, savouring every bite
How I'd love to collapse my face right
   into it....

Now some men they like to smell the
   Coffee
Others, they like the Roses
But me! I like my nose wedged up my
   Baby's bottom
So I can smell her deep sea breezes.

That throne upon which she sits
The sheer arrogance magnificence of
   it.

O! I've been up her hills
And down her valleys
But I ain't ever seen anything
Like her two cheeky Charlies.

O! I love their lazy swagger
Would love them served to me on a
   platter.

Her wonderful pert and Queenly
   bottom
Her splendid imperious behind.

So you can keep your views on
   Donald Trump
And fundamentalist religion
Me! All I want are thoughts of you
And your beautiful curvaceous
   bottom.

I've been too far out all my life I think
And not smiling but... but agonizing.

They rang to see was I alright, was I
   OK
I smiled down the phone, told them I
   was fine
That I was reading a bit, watching TV
Out sunning myself in the back
   garden
What I didn't tell them I suppose, was
   the real truth
That my Demons they were keeping
   me entertained
They were sitting on the fence right
   now watching me
Like great big Birds of Prey.

"Are you keeping yourself fit", they asked, " getting enough exercise ",
" Yes!", I smiled again, "I do daily runs
   around the garden"
Of course, this too was a fib, a lie
The truth was it was really my
   demons again
Who were chasing me around the
   garden
No! Me! I wasn't smiling, I was just...
   just agonizing.

"Are you eating enough ?" they asked
"Yes, I am", I replied again smiling, " I
   had lots of food in the house
What I neglected to tell them was of
   course, the truth
That really it was my demons who
   were eating me
And Boy! were they having a feast.

"O!", I thought to myself, " when this
   whole thing is all over (the virus
     crisis)
I gotta get myself a woman
Some lovely sweet pretty lookin'
   thing
She'll save me from my demons
They'll find her more appetizing
Can eat her first instead of eating me".

She was a wonder of Nature, a special
    thing,
Had this lovely aura about her
The way she held herself, the way she
   moved.... way she spoke her words
A real classy Lady that's for sure... a proper woman
What the hell she was doing with me I don't know.

Anyway I invited her to my house one day for tea
She so wanted to see where I lived
She was only in the door when she playfully ran her little
   index finger
Along the surface of my little black table in the hall
And then holding it up for me to see, for my inspection
Revealed a big unsightly blob of dust, a most incriminating
   smudge
She smiled a cute little reproachful smile
"It's true Baby", I said," I've been neglecting things of late, been
   letting things slip
Ever since I met you, I've been so preoccupied
Been so preoccupied with thoughts of you
You're always in my head Girl, your... your great beauty, your...your
   incredible loveliness
You've been driving me to Distraction Baby
And Hey! I like the view from down there, it's great! "

I had her sit down in my front room, she hadn't been sitting
   long
When she pointed at the floor, at my carpet
"You know you've got a hole there in your carpet, a big hole"
And "Look!" she said pointing further down the room
"There's another one over there... and another!"
"What can I say Babe", I said, "you know you have me half
     demented
Every night you got me pacing up and down, back and forth
You're this beautiful obsession to me Darling
You got me walking the floor over you Baby
Been thinking about you so hard, and so often
Now I plum gone and worn out my bleedin' carpet
Worn it out with all my walking".
At this she smiled a lovely kind sympathetic smile.

When I came back in the room with the tea
She said to me, she said "You know over in your corner there
Did you know you got a big cobweb and a spider ?"
"Oh! I said.....Oh Her! So you met my Spider
She's not just any old Spider you know
She... she's my... my Love Spider" I said proudly.
"Your Love Spider", she said a bit skeptically,
"Yea! I never had the heart to take her down
Why! She reminds me so much of you Darling
Reminds me of how awesome your powers are
And how futile it is to resist,
Reminds me of how wonderfully caught up I am
In your lovely sweet sticky web
Of gooey gorgeousness and outrageous delights.
With this she looked at me long and hard
Until suddenly there broke upon her lips this lovely enchanting smile,
"You know", she said,"you're so adorable you are, how I love you so".

P.S. "Phew!" I thought to myself,"that was a close one".

She said she needed fun
   and laughter
Baby I said what you need then
Is to pull into my Gas Station
Me! I'll give you a good servicing
I'll fill you up yea! give you a good
   fueling
I'll check your oil, all your gauges
Pump your tyres and clean your   windows
Give your bodywork a nice wipe  down
I'll even shine your bonnet

You're so shiny.

Not just another dead word from a
   book
But a magical word...straight out of
   childhood
Gathered from a fascination with
   looking at maps and Atlas books
And globes of the World
All the different countries in all their
   different colors
With all their fantastic sounding
   names
All spread out in wonderful greens pinks and oranges, yellows reds and
   purples
And then... that wonderful blue sweep
   of the Pacific...the Pacific ocean.

Through the eyes of a young small
   child
The wondrous...sweet Blue Pacific
   ocean
So vast and so full of romance
With its mermaids, its whales and its
   dolphins
Coconuts and palm trees and
   treasured islands
Its flying fish and grizzled pirates,
Its blue skies forever smiling
   overhead
The surf rolling up onto its sun kissed
   beaches.

.....There long ago I glimpsed the lovely
   blue of her blouse
And the wonderful patterns on it
As she lifted me up and spun me
   around
Just like being up on the swing boats,
And she laughed with her laughing
   smiling face
And her laughing smiling eyes
And I laughed too, out loud and
   unashamed
This was how it should always be
And I didn't want it to end
Wanted it to go on forever,
It brought me a Bluey Bliss
And suddenly all this world it was a
   magic place.

She was like Life or Love itself
Wanting to embrace you and kiss you
And sweep you off your feet
Life, it held so much promise and
   beauty
So much wonder and mystery
Yea! all was magic in those Summer
   months
The coloured pictures in our comic
   books
The kicking football on the lovely
   green lawns,
The fluttering and flapping of the
   clothes on the clothes line
Were like the sails of a Great Ship...
Sweet dreams and sunbeams as we
   ran out to meet the tide.

And still she calls to me today, wild
   blue ocean
How I love... like that sweet feeling of
   blue
The sight of her on a globe or Atlas
   still
And that name like some ancient
   spell
It sends me up into the sky
Delights, makes me feel so peaceful
The sweet blue Pacific ocean
You can...can almost taste it.

Sweet intimations of a world that
   came before,
A world underneath...that still lies
   there...somewhere
Whispering like some sweet lost
   Atlantis
Forever calling you back, calling you
   back home.

I'm afraid I can't be more specific
About the wonderful, the beautiful
...The Blue Pacific.

She was a lovely looking thing,
A beautiful young blonde girl/woman
She hadn't been with us long... at
   work
She was smart and sassy, even a little
   scary
Held strong opinions on some things,
She lived close to where I lived, only
   a few miles away
So I was sitting amongst them one
   day, the girls/the ladies
They were a little bored that day and
   for some sport
Were trying to draw me out, to get me    
   to open up a little
To reveal some more about my ways
   and my life
So I thought I'd have some fun with
   them
I told them I did some painting as a
   hobby
And that my speciality was 'the
   female ****'
But alas! I had a problem, I had no
   one to sit for me
"If only I had some beautiful nymph, some haughty Queen, some dazzling princess", I lamented
And then I'd gaze over at Her, give her
   a longing look,
Then of course, someone upped and
   said the obvious
" Jen....don't you live close to where he lives, would you not go sit for him "
My face it lit up and I smiled
"No! I would not!!! she said
   emphatically, disgusted
Now I knew from the Christmas party
   she liked to drink Gin
So I said enticingly "I'll throw in a
   few bottles of Gin"
"I'd never pose **** for anyone", she replied again emphatically, "it'd be embarrassing, it'd be degrading! Sitting naked before some man!",
" But ", I replied, " you wouldn't be embarrassed sitting for me
'Cos when I paint a **** I insist on
   being in the **** myself as well
So as to make my Sitter feel more at
   home, more at ease
Yeah, Me! I'm very... Avant Garde"
(said with a devilish twinkle in my eye)
Still she resisted my painterly
   charms
So as to further entice her I said
"I'll even cook you breakfast, no one can resist my lovely sizzling sausages".
I felt as though I'd dangled my carrot
   right in her face
But still she wouldn't take the bait.
I suppose I was lucky she hadn't for if
   she had of (agreed)
I would have had to have learnt how
   to paint Nudes real fast
And how to cook sausages and other
   breakfast repast.

Roddy's Rooster, man! you couldn't
  oust her
Standing up there on his dunghill fair
Announcing to the whole world, to All
  everywhere
My ****! He's the greatest doodle doer
O! that Roddy's Rooster.

He don't need no booster, does
  Roddy's Rooster
He'd even go after the goose sir
Don't you fouster with this Rooster
You'd only lose sir
Now vamoose sir.

Very dapper and quite the scrapper
Patrolling his perimeter
Strutting around the farmyard pound
Invariably, henhouse bound
If you were to meet him
It'd be "Put up your dukes sir
Me! I'm Roddy's Rooster".

With his tail feathers all fluffed up
Like a feather duster
And his chest all puffed out
Quite the Dandy and always randy
What a Suitor that Roddy's Rooster
And O! what a Wooer, that wooey
  doodler.

                         I I

He came a cropper though one day
When he fell in the Hopper
Now he's a good deal shorter
And not half as cocky as before,
Now he sits on his wall lamenting his
  fall
Thinking of the days when he used to
  have a ball
Has Lady Luck that Grand Old Duck
  deserted him I wonder.

Sad to see, now he's a bit gammy
More Bandy than Dandy
He still South's in the Summer
But has doubts in the Winter,
Now he likes to crow his woes and
  lows away
Climbing up onto his dunghill, he
   greets the day
But now in a high shrill falsetto
  voice
He sings  in a whole different way
" I've been round the Ringer but I'm
  still quite a Dinger
**** a Doodley Doo"
Now... now he's a ****** Blues singer!

O! that Roddy's Rooster.
Roddy's Rooster Yeeaahh!

