I was writing this song on the anniversary of the school shooting at the Colombine High School, when I learned that school students in the States had chosen this day to protest American gun law - so I added the last verse.
Columbine High Columbine
Ross Wallis
Richard and Rachel lying on a spring green lawn
eating a picnic in the morning sun
no idea what had just begun
That April day in 99
on the school campus of Columbine
Rachel didn’t want to eat in the school canteen
A pretty girl just turned 17,
wearing a summer blouse and faded jeans
That fine spring day in 99
lying on the grass outside Columbine
Harris and Klebold were preparing a rout
A rampage of slaughter to serve them right
Weapons in the trunk and a plan for a fight
in the parking lot at Columbine
A school of friends, of love and learning
Teenage romance, angst and yearning
All to end in blood and burning
With those two gun crazed boys returning
To their school campus at Columbine
The shooting started, Rachel’s life ended
Lead in the head instead of the learning intended
And Just because of the school she attended
A broken body that could not be mended
On the School campus of Columbine
Eric and Dylan they were bullied at school
made fun of and ridiculed
didn’t want to be remembered as fools
Would pay them all back with some real cool tools
on their school campus in Columbine
Spattered blood on battered books
shattered glass, and terrified looks
spent cartridge cases of shiny brass
scattered in the aftermath
On the school campus at Columbine
Mothers have the right to bare arms
to wrap around their children and keep them from harm
Not the agony and pain as they are lowered in the ground
A lifetime to grieve for the life that is gone
and a lawn that is forever now a shrine
Politicians respond with inane speeches
Recruiting soldiers to teach and arming teachers
spouting rhetoric like evangelical preachers
but the 2nd amendment remains enshrined
no lessons learned at Columbine
The selling of rifles is an assault on a nation
You don’t need a math lesson to work the equation
To connect the event with a direct causation
Rise up now in condemnation
of the crazy laws that led to Columbine
Still the NRA hold sway in the good ol’ US of A
The land of the free and the not so free
In Rachel’s case, the not to be
Shot dead in April 99
Bath school, Virginia tech
Marjory Stoneman and Sandy Hook
Douglas, Dunblaine and Hungerford
The list it grows longer all the time
The school students themselves now say no more
To armed guards in the corridors
To surveillance and to locks on doors
to selling guns in discount stores
To the meme that spread from Columbine
like a Stain, malignant and malign
When and where do we draw the line
we must join them, they’re our future
yours and mine.
The children who call time on Columbine
I love taking candid 'street' photos of the characters that I meet in my local little city, especially on market day. Sometimes I stop and chat to them, and ask if I can photograph them, sometimes I just sneak photographs. If you know Wells market, you may well have come across some of the folk in my song.
Wednesday Morning Wells Market
Ross Wallis
From the penniless porch a tin whistle plays a gap toothed old man whistling for a few quid a day
Whilst a thin dark skinned girl is selling the big issue she begs with her eyes, and her lips mouth a thank you
and I can't help but wonder where they’re bound, where they’re from and there but for fortune go the words of a song
And the bald man rolls by in his Rolls The barrow man he sells sausage rolls And an old woman bent double in ill fitting clothes
Just a Wednesday morning market day throng And some passers by passing by in the words of a song
There's a young man all dressed up in camouflage gear except for a colourful hat and the ring in his ear
and a woman grown so large that she can’t even walk she’s eating a burger and she’s drinking a Coke
and I can't help but wonder where they’re bound, where they’re from and there but for fortune go the words of a song
And the bald man rolls by in his Rolls The barrow man he sells sausage rolls And an old woman bent double in ill fitting clothes
Just a Wednesday morning market day throng And some passers by passing by in the words of a song
There’s an amputee in a wheelchair and I am wondering how it is that he got to be there
whilst a thin pale lady with scarlet painted lips signals for a taxi with her fingertips
and I can't help but wonder where they’re bound, where they’re from and there but for fortune go the words of a song
And I'm thinking that I might be any one of these but for an accident of birth, and a family tree
Whatever it might be that makes me me.
