Plato went to NATO
He asked for bread and honey
What can you give us?
Do you have the money?
Plutarch went to Newark
He walked the streets alone
The gangs came out to joke with him
And to pelt him with their stones
Today you’re a begger
Tomorrow you’re a king
You ride upon a scorpion
You fly with eagle’s wings
I do not bleed profusely
My blood speaks
Like tumbling rocks
I have bled out
The cruel
I have healed
Like dry mud
My wounds
Have deepened
Like buried wells
I fit nicely
Into railings
The death of iron
Is a blessing
I do not bleed
Profusely
Like a free man
My skin
Makes a nice daisy chain
In my coal truck
Apples in blood
My throat
Squeezed by a bear chain
When challenged
I leak fake blood
And escape into the smoke
The roman were awoken
In the year of his death
Amazed by an unusual picture
The Son of God
As he takes his last breath
Speaking the number of scripture
I came from the troubled
Country of old
I rambled through hurricane and twister
Then a leaf on the tree sang a bird song
Saying
Learn the numbers of scripture
I came to the cannon chain
Bleeding my gum
Then I heard the explosions
Whisper
Run from the battle
Get away from the gun
And learn the numbers of scripture
Into my room came
The stars of the earth
But I never learnt how to kiss her
I rolled up my carpet
And beat my toy drum
The many numbers of scripture
And down in the valley
Surrounded by hills
I could not find a brother or a sister
Yet the lake of eternity
Continued to be filled
With all the numbers of scripture
Am Em
I know what it’s like to feel insecure
Am Em
I know what it’s like not to dream
Am D G
I know what it’s like to go on strike
Am C G
Oh, I know the working class life
I know what its like on the new deal
Without a any future in sight,
The new deal is a lie in a suit and a tie
Oh, I know the working class life
I know all the lies that circulate
In the highest seat in the hall
And working class life is dripping and strife
Oh, I know the working class life
You can answer a poem with a poem
You can answer a poem with a poem
You can answer a song with a song
But if you have a fear of authority
Things like this will go wrong
Authority’s bomb away every day
In every way, spoiling your day
With your feet in the clay
With your feet in the clay
That you came from
You can answer a love with a love
You can answer a hate with a word
But if you have a fear of authority
You become part of the silent herd
The herd grows many and plentiful
And they roam the field all alone
When they take their teeth
Out of the meat
All you have left is the bone
I will lie down in the bracken
I will lie down to die in the bracken
I will watch the rainbow go by
I don’t want to die, taken care of
By the surgeon with a tray full of knives
To die in the city, is to die without pity
They rid you of your dignity and pride
I’d rather lie down in the bracken
My death I’d rather hide
In the big bad city
The last thing you will see
Is the concrete of the street
And the rumble of war
The windows full of meat
And chains on your feet
As they wheel you through hells double-door
I want to lie down in the bracken
With the beetle, the spider and worm
And the last thing I see – will be a rainbow
And the last thing I’ll hear – will be a bird
The Primitive
I suffered catastrophic neglect
I was a cloud to be seen drifting across the sky
Please hang on to my legs
Don’t let me rain and die
Then some light began to shine through
A cell started to divide
Into the complexity of a brain
Giving substance to my mind
Alas, it was already too late
I had to look on as others lived
My feral days were over
I became a primitive
The Outsider
I have voices that have never spoken
I have fingers that have never felt
I have a heart that is un-woken
I have cards that I’ve never dealt
I lived my life in darkness
I was buried in my grief
I couldn’t say I love you
For the gnashing of my teeth
In the fields
Along the Adriatic
I saw thousands
Of sunflowers
A nation of sunflowers
Belonging together
In my little garden
At the back of my flat
Where the light is dim
Even in summer
There came a guest
A giant sunflower
It grew facing the sunrise
Taller than a man
In summer
I could hardly see
Its orange and yellow face
Then it was gone
It did not return next year
It was as if it had been a ghost
It was as if it had been on loan
From a nation of sunlight
And now its ghost
Had gone back to where it belonged
Born with a bite missing
All the others are laughing
Fallen with a bite in your side
That spoilt you, made you sad
You fought hard against ridicule
You longed for healing
You covered your wound with a leaf
You faced evil head on
It is a life well lived
It is a courageous life
How strange that – birds migrate
That they leave England in winter
-And do we even miss them
Do we give them a permanent home?
I’m thinking of the empty spaces:
The empty sky, the empty river
The empty forest, the empty field
Oh, where have they gone?
Time advances
Where is it going?
Sometimes I follow it
Sometimes I don’t
Time advances
With thoughts and feelings
It’s anatomy
Moving through perspective
There is another way
It is not the highway
It is a circle
That moves with you
There is another way
The parent’s way
They give you life
They give you love
Please build me a floor
Zo that, I can walk about up here
Of all my mozt ztupid miztakez
This one iz apocalyptic
I offer you my zleep
Yet, I feel divided