He died... died on a dung hill, on a
   manure heap
A little kitten, a lovely.... the cutest
   little thing
Just appeared one day, one cold
   Winter's morning
At the bottom of our back garden
Appeared out of nowhere so it
   seemed, just sitting there
I seen him out the kitchen window,
The other two bigger cats we had
They seen him too
They went up to him immediately
They hissed and spat at him
Hit him a few times with their paws
It was like they were saying:
"You're not wanted here, this is our domain, our territory, Keep out! Keep
  away!
But he just sat there, taking it all
Not even trying to defend himself.
Now I didn't want another cat, we had
   two already
I was only young, a boy, had no job,
   no money
We were just feeding them, feeding
    them on scraps,
But you just couldn't help feeling
   sorry for him
Sitting out there in the cold,
   unwanted and unloved
My young boy's heart, it went out to
   him
Eventually I took him out some milk
   and some food
I petted him on the head
In a strange way he reminded me a
   bit of myself
" Seems like the whole world is
   against you too, little fella" I said
But his little head, it remained
   bowed, his eyes closed, looking in
       on himself,
I left him there,
Of the milk he never touched a drop
And the food, never even looked at it
He just sat there so still and so quiet,
When I went out a little while later
I found him, his little body all stiff
   and cold...frozen in the cold
"This isn't a world for little things", I
   thought,
" there are no miracles here, no
    fairytales.....
And there ain't no happy endings
   either
(They lied to us)".
I buried him.
I think I buried a part of myself as
   well that day.

All I wanted to do
Was go to the Moon
It's where they all said, it was at
"Why, it was amazing up there!"
It was the place to go
The place to be
You just had to go there
It just had to be seen.

So! So I went to the Moon
And they all smiled at me
And nodded their heads
"Isn't it beautiful ?", they all said
Yes, I replied, it's... it's beautiful
It's just like... like a great big
A great big...... Quarry!!!
Lots of rocks and shale and dust and
   stuff...

About as empty as my soul
And empty as yours as well I fear.

                          II

(Maybe I could set up a hamburger
   stall there
Sell Moonburgers and nice crispy
   Saturn onion rings
At least then...at least then they'd be filled with something).

I used bait my hooks with juicy bits,
  morsels sweet and tender
And throw my line out then, into the
  deep dark depths
Some human voice/heart to capture
Some wild Sea horse, some Mermaid
  sweet
Neptune King or marauding Queen of
  the Deep
Some words from some other, some
  nuggets of comfort
That might help light up my drear
  and wintry life
Bring some warmth into this intense
  cold I felt
And remind me that I too, was still
  human;
Like a ******* spider I'd mope
  about
And scan my nets impatiently
Waiting for that telltale tug, that
  lovely sign
That someone at last, had bit upon a
  bait of mine,
Then like a mischievous elf I'd dance
  about
And clap my hands in glee
Marvelling at my cleverness, at my
  great ingenuity
I'd quickly gather in my nets - my line
Anxious to know what strange fish
  my handiwork did deliver
I'd haul them back to my dark cave -
  my cavern
There to ruminate over and further -
  further examine.

Then one day there came from out of
  the depths,
From out of that dark pool so
  mysterious
A voice so pure and sweet, like that of
  an Angel
A young girl's voice, she liked
  something I wrote
And desired very much to tell me so
She spoke at length about her own life
She talked not of pain or of Life's cruel
  game
But of hopes she had and dreams, and
  pretty flowery things,
I pitied her and the words she wrote
For I knew this world and knew what
 it was likely to do to her & her dreams
As it had once done to me and mine
(I bared my teeth at this world, it's lies
  and deceit),
But there was something about her, That girl and those words she wrote
They stayed with me long and I'd
  come back to view them often
To read them was almost to enter into
  another world
A world of innocence and light
  undimmed by darker things,
(To walk again in Eden's fields)
She touched something in me,
  something old...something deep
She reminded me... yes, she reminded
  me of my own young self all those
     years ago
A darling child with sparkling eyes, a
  hearty laugh and an impish smile
"Wherever did you go Little One ?" I
  asked myself,
"How cold and empty have been my
  days...Why did you leave me ?"
She haunted me, this girl and those
  words she wrote
I wondered what she must look like,
  with flowing hair & flowing dresses
So I went down to the dark pool and I
  looked right in
But nothing could I see, only my own
  reflection staring back at me
How old and gnarled I had become,
  like a wizened old tree,
"I couldn't protect you Little One, this
world it overwhelmed, it engulfed me
I didn't know which way to turn
How alone and how afraid I was....
You deserved better, so much better
A world of love and magic and beauty
Not this cold, grim and forbidding
  place
Any child would recoil in horror at
  such a sight as this",
I resolved there and then..I resolved to
Try and find him again if find him I
  could
Buried beneath that morass of years,
Many of which had been bad or ill.

                            2

Revisiting my old home place, little
  village by the sea
I wandered again those olden streets
  of my youth,
But things they had changed, it was
  not as it had been
And every change was like a pain
  inside, eating into me
My old home, it had been torn down,
  only a pile of rubble remained,
Other old landmarks I had known had
  now vanished and were gone
The faces too, were all different now
They looked at me as you would a
  stranger
Their suspicious curious eyes
following me wherever I went,
I felt like a man strangely out of sync
  with Time
A fool I felt walking that ghostly shore
Searching for a Summertime long ago,
In truth I couldn't wait to get out of
  there, to get back home.

I took to painting pictures instead,
pictures of the memories that were in
   my head
On sheets of blank paper I built again
  my old homestead
Every room, every item, every colour
  lovingly restored
Just as I remembered them
And outside, the garden too and the
  sea shore,
The rocks, the beach & the tide
And the village, my village! as I had
  known it as a boy.

And I'd close my eyes then, and using
my imagination, put myself back there
Walking again those same lonely
  rooms,
Walking the sea shore & village streets
Haunting them like a ghost;
And I'd call out your name, call out
  like a banshee in the wind
That you might come back to me... one
  more time...

Old memories would return, things I'd long forgotten, some good, others not
  so good
Bits of old feelings too, would return,
  but only for fleeting moments
The flotsam & jetsam of the past,
The ruins of who I used to be,
Sometimes, with eyes closed, my head
  would drop
And I'd slip off and lose myself in
  these strange dreamlike reveries
As I'd come to call them
And for a moment I'd find myself back
  there, back in my old village or so it
    seemed
Old faces from the past would
reappear again,
Their fresh & youthful faces talking
excitedly with childhood wonder and
  abandonment
I didn't know if they could see me or
  not
Even so, I'd cover my face not wanting
  them to see what I had become.
They didn't seem to know I was there.

                             3

And so it went on, each day I'd walk
  and do my rounds
Walking around my ghostly Kingdom
Trying to keep it alive,
Like a miner digging, seeking new
memories, old feelings, little slivers of
  gold,
Sometimes I'd feel disconsolate & feel
  like giving up
But I kept on.... I kept on
Till one day, while slumped in my
  chair, with eyes closed
Lost again in one of those strange
  dreamlike reveries
I dreamt that I was returning home
  after another fruitless search
Weary and dejected
But then, going inside, much to my
  great surprise
There! Seated on the sitting room
  carpet
A child! A little child!! A little child at
  play
Immersed in some game of his
Gently rocking backwards and
  forwards
Humming to himself some tune,
With eyes so bright and a strange
  radiance about his face
All under a big mop of black hair;
As I watched him from the doorway, I
  wondered to myself
"Was this... was this I... was this me"
And in all the time I watched him
Never once did he look up, so
engrossed did he seem in his game:
And in my own mind, the only thoughts I had were of a much darker
  kind
"Now that we had the little wretch, we should grab him, put him to work for
  us
Use him, control him for our own
  ends,
He must have a treasure hidden some
  place......"
In those moments I knew... I knew
  somehow
I knew there was no way back for me,
I turned away and left him there,
I went outside, out the back into the
  garden
The garden where once as children we
  had played and dreamt of being
    heroes one day -
And suddenly - suddenly all these
  memories came flooding back to me
Memories of the few kindnesses I'd
  ever known in this life
A Mother's sweet soft words of love
  and reassurance
An old girlfriend's fond kiss and
  smiling face
A friend's encouraging words,
And suddenly these great big tears
  welled up in my eyes
And these great sobs came from
  within me
I was overcome, I crumpled and fell to
  my knees
And buried my head in my hands, and
  wept,
But then suddenly, in the midst of all
  this grief and pain
A hand touched me, a little, a tiny
  hand
I looked up, it was the little child from
  the room
But he wasn't alone this time, he had
  two others with him
They stood a little way back behind
  him,
One, another boy, had his finger to his
  mouth
Looking at me as if in profound
  puzzlement at my predicament
The other, a young girl, was looking
  over at him giggling
She had her hair cut into a little black
  bob at the front, like a little pixie,
Such a delicious sound I thought, the
  carefree laughter of a child
I'd forgotten what it sounded like
It'd been so long since I heard
  someone laugh that way,
It was as if the world she came from
was a place that inspired only great
   mirth and joy
As if that was all that existed there-
And then the child, he spoke to me (in
  a little voice and with some concern)
"Why do you cry ? Come and see
  where we live
Come and play with us awhile".
He held out his hand and smiled, a
  kindly smile
Looking down at my hand, I wasn't
  sure
But he reached forward and took mine
  anyway
He led me away, the others following
  too,
I felt strangely moved, forgot my tears
  and my sorrow
I felt a strange freedom, like a great
  weight had been lifted
Like all before that moment had been
  erased
As if my own life had been nothing
  more than a dream,
I felt as if I'd been accepted, and that I
  belonged again
I felt almost like...like I'd come home.

This isn't a poem at all, I mean
  seriously,
There is no poem to be viewed here,  
If I was the police I'd be waving you
  on saying
"Please move on, there's nothing to be
  seen here,
No! there are no poems in this
  vicinity,
I'd be holding up a sign "No Poem here, please go elsewhere to view a
  real poem",
But I bet some of you out there are
  nodding your heads thinking
"Hey! This is something different, this
  is really good,  yea! really clever
He's saying there's no poem here
It's a poem about No poems
A poem saying it's not a poem when
  really it is a poem"

But it's not a poem, it's not!!! (the
  author)

But they'd retort "Yea! A poem going
  thru an existential crisis,
A poem that doesn't believe it's a
  poem
A 'ghost' poem, a haunted poem
The poem that never was
Like a ghost ship floating thru
  the mist
Brilliant! I see what you're doing
  here
Man, that's genius, High Art,
This could be the best ****** poem
  you've  ever written!"

