holding on a windward course.

Strip me from the bundle
of balloons at every fair:
colourful and carefree ---
Designed to make you stare.
But I'm lost and I'm losing
the thread that holds me down.
And I'm up hot and rising
in the lights of every town.

"One Brown Mouse"

Smile your little smile --- take some tea with me awhile.
Brush away that black cloud from your shoulder.
Twitch your whiskers. Feel that you're really real.
Another tea-time --- another day older.

Puff warm breath on your tiny hands.
You wish you were a man
who every day can turn another page.
Behind your glass you sit and look
at my ever-open book ---
One brown mouse sitting in a cage.

Do you wonder if I really care for you ---
Am I just the company you keep ---
Which one of us exercises on the old treadmill ---

Who hides his head, pretending to sleep?

Smile your little smile --- take some tea with me awhile.
And every day we'll turn another page.
Behind our glass we'll sit and look
at our ever-open book ---

"Heavy Horses"

Iron-clad feather-feet pounding the dust
An October's day, towards evening
Sweat embossed veins standing proud to the plough
Salt on a deep chest seasoning
Last of the line at an honest day's toil
Turning the deep sod under
Flint at the fetlock, chasing the bone
Flies at the nostrils plunder.

The Suffolk, the Clydesdale, the Percheron vie
with the Shire on his feathers floating
Hauling soft timber into the dusk

to bed on a warm straw coating.

Heavy Horses, move the land under me
Behind the plough gliding --- slipping and sliding free
Now you're down to the few
And there's no work to do
The tractor's on its way.

Let me find you a filly for your proud stallion seed
to keep the old line going.
And we'll stand you abreast at the back of the wood
behind the young trees growing
To hide you from eyes that mock at your girth,
and your eighteen hands at the shoulder
And one day when the oil barons have all dripped dry
and the nights are seen to draw colder
They'll beg for your strength, your gentle power
your noble grace and your bearing
And you'll strain once again to the sound of the gulls

in the wake of the deep plough, sharing.

Standing like tanks on the brow of the hill
Up into the cold wind facing
In stiff battle harness, chained to the world
Against the low sun racing
Bring me a wheel of oaken wood
A rein of polished leather
A Heavy Horse and a tumbling sky
Brewing heavy weather.

Bring a song for the evening
Clean brass to flash the dawn
across these acres glistening
like dew on a carpet lawn
In these dark towns folk lie sleeping
as the heavy horses thunder by
to wake the dying city
with the living horseman's cry
At once the old hands quicken ---
bring pick and wisp and curry comb ---
thrill to the sound of all
the heavy horses coming home.

"Weathercock"

Good morning Weathercock: How did you fare last night?
Did the cold wind bite you, did you face up to the fright
When the leaves spin from October
and whip around your tail?
Did you shake from the blast, did you shiver through the gale?

Give us direction; the best of goodwill ---
Put us in touch with fair winds.
Sing to us softly, hum evening's song ---
Tell us what the blacksmith has done for you.

Do you simply reflect changes in the patterns of the sky,
Or is it true to say the weather heeds the twinkle in your eye?
Do you fight the rush of winter; do you hold snowflakes at bay?
Do you lift the dawn sun from the fields and help him on his way?

Good morning Weathercock: make this day bright.
Put us in touch with your fair winds.
Sing to us softly, hum evening's song.
Point the way to better days we can share with you.

"North Sea Oil"

Black and viscous --- bound to cure blue lethargy
Sugar-plum petroleum for energy
Tightrope-balanced payments need a small reprieve
Oh, please believe we want to be
in North Sea Oil
New-found wealth sits on the shelf of yesterday
Hot-air balloon --- inflation soon will make you pay
Riggers rig and diggers dig their shallow grave
But we'll be saved and what we crave
is North Sea Oil
Prices boom in Aberdeen and London Town
Ten more years to lay the fears, erase the frown
before we are all nuclear --- the better way!
Oh, let us pray: we want to stay
in North Sea Oil

"Orion"

Orion, won't you give me your star sign
Orion, get up on the sky-line
I'm high on my hill and I feel fine
Orion, let's sip the heaven's heady wine

Orion, light your lights:
come guard the open spaces
from the black horizon to the pillow where I lie.
Your faithful dog shines brighter than its lord and master
Your jewelled sword twinkles as the world rolls by.
So come up singing above the cloudy cover
Stare through at people who toss fitful in their sleep.
I know you're watching as the old gent by the station
scuffs his toes on old fag packets lying in the street
And silver shadows flick across the closing bistro.
Sweet waiters link their arms and patter down the street,
their words lost blowing on cold winds in darkest Chelsea.

Prime years fly fading with each young heart's beat

Orion, won't you make me a star sign
Orion, get up on the sky-line
I'm high on your love and I feel fine
Orion, let's sip the heaven's heady wine

And young girls shiver as they wait by lonely bus-stops
after sad parties: no-one to take them home
to greasy bed-sitters and make a late-night play
for lost virginity a thousand miles away.