I’m living in the aftershock
I’m surfing on a wave
And when the ocean stops to rest
I’ll be deposited in a grave

Dylan McGough was a giant
A scruffit, a hobo, a queer
Dylan McGough was a monster
Who all of Germanies beer

He was flabby, leafy and angry
With a rifle slung over his back
He made a new sun
Where there just wasn’t one
From fire, spit and the old anti-black

With the heart
Like a plastic bag
Full of water
Trying to walk
Its first steps

The car mirror
Full of rain
As the frog
Played in the quicksand

Trying to explain
The fate
That madness gave you
Your match-sticks flame
Blew out in the wind

We are close to having soul
Turn off those automatics
Dampen those conglomerate suns
Let the ally-ways come alive
With Neapolitan ice cream

We are close to having soul
Crush those bombs in a mangle
Throw olives at the speaker
Send out your wine maker
To pan for Yorkshire water

It’s almost here, like they imagined
the Mediterranean lifestyle
Sun, sea and romance

Wrapping up their Pharoah’s
In a calico cocoon
They waited by the coffin
In a light-beam from the moon
Expecting metamorphis
A new god being born
Just then a big fat clothes moth
Flew quietly out of the room

Have you ever seen
A hard fried egg
Stuck to a wall
Have you tried to scrape it off
With a palette knife
And stab it with a plastic spoon
But it won’t move
It won’t move at all

Have you ever been down
To sunset reach
And seen hard fried eggs everywhere
Sitting around playing
Their tune-o-matic guitars
Or falling down your trouser legs
Or living under your driveway cars

Have you ever seen
A hard fried egg
Stapled to a chair
Talking by telekinesis
In their floral underwear
Do you look for them
On the ceiling
Or see them
Writing banners
In a dark car park
Or being on sale in Harrods
Or chasing after sharks

Did you ever have a hard fried egg
Crawl under your freezer
And fall asleep there
And start talking in its dreams

Did a hard fried egg
Replace your baby
Did Mr Punch
Chase it
Out of school
Did Mr Policeman hit it
With a truncheon
Did it have a wooden leg
And sit upon a milking stool

Once I saw one singing on telly
It made a sound like bubble and squeak
And it loved to hear the jazz of George Melly
And I’d wait in expectation all week

A group of cyclists
Grip their red-hot handlebars
They crash into one another
And from a pyramid of bicycle frames

The handlebars take off into the sky
And join millions of others
Flocking like birds with flaming wings

You go into the coal shed
Where an old bicycle has been left
It shrieks in pain and hunger
It rears up and drives over you into freedom

You are digging in the mud of a riverbank
When, emerging out of the gunge
A bicycle rears up in front of you

The peddles begin to creak as they turn
The flashlight becomes like a bright midday sun
The wheels turn and splatter you with mud
And it rises vertically into the sky
It’s handlebars snorting

What do you want to do?
Oh, heavyweight European champion
Quick before it all goes cold
And the engine rusts into oblivion

Should I put you in a pram
And deliver you to Spain
Should I let the vultures operate on you
To remove the rocks

Quick, do you see the ring
Where the rain gathers
Send it by box to father Christmas
And his walrus shopkeepers

Oh, she puts her hand inside
And pulls out a boxing glove
Oh, she puts her hand inside
And finds a bottle of shampoo

The king of the north
Was talking to his horse
The king of the south
Was moving about
The tomato ketchup
Was poisoned by warfare
The sky tried hard
To protect the child

The king of the north
Went all the way
The king of the fence
Sat on his tweezers
The clouds walked down the tunnel
And came out as seas
The knave with his halybard
Poked at a glass rabbit

The king of the north
On his mountains of seaweed
Ran like an avalanche of birds
Into the burning earth
The king of the south
Galvanised his roof with custard
And spread his pools of water
At the foot of his statues

And so, we wait
With half a binocular
To view the transparencies
of history