But it's not a poem, it's not! It's a
  mistake, an error (the author again)
I was just amending an older poem trying to make it look better on the
  page
When the Site saved it as a new poem
But it wasn't a new poem, it was an
  old poem
So I went in and deleted all the text
  hoping it would delete the poem
It deleted the text of the poem but gave the poem a title called "Untitled",
And then people went in to view the
  poem entitled "Untitled"
And they found nothing there
And then they got onto me informing me that my poem called "Untitled"
Wasn't showing up on my page
And they thought the Site was acting up.
So I had to write this explaining how
  this wasn't a poem at all
But now you probably think  
  it is a poem
You'll be thinking, "Sure when it comes to Poetry anything goes
It's like Shakespeare, "to be or not to
  be
Poem or no Poem, that is the
  question"
The Ying... or the Yang.
But it's not a poem, it's not !!!
But then I bet I'll hear
" O yes it is, don't be modest now
What a great poem!!!
No, it's not! "Yes, it is!"
No! "Yes!" No! "Yes!"
You just can't win can you???

It's true I have some regrets in life
The truth is..... I think now..... I should
    have been Zardo and not Bardo
Zardo I think has more of a 'Zing' to it
It's a bit like Zorro
For I too wear a mask, I write hidden
    behind a pseudonym
Moving stealthily like some elusive
    Ninja warrior,
Or like some swashbuckling pirate
    hero yeah!
I descend upon the Site with a
   flourish
Swinging in like Errol Flynn trailing
    behind me great romance and
        adventure
I bring my magic, I dazzle with my
    swordplay, my verbal acrobatics
Send all the shadows fleeing,
rescuing the poor damsels, the sad
   heroine grieving
Releasing the downtrodden from
their onerous chains and shackles
Bringing Justice once more to the
    World
I bring them all a gift... the gift of... of
    Freedom!!!
Then as suddenly as I came... I'm gone,
    yea! I vanish
But not before leaving my mark, with
    lightning strokes, my Calling Card
A big "Z" Z for Zardo, written,
     emblazoned with my sword:
The people they all gather around
  just like detectives after a crime
They view my wonderful damage,
   can only stare and marvel
Then someone shouts, he points a
    finger
"Look!! The sign! Z!!! It was Him...it...it
    was Zardo!!!"
"Zardo!!!" the whole crowd gasps in
    awed hushed tones,
"It...it was Zardo!!!"

All I need now is a good theme tune
[Song: O Zar..arr..do! Where do you come from/ Where do you go Zar..arr..do!]

                         II

O! the ladies of an evening, they come
    out onto their balconies to coo
To watch the sun set & the rising of
   the Moon
Secretly they sigh and whisper onto
    themselves
"O! Zardo, where art thou, my Sweet
    Prince, my Secret Love
How my heart it longs, it yearns for
    thee,
I can see you, see you almost, upon a
    striking Black Horse galloping
[Song: O! Zarr...arr...do, your brooding
    dark looks, your flashing blade/
Riding through the Glens of Ireland
    yeah!].
O! Zardo, in my dreams I walk with
    thee, you hold me in your arms
O! Zardo, can I see it...will you not show it to me....let me touch it, hold it,
   feel it...your... your gleaming sword,
     your flashing blade yea!
Your golden pen from which
   beautiful dreams are made
O! Zardo your golden Excalibur like
   sword
Please! O Please! Unsheathe it!"
[Song: O! Zar..arr..do, with your eyes so soft/ But your arms so strong/
O! Zar..arr..do, Greatest Lover of them
    all!]

O! the wind it rustles in the trees, a fleeting shadow flits across the fields
"O! Zardo, is that you ? Is that you ? "
   they cry,
My Darling ! my Sweetness !
My shadowy Knight, my Heart's
   Delight".
[Song:  The Wind it whispers
   Zar..arr..do/ The valleys they echo
    his name]
O! Zardo if only you were here... if
   only".

                             III

Meantime back in my sanctuary
   hideaway home, safely ensconced
I reside....like some insanely brilliant
   criminal mastermind
Here I can be myself, here I can laugh,
Here I can unwind, let my guard
   down
Remove my cape and mask, lay my
   sword aside
Here I can feast in peace & toast my
   Art sublime
And around my fireside wildly dance
   and sing
             "O! they know me,
       Yet they know me not Ha! Ha!"
Like some impish Rumpelstiltskin.....
[Song: O! Zar..arr..do, Nobody knows from whence he comes/ Or where he goes/ Mysterious Masked stranger/ Fearless Lone Ranger... Zar..arr..do!]

                           IV

But now, back here in the real world
I must again resume my humble
   place/role...my double life
Don my Civy clothes once again
& like a chameleon blend in with the
   crowd
Just another nameless face...a mere
   office worker by day
[Distant Song: O! Zar..arr..do]
Here I must play another game,
   maintain my secrecy at all times,
Feeling like a Secret Agent, feeling
   like a spy
I must yes!....I must live a lie
For they must never know my secret
Who l really am... my true identity
Yes! I must be merciful to them &
   mercy show them (& to myself also)
For my sun...my sun it would burn too
   brightly for them
They'd all be starstruck, yea! they'd go
   all funny, all wobbly on me
They'd be stuttering and stammering,
   jibbering and jabbering
They'd go all self-conscious on me,
   not know what to say or do
They'd be all staring, they'd be all
   agog
"I never knew what Genius would
   ever look like", they'd say,
"And all the time it was sitting there
  right in front of me, right in our
    midst,
But... but he's so quiet and he looks so
   ordinary"
They'd come down from other floors
   just to see me
They'd whisper excitedly "Is that Him?  Is that Him?"
And the others would reply "Yes! that's Him, that's Genius! that's what
      Genius looks like"
Why! it'd be suffocating, I'd find it
   hard to breathe
I'd grow self-conscious too
I'd be just like an exhibit in the zoo.

And yet, y'know, there's this girl at
   work, she's really sweet
She always has a lovely smile just for
   me
So quiet and so graceful
O! how I wish... how I wish sometimes
I could just tell her, reveal myself to
   her, the real me
Silently I call out to her, "No! this isn't the real me you see before you
No! I'm not this dithering Klark Kent
   type office mouse
Look!!! (ripping off my shirt and tie revealing my Superman/Zardo vest)
Me! I'm Superman! Yes! I'm Zardo!!!"
[Music strikes up: O! Zar..ar..do! So
  strong, so gallant, so bold! Zar..ar..do]
And she'd start to say almost afraid
" You, you're Zardo" and she'd start to
   swoon, to feel faint
But I'd grab her and take her in my
   arms, my strong embrace
"No!" I'd assure her, "don't be afraid,
    no harm will come to thee
Fear not, you won't go aflame
Look! I'm just another human being,
   just like yourself"
"But you, you're Zardo", she'd protest,
" Look! " I'd say smiling, "touch me
   and see, pinch me if you like
I'm just flesh and blood, no different
   than you",
"Come!" I'd say, "take my hand, climb up here onto my horse, Let me take you to the stars and beyond
Yea! Let me take you home, home to my place"
And she'd take my hand and off we'd go
Galloping away together into the moonlit night.
[Song: O! don't go Zar..arr..do, don't leave us here all alone.... They call him Zar..arr..do.....].

And his legend, it goes on....
                                     
                    ­                                                              "Z"

Awash with ***** I peed all over me
   shoes
Well Storm me if I ain't a bad sea
   Captain
I'd had a ton of *** and a whole
   barrel of porter
Now the landlord he's shouting "Last
   Orders"
So where's me Crew, me Swabs, me
   Hearties ?
Yea! where's me Aces and me Deucies
.......Nowhere to be seen, not a one,
Just a pack of feckin' Jokers,
Find me the Fox and show me the
   Shirkers!!!

I'd drunk too much that's what I'd
   done
Well tie me to the mast and chastise    
  me severely for such unseemly
     behaviour
All I wanted, just some fair company, to be lavished by a couple of lovelies
But No! they wouldn't have it,
   wouldn't entertain me
Snobs! Stuck up cows!! *******!!!
We nearly had a Barney
I'd rather wet me ***** in a Jar of
   cold Jellies.

Standing there outside in the cold
   night air
Trying to get me bearings, yea! trying
   to take a reading
Me Northern Star, he must have
   fecked off to the Northern Bar
And my compass, he's whirling
   around like a Dervish,
Well ***** me sausage in a jar of
   malt vinegar
We're sailing blind tonight me boys
Keep a sharp lookout atop of the
   Crow's Nest won't ya!

And so, we ventured out, a brave man
With ***** as big as the bold Hercules
   himself
A wee bit tentative at first I'd concede
Lurching about from side to side, all
   over the place
But not to worry, with me there at the
   helm, both hands on the wheel
Solid and salty as any old sea dog
Singing away to meself a wee shanty
" I'm no landlubber me!
  Just give me the dark and the rolling
    sea"
Steady as she goes me Hearties!
I thought we was doin' alright till one
   of my feet
It trod in a space with nothing there
   in it
And my Ship it goes tumbling
   sideways over
Hell's britches!!! I'd trod in a pothole
   the size of a manhole
"Man the lifeboats Lads, we're going
   over" I cried.

Next thing I know I'm lying on my
   back
And the Moon she's blowin' me kisses
And at the end of the Bar, there! me
   Northern Star
And Him smokin' a cigar and sippin'
   Brandy with some *******
Looking like a Dandy at Christmas
"Hey Judas!" I shouts over, "where's
   me monkey?"

And then suddenly, this woman, this
   woman out of nowhere
Out of the darkness, this Spectre
An old Sea Witch for sure, by thunder
She starts bawling laughing at me and
   pointing her crooked finger,
Well dent me dagger on a cold
   woman's heart
If she doesn't cut the legs right out
   from under me
Every time she opens her big Gob, the
   squeals of her
Makes me feel two feet tall she does
   with her cruel laughin' & sneery
       banter
And her drawin' a big crowd around
   her
(And me! a Giant!!.... a feckin' Whale, a
   Walrus!!).

Well lash me Luger and wake me up
   with a poker
I wasn't wobbling, that was just me
   swagger,
And I ain't lying down here no longer
   either
Heave ** the ropes me lads and haul
   me up me Hearties
Till I stand once more at a proper
   angle,
Yea! Hoist me up like a mast and watch me sails billow again in the
   breeze
Watch me belly bulge out and me eyes
   roll around in me head
Now we're back afloat, buckle up me
   sword on me belt
And roll out me cannons
For the name of this ship, if it isn't the
   Great, the "Great Defiant ",
By the two Horns on Hell's Gate
What am I doing here at all in this
   place, with ye folk
I'll wave me ***** at this world, yea! I'll dangle me dibbler
Did ye not hear, did no one tell ye
I'm off yea! I'm off to Australia.

                       II

For Sweet Destiny, she visited me this
   night, she kissed me
She came like a gypsy when I was a bit
   tipsy
So exotic with all her bangles and
   beads and her charms
And dresses all the colours of the
   rainbow
With her big crystal ball eyes of grey
Like the Moon she mesmerized me
   completely
And then she kissed me with lips
   sweet as whiskey
And she whispered in my ear a magic
   word. " Australia ".

