All Hail, All Glory

All hail, all glory to the dead
Dulce et decorum.

Well Britannia rules the sea
But the land belongs to me
And you’re my Boudicca
You don’t fear the reaper.

Oh, yalla nuclear
You are my Boudicca
You don’t let them see you crying.

Forgive your god above
For he knows not what he’s done
Give in to those that come
Seeking equilibrium
And for you I’ll light a candle
At your door I’ll place flowers
For rebirth of civilisation
So fall must all empires.

All hail, all glory to the dead.
Pro patria mori.

God almighty, rain down
Beat your fist upon the ground
Let the sky open up
Then the land will belong to us.
‘Cause you’re my Boudicca
You don’t fear the reaper.

Oh, yalla nuclear
You are my Boudicca
You don’t let them see you crying.

Forgive your god above
For he knows not what he’s done
Give in to those that come
Seeking equilibrium
And for you I’ll light a candle
At your door I’ll place flowers
For rebirth of civilisation
So fall must all empires.

All hail, all glory to the dead.

Big White Telephone

One for the book I’m writing,
One for the road.
‘Halfway to Heaven’ I call it,
‘Where the carnations grow’.
Just a sprig from the storied soil
And the next thing you know
Ten or eleven large ones later
The tired pages fold.

For six or seven sleepless nights
The bells chimed in paradise
It’s the soul I owe
For the company I’ve kept
And how Jesus wept.
God is in the twilight zone
And I’ve been talking to him
On the big white telephone
This old cellular life form of mine
Confiding in the supernatural help-line.
Well here I come and there she goes
With those familiar voices
From the great unknown.

Wherever the carnations grow.

A running tap, the story goes
But where it runs to I just don’t know
Its been half a day
I’ve gained no height
Under the sodium lights.
Jesus Christ,
God is in the exit sign
But I’ve been talking to him
On the big white telephone all night
Turning out my torn insides
Just waiting for
The next available exorcise.
Yeah, here I come and there she goes
With those familiar voices
From the great unknown.

Wherever the carnations grow.

Halfway to heaven,
Where the carnations grow.

For six or seven sleepless nights
The bells chimed for worker’s rights
God is in the twilight zone
And I’ve been talking to him
On the big white telephone
This old cellular life form of mine
Confiding in the supernatural help-line.
Well here I come and there she goes
With those familiar voices
From the great unknown.

Where ever the carnations grow.

Boat In The Bottle

Red sails on the river
Over the mussel scarp
Standing by the hailer’s mark
I see a beckoning light cut the dark
And split the timber bound
By the brightest of the northern stars
For a fireplace glowing.
Shall I paint the picture,
Light a candle
To live with ornaments
On your mantlepiece?

Honestly,
I want to go sailing
On that boat in the bottle.
Would you come with me
And put to sea
As if it was more than a model?
I want to go on the coal-smoking ship
I only know the photograph of it
But when you’re going spare
Like The Fighting Temeraire
You can fold it up and put it in your pocket.

Red sails on the river
Over the mussel scarp
Standing by the hailer’s mark
Watching the bulbous bow
Cross the bar
I’ve got signals to deliver
But I don’t know what they are.
That’s me berthed upon the beach
A Tea Clipper from the east.
Wont you let me paint the picture at least
If I could handle
Every ornament on your mantlepiece,

Honestly,
I’d want to go sailing
On that boat in the bottle.
Would you come with me
And put to sea
As if it was more than a model?
I want to go on the coal-smoking ship
I only know the photograph of it
But when you’re going spare
Like The Fighting Temeraire
You can fold it up and put it in your pocket.

Care Without Condition

Did they catch you sleeping
In the boardroom again,
With the forecast heavy on your head?
Words that may as well have read
The deprived are not to be trusted.

Now it looks like rain
Is all that’s promised
For a town ablaze
Another cold December
But if all we have to talk about at night
Is a change in the weather
We’re all for the better.

So I see the suit still fits
You’re like a poor man
Putting on the ritz
First you take the house
And then you drive us out of it.

You let the money do the talking
I’ll go to work in the morning
And write your name in the dust
I’ll swear to God if I must
For yours are just
Words we know not to trust
So don’t waste your promises on us.