They all had their mothers, and suckled at a teat
They must all have beds to go to, and their meals to eat
strangers passing by in a market place
with very different lifelines etched across their faces
Just a Wednesday morning market day throng
And some passers by passing by in the words of a song
Just a Wednesday morning market day throng And some passers by passing by in the words of a song
And some passers by passing by in the words of a song
This is a slightly uptempo version of the same song - a bit less of a dirge, strummed rather than finger - picked
…………………………………………………………………………………………………
I was on my way back to my childhood home of Leicester, sitting on a train and knitting, when the fella opposite me started chatting - and out came his extraordinary and painful story of post traumatic stress disorder. Everything in the song are the things that he told me, I made nothing up - the only bit that I missed out was about his wife leaving him because she wanted children and he didn't - he didn't feel that it was fair for him to have children as he felt he wouldn't be the best father.
Sargent Lee's Story
Ross Wallis
1 I was knitting on a train to help time pass when a man near me lent over and asked If I thought that knitting was good therapy, he said it was for him anyway just, sitting there watching me knit.
2 He said “you mind me talking to you? I don’t want to bore you, that’s not what I’d want to do, I just like sitting here watching you knit”.
3 “Something hand-made”’ he said, “that must feel good”, and his eyes filled up with tears, he hoped I understood. He said he'd been a sous-chef till they gave him the sack, and now he's only got these shelves to stack.
2 Sargent Lee of the infantry, didn't want to bore me with his history Now he's just stacking shelves all day.
1 “My name is Lee, I was a sergeant in the army, they don't look ex soldiers like me. But I have my car, my Xbox and my wide screen TV, everything that I need, everything that I need”.
2 He said he'd joined up after 9/11, to see the world, learn a trade, be occupied 24/7 And he was just sitting there watching me knit.
3 The CO said get on the transport, not saying where too, but they had all seen the news so of course they all knew. And it was hot in Iraq, in all that gear, the sand, the heat and the fear, the sand, the heat and the fear.
2 “They don't look after ex soldiers like me, it’s thank you very much and goodbye to the army, now I’m stacking shelves all day, stacking shelves for minimum pay”.
1 “I didn't join to kill, but the money was good, I drove big machines, and I cooked good food. I didn't know how I would feel till we got to Iraq, till we were actually there and we were under attack. And it was me they were trying to kill”.
2 “And I never saw them, but the CO he said shoot, so I kept my finger on the trigger like they told me to. And it was me they were trying to kill”.
3 “I didn't loose a leg, that might have been more easy, something at least that people could see, I bleed inside, where the pain I can hide, and I’m still hurting after all these years, still hurting after all of these years”.
2 “Iraq, it done my head in, PTSD, they give it a name, but it doesn't help me know who's to blame”.
1 “I can’t wash clean, the desert sand still in my hair, 12 years on it hasn't gone and it simply isn’t fair. Was I to blame when I wrote my name, did I have a choice? The moment I signed on the line I signed away my voice, but I never wanted to be there”.
2 “I used to cook, when I wasn't on patrol, cooking was my secondary role, and thats why it wasn't me that day”
2 “My good mates out on patrol there, were blown to bits by a teddy bear. An IED stuffed in a toy kangaroo, there was simply nothing I could do. Simply nothing I could do”.
2 “They don't look after you not once you leave, they never taught us how to grieve, and I don’t know why it wasn’t me that day”.
1 “Now I can't get the sand from under my nails, no matter how I scrub, washing always fails, I didn't join to kill, but the uniform was cool, and I got a medal too, for being such a fucking hero. A young and impressionable fool”.
2 “Sargent bloody Lee of the infantry, still bleeding internally, they taught us how to kill, but not how to grieve, and I still don't know why it wasn't me that day”.
3 “My dad was in the falklands, and saw men die, but he can’t talk about it, can’t help me understand why, And I can’t talk to my missies cause I know I’d only cry. And it’s still hurting after all of these years”.
2 “Sergeant bleeding Lee, sorry to be boring you with my history. I Just like sitting here watching you knit”.
Sitting here watching you knit
Sitting here watching you knit
Progress
Ross Wallis
From the moment that our ancestors picked up sticks and stones
We cracked each other’s skulls open and broke each other’s bones
Violence and aggression is in our DNA
It seems that homo sapiens has always been this way
We learned to use some twisted flax
To bind the stick and stone
To create an axe with which to chop and a spear that could be thrown
these first crude tools were just the start
We humans gained the skill
To develop ever better weapons with which to maim and kill
Progress, Progress, - we talk about progress
From throwing a stone, to flying a drone
but is this really progress?