You see this was how it was
I read it some place,seen it somewhere
A sweet wee lass, a fellow girl poet
   from Australia
She said, she lamented " Poetry, it isn't
   very big over here
The people their not inclined, their not
   of that mind"
Said I aghast, I'll change their hearts
Their hardheaded folk, those folk
   down there
It must be the snakes and the spiders
   down the toilet
So hoist me up onto me pulpit
Them heathen folk they need
   convertin' badly.

O! Give me a Ship, give me a Galley
And like Columbus I'll start a big
   rumpus
We'll sail off over the horizon, and
   keep turning on the globe
Till we sight the shores of that Sweet
    Island
And that lovely Queen of the South
   reclining
Beautiful and wonderful Australia!!!

There's gold in their hearts even
   though they may not know it
And jewels in their eyes big as
   diamonds
Treasures by the thousand
So hoist up me trousers boys,
Me! I'm off to Sligo
Wait a minute, No! No I'm not,
I'm off.... off to Australia.

So gimme a wooden leg and hoist me
   parrot up onto me shoulder
Arrrr! Jim lad.....now where's me
   soldiers
Are ye with me lads
We'll plow through the sharky seas
Then I'll plant me flag on their
   beaches
And claim this Land for Posey.... yea!
   for Poetry,
And if they don't like it
If they string me up by the ***** and
   spit on me
Sure I'll just smile back at them and
   tell them
"I'm just..... I'm just Jim Dandy".

                       III

Alas! It wasn't to be, next morning
   they found me
Upended in someone's garden
The Sergeant he shook me, " What are
   you doing down there? " he said,
"Ahoy there shipmate Sir" says I, like a
   true shipwrecked sailor,
"I had me a dream last night,
I dreamt...I dreamt I were bound,
   bound for Australia.

I left photograph albums of her out on
    the coffee table
Thinking the neighbours might like to
    see and so, celebrate her life
Her youthful days spent at home,
playing among the fields, by the river,
In the little country village where she
  lived,
Her time in England and in America,
Her joys, her loves, her hopes,
I thought it was a good idea.
But when the neighbours came by
They talked only of their own families,
    their kids
About their hobbies and what Clubs
   they were in & what they were doing
      the weekend,
About their cars and how big they
    were
What horsepower the engine was,
They talked of Life and of getting on
    with life
And enjoying life,
Maybe they had it right, trying to be
    positive in the face of sorrow
It must have been awkward for them,
Maybe it was my own fault too, for not
    drawing their attention to them (the
        photograph albums)
But I was busy getting drinks, making
    sandwiches, serving tea
(And had a fair bit of drink taken
    myself by then)
But the photograph albums they were
left their untouched, not a single page
was turned like no one was interested
Like no one wanted to know, like no
    one cared at all
I thought it kind of sad, and my Dad
    who had sat there silently for a long
       time
Listening to what was being said
Suddenly got up and walked out in a
    bit of a huff.

We needed a suit of clothes to lay her
    out in, in the coffin,
I thought rather foolishly I suppose,
    that I should put them on the
     radiator first to warm them
It would be cold in that coffin, and colder still down in that deep dark
    clay.

In the Nursing Home she had
    complained of being very hot
I used to take her in a little tub of ice
    cream
And give her a few teaspoons every
    night,
Now when I open the freezer door,
    there's still one tub left inside
The last one, the final one I'd brought
    in
But never used, that same fateful night
    she died.

It's funny but I try not to think of her
    that much
Because I know if I did, it'd only upset
    me, make me all sad & teary eyed
And I'd be no good then, no use to
    anyone,
There's a time and a place I suppose, a
    time and a place to grieve... to
         remember.
I know she wouldn't have liked to see
    me that way either,
She would have wanted me to get on
    with my own life
She used tell me, "Don't waste your
    time on me, my life is over now,
        my days are done,
It's your turn now, go live your own
    life and find your own happiness".

It only hits you when you go into her
    room & see her clothes still hanging
       there
And you realize she's not around
    anymore to wear them,
I bought a lot of them for her myself
Used to embarrass me going into the
    Ladies Section to get her stuff
The pyjamas, their the saddest, they
    hurt the most
The ones with the little woolly sheep
    on them, the ones with the nice
        bunnies
( Heh! they always used to joke I had
    such poor taste)
The one with the bright red flowers
And the one with the little penguins
    on skis
With the scarves wrapped around
    their necks.

We had to write a final farewell
   message to put on a card
To go on the bouquet on her coffin
I struggled at first, looking over at my
    brothers, not knowing what to say,
My mind, as always, wanted to say the
     'right' thing
But luckily, my heart got in the way
I said, I wrote " Thanks for all the
    Years Mom,
It was a great pleasure knowing you,
Enjoy the next life, you deserve to,
I'll be seeing you! "

Would you be the Lard then,
The Lard o' these lands ?

<The Lard !!!
I ain't the Lard of anything!
I'm the Laird of these lands, yes!
If that's what you mean.>

The Laird, eh!
So there's no Duck or Duchess over
    them then.

<Duck! You mean Duke, no Duke or
    Duchess !!!
Ain't no Dooks or Dutchesses around
   here Mon! >

Then what about the Goose,
The Goose of Gainly Hall.

<The Goose!!! What Goose ?
It's a ghost not a goose,
The Ghost of Gainly Hall !
Only goose I can see around here is
    you
Begone you unruly Mon, Begone!>

Unruly Mon is it ! Unruly Mon !!!
   (squaring up to the Laird)
...Heh! I'll nay fight ye, yer not worth it
The Big Lairdy Mon
I'll go off and alight some place else
Just like the Goose, the Goose of Gainly
    Hall !!!
............Hey Big Mon!!! The Goose! He's
    loose!! He's gone!!!

The sea laments while the hooded
    moon he harrows
Harrows the countless unknown
    graves of men
Who fell among stormy seas,
Men who today are remembered still
By tall stories
Told in their honour to bedtime
    children
Before they journey out to sleep
Into the wide realms of imagery,
    colourful and wild,
Breathing shadows onto a night of
    deserted streets
Drenched black slates and steeples.

O! I went to the loo to do a number
    two
Only one cubicle was vacant, the rest
    they were all taken
"Looks like a full house today" I
     thought to myself
Man! I was bustin' to go
As I sat there on my throne in my
    cockpit all alone
There came this funny rumbling
    sound from down below
And then, this fearsome volley.... a  
    fantastic farting
And then, a great release
As finally I dropped my bombs with
    studious aplomb
O! what a relief !

"Man! ", I said to myself, " I must
      lay off that Aloe Vera juice
That stuff it goes right through you "
But then, something strange, from the
    cubicle right next to me
Came this other big thunderous ****
    explosion
A big fat blubbery balloony one
It sounded like a tuba gone wrong
And then! And then, another one! this
    one further down the line
This time a big bubble and squeaky
    one
And then! yet another! a funny little
    flute-ey one
Like it just squirreled out in the nick
    of  time
And then finally, another!!! a big Big
    Bellow like from some wonky
        trumpet
A real rasper, he must have thought he
    was doin' the solo
Man! It was so funny, one right after
    the other, you had to laugh
It was.... well, it was Gas !!!
Lucky no one struck a match
Or else it might have been... yea!
    Jumpin' Jack Flash !!!

It was like listening to a whole scale of
    *** notes
Such a strange symphony, these
    wondrous excursions in Sound
For a moment there, it reminded me a
     bit of Beethoven,
It was no celestial choir that's for sure
It was something altogether more dire,
Like something you'd hear in a
    farmyard byre
The animals all gathered at the trough
It was like all the bottoms were
    conversing with one another,
        having a chat
Plotting a rebellion even, an uprising,
    a coup d'etat
Against that other much more
    celebrated Opening
That much vaunted Hole in the Face,
    the Mouth!
That puffed up preening Prima Donna
    with his preposterous outpourings
His Monstrous, pompous inflated Self-
   importance
Sitting up there stuffing himself and
    forever spouting nonsense
"Sure, we do all the work down here",
  the Bottoms were saying, " and we
    talk a lot more sense as well"
They posed the question "Can a Bottom speak more Truth than a
    Mouth ?"
These defiant derrieres, these proud
    posteriors
With their proud exultations
Sticking a firm ******* up at that so-called world of respectability up
     there
That world of petrified good manners
Suffocating! Oppressing! with its
    stifling mores and traditions
Yea!....for sure, the rebel Masses, they
    were just a bunch of Bad *****.

O! the air it was blue just like Pepe Le
    Pew
I could have sworn I seen a big blue
    gaseous cloud ascending
Heading up toward the ceiling
Like a great Cloud of Unknowing
    except with a bit more foreboding
Reminded me of William Wordsworth
    & his lonely cloud a-wandering
But then I thought, did Wordsworth,
    Shelley or Keats ever write
An Ode to His **** ?
Was it too dark a side to show, too
    dark a place to go
The Dark Side of the Back Side
The Dark Side... of the Moon.

Pepe! Pepe Le Pew, that old Don Juan,
    Casanova of the old cartoons
It was then, my Love, it was then I
    thought of you
I smiled and said to myself"I know
    what I'll do
I'll blow out another sweet blue
    raspberry one just for you....
Oh yea!....that one was lovely, that one
    was true
I think that one had your name
    written on it
O!  I do".

And now as Pepe might say " Adieu! adieu!.....Sweet, sweet Adieu! ".

                       Ende

(A Definition: OCD is a mental disorder where people feel the need to check things repeatedly, perform certain routines repeatedly or have certain thoughts repeatedly).
        ---------------------------------

Well, I'll tell you once
Better make that twice just in case,
Maybe even a third time to be sure
To be sure it's securely in place
Because you never know, do you, you
    never know.....

When I was young I worked for the
    man
I didn't have any other choice at the
    time,
A strange man, aren't they all
Had a funny way of going on
Had pet names for things, his own
    private little vocabulary
And there was always this one, this
    one little proviso
No matter what you seemed to do
You! you were always wrong.

If you were to ask him for directions
    you'd surely end up lost
Be left scratching your head or driving
    into a wall,
Even if you thought you knew what he
    meant
It was like he'd just turn it around,
    stand it on its head
And suddenly it wasn't what he meant,
    it wasn't what he meant at all!
But was something completely
    different
And you! you were always wrong.

