Rolling on in the same old way
Like a mean old alligator in the bay
I've got everything you could want or need
I've got you girl in the pocket of my jeans
It's the Springtime and I'm full of love
I've got wings I must look like a dove
I've got claws where my feet used to be
If you're going to get me come over and be my dream
You're a fright girl but you got style
You're all right girl you make me smile
I bet you could string me up well and good
Here's luck to you if you think you should
That's an old trick I've heard it said
You've got Johnny B Goode inside your head
You don't go for me but for some other guy
I'm just sat here, waiting for the turn of tide
ROLL OVER LAY DOWN
ROLL OVER LAY DOWN
FIND A PLACE ON THE GROUND
WHERE WE CAN ROLL OVER AND LAY DOWN
Thursday, 18 December 2014
Diggers You Done A Mighty Odd Thing
Diggers oh Diggers you done a mighty strange thing
In coming into this life at all you done a mighty strange thing
Your bottom is where your top should be
Your ears are made out of chutney and cheese
At night you dream of juke boxing teams is that any way to be
Diggers oh Diggers you done a mighty weird thing
Just walking into a restuarant at all you done a mighty weird thing
You fill your plate with fungus tell the waiter that he's a has been
You wash your face liberally in any old sooting dust it seems
No wonder the man snubs you and calls you unclean
Diggers oh Diggers you done a mighty odd thing
In getting dressed at all you done a mighty odd thing
You got your trousers where your shirt should be
We all wish you'd take yourself out of the washing machine
Your face might be sooty black but your soul comes up with a gleam
Diggers oh Diggers you live a mighty peculiar way
In learning to swim at all you done it a mighty peculiar way
You dived into the ocean disappeared for a year and a day at least
You went to a place called Malimaga and met the Julibob beast
You tamed it, or it tamed you, then you sat down for a feast
Diggers oh Diggers you done a mighty curious thing
In waking up at all you done a mighty curious thing
You played pinball on the moon and thought it great
Then faintly heard your Mother calling 'It's time for school dear, don't be late'
Working for the Government
I've been working all day for the government
Working to earn my pay
If I don't work for the government
I won't get to eat today
If I don't work for the government
I'm told it's against the grain
Against the crowd is against fellow man
And I don't know if I can, don't know if I can
But I've got to work for the government
All my life I've done that thing
I've got pride in the work I do
If I left I don't know what that would bring
I've got to work for the government
It keeps me sane at night
Gives me reason out of chaos
Lets me feel straight and right
I've been working all day for the management
And my boss had a word with me
Seems my section is overstaffed
Redundancy may be coming my way
Sitting at home watching the fire get low
I'm wondering about my life
Wondering about my wife and children
I wonder all through the night
I'm working all day down the mineshaft
My world is black dust and cramp
When I get out I'll go to sleep
Out of this place of lamps
And my foreman tells me to work harder
And I do because of my pay
I'd rather not work for the government
But that's not for me to say
I'm working all day for the peaceman
And he tries to fill me in his gap
He's got many reasons to hold me
But he's held back by the straps
You should see the way he spills out
Down those government lines
See the venom that he spits out
At those corporation lies
Universal Cavalcade
Misty mornings wandering and you are on your own
Yet there are many spirits about you
Walking through the silent way
You can see their shrouded forms
The trees sway in the light of false dawn
Hush now my sleeping friend would you stir the hordes
For they are gathered now around me
Harking crashing omens firing in the mind
My body is propelled
Out of space and Time
ONE BY ONE WE TURN TO FADE
UNIVERSAL CAVALCADE
Yet there are many spirits about you
Walking through the silent way
You can see their shrouded forms
The trees sway in the light of false dawn
Hush now my sleeping friend would you stir the hordes
For they are gathered now around me
Harking crashing omens firing in the mind
My body is propelled
Out of space and Time
ONE BY ONE WE TURN TO FADE
UNIVERSAL CAVALCADE
Monday, 15 December 2014
Far Ahead
Well it come to me to think of Autumn
It comes to me bear Spring in mind
I don't know where I'm going
But out of luck and out of time
Out of luck and out of time
The bells ring but there's no chime
Was it something that I said
It's hard with a planet for a head
Far ahead
We've been riding on the ocean
We've been trapped inside Time
You're a little bit suspicious
You think we'll get out alive
You think we'll get out alive
Give us a break cut the jive
You'd better get it in your head
You'd better swim or sink like lead
Far ahead
If you've ever travelled inwards
To that glowing point of light
You know it's rather different there
It's a place give it it's rights
You self govern by your own lights
But if you don't go there don't judge
Do not judge where you never tread
'Cos you fill me full of dread
Far ahead
Now comes the time of Winter
And Summer's way behind
I've done alot of thinking
Since that flowery time
I've done with races in the mind
You'd better get it this time
Trace the glow line of the days
It's globe~like though we're poorly fed
Far ahead
It comes to me bear Spring in mind
I don't know where I'm going
But out of luck and out of time
Out of luck and out of time
The bells ring but there's no chime
Was it something that I said
It's hard with a planet for a head
Far ahead
We've been riding on the ocean
We've been trapped inside Time
You're a little bit suspicious
You think we'll get out alive
You think we'll get out alive
Give us a break cut the jive
You'd better get it in your head
You'd better swim or sink like lead
Far ahead
If you've ever travelled inwards
To that glowing point of light
You know it's rather different there
It's a place give it it's rights
You self govern by your own lights
But if you don't go there don't judge
Do not judge where you never tread
'Cos you fill me full of dread
Far ahead
Now comes the time of Winter
And Summer's way behind
I've done alot of thinking
Since that flowery time
I've done with races in the mind
You'd better get it this time
Trace the glow line of the days
It's globe~like though we're poorly fed
Far ahead
I Am You Are Me
When the fate of angels falls to dust
And when nothing is left to see
When the fame and glory crack with rust
Will you see eye to eye with me
Listen to the music around you
Listen now it's free
Becoming is not so easy
But I am you are me
Indigo and red the mood in me
Flashing and poeming words
You are dancing through existance
A voice flies by as verse
Make your way back in again
Make it back to be
Becoming is not so easy
But I am you are me
And when nothing is left to see
When the fame and glory crack with rust
Will you see eye to eye with me
Listen to the music around you
Listen now it's free
Becoming is not so easy
But I am you are me
Indigo and red the mood in me
Flashing and poeming words
You are dancing through existance
A voice flies by as verse
Make your way back in again
Make it back to be
Becoming is not so easy
But I am you are me
TRY ~ The Anti~Eye
Whether you live or whether you die
In these matters our senses fry
Whether you're near or whether far
In these things you can only try
Mages and menhirs around you spin
Ancient fire that listens in
The man the mask the arrowed eye
In these things we can only try
A fool is like the loaded dice
Not he can change his destiny
Folded wings open the door
Watch out for the fatal flaw
He left behind the folded bed
Looked back to where her body lay
Started to recall the wing
Hoovering the only thing
Fastly fitting planet sphere
Posters on your wall disappear
Your head spins out, the paper flies
Enter in the Anti~Eye
Papers flying everywhere
Swirling patterns in the air
Quite soon his mind got left behind
But clement elements were kind
TRY TRY TRY SO SAYS THE ANTI~EYE
Pickin' and Choosin'
Pickin' and choosin' is all in the game
'Cos pickin' and choosing's what we do all day
And when the choice is made at last
Turn it round it won't hold fast
PICKIN' AND CHOOSIN'
IT'S ALL IN THE GAME
THROW THE DICE
AND IT'S ROUND AND ROUND
AND ROUND AND ROUND AGAIN
Cat a walking on a painted fence
She don't look down she got to much sense
But what she gets is what she can't see
Bucket of water such a wet moggy
If the music's in your head
You can listen or go to bed
If you lie down you might not sleep
So a vigil you will keep
Gypsy gives me of a charm
Says it'll keep me out of harm
But what's this she says to me
She wants some silver in her palm
A windy day and the sky so black
You were going out but you came on back
Indecision running in your brain
Is it or ain't it going to rain
Make your mind up is what it's about
Is there worry is there any doubt
Is the cat any better than you
Take some care in what you choose
'Cos pickin' and choosing's what we do all day
And when the choice is made at last
Turn it round it won't hold fast
PICKIN' AND CHOOSIN'
IT'S ALL IN THE GAME
THROW THE DICE
AND IT'S ROUND AND ROUND
AND ROUND AND ROUND AGAIN
Cat a walking on a painted fence
She don't look down she got to much sense
But what she gets is what she can't see
Bucket of water such a wet moggy
If the music's in your head
You can listen or go to bed
If you lie down you might not sleep
So a vigil you will keep
Gypsy gives me of a charm
Says it'll keep me out of harm
But what's this she says to me
She wants some silver in her palm
A windy day and the sky so black
You were going out but you came on back
Indecision running in your brain
Is it or ain't it going to rain
Make your mind up is what it's about
Is there worry is there any doubt
Is the cat any better than you
Take some care in what you choose
Sunday, 14 December 2014
Tangled Up and Running Blues
Money in your pocket
Leather in your shoes
Hat up on your head man
But you still got those blues
Bird in the sky
He soars so high
All you can think of
Is pigeon pie
TANGLED UP AND RUNNING BLUES
YOU WON'T CATCH US WITH THEM
WE'D BETTER CATCH UP BEHIND YOU
'COS YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU'RE MISSING
BABY BLUE
Something I did
Or something I said
Set you on fire
Made you see red
Caves of ice
Caves of blue
Nothing will stop
You getting on through
Menacing men
Don't bother you
You bottled it up
Into something new
Charms have you
To hold a man
It's nothing more
Than a wicked plan
Leather in your shoes
Hat up on your head man
But you still got those blues
Bird in the sky
He soars so high
All you can think of
Is pigeon pie
TANGLED UP AND RUNNING BLUES
YOU WON'T CATCH US WITH THEM
WE'D BETTER CATCH UP BEHIND YOU
'COS YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU'RE MISSING
BABY BLUE
Something I did
Or something I said
Set you on fire
Made you see red
Caves of ice
Caves of blue
Nothing will stop
You getting on through
Menacing men
Don't bother you
You bottled it up
Into something new
Charms have you
To hold a man
It's nothing more
Than a wicked plan
Bummer to Cry
When I was younger I kept no promises
Rogue spirit was I
Hid out in the yard when my soul ghost would beat me
Lost in sheets of time
But it's A ~ OK
It's A ~ OK
It's OK to laugh
But it's really a bummer to cry
Step out of the shadows step out of the mire
You are a timeless star child walk on wild
There is heaven in your hair and rivers between your fingers
Celebrate your mysterious self in style
Take this crown of thorns they say
Take this cross of iron
Stick yourself into the ground
Cover your face in frowns
A warning to those who talk to us
And call us wasters delinquents
Might you use the same language
If you knew I was a shape shifter
Rogue spirit was I
Hid out in the yard when my soul ghost would beat me
Lost in sheets of time
But it's A ~ OK
It's A ~ OK
It's OK to laugh
But it's really a bummer to cry
Step out of the shadows step out of the mire
You are a timeless star child walk on wild
There is heaven in your hair and rivers between your fingers
Celebrate your mysterious self in style
Take this crown of thorns they say
Take this cross of iron
Stick yourself into the ground
Cover your face in frowns
A warning to those who talk to us
And call us wasters delinquents
Might you use the same language
If you knew I was a shape shifter
Song for Mankind
In the beginning
When we were young
We were one
We had so much joy
When we were girls and boys
We ran through the meadows of time
We knew ourselves, we beheld no crime
When we were one
There was a moment
When we began
There was a time
When we like rivers ran
There was no confusion or mistrust
There was harmony because we must
Have been in it together
We are of the open sky
We can fly through the air
We are of the swelling sea
The tide laps through our hair
We are still one
You are old and young
You have just begun
The seed planted in your bed
Is growing through your head
What would you have instead
There is a golden road
There is a golden road
Don't take no money
You won't need it at all
There is no toll
When we were young
We were one
We had so much joy
When we were girls and boys
We ran through the meadows of time
We knew ourselves, we beheld no crime
When we were one
There was a moment
When we began
There was a time
When we like rivers ran
There was no confusion or mistrust
There was harmony because we must
Have been in it together
We are of the open sky
We can fly through the air
We are of the swelling sea
The tide laps through our hair
We are still one
You are old and young
You have just begun
The seed planted in your bed
Is growing through your head
What would you have instead
There is a golden road
There is a golden road
Don't take no money
You won't need it at all
There is no toll
Saturday, 13 December 2014
Two Simple People
Simple people simple style
And we were waiting all the while
For the bud to come of age
For us to reach the next stage
It's you and me or meaning more
Our words stretch out across the floor
And meaning less we had to guess
What it was we were put here for
I don't know, it's just sometimes
My thoughts go up in the air
And there's a feeling
Of something more that was there
Something so simple
A quick pause a wordless clause
A tooth pick girl, pain with no cause
No need to say no words anymore
Simple things for simple minds
You hold me I respond with glee
Our farmhouse home that we don't see
Lots of people running round
Lots of make up lots of clowns
You reminded me just then
Of a picture I once saw
Was either in a gallery
Or I picked it off the floor
Ain't that funny
Just to think that time last week
You stood on a hill I could not hear you speak
You talked louder and had to shout
Said the Moon. 'What's all this noise about'
You came in with a shining ring
I ran out, felt the need to sing
You've come up, I've gone down
I guess if you look, you'll look again
When I was only laughing
You were way ahead
When they wound up with scorn
We had something else instead
Something too simple
Give and take plus and minus
These are things we believe in
If you awake there's no time for hate
But please be back for evening
Last time round without a sound
Sweep your feet up off the ground
Hold your hands up in the air
A Golden Temple is to be seen there
We talk and talk from dawn till dusk turns to night
We guess about the time and then turn out the light
We're just simple you see
And we were waiting all the while
For the bud to come of age
For us to reach the next stage
It's you and me or meaning more
Our words stretch out across the floor
And meaning less we had to guess
What it was we were put here for
I don't know, it's just sometimes
My thoughts go up in the air
And there's a feeling
Of something more that was there
Something so simple
A quick pause a wordless clause
A tooth pick girl, pain with no cause
No need to say no words anymore
Simple things for simple minds
You hold me I respond with glee
Our farmhouse home that we don't see
Lots of people running round
Lots of make up lots of clowns
You reminded me just then
Of a picture I once saw
Was either in a gallery
Or I picked it off the floor
Ain't that funny
Just to think that time last week
You stood on a hill I could not hear you speak
You talked louder and had to shout
Said the Moon. 'What's all this noise about'
You came in with a shining ring
I ran out, felt the need to sing
You've come up, I've gone down
I guess if you look, you'll look again
When I was only laughing
You were way ahead
When they wound up with scorn
We had something else instead
Something too simple
Give and take plus and minus
These are things we believe in
If you awake there's no time for hate
But please be back for evening
Last time round without a sound
Sweep your feet up off the ground
Hold your hands up in the air
A Golden Temple is to be seen there
We talk and talk from dawn till dusk turns to night
We guess about the time and then turn out the light
We're just simple you see
Sunday, 7 December 2014
Way Down the River to the Sea ('Dey ridin' with Jesus on the Midnight Train} or 'I dreampt I saw Jesus ride the Midnight Special with Charlotte and baby Zane.'