I think I’m losing the vision
So don’t speak a word, just listen
And learn to care without condition.

Care and compassion
It’s a joke I read
Somewhere in-between
The lines that we’ve been fed
And with that smile on your face
You may as well have said
I’m going to turn my back on you instead.

So when it slips right through your fingers
A shadow cast, a fist full of sand
And all you have to talk about at night
Is the time on your hands
Then I pray the punchline lands.

So, I see the suit still fits
The poor man putting on the ritz
If you could take it all
What would you do with it?

Old money keeps talking
It’s a circle we walk in
And those footprints in the dust
They’re going to get to you
If you don’t get them first
Hate, war and the exodus
I swear that you’re just
Wasting promises on us.

I think I’m losing the vision
So don’t speak a word, just listen
And when you find the sense
That you’ve been missing
Then you’ll learn to care without condition.

City In The Sand

A town ablaze
A sea in black
A swelling beam
Fetched up from the riverbank
There’s a vision in the embers
And a message in my hand
A flame to remember
A cold December
How long is the rain going to last?
This I have learned not to ask

But isn’t it a pity
This kindled city
Was built on the sand.

Stars are burning in the sky
As sure as night
We’ll gather by the fireside
Life glowing in amber
As every green turns to red
Dark shadows on the planes
The herd all walking lame
Some curse the clouds
Others pray for the rain
But all that was given
Was taken back again

And isn’t it a shame
The sea had claim to dry land
And isn’t it a pity
The city was built on the sand.

Dead Nag

I’d pinned a mule’s tale
To the slacks hung on the cabinet door
But it seems like nineteen-ninety-seven
Was the year of the corduroy.

Bookies backed a dead nag
That got flogged, maybe destroyed
And the two riders that approached
Were clutching coconuts and polaroids
Of the beast that crossed the line
‘bout Arabian spring-time
You left your mark behind
Now I’ve left mine with;

A dead draught horse for the goad
A headless rider in the road
There before me as foretold
The old cart horse will bear the load.

When all the King’s horses
At the post are pipped
He may ride side-saddle
But he shoots from the hip
Thoroughbred over steeple
Gentry over suffragette
Then the last post will play
Above your left epaulette.

So cards on the table
You put your money on the lame and unable
I pinned a tale on the strong and the stable
A par for the fabled course

A dead draught horse for the goad
A headless rider in the road
There before me as foretold
The old cart horse will bear the load.

Emmanuel Head

Just over the dam
A vast reservoir
That bleeds for every man
As the sun will wake the land
So she seeks slumber
Under the Irish Sea
If you want to see beauty
Then walk the low tide with me.

We’ll gaze on rolling water
From the weather-beaten white pyramid
We’ll gaze on rolling water
That shoulders Emmanuel Head.

Let’s while away the West Road
To the empire’s outpost
Where the Sill
Reveals a scar from coast to coast
Sewn through the splendour
So to remember
The land belongs to us
And I want to see beauty
So into the wild we’ll rush.

And gaze on rolling water
As it cascades to the Linn so red
We’ll gaze on rolling water
From the shores of Emmanuel Head.

Full Circle

Saw the sun rise up this morning
I sat on the rocks
And I waited for the dye to start running
With no money, no time
No rest for these hands of mine
And no room left to beg, steal or borrow.
No money, no time
No taste for trouble anymore
Just two sunken, black and hollow
Little holes in the snow
Where the temptation used to grow,

Well now I know
It’s all coming full circle
With no grey sky left to fall
It’s just another colourful morning
A full circle after all.

Down comes the universe
Her body is like a map
Arms stretched
With the yellow moon
Tattooed on her back.
With no money, no time
And no care without a waiting line
It’s just another cross to bear
Without the faith to follow.
No money, no time
No life without the marks to show
All sunken, black and hollow
Like little holes in the snow
Right where the hope
And the hunger grows,

Now I suppose,
That it’s all coming full circle
With no grey sky left to fall
It’s just another colourful morning
A full circle after all.

Hollow

Deep in a dark hollow
Deep down the rabbit hole
Boys cut to cart coal
From shafts carved in the soil.