"Where are your eyes, can't you see!"
    he'd say
I could see alright but not what he was
    saying to me
Everything was upside down, every
    which way across
All jumbled up, awkward, out of place,
I could never please him anyway,
In the end you'd just give up, just
    give in
Admit you were stupid, admit you
    were dim
Playing a game only he could win
With its ever changing rules all made
    up by him,
Maybe it was just the mood he was in
He was a man though and I, I was only
    a kid....only a kid.

                           II

Now its hard to live when you've
    always been wrong
When you don't trust yourself or the
    whole world around
You grow unsure about things, you
    start to check things,
Where others see things for what
they are, you simply don't believe it
Reality isn't reality you've learned, it's
    something else entirely.

Whereas the other guy can check
    things once and let it go
You gotta keep on checking & checking
You look and you look and you look
    again
You strain to see what isn't there really
Strain till your poor eyes are nearly
    popping out of your head onto the
        floor
And even then it's not over, there's a
    punchline
When you finally do get something
    done
You still don't believe you've done it
    right
A ******* doubt remains & it follows
    you about
A voice from your past comes back to
     haunt you
And to remind you, that "You! you
    were always wrong".

How could you ever hope to win
Working three or four times as hard
    just to stay even, just to keep up
        with the next guy
And it's hard, real hard, all that
    indecision
It's no great surprise when you start to
    fall behind
You look up & suddenly they've all
    passed you by
You look at them like their some kind of Supermen, the ease with which they
    can do things, like real men
But you, still like a little child who can
    never get it right
You feel such a failure, feel so small, so
    small and so inadequate.

And you stick out, others begin to notice you & your little peculiarity
They snigger and laugh behind your
    back
They joke about you and call you
    names
Their not like you, no one's like you
Nobody wants to be your friend,
No! Nobody wants to be a friend to
    that.
You feel you don't fit, you don't belong,
You feel so lost, you feel so alone.

Bosses too, watching you work, they
    shake their heads and say,
" He's not very productive, is he? He's
    very slow
No! We can't keep him, he's no good,
    he'll have to go ".

                          III

But where do you go? What do you
    do?
When all the doors are closed on you,
If you're not all worn out by then,
    your health all gone
Well, maybe....maybe you seek another
    reality, yeah,
You take a drink and then another and
    then wow!
What's all this? a world gone crazy,
    out of control, spinning & whirling
         around
And it's funny and you'd be laughing,
    laughing at the craziness, the
       absurdity of it all
And the great thing, you didn't care
    anymore
You'd say to yourself " this is great, this
    is amazing,
Maybe now I'd found a world I could
    live in
Where things were always funny and I
    wouldn't always be wrong"
You'd made a new friend, and a friend
    worth having
Here was someone who could really
    help you
That could ease your pain and dull
    that crazy brain of yours
Someone that could fix you and
    maybe, carry you home.

And so, you managed to get yourself a
     job, then rising real early every
           morning
You'd put some music on, then get the
    drinks in
Have yourself a little/ wee party
Wait for the effect to kick in, the click
    in your head to come
When the seriousness would all
    dissipate
And the funniness come around
    instead
Then you'd head off to work, you'd be
    high but careful to conceal it
So as not to give yourself away
You'd be like an actor playing a role,
    the part of the 'normal person'
        whatever that is
But behind it all there was you,
    watching yourself
And you'd be sniggering & laughing,
    far away and far out of it;
And you'd be able to keep up with
    them, the others
Keep up long enough until lo and
    behold, surprise of all surprises
You'd see one of them make a mistake
And this would give you some
   confidence
And you could build on that
You'd start to think, maybe I wasn't so
    bad after all
And maybe they weren't the
    Supermen I thought them to be,
And slowly bit by bit, you'd start the
    long trek back, back to sanity
Till one day, suddenly you wouldn't
    need it anymore, the drinking
You'd have realized the truth, that you were as good if not a whole lot better
    than any of them
Yea, you'd realize the truth, that you'd
    been robbed, you'd been duped
There was nothing wrong with you,
    there never was
It was Him! all Him those many years
    ago
And that crazy way he had of going
    on.

How he always liked to make you feel
  that it was such a really big deal
Every time you made a mistake, did
    something wrong
It was something terrible! something
    heinous!!
O! It was the End of the World!!!
His words, how they'd hit you right at
    your heart's core, leave you reeling
Made you feel you weren't human
    anymore
You were hopeless! Impossible! Like some kind of freak, some alien being...

You know, sometimes I look at great
    structures, big buildings, bridges
         and the like
And I wonder what kind of mind
    made such a thing
It wouldn't have been me that's for
    sure
I'd have been too afraid they'd
    collapse or fall into the sea,
And I think again of him who made
    me this way
His parents died when he was very
    young
He had awful teachers who scared
   and beat him mercilessly
He had to emigrate to find work like
    so many others
Had to work with foreigners far
    from his own home and kin
Who knows what he must have gone through to make him the way he was
What crazy world created him and
    made him do the things he did
He never wrote anything down, no!
    not like I could
And so it is...and so it goes
(When one person bullies another and destroys their perception of the world)

Now I know it's going to **** me one of
    these days
This penchant I still have for checking,
    this overconcern for things
When I think of all the energy I must
    have wasted
The things I could have done with it
(I could surely do with it now)
What might have been... if only... if
    only.

I got me a Kangaroo
Lives way down in my pants
He seldom sits quiet
He'd rather get up and dance.

He goes Bo-ing! Boing! Boing!
I can't get him stopped
He's always on the go
Yea! he's always on the hop.

                     II

Well, he ain't no Dodo
He sure knows how to pogo
Even when I say no! no!
He keeps on on the go! go!
(Bit of a yo-yo)

And when he's full of vim
There's no catching him
I only hope my pants hold out
And he don't pop out.

                         III

Now how can I put forward
My Best face
When I got him down there
Bouncing all over the place.

He's up, then he's down
Then he's back up again
Up and down all day
Like a demented drawbridge.

                       IV

He goes Bo-ing! Boing! Boing!
And I go Down! Down! Down!
Whoa-aa Boy!

I go one way
While he goes the other
Man! he's tearing me asunder
I'm every which way.

My mind full of insecurities & fears
And my Kangaroo down there
He's looking up at me saying
What the hell are you doing up there.

                            V

O! what am I going to do
With my wild Kangaroo,
What am I going to do !!!
What! Get him a didgeridoo ???
(A didgeri-didgeri-doo!)

Have you got a Kangaroo
Down in your pants ?
"Ooooo! Whoo!" sang the girls
     "yes! we Dooo Whooo!!!"
What! Wait a minute, you mean...
You mean girls, they got Kangaroos too !!!

My! The beach it looks so cool today
With the sun shining down, the tide in
The golden sands, the lovely blue sea
How I'd love to be down there now,
    messing about among the rocks
Fishing for *****, looking in the rock
    pools
Paddling through the water,
    swimming out in the tide,
Having a picnic with my Mom; she'd
    have the blanket laid out
For us all to sit upon
She'd have lovely scones with butter
    and strawberry jam
And lovely hot sugary tea
And "Go on, go get an ice cream from
    the ice cream man".

But No! I can't, I've got to go to school
    today
With this heavy schoolbag strapped to
    my back with all my books in it
Yea, I got to go to school today and
    face the scary teacher
The way she shouts at us and
    brandishes that ruler of hers
And she'll slap you if you don't have
    the right answer
Scary! Scary! Teacher
She's not at all like my Mother, my
    Mom she's so soft and kindly.....
And she worries a lot I can tell, Mom
    you mustn't worry,
She looks so sad sometimes I could cry.

At school how time, it moves so slow
O! I wish, how I wish I didn't have to  
    go
As children we're all thrown together,
    it gets so noisy and there's quarrels
And some of the bigger boys from the
   older classes
Their nasty, they push you around
    and want to fight with you.

Coming back to class from the
    toilets sometimes, on my own
I stop there & look out the door at
    the empty playground
The leaves blowing in the wind, the
    sparrows busy about
And then I look at the school gates and
    I think
" Beyond those school gates lies Home"
How I wish then I could just run home
I'd run and I'd run
Run past the gates of the houses with
    their angry barking dogs
I'd run ! Run the whole way, I wouldn't
    stop:
I want to be at home with my Mom
Up in my room with my books, my
    comics and toy soldiers.

But No! they say the Guard(policeman)
    he'd be doing his rounds now
And if he was to see you, he'd catch
    you
And then there'd be trouble then, Big
    Big! Trouble!!!
Mum would be brought down and Dad
    would have to be told too
At least, that's what they tell me,
More trouble for Mum
So I can't - I must go to school then.

Yes! I've got to go to school today and
    face again the scary teacher
At least I got my homework done, but
    there's still so much
I don't understand...so many things...
    so many things to learn,
Scary! Scary! Teacher! she never looks
    happy
She laughs at us and calls us bad
    names
Just sitting there we tighten up inside,
    under her gaze
And we pray "please don't ask me,
    please don't ask me
Please don't call out my name",
How we watch that clock up on the
    wall
Praying for 3 o'clock to arrive.

Why is it I had to come to this place?
    Why!!!
I don't want to be here, I want to be at
     home with my Mom.

Yes! I'd love to be down there today on
    the beach
But I got to go to school today.

Well I guess at this stage of my life
It's unlikely Fame will ever find me
Guess I must have missed my Boat,
    sailed off without me
Must have missed my Train too, left
    me standing in the station
(Did I ever really want to go anyway ?)
Probably missed the Bus as well, by
    the look it.

I guess you might say things are
    looking kinda bleak
But y'know, I've been thinking...
    maybe...what if...I wonder ?
Supposing I was to spice things up a
    bit
Add a little controversy to the mix
Like a mischievous Madonna or a
    Prince (R.I.P).

I read somewhere once that some
    artists before they can create
They gotta set a scene first, gotta
    create an atmosphere, a certain
         ambience
So they do weird things, they light
    candles, burn incense
Put on strange music, wear strange
    outfits of clothes.... a favorite hat
         whatever !
Helps put them in an altered state of
    mind.

But y'know Me! No! I don't need to do
    any of that
Me! I just like to keep things simple
    yeah
Me! I just like to, well, I just like to do
    it in the ****
No!!! Not when I'm in the mood
In the ****!! IN THE ****!!!