With the spring we found in a length of wood,
and that twisted length of grass
We could shoot an arrow 600 feet with a flight both true and fast
We learned to forge and hone an edge
to create a fearsome blade
To cut and slash and disembowel to impale and behead
We then discovered gunpowder to fire a cannonball
that could travel 60 meters and knock down castle walls
With blunderbuss and flintlock we could fill the air with lead,
and fire upon a line of troops till everyone lay dead
Progress Progress - we all go on about progress
From throwing a stone, to flying a drone
Yeah sure, but can we really call this progress?
We could batter down the battlements with trebuchet and ram
cut and slice and poke and skewer and spike our fellow man
Burn and rape and pillage and generally misbehave
Then idolise the warriors, the knights, warlords and braves
The age of the crusades is called the age of chivalry
When we butchered the Infidel for Christianity
With colours flying and armour shining and all the pageantry
We’ve romanticised the knights of old with all their heraldry
Progress, Progress - we all go on and on about progress
From throwing a stone, to flying a drone
but can we really call this progress?
With regiments of infantry the army did expand
With ordinance and cavalry and regimental bands
With Young men willing to take the shilling to kill destroy and trash
for patriotism or duty, or even for the cash
But In the last century we really have excelled
The pace of change has accelerated in a way unparalleled
with mechanised killing on an unprecedented scale
With industrialised slaughter and all that that entails
machine guns, barbed wire, poison gas munitions
battleships, cruise missiles, nerve agents and genetic mutations
nuclear bombs napalm agent orange spayed in formations
stealth jets nerve gas cyber attacks even satellite stations
water boarding torture radicalisation of whole populations
human rights violated the genocide of whole Nations
In just a few millennia we've gone from stone to drone
Using a games console with which a remote weapon is flown
we kill without leaving our home or spilling our cup of tea
Such is our ingenuity, such crazy technology
But The social skills of our caveman ancestors lie close beneath the skin
How not to kill in the first place, is the place we should begin
Thousands of years of progress, and we haven’t progressed at all
not until we can get it together to ban all need for war
Progress Progress - we all go on about progress
From throwing a stone, to flying a drone
Yeah sure, but is this really progress?
Fantastic Plastic
Plastic is a very fine thing
A very fine thing indeed
Without it I don’t know what we’d do
It’s often just what we need
Even our clothes are made of the stuff
Those fashionable skinny stretch jeans
Think of life without elastic
Your pants around your knees
But every time you wash your clothes
Microfibres wash out to sea
They even end up in the drinking water
That we wrap up in PVC
Now plastic bottles they are a very fine things
We are on a plastic spree
Millions being made everyday
To be discarded by you and me
It’s Brill! It’s brill! Let’s feed it to the krill
A new link in the chain
Mussels and shrimps and limpets and krill
All containing Polyethylene!
Buy shrink wrapped fruit from a tropical zone
Just a car ride from your home
And wild Alaskan salmon steaks
Wrapped up in polyurethane foam
And when you’ve finished with the bags
You can chuck ‘em in the wheelie bin
Then maybe take a stroll along the beach
To see what the tide’s brought in
Ear buds wet wipes panty liners
And plastic bags galore
Condoms tampons drinking straws
All washed up on the shore
Plastic rope and fishing net
Stuck around a dolphin’s tail
Albatross chicks with a bellyful of bits
And Fishing lines drowning whales
Cling film, bubble wrap, all kinds of crap
All swirling in the ocean
A great big rash of plastic trash
A tsunami of pollution
With Polystyrene trays from burger chains
And plastic cutlery
This fast food throw away society
Is whose responsibility?
We burn the gas the oil the coal
Release the CO2
The irony of melting ice
That keeps our fridges cool
With farmers coverin’ up their land
In miles and miles of fleece
And lengths of thin black silage wrap
Left flapping in the breeze
Dog owners baggin’ up the poo
Which is a good thing we agree
Though the next time you are passing through
You’ll see it hanging in a tree
Plastic is fantastic
It’s the most amazing stuff
Ending up in the remotest spots
So perhaps we’ve made enough?
Millions of tons dumped everyday
The problem it is drastic
Sometimes I just feel like sticking my head
Into a bag that’s made of... paper
A plastic bag is a very fine thing
Without them we’d be lost
But do we ever stop and think
About their actual cost?