Don’t get me wrong
But how would you know
What’s in my heart and my soul?
Loosen that load and let go
As toil and tin hats turn to toast
The spoils of earth did turn to gold.

Now inches from the fire
Like a stiff slung on the pyre
A hare to the hounds of liars
Take me down the river via

Cavities and coves
Hallowed,
From whence came that black gold
Pits bore ‘neath our homes
Shallowed,
They turned the father to the ghost
But the spoils of earth turned to gold.

In Fading Light

In fading light
Beyond all earthly binds
We’ll weep while they meet their demise.
Like ships in the night
Just searching for a sign of life.

But from depths we reap
And way down the line
We’ll yearn for the turning tide.

Before I’m buried in the earth it’s clear
Before I’m released into the atmosphere
To rot with the fossils and the debris
To become what remains of past biology.
It’s just a memory
Of factories housing energy
Now with opened eyes
It’s realised.

In fading light
Beyond all earthly binds
We’ll weep while they meet their demise.

Before I’m buried in the earth it’s clear
Before I’m released into the atmosphere
To rot with the fossils and the debris
To become what remains of past biology.

Into The Deep

And when I die
You’ll bury me
Beyond the bay
And out to sea.

With no remorse
Comes sweet release
Into the deep
You’ll carry me.

Last Of The Buffalo

Hounds in tow
They walk the roads
As ghosts of the byways know
If you’re going to face the barrel
You must bear the load.
Down on bended knee
One drew a steady bead
And lo, dealt too was the blow

The last of the buffalo
This lioness among the antelope
Here’s what I want to know
How quick can the seamstress sew?
Where did all the good men go?
And do the dead help the living to grow?
Who’ll be there to throw my stone?

The corn was up
The month the hunger came
Who knows if that will ever
Come around again?
On the old corpse road
If you’re going towards that steeple
Hide your confessing slope
As your taking the knee
One draw is all you need
And lo, let lie in repose

The last of the buffalo
This lioness among the antelope
Here’s what I want to know
Is there any water in the well below?
Where did all the good men go?
And do the dead help the living to grow?
Who’ll be there to throw my stone
For me?

(The shadow cast is the measure of the man
I think therefore I think I am
Beneath a bowing sun
And from birth indebted to the dying act
Because in the end
From that you can’t come back.)

All at once the maiming arrows were sent
Bent were the bows but straight with intent
Better make last what you sow
Break your fast but be slow
For there goes

The last of the buffalo
This lioness among the antelope
Well here’s what I want to know
How long before the time bells toll?
Where did all the good men go?
And do the dead help the living to grow?
Who’ll be there to throw my stone
For me?

Let It Pour

The old man he dreams of black mist
But he never left the pit
It seems they gave him a life sentence
And they got away with it.
When there’s not enough to lift the muck
Nor to wash those whiskers from the sink
Just give it two shakes
Of the rainmaker’s stick
Forty days and as many nights
Should do the trick.
Now you’ve come
To cleave against the grain
When most prefer to act the goat
On this rock they rarely ever
Get the forecast right
They say it has to flood
Before you learn that you can float.

Well if that cloud’s too thick to sunder
Let it throb a little, let it thunder
You have to hang it high
Or you have to let it pour.

You’re only preaching to the elders
When you’re singing to the sun
Still the family goes hungry
When all is said and done
Perhaps today they’ll bring the house down
Brick by insignificant brick
That’s one more blow to knock it all sick
And no matter how hard you throw it
It just won’t stick.

Well if you’ve come to wash your sins away
Better to get it done without delay
For around here they never really
Get the forecast right
And the sky is looming
In an unfamiliar way.

Well if that cloud’s too thick to sunder
Let it throb a little, let it thunder
You have to hang it high
Or you have let it pour.

Serpentine

Sister, you move like the serpentine
You’re twisted, you bury your bones by night.

Snakes in your cabinet
Horse’s head in your sheets
London clay in your walking boots
See spooks in the fields

From Hampstead Heath
To Morecambe Bay
In the shifting tides
In the month of May
You’re walking like a lady
Like you’re so benign
Blue born baby
I feel your serpentine.

