This is not my fault.

My little sister made me do it then ran away.

Cryptic Blues

Paint a great big smile on my face, when I die.
Draw a pair of silly glasses ‘round my stone cold eyes
Groucho moustache to see me to the crypt
What the hell, shove a cigar between my frozen blue lips.

I’ll have a squirty flower in my shroud’s lapel
Clip a big red nose onto my snoot as well
Then pelt my stiff cadaver with custard pies
And paint a great big smile on my face, when I die.

This joy-filled world I’m leaving just don’t fit.
But I’ll be a happy dead, manic depressive, miserable fucking shit.
__________________________________________________________________

With a big nod to Steve James' fingerstyle arrangement of Betty and Dupree.

Photo by Zachary Kadolph on Unsplash

Cryptic Blues

Half a Pack of Marlboro Lights and a Busted Chandelier

Not the best of days today, 
Bailiff breaking down my door.
Ain’t got no bread to pay
What he was asking for.
Stole my only chair away
It’s why I’m sittin' on the floor.
With all I got to see me right, this statement of arrears,
Half a pack of Marlboro Lights and a busted chandelier.

Maybe time to hit the road
In my baby Buick Six.
Transmission fell out months ago
Standing up on bricks.
Seems every turn I’m knocked down low
By the devil’s dirty tricks.
Now all I got to see me right is a box of shredded gears,
Half a pack of Marlboro Lights and a busted chandelier.

Chicken shack exploded
Feathers coming down for days
My moonshine still was overloaded
Time to mend my ways
Guess I always knowed it,
Life with the demon never pays
Now, all I got to get me through the night is an empty can of beer,
Half a pack of Marlboro Lights and a busted chandelier.

Never meant to shoot my hound,
I was aiming for the wife.
Seems I’m not the hottest shot in town.
Ain’t that the story of my life.
If there’s any bad luck kickin’ ‘round
It’ll head my way tonight.
Hell, all I got to see me right is a pocketful of tears,
Half a pack of Marlboro Lights and a busted chandelier.

Half a Pack of Marlboro Lights and a Busted Chandelier

These people are driving me nuts.

What is it with these people?

These people who are so desperate to be seen to be heard, and be seen to be part of the herd, that they stand up and say something.

They then apologise for having said it, when, out of a global population of 8bn, someone, like, maybe, I dunno, Quentin from Bishop's Itchington who breeds rare goats, and has an embarrassing skin problem and no friends declares himself offended by the “something” and because his goats look sad and a bit grubby and have floppy ears, twenty other people out of the 8bn declare themselves to be offended too.

Cue apology and retraction.

“These people” have no use or value in society and need to be removed from the gene pool immediately by the empowerment of balanced observers such as me.

For crying out loud.

(The artist wishes to make no apology whatsoever either for the bum notes in this live recording or the loss of his voice.  That's just how it is).

_____________________________________________________________________

Sorry

I’m sorry for whatever I just said,
I’ll now expound the opposite instead.
While what I said is simple fact sure as I’m standing here,
Twitter’s going nuts and that truth will cost me dear.
So I’ll lie right through my teeth, a heinous sin,
To keep them fat endorsement happy dollars rolling in.
Tell everyone what I don’t think, platitudes never cause a stink,
So I’ll bleat them liberal sheep’s opinions.

Now if a non-PC view slips between the cracks,
I’ll get my PR guys to hastily redact.
Get awareness training, counselling claim PTSD,
Identify as sumpin’ else, blame genetic deficiency.
I got pre-recorded “sorrys” for any trans…(gression) day,
I save apologetic time by having “sorrys” stashed away.
Use any heap of steaming crap to retract my previous monologue tract,
The plain and honest truth ain’t never going to pay.

Oh I’m sorry for what I’ve said and what I’ve not
For all the stuff I did and what I didn’t  
I must apologise for my stream of serial lies
For telling it how it is…… then how it isn’t.

Ah thank you - let me answer that by saying “sorry” first,
In case I make an un-woke inappropriate outburst.
Wouldn’t do to confuse you with something that I really thought,
Social media ripples leave my income stream distraught.
So let me for the record unequivocally state my views,
I think you’ll understand if you put you into my shoes.
Well maybe yea and maybe no, couldn’t say, it might be so,
I hope that does and doesn’t make front page news.

Oh I’m sorry for what I’ve said and what I’ve not
For all the stuff I did and what I didn’t  
I must apologise for my stream of serial lies
For telling it how it is…… then how it isn’t.

____________________________________________________________________

Photo by mark tulin on Unsplash

Sorry

I made this for my little sister; it's a string of cameos about the town where we were born and raised - a suburb of Newcastle Upon Tyne.  Low income, but real world, real people, real troubles, real joy, real love, real communities, real humour, real music, real life.  All in gloriously rough 1960's industrial working class North East England monochrome.

For those of you not from that part of the world, lyric translations back to English are available upon request. :)

Started as a scribble, pretended to be a poem for a while, then I decided to noodle along and then.....  Ah, you know how it is.....in Byker town.
__________________________________________________________________

Byker Town

Wallpaper of steam trains
Where the sweeping headlights sprawled
‘Cross the ceiling to the old piano
Up against my bedroom wall
In ‘67 the lid came down
Never played again so fair
I’m walking back to Byker town
I’ll meet you there.

Cross the bridge to get to school
Rope swings underneath
Bull’s eyes from the slaughterhouse 
Bombed out rail yard stark relief
Billy Smart’s big top’s coming down
But I don’t care
I’m walking back to Byker town
I’ll meet you there.

Stench of old men in the Raby Arms
A bottle of dog to take back yem
Dominos and baccy tins
Were all that mattered way back then
Every retail product to be found
In Ernie’s shop just six foot square
I’m walking back to Byker town
I’ll meet you there.

Quayside Sunday mornings
Champion, just the job
A week of meat to feed the bairns
For only fower bob
Scranshins from the chippy van ‘round
The side door of the Mayfair
I’m walking back to Byker town
I’ll meet you there.

Sent out on the Wednesday
In Charlie Shepherd’s finest rags
Over to the smokies
To get free broken kippers by the bag
Dad got paid when Thursday came around
Treats for us to share
I’m walking back to Byker town
I’ll meet you there.

Front step full of babbies
Grazed knees on skinny legs
Back lane rows of nappies
Her face is full of wooden pegs
He’s on the dole no work to be found
Torn bookie slips by his chair
I’m walking back to Byker town
I’ll meet you there.

Nets twitching down the road
Never washed in years
Kids with mucky faces 
Almost clean behind the ears
Never seem to have a frown
Owning only what they wear
I’m walking back to Byker town
I’ll meet you there.

Give up all the baggage I’ve got now
Of life in disrepair
I’m walking back to Byker town
I’ll meet you there.

Byker Town

Hot off the press!  Tonight’s rough and honest one track live take on a little noodled ditty thing. :)
________________________________________________________________

We live in a world of fluff and piffle.  Nothing but fluff and piffle.  