I heard a thought on the radio - if plastic is made of oil, and oil is made of prehistoric life forms - including the bodies of dinosaurs, then a plastic dinosaur may well contain real dinosaur…
The Flies Demise (No flies on us)
Listening to the headlines I am regularly hearing
Scientific studies show that bugs are disappearing
Many species on the brink that may soon be extinct
Statistics that are sickening and give us pause to think
For without the creepy crawlies, there won’t be you and me
The web of life is intricate a complex filigree
If bugs go other beings will not be having fun
Pull on one thread of the web it will all become undone
So look after the maggots, the caterpillars and beatles
Blue bottles dragon flies the gnats and the mosquitos
Every creature has its place in this natural web
Break just one link in the chain and all may soon be dead
It was only in my father’s day they invented DDT
A miracle concoction that was revolutionary
Get rid of pests, protect the crops, a world without disease
Killing off mosquitoes to make the world malaria free
And when my dad was telling me about the birds and bees
He didn’t mention gmo's or the grubbing out of trees
Climate change, colony collapse, inconvenient facts
Like pesticides, insecticides and loss of habitat
So look after the maggots, the caterpillars and the beatles
blue bottles dragon flies the gnats and the mosquitos
Every creature has it’s place in this web of life
If we break just one link in the chain it will cause no end of strife
You could tell a happy cyclist by the bugs upon his teeth
He is gritting them now, as the trucks roll by and the bugs are gone with the butterflies
In the headlights of the car, moths as thick as snow
A windscreen of squished critters and a radiator full
But I’d rather clean the car I think it couldn’t be as sad
As this concrete hell with plastic grass that makes me feel so bad
Wiping out whole ecosystems to make our veg more virile
Mechanised monoculture and the whole world going sterile
So look after the maggots, the caterpillars and the beatles
Blue bottles dragon flies the gnats and the mosquitos
Every creature has it’s place in this natural web
Break just one link in the chain and all may soon be dead
I have a dream I’m a politician one of the chosen ones
Half way through an important speech I see my flies undone
Not Half the nightmare as waking up to find you are the one in power
And in your hands is the fate of the earth in this eleventh hour
The politicians do nothing and the sand is almost gone
It’s time to strike with all our might to save the earth from further harm
I don’t mean to alarm you but the time to act is now
Extinction Rebellion stand up and tell us how
To look after the maggots, the caterpillars and the beatles
Blue bottles dragon flies the gnats and the mosquitos
Every creature has it’s place in this web of life
Break just one link in the chain and the problems will be rife
Where have all the flowers gone - long time passing...
Insects pollinated them, everyone...
So the next time you see a fly fly by, don’t swot it leave it be
It has just as much right to life as do you and me
Its really hard to grasp I know but it might just be the last
Another species bites the dust its happening that fast
Look after the maggots, the caterpillars and the beatles
Blue bottles dragon flies the gnats and mosquitoes
Every creature has it’s place in this natural web
Break just one link of the chain we all may soon be dead
Break just one link of the chain we all may soon be dead
Carved In Stone
A soldier dressed in rough blue serge
Lies face down on a muddy verge
No goodbyes, he died too soon
Blood and mud and a mortal wound
He was once a babe in arms
A beloved son a treasured one
Every one a mother’s son
All the names now carved in stone
And the young man who fired the gun
Did he believe when it all began
In king and country and in playing the game
To kill an enemy who believed the same
He too was a babe in arms
A beloved son a treasured one
Every one a mother’s son
All the names now carved in stone
A Wave from the platform to cheers and tears
tearstained cheeks and unspoken fears
A pretty young girl throws a flower
Caught up in the passion of the hour
The nationalistic patriotic jingoistic refrain
And only a mothers scant hidden pain
For once they all were babes in arms
Beloved sons, treasured ones
Every one a mother’s son
All the names now carved in stone
If the crowd that cheered them on their way
Knew then what they later came to say
Would they have cheered so load and felt so proud
Sending these children to an early grave
For once they all were babes in arms
Beloved sons treasured ones
Every one a mother’s son
All the names now carved in stone
And the cattle trucks that rattle by
Did the watchers stop to question why
Mothers, fathers, sons and daughters
Destined for that place of slaughter
All were once babes in arms
Beloved ones treasured ones
All the names now carved in stone
Every one from a mother begun
And the cattle trucks still rolling by
With bullock calves on their way to die
Deprived too soon of their mothers love
The fields and the sun and the sky above
They don’t have their names in stone
A number is the best they get
And when their time and number comes
Who among us knows regret?