Sister, you walk like you know the way
We followed for days
And grazed on import trade

Sister in the heel-high
Morecambe tide in your walking boots
So deep ‘neath the heath
Creep spooks and ghouls
Flog a mule

From Dunoon to Budle Bay
More cockle than mussel
But they like it that way
Crying out
“Alive-alive-ay
Alive-alive-oh”
Born a blue baby
I want you to know
I feel your serpentine.

Seven Signs

Gabriel, near departed in defeat
Slumped over Arthur’s resting seat
A broken whistle on his wheezing chest
Pulling at the feathers
Underneath his motorcycle vest.
The Queen’s lament
The Mason’s sigh
“I’m just another worker waiting to die”
When it all ignites you can’t disagree
There’s nothing worse than a fire at sea,
Out there I’d wait for salvation
To wash over me.

If only I could walk on the water
I’d throw your arm over my shoulder
That’s the way the revelator
Sets your mind at ease
I’m going to see the stars at night
Before the satellites
Turn the population blind
With God-given twenty-twenty vision
Show me the way to heaven
With seven signs.

One revelation at a time.

The factory died of industrial age
Like a Victorian on the Carolean wage
Six cold feet in the ground
Just the depth desired
To hold your spirit down
Some search the halls
Some walk the streets
Deep down it’s nothing more
Than asylum they all seek
Like a siren’s song, you can’t disagree
There’s nothing worse than a fire at sea.
I just wait for salvation
To wash over me.

If only I could walk on the water
I’d throw your arm over my shoulder
That’s the way the revelator
Sets your mind at ease
I’m going to see stars at night
Before the satellites
Turn the population blind
With God-given twenty-twenty vision
Show me the way to heaven
With seven signs.

One revelation at a time.

The Eighth Day

Be it my maker in the lens?
It all depends,
Does the night depict the start
Or prophesize the end?
While tethered shepherds
Draw the shoots and drag in the tide
I wonder what lies
Inside the hole in the sky.
From under, is it I
Who cuts the cord?

Picture your house
With a cross upon the door
Beds of flowers in the fore
When the cloak is down
And the crowd want more
That’s when the eighth day will dawn.

Can it solve the living crisis?
Put to rest the hungry eyes?
Does the mammoth of the slum
Become the elephant in the high-rise?
Now a carriage is awaiting
And the beast is newly shod
Beating threats of the necropolis,
The umbilicus of God.
Any more clay from the kickers?
Any news from the front line?
What lies inside that hole in the sky?
I wonder, is it I
Who began to bore?

Picture your house
With a cross upon the door
Beds of flowers in the fore
When the cloak is down
And the crowd want more
That’s when the eighth day will dawn.

Picture your house
With a cross upon the door
Sunday’s temple
For Saturday’s poor
When the curtains close
And they call out for more
That’s when the eighth day will dawn.

The Great Shakedown

You can call it creased and crooked,
Compromised and corrupted
“Once more unto the breach” he writes,
“This one’s for James and the Jacobites.”
Spare the change for loose talk of fate
It’s a dirty conversion rate
The war across the sea
The state depravity
The time and the place to wait
For what the darkness depicts
Painted like a crucifix
Is still wet upon the brow
Hey, count yourself lucky now.

They were giving you the runaround
Get ready to follow me down.
For so long now,
I’ve been waiting for the great shakedown.

(To shake you down.)

You can call it the new rose
Monday morning, in my Sunday clothes
There’s a band of horses, all in white
Watching me walking into light.
Bent with such contention
And a pocket full of nails
See me hammering up the ninety-five lines
On the gunpowder trail.
Now I’ve got the gallow eyes
And under captive skin
I’m just a prisoner to the convention
And a slave to the trend,
The last will and testament.

Now they’re giving you the runaround
Get ready to follow me down.
For so long now,
I’ve been waiting for the great shakedown.

The Haven of St Aidan’s

Across the causeway to the island
Board the bus for Holy Island
Land of castles, land of coastline
Land of promise, land of coal mines.

Echoes way out to the lighthouse
It’s a short ride to the lighthouse
It goes way out from the harbour mouth
It’s a boat-ride to the lighthouse.

