The old preach to those who don’t give a shit
as the young throw them out of their punk pulpit.
Pop is a dream dreaming of pop
and what you can do and what the others could not.
Some old stay young
and some young who never were get unceremoniously thrown.
Sing the songs you love and ditch the ones you don’t unsung.
Pop dreamers decorate their own.
I look around at powers that be.
Feel powerless unplugged with no volts energy.
Arrogantly know I’m right
and dream pop every night.
There’s a drug going round
here-a-bouts and round-a-while
lifting everyone off the ground
while floating with a cardboard smile.
Never dare to be down
or you’re met with a frown
or told chin up
by addicts hooked.
Facing facts is a fraud.
Head in the sand, they applaud.
Everyone on a merry-go-round.
Truth is I’m iggy pop bored.
Chances go begging for fate
as street photographers get the shot too late.
Soup kitchen protesters making an almighty din
end up under spin doctors’ knives sticking their fork tongues in.
flags fly
presidents talk
swallows swoop
and people walk
girls make passes
dogs bark
tanks roll
and cars park
fag-ends burn
snipers shoot
records spin
and loiters loot
pop fans clamour
street lamps shine
windows close
and lovers dine.
Government policy forces pensioners onto the streets to march
hardly able to make it across the road
with their gripes and groans in a shopping bag.
Vinyl records blaring out from old peoples’ homes.
Hospital porters spinning around on their bums.
As, lurking behind, tape-measuring funeral directors lag.
On Pleasure Pieland
islanders live life under a system called pie-in-the-sky.
Plumbers fit pipe dreams
and statistics on counting your blessings are always high.
Opticians sell rose-tinted glasses
to see good things over the horizon
and in every house, doors are fitted
so that when one closes, another one opens.
Every silver cloud has a golden lining
and everyone’s glass is always half-full.
Every adult has the job they want
and every pupil is the teacher’s pet in every school.
There’s love at first sight and love that lasts
and, for those more adventurous, true love in blasts.
Underdogs win and no-one feels like they’ve lost even when
they lose.
Everyone walks around in everybody else’s shoes.
Pielanders are so happy they look pie-eyed.
They’re easy to recognise.
Doctors prescribe magic potions for free
and hospitals are only there to rest in cos nobody really dies.
And so I went to the train station
and looked up at the great glass roof ceiling in iron
from where timepieces hung
and from where black suits swung.
Leather-faced passengers
shuffled slowly along in queues, bunched,
with feet in their luggage up to their knees
sticking out their ticket tongues
to have them punched.
And when the announcement told me
which platform to go to, I got on
and fell asleep in my seat to dream
‘til when the locomotive would run out of steam.
What gets my goat;
A string of jealousies tangled in my throat.
Sant’ Efisio’s bells strike two
and what the hell are you up to?
Vagabond, bottle-necked in life, before me.
What’s it like Mr Nobody?
“It’s a life of shit!”
My landlady, at the sink, spits.
Whatever happens next
I wonder am I perplexed:
Belongings bundled together on a stick;
Should I be optimistic?
A quick appraisal anchored down in rhymes.
Another one with wavy lines.
I’m sorry. No more news.
Write back. What about you?
This life is doing me no good.
I’m getting more and more bitter.
If I were me I would,
So I give up. I’m no quitter.
Keep away if you know what’s good for me.
As welcome as the enemy.
Wish there was some way to gag the voices
that order me about like a headless chicken.
You’ve got some front to shout what you shout.
I’ve got no defence to rant what I rant.
To get anywhere, I try to smoke myself out
with a fag that burns out to everything I can’t.
Darkness is the new light at the end of the tunnel
with the earth being blasted and pummelled.
Some luck is on its way
on a scrunched up piece of paper with codes
that need deciphering by dawn today.