Yea, I like to get it out when there's no
    one about
There's nothing I like more when I get
    through my front door
Than flinging my clothes off
    everywhere
My knickers they land on a picture,
    my pants their down the hall
My shirt's up on a lampshade, my
    vest's up on the wall
Gotta bare my body before I can bare
    my soul
I like the freedom it affords;
And like a Scotsman and his kilt
I like to wave it around a bit
Till I'm ready to take my seat, my
    Muse for to meet

Descending like some beautiful
    winged Pegasus from the sky
I wait till she alights, then I surprise
    her
I jump on board and ride her
Rising way above the Earth, the two of
    us
Wild and free, with nothing at all
    restraining me
Together we traverse, yea! together we roam, the wondrous skies of the
         Imagination
Like some incredible!...amazing!...
    Lady Godiva!!!

Wait a minute! what's that I hear
    outside my door
A Big Ship's ****** a hollering, a
    Train's whistle a wailing
A Bus's horn too, beep beeping... all
    furiously sounding
And jostling with one another to get to
    my door
Man! Their coming so fast I think their
    gonna crash into one another
All wanting to take me away with
    them, take me away from here
And promising me all kinds of crazy
   wonderful things....

Just goes to show.... But remember
It ain't lewd and it ain't rude
To be a Dude who likes to write in the
    ****
In fact... in fact, it's quite cool
(actually it's very cool Brrrrrrr....hey!
    someone shut that door!).

I could spend my life in the supermarket, going around the aisles
Walking among the plentiful and the abundant
Looking for things to help plug the holes inside,
Looking for something, hungry for something, I don't know what
But something that probably can't be found on shelves
Something that was maybe lost a long time ago.

I seen her first among the cauliflowers
I was looking at the lettuce, but only just
Secretly, like a crack detective, I was watching her
Beautiful blonde Venus, tall and willowy, all by herself,
I watched her buy some broccoli, then move over to where the
    fruit was
There she picked some pears and some bananas -
"Mmmm", I thought to myself, " so you're into healthy eating,
    you still strive to maintain your health
You must still believe in life and things like love and joy
    and hope".

A little while later I seen her again, she was buying a Victoria
    sponge cake
And looking rather wistfully I thought at the huge array of
    chocolate bars and sweets
"A-ha!", I thought as if I'd caught her out, as if I'd found her
     weakness, her vice,
" So you lack sweetness in your life and you try to compensate
      with these"-
Well, not to worry, sure I often do the same thing myself
Temptation Alley I call this aisle - this place
You know, and here's a thought, I! Me! I could be your little
    Sweetie and you my little Honey pie
You wouldn't need to seek this kind of comfort anymore
I could give you words, I could give you lines, O! the lines I
    could give you
Thousands of words running in syrupy streams, sweeter than
     the sweetest honey
That'd dress you up in fabulous gowns, make your eyes widen
    in awe and wonder
Sparkle vivaciously like glittering sunshine on a sea in Summer,
I'd build you up, not knock you down, no! I wouldn't let you fall
The sun it'd always be shining in your heart ".

Next time I seen her, she was in among the wines
Looking a little bit lost like myself with all the different labels
" So!", I thought, "you like to kick loose sometimes, you like to try
   and shake off the shackles that bind, the shackles of your mind
You yearn to be free and wild again, just like you were when you
    were a little child,
To escape all those unpleasant restricting voices, old ghosts from
     the past perhaps
Or maybe dark monsters this world planted inside, that won't go  
    away
You want to make them all seem so crazy and funny and mad
I know, I know, it can get too much sometimes, can be hard to
    take
You know, Me! I'd do battle for you I would, I'd be your brave
    and valiant knight
I'd face down those awful dragons, I'd lance them and trounce
    them, I'd show you the truth
That they were always only mere shadows without any real
    substance behind them,
O! I would".

It was funny but it seemed that wherever I went she was there
    also
That wherever she went was some place I myself would go
It was like her shopping habits were a direct mirror image of
    my own.

She came up real close to me in the pet food section to get her
    cans of Whiskas
" So you own a cat too, I bet he sits on your lap and you stroke
      him gently
And whisper silly funny little catty things in his ears..."

In the herbal bath and fragrances section, she was waiting for
   me again
"So you like to soak in a hot tub, lie back and let the whole world
    just float away,
I could light some scented candles, give you a nice soothing rub
Put on some nice soft calming music, together we'd make an
    otherworldly place
For ourselves that no one else could find - it'd be our special
    place".

I met her again, this time browsing through books in the Books
    section, she was reading the blurbs on the back covers
I could see her thinking, trying to decide which one to choose,
" I hope you pick a good one, that'll make you happy, make you
    laugh and smile
Not the kind that'd make you shiver, cast a shadow over your
    world",
I watched her move over to the music CD's...sad songs and love
    songs, still the romantic I see,
I could see her sitting at home with her cat, reading her book,
    listening to her favorite songs
Dreaming of other lives she might have had and the heroes she
    might have been,
"But we can be heroes still, you and I, heroes of our own lives
We could write our own books, sing our own songs
We wouldn't always have to be looking over at them and theirs,
We could build a world we'd love to look at and wake up to.
O! Yes...yes we could".

I grew curiouser and curiouser about her
Once she turned around and glanced at me briefly, but only for a
     second
She had these wonderful big blue 'rescue me' eyes.

She reached the checkouts first
By the time I got there, there were other people in between us
I watched her, she smiled faintly at something the checkout girl
    said,
She looked like someone who didn't smile an awful lot,
" What a pity, what a shame", I thought, "someone who looks like
     you do".
I wanted...wanted to say something to her before she left the
     store,
I watched her fill her bags, then head to the exit door
I could feel her slipping away from me
" C'mon, c'mon", I thought impatiently as the checkout girl,
     she leisurely scanned my items,
Paying her quickly I bundled everything into my trolley and
     took off in a hurry,
Inside me a voice was shouting "Don't go! Please don't go! throw
    me a lifeline too, won't you!
Because sometimes I feel... sometimes I feel I myself I'm
    drowning, that I need rescuing too".

I could see her car pulling out, it was a small car just like my
    own, nothing fancy,
But wait! There was someone with her... a man!... another man
I was crushed/ torn inside," But I knew you, I understood
    you...better than he ever could",
And then... and then she was gone,
I was just left there standing in the car park with my shopping
    trolley.
Looking down at all the things I'd bought, all the things that me
    and her liked
I thought for a moment that they might magically transform and
    that she'd be standing there one more time, all vibrant & alive
But no! I guess that could never be.

So she went back to her world and I went back to mine,
I went back to my cat and she went back to hers and her man,
She had become just another thing now, just another thing I
    couldn't find.

I knocked on the door of Fame,
She kindly opened up for me and
   spoke my name
And smiling, bid me enter
(I must have made the grade this time)
Inside lay a whole new world, a world
   of wonder
She looked at me as if to say "Where were you all this time, we've been waiting on you".

Well she fussed over me something
   terrible
Lavishing on me gifts and sweets
   aplenty
Showering me with praise and high
   accolades
She was great she was... O! She was
   lovely!
Bestowed on me great new names,
I was an intellectual now, a member of
   the intelligentsia
I was a 'great artiste', a Big Star
I was part of the Elite
I was one of them now, I was one of
   them.

I got to sit on my little seat at the Big
   Table
The others sitting there they all smiled
   down at me
" Look at me now ", I thought to myself, " look where I am and who I am, who would have believed it ".

Puffed me up no end she did, inflated
   my ego
I thought I might up and float away
And for awhile, a little while I was
   happy.

                            II

But the House of Fame had another
   face I found
Would invite young hopefuls in from
   outside, young aspiring artists
Allow them to come and read their
   works, exhibit their wares
While those sitting there around the
   table, they'd judge them
Like little Roman emperors we were, giving a thumbs up or thumbs down
Some of my fellows, they were quite
   brilliant at it
The way they could dissect a work, get
   right to the heart of it
And sum it all up,
And they could be so funny with it as
   well
They'd make you laugh with their
   witty remarks
But there were times though, when
  things they could get a bit ******
When they'd turn on someone, heap
   derision on their work.

There was this one young lad I
   remember
In his hands he clutched some papers,
He held his whole world, his whole
   life in those papers
You could see it in him, just how much
   it meant to him,
Sad to say though, he wasn't all that
   good
Well they just took him apart, they hit
   him like a hurricane
You could see his disappointment, see
  his face drop
His world start to crumble,
   his hopes and dreams start to die
Could see him almost shrivel up right
   before your eyes
He'd may as well have been in front of
   a firing squad,
"It had to be done", my fellows would say, " you had to be ******* them, they
   had to be told"
And they could be so witty, my fellows,
   so funny
They'd make you laugh, laugh at
   anything
They all laughed, I laughed too and then...and then, I thought of you, I thought of you.

                           III

Now some writers when their very
  young write great stuff even then
I'd be only too proud to have written it
   myself if I could
But when I think back to what I wrote
  early on
I close my eyes and wince as if in pain,
I shake my head and grimace, "awful,
   terrible stuff, what was I thinking"
Guileless, naive, infantile,
   incomprehensible even to myself a
     lot of it, without wit or cunning
If any of it ever came to light I'd be so
   embarrassed, I'd be mortified,
      scandalised
I feel I'd have to flee the country, go
   and live in some remote jungle some
      place
And never show my face again, I
   thought it that bad,
It was like some ***** guilty secret I
   had to hide.

And you know I couldn't help thinking
   what if it was you standing there
Before this - this Inquisition, reading
   your work
How they'd listen to you probably
   with mouths wide open almost in
      disbelief
Barely able to contain their laughter
And when you'd finished
How they'd wink and smile knowingly
   at one another and maybe say
       something like
"And what do we have here, what
   exotic creature
From under what gilded stone have
   you come out from under"
And then they'd lay into you... "this
  *******, this crap, this mindless
    drivel, I never laughed so much in
        my life! these inane ramblings,
This guy he must be the village idiot",
And what would I do, would I rush to
   your defence, would I lift a finger
     to help you... No! not a chance
I'd just sit their silent and not let on I
   knew you, just watch them take you
      apart
Like lions in the arena, tearing you
   asunder
I'd even join in, yea, I'd laugh too,
And what if your eyes met mine, well
   I'd quickly look away,
" I don't know you, you're not me,
    you're not mine,
And if you were  I'd disown you
I'd have you erased from my past,
You're an embarrassment to me
You're worlds away from who I am
   now".

And later in my room alone would I
   think of you
And what it was like for you back
   then,
And that world you came from
Would I remember a boy so utterly
   lost with no hope of ever getting
        back
All alone with no one to show him the
   way
With a mind like a war zone, broken
   and bloodied, pummeled from every
       side
Trying to make sense of a crazy world
Trying desperately to keep a grip on
   life
To cling onto something, anything
   that'd keep him afloat,
Trying to write because he thought it
   was the only thing left that he could
      do
(Someone who'd never even been a
   reader of books...
Do many writers write just to stay
   alive ?)
And the more I thought about it the
   more I began to admire you
How really it was quite amazing you
   were able to write anything at all...
And to think that I would just sit there
   and watch this, your... your
         crucifixion and do nothing,
That I could betray so brave and
   beautiful a boy,
Wasn't the shame not yours but all
   mine.