Charlotte's gone
Charlotte's gone
Gone, gone
Way down the river
To the sea
Skyfallin'
Skyfallin'
Baby n' all
Way down the river
To the sea
Zaania's gone
Zaania's gone
Gone, gone
Way down the river
To the sea
Skyfallin'
Skyfallin'
Baby n'all
Way down the river
To the sea
Mother's gone
Baby's gone
Gone, gone
Way down the river
To the sea
Skyfallin'
Skyfallin'
Way down the river
To the sea
Eight thirty evening time
New born baby in her arms
Gone, gone
Way down the river
To the sea
Into the cold December night
She slipped past the alarms
Gone, gone
Way down the river
To the sea
Services came out in force
But when they searched they found the worst
Gone, gone
Way down the river
To the sea
I called the detective
Won't you put me at my ease
Gone, gone
Way down the river
To the sea
Saw it on the front page
I knelt down on my knees
Gone, gone
Way down the river
To the sea
As soon as I began pray
I saw her smiling back at me
But she's gone, gone
Way down the river
To the sea
De big wheel run by faith
Little wheel run by the grace of God
Gone, gone
Way down the river
To the sea
Ezekiel says
'It were a wheel in the middle of a wheel'
Gone, gone
Way down the river
To the sea
I dreampt I saw Charlotte
On the Midnight Special
With Jesus and baby Zane
She's gone, gone
Never comin' back this way again
They'd taken no dough with 'em
To pay no bullguard's fare
Gone, gone
Way down the river
To the sea
So Jesus let 'em jump freight
Atop de carriage in de open air
Gone, gone
Way down the river
To the sea
Jesus Train
Holy Roller
Midnight Special
Halleluliah!
Hear the Word of the Lord!
Oh Lord
Pick up a bum
Get on the train
Jump freight with Jesus
Halleluliah!
Oh Lord
Pick up a bum
He ain't got nothin'
Give him a ride
Walk with Jesus by your side
Halleluliah, I'm a bum
Let the Midnight Special
Shine it's light on me
Let the Midnight Special
Shine it's ever lovin' light on me
Light flickers though the window bars
I hear the midnight train
One time I saw my baby
Steppin' through the rain
Underneath her umberella
She held the letter to set me free
It was hallucination
Brain playin' tricks on me
And I never saw her one more
Save that one midnight
But everytime I see the flickerin'
I feel it's glorious light
Let the Midnight Special
Shine it's light on me
Let the Midnight Special
Shine it's ever lovin' light on me
If you ever get to Heuston
Say hello from me
I don't get too far a roamin'
In penetentiary
Grit bread and water
Is the best I get for feeds
But when I hear the Special
It shines it's light on me
Let the Midnight Special
Shine it's light on me
Let the Midnight Special
Shine it's ever lovin' light on me
Stormy weather, stormy weather
Stormy weather, stormy weather
I saw Charlotte on the Midnight Train
Stormy weather, stormy weather
Stormy weather, stormy weather
Jesus at the engine goin' through the rain
Stormy weather, stormy weather
Stormy weather, stormy weather
Stokin' coal for Jesus on the Midnight Train
Stormy weather, Midnight Special
Stormy weather, Midnight Special
Charlotte and Jesus on the Midnight Train
Stormy weather, Midnight Special
Stormy weather, Midnight Special
Jesus, Charlotte and Zaania on the Midnight Train
Hear the Word of the Lord!
Hear the Word of the Lord!
Hear the Word of the Lord!
Lord, Lord
I might be a hobo
Lord, Lord
I might be a bum
But I'm a walkin' with Jesus
Hallelulliah, I'm a bum
Lord, Lord
I might be a hobo
Lord, Lord
I might be a bum
I ain't better than anyone
Hallelulliah, I'm a bum
Jesus Train
Holy Roller
Midnight Special
Get on the Train
Hallellulliah!
Way up the middle of the sky
Hear the Word of the Lord!
Hear the Word of the Lord!
I dreampt I saw Jesus
Ridin' on the Midnight Special
With Charlotte and baby Zane
No money for a ticket
But he let 'em on just the same
I dreampt I saw Jesus
Ridin' high on the Midnight Special
With Charlotte and baby Zane
'Dey ridin' home with Jesus
On the Midnight Train
Thursday, 4 December 2014
Tell Me
TELL ME WHAT IS ON YOUR MIND
TELL ME IS YOUR LIFE UNKIND
WOULD I FIND YOU SAD
WOULD I FIND YOU GLAD
I KNOW YOU CAN'T ANSWER
BUT DON'T FEEL BAD
Tell me if am I crazy
Tell me if I'm sane
Tell me why the moon makes the sun disappear
What makes the sun come out again
Blown away
Dark of the day
Dont be afraid
It's on your way
CHORUS
Your sister too
She's not very old
I hope that you keep her
Safe from the cold
And don't get too wet
Though you won't be told
Tell me the truth now and let's be bold
Tell me how precious is life
Tell me were you lonely that night
Please tell me I want to know
Please tell me where did you go
CHORUS
A balance so fragile
Don't look down and all
How come you were so close at hand
And then nowhere at all
Please tell me it's making me chill
Looking out from the window sill
The skies changing hue and so are you
Please tell me what did you do
CHORUS
Tell me what do I do
When the tide goes out
I want to know with no doubt
'Cos when the sea comes back in again
It will bring back my baby whose gone far away
Tell me just what it's like
Over there on the other side
And one day too I'll take that hike
Maybe we'll get to ride our bikes
CHORUS
And if the King comes up to your door
Tell me how to greet him once more
And if the Queen remarks on your dress
Gracefully curtsey and tell her your quest
Tell me then what's through that door
Tell me 'cos I can't tell any more
It's a skyfall
Beyond recall
Tell me now or never tell at all
CHORUS
TELL ME IS YOUR LIFE UNKIND
WOULD I FIND YOU SAD
WOULD I FIND YOU GLAD
I KNOW YOU CAN'T ANSWER
BUT DON'T FEEL BAD
Tell me if am I crazy
Tell me if I'm sane
Tell me why the moon makes the sun disappear
What makes the sun come out again
Blown away
Dark of the day
Dont be afraid
It's on your way
CHORUS
Your sister too
She's not very old
I hope that you keep her
Safe from the cold
And don't get too wet
Though you won't be told
Tell me the truth now and let's be bold
Tell me how precious is life
Tell me were you lonely that night
Please tell me I want to know
Please tell me where did you go
CHORUS
A balance so fragile
Don't look down and all
How come you were so close at hand
And then nowhere at all
Please tell me it's making me chill
Looking out from the window sill
The skies changing hue and so are you
Please tell me what did you do
CHORUS
Tell me what do I do
When the tide goes out
I want to know with no doubt
'Cos when the sea comes back in again
It will bring back my baby whose gone far away
Tell me just what it's like
Over there on the other side
And one day too I'll take that hike
Maybe we'll get to ride our bikes
CHORUS
And if the King comes up to your door
Tell me how to greet him once more
And if the Queen remarks on your dress
Gracefully curtsey and tell her your quest
Tell me then what's through that door
Tell me 'cos I can't tell any more
It's a skyfall
Beyond recall
Tell me now or never tell at all
CHORUS
Wednesday, 3 December 2014
One, Two, Buckle my Shoe (I'm Still In Love With You}
If you think it's just a fleeting thing
~don't do me in, you make me sing
I'd run out into the street for you shouting words
If you think it's just a passing show
~ I don't know, you make me glow
You make a river run down over my head
And I used to eye up so many kinds of girls
Used to watch them prowl around
So many times I said 'I love you'
But you take the biscuit yes you do
I'll get myself a tidy job, make a living some old way
I'll even tidy myself up too
We'll settle down, I'll buy a farm,
It's all planned. don't be alarmed
We can muck the sheds till the cows come home
And our children will be many and fair
We'll bring them up well and good
As for us, well I do declare
Everything will be as it should, yes we could
Wait, don't you hold back that tear
Let it out if you must
Is this too much all at once
You gotta tell, or I'll go bust
And when I have older got
Please stay on, forget me not
I'll play flute for you out on the moors
And our children will be grown up tall
Wonderous strong and that's not all
They can support us in our old age
All this can be yours if you say 'yes'
I'm asking this of you now
If your answer has two letters only
I'm going for a night on the town
ONE, TWO, BUCKLE MY SHOE
I'M STILL IN LOVE WITH YOU
THREE, FOUR, I'M DOWN ON MY KNEE
FIVE, SIX, SEVEN, I'LL NEVER GET TO HEAVEN
'COS HEAVEN'S HERE ON EARTH WITH YOU
~don't do me in, you make me sing
I'd run out into the street for you shouting words
If you think it's just a passing show
~ I don't know, you make me glow
You make a river run down over my head
And I used to eye up so many kinds of girls
Used to watch them prowl around
So many times I said 'I love you'
But you take the biscuit yes you do
I'll get myself a tidy job, make a living some old way
I'll even tidy myself up too
We'll settle down, I'll buy a farm,
It's all planned. don't be alarmed
We can muck the sheds till the cows come home
And our children will be many and fair
We'll bring them up well and good
As for us, well I do declare
Everything will be as it should, yes we could
Wait, don't you hold back that tear
Let it out if you must
Is this too much all at once
You gotta tell, or I'll go bust
And when I have older got
Please stay on, forget me not
I'll play flute for you out on the moors
And our children will be grown up tall
Wonderous strong and that's not all
They can support us in our old age
All this can be yours if you say 'yes'
I'm asking this of you now
If your answer has two letters only
I'm going for a night on the town
ONE, TWO, BUCKLE MY SHOE
I'M STILL IN LOVE WITH YOU
THREE, FOUR, I'M DOWN ON MY KNEE
FIVE, SIX, SEVEN, I'LL NEVER GET TO HEAVEN
'COS HEAVEN'S HERE ON EARTH WITH YOU
Green Grow the Rushes Oh
GREEN GROW THE RUSHES OH
GREEN GROW THE RUSHES OH
GREEN GROW THE RUSHES OH
RUSH ALL OVER ME
I went down to the border in spring
To see what pretty girls I might find
I looked here, I looked there
I looked almost everywhere
Perhaps I was just wasting my time
I jumped from train to train
Trying to find that girl
I looked under rocks and stones
I looked inside telephones
But I never found those charming eyes
I met a traveler on the road
He said 'There's someone after you
Look where the meadow is green
Trace the tracks where you have been
All you need is time and it's waiting'
I went to the river to wash my hair
Maybe find someone lying there
My hope was nearly gone
But the river went flowing on
And I called this out into the air
I went down to the sea
Just to see what might be
Anyone would do by now
Then not much to my surprise
A hundred hags stared me in the eyes
Well the clouds roll by
And my mind rolls up
Waiting is such a dull old game
And then I started to dream
All I saw were those rushes green
Now I'm a hundred and four
Won't grow old any more
But I found my green~eyed maid
She followed the tracks I had made
We met down by the rushes green
GREEN GROW THE RUSHES OH
GREEN GROW THE RUSHES OH
RUSH ALL OVER ME
I went down to the border in spring
To see what pretty girls I might find
I looked here, I looked there
I looked almost everywhere
Perhaps I was just wasting my time
I jumped from train to train
Trying to find that girl
I looked under rocks and stones
I looked inside telephones
But I never found those charming eyes
I met a traveler on the road
He said 'There's someone after you
Look where the meadow is green
Trace the tracks where you have been
All you need is time and it's waiting'
I went to the river to wash my hair
Maybe find someone lying there
My hope was nearly gone
But the river went flowing on
And I called this out into the air
I went down to the sea
Just to see what might be
Anyone would do by now
Then not much to my surprise
A hundred hags stared me in the eyes
Well the clouds roll by
And my mind rolls up
Waiting is such a dull old game
And then I started to dream
All I saw were those rushes green
Now I'm a hundred and four
Won't grow old any more
But I found my green~eyed maid
She followed the tracks I had made
We met down by the rushes green
Refugees
Fifteen gone, fifteen to come
We're just fugatives on the run
The sun is setting and we are on the hill
Look down, see the others being killed
They caught them down in the valley
Reined them in, coralled them tight
Rain was falling, forever was calling
We struggle on through the night
Now some wore rope and some wore chain
But they treat you just the same