I’m pretty darned old and I can’t remember a time when so much media energy was expended on so much worthless irrelevant trivia at the expense of the real big issues.

If I was more competent at tying knots I’d be tempted to string myself up and be done with it.  But the embarrassment would be simply unbearable, sitting in the hospital Accident and Emergency Department with a partly unravelled noose around my neck and two broken ankles.

It'd be all over the papers.
____________________________________________________________________

Photo by Egor Vikhrev on Unsplash
____________________________________________________________________
  
Not for Long

Toytown time again, on air
Micro trivia issues going spare
Acronymic jokes for every square peg hole
Draped on altars of the woke for the people to behold
While Putins quietly strip the coffers bare.

Issues of the moment hit the press
Seen at the awards wearing someone else’s dress
Watchdogs and agencies baring rotted paper teeth
Victims and their lawyers litigate their plastic grief
Genocide in China clamping liberty’s duress

With my head held high, I kissed the dark
Always tried my best but I’m not that strong.
Kicked the chair away, my swinging starts,
Soon be laid to rest, but not for long.

Had enough of life’s cartoon
Thugs escorted by their comic bristled goons
The sad tale of some cat or millionaire wives’ spat
Who said what to whom and where it’s really at
I’m on my back, I’m screaming at the moon..

With my head held high, I kissed the dark
Always tried my best but I’m not that strong.
Kicked the chair away, my swinging starts,
Soon be laid to rest, but not for long.

Not For Long

I live in a country where, for example:

•	A new “animal welfare” bill will ensure that around 100 million sentient animals each year will suffer extreme, prolonged trauma and pain as they are slaughtered without having first been stunned.  This is in order to respect minority religious beliefs.
•	Male convicted child abusers and rapists who decide to “identify as a woman” have the right to serve their sentences in women-only prisons so that their rights are not compromised.
•	The desperate, hysterical craving for universal “equality” manifests itself in obscene levels of positive discrimination to deliver race / gender etc "quotas".
•	Ransoms of hundreds of millions of pounds are paid to crass despotic theocracies to release hostages – money that will fund the development of nuclear programmes that those state-agents of god intend to deploy for the obliteration of neighbouring countries and their cultures.
•	A high ranking female politician declines the invitation to define what a woman is, for fear of “being dragged down a rabbit hole”.
•	Police and local government services turn a blind eye to industrial scale sexual abuse of vulnerable young girls to avoid stirring racial tensions.
•	It is decreed that if we can’t buy our oil from a thief we may as well buy it from a murderer as pumping our own plentiful supplies locally may offend environmentalists.
•	Ad infinitum.

The country I live in used to be called England.

Last night I read her the last rights, sang her this little poem I made up for her and cradled her as she slipped fitfully away.

I didn’t bother to mark the grave.
___________________________________________________________________

The Cold Blooded Murder Of Albion

Whisper, sweet love,
Did you feel any hurt,
As they hacked at your heart
With their blunt knives of dirt?
Love of my life!
Did you feel any pain?
As they raised up their rocks
To stone your brain.

The true paragon of fair
Balanced and just.
Slain by dogmas of air
Lunatic liberal lust.
I’ll lullaby your dead heart
That pulmonary shocks can’t restart
We’re history consigned,
To bedlam resigned.
But I’d rather rot dead
Than wake in a contemporary bed
Of moral principle smoothies
In a world that eschews me.
Hush, don’t make a fuss, there’s no need to discuss
Spinning whirlpools of statuesque dust
All relics of pride, I’ve laid delicately aside
In simple disgust.

The Cold Blooded Murder Of Albion

Memories In Memoriam

I recall, or at least I thought I did,
The age before my past was hid away, 
Snippets clipped and random stashed 
In polaroid closets, their temporal locks now welded fast.
Those clocks that tick my tocks of life
Bestriding time like the neurosurgeon’s knife, 
Lobotomising my former lives, each one
Bearing sullen smiles, winsome frowns,
Their stories casting shadows out for miles and miles.
Long beyond the time my sun went down.

And wherewithal, beyond the darks,
The memories, snapped, spin clicketty clack
On spattered reels of flickered silent movie parts 
That twitch and whisk and steal me back,
‘til time itself is called, proud witness to the stand,
Evidential remembrance tracts limply held in trembling hand.
And yellow-brownbly sepia light, falling oh so slow,
Upon a mellow Cotswold riven track, 
And then, but nothing, nothing in the frontal cortex flow,
Excepting of perpetual night.  Pitchest black.


Photo by Danie Franco on Unsplash

Memories In Memoriam

A little backstory is needed here.

A few years ago I hung up my old guitar for good, having finally lost patience with my own decades-long inability to do any serious practice.  Not long afterwards, one of those things that only ever happens to other people, happened to me, when the nice consultant explained that the source of the pain was a large tumour in my throat.

During the fun and games of treatment over the subsequent months I made a few deals with myself regarding how things would change if we came out of the other side alive and reasonably intact.  One of these was a commitment to getting my old guitar out again and working at it;  the quid pro quo being a new, decent guitar in the event that any signs of progress appeared.  I even held out the hope that I might start scribbling out a few songs again, not having done so for many, many years.

That I now have ever so slightly more than one decent guitar hanging on my wall is not a reflection of the degree of progress, just my tendency to re-interpret the rules of the game sometimes....

A few weeks back, the nice consultant explained that he didn't want me ever to darken his door again as he could see no need to continue the checkups.  For the best of reasons.  

No "All Clear"s in this game of course, just probability curves, a fact sadly demonstrated, also few weeks back, when a very brave lady who was not so fortunate as I, lost her own battle with cancer.  She was Dame Deborah James.  A teacher, who, in the words of her family, shared her experience of cancer to "raise awareness, break down barriers, challenge taboos and change the conversation around cancer.  Even in her most challenging moments, her determination to raise money and awareness was inspiring". 

This is one of the first songs I wrote after picking up the guitar again.  The lyrics are odd in places … that morphine, it lingers in the bloodstream you know.... :) and you may apply to them what metaphors you wish.

I decided to make the quiet, simple, one take, live version of “Genuflection” offered here as a small personal tribute to the bravery of Dame Deborah.  It is far from perfect, but not far from the heart.
_________________________________________________________________

Genuflection

As sensibility subsides, my spirit lies
In shattered fragments, scattered with the roses at my feet.
A plastic destiny confides what was never meant for real;
An unholy desecration that is scarcely incomplete.

A storm-tossed foreign sea, has driven me
To the reef, with smiling Lucifer’s contaminant collusion.
My bloodshot welling eyes offer thin disguise;
Translucent as the glass before my naked self-delusion.

A sleet-swept breeze hit my bright horizons.
I’m on my knees, black moon rising.
Sweet salvation, my long lost friend,
I’m on my knees,… again.

Fractured rainbows hold the storm, heaven-sent;
Kaleidoscopic essence of the life behind the deal.
Enraptured scarecrows take the form of a living testament
To the martyr’s psyche slowly being broken on the wheel.

