Category: song

That village Street

Standon church, the village and the ford

How the eye will wander as it stares

Lazy cows stand idly by the gate

How deep silence holds and melts our cares.

The heavy load of work, the children’s gaze.

The weight of coppers spoils the father’s clothes

The cake stand gleams, sadistically exposed

The cat sleeps on,while BarclaysBank is closed

We left the car beside the butcher’s shop

Climbed up to the church his mother moaned

She  enjoyed the view  down this long Street.

Despite the aching of her twisted toes.

Now they’re gone and I stand here alone

I see your face, your eyes,your smiling bones

Blue the sky

The  sea shore blue of  operatic sky
Turned to navy then to darkest grey
Dark trees  despise the mysteries of light

The holly has its depth unknown to eye
Hiding fragile wrens  from birds of  prey
The  cerulean blue of soothing sky

And in my room upon my bed I try
What words would come,what humour could you say
Oh trees  held in the mysteries of light?

The words won’t  come,unspeakable the sigh
The weeping  of the sick, the donkey’s bray
Depression of Van Gogh. the lowering  sky

Oh,mother, why must newborn  babies cry?
The Lord ignores, the sheep flee as I pray
The  trees   hold in the mysteries of light

I meet your eye,I’m feeling drawn and grey
You want my love,I fear the  last  mistake
In sinking blue of  dawn and  passive sky
The  trees  despise the virus and the lies

 

 

 

That village Street

Standon church, the village and the ford

How the eye will wander as it stares

Lazy cows stand idly by the gate

How deep silence holds and melts our cares.

The heavy load of work, the children’s gaze.

The weight of coppers spoils the father’s clothes

The cake stand gleams, sadistically exposed

The cat sleeps on,while BarclaysBank is closed

We left the car beside the butcher’s shop

Climbed up to the church his mother moaned

She enjoyed the view down this long Street.

Despite the aching of her twisted toes.

Now they’re gone and I stand here alone

I see your face, your eyes,your smiling bones

The life boat crew

The life boat crew are safely home
They’ve brought the shipwrecked sailors too.
The storm has passed, the wind has dropped
The sea is swaying softly now.

Wrapped in soft night clothes, their offspring
Are all in world of dream still lost.
Their fathers’ safely home this time.
They save wrecked ships despite the cost.

Will any lifeboat crew be there
To help less blessed ones from despair,
And lives, too many , spent in care
No fathers and no mothers near?

The sea we certainly must fear,
But more we fear the acts of those
Who try to buy our minds and wills,
For votes in the election booths.

Oh hush my baby, go to sleep,
It is your mammy’s job to weep.
I wish I knew just what to do
To empower the lives of wains like you.

Sleep well, sleep well, my little child.
The sun will rise, the air is mild.
We’ll trust that when we all set sail
Our love and courage will not fail.

Oh,hush my sweet one, I am near.
The world’s too big for bairns to bear.
We’ll do much better this time round.
We’ll not let this boat run aground.

And on the world shall I bestow my wrath?

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When true love’s gone and doom hangs over head
When life runs like a river to the sea
Then shall I take new lovers to my bed.
And with their carnal touch consoled be?

When my love lies and break my woman’s heart
. When life seems grey and rocks bestrew my path
. Then, shall I my life of evil start
And on the world shall I bestow my wrath?

When true loves lie and wreck all loyalty.
When puzzlement makes all the world seem mad.
Then I shall upend causality
And let myself do deeds which make me glad.

For I have love’s own child inside my soul
And I shall tend her till at last she’s whole

Would I were

I wish I were a wild wild goose

And I could fly and seek

Looking for my lost lost love .

With eyes that cannot weep.

What is my life when I love none

And noone loveth me

When all are fled when all are gone

Take me to the sea

I saw the hills I saw the lakes

I saw the mighty ocean

What is beauty what is joy

When my true love is broken

I peck my breast I shed my blood

The pure white goose would die

Take me to the cold. cold earth

Under a cruel white sky

Soup

Photo by Tobias Bju00f8rkli on Pexels.com

The parsnip soup was delicate yet strong..

Here the flavour lingers on my tongue

We had chopped fruit and ice cream in a tub

All I need is he whom I still love.

I need to be caressed but not too much

I shall beat off strangers with a crutch

For women are no longer victims of strong men

Hear my words and write them with a pen

Our bodies and their songs

Your breath became my spirit,made me live
You touch me as I breathe air in and out
I feel your presence in my heart’s inside

You have made our bodies, there’s no doubt
Growing from two cells, the urge is strong
The body’s wishes are not sinful now

In the schizoid era, flesh seems wrong
The intellectuals are the most admired
Yet we need our bodies and their songs

Ideas, more than loving, are desired
Sex and our poor bodies make us sin
Yet th damned chaste sing in Hell’s own choirs

Breath of God, the clay made into flesh
We continue in the holy work
No creation can be kept suppressed

May our lively bodies be well blessed
Loving into being all the world
Breathing in and breathing out God’s dust

Bill,Bill,my mother’s dad

Bill.Bill.my mother’s dad
Down the coal mine he did dig
When he was but a young lad

He was never very big
He spoke in the old dialect
He had a dog, a pipe, no cig

Silent,smiling, starving wrecked
He sent kids to a soup kitchen
Learned to read, but knew few facts

Went to London,saw Big Ben
Still angry from the General Strike
Aye,he were a silent man

He walked at night, he had no bike
To the coal mine with his cat
The cat sat waiting till first light

Then they walked, he did head maths
His wife had died, the son was born
When he got home, he had a bath

His father worked in fields of corn
Peasants on the Chesire farms
The pay was poor, were up at dawn

He himself were on good terms
With his neighbours, Irish, torn
He went to Mass,so Latin learned

My mum was th’eldest of those born
She had me,my own dad died
She went mad, she was forlorn

Lost her mother, then she tried
To help her Dad with all her heart
Never wept and never cried

Then she made a different start
Met my dad and married late
So I am here with my own charts

Is it destiny or fate
Why am I down here, d’you ken?
I see you grandad, is it late?



Deep down in the earth

Cold dull winters bring us close to death
The blood grows thick and scarcely does it move
The worms may shudder deep down in the earth

This damp coldness presses out our breath
The frost and ice, the memory delude
Cold dull winters bring us close to death

Do we need the sun to give us worth?
Low in oxygen, the mind’s confused
The worms have nightmares deep down in the earth

Should we pause, these issues to address?
In this Lockdown, where should we confess?
Cold dull winters bring us close to death

Wonder now what makes our voices terse
With no priests, who shall this poor world bless?
The worms may sleep deep down inside the earth


On each other,let us not intrude
Let all loving kindness be our food
Cold dull winters bring us close to death
Like worms that slumber deep down in the earth

We still stand on shifting sands

We walked on sea shores with our mates
Though wide  oceana separate
Now we’re abandoned on the  shores
By  the loves we’ll see no more

We  still stand on shifting  sands
Expecting , needing, helping hands
But most people walk on by
And we’re too afraid to cry

Lost in places we once knew
But recognised by  very few
Our eyes  look out but do not see
Filled by tears we can’t set free

Shall we stay here evermore
Hoping lovers we adored
Are on their way back to their home
As slowly, sadly, we still roam?

The  sturdy walls that bear the sky
Have been shattered from on high
And  feeling smaller than the snails
We hear the long lost sea winds wail

Oh, weep for  him and me, wide seas
Embrace  our souls  in   your salt breeze
See the  crushed and broken shells
Hear the tolling of the bells