Living in fear, there is nowhere home
Except running, running, running all alone
REFUGEES, REFUGEES
RUNNING FROM WHOEVER
REFUGEES, REFUGEES
SOMEONE HELP US PLEASE
RUNNING TO FOREVER
We're just fugatives on the run
The sun is setting and we are on the hill
Look down, see the others being killed
They caught them down in the valley
Reined them in, coralled them tight
Rain was falling, forever was calling
We struggle on through the night
Now some wore rope and some wore chain
But they treat you just the same
Living in fear, there is nowhere home
Except running, running, running all alone
REFUGEES, REFUGEES
RUNNING FROM WHOEVER
REFUGEES, REFUGEES
SOMEONE HELP US PLEASE
RUNNING TO FOREVER
Tuesday, 2 December 2014
Human Beings
Stagecoach robbery, highway crime
Masked man with a flintlock, but the coach ain't on time
Redskin warrior, Indian Man
Bows and arrows, but the paleface got their land
Sharp suited man, cadillac he drive
Getting harder every minute, with that woman on his arm
Coal black miner, working in the hole
Such a long time down there he feels like a mole
Beneath the wave are divers, fishing for pearls
Above and around them, the mighty ocean swirls
Government official, with a briefcase full of facts
Got a head full of spreadsheets, and income tax
Man in a restuarant, woman in the street
Girl on a bicycle, boy caught in the heat
Queen and courtiers, jester for a King
Each to their own, and their own thing
WE'VE BEEN ON THE MOUNTAIN
WE'VE BEEN IN THE HALL
WE'VE BEEN IN MANY TIMES
MANY PORTS OF CALL
WE'VE BEEN IN THE SKIES
WE'VE BEEN IN THE WARS
WE'VE BEEN SO ALONE
WE'VE FORGOTTEN WE ARE ALL
HUMAN BEINGS
Masked man with a flintlock, but the coach ain't on time
Redskin warrior, Indian Man
Bows and arrows, but the paleface got their land
Sharp suited man, cadillac he drive
Getting harder every minute, with that woman on his arm
Coal black miner, working in the hole
Such a long time down there he feels like a mole
Beneath the wave are divers, fishing for pearls
Above and around them, the mighty ocean swirls
Government official, with a briefcase full of facts
Got a head full of spreadsheets, and income tax
Man in a restuarant, woman in the street
Girl on a bicycle, boy caught in the heat
Queen and courtiers, jester for a King
Each to their own, and their own thing
WE'VE BEEN ON THE MOUNTAIN
WE'VE BEEN IN THE HALL
WE'VE BEEN IN MANY TIMES
MANY PORTS OF CALL
WE'VE BEEN IN THE SKIES
WE'VE BEEN IN THE WARS
WE'VE BEEN SO ALONE
WE'VE FORGOTTEN WE ARE ALL
HUMAN BEINGS
You Took What You Wanted From Me
YOU TOOK WHAT YOU WANTED FROM ME
YOU TOOK WHAT YOU WANTED NOW LET ME BE
YOU TOOK WHAT YOU WANTED FROM ME
PLEASE GO NOW AND LET ME BE
It's like I'm stuck in a swirling place
Whisps of sand all round my face
I shout this through the hourglass
Let me get out now, oh let it pass
It's only a measure of our love
That we don't see clearly yet
I know you are aware of how I feel
And that what you give is what you get
It's like I'm balanced on a razor's edge
I can't look down I got to keep my head
Don't want to fall down on either side
'Cos if I slip I'll loose more than my mind
Look into the mirror babe
Look me into my eyes
Look forward to the future now
Look up and out into the skies
Girl you cling so close to me
But you don't love me at all
You took alot I guess I did too
So now's the time for something new
I guess it's like I'm trying to be hard
But I hope you follow what I say
Cruel to be kind my love
We have to go our separate ways
Sunday, 30 November 2014
Herb Spiral
Herb spiral looks like the coil of a snail
Or a fat snake curled upon it's tail
Made from stones by the garden wall
With soil, then herbs, we filled it all
Like a sea shell, like a fern
Listen and some herbs we'll learn
What a lot of lovely herbs
Are growing on the herb spiral
There is a pond at the bottom
Then an earth path spirals up and round
Water Cress, Sweet Flag and Bogbean
Are there in the wetness found
Peppermint and Penny Royal
Lady's Mantle are in the soil
Chervil, Chives and Camomile
Marjorum it's such a joy
I am a tiny caterpillar munching on a flower
I crawl along the edge of a leaf
In the hedge by that spiral tower
I eat all day I fill my tum
I munch more every hour
One day soon I will make my cacoon
Then fly into my power
Herbs have uses did you know
They can be medicinal
They also taste good in a stew
Herbs are really good for you
Carraway and Tarragon, Lovage, Rue and Marigold
Cumin, Borage, Parsley, Dill, Mellisa and Nasturtium
I am a little butterfly flying by the herb spiral
looking down I think I'll try to sit down on it's top a while
I fly up, I fly down, I flutter by I flit around
What a lot of lovely herbs are growing on the herb spiral
Yes, what a lot of herbs there are
Growing on the herb spiral
Did you know there are many more
Growing in the whole wide world
Basil, Yarrow, Lavender, Sorrel, Coriander
Thyme and Sage and Rosemary
All crowned with a tall fine Fennel
Herb spiral looks like the coil of a snail
Or a fat snake curled upon it's tail
Made from stones by the garden wall
With soil, then herbs, we filled it all
Like a sea shell, like a fern
Thank you, now some herbs we've learnt
What a lot of lovely herbs
Are growing on the herb spiral
Or a fat snake curled upon it's tail
Made from stones by the garden wall
With soil, then herbs, we filled it all
Like a sea shell, like a fern
Listen and some herbs we'll learn
What a lot of lovely herbs
Are growing on the herb spiral
There is a pond at the bottom
Then an earth path spirals up and round
Water Cress, Sweet Flag and Bogbean
Are there in the wetness found
Peppermint and Penny Royal
Lady's Mantle are in the soil
Chervil, Chives and Camomile
Marjorum it's such a joy
I am a tiny caterpillar munching on a flower
I crawl along the edge of a leaf
In the hedge by that spiral tower
I eat all day I fill my tum
I munch more every hour
One day soon I will make my cacoon
Then fly into my power
Herbs have uses did you know
They can be medicinal
They also taste good in a stew
Herbs are really good for you
Carraway and Tarragon, Lovage, Rue and Marigold
Cumin, Borage, Parsley, Dill, Mellisa and Nasturtium
I am a little butterfly flying by the herb spiral
looking down I think I'll try to sit down on it's top a while
I fly up, I fly down, I flutter by I flit around
What a lot of lovely herbs are growing on the herb spiral
Yes, what a lot of herbs there are
Growing on the herb spiral
Did you know there are many more
Growing in the whole wide world
Basil, Yarrow, Lavender, Sorrel, Coriander
Thyme and Sage and Rosemary
All crowned with a tall fine Fennel
Herb spiral looks like the coil of a snail
Or a fat snake curled upon it's tail
Made from stones by the garden wall
With soil, then herbs, we filled it all
Like a sea shell, like a fern
Thank you, now some herbs we've learnt
What a lot of lovely herbs
Are growing on the herb spiral
Gin Still Jim
Oh what a holler oh what a strife
They're kicking down my farm door
They're coming for my life
Execute me they would for stillin' shaky gin
But if they knew the half of it they'd make me shaky King
Five thirty AM on a cold December day
In their stupid uniforms the tax men came my way
My dogs were a~howling just like they're supposed to
We're making out the back way straight to Timbucktoo
Ain't no man allowed to make good in his own time
I ain't making shandy beer or drinking pussy wine
Gin in my still Sir and it will give you the most
But when you see those excise men just make like a ghost
Then I thought I'd lead them fools all in a merry dance
So I lit off in a boat that set me down in France
Jumped ship back to England on the returning tide
Them excise men is searching but all on the wrong side
I ain't paying no gin tax to give no government no hand
To fund some war overseas. Who fights. The poor man
Gin for your soul my friend, juniper makes no smoke
See them excise men run around they just don't get the joke
So I skipped it up to Scotland and found a monastry
On a holy Island, man would you believe
Them monks is stillin' something holy Benedictine
And if you come and try some then you'll know what I mean
LORD THE MOON WAS SHINING
BUT NO MOON WAS IN THE SKY
THEM EXCISE MEN IS IN THE MUD ~ GOT LOST IN FRANCE ~ ALL WENT TO HELL
AND WE WAS HIGH AND DRY
They're kicking down my farm door
They're coming for my life
Execute me they would for stillin' shaky gin
But if they knew the half of it they'd make me shaky King
Five thirty AM on a cold December day
In their stupid uniforms the tax men came my way
My dogs were a~howling just like they're supposed to
We're making out the back way straight to Timbucktoo
Ain't no man allowed to make good in his own time
I ain't making shandy beer or drinking pussy wine
Gin in my still Sir and it will give you the most
But when you see those excise men just make like a ghost
Then I thought I'd lead them fools all in a merry dance
So I lit off in a boat that set me down in France
Jumped ship back to England on the returning tide
Them excise men is searching but all on the wrong side
I ain't paying no gin tax to give no government no hand
To fund some war overseas. Who fights. The poor man
Gin for your soul my friend, juniper makes no smoke
See them excise men run around they just don't get the joke
So I skipped it up to Scotland and found a monastry
On a holy Island, man would you believe
Them monks is stillin' something holy Benedictine
And if you come and try some then you'll know what I mean
LORD THE MOON WAS SHINING
BUT NO MOON WAS IN THE SKY
THEM EXCISE MEN IS IN THE MUD ~ GOT LOST IN FRANCE ~ ALL WENT TO HELL
AND WE WAS HIGH AND DRY
Friday, 28 November 2014
The Corn, the Fork and the Spoon
Thirty ships bound for the Kingdom
Graciously bestowed
With gifts and presents from the suitors
It's their love they want to show
Carpets and precious scents
Spices rare, fruits succulent
Many coloured jewels and beads
All this for her
She was called Emma the Fair
Beautiful was she
Golden hair fell in many locks
And round her neck were pearls
The suitors came from oversea
They came from over land
But her father bid her not the love
That she wanted so much
The man that princess Emma loved
Was called Justin Dare
He wooed her with a flute of wood
When he didn't know she was there
She was walking in the woods one day
And heard the shepherd's pipe
And when the two saw each other
There was a flash of light
As he was just a shepherd poor
How could this love be
The princess cried many nights
Because of her cruel destiny
Her father had seen her in Justin's embrace
And threw the man in jail
He did not think it fit that Emma wed
Someone of no avail
To Emma side came the friendly monk
Nigel by name
He comforted her with kindly talk
But in his head he knows
The suitors will soon be here
And for all the words he has to say
Emma may soon be married off
And her nightmares live by day
I shall work out some plan
He says scratching his head
You and Justin shall be wed
And live to produce an heir
'It shall be done' he says to himself
As he thinks later alone
'But quite how I do not know'
Then the walls quake and groan
Out steps a figure small and strange
From the breathing wall
'I am Genkrill, gnome of night
I appear when starlight fails
I have listened to this plight
Of Emma, Justin and the princes
For your friendship you the princess show
I deign to help you out'
'I have an ear of corn' he says
'I have a fork and spoon
When the suitors show their wares
Justin will show these'
'Shh' says the gnome conspiringly
I know what you're thinking
That Justin is in that deep dungeon
But just leave that to me
Genkrill shows Nigel the magic corn,
Magic fork and spoon
Bows low and vanishes
It's all happened too soon
Nigel takes a sip of water
Sits down and rubs his eyes
Looks down to the courtyard
What should his eyes spy
Justin is walking proud and tall
Genkrill is also there
As are many courtiers riding horses fair
So handsome and debonaire
He joins the suitors at the end of the line
Nigel jumps for joy
It all seems somehow beyond hope
But magic is in the air
In the Throne Room a long line
Of suitors in costly array
Is boring the Queen into the ground
Making Emma terrified
They are either overfed and ugly
Or thin, cruel eyed and evil
Their gifts make the King's eyes light up
But make the princess quail
