The complete lyrics to my album

1. WASHING-UP SONG
Washing-up, washing-up, washing-up, washing-up,
Girl-child's after-birth emergent,
Trailing clouds of white detergent,
Washing-up, washing-up, washing-up, washing-up,
Venus rising from the foam,
Goddess of kitchen-sink and home,
Till
Cramped, confined in schedule tight,
Meal-times morning, noon, and night, She ponders
How many poems have been sluiced away
With the washing-up water three times a day ?
How many sure strokes of chisel or sable-
Brush flattened for ever on Life's ironing-table?
How many songs will never be sung
For the piles of damp nappies that have to be slung?
How many sagas will never unfold
Because beds are not made or a meal's getting cold?
How many mistress-pieces never saw the light of day
Between the shopping, cooking, hoovering, and tidying away?
How many hands have lost their old skill
Through polishing, cleaning, or tending the ill?
How many eyes have lost their fresh vision,
Blinkered and fettered in their cosy prison?
Countless epitaphs encapsulate their story -
"Beloved wife of so-and-so - Gone to glory!"
A-a-a-a-(wo)men.

2. TIRED
I'm tired of trying to carry on the show,
Tired of struggling: want to let go.
Weary in mind let me drift with the tide
Until I can find some peace inside.
Gone is the fever, the folly, the fret,
Gone is the rainbow, the sun is now set.
Silent the song-birds in Night's starlit dome.
All creatures cradled now safely at home.
Rock me gently, bear me away,
Enfold me surely till break of day,
Until I wash up on same further shore
Where I can hide for evermore,
Where Life is lived through golden days,
And troubles but glimpsed through a rosy haze.
Close your eyes, float away
Down the dark stream.
Dawn will come soon enough,
Life is the dream.

3. FIREFLIES
Fireflies come out at night
When the sidling shadow looms,
Flitting through the darkened gardens,
Darting into shuttered rooms.
Fireflies of the imagination
Rise up from the well of night.
Images, ideas glimmer,
Shimmering incandescent sprites.
Watch and wait for inspiration.
Fireflies of the imagination
Shun the glaring light of day -
They need darkness for their play.
Neither loved ones, work nor pleasure,
Friend nor foe, nor frail mankind,
But fantasies, fragmented visions
These beguile the wakeful mind.

4. IF ONLY ...
In the land of 'If only'
There are birthdays every day.
With chocolate biscuits, jellies, cakes,
And friends come round to play.
In the land of 'If only'
All the children's toys are shared.
There are no secrets, no locked doors.
No-one is lonely or scared.
In the land of 'If only'
Mummy's never ever cross,
And Daddy talks to me as much
As he talks to his boss.
In the land of 'If only'
No child is ever hurt.
And everyone goes to bed at night,
No-one sleeps out in the dirt
When I grow up I`ll find that land
Where everyone is kind,
Or will I long to be once more
The child I left behind?

5. MISS MISSING
Lord, who watches over all,
Keep our wandering girl safe tonight,
Lift this boulder from our shoulders,
Give us word that she is alrìght.
Jane, little Jane, come home.
It isn't a home any more.
We look for your coat in the hallway,
Your talc on the bathroom floor.
We race each other when the phone goes,
And wait for the postman to call.
We lie awake trying not to think
What fate is in store for us ail.
We said such foolish things in anger
We never should have said,
But when you love somebody dearly
1t's hard to keep a cool head.
Come, home, little Jane, come home,
At least till we've cleared the air,
Then our love will always follow
And shelter you anywhere.
Goodnight, little Jane,
God bless!

6. UNDINE
This other self that surfaces
Like a friendly dolphin from the deep,
Nuzzling in close and dredging
Wisdom's pearls from the bed of sleep,
Laying before bewildered eyes
Coral fancies in a heap,
Nudging my palm until I write
Then disappearing with one leap.
Obedient to her whim I write,
Wondering where she comes from, this tame sprite,
Sensing her presence swimming near,
Shimmering images hang there
Behind closed lids in pools so clear,
But never a sight of her,
The poet below who lurks unseen
And sings of things that might have been.
Undine - Undine - Undine!.

7. SITTING ON A MILESTONE
Sitting on a milestone in my life
And wondering "Was it worth the pain and strife?
I have trudged along this lonely road
Never lifting my head beneath the load.
Where am I? Should I turn to left or right?
Or keep straight on until I stop tonight?
There was a time when I knew where I was going.
Where was it that I started going wrong?
There was a time when I knew what I was doing.
My mind was clear, my heart and will were strong.
As I gaze around, half dazzled, half dazed
By the glories of spring I just sit here amazed.
If I press on over that distant horizon
I'Il see nothing so breath-taking, pure or surprising.
Sitting here on a milestone taking stock,
Do I really wish I could turn back the clock?
Sitting here, just sitting here
On a milestone in my life.