The young drug dealer, knifed for turf
A man in a suicide vest, blessed or cursed
A tortured man who won’t confess
A hapless hopeless homelessness
The fascist who beats the air with a fist
A man beats his wife when he comes home pissed
The bully and the cheat who wreck other peoples lives
The drug addict and the child labourer who strives
If there is no god above
Nor earth mother beneath our feet
It’s up to each of us to love
Each and every heart that beats
For all of us were babes in arms
Beloved ones treasured ones
A mother is where we all begun
A fact that should be carved in stone
Planet Titanic
RMS Titanic ploughed blindly on
Unsinkable symbol of industrial might
A flat dead calm and a starry dome
Steaming fast into an icy night
No panic yet on planet Titanic
The 1st class passengers still clink their drinks
Ice cubes melting in the gin and tonic
A disaster unfolding as the ship it sinks
Seven and a half billion we are all on board
There are no lifeboats, no place elsewhere
The water will rise as the ice is melting
As fossil fuel burning fumes foul our air
The water will rise as the ship goes under
Lowlands swallowed up by the sea
Nowhere to go for many millions
The world on the brink of misery
Our planet floating in this deep dark ocean
An endless sea and no planet B
Stop denying that the world is dying
It’s time for action, to ring the bell
Living simply so the world will live on
Stop pretending that all is well, well well well
A capitalist empire built on oil and mining
Stripping the earth of wealth and life
unsustainability built into the system
It’s time to turn this ship around
Half truths, spin, and lies abounding
It’s time to turn this ship around
Already in the midst of mass extinction
Already the cause of so much need
Felling trees to feed obsessions and addictions
Consumerist and capitalist growth and greed
Blindly steaming full ahead burning
burying our heads deep in the sand
Planet Titanic will keep on turning
A lifeless dessert of a no man’s land
Time to call time on this one way ticket
Time to be a rebel rebel with a cause
No more lies from our lords and masters
It’s time to turn this ship around
Frack off all you Fossil fools you
It’s time to turn this ship around
If not now then when?
If not us, then who?
Respect existence or expect resistance
It’s time to turn this ship around
(Well we’ll well, who’s that a calling…)
Stop denying that the world is dying
It’s time for action, to ring the bell
Living simply so the world will live on
Stop pretending that all is well, well well well
All the gifts (I might receive) A song
My habitual way is to hide away
To get on my bike and to ride away
Like miss matched magnets I miss your eye
Though I always hoped things might change by and by
if I try
Yet It’s too crazy to conceive
That I might wear my heart on my sleeve
I don’t want to talk too much today anyway
I wouldn’t have too much to say anyway
I wear my armour plate draw the curtains bolt the gate
Turn the key in the door, not have to talk to anyone anymore
It’s just too crazy to believe
That I might wear my heart on my sleeve
Maybe I was wounded too deep
The wound is still raw, can still make me weep
Some time long ago in the past
My heart was pierced through and through
when my world fell apart first and last
And maybe it’s still that I believe
Perhaps I do wear my heart on my sleeve
Like a snail I hide in my shell
I retreat like a hermit to my far away cell
I don’t want to let anyone in
I don’t even know how to begin I don’t know where to start and it’s me I deceive
If I can’t see what I might achieve
We’re I wearing my heart on my sleeve
like a hedgehog I’m curled in a ball
All prickles outside but feeling so small
Though my belly is soft and warm
I long for your touch so much to keep me from harm, the strength of your arm
Though I fear that I might be thought to be naive
To be wearing my heart on my sleeve
And for sure it’s a lesson to learn
To trust and to melt in my turn
To soften and open up and let others in
Unravel this tight knitted brow to begin, let the whole world know here I am, I am here
all the gifts I might Receive
If I bravely wear my heart on my sleeve
In These Strange Times
In these strange times
I hear people say
In these strange times
Living day by day
In these strange times
keeping all at bay
And what’s to come, who knows?
Same old same old I suppose
But hey, what am I gonna do about it today?