One by one they roll by
The pile of presents grows
And who will gain the ladies hand
No one really knows
Last of all comes Justin
Emma is startled quite
The King recalls him not at all
Then Justin speaks forthright
'I bring these gifts simple and true
The corn, the fork and spoon
To express my love for the princess here
I wish to wed her soon'
Justin bows most graciously
The queen wakes up and stares
'Who is that man' she asks the King
'Haven't I seen him somewhere'
Nigel, watching from behind
Holds his breath here
Will Genkrill's plan all come undone
This is what he fears
But no, the Queen is fully charmed
And lo! Something more
The corn fallen from Justin's hand
Is growing on the floor
It grows and grows and spreads about
'Till a foot high, then ten feet and more
And round about, it has spread outside
It's broken through the doors
'What! What!' says the King
'Pray, stop this awful growth
If you can ~ The princess's hand
Shall be yours in truth I troth'
'A~ha' says Justin Dare
'I have a fork and spoon
If I give them to the poor
They'll know what to do
Use their scythes to cut this corn
And eat it, as my tool's purpose can
You do not feed your people well
Yet I feed every man
Soon the Kingdom was eating
As it never had done before
And empty tums were filled with food
And needed nothing more
The King he then bowed his head
And said 'I have done wrong
I realise I am a mean old man
And far too headstrong'
The gnome then gestures to Justin
And Justin made a bow
'This cutlery is magical'
He said, 'And here's how
The fork will talk and grant good harvest
When the spoon is polished with good deeds and truth'
To the King he gave the fork
To the Queen he gave the spoon
'I have seen you before' then mused the Queen
As she looked in Justin's eyes
We put you in our prison
I don't remember why
Then Genkrill sprung up front to proclaim
'The King has consented
Emma and Justin are to be wed
By the moon and stars it meant is'
The two were wed beneath those stars
And the King had changed
His people were fed by the magic corn
The fork and spoon prevailed
Nigel kind continued his work
Grew in wisdom to be old
Genkrill vanished into the wall
And so their story is told
Graciously bestowed
With gifts and presents from the suitors
It's their love they want to show
Carpets and precious scents
Spices rare, fruits succulent
Many coloured jewels and beads
All this for her
She was called Emma the Fair
Beautiful was she
Golden hair fell in many locks
And round her neck were pearls
The suitors came from oversea
They came from over land
But her father bid her not the love
That she wanted so much
The man that princess Emma loved
Was called Justin Dare
He wooed her with a flute of wood
When he didn't know she was there
She was walking in the woods one day
And heard the shepherd's pipe
And when the two saw each other
There was a flash of light
As he was just a shepherd poor
How could this love be
The princess cried many nights
Because of her cruel destiny
Her father had seen her in Justin's embrace
And threw the man in jail
He did not think it fit that Emma wed
Someone of no avail
To Emma side came the friendly monk
Nigel by name
He comforted her with kindly talk
But in his head he knows
The suitors will soon be here
And for all the words he has to say
Emma may soon be married off
And her nightmares live by day
I shall work out some plan
He says scratching his head
You and Justin shall be wed
And live to produce an heir
'It shall be done' he says to himself
As he thinks later alone
'But quite how I do not know'
Then the walls quake and groan
Out steps a figure small and strange
From the breathing wall
'I am Genkrill, gnome of night
I appear when starlight fails
I have listened to this plight
Of Emma, Justin and the princes
For your friendship you the princess show
I deign to help you out'
'I have an ear of corn' he says
'I have a fork and spoon
When the suitors show their wares
Justin will show these'
'Shh' says the gnome conspiringly
I know what you're thinking
That Justin is in that deep dungeon
But just leave that to me
Genkrill shows Nigel the magic corn,
Magic fork and spoon
Bows low and vanishes
It's all happened too soon
Nigel takes a sip of water
Sits down and rubs his eyes
Looks down to the courtyard
What should his eyes spy
Justin is walking proud and tall
Genkrill is also there
As are many courtiers riding horses fair
So handsome and debonaire
He joins the suitors at the end of the line
Nigel jumps for joy
It all seems somehow beyond hope
But magic is in the air
In the Throne Room a long line
Of suitors in costly array
Is boring the Queen into the ground
Making Emma terrified
They are either overfed and ugly
Or thin, cruel eyed and evil
Their gifts make the King's eyes light up
But make the princess quail
One by one they roll by
The pile of presents grows
And who will gain the ladies hand
No one really knows
Last of all comes Justin
Emma is startled quite
The King recalls him not at all
Then Justin speaks forthright
'I bring these gifts simple and true
The corn, the fork and spoon
To express my love for the princess here
I wish to wed her soon'
Justin bows most graciously
The queen wakes up and stares
'Who is that man' she asks the King
'Haven't I seen him somewhere'
Nigel, watching from behind
Holds his breath here
Will Genkrill's plan all come undone
This is what he fears
But no, the Queen is fully charmed
And lo! Something more
The corn fallen from Justin's hand
Is growing on the floor
It grows and grows and spreads about
'Till a foot high, then ten feet and more
And round about, it has spread outside
It's broken through the doors
'What! What!' says the King
'Pray, stop this awful growth
If you can ~ The princess's hand
Shall be yours in truth I troth'
'A~ha' says Justin Dare
'I have a fork and spoon
If I give them to the poor
They'll know what to do
Use their scythes to cut this corn
And eat it, as my tool's purpose can
You do not feed your people well
Yet I feed every man
Soon the Kingdom was eating
As it never had done before
And empty tums were filled with food
And needed nothing more
The King he then bowed his head
And said 'I have done wrong
I realise I am a mean old man
And far too headstrong'
The gnome then gestures to Justin
And Justin made a bow
'This cutlery is magical'
He said, 'And here's how
The fork will talk and grant good harvest
When the spoon is polished with good deeds and truth'
To the King he gave the fork
To the Queen he gave the spoon
'I have seen you before' then mused the Queen
As she looked in Justin's eyes
We put you in our prison
I don't remember why
Then Genkrill sprung up front to proclaim
'The King has consented
Emma and Justin are to be wed
By the moon and stars it meant is'
The two were wed beneath those stars
And the King had changed
His people were fed by the magic corn
The fork and spoon prevailed
Nigel kind continued his work
Grew in wisdom to be old
Genkrill vanished into the wall
And so their story is told
Tuesday, 11 November 2014
Three Times Three and A~Roll Me~O
TURN TURN TURN TO THE RAIN AND SNOW
BUT THE BOUGH WON'T BREAK AND THE WIND WON'T BLOW
IF YOU ASK ME ON A FINE DAY, I'LL TELL YOU NINE WAYS
THREE TIMES THREE AND A~ROLL ME~O
I went up to the blustery clifftop
I surveyed the land
I breathed the very breath of life up there
Looked down far below to the rocks and sand
I felt the sea air filling up my lungs and blood
And I remembered things I only remember here
The sky was cloudy
There was wind in my hair
The sun came out and the sea turned to dancing crystals
Or bright stars burning on the water
Then from behind a tump stepped a child of Iluvatar
She stood there radiantly
Her shawl flickered a thousand star eyes
Of morning fire come plainly
And I wondered
Who was this beautiful Lady
She took a small blue flower and placed it to her lips
She puffed out her cheeks and blew upon it like a trumpet
As she did this she looked me into the eyes with both joy and sorrow
My heart was leaping, my body trembling like there was no tomorrow
The flower was echoing, swirling me with a story told so quick
That when I awoke I could hardly remember any of it
She had gone
I was forlorn
CHORUS
I wandered through the gardens
I heard the Elven echo again
In the Botanical Greenhouse
I asked several species her name
I walked past the Bandstand
Had she danced on that stage
I felt a twinge of sadness
And looked the other way
I went down past the museum and the church to the shops
People were about doing their business but for me time had just stopped
Passing the Post Office I saw people walking by reflected in the windows
A chilly wind blew up from the sea and it challenged my soul
So I walked down the street as it began to gently rain
I went into a gallery in a tiny lane
I felt OK
The pictures were colourful
I went over to the Curator who was standing by a clock
And he told me of the golden hill where dwells the Golden Ox
He who drinks at the well of infinite causational changes
Where from the heart's prayer arc it ranges
That Ox is tended by several men both honorable and skilled
Who make the harps that resound in these faerie hills
What could I say
I was startled to wonder
CHORUS
So I took off for that Golden Hill
I had nothing, no one, just my own good will
Then Mother Mary lit a candle and illuminated me my way
And her light revealed the land as a bright patchwork tapestry
Then I turned around once more and once more I heard no sound
Darkness had enshrouded me
Nothing found
No one around
In the dark I could faintly hear voices
And I also heard many strange rustling noises
Yet there was one voice pure and clear among the others
Which was not always by the other voices smothered
Lost as I was this was my guiding star
The pure smooth voice had a persuasive sound
I had no chance
I became unwound
Now I hardly have to say
It was by love I was held sway
It was by love I now will tell
That I stumbled upon that Golden Well
There was nothing else in that black hole
But then I perceived a sparkling
My body was dissolving
I had gone in between
CHORUS
Then with faces of folk I knew and all with their due cordialities at that
Passed by, the Mad Hatter, March Hare, Mole, Ratty, Toad and the Cheshire Cat
I swooped with Archimedes flying all upon the nocturnal breeze
So was Owl, Ant and Minnow and Boy and Merlin was pleased
And through these transformations I knew that I had no name
Or had lost it or it had got washed out in the rain
I looked all around
But was in blackness again
Afloat upon the mistral wind the nowhere boy he flew
Upon his raft of playfulness which he thought might just see him though
The further off from Eng~er~land the nearer is to France
He looked into his mazing mind and there he caught a glance
Of a Golden Loom on a Golden Hill with Silver Trees and Elven Jewels
Her hands were weaving all upon that Golden Loom
Her eyes
Were shining in the gloom
The Golden Ox lapped the waters of the well nearby
But the ripples were washing me away on the tide
I breathed the air deeply and felt kind of free
And in no time at all was back in my body
I was sitting on a park bench
I wasn't far from the town
But my heart was lifted
And so it goes around.
CHORUS
Monday, 13 October 2014
BORIS
There is a place. It is in my memory and it is, is it stillQ. Unknown, somewhere else, but confusion is not what what all this complex storyQ No, it's not quite he, I mean, I well, says he, I can't answer that. It is Boris who must answer that. This place was in the countryside of Devon, where there is a village ~ let me ask you to imagine it, let us entertain the imagination with story.
A village, thatch and gardens, colour and cucumber boxes (sign of contentment, Alice in Wonderland} smoke rising from chimneys or pipes which old men puff as they walk down the road. Here are all sorts of life, cows and sheep, dogs and goats.
When I say 'men' I am wrong. The village where Boris grew up is a place of gnomes. Boris and his people are broad, hairy gnomes who grow a foot or maybe a foot and a half tall.
The rainbow horizon dots with spotted cows and jangly is the even moon. How do I know all thisQ Do not ask me, that is what Boris came for.
He sits there telling his stories and I am googly tremblous. Dwarfed in my red armchair, he watches as I write, then he talks and I pace the room.
