Soap V Spit

with simon west on sax.....

He’s been trading in paper
Somewhere at the top of the world
He comes at her with his paper
And who knows what she’s been sold
I can’t offer her water
It’s ferrous in this part of town
Instead I’ll offer her poetry
Though God knows it’s nothing profound

I love her so bad but the things that I had
Were on paper
The cash in my hand was made out of sand
Now I hate her
For trading me in
Paper is thicker than ink

She taught me the profit
In speculating on yourself
Next year I’ll be a contender
I’ll climb to the top of the shelf
The looking-glass wants no admission
Just pay with the gleam in your eye.
Getting out is much harder
When you start leaking faith in your style.

I love her so bad but the things that I had
Were on paper
The cash in my hand was made out of sand
Now I hate her
For trading me in
Paper is thicker than ink

I don’t know why she stays with him
He’s wicked, rough and cold
He makes money from alchemy
Turning mirrors and smoke into gold
If I were him, I’d be different
I’d discover my better self
I’d tear out my paper heart
To repent for my paper wealth

The sum that I’m worth is no more than the earth
That I walk on
The soles of my shoes have worn all the way through
But I walk on
For nickels and dimes
As poets are paid to do


Scissors Paper

Ever Since You Could Walk

Overtaking (v.2)

I’m the only one watching the girl with the mic in her hand
The party is over. The groom has just paid off the band
The girl is stone sober – she must have walked in off the street
And this is her moment as she starts to tap her feet

The gun-runner married the gunslinger’s daughter at noon
The great and the good and the greater good thronged in the room
The champagne was gurgling. The fish-eggs on ice were still-born
The bankers and thankfuls
And diplomats and sycophants
Toasted the couple.
The band played a shuffling tune
And under the lights
Someone offered advice
On where to invest
And build up an off-shore nest

The numbers all added up
Then the girl with the mic shows up

The song in her throat has a dissonant note from the start
The mic takes no prisoners, the sinners are thrown to the sharks
The gunslinger’s slung his last salvo, the gun-runner’s next

The mic is a boom
And it’s strapped to her heart
Until death do them part
In the next thirty seconds or less

No more torture-show talk
No derivative gain
From a deal on a plane
This old school is under arrest

The girl bows her head
No more words to be said
And I’m sweating in cold dread
As the mic self-detonates –

But I have been fooled by paranoid thoughts in my head
The girl is no terrorist. The bride and the groom remain wed
The mic is a mic - it is neither a gun nor a bomb
And as for the girl, when I open my eyes she is gone –
With her song

SIMON W. sax
CAROLINE F. additional vocals

Girl with the Mic [feat Simon West, sax]

'Woozy folk jazz shanty'
___________________________________
Mary half woken by words in your ear
Your train boards at twenty to twelve

Leaves are all faded in books you half-read
Then never returned to the shelf

You kept a washing machine in the roof
Took an hour and fifty to spin
You wouldn’t trade it in for a stain on your clothes
So you never could wear the stain thin

Mary, half-eaten, half-open your lips
And bring down the curtain with song
The train is for travellers
The song has no end
And nothing you sing will be wrong

“Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight
And learn, too late, grieved it on its way
Do not go gentle into that good night…
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze and be gay”

“Rage, rage against the light”
Wake, wake before the night
_____________________________________

Mary Half Woken

I’ve got a driving machine
Costs me two days’ wages to clean
But I wouldn’t trade it in for love that only
Moves me where I’ve already been

You had a way without words
And an eye that could cut me to thirds
After you put me at ease and I gave you the keys
It was clear you wouldn’t drive with the herd

An icon hung over the wheel
With a name that once brought you to heal
I used to pray to it so my venom ran through it
Til the skin on his face was all peeled

Our daughter was born in a day
That’s twenty one hours to pray
And fifty three minutes at the edge of your limits
Only I had the stomach to stay

Your workplace was called Balkanized
The dress code was strictly black tie
But on the CCTV, I could watch it for free
All the refuge that money can buy

Before you could hit the dance-floor
They check passports, not drugs, at the door
The patrons have spent their lives shacked up in tents
And then running for cover at dawn

St Spiridon bring down the rain
Risperidone gather the grain
There is just one brick
It is a three card trick
But it takes away most of the pain
 
Where I spend my Saturday nights, 
No one breaks down the door at first light
I have no national cuisine and no passport regime
And my borders aren’t a sniper’s delight

The devil doesn’t know its own shape
It thinks it’s worthy of a cast iron gate
But with a buzz of its wings
Before the fat lover sings
It could fly through the bars any day

A place is either not safe or safe
There is no other kind of a place
And when the hunted in one get to rotate the gun
Do their feelings go on feeling the same

St Spiridon bring down the rain
Risperidone gather the grain
There is just one brick
It is a three card trick
And it blew away most of my brains


Saint Spiridon

In the back of the parlour
The needle forsakes the dye
The dye portends a word
This word is summoned on skin
With me, it shrinks and grows
It hides on me
Fights and rides me
And is always mine
Though reads to you
On my skin
If not in deed
The word is free
To do its bidding
Then and always
I meant it now
Still wear it then
A curse, an oath
A stain on us both
That dried in vain
But never wains

“You – only you – will have stars that can laugh”


Parlour Oath

Words adapted from a poem by Thomas Nashe, 'Litany in the Time of Plague'.

Litany for the Plague

I met her in a bar up in Chicago
(The past is bright, the future’s tainted)
Where they sip champagne
If the grapes don’t grow
(The cart bites, the pony’s painted)

Al Capone tobacco blowing rings around roses
I risk the smoke for the perfume in spiralling doses
Her smart-phone is a mute and it has a thin skin
But she’ll talk to it tender when her options call in
And the futures begin

She clocked the tempo as the numbers were dancing
(Weak bananas, hashed potato)
To the news from the East 
And the South advancing  
(Chic sultanas lashed by tornados)

She counts the bubbles in the glass in my hand
Then instantly converts them into dollars and rand
She scribbles down the figures on a Post-It note
And tells me call her numbers if I want to sew some oats
And put the bread in a choke
Or just chew the fat
And get the buck out of that

Now I got a girl who likes her coffee grounded
And her cream on the rise and the sugar-cubes rounded
And the rice in the paddy and the cows in the meadow
Where every passing cloud casts a measurable shadow

Her past is bright, her future’s tainted

**********

Photo credit: href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/milletre/3054894492/">milletre

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