Earth gathers dry husks as they fall, and Charon calls;
My antimony confidante, gasps breathless at the shore.
The coin I proffer him today secures my solitary way
To the shadow that’s imprisoned me so many times before.

A sleet-swept breeze hit my bright horizons.
I’m on my knees, black moon rising.
Sweet salvation, my long lost friend,
I’m on my knees,… again.

A sleet-swept breeze hit my bright horizons.
I’m on my knees, uncompromising.
Peace of mind? I left him way behind.
I’m on my knees,… again.

Genuflection

You do get some nice surprises in this SC audiosphere of ours.

Imagine my delight when out of the blue Paco dropped me a note saying he'd composed some music and wondered if I might have a bash at some lyrics to match.  Of course, I jumped at the chance.

It transpired that his composition wasn't about anything in particular, rather, it was just one of those pieces that sort of emerge from a theme somewhere and grow into something very worthwhile but difficult to "place".  However, in our discussions about possible development ideas, I couldn't help but notice Paco's deep affection for his home city of Seville, and there’s only ever one outcome when England meets Seville…. 

Thank you so much, Paco, for the invitation to make some musical marmalade -  it was a hoot “jamming” with you!

Check out Paco's brilliant stream here: https://soundcloud.com/sonido-reflexivo
_________________________________________________________________

Hot Seville Night

Softly as the dusk,
Certain as the easy sunrise
No need to rush,
Time stands still before your eyes.
Watching as the world plays out,
All its crazy bright tomorrows.
Ebbs and flows of human tide
Cool air hanging in the shadows,
Of a sweet perfumed, hot Seville night.

Orange blossom rain
Lazy jasmine musks the air
Aroma showers fall again
Kids with petals in their hair
In these melancholic times
Family smiles caught unaware
Bring sanity and peace of mind
Citrus blessings freely shared
In a sweet perfumed, hot Seville night.

Hot Seville Night
Senses move to ease the spirit
Wishing  I was back there in it,
My Hot Seville Night

Magic jacaranda sway
Violet through the Alcazar
Ancient histories replay
Laughter from the tapas bars
Rose flamenco passions flare
burning scarlet in delight
Festive celebration colours
Billow everywhere in sight
On a sweet perfumed, hot Seville night.

On a sweet perfumed, hot Seville night.......

Hot Seville Night (MidiSound asks 1234567890 to come out to play)

There I was, diligently practicing my palm muted walking basslines when The Boys dropped by.

The practice session never stood a chance.

Here's a little homage to simpler times.
____________________________________________________________________

Neeps ‘n’ Tatties

Don’t need no haute cuisine, come dinner time.
A simple guy like me got simple tastes.
Don’t need no six course menu, sommelier’s fancy wine.
I’m happy drinking beer by the case.
The honest things in life are the ones that always shine,
So get your pan a-boilin’ babe, your neeps ‘n’ tatties do me fine.

Don’t need no fashionista plastic tik tok model girl
I love my honey baby, she always aims to please
Drivin’ me half crazy as she gives a little twirl
She’s muckin’ out the hogs in her muddy dungarees
Keep yer high fallutin’ “A” list, I’ll keep that sweet gal of mine.
Get your pan a-boilin’ babe, your neeps ‘n’ tatties do me fine.

……

Billionaires of tinsel sniffing venison carpaccio
Braised black cherry duck, meets Pol Roger
Praise the Lord I’m still connected to where I wanna go
Me and my sweet baby on our way, we’re headin’ there.
In our home of rustic truth we find pure living, love divine,
So get your pan a-boilin’ babe, your neeps ‘n’ tatties do me fine.

Neeps ‘n’ Tatties

Broken Pearls

Every year I try to make a little song to commemorate remembrance day in November. The month of August is also historically significant, though.  In August 1914 the massed cartoon insanity of old-world braided huffing and puffing empires slammed into stark reality when over the course of a few days: Germany declared war on Russia, France and Belgium; Britain declared war on Germany; Austria-Hungary declared war on Russia; France and Britain declared war on Austria-Hungary; Japan declared war on Germany; and Austria-Hungary declared war on Belgium. Dear God.

Herbert Burden was one of many young men who decided to do “the right thing” and lied about his age to enlist.  He endured 10 months of fighting, shelling and gas attacks in the front line trenches in France, lost many friends and was himself eventually hospitalised.  On discharge from hospital his battalion received orders to return to the front line.  Herbert went AWOL and was found at a neighbouring regiment where he said he had gone to comfort a friend who had lost a brother in the fighting.  

Herbert became the youngest British soldier to be executed by firing squad for desertion.  

He was seventeen years old, alone, given no defence at his trial, blindfolded, arms tied behind his back, lashed to a post and shot at dawn on 21st July 1915.

God rest his soul.

The picture is of a statue of Herbert which stands at the British National Memorial Arboretum as part of an installation to commemorate the 306 of their own soldiers executed by the British Army during WW1.

I felt this needed to be done raw in one take so please excuse the rough edges.
______________________________________________________________________

Broken Pearls

Come the night, through singing clouds
Of old men crying on war's recall,
Pastel light hits bleeding shrouds
Still defying, backs to wall.
Morphine hymns through organ pipes
Hairs on end, standard unfurled
Shell shock sins 'neath starburst lights
Set to defend their broken pearls.

His mother spoke through spilling tears
God beside, with angel choirs.
He then awoke – pain chilling sears
Deep inside his burning fires.
Camphor dreams through ether prayers
Uniformed boys mustard gas swirls
Just seventeen, mere child's nightmares.
Discarded toy, of broken pearls.

Weeping crows in ¾ time
Belie the crown, lay down to die.
Wreaths below, left countersigned
Head bowed down, blindfolded eyes.
Hot leaded hopes absolve the rich
Salvo thunder suspends our world
On posted ropes slumped heroes twitch
And rent asunder our broken pearls.

Broken Pearls

Ever felt like life is passing you by?

You're just crossing off the days?

Ticking down the time?
_______________________________________________________________

Ticking

Ticking down the time.
Nowhere at the speed of light,
Nothing in my mind.
A dream of futures past.
Precious in my heart,
But it never came to pass.
Rearranged all my drawers of memory's worn out socks,
Corrected all my broken lifetime's kitchen clocks.
Just ticking down the time.

Ticking down the time.
Backwards at the speed of life,
Burdened in my mind.
Who stole it all away?
The clarity of thought
That defined me yesterday.
Dusted all the volumes on my memory's shelf,
Time-lapsed photographic of my former self.
Just ticking down the time.

Tomorrow calls in shades of black,
I swear these walls are staring back,
We waltz our falls in spiral mime,
Just ticking down the time.

Ticking down the time.
Lights out on the road ahead,
Fog come down behind.
Ready to anoint
The corpse of a life history
Shrivelled to a point.
JPEG'd out the detail of the smiling years,
Algorithmically compressed into this room of tears,
Where I'm just ticking down the time.
_______________________________________________________________

Photo by Charles Deluvio on Unsplash

Ticking

Well, my good friend Paco dropped me a note to say he had a piece of music to which I might like to try and add something, were I so inclined.  Always a good day when that happens.