'Sit down and be calm or the story won't weave,' he tells me. I simply have to obey and sit opposite, waiting till he has filled his pipe.
First, he tells old tales of his people, with characters tall in respect and prowess. He speaks of harps and strange stringed instruments, of music made with sticks or hands. I can see rhythms like spider's fabric in the air. There are gentle voices in the music, winding through woods, green hills and misty tracks. Talks of the founding of churches, finding of springs and river sources. Talk turns to darker things and the room shades and patches, the dark crawls on to me and in to me, until Boris blows light and I am left blinking. He turns into a pumpkin and I laugh. He laughs and we both laugh so much that dawn comes and we decide to calm down and have tea, so that the sun doesn't join in as well and confuse the whole day.
Boris looks at me. 'I will tell you a story,' he says . Though it has been stories all night, I know that this time it is something special. He looks at me dazzly craze and opens his mouth.
'There was Twilling ~ spread over Twill Valley. Here I was born and brought up. My parents had not always lived there but came down from higher ground at Starden, some cycles previously to be taylors two. I remember them as merry folk seeking true work, song, dance and nourishment alone. Simple people like you or I but starheaded and jewelled. Twilling was bright days and nights by the bridge. Moonlight lovers and I, sent signals of truth down the river.
'Twilling sent leather trade to villages on the river. It was all our own make, shoes and clothes for gnome and man. Raw materials we also sent ~ barges returning with payment days later. Our barge men were strong and capable folk, for on the road there were beasts and bandits. These lands of Devonshire are as full of peril as trees are full of wind.
'One night, the river spoke like an oozing black tongue. Rushing by, it spoke of something that had to pass and we waited, knowing it's truths.
From dawn, Twilling was silent and prepared, eyes aware, knowing the river, fearful of it's ways . Then it came ~ a coiling black worm of such size, that it must have come from deep beneath the Mountains. It passed and was so huge that all was carried with it ~ our village, our animals, our people. Most became lost in the poisonous scales, or were impaled on spikes surrounding him. So sudden and unexpected was all this, that although warned by Twill, we had in no way expected what happened. O calamity!'
Tears are on Boris's cheek, and I admit that they are welling up in my eyes too.
'So all Twilling became scattered, many dead or enchanted by the speed of the serpent and riding on his back still. We had been picking canton buds from the hills and we returned to find desolation and the snake disappearing down stream. The serpent broke the river banks as he made his and I cursed his slithery soul. We wept to see the village broken and our folk killed or driven mad with frenzies of death. So it is that there are such things in the world.
'After time spent in emotions, we set to practicality. We would have to do something. Where were our parentsQ Many wandered dazed, no longer of Twilling and probably ghoulsome and unnatural now. I remember staring down the river and finding the remains of my father. How i wished to soar. I would be like an eagle but I felt like a tarred seagull. Oh carry me down stream, carry me down stream. I want to go, I want to know, I want to seek fortune and fame, I want to hold my hand in the flame. Such were my youthful thoughts.
'Coming to from my dreams, I realised we were all shivering with cold, so I lit a fire. Whose thoughts were theyQ I thought outloud and no one answered.
'Then down swept he and down swept one, down swept the all embracing one. He came on wings of steely metal ~ come with a force centripetal. He a machine and horror my head, so I kicked it and fell for dead. A head of dreams rose and there I was again, cold on the grass.
The fire was low. It was far from dawn. I pulled on my great coat and wandered leaving my sleeping friends behind. Under the sinking moon I walked between silver valleys strange. I wandered down and round in a rhyme and so made up my silvered mind that I would slay that black beast rare. I would still him on the ground. That great worm would fall to my fury. I held above my head a sword, Blade by name. With this, the snake would die.
So the weeks passed and I came to a wood where I had not been before. Now I moved from areas I know to places with no familiar landmarks. I followed the river for I saw, here and there, black scales fallen or a lock of hair, drenched clothes and scorched remains. These bodies were the worst, blackened and foul. Yes, one eye all remaining or a bucket of blood, laugh in a box, poltergeist meander people all sudden, only the eyes of a fox pop and gone. Such a foulness was in my mind that I could not be restful and had to walk. The river was blackened by the worm's passage and when I saw the stain leave the bank and make off through the wood, I knew that was the way the worm had gone.
'I will follow you wherever you go!' I yelled and added with true gnomish rage, 'I name you Blackbane that I may slay you and rid this place of your living name.'
The trail spread wide and thich into the wood. With disgust and horror I looked on and plunged into the sticky wake.
The forest was as dense as a colony of bats and all that could be heard was the constant speech of the leaves. The noise was mesmeric and I strode on over the ground. Suddenly I woke from my waking slumbers. A form was ahead of me in the undergrowth. I crouched. Looking on, I soon realised that it was not living, it was an idol of wood, in a squatting position. My thoughts were instantly of Men. They had built this. I went on wearing invisibility, following the black trail which was like an evil treacle, slimy sticky and sprayed everywhere. Then came the stones and great gaunt beasts which I silent and quick by, their sad rolling eyes and leathery bodies tall, slow in the trees as I slipped past.
'They made me melancholic. Here were many fabulous beasts, rare and pretty, dark and bulging, plumed, loathsome and many legged. In the trees, there were bird spirits, sensitive deva and fork tongued strangenesses. Sometimes the spirits of the trees would come and talk, bringing solace to my little fire.
'Yes, a long time I was in that place and many did I meet. Some brought good, some ill. Loose from the flames of hell for sure was Dragobeast, wingless dragon, green was he with red eyes. Stalked the undergrowth to come up sudden all teeth and tongue rolling, intent that I should be his next meal. I took my sword double quick and thrust it down his gullet. There sprouted a red flower, such a killing bloom. Old Drago~beast and I swapped roles, after I spitted him above the fire I made a meal of him.
'It was just then that Trollwitch came by. trust her to smell my lunch! Anyway, she and I spent long eating and talking, then we slept. Waking up again we tramped together me in step and in all wisdom known to her for she was wise. She told me to split reeds of bullrush for a head dress. If I wore it, I would be able to tell truth from lies.
'Later that day, I was walking when I found a piece of wood carved by the rain. How could this beQ No rain could reach the forest floor to carve it. I licked the piece of wood and it tasted of salt. How soQ It must have dropped from someone's pocket. I was puzzling over this, when I heard a voice that I knew and I cried 'Thomo!'. It was Thomo of Bracknell. He jumped from a tree and we embraced.
'Boris!'
'Thomo!'
'There was a moments silence.
'How thick with friends these woods can be!' I said and we began talking.
Thomo called the black snake Theekoo and I called it Blackbane. Thomo looked at me and said
'You will ne'er slay him alone'
'I did not scoff at him but looked into the fire brooding.
'The snake is old. It has the blood of many around it's foul mouth,' said Thomo. 'Fie will you, Boris of Twilling, stand a moth's chance of even bruising the beast' He spoke truth for sure. I'd been so absorbed in following Blackbane's trail that I had not thought what to do when I found him.
'Theekoo, my Blackbane, is to vast a foe for my sword. If you are offering your help that makes two moths against the sun.' We both laughed.
'Sing on Thomo, and we will spin tales of Blackbane who I would slay even alone. Maybe there is some weak spot. True, Trollwitch knew nothing, being bald of the snake in knowledge.'
'Thomo became still, he lay back. I saw his lips move. 'It goes without sound' he murmered, 'Beneath the branches, the form of death creeping. Below, below, lady fair below, your hand reach down like willow wands, your hair is coloured sand, your golden footfalls sets the lungs a'breathing. Fair fair lady below the branches, your kiss is a shade of night and your eyes are seeds of awakening.'
'Thomo spoke words which were on the wind. Oh memory! Twilling had been crushed, had spoken in my veins, then changed and crashed downstream. I could see myself reflected in the stream, I was looking down from a hill top, looking down, a dream on a hill.
'Boris! Get up!'
'It was Thomo. We were on the very edge of the wood. Whither nowQ The great black trail had grown small. I wondered why the worm was secreting less. Was he hungryQ Thomo dipped his finger into his navel and said,
'We do not know his ways. He is Theekoo, worm of legend, your Blackbane. He is his own. He is a vile being and I say he drips and slimes a vile black poo!'
'Aye!' I agreed
'It is all we have to follow. We must waste no more time.'
Boris stops his tale briefly and looks at me across the smoky room.
'Over grass where small trees grew, trod gnomish feet on morning dew and where to go was not so sure, travel mountain, or maybe moor.'
Boris resumes his tale.
'Such a fellowship was this, Thomo and I, that we smelt the air anew, felt the land as mother to us both and we trod onward, beards waving in the wind, two hearts on a mission. We passed through valleys full of tall grasses rough to the skin, passes echoing caves and long rivers that yelped over rocks and foamed white over falls. Rapid travel we made ~ each our own heroes, with gleaming blades and a common foe. Thomo told me of past encounters with Theekoo, of the worm's magic and of the things it had done. He told me how once Theekoo took his bride.
'Where' I asked.
'Over field, over county, through the air, borne by Pterodactyl to a castle on a high sill of rock.' Thomo answered.
'And Theekoo was the reptile bird.'
'Yes.'
'Your poetry is bad but your tale is taken,' said I. ' The Black worm will soon be so much sliced sausage'
'Night again, which came beyond the dusk where heroes slowed time as they flew by in the ruddy orange. We were around the burning flame talking and burning ourselves with what we heard. O thoughts of trouble ahead on the road! What significance did our journey have to anythingQ What indeed! The stars seemed to answer to augment our sorrow and lie deep troughs of sadness in our beings. Where is this quest goingQ What point is there in this storyQ I remember how we began to feel moody. Thomo would sit in an intensly grumpy state, never saying anything constructive at all. The dark night was all about and it filled us. All I could do was stare at the fire and pull my coat close. Soon, light made the trees speak sight out of the night and our spirits lifted. Morning peered over the hills and the flowers began to warm. We set to walking and walked for several hours. Then a sight came which dismayed us. It was the bllack belt we were following. I have said it had became thin. Now, worse still was to come. It dived underground! The snake had taken to ground, squirmed into the earth with Twilling on it's back. All memory to be revenged was down this hole. We didn't know what to do, so Thomo destroyed a patch of beautiful toadstools clinging to the base of a tree. We looked at one another and without a word, entered the dark hole.
'Down in the deepness of earth, our eyes remembered ancient sight and could see in the blackness. Earth's old creatures have powers which come when needed but which are called strange or impossible by those who do not understand. Down in the snake~eaten hole, the earth muttered and moaned. Our footsteps clanged but we were brave and went on and down. Thomo said that Theekoo always headed for some open space when tunneling, for he must also breathe. So it was we came to a large cavern half filled with water, silver to our eyes. Cold silver and fish blind, racing. Where was TheekooQ He was not here. Our foe must have gone into the water and who can say where after thatQ We stood forlorn, staring over that water which had become a sea for us. Oh loss! O emptiness! O underground we know is gnome's place and place too of darkest monster, goblin, troll and balrog, foul scaled beings deeply rotten of heart, cold~clawed, deep rock dwelling, incarcerated and emerging to do evil only. Such thoughts tremble~making were, but we were prepared. Into the water! But too late! Out of the dark came shapes darting and quick, small and thick with weapons, eyes in the dark. Terrible shapes even for us as our gaze grew wide to them, for they were all about. A clamouring mass demanding blood and meat, a fell gathering behind which moved larger creatures still, more muscled and redder of thought, bristling with sharp and evil spears. O horrid sights in the deep places of Devon. Goblin rings terror brings! The ring grew tighter and we were fenced in with our blades drawn. How miraculous were we to be this time, if we were going to escapeQ Was there a wayQ Forced back to back and almost blind with fear, we faced our death and I was about to pray. At this moment, Thomo screamed and the word was 'Thaglin!'
'pouring ourselves into the wall of faces, he screeched his battle cry, joined by my 'Broomhilda! Broomhilda! Featherstar!' We caved and carved into beasts and the air was soon speckled with beans of blood. A fury of motion, our arms were like a thresher's flail, swords transforming creatures to unlife. Great wasting there was, and the gods of destruction were with us. Goblins with huge grey heads were easy meat for our swords which worked like fire to straw on them. Bodies were hacked and spliced, giblets flew through the air on fountains of red spray. Gore splattered everywhere but on we fought. I swear we slew two thousand goblins between us, along with additional greater things, winged ones and shadowy demons of deep places. We stood fifty feet deep in slain bodies, some still moving. All around was dismemberment and things disfigured, that gave off their own unlight. Here, a tentacle would wag in almost~death or a deep mourning belch would rise through the layers of the slain, spraying foul jellies and releasing horrendous gases. Carnage and loose meat would soon have become a mass playground for the maggots and we did not wait to join in their game. So, like a bubble fom the deep, we began to eat into the roof of the cavern, which we had reached atop the bodies. Clawing at the rock, we gnashed our way upwards to where air would be and we could stand again beneath the rays of our sun. Up and up we munched, throwing what we could not cram behind. Likewise, there rose a moan from the dead below, which followed us with dread~hate. We threw ourselves onward and upward. Like a red ball of fire it came, but we were faster and flew through the earth's surface into the sea of air. Down again we came, rapid as eagles to where we clung to the edge of the hole we had made and vomited down all we had eaten, plugging the streak of red fire that was coming up from below. We sat over the hole~that~was and took a meal of roast warthogs, caught from trees with catapaults. Then we took to talk and storytelling.
