I did not awaken the sun
When I thought of you
But the clouds just seemed
To clear away
I did not make the full moon shine
When I thought of you
But I did awake from my cloud
To see its brilliant light
Some things are fixed and do not change
And only the clouds of forgetfulness
Hide them from a mind
Full of anxieties and cares
Here’s another bogus funeral
Slowly parading along the street
The military pace of the attendants
The black cloud of grief and relief
I’m glad it’s not me the living will say
As it disappears away, away
I buried a mouse in the garden with me
When I was a child, when I was free
What’s the difference between this and that?
A long black car and a black top hat
How much harm
Do I cause the animal to feel?
The domestic animal
That will die forever
What does it learn
From my company?
It’s wild companions
Delirious with life
Have no thought of dying
They do not fear death
They fill the earth
Like rubies in the night
But the befriended animal
The adored animal
How much insight
Does it gain?
How much living
Does it loose?
This is the age of guilt
That never goes away
Every road sign proclaims it
It’s apparent every day
Every face in every photograph
Every image from the past
I looking at the age of guilt
Is looking at the age of guilt
You can’t forget the wrongs you do
There is no forgiveness
It appears before you day after day
It sits growling on your chest
You flick a switch and guilt comes on
As rich as a priests golden gown
To remind each one of what they did wrong
On a screen in every town
Every ones guilt no matter how small
Is recorded and never taken down
Every ones guilt no matter how small
Is recorded and never taken down
Love has many jars to choose from
Containing many different things
I look up at the sky and ask
What jar do I get today?
This jar is nearly empty
This jar hasn’t been opened
This jar has only animal fat
This jar has sweet gold honey
Love has many jars to choose from
Stacked up in the larder
High up on the special shelf
Are the ones for which you have to try harder
Love do you favour kings only?
Love do you favour only beauty?
Love what have I done wrong?
And how have I failed in my duty?
Walking along this short English road
Spiked with road signs and lamps
At the throw of a dice you miss a turn
At the change of a light you move forward
The face of the permitted speed limit sign
The bright yellow lines along the kerb
So many signs in so short a road
Cemented into the bloodless anaemic earth
And in a group of people travelling by
Organised by signs where no danger exists
Their heads shaped like circles and triangles
Their crowns that light up like streetlights
Their fingers pointing down the white lines
Their eyes connected to control rooms
To the idling along rich
The snow moon
Was big medicine
It did not dance
And it did not sing
On television
I watched the news lady as she
Shuffled her papers
Into squares
At the press of a button
The snow moon
Came walking onto screen
They preferred the snow moon
To all the news in China
The BBC news
Maybe they lack the funds
For up to the minute broadcasts
Maybe they are holograms
From the hard drive
Of the chancellor
For a long time
I watched the news
Piling up like snow
Contributing
To brain repeats
And more cups of tea
(As vaccinations go
This left me all aglow
I spent the afternoon
Grinning like a loon
Then as the evening fell
I drooped down
Into vaccine hell
Vaccine hell
My joints ached
My bones creaked
My thoughts quaked
My speech leaked
And I had to go to bed
As if I had the flu)
So why do I watch it?
There’s a kind of sanctity
About the BBC news studio
It’s like being present
At a crematorium
As the body is sent
Gliding into the flames
To the sound
Of a grinding church organ
My mother worked on an airfield
At the end of world-war two
He watched the plane land in flame
Out of the bright, bright blue
I that good enough for you?
Hat more can I do?
Fly the plane that crashed
Burn to death at last?
The history of the war
I written in memories
That melt like bread and dripping
In the houses of the poor
I’m wondering about you
And I don’t know what to
There’ something sad about you
And there’s nothing I can do
Handle bars and handle holds
They put them everywhere
But I cannot find a handle hold on you
You’ve been born a long time
Please come from behind ?
But with a hook inside your egg
How can you escape from
What’s inside your head
You ran as fast as lightning
Like a bullet from a gun
And landed in the system
Without?
Your peeling skin is crying
Wanting to tell the truth
I think your heart is peeling
You’ve gone back to the doll’s house?
It’s only by remote control
That I found the strength
It’s only by coincidence
I got on your wavelength
It’s like to see a flower die
Please tell me why, tell me why?
You’ve got to respond
You’ve got to respond
Don’t hide in your self-pity
And respond
It’s the common strength of lovers
To respond
People, food
Who can trust them?
Packaged in cardboard
People in cheap packaging
Everywhere
Food that has no soul
In cardboard boxes
People and food
Manufactured mouthfuls
People are fish fingers
In boxes
Dusted with bread crumbs
There’s a great factory
On the earth
Manufacturing people
Bland white fish fingers
Mass production
Society is a factory
I am exhausted
I am cut out from a fish
A precise white coffin
I am exhausted
I am dead
I am a fish finger
Little button eyes
Pulled out
Little fish mouth
Removed
No tail, no fins
No nothing
I am exhausted
I am a white fish finger
In a freezer
It is the church
Of the middle class
With car tyres
Hung on the walls
The stained glass windows
Depict colourful advertisements
The priest
Delivers rich home cooking
In their minds
They want to serve
A country
That isn’t good enough
Where is God they say
He is editing a newspaper
They’re given free polish
For their souls
Apply this
To your appendix
Death
Is a life insurance contract
Life is
A renewable trauma
Sometimes I am in motion
Like a rock
Rolling down a mountain
The crash produces stars
My soul
As thin as cellophane
Comes close
To being recycled
I pick the shark teeth
Out of my ghost
I’m a rolling slag heap
Of tears and rocks
I am asleep in a storm
With a heart under six feet of snow
Lockdown
Is a new photo
Of humankind
An anatomy
For a student coroner
The living
Go dancing
In the abandoned house
Like sprats
In a lockdown
Photograph album
You know nobody
There are no faces
True distances
Appear as a pathway
For sleepwalkers
The common place
Is moving into
A new darkness
I have been wrong
Wrong with prophesy
Wrong ith words
Rip me open
And stuff me full of lightning
I have been wrong
Wrong on the phone
Wrong on the recording
Burn my body
Disinfect my soul
I have been wrong
Truth tells me so
I am wrong to be me
There is no room at the inn
For happiness
The world moves in a circle
On broken teeth
Who is alive?
Who is dead?
Who’s shop is empty
Who’s bed has not been slept in?
There are advantages to take
Shoes to fill
Sweep away the tears
Of your neighbours
And walk on the shoulders
Of ghosts
I got my garage hook
But I do not have a garage
There is a girl I love
But I do not have a marriage
You make me hard
You make me cold
You make me hard
You make me bold
And I’ll never be the person I once was
I had a friend
In a music box
With the sunken eyes
Of an Italian criminal
In a silent movie
After the winter’s plague
Has visited every home;
Where the long night
Has seemed like a grave.
From the ice and dirt and stone
Of people’s failure
A snowdrop appears.
He didn’t think twice about it;
He was hardly able to acknowledge it;
Then he was illuminated.
The whole earth
Had seemed dead
For a long time –
Then the snowdrop appeared.
There’s an orphaned
Playful child
Within
That only wounds
Can free
When the blood is drained
The boy is free
There’s a musty smell
From his parents bedroom
That he does not like:
Worse than a grave
Is the bedroom of the living
There he discovers
A friend in a small music box
Its music is sweeter
Than the music on the radio
And it’s revolving ballerina
Is his first love
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