The Darling buds of Bamburgh
Lay ‘neath my umbrella
And all aboard the Forfarshire
All of what’s left of her.
My county of castle and coal mine
Of harvest from Pennine to coastline
Is a causeway to island
Of boats on the seabed lying;

Heavily stricken
Laid to wreck and waste
Littered like seabirds on the rockface.

Echoes way out to the lighthouse
It’s a short ride to the lighthouse
It goes way out from the harbour mouth
It’s a boat-ride to the lighthouse.

The haven of a holy isle
Severed by the tide times
The cradle of coast Christianised.
By order of monastic profile
By means of amphibious mobile
Across the causeway
A pilgrimage to the priory.

Church harmonies
Take me to sea
Row, sail or steam
We are bound and lashed too deep.

We’re going to Big Harcar
So throw the buoy over.

It’s a short ride to the lighthouse
It’s a boat-ride to the lighthouse.

The Jetty’s End

Joan’s prayerbook in hand
Like a chip off the dolly
I am, with the longest stare
In short sight of the land.
Through the wartime brass
Down where the steel fist hangs
She picks up the riverbed
And shakes out the sand.
I didn’t want for the laddie
To lay me down low
Now he holds up his glass
And he begs a few yarns more
How the black water bellied
In the light from the shore
And how I’ll never lose sight anymore.

Carry me down, carry me down
Down where the seam is shallow hemmed.
Carry me down, where the narrows bend
To where those tired wings
Are drying out again,
At the jetty’s end.

Big tides, they run out
Then they drift back in again.

A resurfaced demand
No longer the mission stands
But she tumbles the rocks
And puts a drink in my hand.
Another one for the laddie
To lay me down low
Now he holds up his glass
And he begs a few drops more.
Still the black water bellies
In the light from the shore
Now I’ll never lose sight anymore.

So carry me down, carry me down
Down where the seam is shallow hemmed.
Carry me down, where the narrows bend
To where those tired wings
They are drying out again,
At the jetty’s end.

Joan’s prayer book beside me
Little markers in the sand
On a glassy shore unending
For walking hand-in-hand
At the jetty’s end,
Down at the jetty’s end.

Carry me down, carry me down
Down where the seam is shallow hemmed.
Carry me down, where the narrows bend
To where those tired wings
Are drying out again,
At the jetty’s end.

Big tides, they run out
Then they drift back in again,
They drift back in again.
Big tides, they run out
Then they just drift back in again,
They drift back in again.

The Land Is Behind Us

The land is behind us so bring in the slack
Those depths which embraced me
Are calling me back.

My name holds nothing
It just echoes the past
Where my bonnie is tied to the mast.

When she reveals what she’s been hiding
And the fleet begins to haul from the deep
There and then we’ll find out
What she kept for herself
While everyone above was asleep.

Waiting for tomorrow
Wait it out today.
Waiting for tomorrow
Say goodbye to yesterday.

The Launch

When you’re ready to go
Let me know.
When you’re ready, go.

The Minute Hand

Bitterness bites right down to marrow
And all around the harrowed fields
As grief stands in the aisle of the widow
Rifling through the ready meals.
Fecund in mind, fallow in body
From idle thoughts we’re never rid
Now you just remove the outer packaging
And pierce the film lid.
All coiled like a worm cast
In sodden English sand
Every sculptor has their monument
Made by the minute hand.
And if they’re going to cut me down
They’d better count
Every ring around my body
Down to the last root in the ground
It seems they all want
A piece of me now.
Well hey, I wouldn’t want it any other way
You can throw your weight around
But time is a hand-me-down
And this minute will pass
Any second now.

Liberty stands at her gilded alter
And reads passages in peace-time prose
But her values shift
As she shortens her sleeves
And she takes out her victory rolls.
One last smoke before sail
While I draw circles in the sand
One more sculptor has their monument
Made by the minute hand.

And if they’re going to cut me down
They’d better count
Every ring around my body
Down to the last root in the ground
It seems they all want a piece of me now.
Well hey, I wouldn’t want it any other way
You can lay your lumber out
But time is a hand-me-down
And this minute will pass
Like a ship through the sound
This minute will pass
Any second now.