A village, thatch and gardens, colour and cucumber boxes (sign of contentment, Alice in Wonderland} smoke rising from chimneys or pipes which old men puff as they walk down the road. Here are all sorts of life, cows and sheep, dogs and goats.
When I say 'men' I am wrong. The village where Boris grew up is a place of gnomes. Boris and his people are broad, hairy gnomes who grow a foot or maybe a foot and a half tall.
The rainbow horizon dots with spotted cows and jangly is the even moon. How do I know all thisQ Do not ask me, that is what Boris came for.
He sits there telling his stories and I am googly tremblous. Dwarfed in my red armchair, he watches as I write, then he talks and I pace the room.
'Sit down and be calm or the story won't weave,' he tells me. I simply have to obey and sit opposite, waiting till he has filled his pipe.
First, he tells old tales of his people, with characters tall in respect and prowess. He speaks of harps and strange stringed instruments, of music made with sticks or hands. I can see rhythms like spider's fabric in the air. There are gentle voices in the music, winding through woods, green hills and misty tracks. Talks of the founding of churches, finding of springs and river sources. Talk turns to darker things and the room shades and patches, the dark crawls on to me and in to me, until Boris blows light and I am left blinking. He turns into a pumpkin and I laugh. He laughs and we both laugh so much that dawn comes and we decide to calm down and have tea, so that the sun doesn't join in as well and confuse the whole day.
Boris looks at me. 'I will tell you a story,' he says . Though it has been stories all night, I know that this time it is something special. He looks at me dazzly craze and opens his mouth.
'There was Twilling ~ spread over Twill Valley. Here I was born and brought up. My parents had not always lived there but came down from higher ground at Starden, some cycles previously to be taylors two. I remember them as merry folk seeking true work, song, dance and nourishment alone. Simple people like you or I but starheaded and jewelled. Twilling was bright days and nights by the bridge. Moonlight lovers and I, sent signals of truth down the river.
'Twilling sent leather trade to villages on the river. It was all our own make, shoes and clothes for gnome and man. Raw materials we also sent ~ barges returning with payment days later. Our barge men were strong and capable folk, for on the road there were beasts and bandits. These lands of Devonshire are as full of peril as trees are full of wind.
'One night, the river spoke like an oozing black tongue. Rushing by, it spoke of something that had to pass and we waited, knowing it's truths.
From dawn, Twilling was silent and prepared, eyes aware, knowing the river, fearful of it's ways . Then it came ~ a coiling black worm of such size, that it must have come from deep beneath the Mountains. It passed and was so huge that all was carried with it ~ our village, our animals, our people. Most became lost in the poisonous scales, or were impaled on spikes surrounding him. So sudden and unexpected was all this, that although warned by Twill, we had in no way expected what happened. O calamity!'
Tears are on Boris's cheek, and I admit that they are welling up in my eyes too.
'So all Twilling became scattered, many dead or enchanted by the speed of the serpent and riding on his back still. We had been picking canton buds from the hills and we returned to find desolation and the snake disappearing down stream. The serpent broke the river banks as he made his and I cursed his slithery soul. We wept to see the village broken and our folk killed or driven mad with frenzies of death. So it is that there are such things in the world.
'After time spent in emotions, we set to practicality. We would have to do something. Where were our parentsQ Many wandered dazed, no longer of Twilling and probably ghoulsome and unnatural now. I remember staring down the river and finding the remains of my father. How i wished to soar. I would be like an eagle but I felt like a tarred seagull. Oh carry me down stream, carry me down stream. I want to go, I want to know, I want to seek fortune and fame, I want to hold my hand in the flame. Such were my youthful thoughts.
'Coming to from my dreams, I realised we were all shivering with cold, so I lit a fire. Whose thoughts were theyQ I thought outloud and no one answered.
'Then down swept he and down swept one, down swept the all embracing one. He came on wings of steely metal ~ come with a force centripetal. He a machine and horror my head, so I kicked it and fell for dead. A head of dreams rose and there I was again, cold on the grass.
The fire was low. It was far from dawn. I pulled on my great coat and wandered leaving my sleeping friends behind. Under the sinking moon I walked between silver valleys strange. I wandered down and round in a rhyme and so made up my silvered mind that I would slay that black beast rare. I would still him on the ground. That great worm would fall to my fury. I held above my head a sword, Blade by name. With this, the snake would die.
So the weeks passed and I came to a wood where I had not been before. Now I moved from areas I know to places with no familiar landmarks. I followed the river for I saw, here and there, black scales fallen or a lock of hair, drenched clothes and scorched remains. These bodies were the worst, blackened and foul. Yes, one eye all remaining or a bucket of blood, laugh in a box, poltergeist meander people all sudden, only the eyes of a fox pop and gone. Such a foulness was in my mind that I could not be restful and had to walk. The river was blackened by the worm's passage and when I saw the stain leave the bank and make off through the wood, I knew that was the way the worm had gone.
'I will follow you wherever you go!' I yelled and added with true gnomish rage, 'I name you Blackbane that I may slay you and rid this place of your living name.'
The trail spread wide and thich into the wood. With disgust and horror I looked on and plunged into the sticky wake.
The forest was as dense as a colony of bats and all that could be heard was the constant speech of the leaves. The noise was mesmeric and I strode on over the ground. Suddenly I woke from my waking slumbers. A form was ahead of me in the undergrowth. I crouched. Looking on, I soon realised that it was not living, it was an idol of wood, in a squatting position. My thoughts were instantly of Men. They had built this. I went on wearing invisibility, following the black trail which was like an evil treacle, slimy sticky and sprayed everywhere. Then came the stones and great gaunt beasts which I silent and quick by, their sad rolling eyes and leathery bodies tall, slow in the trees as I slipped past.
'They made me melancholic. Here were many fabulous beasts, rare and pretty, dark and bulging, plumed, loathsome and many legged. In the trees, there were bird spirits, sensitive deva and fork tongued strangenesses. Sometimes the spirits of the trees would come and talk, bringing solace to my little fire.
'Yes, a long time I was in that place and many did I meet. Some brought good, some ill. Loose from the flames of hell for sure was Dragobeast, wingless dragon, green was he with red eyes. Stalked the undergrowth to come up sudden all teeth and tongue rolling, intent that I should be his next meal. I took my sword double quick and thrust it down his gullet. There sprouted a red flower, such a killing bloom. Old Drago~beast and I swapped roles, after I spitted him above the fire I made a meal of him.
'It was just then that Trollwitch came by. trust her to smell my lunch! Anyway, she and I spent long eating and talking, then we slept. Waking up again we tramped together me in step and in all wisdom known to her for she was wise. She told me to split reeds of bullrush for a head dress. If I wore it, I would be able to tell truth from lies.
'Later that day, I was walking when I found a piece of wood carved by the rain. How could this beQ No rain could reach the forest floor to carve it. I licked the piece of wood and it tasted of salt. How soQ It must have dropped from someone's pocket. I was puzzling over this, when I heard a voice that I knew and I cried 'Thomo!'. It was Thomo of Bracknell. He jumped from a tree and we embraced.
'Boris!'
'Thomo!'
'There was a moments silence.
'How thick with friends these woods can be!' I said and we began talking.
Thomo called the black snake Theekoo and I called it Blackbane. Thomo looked at me and said
'You will ne'er slay him alone'
'I did not scoff at him but looked into the fire brooding.
'The snake is old. It has the blood of many around it's foul mouth,' said Thomo. 'Fie will you, Boris of Twilling, stand a moth's chance of even bruising the beast' He spoke truth for sure. I'd been so absorbed in following Blackbane's trail that I had not thought what to do when I found him.
'Theekoo, my Blackbane, is to vast a foe for my sword. If you are offering your help that makes two moths against the sun.' We both laughed.
'Sing on Thomo, and we will spin tales of Blackbane who I would slay even alone. Maybe there is some weak spot. True, Trollwitch knew nothing, being bald of the snake in knowledge.'
'Thomo became still, he lay back. I saw his lips move. 'It goes without sound' he murmered, 'Beneath the branches, the form of death creeping. Below, below, lady fair below, your hand reach down like willow wands, your hair is coloured sand, your golden footfalls sets the lungs a'breathing. Fair fair lady below the branches, your kiss is a shade of night and your eyes are seeds of awakening.'
'Thomo spoke words which were on the wind. Oh memory! Twilling had been crushed, had spoken in my veins, then changed and crashed downstream. I could see myself reflected in the stream, I was looking down from a hill top, looking down, a dream on a hill.
'Boris! Get up!'
'It was Thomo. We were on the very edge of the wood. Whither nowQ The great black trail had grown small. I wondered why the worm was secreting less. Was he hungryQ Thomo dipped his finger into his navel and said,
'We do not know his ways. He is Theekoo, worm of legend, your Blackbane. He is his own. He is a vile being and I say he drips and slimes a vile black poo!'
'Aye!' I agreed
'It is all we have to follow. We must waste no more time.'
Boris stops his tale briefly and looks at me across the smoky room.
'Over grass where small trees grew, trod gnomish feet on morning dew and where to go was not so sure, travel mountain, or maybe moor.'
Boris resumes his tale.
'Such a fellowship was this, Thomo and I, that we smelt the air anew, felt the land as mother to us both and we trod onward, beards waving in the wind, two hearts on a mission. We passed through valleys full of tall grasses rough to the skin, passes echoing caves and long rivers that yelped over rocks and foamed white over falls. Rapid travel we made ~ each our own heroes, with gleaming blades and a common foe. Thomo told me of past encounters with Theekoo, of the worm's magic and of the things it had done. He told me how once Theekoo took his bride.
'Where' I asked.
'Over field, over county, through the air, borne by Pterodactyl to a castle on a high sill of rock.' Thomo answered.
'And Theekoo was the reptile bird.'
'Yes.'
'Your poetry is bad but your tale is taken,' said I. ' The Black worm will soon be so much sliced sausage'
'Night again, which came beyond the dusk where heroes slowed time as they flew by in the ruddy orange. We were around the burning flame talking and burning ourselves with what we heard. O thoughts of trouble ahead on the road! What significance did our journey have to anythingQ What indeed! The stars seemed to answer to augment our sorrow and lie deep troughs of sadness in our beings. Where is this quest goingQ What point is there in this storyQ I remember how we began to feel moody. Thomo would sit in an intensly grumpy state, never saying anything constructive at all. The dark night was all about and it filled us. All I could do was stare at the fire and pull my coat close. Soon, light made the trees speak sight out of the night and our spirits lifted. Morning peered over the hills and the flowers began to warm. We set to walking and walked for several hours. Then a sight came which dismayed us. It was the bllack belt we were following. I have said it had became thin. Now, worse still was to come. It dived underground! The snake had taken to ground, squirmed into the earth with Twilling on it's back. All memory to be revenged was down this hole. We didn't know what to do, so Thomo destroyed a patch of beautiful toadstools clinging to the base of a tree. We looked at one another and without a word, entered the dark hole.
'Down in the deepness of earth, our eyes remembered ancient sight and could see in the blackness. Earth's old creatures have powers which come when needed but which are called strange or impossible by those who do not understand. Down in the snake~eaten hole, the earth muttered and moaned. Our footsteps clanged but we were brave and went on and down. Thomo said that Theekoo always headed for some open space when tunneling, for he must also breathe. So it was we came to a large cavern half filled with water, silver to our eyes. Cold silver and fish blind, racing. Where was TheekooQ He was not here. Our foe must have gone into the water and who can say where after thatQ We stood forlorn, staring over that water which had become a sea for us. Oh loss! O emptiness! O underground we know is gnome's place and place too of darkest monster, goblin, troll and balrog, foul scaled beings deeply rotten of heart, cold~clawed, deep rock dwelling, incarcerated and emerging to do evil only. Such thoughts tremble~making were, but we were prepared. Into the water! But too late! Out of the dark came shapes darting and quick, small and thick with weapons, eyes in the dark. Terrible shapes even for us as our gaze grew wide to them, for they were all about. A clamouring mass demanding blood and meat, a fell gathering behind which moved larger creatures still, more muscled and redder of thought, bristling with sharp and evil spears. O horrid sights in the deep places of Devon. Goblin rings terror brings! The ring grew tighter and we were fenced in with our blades drawn. How miraculous were we to be this time, if we were going to escapeQ Was there a wayQ Forced back to back and almost blind with fear, we faced our death and I was about to pray. At this moment, Thomo screamed and the word was 'Thaglin!'