Now, I can't honestly recall the precise sequence in which the neurons fired inside my skull to yield the result we have here, but we are where we are as they say.

Don't go looking at me for rationale.

Thank you, Paco, as always my friend, for inviting me to come out to play, and for mastering the end result in the midst of untold techno-horror grief.  I hope your DAW world resolves itself very soon.
______________________________________________________________________

Socrates at Sundown

I lie bewildered, here, in my sphere of cubes,
On crushed silk cushions sprawled.
I sketch the cool Palladian dudes
In charcoal, on Aleutian walls.
They think I know what thoughts are theirs,
And beg to trade their graceless airs, 
But I left them there to climb their stairs
Ever downward through Athenian halls.

They say my knowledge is remiss,
The diabolical's back in town.
Seems ignorance is bliss
For this philosophical clown.
I'm seeking emptiness of mind,
That's where I hope to find
That old, old friend of mine,
Socrates, at sundown.

My associate, Plato knows the game
Survives through pretty dialogue
He suffocates but bestows his shame
On city states whose statutes fog
The heads of people in their ranks
Attentive on the Eridanos banks
Dispensing death by way of thanks
As justice shreds its cogs.

Deep mental grasp of social structure
No need to ever write it down
Accused outcast for youth's corrupture
Where the bleeding of democracy is bound
To seek the causal end of time
Of Aristotle and Nietzsche's kind
The men of Athens rendered blind
Killed that old, old friend of mine,
Socrates, at sundown.

Socrates At Sundown (with MidiSound)

I certainly don't need to tell you that there is, of course, a limit to human ingenuity.  Interplanetary travel, the eradication of smallpox, room temperature fusion are all very well, but as a species we will most likely always shake our heads in wonderment at the two unfathomable mysteries of the universe:  does the light really go out in the fridge when you close the door?  And how come leaves only ever blow into the garage and not back out again?

Now if I've understood the science pages right, I believe those clever folk at CERN and NASA have been working hard on the fridge door paradox (give up guys – can't be done) but even they recognise the futility of trying to crack the garage leaf blues.

I'll admit I haven't actually done this, but it is an absolute certainty that if you went to the very centre of the Nullarbor Plain, built a little garage, opened the door and looked the other way for just a second – there'd be a ruddy leaf in there.

Can't be solved.  Something to do with corridors in the space / time continuum.  

Or God, the bugger.

Drives me nuts.
_____________________________________________________________________

Leaf in My Garage Blues

Woke me up this mornin'
Blues on my mind
Lord knows I got my troubles
Of the foliage kind.
Another leaf in my garage
I ain't got room for any cars
There's a one way traffic fluid dynamic
Tell me baby, what that all about?
Them leaves a-blowin' in, 
But they don't never blowin' out.

My baby done gone left me
My blues is slidin' lower
Found herself a better guy
With a huge leaf blower.
Tragedy in my garage,
It's Autumn in my broken heart,
A one way traffic love dynamic.
Lord is this the penance, for the evil of my sin?
Leaves ain't never blowin' out, 
But forever blowin' in.
____________________________________________________________________

Photo by Tommaso Pecchioli on Unsplash

Leaf In My Garage Blues

Old man screams at the world again – as best he can....

This war in Ukraine – it's different.  The ongoing butchery being inflicted by Putin (Satan's emissary from hell) is not just upon Ukraine, but deliberately upon his own people, for his own aggrandisement.

Our protagonists in this brief prayer / lament are a couple of young men.  Young Russians. Conscripts.  Last week they were at home, now they are incarcerated in an ancient soviet-era tank that has just been hit by a drone-dropped grenade.  They are trapped, wounded, burning horribly and about to meet their maker when the ammunition magazine, upon which they sit, goes up....rendering them vapourised.  ..... Stardust. 

They know this full well, 
….in their slow-mo, Putin-inflicted hell.

And you and I watch, enthralled.  YouTube is awash with video clips of Russians being hit by drones, missiles or artillery - in tanks, aircraft, or trenches - it's become a form of voyeuristic entertainment - somehow neatly detached from the horror of the reality.  How convenient.  How antiseptic.

We may take as a given that Putin is a deranged, and/or deluded evil war criminal. He knows what he does, and why.  But I suspect that many of those he is sending to their grim end are innocent young guys who have been fed a diet of lies from birth whilst the money was thieved from their pockets and the bread from their mouths by the despot-favoured oligarchs.  These kids have no interest in war or restoration of the USSR.  They were most likely frogmarched to the conscription office by KGB thugs, given a moth eaten old uniform and stuffed into their steel coffins.  

This is no “pity poor Russia” rant;  perpetrating a heinous wave of war crimes we have freed prisoners, hardened veterans and Wagner mercenaries in the mix too.  I'm focused on the others.  The passives, the bewildered, the lambs.  

Lord only knows what murderous pain these cannon fodder "innocents" suffer while the world watches indifferently, mouths agape, dehumanised on YouTube, with reminders to “subscribe” and “like” - dear God.

We're used to war correspondents - but this is on another level - seeking "hits" of another kind to pump ad revenues and subscriber numbers.  Front line hideous death as a macabre circus, a fun spectator sport, theme park fun fair ride - Call of Duty meets reality with money attached.... It's sick.  How long before “big game hunters” pay big bucks for the privileged thrill of hitting the “release” button on those grenades and joyfully watching their prey squirm?  Probably already happening.

God bless the peace loving people of Ukraine;  may the entirety of their lands be restored to them and democratic moral justice served.

God bless the peace loving people of Russia;  may the lunatic yoke of satan be removed from them, and democratic moral justice served.

This is live, one take, one track, one mic and painful listening as my voice is shot for some reason – but as such, it carries the pain and shame of what we, the human race, have become.

Lord hear our prayer.

Thank you for your patience in the presence of a screaming old man.
_____________________________________________________________________

Stardust

Roll on up, for my carousel.
Bitcoin bucks, got souls to sell.
Place your bets on this human race.
Dead heat face to face.

Our mothers' rosaries can't defend
With timeless prayers they kneel to send
We brothers, whose bones they rend
Back to stardust once again.

Home run hit, on my ghost train ride.
Camo drones dripping cyanide.
Killing tribe bowls another strike
Hit subscribe, don't forget to “like”.

Forget our Patriarch's portend,
Hold these burning hands my friend,
This screaming hell will surely end
And we'll be stardust once again.

Stardust

As each November approaches I try to make my own little Remembrance-time tribute.  Seems more relevant as each year passes...

Following the huffing and puffing empire lunacy in the summer of 1914, the next four years would see 40 million casualties, half of them deaths and of those, half were civilian.  

40 million.

40 million tales of poignancy, pain, grief and human tragedy, through times that can often seem littered with coincidence, symmetries …. bookends and mirrors.