The Silent Spring

Before the Atlantic Ocean
Lays claim to me
Like men of Ness
We’ll scale the Hebrides
All born of Sgeir
Must pore on this
Has Mother Nature
No maternal instincts?

All is Quiet
But for man’s machine
Simply silent is the spring
But from the hill to the valley
As you sing for your supper
If you dance little laddie
Then they’ll dance in the upper.

Like oil into the sea
How do we cast blight into the wind
In fear that it might bring
The silent spring.

Like a goddess of the song
A deity of the dawn
In the morning she calls
And throbs clear and choral
From a pantheon height
As the Queen of the sea
Lays claim to the cliffside
Should the heir pass the acid test
And earn the colours to adorn his breast
Then as a woven crown
He inherits a thorny crest.

All is quiet
All is sleeping
All is still
Simply deafening
Is the silence of the spring.

Driving life back to ocean
Drawing land into the sea
If you sing for the sun
Then they’ll join in harmony.

Farewell to the honeybee
Tender was he
Fragile as the wings
Are we
The day that brings
The Silent Spring.

From the hill to the valley deep
So silent shall fall man’s great machine
And I’ll dance for my daddy
For the rain that hangs over the heath
May one day come to pour on everything
And I fear that it might bring
The Silent Spring.

The Wailing Wall

He has me hanging like a crucifix
To knock a hole into my hand
He draws a fish in the sand
And signs the air with his politics
To make a profit from a slave
He’d roll the stone
Part the waves
And ignite the human forest
Then send the bodies out to bury themselves
But to tell the truth
There is not enough holes in the desert for this
To lie where airplanes lie
Oh well, it looks like
The day broke upon us
And slumped into night
Yes, he made sharp the darkness to carve up the light
And while we’re waiting for the wine to arrive
He butters bread with a butcher’s knife and says,

“So will you sing me the old score”
He hands me the tuning key
And shows me to the door
“Lower me down from your window,
With flowers from the railing
And prayers from the wailing wall’.

Shot the officer at dawn
When they drew upon his sinning
He was singing the prisoner’s song
While the words remain captive
The melody wears no uniform
He made the soldier for the war that would take him
Like it takes the iron railings to arm
And sends them looking for a firstborn son
There’s many in Jerusalem.
We know his work was done
The day the dinosaurs died
But nobody really knows why
The day broke upon us
And slumped into night
Yes, he made sharp the darkness to carve up the light
And while they’re waiting for the dead sea to rise
He butters up his sacrifice and says,

“So will you sing me the old score?”
He calls down for the carpenter to nail me to the door
Leaves me hang ’til I’m swinging low
Old songs did I sing him
All the verses that I know
I lowered him down from that window
With flowers for the laying
And prayers from the wailing wall.

The Whin Sill

‘Neath both greenery and sand
Volcanic Northumberland
Stretching out that weathered hand
In botanic of Whin Sill land.

You were fetched up on such as this
The jagged stone, that, upon which
The sweet remains of bitter past
From the sea to the Sycamore Gap.

Leave the High-Cup far behind
And let the cascade carry you on home.

And you let it in
Under your skin
You let it in
Under your skin.

Leave the High-Cup far behind
And let the cascade carry you on home.

Tower On The Hill

In a cobbled bailey
The cold, worn face
Many wares were bartered
No stone was displaced.
The streets are scourged
With a curious case
Filed by the rush of humanity’s race.
They paint the King in his varicose state
Where the ink of youth
Meets the fingerprints of old age
And coalesce in the strangest of ways.

There’s a tower on the hill
Where heads will roll
As the night draws in
For what goes up
Must come down again.
That’s your child on the mount
Hear no evil from his guiltless mouth
Ignorance is kind
But vision is a gift
When you’re born blind.

The beyond is yet unchartered
The horizon still dark
But women seek to venture
Where no men dare embark
For the crack is now a chasm
Throwing dice becomes an art
Gaggles heed the bleats
And throng the tenement of cards.
Whilst the sun beats down on the motte
Why must the snow fall
Two months too late to start
Tearing the union apart.

