Wet Poppy

Wet Poppy

A wet poppy sodden on a dirty street
Trodden on by a thousand feet
A memory for a day and then forgotten
Cast down and trod on by a thousand men

An old soldier tired in a dark front room
His death on the cards but won’t come to soon
He remembers his pals and their sepia smiles
And he remembers each step of a thousand miles

What do the memories matter to you?
Too busy for silence, was it worth it for you?
While he sleeps he is burgled and wakes in the day
To the sound of a coward scrambling away

If it’s war then you feel he’s no longer a use
But maybe his son will be more good to you
And you’d take him and if by some luck he survived
He’d be trampled just like his poor dad

On a wet street a soldier rattles a box
Still fighting, why should he be out there at all?
Years in the cold and you still ask for more
And he shivers and listens to the streets footsteps fall

Good

Good


While children wear the barbed wire crown
Their tears and terror stop their play
And summer skies to winter nights
Are filled with silence from the heart

When weak are battered beaten down
And poor exploited for a coin
And greed and hunger sleep at night
Under the same dark star lit sky

With all the pain out in this world
Then peace is the last thing that we need
For the good must fight the tide of all
Who seek to turn out any hope

The actions of a caring heart
Bring together welded strong
The kind the good the mighty force
Who are mankind not doves or hawks

Dawn

Dawn

Fishnets hauled up
Under the amber sun
Dark silhouette
Out on a darkened sea

No friendly lights of home
There you stand-alone
Fear gone in the chemical waves
Pride and hope burned away

Trawling crawling fisherman
Don’t care nor give a damn
Where you are, or where you go
Its just how much he needs to know?

It’s Dawn if anyone cares to ask
While pulling at the nets
Fifteen years and lost at sea
Seems cruel in any time

Her captain beats her tired limbs
Her dealer takes reward
Her punter takes her on the sea
Then casts her overboard

It’s Dawn if anyone wants to ask
And care seems to be a stupid word
To describe a life of a scalded child
Now blistering in to womanhood

Dare you look into her eyes?
Under that amber lamplight hue
Then go about your sad cruel act
With Dawn looking down on you

Never a kiss from a loving man
Never a real embrace
Never loved from cradle to grave
Just Dawn on another day

Graft

Graft

And when the workingman grows tired
No longer duty bound to serve
His life to waste in endless toil
To ensure the boss is full

And the digger cuts another turf
For an infant who should still be here
But for the lack of basic care
By a fool in white and no time to spare

We’ve lost all faith in the upper class
To many times they fail
On the battlefields of France we fell
While they quaffed vintage wine

So raise a pint to the honest heart
Of the soul of this deep English soil
The results of a lifetime at the plough
And the selfless sweat and graft

Dreams

Dreams

Beat me down
Take my home and all in it
Torture and bring me down

Break my bones
And free the blood from my veins
Make me scream out against the pain

But if I am alive
And when you leave
You will have my soul
And I will have my dreams

Barbed Crown

Barbed Crown

When efforts turn away
From toils that always fail
To lay to rest our goal
Of eternal peace

And the cowardly self concerned
Hide in the shadows, like frightened ghouls
Longing to clear their minds
Of the conscience they ignore

From the terrified tear splashed cheeks
Of the barbed wire crown
On the head of an aging child
With no smile, no love, no hope

To the ancient grief torn face
Of the fighters who never sleep
There only trusted friend a
Polished Russian rifle

War virus plagues the world
Its cure another shot
Of scalding lead, sent deep into the heart
Of another brainwashed fool

We must stand and help
For the truth is our lives today
Have all the trappings of great wealth
With a bait laid down in hell

Fireside

FIRESIDE

I’ve sat in silence and wept the night to day
Rode the wind with laughter by my side
Kissed the lips that reached so tenderly
Then fell to sleep in loving arms caress

When I woke I walked with honest pride
Helped the ones who had no care for me
I never turned my back on any man
Or called on to those who turn away

Each journeys mile I wandered at my pace
Heeded some words, ignored a few as well
My strides been matched by feet that joined me for a while
Then softly left, an echo in my thoughts

By the fireside of deep content
I took my chair and placed it in the path
So I absorbed each radiant fall of bliss
My smile a gift from every trodden mile