8. APOCALYPSE TOMORROW
We are the six-foot locusts infesting Mother Earth,
Wreaking devastation, desolation, death and dearth.
We tear up the rain forests to feed to our computers,
Then wonder why they churn out facts and figures that don't suit us.
We uproot all the hedgerows, then our GM crops we sow,
Butterflies and bees fall out of the trees where the pollen on the breeze may blow.
We stuff our cattle full of BSE which they pass on in a dread disease
Until that food chain wraps us round and brings us to our knees
We cling to nuclear power, despite our neighbours' fears.
It doesn't take a melt-down to blight the land for years and years.
We don't know what to do with the waste but we don't really care.
As long as it's not in our back-yard we'll bung it anywhere.
We cruise around in our limousines,
Scorning buses, trains and trams,
Then we waste the time that we thought we'd saved
In the poison fumes of the traffic jams.
We clamp cell phones to our ears plaguing fellow passengers on trains
Don't believe them when they tell us that we're addling our brains
Who me? Yes you. Not me, not me, not me, not me, NOT ME!
We are the six-foot locusts. We may yet breed a mutant strain
Of monsters who will eat us up and let the planet live again,
The poor old planet live again, the planet may yet live again,
But if this planet lives again
It's over my dead body!

9. INSOMNIAC
Sleep,sleep,sleep,sleep,
How can I sleep in my bed at night
When half the world is denied the right
To a roof overhead, a rough straw bed,
A bowl of gruel, a stack of fuel,
Pure water to drink at a kitchen sink,
The right to earn the daily bread
In dignity without fear or dread?
Sleep,sleep,sleep,sleep,
How can I sleep while others weep?
I may feed those at my back door
I can't turn my back on the rest of the poor,
The tortured still lie on cold prison floors.
Who will bind their bodies' sores?
Must I stop my ears, clench my eyes up tight
Before I can sleep in my bed at night?
Have no more children till each mouth is fed,
Then I can sleep at night in my bed.
Sleep, sleep, sleep, sleep,
I shall never sleep sound again
With the whole world's ills gnawing my brain.
There is no lullaby can still this cry
Sleep, sleep, sleep.

10. MEEK AND WILD
I am afraid of the world I grew up in.
I bury my head in trembling hands,
Peering out through prison-bar fingers,
Trying mutely to understand.
How the warm sunbeams that bathed my young limbs
Have turned somehow to lethal rays,
Why the quiet streets I pushed a pram through
Are blood-stained now, shattered, ablaze.
What do I fear? that I should die?
Death may come any place, any hour.
Dying in agony? Pain may still find me
Behind barred windows, locked doors, where I cower.
Afraid this world may die before I do?
There must be millions who feel the same.
Why can we not seek out one another,
Grope our way towards a common aim?
Hold my hand, let us walk out together,
Join the universal campaign,
Try to save the world for our children,
Make it fit to live in again

11 RUTH'S CRADLE-SONG
Rockabye, Rockabye,
How could I give you away
Who are not mine to give?
Star of my uncomprehending night
That shone in my womb
Through all those long dark months,
Guiding me to my destiny,
And yet you are surely mine,
The only treasure in my empty vaults
Since you have cost me my youth,
My roots, my trust, my liberty,
Transcending all these triumphantly
You have turned them all to dross.
To me it is little loss.
Lullaby, Lullaby,
Let them leave us alone
To share our secret riches,
For they shall have none of it.
Your first smile shall be my crown.
Your cries echo in my heart's chamber
Where once you used to lie.
An invisible umbilical cord
Still binds us together
Wrapping us round indivisibly,
You nurse me as I nurse you,
Filling me with your celestial milk
Till I overflow with joy.
Hush now my baby, my darling, my dearest one
Mother me in your tender flesh
Until I am fully grown.
Hushabye, Hushabye, Ssh!

12. ONCE IN ROYAL CARDBOARD CITY
A Christmas Box to most people
Cocooned in that cosy world out there
Means a cardboard box in pretty paper,
Containing a present chosen with care.
My Christmas Box is my present home,
Housing my last few remains from that world
In a bed-roll covered in polythene
Protecting them from the damp and cold.
Mike guards them for me while I am away,
Since he's became too weak to move
So I go off scrounging food for us both,
Sharing the meagre fare with love.
I have found some Christmas paper
To decorate my Christmas box,
But who will covet the gift inside?
Who could withstand the smell of my socks?
The vermin, the sores, the noisome breath,
The matted hair, the claw-like nails-
At a distance of fifty paces
The civilized visitor quails.
We the discarded, the excluded,
We are the only ones who care,
As we keep each other from the black maw
Of the lethal quagmire of despair.
And where does the Christ-child lie tonight?
In a central-heated nursery?
Or in a straw-filled cardboard box
Among the hungry and dirty?