There’s a tower on the hill
Where heads will roll
As the night draws in
For what goes up
Must come down again.
That’s your child on the mount
Hear no evil from his guiltless mouth
Ignorance is kind
But vision is a gift
When you’re born blind.

Until My Bonnie Can Be Revived

Here I was born and was named
And here I still remain
As long as life does run through these veins
I will work for the company’s gains.

From twelve-hundred-and-twenty-five
‘til my bonnie can be revived
I’m willing to spend my life
Searching far and wide
Until I hear you cry;

“Will you take me to sea?”

Passing through, passing on
To lie a life over the ocean
Amidst the waves of my propulsion
Are diesel fumes and self-convulsion

‘til my bonnie is brought to me
I’ll swim with the devil in the deep
Whoever that may be
Until I hear your plea;

“Will you take me to sea?”

As the North Sea evaporates
Into a silver-lined smog
The horizon’s littered with Meccano sets
And Lego arks.

If you know your local industry
From your oriental history
Then you can build a factory
And choose your own geography.

From Antwerp to Shepherd’s Offshore Services
British wind power
Pulled by Belgian vessels.

Like freighters on an open sea
Passing European fleets
Of the fishing industry.

In a desert of greeny-blue
If you don’t hang onto it
This world’s gonna desert you.

A harvest from the deep
A pelagic catch
Snagged on disbelief.

When you’re ready to go
You’re ready to go.

Will you take me to sea?

Waiting For The Whistle

Better call for Brown
The young Leopold is sick
There is a burning at his bedside
But no flame at his wick
Fear, it walks
For hate runs the clink
Here your guilt will reach the surface
And all your innocence will sink.

It’s like digging for riches in the desert sand
Searching for a profit in the promised land
Just to turn your coat the old fashioned way
While you count yourself a victim of the present day.
Waiting for the whistle to blow
For mother hen to lay
You had better get on your knees and pray
Though mercy is my middle name
For what you take you have to pay
So hear me when I say
We’re going to blow you all away.

One more mile, one more day.

There’s an apparition on that battlefield
Like the angel of Mons
Have you come to chase the hounds away
Or rob the breath from my lungs?
Will you watch me go?
Will you see me down?
I used to shout the odds, you know?
I used to wear the crown
But that’s all history now
And the buried past is sure to be found

When you’re digging for riches in the desert sand
Consider yourself part of the caravan
Why can’t you kiss the continental way?
While you call yourself a victim of the present day.

Waiting for the whistle to blow
For mother hen to lay
You had better get on your knees and pray
Though mercy is my middle name
For what you take you have to pay
So hear me when I say,

No more prisoners shall I take
If you were looking for trouble
You went about it the right way
This want is circumstantial
In another fields, some other day
Well, there you go

You’re waiting for the whistle to blow
For mother hen to lay
You had better get on your knees and pray
Though mercy is my middle name
For what you take you have to pay
So hear me when I say
We’re going to blow you all away.

One more mile, one more day
We’re going to blow you all away.

Water Lilies

Waste none, for the minutes roll on
Sharp draw the days in the September sun
Father Time hangs his troubles upon me
Mother Earth dresses down for the eve
I want to frame the water lilies
And take root among the evergreens.

For any man left in the bitter end
Has shed his heart and hailed the leaves
Cascading from the trees
And sent them down the stream

So feel free

To cast on the beat
To real in the autumn
As the moment becomes a memory
A new day may paint
Pictures in your garden
Where over the lake
There aches a bridge to the other side.

Waste none, see it waits for no-one
And the hours become minutes
In the October sun
Stood before this perennial garden
Is the antiquated house
With ghosts of fact and of fiction
The sure shadows of doubt.

For any man left in the bitter end
Has shed it all for another
His spring for the summer
As noon takes the morning to write
And life takes the end of your line

When cast on the beat
To reel in the autumn
As the moment becomes a memory
A new day may paint
Pictures in your garden
Where over the lake
There aches a bridge
And on the other side
Father Time
Reads the books that you write
Mother Earth
Wakes up your children
And puts herself to bed for the night.