DEATH
DANCE OF DEATH
His wheezing throat sang a mournful note
As his rasping lungs played a tune with his gums
His mechanical chin made a frightful din
As he shut his eyes and shuddered sighs
He muttered the tune like a fluttered balloon
His pulse did race and his sweat-soaked face
Strained his veins like horses reins
This dance of death made him fight for breath
But I saw in his face the end of the race
It grew slack with relief as he ended his grief
His heaving chest was now at rest
And he just passed away, like the night from the day
NORWOOD HOUSE OLD FOLKS HOME, LONDON
Audio Version
THE ACCIDENT
I waken slow, what is my fate
I’ve overslept, I must be late
But now my eyes look round to see
Large pools of blood surrounding me
And now I see lying in the street
Shattered remnants round my feet
And now this blood so fresh and red
Screams out at me, I’ll soon be dead
DEDICATED TO TRIUMPH MOTORCYCLES 1975
Audio Version
THE LIFT
She entered slowly with a sigh
The shuttered concrete building high
The lift she found not far away
To be closed in, on such a day
It sensed just when she was inside
And closed it’s jaws to start the ride
But she felt so lonesome there
For humming deep within it’s lair
The motor whirred with easy grace
The lift to raise at constant pace
Just four cold walls to touch and see
But she felt she’d soon be free
For when at last she reached the roof
Looking down felt so aloof
Spotting people in the street
Could they see her down beneath?
She walked up to the buildings edge
Her fingers stroked the concrete ledge
She found the ride down slightly quicker
The leering crowd left, slightly sicker
TO JEANETTE 1979
Audio Version
MY E-TYPE JAG
Oh, I do feel a wag
In my E-type Jag
It can do one-fifty
And that is pretty nifty
But if I crash at that speed
Of my remains take no heed
For if I sneeze in the breeze
Or just so much as blink
I shall be dead in a wink
All sprawled on the road
Like a spotted toad
My car will be flat
Like a cricket bat
There’ll be nothing left
Of my bowler hat
The people will look
And say, ‘fancy that’
But he did feel a wag
In his E-type Jag
Audio Version
THE TREE OF LIFE
Sister saw the tall tree fall
Saw the soul that would not die
Saw the sap of life run dry
And felt the restless breezes fly
She sat and held an arm at length
She slowly mopped a fevered brow
She sensed a slowly fading strength
And felt the weakness in the bough
She held out helping hands to cushion
Branches bending to the Earth
The breeze now sees no leaf to loosen
The soul now seeks another birth
ON THE DEATH OF MY MOTHER
Audio Version
DESIGNER DEATH
Nothing new, in Nature, nor
A bargain at the price
Lacking reason, season, space
Drowning every trace of grace
Cloaking shock in disbelief
Less to accept, this sudden grief
But devious and cunning raw
He extends a tempting claw
To cast afar his loving net
Stretched with pain and sorrow yet
Tensioned by the promised morrow
Some vestige of remorse to borrow
Virgin guilt so sparkling fresh
That calls again to conscious flesh
Those bygone lives that surface fast
Where memories in the pool are cast
As meaning reasons slowly silt
To fill this world so full of guilt
Audio Version
FOR THEM
WRITTEN AT BEACHY HEAD, SUSSEX, THE MOST NOTORIOUS SUICIDE VENUE IN ENGLAND, WHERE ON AVERAGE TWENTY PEOPLE PERISH EVERY YEAR.
For them
The ones
Who end it all
In last brave acts
The martyred few
Who stand and wait
And hesitate
To shake and shudder
But, do sometimes
Fall, or drown
As the case may be
But why, for what, for us
They do not save themselves
Or any thing or being
But let us kindly hope
In their long last drop
Of no return
As final curtains fall
That they might somehow see
In that fleeting moment
True Peace
Hurtling towards them
From out the tunnel of despair
Audio Version
TYBURN TREE
Round Tyburn Tree, impatiently
Awaited the multitude, and me
The star of the show
To appear was slow
But we who had been
There often before
Drank steadily on
Thirsting for more
Then they dragged him forth
To entertain
And hoisted him slow
Screaming with pain
He wriggled and squirmed
And we squealed with delight
When two of his friends
To his legs clung tight
But they quickened the end
For soon he was dead
Later on, one of them
Shot the Judge, so they said
The other paid a visit
To the hangman’s wife
And the only thing spared
Was the poor lady’s life
His brother, I heard
Cut his wrists apart
When their mother died
From a broken heart
Now his wife walks the streets
Turned into a whore
And the children don’t talk
At all, anymore
COMPOSED UNDER TYBURN TREE , HYDE PARK CORNER LONDON
Audio Version
THE WATCHER
I’ve been around for eighty years
I’ve stood and watched in cold and heat
I’ve seen so many hopes and fears
Cross my path, my roots run deep
So I perch upon this cliff and gaze
At ships far out at sea
While tides flow fast, to my amaze
All sorts of people flock to me
Some shelter from a foreign foe
For I give them warmth and heat
As they scour the beach below
For the enemy they hope to meet
But as seasons came and seasons went
I saw small babes grow into men
Then off to war they would be sent
To be never ever seen again
And near my foot a tattered grave
Of an old friend I had known
When famine came, for food he’d crave
And harvest from the crops he’d sown
But now in truth it must be told
There was a time I hanged a man
He had a choice, this fellow bold
But to my very feet he ran
So they cornered him and hung him high
But I did sigh, as they cut him down
To a whispered cry, from the branch so dry
’Twas a silent sound, as he fell to ground
For my many leaves, now drunk with sorrow
Fell with him, to grace the morrow
Audio Version
TRILOGY TO A FOETUS
a mothers love
I wonder what it is they feel
Within the womb that is their seal
Where they float in sacred space
As this warm and precious place
Reverts into an evil tomb
When metal demons probe the womb
To tear apart and rip and rent
As eyes are pierced and skulls are bent
I wonder what it is they feel
As some pervert from above
Their innocence doth steal
I wonder what it is they feel
Could it be a mother’s love
the chosen few
To them, the chosen few
The dedicated few
The ones that rub and scrub
To operate and slice in pieces
Or even take out whole, the foetus
Not body, mind or flesh
But to them, a bloody mess
Their talent and their skill
Being directed with a will
To mercenary extortions
When they execute abortions
tonight
Tonight my thoughts I save
Not simply for the brave
Or even the insane
Tonight my thoughts
My pity and my pain
All fall to you
Those conceived few
So full of hope
And loving mirth
Who must return
Unto this Earth
Before they earn
Their rightful birth
DEDICATED TO THE 934,733,000 REGISTERED WORLDWIDE ABORTIONS
THIS IS EQUAL TO ONE ABORTION FOR EVERY WOMAN ON THE PLANET.
(IN TWO WORLD WARS ONLY 70 MILLION PERISHED)