And maybe they'd bring you back a
   second night saying - laughing!
"This one was so good, we had to bring
    him back again to impart some
      more of his little gems",
And to see you there the tear stained
   face, the dead eyes with no light left
      in them
Devoid of all dignity now, begging
   them for some sign of approval,
    some gesture, anything at all !
Looking at them as if they were God
  Almighty
And you were nothing but a piece of
   **** on their shoe
Would I finally have the guts to stand
   up and call a halt, would I !
Jump over their Big Table, go and take
   you in my arms
And tell you" It was alright, that I was
  here now and was so sorry I hadn't
    been before ",
And then turning to them say -admit,
" This, this *******, this drivel, this
    village idiot
This was me when I was young,
It kept me alive, it gave me hope when
   there was no hope ",
And smiling at them I'd say, " and I'd choose him every time over any of you
   sitting there,
What do you know of me and my life,
  what I've been through, were you
      there ?
And turning to you again I'd say,
"Let's get out of this place, we don't
     belong here
This isn't us, this isn't who we are,
Let's go home the two of us, you and
   me together,
Let's go home.

Maybe it was a dream, maybe not, I can't remember now
Walking homeward across town
Suddenly there came this fog in from the sea
It covered the harbour and the streets, enveloping everything
   so it seemed
A fog so thick...so dense, I'd never seen its like before
All you could see was the slow drip of car headlights
As they'd emerge from out of the street next to me
Eventually I had to stop, I couldn't go on, couldn't see anymore
It was like everything had just faded away until all that was left,
   all that was left there... was me
But then - suddenly! Looking up. There! Right above me
The huge spire of a Church, towering up,
Like it was coming out of the clouds
I was amazed... awestruck
"Surely this was it" I thought, "surely I'd found it
(That which had been lost... lost for so long)
The Church at the End of the World looking down on all
    Eternity",
Even now after all those years I still had a memory of you
You were there... right at the beginning, right at the start, you
   were there
Those nights when I slept as a little child
You used come to me, come to me in the quiet, in the still of
   the night
I used enter and roam your hallowed halls...look out on your
   golden city...with eyes wide with wonder
It all started to come back to me
I grew excited, so excited
Because I knew! I remembered! I recognised you still!
You were there, all there just like you had been all those years
   ago
And you were the same, the exact same, you hadn't changed in
   any way
I saw the old familiar road down to you open up before me
And then the Bridge across appear
And then entering through your Gates
My heart it leapt inside me and my eyes they were filled with
   tears
I'd found it...found you again
The Church at the End of the World.

Gloom! Gloom! Gloom!
I can't see the Room for the Gloom
Is there anything else in this Room...
   but Gloom ?
How can I bloom with all this Gloom
   in the Room ?
How can I find my Vroom Vroom ?
I start a poem "Too soon! Too soon!"
And then it stops
And then there's Gloom
Fetch me a Broom that I might sweep
   away all this Gloom
If only there was something else in the
   Room... if only.

Doom! Doom! Doom!
How did you get in the Room ?
Who let the Doom in ?
The Doom is in the Room... Again!!!
Doom! Leave the Gloom alone
Doom!! Put the Gloom down
Doom!!! I'm warning you now!

Shall I fume, shall I fume ?
Locked in here with the Gloom and
   Doom
No! I shan't fume
They'd only say he's too far goon
   (ouch!)
What I need is a boom, a big big
   Boom!
A Big Bang a boom boom Boom!
A Boom BOOM enough to fill the
   whole Room
With that kind of BOOM!
I could take off to the Moon
Then I'd sing a different tune
There'd be no more Gloom and Doom.

But then, where would they go, what
   would they do
Poor old Gloom and Little Doomy
They'd be out there in the cold with
   nowhere to go
Lost without any Roomy
They'd be looking in the window at me
   all sad and teary
My poor Old Gloom and my poor Little
   Doomy.

No! I love my Old Gloom and, I love
   my Little Doomy
I know what I'll do
I'll put the Boom in my Room with my
   Gloom and my Doom
And then we'll all have ourselves a
   HUGE party
A Big Blooming Booming Gloomy
    Doomy
A Big Bang a Bang a Boom Boom
   Boomy Doomy
We'll all have a Ball in no time at all
Down at the Old Gloom and Doomy.

I seen that look - that look upon your
  face
I'd seen it before, had felt it myself
  long ago
It was like seeing an old ghost
A look of pure terror, it crossed your
  face
You had to get up and get out, get out
  quick
Or else you'd burst
The others sitting there, they didn't see
  it
But I did, and what's more, I knew
  what it meant.

You'd been to the hospital for another
  treatment
But this one hadn't been like the
  others
It hadn't gone well, you'd come close,
  hadn't you, very close
You'd put all your trust in them, the
  doctors
And now they'd let you down, they'd
  failed you
Now you thought you were too far out, too far out where no one could ever
  reach you
But you know, I could - I could reach
  you
You see I'd been there myself in that same dark place, many years before
Yea, I knew because I'd met him too...
  the Great Alone.

The others sitting there, it was like "we'll just have another cup of tea and everything will be alright, just like it'd
  always been"
But you knew different, you knew things would never be the same again
Even though they were sitting there right next to you, your nearest and
  dearest
You knew they'd may as well have
  been a million miles away
For all the good they were to you
And for all they knew what you were
  going through,
It was all a Big Lie, this "we're all in
  this together" crack
We're not! We weren't! truth is we're all in this alone, each and every one of
  us
You didn't fit into their cozy little world anymore, you didn't belong
  there
So you had to get up and get out, you
  had to be alone with yourself.

I waited a few moments before I
  followed you out
I found you outside, you were clipping
  the hedge
Probably trying to keep busy, keep
  your mind off things no doubt,
I wanted to talk to you and tell you I
  knew
That I'd been there myself the same as
  you
Once long ago lost in a World of Pain, I'd suffered a shock, like a huge blow
  to my chest
It laid me out flat on the floor
I thought I'd had a heart attack  (maybe I had)
I lay there motionless, the sweat
  pouring out of me,
I'd like to say I was brave, that I was
  cool, dignified
But no! none of that stuff, I was
  *******  petrified
I was afraid to take my next breath
  'cos I was sure it'd be my last
I thought the strain of drawing it would surely drive me over the edge
I was only young, my life had hardly
  begun
But now I was sure it was all over
My health was gone, my life was gone
  and there was no way back
I didn't call out, what was the use, I
  was all alone and I knew it
No one could help me now.
I never told anyone (it was something
  I always kept private)
Sure they'd only have made light of it, wouldn't have believed me anyway.
I survived, I don't know how
And I never forgot it
(It's amazing how the body can bounce back, its resilience
I'd be forever grateful for that).

I wanted to tell you but something
  made me hold back
It was like I was afraid, afraid you'd only belittle my experience compared
  to yours
That you'd make mine out to be some
  kind of joke
Whereas yours was the real deal 'cos
  of what the doctors had said
And I thought to myself, I thought "Who can ever really know another person, you can't, no! not really
You can only know your own
  experience
You can have fun with someone, be
  their companion
But in the end... in the end all roads lead back to the Alone... the Great
  Alone.

I told you it was important not to
  worry about things
And that there were ways you could do this, control your mind, positive
  thinking and the like
I said I knew a good book and that I'd
  get it for you
I told you it was important to eat well, no rubbishy stuff, food could be a
  medicine
And there were herbal teas as well,
  these could help
It was the best I could do,
You wondered how I knew these things, was I wise or something
Me wise you must be joking, I read it
  in books, loads of books.

I didn't see you for a while after that,
  my own work grew challenging
This and other things took my mind
  away from thoughts of you
You used to ring  regularly, you were always there at the end of the line
We'd talk of our lives and laugh at
  things
(I thought you'd be there forever)
But now, strangely... there was
  nothing... silence!
One evening I was thinking of you and
  wondering why you hadn't rang
So I decided to ring you
I was surprised when a neighbour
  answered the phone
When I asked to speak to you she sounded incredulous "Speak to her!!!
the priest and the doctor are down in the room with her now, she can't speak, she's dying, didn't you know",
A few hours later it was confirmed,
  you'd gone, passed away
Gone out into that Great Alone, all by
  yourself
Away from all of us, where none could
  follow
(Girl you shouldn't have died so
  young).

So when it's my time, my turn, just
  close the door and let me be
Leave me with the only friend you can
  ever really know
The One who stays with you all of
  your life
And who'll never leave you...the Great
  Alone
The Great Alone.

Life ain't so funny when you ain't got
   that honey feeling deep inside
You had it once when you were very
    young (when you were little)
When you were close to the Source
Close to your god and your Mom
That lovely sweet ambrosia feeling
It used waft through your being
Its various colours lighting you up
   inside
Like a veritable Christmas tree
Made you feel real special, made you
   feel so alive
Made you feel that Life was
   something amazing
An incredible ride.

But that was then, and this... this is
   now
Seems almost like a lifetime ago
Like some myth or legend
Lost way in the mists of Time,
Been so long since I had that feeling,
You begin to wonder was there ever
   such a place
Did it ever really exist at all.

The World it offers you sweets and
   chocolate
Their nice but they don't last, their
   over too fast
And they only remind you of what
   you've lost
(And yea, you can eat that sugar but
   it'll only **** you brother
It ain't the same and it ain't what
   you're looking for).

Inside there's just this great big hole
That you try and fill with anything
Eating too much, drinking too much
(You don't know when to stop, and
   even then, it's never enough)
Working as well... too much! staring,
Staring at the TV (the almighty TV),
And pretending...yea, pretending your
   whole
If only they knew these smiles of
   mine, their not true
And these words, their all hollow too,
There's nothing here in me, I... I'm
   empty.

Each day is just another desert to
   cross,
Another desert to roam
Lying sprawled out on the sofa in
   front of the TV, stupified and
       zombified
You think to yourself, "there was a sweetness once, wherever did it go".

I do not wish to suffer but suffer I
   must
Cursing my ill luck and the mad
   excesses
Of a selfish insensitive owner
Obsessed with destruction, both mine
   and his;
Occupying a spot here in the High
   Street
Opposite the Courthouse and its
   official Clock
An eyesore, a common talking point
Squeezed between more fashionable
   premises
Which seem always to frown and
   grimace
Expressing major reservations,
   unambiguous opposition.