'pouring ourselves into the wall of faces, he screeched his battle cry, joined by my 'Broomhilda! Broomhilda! Featherstar!' We caved and carved into beasts and the air was soon speckled with beans of blood. A fury of motion, our arms were like a thresher's flail, swords transforming creatures to unlife. Great wasting there was, and the gods of destruction were with us. Goblins with huge grey heads were easy meat for our swords which worked like fire to straw on them. Bodies were hacked and spliced, giblets flew through the air on fountains of red spray. Gore splattered everywhere but on we fought. I swear we slew two thousand goblins between us, along with additional greater things, winged ones and shadowy demons of deep places. We stood fifty feet deep in slain bodies, some still moving. All around was dismemberment and things disfigured, that gave off their own unlight. Here, a tentacle would wag in almost~death or a deep mourning belch would rise through the layers of the slain, spraying foul jellies and releasing horrendous gases. Carnage and loose meat would soon have become a mass playground for the maggots and we did not wait to join in their game. So, like a bubble fom the deep, we began to eat into the roof of the cavern, which we had reached atop the bodies. Clawing at the rock, we gnashed our way upwards to where air would be and we could stand again beneath the rays of our sun. Up and up we munched, throwing what we could not cram behind. Likewise, there rose a moan from the dead below, which followed us with dread~hate. We threw ourselves onward and upward. Like a red ball of fire it came, but we were faster and flew through the earth's surface into the sea of air. Down again we came, rapid as eagles to where we clung to the edge of the hole we had made and vomited down all we had eaten, plugging the streak of red fire that was coming up from below. We sat over the hole~that~was and took a meal of roast warthogs, caught from trees with catapaults. Then we took to talk and storytelling.
Saturday, 11 October 2014
Friday, 5 September 2014
Smiles and Trials
You know I love you
I know you're scared
So you keep your distance, it's only fair
I hope you don't think too bitterly
In consequence of me
In spite of all I said or done
There is no honour lost no honour won
I wonder what is to become
Of the child who once had fun
Listen, if you would, to this song
I can't make you love me, or to sing along
I just think there is something
That you hide behind your smile
Some secret sorrow
I know we all have trials
I know you're scared
So you keep your distance, it's only fair
I hope you don't think too bitterly
In consequence of me
In spite of all I said or done
There is no honour lost no honour won
I wonder what is to become
Of the child who once had fun
Listen, if you would, to this song
I can't make you love me, or to sing along
I just think there is something
That you hide behind your smile
Some secret sorrow
I know we all have trials
Friday, 29 August 2014
Heavensent
Take a bit of care
Breathe in the air
This ain't nowhere
It's coming at you like a love prayer
There is no one
Can feel what you do
Body and mind
It's gonna see you through
chorus~
Don't make sense
Be out of sequence
No recompense
Heavensent
Love you
Ain't no sin
Don't do yourself in
Begin and sing
Like you do
Fool proof
push me pull you
We're here
We're here
Wide open space
All around
No sound
A thunderstorm
Lightning bolt
No one's fault
A battle of will
Takes some skill
Don't kill
When you dream
Breathe in the air
This ain't nowhere
It's coming at you like a love prayer
There is no one
Can feel what you do
Body and mind
It's gonna see you through
chorus~
Don't make sense
Be out of sequence
No recompense
Heavensent
Love you
Ain't no sin
Don't do yourself in
Begin and sing
Like you do
Fool proof
push me pull you
We're here
We're here
Wide open space
All around
No sound
A thunderstorm
Lightning bolt
No one's fault
A battle of will
Takes some skill
Don't kill
When you dream
Monday, 25 August 2014
King Lune
(Setting: A GATHERING IN A WOOD. ORC GUARDS BLINDFOLD PEOPLE OR PUT A SACK ON THEIR HEAD
TO LEAD THEM INTO THE WOOD WHERE THERE IS A GREAT ASH TREE WITH MASSY ROOTS
THERE IS A POOL BENEATH THE TREE AND AN ELABORATE CHAIR STANDS IN FRONT OF THE POOL
STRAPPED ONTO THE CHAIR IS A RAVING MAN IN A STRAIGHT JACKET)
FULK (Speaks slowly at first in an intoxicated or deranged manner in near darkness.
As the speech in capitals proceeds, set light slowly increases)
BLOOD WARM STENCH DEATH EXPLODES DESTROY RICH WALLS LIFE BEARING WOMB DARKNESS ALIEN STARS
RAMPANT WAR FEAR STRIFE WITHIN DELICATE MIND SHATTER
APPEAR : GHOSTS
dar
FULK
I am the Jack of Night
I am the Werewolf's Bite
I am the corrosion of day
I am dark uncertainty
I am the absense of light
I am second sight
Listen to my story that I spin
Let my beguile begin
I saw how it was
Exacted my rule
Dictated
To fear-numbed scribes
Always my autocracy
Bettering bettering
Standards of living
For never there was as
Glorious reign as mine
We came we conquered
My historians recall my
Deeds of supremacy
Over the craven barbarians
Wandering tribes of no over-lording Master
Who did they think they were?
They were not to be suffered
Why do I still feel them about me?
I rearranged the facts
I invented scenarios of the past
That never were
And you took me on my word
For I had seen it myself
Later generations never guessed
The difference
My play has worked for all time
Let none defy me
You need me
To tell you what to do
Believe me
I do not deceive you
There is too much chaos
There is need for law
Anarchy breeding
Totalitarianism is what I saw
I rode with the Mongal Hordes
And broke the walls of Peking
We rode against
The established Kings
As quick as our horses would fly
Ghengis Khan, his sons and grandsons
Brought low the noble Russian
Empires fell and burned
To the earth we scorched
Those alive realigned
To the service of the Khans
All were made subject
And the subjected
Could never forget
The Tribes were always fighting
S o unsophisticated
It wasn't any good
They had to go
A centralised power
So much more efficient
And simple
- at any rate, handy for me
And don't go listening
To any of these swatty
Tooled up archaeologists
Modern historians
With their new ideas
What can they know?
I was there
My official stamp on the records
What could common people know?
And if they knew, what could they do?
Now, as in any era
Much is erased
Deleted
Deemed superfluous
'D' registered
No word of a lie
But the truth can be too much
For Hoi-Polloi
To comprehend
It would make people too excited
And interfere with protocol
So I am sure you must see
How this requires
A judicious grasp of truth
A sense of economy
You know it makes sense
Their technology had become outmoded
-I brought better
Betterer
Betterest
The heathen infidel deserved
To die a horrid death
And their way of life to be overwritten
I tell you no lie
All other systems are null
Accept my cheerless dictum
There is void without me
I stand over the emptiness
Of your minds
I shut the tap of the imagination
With propaganda
You require me to rule you
Are useless without me
A headless creature.
Oh, just to think
Of your puny efforts
Yet I was taken
My own guards did not recognise me
They it was who brought me down here
the torture room of my dreams
I am the thrice failed father of fake
Twisted with my own dexterity's misapplied skill
Upon the spindle of the Norg-Sisters
Trapped in the twirls of turn of fate
To see,
A world stripped to hideous
A world begat of my contagion
I enduce nausia in all who behold me
For tho dead, I still possess mass
And mass still possesses me
I crystalised into a rock face
I obsessed it and it obsessed my ruthlessness
A million milliard crystalline connections
Of electrical evil coursed through me
But I took it all too far!!
I am crime
I am doing Time, making old Chronos happy
I am the pillaged rubble of golden cities
I am the dust of worlds
I forgot myself
I went through the meat-mincer
I shot out through the Pliedies
I wore Orion's belt
I was punished
I was cut into nine pieces and it was ordered
That I be scattered to the Universal poles
Nine Muses carried my Nine pieces
Far, far in their nine directions
But never far enough
I blazed forth a blinding light
That shot across space. my Death Ray Vehicle
And voiceless surrounding emanation warriors
Pulsing about me as we streaked through the void
I am the returning cosmic Corialanus
And stand, rank upon rank of my aliens about me
Glowering at the misfortunes of your crushed race
Routine stuff, pleasurable enough :
It was all I ever dreampt of...
When; Not so! And more the fool I!
A child's catapault took me in the eye
And that was the last I remember
Oh drastic fall!
Oh desperation
How the angels now mock me in my misery
How far indeed have I descended?
Wallowing night after night in my self-contracted pain
Lingering now in this benighted place
A prison is it? I cannot tell
I am Lear, I am mad Henry and George
I am Theodin and any like him
My wits have been whispered to the wind
I am Mythic Arthur, Good Lionheart, Bad Lackland am I
I am Ap Nudd dancing beneath the Tor
I will have it known it before
I have been
King Conn and all at Tara
I am the King of Delusion and the Deluded King
I have been the Albany Kings
I am all the successive Kings of Babylon
I am Nebecunezzer Agamemnon Rameses
Like King Soloman and David but cleveverer
I am Brutus who first stepped out from Troy
In Monmouth's dodgy testemony
I am misquoted Canute
I am Vortigen with the boats
I am Cadwaller
I am Confessor and Conqueror
I will wear each time a different face
For longtimes I would not speak your wretched race
I have been most unworthy
But I have been many
If I had been good I could have been Alfred
I could never inspire to that level
I never aspired to it at all
I am all Great Pretenders in one
I am Plantagenet and Tudor and York
My geneologies impeccably matched
I am Woodvilles and Bolinbroke
Whose were not but who were up for the bash
By pope was I first crowned
I am God Emperor
I am the divine Right of Kings
I am Tzar I am Khan
I am Warlord I am Pharoah
I am Nuada
Nodens Silver Hand
I am White King
I am Red King
I am Black King
I am the Green King
I am the Oak King and the Holly King
I am the Fay King
I am faking
I am the May King
I am making it up
I am King -Size, King pin and Fisher King
I am Herod
I am Frank I am King Clovis I am Charlemaine
King Kong and Elvis
I am King Coconut and Kin(g)ky
I am sinking and joking
Kingston and stonking
Sun King a drinking stinking
Hitchiking Viking
I am waking
Am I barking?
Am I waiting to die
Is this it?
Just gloom, alone
And madness self imposed?
Restrictment by these, mine own snares
Awaiting...judgement?
I didn't think it was true
It is so dim
Arghh
Elves
With their silver eyes
With their song that haunts and fears me by the ears
The Elves
And their bright light
Always about now
The Elven Ones
They must have returned from over the oceans!
I thought I had eradicated them
But they are still here present
Still floating about
Aargh!
Will they never die?
Ha, it can’t be true
No, no it’s just my mind playing up
Ha, if I didn't know I was hallucinating
I would have said that I was seeing faces
RETRONORG
I am flashing in your wing-mirror
I will hit you from behind
Come on like a migraine
From the darkness of your mind
Suffercate you in remorse
Remind you most tortureously
That your life will run it's course
I am where you come from
My sisters will, by turn, inform you
Where you are
And where you could be going
We are the three Norg-Sisters
Destiny our knowing
Memories pleasant are there for the flowing
But also the tap that holds the crap
Back back but you can't turn back
Back but it's too far back for you
Mortal sod! To recall
We have you by the balls for
We know all
And care not for you at all
You were some King or other
Of all the known Realm
You had some flaws and then you fell
You were stripped naked and flayed
Branded and blamed
Enmeshed in chain where you remained
A reminder of their pain
Then jettisoned a stain
Yet you returned like rain
Drenching all in a secret shame
Now look at you!
You sad, idiot clown
An example to us all
The King who did fall
Don't look surprised
Look into my eyes
What do you see?
Mystery? destiny?
Nothing really?
I can see all the past yous
streaming out behind you
Does it make me laugh?
Does it make me cry?
Does it make me retch?