In the Military Cemetery of St Symphorien near Mons rests John Parr.  At only five foot three inches and several years under age he (amazingly) managed to enlist in 1912 - hoping to see the world, and get the advertised “two square meals” a day.  He was the first British Army casualty, killed in the battle of Mons aged just 17, his body left behind, fate unknown until much later in the conflict;  the army unable to answer his mother’s letters of enquiry about her “silent” son.

By pure coincidence, John lies just a few yards from the last British soldier to die in the great war.  George Ellison served for four long years including at the same first battle of Mons as John, and most of the famously grinding, attritional infantry battles of the conflict.  His working life bookended by military service, George had first enlisted in 1902, leaving the army in 1912, just as John joined, he became a coal miner, re-enlisting at the outbreak of war to dig mud not coal and fight from trenches he helped excavate.  George was killed just 90 minutes before the armistice took effect at 11:00 on the 11th day of the 11th month.  The futility of the conflict was cruelly illustrated by the fact that George’s war had started and ended at exactly the same place, Mons in Belgium.  They had literally gone nowhere.

As a postscript to progress since "the war to end all wars" the human race is currently reckoned to be engaged in 7 major wars, 15 significant ongoing conflicts and 21 “minor” conflicts (the latter defined as up to "only” 1000 deaths per year).  By way of another macabre bookend, the longest of these has been going on, unbelievably, since the year .... 1918.

As always, this simple ballad is offered as a live one mic one take effort - please excuse the fluffs and gaffes.
_______________________

Bookends and Mirrors

Sun turned cold ‘cross every sky in the summer of ‘14
The Good Lord shook his head, and he placed it in his hands
Braided declarations flying, whose like was never seen
Lunatics in feathers stockpiled lead, bagged their sand.
Slapstick Mephistopheles, unleashing of his flame
Spiral minds lobotomised in the waltz of the insane
Simple lives unknowing of the mud that would become
A mirror in the resting place of two Holy Mother’s sons.

Signed the line, five years young, fingers crossed behind his back
Chance to see the world, grab a future, two square meals.
At 17, John’s angels sung, first to fall in dawn’s attack
Abandoned and forgotten, deaf to all his ma’s appeals.
Never knew the miner, his bookend pal to be
Fighting down the line, many battles that he’d see
Full four years in trenches, George’s hell lived through them all
Cruelty was smiling wide at England’s last to fall.

In service time they travelled nowhere, nothing to achieve
Embracing 40 million weeping mothers left to grieve
The crime of puffing chest bravado beggared to believe
Hall of mirrors seeping others’ blood of the innocent naive.

Now John and George lie facing each to seek their mirrored peace
Raise my eyes and brim a tear for the lessons never learned
Pray God, don’t ever let them know man’s insanity but increased
The war to end all wars a mere sequel oft’ returned 
By comedies of leathered fools stuck on infinite repeat
Bemedalled and bejewelled, they prosecute their moral defeat
But here, on sallow turf twixt heroes, broken mirror in my broken hand
Met by my own broken eyes, I still fail to understand.
_________
Photo by Michael Yuan on Unsplash

Bookends and Mirrors

Well as the clocks go forward tonight, (or maybe back - I never can remember), meaning we gain (or is it lose?) an hour, (though obviously we don't really), so it will be darker (or lighter) in the morning (or is it evening?) I thought it would be timely, as it were, to take a moment, and draw from my deep intellectual insight into the matter to explain all there is to know about that tricky little bugger, time.  

You're welcome.

Starting as a ditty which was then utterly transformed with Seagull's production, arrangement and musical genius, drawing on Dan-DT's deft touch on the soft squidgy bits, it was eventually incorporated into Seagull's brilliant "Compendium of Time".  Why not take a little of your own to watch it on YouTube here :

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJqh6iXnTaXJL-MkyxWQ_UV-H6vTtiVv3

You can find more of Seagull's beautiful music here:

https://soundcloud.com/farout-music-studio

And Dan's audio craftsmanship here:

https://soundcloud.com/dan-t-3
_____________________________________________________________________________

Old Father Time

Did you commence, at once, or have you always ever been
And will your pounding heartbeat ever cease?
Are you a sense, or force, or something other in between?
Simply ticking down to each and every last release?
Is your pulse rate constant in this exponential universe?
Or does my biology speed the tempo of your rhyme?
Why are the lifespans of your subjects so potentially diverse?
Do you hear me cry your name, Old Father Time?

Is your mission merely measure, or are you yourself the cause
Of evolution and decay of matter's elementary doom?
Are you the seemly pressure on the future's pending pause
Ethereally benign or other natural force subsume?
Can you shift like rays in prisms, temporal rainbows to behold
Are you the cause of age or do you simply count it's lines
Is your rounded face imprisoned in a cell numbered twelvefold
Do you hear me cry your name, Old Father Time?

At terminal expansion of our present universe
For its destined re-contraction to begin
Will your hands slow to a halt then slip into reverse
Or count us down in forward time back to our origin?
Will the ultimate compaction trigger seasonal adjust
Predicate upon your base the final great rewind?
Then will you recommence or revert back to gently ticking dust?
Do you hear me cry your name, Old Father Time?
______________________________________________________________________
Photo - a little holiday snap from NASA's astonishing James Webb Space telescope

Old Father Time - with Seagull and Dan-DT

This world of ours is nuts.

So, in an act of utter lunarcy I have decided to marry the moon and bugger off somewhere else.

Herewith my serenaded pledge of love and proposal of marriage.

I have every confidence.

Goodbye everyone.

Goodbye.
__________________________________________________________________________

Selene

Now every sun has set
Dark as it can get
No dawn will bless my crescent dreams
Of touchdown on your crater lips
Sweet penumbrally eclipsed
Selene
Entrust me to Tranquility’s sea of moondust for infinity
Phase my mind with dark-side thoughts pristine
Selene

Unpick your tidal lock
Let that planet run amok
Let’s spin away to astral pastures green
Helium-3 wedding isotope
We’ll solar system-atically elope
Selene
Ultimate caesarean birth, father Theia and mother earth
I adore your ellipsoidal slight scalene
Selene

Your pert axial tilts will carry me, ah won’t you marry me?
We’ll wax and wane as one, making moonlets, the stars between
Selene
_______________________________________________________________________
Photo courtesy of NASA

Selene

Something like a quarter of the people you looked at today will have some form of mental health issue this year.

Far more than that will be seriously impacted by the mental health struggles of their loved ones.

I made this for someone very special.  

Seemed more honest done in one take.
________________________________________
Glide Path

Breaking of the snow
Turns my head, to face the west
Where memories play for show
They never rest.
Eyes are clouding down
The more I hide, the less I smile
Saddest clown
For miles and miles.

Portrait of my face
Staring back, from times long past
The blackest space
Where my shadow’s cast.
Conversation stalls
Me and I, in fractured sense,
Childhood’s pall
On emotion’s fence

And where from here?
And when to there?
And what of fear?
And who should care?
And why the tears?
And whose despair?
And how to see,
What once was me?