In these strange times
Of grave emergency
Governments respond
With all due urgency
And we all blunder blindly on
Towards catastrophe
In these strange times, in these strange climbs
The warning bells They chime
But hey, what we gonna do about it anyway?
In these strange times
We struggle for control
In these strange times
Swimming round in my our goldfish bowls
In these strange times
Whilst we count the day’s death toll
Counting on man’s humanity to man
Whilst Gaia she is making other plans
But hey, what we gonna do about it today?
In these strange times
We see what our leaders lack
In these strange times
We ask that our governments must act
humanity before profit
And Environment before that
getting our priorities right, being told the facts
No more papering over the ever widening cracks
But hey, what they gonna do about it today?
In these strange times
When we live so differently
In these strange times
Maybe all of us can see
That for us to go back to how it was
Is not the way it can be because
Everything must change, nothing can be the same
Forget the status quo, I think we all must know
That If we don’t act, then Gaia will
And these strange times will become stranger still
Hey, They will, they will become stranger still.
Magpie Eye
An old man at the car boot sale
Buying toy cars each week without fail
And adding to his collection of interesting nails
I catch a reflection I don’t want to see
That sad old man is me
That sad old hoarder is me
I go to a sale, I can’t resist
Looking for that bargain that is not to be missed
And as quick as that, hand over fist
My hard earned cash departs
For that on which I’ve set my heart
A thing with which I will never part
The garage is so full I can’t get in
The attic ceiling is falling in
What are all these things to which I cling
As if I haven’t got enough
I’m still buying more stuff
It should all go I know, but letting go is tough
Oh me oh my my magpie eye
Collecting things and making piles
I think it’s time to change my style
Live simply and let go
Live simply and let go
Live simply and let go
My mother is lost in an endless chore
Sorting through paperwork stacked to the door
On tables and beds and chairs and floor
All of this paper, what’s it for?
Knitting patterns, receipts, recipes, family snaps
Agendas and minutes from meetings held long before
We binned what she’d let us, then let a container to contain the remainder
I’m clearing out my father’s draws
So many tools, Bradles and awls
All carefully vanished, polished and stored
How many gadgets can one man use?
Screwdrivers galore!
How many holes does one need to bore
What was all the screwing for?
Actually don’t ask - I wouldn’t be here
Every draw is stuffed to the brim
With pens that don’t work and short bits of string
Keys without locks and plastic bling
Incase of a rainy day
Kept ‘cause we can’t throw stuff away
Then I can’t find it anyway
Shuffling piles every which way
Oh me oh my my magpie eye
Collecting things and making piles
I think it’s time to change my style
Live simply and let go
Live simply and let go
Live simply and let go
Live simply and let go
Even in the virtual realm
I’ve maxed out on my telephone
80 thousand photographs and my storage is blown
I’ll have to pay more cash
To keep my photos stashed
To pay to store all this virtual trash
I sit down to watch tv
On every channel it seems to me
Living without stuff is an impossibility
With antiques shows and other claptrap
And ad men vying to sell me crap
All the hard sell feeding my habit
I came into this world without a thing
I’ll leave it again bare bone and skin
While I still can, it’s time for the work to begin
Live as simply as a monk
Live without these piles of effing junk
All you need is love
All you need is love
And a little bit of food
Shelter, living loving and giving
And all you need is love
Oh me oh my my magpie eye
Collecting things and making piles
I think it’s time to change my style
Live simply and let go
Live simply and let go
Live simply And let go
Live simply and let go
Live simply And let go
Portrait by Sara Parsons, with me sitting for her art class
Camille
His sculptors hands, so full of skill at moulding pliant clay
They caress you too, Camille, knead the thigh on which they lay
And you lie beside your teacher, learning how to live and die
The elder and the younger, the teacher and the child
Camille Claudelle, there’s a story to tell
You poured your life into your work, your lovers, your imploring girl
Your allegory of mature age, and the story that it tells
Yet you turned your back on all that, not another piece to make
I wonder why you had to hide, to hide such deep heartache?