Housing curios, oddments and
   selected modern junk
We sell little, our few customers
   dribbling in
Only to supplement their journeys
   while waiting on the bus
Or to eye with a morbid curiosity
That sickly creature seated behind the
   counter
My luckless tyrant of an owner
Against whom all conspire
Who seriously in debt, is helpless,
   cannot pay up
Hounded interminably by mysterious
   moneylenders
Who after giving a little now expect a
   whole lot in return.

With fuel running low for my boiler
My heating system, it is unreliable
Volatile, treacherous in Winter
My ventilator rusted through
Erratic at best, chronic in Summer
The damp in the walls and ceiling
The dry rot, the wallpaper peeling
Encouraged by years of neglect
Of being used, unscrupulously
   tampered with,
In need now of meticulous care and
   attention.

My owner truly a derelict, a dissipated
   soul
Spending more time in the cellar with
   a bottle
Than on any other shop floor level
(Among his friends, the mice, the
   cockroaches and spiders)
Who trying to stay awake, eventually
   must capitulate
Caught by that Ghost Ship that drifts
   slowly North
To where the icebergs loom large and
   ominous out of a damning fog
It's compass frozen, it's wheel
   unmanned
Nothing but shadows and wind in the
   rigging
As he floats off into oblivion, off the
   edge of the earth
Where exist such shapes that can
   never be said.

                               II

Is peculiar though, my owner
At times displays a certain poise and
   grace
Hinting at a time in the not too distant
   past
Which was not altogether bad or
   harmful
But unusual as it might seem
Was quite on the contrary, fruitful !!
Him featuring as being both proud
   and distinguished
Far removed from today's pitiful
   wretch
Whose solitary doubts and fears have
   all but taken over.

And maybe I do find it hard to
   sympathize
I after all being the one offered up
   now in sacrifice
Him there with little joy, love or hope
With only complaints and grievances
   mounting up
Filed away in offices at City Hall.

                                 III

Whereupon the hour, every  hour, the
   Courthouse Clock it chines
Ever vigilant, ready to track it's quarry
   down
Where in the corridors of power this
   very moment
City fathers, town planners and
   architects have gathered
To discuss whether our future lies in
   this town
To argue out the case, the for and the
   against;
While below the vile demolition man
   he stalks my borders
With his heart of ice and ghastly  
   drunken laugh,
No! I do not wish to suffer
Indeed, I wish I could be like any other.

Once above my face the Sun did
  weave a joyous spell
And rested calmly upon the backs of
  the great stone Giants
Whose stance used bring early night
  to bear on these tired eyes of mine.
And the dutiful Moon too, did smile
  down
Reassuring me with her presence
Patrolling the dark heavens till the
  Dawn would order her away.
Down the wild slopes rode my
  children, brimming with life
Their blood ensuring my Youth
  forever, or so I thought.
Watching over their shadowy green
lanes, noble cedars and majestic pines
Vigilant watchtowers upholding our
  green faith:
Caressed the Bloom's feet I did and
  raced the drinker's pace
Precious memories slowly eroded as
  now in lonely exile I dwell.

First warning I got, carnage floating
  downstream
Severed trunks of trees and their
  stricken branches
Finally laid to rest upon the worm
  eaten lock gate -
Saw a mass exodus taking place,
  whole tribes on the move
Telling of trouble coming and of a
  world soon to disappear;
Pagan storms they brewed ominously
  overhead, their seed
Did burn my skin and burnt through
  the silver scales
Crippling the little fishes who'd bury themselves prematurely in that cold
  graveyard depth;
Those blissful birds too, that used eat
  out of my hand,
As my countenance grew steadily
  more gaunt and pale
They too, did decide to leave, seek
  food elsewhere.

And the ailing flower wishing the old
  days would return
As my ears they began to pick up a  new sound growing louder all the time
Gnawing away like a worm in my
  brain, the razor-toothed saw
Singing in the woods his eerie Death
  song
Leaving in his wake a grisly trail of
  ****** and mayhem.
My own days numbered then; I saw
  the savage leaders come
With their strange ideals and talk, of
  quotas profits and costs:
Who beside me built a Fortress, a
  sinister smoking structure -
O! those Dark forces it sent forth to
  finish me off
Looting and burning, laying waste my
  beautiful Kingdom
My exiled Spirit indeed, all there is now to tell of that terrible cost.

The sun it shone all too briefly for him
Before the darkness came
And the smile died on his face.

His was a bad school I guess
Let all the monsters out of their box
To grin and leer like gargoyles on a
   church.

That'd haunt his dreams at night
Leave him dangling over the edge
Staring down into chasms deep.

With a mind a maze of cul de sacs
And at the end of each
Some horrible apparition to drive him
   back.

Yea, they taught you well
To run forever/ on a hot coal floor
Sleep on a burning bed
(A desperate man in a desperate land).

You must have known you were
   different
Looking at others, seeing how they
   were
Must have known something was
   amiss.

No wonder you sought to escape
Through others.... in drugs, in drink
Anything to escape those awful
   shadows.

And your only crime ? ....You wanted
   to live.

Caught in the spell of my Vampire Girl
Totally smitten with this one
   dangerous kitten
Calls me again to the shadows
Down these familiar backstreets to her    
   lair
Like some strange compelling music I  
   must follow
I have no choice but to obey.

Zombie slave to her voodoo woman
Can't escape, can't extricate myself
From this tangled web she's woven,
Her voice in my head, it tolls like a bell
   imperious, commanding!
That face in my mind, its dark visage
Her outstretched cup, her sweet sweet
   poison.

She's real smoochy
She's my hoochie *******
She's my sweet little Koala Bear.

She's so cute
And she's a total hoot
Keeps me smiling throughout the day.

Nice and cuddly
She's bubbly wubbly
Soothes all my troubles away.

She's kinda kooky
She's my nooky wooky
My little Koo Koo Koala Bear.

She climbs my tree
And she talks to me
Ever so softly.

She holds me tight
Through the darkest night
Quietens me when I'm afraid.

Don't you ever leave me, will ya
My lovely little sweet
My sweet little lovely, Koala Bear.

Across the room I watch you from afar
So much to see, so much to admire
I can only gawk in awe:
Shimmering softly beneath the party
   lights
Delicate as fine porcelain, elegant just
   like a China doll
Little Perky !  diminutive little button
   of a nose
A sublime protuberance, with a
   wonderful angular symmetry;
Like a beautiful ballerina in the centre
   of the face
One lonely Cinderella, forever
   overlooked and unsung
Neglected, passed over, the great
   unmentioned one;
So still and so quiet, mysterious like a
   question mark -
"Little Perky, don't you fret, I! Me!
I'll be your poet though a poor poet I
   be
I'll hold up your charms for the whole
   wide world to see,
I'll be your dashing Prince too, if you
   let me".

Finely chiselled, exquisitely sculpted
Better than any Michaelangelo
And I love the little wiggle;
How silently you sit there and how
   patient, enduring all
Stuck between the two drama Queens
Eyes all painted up, that flit and dart
Twinkling and fluttering outrageously
   like their a class apart,
And a rouged up Mouth's sulky lips,
   burning rubber
Busy gabbing away, running off like a
   wild piano;
But then there's you Little Perky,
   simplicity itself
Shy bulbous beauty, a throwback to
   childhoods innocent days:
Like the others, you play the game
You go along but it's not the same,
See you sniff into your little hankie
And know that beneath, you're
   probably not all that happy,
You seem to say (to me at least)
" I hoped for more, I dreamt - I dreamt
    of other things
And other nights than these".
I see you Little Perky, I see you all
   alone in your lonely prison cell
I hear your sniffles, your silent sobs
   and sighs.

When pinned in the corner and
   assailed from all sides
My eyes, they secretly run to your
   quiet hill, that lonely mountain,
Like Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights
I'll wait for you Little One
I'll wait for you there..... my Cathy
(O! lovely wild and spirited Cathy)
I'll wait for you through the wind, the
   rain and the snow
I'll wait for you to come
I'll wait for the real 'You' to show,
Beyond all the bravado and the big
   bluster notes
Beyond the crowds constraining looks
I'll wait for you, my Love,
We'll laugh again, and dance beneath
   the stars
We'll live the dreams that once we had.

Little Perky, sweet alarm bell of the
   soul, shiny little bugle that gleams
Go on now, give it one more blow
One huge giant elephantine blast
That'll sweep them all away
And leave only you and me here,
   alone at last
Facing each other across this floor
O! Little Perky, my Cinderella, my
   Cathy.......my Heart!

The tune you played it ran so sweetly
I was sure Time himself had stopped
    dead in his tracks to greet me
And let believe all the while my soul
    had been enslaved
Such was the relief to my heart that it
    gave;
Holier than the sight of monasteries
    crouched in secluded valleys
Sweeter than the song of the bird in
    the green Summer's tree
So sweet was it that it opened a
    thousand as yet unsavoured dreams
And had my mind rest easy on the
    cool wind
Which swept over their prosperous
    seas.

                              II

The tune you played brought calm
    upon a boisterous evening
Though Sorrow came to me
When I saw you finish and leave the
    centre stage
For I had thought I might live forever
    under your enchanting spell
Far from the world in peace and
    harmony
With Love kept, not left weeping
Far from the wakening hour
From that chore of modern empty
    living;
It was by far the sweetest tune
It released this fellow songbird from
    his cage
And it all seemed like glorious Heaven
    these brief moments spent
For he who had longed always to be
    free.

                                Translated from the
                                original Latin of
                                Emperor Nero circa
                                40 AD (his later
                                period).

Like a muscular drummer drumming,
    the Big wind
It gathers itself, twirls its sticks
Then swooping suddenly lambasts its
     kit
Thrashes the coast, sways the trees
    and rocks the boats
Lathers into it;
Its cymbals crashing are the smash of
    the sea against the rocks
The trees running amok over the
    rising mountains.

                                    II

With a draught of this air drawn in to
    fill my sails
To have the big windmills of my blood
    rotate
And ******* out then across the bay
Up over the headland, out over the
    wide open sea
A Colossus emerging and none to
    stand in my way.

To the soft strains of the sea
The booming of distant hill and
   mountain
The stars dance about, waltz in the
   night.

Where atop of a startled canopy of
   leaves
A moon like a big owl sits, ready to
   pounce
The sea rising steadily now

Inching its way up onto the shore
Giving added buoyancy to the sailing
   boats
Nestling in the jaw of the bay.