Water kissing salt
Cry of pain, dissolves my mind
It’s all my fault
Crevasses of the conscious kind
Sharpest form of dark
Biting hard, my ego’s lip
Laser stark
As focus slips
________________________________________
Photo by Cherry Laithang on Unsplash

Glide Path

When I was in infant school my class was a ragbag bunch of scruffy working class urchins, self included.  National health glasses held together with band aids, hand-me-down clothes, bruises, jam sandwiches.  There was a kid in that class who was very quiet, often absent.  Good at reading.  Good at running.  Kept himself to himself.  Sat at the back, never made eye contact.  Never put his hand up.

Turns out he was very deaf and spending a lot of time in hospital with operations of various sorts.

When he was seven he was given a hearing aid - huge thing the size of a transistor radio that sat in his shirt pocket.  The story I heard was that when he first went home with it his mam took him for a walk down a country lane to try it out.  He was very upset that it was obviously broken - all sorts of odd scratching and buzzing noises.

They eventually realised that he was hearing insects for the first time.  

Imagine that.

Often wonder what became of him.
_________________________________________________________________________

Huge thanks to my two friends here: Paco for inspiring and driving this project with his wonderful music, and Oddrun for lifting my simple lyrical efforts to another level entirely.
__________________________________________________________________________

A Good Boy

A symphony of crushing silence 
Played his timpani of weathered clay
Under lowered eyes that cried defiance
He’d softly make his quiet way
A guiding star that burned with life, but ever failed to shine
Kept his distance, from afar, no avatar to hide behind
He’s a good boy, so they say, in their condescending, pitied way.

Inputs built of aural mud are clinically desensitised
Muffled whispers trundle under cobbled skies of grizzled grey
Dreams and aspirations that never could be realised
He’d tightly close his eyes and lightly kneel to pray
Social cripple loner ‘neath a joker’s plastic smiles
Silent rippled mannequin, cartoon audio spastic child
He’s a good boy, so they say, in their well meaning, hurtful way.

Flip the switch and hear the light
Bear witness to the revelation
A trip to day-sound from his silent night
Demolishing all his expectations
Sweet blushing kiss of angels’ eyes
One of them has turned the volume dial
To flush his muted domicile
And hear the crickets singing on the chamomile

So cast the light fine, on the deafened child’s mind
And let the sound shine as the clearest of days
A new world’s flight is leaving dark behind
Clarity rebound leads the way
Breathe the noise, of those blissful waves
Touch the sense as darkness fades
He’s a good boy,…..he’s a good boy…..

So swing the arc’s beam, bless the lonesome soul
Illumination wakes the inner self
Warmth of seemliness melts the cold
Communication taken off the shelf
Breathe the noise, of those blissful waves
Touch the sense as darkness fades
He’s a good boy,…..he’s a good boy …. He’s a good boy now.

A Good Boy:  MidiSound, Oddrun Eikli, 1234567890

....I hope he will forgive the presumption...
____________________________________________________________________

This little project only stirred into life when graced with the pulse of Debbie's wonderful accompaniment and the breath of David's visionary arrangement and production.  Thank you both, dear friends.

Find Debbie's piano music here: https://soundcloud.com/debra_buesking
and David's guitar music here: https://soundcloud.com/david-dunhamuser589535203
_____________________________________________________________________

.... Inspired By Mr. Pärt's Spiegels

Dear God, just look at the state of you - what the hell happened?
Did time do that all by itself?
Chiselled and scraped with gentle, temporal strength?
Yesterdays now patterned well with telling tales of wear and tear.
Always took such good care that you ticked every health kick box
But all the ticks collect their tocks, bundling up the time we thought was dangling spare.

And wrinkly skin comes out to play, crafting plots with crumpled neurons badly frayed, and
Liver spots about the edges worn of happy recollections,
Waltzed away, invisible to the swinging of that penduled clock.
Take your eyes off it for just a minute and you’ve lost a day, 
And then a decade’s worth of wry reflections,
Lovingly to fold them up and let them lie in memory’s pocket.

Those lines that contour of your brow, a biography of creases now
And all cut down so very deep.
Each epidermal void crevasse life’s stylus tracks a scratching past
Evinces of a record no mortal hard re-format could delete.
And of your eyes, sallow yellowed at the margins, framed by corvid feet
Rigid-set to well outlast whatever bargained span of life your good Lord deems replete.

As if your face lampoons of age itself, wrecked and bent
Of scars that trace minutiae, carved in master sculptors’ stone
And none too soon, for just that task and that alone, recording compressed of the past..
We both know well which ones are smiles and which the pain that heaven sent,
The former few, soft of the flesh, the many others sunk unto the very bone,
The harshest welt of any sole upon the universal cobbler’s last.

But does it help to so reflect, or but to hurry time’s neglect?
Of such consideration circles wrapped in worry tearing down
All edifice of self respect, the towering pit of pity comes once more to town,
Parades a circus fine of talents, self deprecating jestered clowns
And galloping horses all the while stampede about the rounded ropes
Vespered peace forever sought, just out of reach, concedes of futile, now confounded hopes.

So what of forward self projection, folding the creases back behind
And out of sight to speculation on future solaced peace of mind?
Perhaps again the crashing wall of fast reality, solid bricked
Determines upward focus but to fall, as if to gravity’s grounded truth 
Tricked of consequential solitude, rimed of age, aching of the aged sick
No respite there nor rectitude as once you found in torrid youth.

But perhaps I’m speaking out of turn and out of place,
For though your memories sear and burn as if to carbonise some worthwhile trace of validity
On that unholy visage lit by lives lived long before….
It matters not and changes nought, not a jot nor yet a thought
For you and I know better than to seek a settled score from comment fair
After all, you are I, staring back at me from the mirror mounted there.

.... Inspired By Mr. Pärt's Spiegels ... With Debra Buesking and David Dunham

It's not often that an entire nation suddenly has its hands unshackled, its mouth ungagged and its cell door left ajar with an open invitation to leave the darkness and step into the light.

So, Syria, what's it to be?

Hmmm...?

_____________________________________________________________________________

Find Seagull's music here:  https://soundcloud.com/farout-music-studio

Find David's music here:  https://soundcloud.com/david-dunhamuser589535203

Artwork by Seagull
_____________________________________________________________________________

Mother Syria

Hold my hand up to the sun to reach this smouldered rubble
Lift my eyes again with little patience left in trust
Assad years, father and son, each the devil’s double
Gassed and burned my cradle nation to blood-soaked mental dust

With his face alight the new guy’s mission, pure, sent from heaven
Promises truth, gold, light and god in his virgin presidential pledge
In the dead of night autocracy voted AK47
New boots crush freedom’s fingertips, as they’re clinging to the ledge

Mother Syria at the crossroads, will your ancient beauty shine,
That cradled understanding of things earthly and divine?

Mother Syria at the crossroads, will your ancient beauty shine,
Or should we prepare the palliatives for your sectarian decline?

Mother Syria at the crossroads, will your ancient beauty shine,
On the path of sane humanity or on diabolos’ design?