Camille Claudelle, there’s a story to tell
A sculptress, a genius, an artist, and a girl
Those hungry eyes that drew you, devoured your naked form,
exposed each pink inch to brush and ink, his strong and manly charm
He had you dancing nude as a lover and a muse
Then abandoned you forever when you had no further use
Camille Claudelle, there’s a story to tell
A sculptress, a genius, an artist, and a girl
Who flourished briefly in this patriarchal world
He hungers and he wants, he needs you to be bold
and you comply by melting, like the wax into his mould
He would smother all his longing in your alabaster breast
Then turn you into marble, cold and dead beside warm flesh
Camille Claudelle, there’s a story to tell
A sculptress, a genius, an artist, and a girl
Who flourished briefly in this patriarchal world
Then just as swiftly to disappear
He would cast you into metal, into lifeless green gold bronze
Capture you forever, for the art worlds famed salons
And leave the very real you to an asylum’s cold confine
To live another 40 years in the prison of your mind
Camille Claudelle, there’s a story to tell
A sculptress, a genius, an artist, and a girl
Who flourished briefly in this patriarchal world
Then just as swiftly to disappear
To end your days shedding endless tears
He planted a seed inside you, it grew in a fertile field
And quickly you did too, to be perhaps as good as he,
Or maybe even better, was it that he couldn’t take
That you should find recognition, and your master overtake
Camille Claudelle, there’s a story to tell
A sculptress, a genius, an artist, and a girl
Who flourished briefly in this patriarchal world
Then just as swiftly to disappear
To end your days shedding endless tears
Confined in a mad house for 40 years
Maybe your fire died, with the child inside your womb
Or the jealousy of siblings, who consigned you to your living tomb
You did your best to destroy your work, your genius, your life
While Rodin, your love and mentor, returned to his faithful wife
Camille Claudelle, there’s a story to tell
A sculptress, a genius, an artist, and a girl
Who flourished briefly in this patriarchal world
Then just as swiftly to disappear
To end your days in endless tears
Confined in a mad house for 40 years
When you should be one of arts greatest pioneers
One of arts greatest pioneers
Dad and Co
My dad was but a young lad when he first put out to sea
Signing his indentures with a shipping company
Crossing stormy oceans on a rusty merchant ship
A hold full of exotic goods on the long round home bound trip
He told stories of his travels, that I learned upon his knee
The adventures and misadventures of his many years at sea
Of cockroaches in the cargo and of captains who were drunk
Memories enough to fill a worthy seaman's trunk
He told stories of the tropics and of icy northern climes
Long hours of tedium spliced with the most exciting times
Watches on the salty bridge, where they kept a constant log, running short of water, running into fog
By 1938 Dad was an officer, second mate
working on his his masters ticket, he stepped up to the plate
But when the Nazi’s came to power and World War Two begun
They were arming all the freighters, and he refused to fire a gun
What do we owe, we many, to the few who take a stand
Who ask the awkward questions and demand we understand?
Some might think him cowardly, but I think he was brave
To stand by his convictions though the consequences might be grave
They stood him before the full board of his shipping company
The managing director questioned his integrity
Giving him a hard time, but then saying at the end
Son, my mother was a Quaker, So yes, I understand
They put him on a hospital ship and he served throughout the war
On all the convoy passages, all the conflict that he saw
Bombed in Port Siad, frozen in Murmansk
Sailing up the Congo, and off the coast of France
Some might think him cowardly, but I think he was brave
To stand by his convictions though the consequence be grave
To take a stand and question the madness of a war
It takes a few brave souls to question to bring the rest of us on board x2
In The Mild Midwinter
(With apologies to Christina Rossetti, and all, me included, who love her wonderful poem)
In the mild mid winter,
Eco windbags moaned
Permafrost less permanent
Waters all a-grown
Snow no longer falling now
No more snow on snow
In the mild midwinter
Not so long ago
Man, the planet cannot hold him
Nor the Earth sustain
Heaven and earth shall flee away
Now he’s come to reign
In the freak midwinter
climate chaos rife
Lord God Almighty
Jesus Christ
Enough for us consumers
Consuming night and day
A breastful of milk
Now in a tin is thrown our way
Everything is monetised
That was free before
Pushed by the media ads
On the tv we adore.
The Fat cats and oligarchs
They may gather there
All the noxious toxins
Polluting everywhere
Mother Earth is crying out
Poisoned by all this
All the animals dying out
As we face the deep abyss
What can we do then
Wretched as we are?
We should protest loudly
Join up with XR
If we were wise men
We would do our part
All that we can do then
We can make a start