13. PULCIN-ELLA
Laugh and the world laughs with you,
Cry and you cry alone.
If you fall on your face don't call for help.
Pick yourself up
And try not to yelp.
Licking your wounds
And nursing your bruises
Just marks you out as one of Life's losers.
Laugh and the world laughs with you
Cry and you cry alone.
Don't ring your friends in your distress.
They may stop answering the phone.
If you get through you may well find
That they have got troubles of their own,
So
Laugh and the world laughs with you,
Cry and you cry alone.
Crack your wound into a smile,
No matter how the pain may smart.
Wear your medal on your chest,
The Ancient Order of the Bleeding Heart.
Laugh Pagliacco,
They're not laughing at you ,
But with you; it's catching.
Go out there: start hatching
Your own germ of happiness.
Infect the whole populace,
But laugh though it may kill you.
Laugh damn you, will you
Laugh, Ha-ha-ha!

14. SIC TRANSlT GLORIA MUNDl
Women are not of this world,
Visitors from inner space,
They flit around the globe like moths.
Their passage leaves no trace.
Sucked up in the lives of others,
Unrecorded, unidentified
Aliens to whom all honour,
Status, power are denied.
Yet their virtues rank supreme
In sacred books since time began,
The lowest female creature's life
More civilized than Man.
As Guardian Angels we depict them,
Not as monsters, demons, trolls,
But no roll of honour, scroll,
Nor monument their praise extols.
Will they vanish from this world,
Unseen, unsung, unrecognised,
Leaving a sigh upon the wind,
Even their absence unrealized.?

15. THE RELUCTANT GARDENER
I've got those gardening blues,
In a fight I always lose
Against those bugs and slugs and drought {/ frost} and weeds
Inert, non-geminating seeds,
Those gardening blues.
I haven't got green fingers,
But my knees have turned that shade,
And my back feels like it's been hit
By a mattock or a spade.
I've got those callous-hardening,
Those gardening blues.
While Mother Nature I am wooing,
Other things I would be doin'",
Like singin', playin', sleepin', sayin',
"How I need another glass of Mother's Ruin",
For shooin' away those gardening blues.
I've tried talkin' to those plants,
But after I've been cooin', wheedling
Life into those lazy seedlings
They still flop - as soon as they've the chance.
Nothing is more dis-heartening
Than gardening blues.And if my efforts are rewarded,
Flowers start to rear their crowns,
That Old Reaper with his strimmer
Accidentally cuts them down.
I'm going to pot, but not a lot.
Whoever thought of pricking out
Should be taken out and shot.
l know now why they take the piss,
They must have heard me singing this,
"Did you not hear my Lady
Go down the garden singing?"-
Those sahdening, those mahdening,
Those gardening blues.

16. NO-ONE'S EVER LOVED BEFORE
Haven't we met before, maybe, somewhere?
Haven't we felt before this blissful, exquisite sensation rare?
Filled with joy and awe
Eager for ever more
Exhilaration, anticipation,
Sweet aggravation.
I've got this sense of deja-vu.
Please say you feel it too.
Perhaps we met before today
In some far world: we knew
This same ecstasy.
Untrammelled, fancy-free
We soared deliriously.
Say you feel it.
Maybe in this previous life divine
Our two stars happened to intertwine
All those aeons ago
Wasn't it so?
Although I know no-one could undergo
Such a breath-taking, world-shaking meeting, and so
How could it be we two could possibly have met before?
No, not here, nor even on some distant astral shore.
How could I forget it? Could I ever let it
Fade, still less regret it?
No how could I ?
No-one's ever been in love before
No-one's ever felt like this before.
This is love prised from its core,
No-one has ever loved before.

17. THE JOYS OF SPRING
Spring awakes the sleeping child
Within each withered breast,
Quickens the flesh, lifts the drooping head,
Tickles laughter winter's ills suppressed,
Blows scudding sails of love
Across the wild world's surface
Draws timid buds of tenderness
From the waiting crevice,
Rescues abandoned hope,
Rediscovers the lost vision,
Rebuilds the fallen towers
From the rubble of ambition.
Panacea for all pain,
Physic for the faint and forlorn,
Elixir of distilled elation
Dispensed from her full-brimming horn.
Primavera, printemps,
Ahneeksee, eekhbahaar, Fruhling,
Season of love, hope, happiness,
Rebirth, salvation, Spring!