Mother Syria will you renounce the suicide bomber’s blast?
Maybe seek out peace at last?

Mother Syria   ...   with Seagull and David Dunham

Funny old world.  Whilst scrumping about on SC my travels took me to Michele's cloud where I alighted on his track as named above. Sharp intake of breath and a hurried message to Michele to ask if he might be so kind as to permit me to pen a few words to accompany it.  He graciously agreed.  Having nothing in mind at the time I hastily back-pedalled and explained that it might be best if he didn't hold his breath....next day I listened again and Mr Spotty Book called over Mr Pen for a chat.  What followed in the next hour or so is somewhat blurred.  I always try to read a text in one take, for integrity's sake.  This was my fourth attempt and the only one I managed to complete.  

I decided to quit while I was ahead.

Thank you, Michele, for the warm nostalgic smile infused in this wonderful music of yours, and for the (unexpectedly moist) journey upon which it took me.

Find Michele's music here:  https://soundcloud.com/michele-ansani
________________________________________________________________________________

All the old little things we have lost

Of course, you know, Dad, that some stuff doesn’t work too well these days.
I’ll forget odd bits and bobs, like, maybe having lunch or doing promised jobs
Blimey, even birthdays on occasion slip the mind
As today’s neurons disconnect, recall’s evasion of my yesterdays so to find.
I actually forgot why I came into this room in the first place
Stood a while, cast about, then saw your face
Your smile leaping out from the old photo there
Engendered mine, returned, locked in loving stare
And propelled me back to play in those monochrome years
You know, our old box brownie’s still tucked away in the cupboard under the stairs.

Remember how it was, Dad,  how we lived, things we had?
Thrupenny bits and ha’pennies and bikes with hard rubber wheels
Plastic shoes and sock holes darned
Sparse but regular high carb, high fat meals
Never did us any harm
Hand-me-downs all around, we craved the latest style
Segs in shoes and outside loos
A homely fireplace, though just the one
We’d huddle round, our toasting forks with crumpets on, and laughing all the while

So I won’t forget all the old little things we have lost
Things so casually into history’s family album tossed
But neither have I lost my tendency to tears, welling soft
From the broken heart that burned for you, 
Then split apart and turned to frost
That day you died, just fifty two, so very young.
Who’d have thought that all those old little things
Would fill the font of memory springs 
From which this tearful smile of mine has sprung.

All the old little things we have lost: some words set to the music of Michele Ansani

One of the more enriching aspects of a collab' project like this, is the exchange of ideas, drivers and perceptions about the topic at hand;  please note that those which follow are mine alone.

Find Seagull's brilliant music here: https://soundcloud.com/farout-music-studio
Find David's beautiful guitar work here: https://soundcloud.com/david-dunhamuser589535203
___________________________________________________________________________

And so it rains… here, in the pile of moral and cultural rubble roughly where a place called England used to be.  Rain that is not acid, but acrid, coming, as it does, from the persistent shower of vile spittle emanating from the crooked mouths of the horde of liars, cheats, frauds and fornicators at Westminster.  Their policies as illegitimate as their credentials (and certain other aspects of their lives), these creatures shuffle about at the feet of their gay muslim billionaire benefactor / puppetmaster, shamelessly lapping up his tossed treats and trinkets in return for unfettered access to the heart of an executive whose mission is as fraudulent as its mandate: the eradication of the indigenous population, its culture and its history.  Their tools of the trade familiar to any rapacious despot of a failed state: fabricated manifestos; indoctrination to brainwash; history rewritten; injunctions to stem free speech; cancelled elections;  suppression of mainstream media through litigative threat;  transformation of the national broadcaster to the faithful puppy propaganda mouthpiece of the party machine; and hands-on directive control of judiciary and police functions to impose a vindictive and vicious two tier justice system within which peaceful protestors are handed brutal custodial sentences leading to a (no doubt welcome) uptick in prison suicides, as others, of a different ethnic background, violently assault a female police officer or stand on podiums with megaphones, exhorting the crowds before them to slash throats, and then walk free with police protection whilst the precious human rights of convicted terrorists are nurtured even as the mouths of their victims’ loved ones are sealed with gagging orders.  Oh, and should you wish, in this crumbling Year Zero aspirational autocracy, to publicly reject the learned principles underpinning any particular religious faith, then the aforementioned politically directed police will happily offer you a light for any holy text you wish to burn in order to make your point.  With one exception.  And it isn’t the bible....

And so it rains….
___________________________________________________________________________
Photo by Norbert Tóth on Unsplash

Rain ... with Seagull and David Dunham

Hey everyone - Mr Spotty Book and I thought we'd quickly rattle off a chirpy little choon to try and capture the global mood of the moment.  You're welcome!

By rather clever use of an unedited, zero production, rough one-shot take, a woefully failing voice and the virtuoso  touch of a buzzing string, I think I've successfully managed to impart an air of total amateurishness to the piece.  A level of rustic backwoods front porch authenticity that them there pro's can only dream of.... :)

Have a brilliant day.
________________________________________________________________________________
The Good Earth Calls

Watching dust play evening’s light
Skips the beams, or so it seems
I’m wondering if dust has dreams
When it settles out of sight.
Finest diamond has its flaws
Don’t need perfection just because
I listen, and the good earth calls, tonight.

Misplaced trust, screaming lies
Pollen falls in howling squalls
A shattered world that just appals
Such a sorry sight that greets my eyes
As crypto fool’s gold they adore 
Flotsam morals wash these shores
I listen, and the good earth calls, tonight.

Staring at my feet what do I see
Best support I got and the only ones for free
Guess that’s how the hammer falls
I listen, and the good earth calls, for me

Made my peace to seek respite
Watching clouds for hours and hours
Prone within this bed of flowers
Withered as the line of hopes I’d write
Life’s pearl had deeply fissured cracks
Optimism took two steps back
I listened, and the good earth called, tonight.

Athena breathed life to my clay
Clay don’t cost much but that’s okay
Lord I listened, ……….when the good earth called, tonight.
________________________________________________________________________________
Photo by Patti Black on Unsplash

The Good Earth Calls

I am blessed with a treasured friend whose name is Sue.  

Sue is the very embodiment of humanity.  Kind, selfless, giving, loving, unassuming, warm, smiling, understanding.  Were you lucky enough ever to meet Sue, you’d never know that she carries a heavy burden carefully, and gently tucked away in a very private place within her heart.

This song is for Sue, and all mothers who, like her, have lost a son in the most tragic of circumstances, with no opportunity to help, hold, comfort or say goodbye.

Sue won’t ever hear this, but if she did, I know she’d forgive the rough edges and clumsies because she is only capable of seeing good.  

Originally intended as a quick one-take late night aide-memoire, it comes from the heart more than any of my subsequent attempts to improve it.  I've left it unedited, uncompromised, pure and honest.  Rather like Sue.

_____________________________________________________________________________
Solace

When first you nestled in my arms and my eyes met with yours
A bonding fused in love, that could never be undone.
Sheltered you from harm as childhood lightly ran its course
Giving thanks to God above for the blessing you’d become.

Of your blossoming maturity I watched with glowing pride
Reaching for your touch to find that now we’re worlds apart,
Stolen by fate’s cruelty, that wrenches yet inside
Ever present in my mind, forever in my heart.

As angels wrapped in heaven, soon our eyes shall meet and then
In the clarity of peace we’ll find our solace once again.

And now I live by memory tides that flood tomorrow’s shore
Your picture sitting in my palm, lifts my spirit gently, where,
The strongest, warmest love abides and shall do evermore
A love dispensing soothing balm anoints my silent prayer.

Though the space between is wide as the celestial abyss
There’s a place within my heart, from which I offer only this,
As angels wrapped in heaven, soon our eyes shall meet and then,
In the clarity of peace we’ll find our solace once again.
________________________________________________________________________________
Photo by David Monje on Unsplash

Solace

What a damned shame that after some six million years of human evolution, two and a half thousand years of democracy and eight centuries of habeas corpus, we look about us and see most of the planet ruled by thugs.  Wherever you turn, oppressive regimes hiding behind the tattered sacks of the shattered fragments of their failed, preposterous, sham ideologies assault the fundamentals of basic human liberty while the world stands and watches.  Not just the real pro’s - the arch criminal nepotistic despots of China, Russia and North Korea but most of the basket case that is Africa and great swathes of South America, Asia, Eastern Europe and the Middle East.

And England.

Lucy Connolly is a political prisoner.  Victim of the corrupt filth now running the smouldering ashes of what used to be a democratic place called England.  As the odious, grasping, duplicitous, fraudulent crook Keir Starmer coddles his twisted, immoral coterie he spits on the scales of justice to suit his imbalanced, misguided, destructive, lunatic cravings.

I make no apologies for reposting this protest against vicious human rights injustice, but I hang my head in shame that here it shines a light on the judicial farce that the country I love, has now become.

If you are unaware of this travesty, look here:

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/05/21/lucy-connolly-sentence-rapists-paedophiles-terror/
___________________________________________________________________________________

Penny for Your Thoughts

A penny for your thoughts my friend, as the shades befall our eyes.
A penny for your thoughts my friend, our last sunrise sanctified.
Can your heart excuse the scoundrels that crucified our pride?
Has your spirit taken refuge where false memories reside?
A penny for your thoughts my friend, as we kiss our last goodbye.

A penny for your thoughts my friend, on ideologies of dross,
A penny for your thoughts my friend, on their terminal human cost.
As the pearls of timebound sacred truth are slowly crushed to dust 
By rotten teeth of twisted swine that stole our naive trust.
A penny for your thoughts my friend, on the cause that we have lost.

A penny for your thoughts my friend, try to block their screams of pain.
A penny for your thoughts my friend, soon be our turn again.
Confessional lies drawn out by the inquisitor’s electric wires
Aided and abetted by his friends, the long-nosed pliers.
A penny for your thoughts my friend, on this democratic stain.

Dreams of putting wrongs to right from umbrella crowds of truth,
Aspiring to freedom’s voice for tomorrow’s happy youth,
When the path strewn with hope’s flowers was the way that they would choose,
Recall those gleaming spectral nights when light breezed through our minds
A penny for your thoughts my friend, were we blind to the defiled?

A penny for your thoughts my friend, shall we pass this way again?
A penny for your thoughts my friend, now we’ve nothing to defend.
Will the ages tell of heroes lying butchered for the cause?
Or will state history be rewritten by false hearted troubadours?
A penny for your thoughts my friend, as we look back to the end.

Lucy Connolly

So Damned Tired

They say the numbness settles in
Until the pain begins again
Never did tell me when
I might expect it all to end.

Never told me if the fever goes
Ah maybe heaven knows
I’ll place another pure white rose
Bless it with my tear flows.

Not saying I’m a special case
In this god-forsaken human race
Where dark times have to have their place
Even on the best of days.

But won’t you let me see the sun
Just a glimpse of light to build upon
And space to know the end’s begun
When everything is said and done.

Spinning clouds of memory dust
Form shapes comprising both of us
Allegedly they were built on trust
But I’m never one to make a fuss.

So it seems the plot contrived
To leave me of your love deprived
And they promised me truth never lied
Ah I’m so damned tired.
.
.
Picture by Jordan Steranka on Unsplash

So Damned Tired

This is my little sister's fault; she asked me to do a lovely happy little Christmassy song for her.   Obviously, I immediately reached for my well-thumbed copy of “Chords of misery and despair for songs in the key of Dismal diminished” - and here we are.  Hope you enjoy it Anne - sing along, pet!  :)

This uplifting little Christmas minor blues is based on the melody from a classic old standard from the ‘30’s “Skin Game Blues” by Peg Leg Howell but using a fingerstyle arrangement by Steve James from his excellent “Fingerstyle Blues Songbook”.

I can't blame anyone else but me for the lyrics.  Not even my sister.

Wishing everyone, particularly the less fortunate, a peaceful Christmas.

Photo by Matt Collamer on Unsplash

A Blues Consumptive

So, it’s time for Christmas.
Snatching up stuff that you don’t need, to hell with the desperate that do.
Give yourself a gluttony nosebleed, as you sate the materialistic in you.
You’re a trussed up seasonal clown,
Paint a grotesque smile on your frown,
Masquerade it all over town,
You’re goin’ down, down.

So, it’s time for Christmas.
Gorging conspicuous consumption by the privileged, of the frail.
Hot fashion’s mis-presumption, drags the spiritual by the tail.
Ya better get your stockpile built,
To bury your ethical guilt,
‘Cause you’re in it up to the hilt
And you’re goin’ down, down.

So, it’s time for Christmas.
Flashing Rudolph lights on your soul betray your tribal credentials.
The Christ can remain in the cold while you max your network potential.
Better get your story straight,
Soon be at the pearly gate,
Best not to leave it too late,
You’re goin’ down, down, down.

A Blues Consumptive

Snowdrop

Wake, and listen to the hexagon flakes
As they settle and creak when their crystals break.
Hush and still, ‘midst nothing that moves
Save the shifting of blue through its million hues.
Symmetry’s spike snow castles sinking in air
Through a vacuum of silence, vespered and spare;
On a mission of white, whence no colour escapes.

A last flit of drips splice the edge of the eye,
Now chilled to ice, stilled, sit solidified.
The spangled twig spawns its prickles of frost
As the aphid learned to its mortal cost.
Sarcophagi of sugar grace comatose trees;
Witch fingers frozen where once lived the leaves.
Soft as wings whisper’d where the barn owl cries.

Tarry in tryst at the grey mirror’d lake,
Palaced in mist, now translucent, now opaque,
Where a hesitant track of delicate doe prints
Placed balletically en pointe where desiccate snow glints
In moon rays cold as laboratory lasers,
Sparkling an arc of dark lunar phases
Whilst earthbound in hiding, the snowdrop bulb wakes…

Photo by Joshua Fuller on Unsplash

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