Well, I am less than indifferent
And it's not even much pleasure
To see your type come to the end of your tether
I know all that you have done
It's all routine to me
NORG FUTURA
I am the most alluring of the sisters of Norg
And your sort can never glimpse us at all
So if you can see me, you must be off your crust
I am a maybe
I am an if
I am a prediction in a glyph
I am a card that you pick
I am the entrails of a pig
I am a bag of bones you hopefully perouse
I am fear of and hope you wish not to lose
Always welcoming but not always welcome
I am unknowable yet malleable to will
Try as you may
I cannot be foretold
For silver or for gold
Riches as such may come to a man
And may comfort him a while against the ravages
Of Our Father Time
But in the end,
... in the end
I will always elude you
I am always ahead
But by then you will be dead
I am used as a promised land
But here you can never stand
I am not a game, but I am fair game
You may make plans but this is not how I am
There are too many causes to see what the course is
Which of coarse is too complex
For your mortals guess
You would have to be like us Norg-Sisters
You wouldn't like it
But it's not us that twist you
We just hold the cords
And make report
If it's bets you've placed
We can't be traced
You might get sad or glad
But either way, you are presently mad
The gambler's die roll and whose to know
Except me what your tangled cord shows
All that you cannot see
Is easily visible to me
In all honesty
In duplicity
Hopes come to naught
Failures turned out fine
Worries desires and wishes all wash out and change
In time
But like the rest of us
I couldn't care less
It's all exacted in the balance
Nothing left to happenstance
For you the future is fantasy
For me it is just day to day
So as a figment of your imagination
I might say
Use your situation
Before it uses you
PRAESENTIA
I am death to yesterday
Cruel and starkly beauteous an event staring you out
The bill held by a grim waiter at your last meal
I bind you now to and by the wrenching of your heart strings
With melodies that one day will be the last thing that you hear
I am gift of the present
I am nothing else
At your death, my jurisdiction over you will end
Obviously
I restrict your movement
YOU CANNOT BE EVERYWHERE AT ONCE!
Not now. Not, yet
The Limiters will not allow it
It is for your own good
It is better for you that you remain within the authorized zone
...and on my better side
For my sisters and I do the everywhere bit
WE are the ones who hold your cord
And when we put our heads together
All hell can break loose for all we we care
What the Limiters restrict is no prob for us
Security?
We don't even have to slice them up to get past
They just split as soon as they hear us coming
We hold the key that unlocks the time capsule
Locked inside brother's cranium
Ooh, that will be colourful!
Retrus,! Futura! Praesentia!
All present and correct
Unfortunately for you
Destiny has brought us face to face
And there are certain, clauses
We will probably have to torture you
But it's your own doing
We are not intentionally malicious
We haven't looked at your files for years
I mean, we haven't examined your cord
We don't get out of bed for most of your types
nowadays
But there was a header on your file
And all thought to get Thoth in
But it seems he was due to come anyway
With his baboon clerks, for your amusement
... and categorisation
Oh and to weigh your soul up against a feather
...Y'know, like he does
We were not going to crawl down here just for you
But unfortunate for us,
Your cord had a special knotted glyph
You are some Royal Bastard son from our quarter
We're duty bound, weirdly
We quite like it when people go on a bummer
But it's not up to us that we should get that pleasure
That depends on what you have done in your life
And what you've got coming to you
You will have to look into the mirror
To see the beauty and the grotesque
To feel the suffering first hand
I am a gossamer thin dimension
So you don't get much chance to see my reality
But you get the ride
And that's as real as it gets
No guarantee of success or safety
Nothing to do with us
We hold the cards
We have your files
Some information will come gratis
We may however require
Payment
Not that you have more than your skin to offer us
You are not my prisoner unless you want to be
I am the exact moment of opportunity
You are falling through me
And I am killing you
Slowly stripping you of moments
You have been free to do as you will
Heh heh, so hopefully I am going to get my thrill
Now, let's have a look at that golden cord of yours
(NORGS EXAMINE THE CORD}
ALL NORGS (sing)
(Song of the Norgs)
We are the Norg Sisters 1 - 2 - 3
Past, present, future - Destiny
We card and spin and weave the web
We know the timing of your death
(chorus)
Look out now we're watching you
We know the things that you do
Listen in, we know your thoughts
Within our wyrd you are ever caught
We love to frolic by the memory pool
Meeting Kings, Queens, varlets and fools
They breathe your last and we cut their cords
We are the fate you can't ignore
(chorus)
Here at the roots of the World Ash tree
Nine days and nights hanging desperately
Odin stared far and deep into the void
Till he scried the runes to his great joy
(chorus)
The runes form a language made of trees
A battle there was for supremacy
A ring of the year these sentinels formed
Enchanted warriors wait the dawn
(chorus)
Now you are here we begin the end
Opposites within you start to blend
They were never separate anyway
King and Queen within all on a new day
RETRO
You, despicable wretch
Have been the order of things
For age opon age
But now all your pomp and glory
Have come to nothing
Bragger! Imposter!
All these things you did on their backs
the people
You thought you were everything
But you are less than nothing
FUTURA
Your foolish hollow crown
Has sucked your fool-hood down
That's four 'O's in your name
For a foul bird-brained fool
A fowl that is a double fool
Thus a brace of 'OO's
And four for your broken balls
That's four nothings more
So forty thousand mllion fools
All in one, all in you
Fool head you are a fool's fool
And that fool's fool's foul coxcomb-fool is you
PRAESENTIA
Looks like you have lost that Midas touch
Once and for all
'The Dunce and Futile Thing'
With your touch of reeking death
Back in the day
But that's all over now
RETRO
The people - not 'your' people
Have seen through you
FUTURA
The land - not 'your' property
Is disowning you with it's last gasping breath
PRAESENTIA
Your statutes - echo hollow
In the social craters they created
RETRO
It must have been so lonely at the top
But you won't have to worry about that any more
FUTURA
We have spindled up all your shadowy
Ministers
Your spinners and cozeners
Middle-men and medicene men
Professional con-men and licensed pirates
Dodgy clerks and conspiring councellors
Speculators and Regulators
Backstabbers these all
PRAESENTIA
We have watched them almost die
All half eaten now Fulk
You are the last, apart from
Gone insane remnants
Of a few of your cabinet
RETRO
No one is left to run the place
The country is gone to the dogs
FUTURA
These are the charges brought to your Disgrace
Straight from Thoth
And his baboon scribes who did the paperwork
PRAESENTIA
They await the immanent presence of your soul
Against which they will set as balance a feather
RETRO
Your charge is for raising monies from honest but duped
Persons of your claimed realm in feifs, tolls, taxes, fines,
Penalties
FUTURA
With purported aim of benefits, improvements and repairs
To and for all and sundry mending and making good
The fabric of culture
PRAESENTIA
Yet which
When examined further with
A brave and critical mind
Astonishingly revealed to be the
Source funding for the accoutrements of war
Against neighbours possessing simply the resources
That your solopsistic greed requires
RETRO
For systematic stripping of lands pristine
The creatures and minerals thereof
In so order as to gain supreme mastery and dominion
Over those whom you deemed subjects
FUTURA
In fact the subjegation of lives diverse
To the will that is yours
Through persuasions of a type exemplified...
PRAESENTIA
By violences of the mind and body
Both overt and covert
A sort of veiled blatancy
That misleads to then paralise with perfidy
RETRO
For equivocation in Law
Evading standards so to
Institutionalise murder as war
FUTURA
For making enormous glorification of killing for the state
For the con of the hero's welcome in projected after-lives
PRAESENTIA
The weight of a billion deaths!
Targets inked in first by your beaurocrats
To be destroyed by those mute armies of yours
Who believe the hype of your propaganda
RETRO
For you made it seem the noblest calling
But we can and will just call it murder
Can't we Fulk
FUTURA
Your day is done
The money's gone
You've killed them all
- by proxy that is
PRAESENTIA
There is nothing left
Your policies have sucked the well dry
All resources have been consumed
In the fervor of your industries.
RETRO
Your pleasant land is dust!
FUTURA
Science that you sanctioned has run wild
And delivered us a realm of pollutants
Before unknown
PRAESENTIA
Fine fun for you while it lasted
RETRO
We watched impartially
As you demolished like a craven beast
The habitat which you in fact
Share with other beings
We appear now to mark the occasion
Of your demise
FUTURA
And we watch with impartial pleasure
... don't we sisters?
PRAESENTIA
What with your life flashing past
You will have trouble working out
Which of your illusions
Is just that
And which is real
RETRO
But you can babble about that to Thoth
He is as unremitting as the iron shackle returns
On deeds that you must have loved at the time
But that which now bind you to your miserable fate
FUTURA
As we said, his baboons have done your admin and grim it looks
Your poison thumb has sickened so many pies
PRAESENTIA
The apes have traced it all
Nothing that they miss
And you are quite something!
Something times nothing
Is nothing
So they have exposed you for what you are
RETRO
Your clerks have been run in for their collusion with that
And are being held by the Orcquisiton
Har har... funny!
...and they squealed on you.
FUTURA
Your Chancellor has alledgedly been fed to Nydhogr
That fucker made our beast ill
Don't your men die?
Lovely Nydhogr can't digest all the black slime
Oozing out of that Osbourne's stomach
PRAESENTIA
Nydhogr has to take a rest and we've got
You just can't eat a spectre so easy like
So we've had to mute your Chancellor
RETRO
We spun his tongue
Savages aren't we!
Could get a King's ransom for all that silver
FUTURA
But the Elves won't touch it
Neither the Orcs or Gnomes
RAESENTIA
So they melted it to a thread and strung
Your lot up on it for Mama Spinner
Then after that it's all a bit of an anti-climax really
For us, not for you that is
RETRO
This is your spindle
It is the cord of your life
Your thread
FUTURA
All that you ever have been
Is coded on it's length
Length being an important factor
PRAESENTIA
It begins at your birth
And ends at you death
[THEY EXAMINE CORD]
RETRO
It is usual to start at the beginning
FUTURA
Delivered breech-birth your mother's life ended moments later and your father cried
Grief made him insane and drove him to commit acts atrotious and suddenly die
PRAESENTIA
You were pampered and feited the Boy-King by a delerious court
sodomised repeatedly by your surrogate father till the age of ten
RETRO
These formative experiences formed a perfect foundation for your future career
FUTURA
A total military at your thumb you ruled all the way to hell
A reign maker of terrors
A taker of taxes
A lover of flattery
PRAESENTIA
You became, swift as night, all that power corrupts
Your life - a million miles from all others
Sustained - by those million remote lives
The humanity that you were bereft of formed an all-maligning hatred -
A gap that separated you from all others-
A grande gaping gargantuellian fissure left as legacy of your father
Now grown beyond all conceivable dimension
Matching and feeding your inner abyss
RETRO
Nothing could have pleased you more, yet it did not occur to you
That you yourself were feeding on a wholly greater nothingness
FUTURA
You did indeed, swiftly as day follows night
Become the greatest fool of all
He who had sucked himself out of himself
Through true hallucinations of grandeur
PRAESENTIA
Hey Fulk!
Any feelings of remorse?
Are you just a despot King gone Madcap?
RETRO
Forgetting about any notions of hell or soul even
We have nothing to prove and we have nor offer proof
FUTURA
In this story we just do the thread
Thoth is much more on it and he does the scales
PRAESENTIA
Here he comes now from the shadows
THOTH
Greetings sisters
Are we about to start a game
We are certainly not going play properly
We will use my cards
It all leads to Death
Three courses of time
All inter-meshed
Jack and Varlet Page and Knave
Down they go faces displayed
Thoth is dealing Dead Man's Row
Thirteen dead men all stone cold
I am Thoth
My head is the curve beaked Ibis
Upon my crown I bear the horned crescent moon and disc
I am sometimes Dog-Ape
My personal scribes are baboons
Anubis is my hound
I am the true Universal demiurge
At Heliopolis my world egg crack'd
I, by voice alone creation fashioned
To birth sonicked four Gods, four Goddesses too
Where Khnum, City of Eight was made
By those eight Gods and Goddesses true
They sing hymn to the evening
They sing hymn to the night
They sing hymn to the morning
Turn, turn sun-wheel bright
I was murdered Osirisis's vizier and scribe
And facilitated his resurrection
My voice moving through the worlds
To return my master's spirit to his body
Augmenting my magic spells and incantations
With the splendor of it's sound
Osiris slain
Was made to life again
From dismembered raised
It was I, Thoth who did this and helped child Horus too
Who when with his mother Isis he was emperilled
By venom of a scorpion's sting
I it was
I drew the poison out
The Gods had commanded thus
I am called 'He who judged the two companions'
For Horus I favored over Set
I have been Vizier for Osiris and then in turn his son Horus
As they the Earthly realms ruled over
Then I ascended to the Throne
And ruled with peace and wisdom
For three thousand years and a third
I invented all the arts
All the sciences
Geometry, arithmatic, astronomy, geomancy
divination, medicene, surgery, embalming,
forensics, acoustics, musics
and especially writing
Writing to remember them
Hieroglyphs to recall
So that you can remember them
Archived on a scroll
I am the first Magician
I am called 'Lord of all Sacred Words'
I am Thoth thrice Magnificent
I endured my long tenure upon the Earth
-Three thousand years and three I reigned-
Then to the skies I rose, the Moon to serve
As she holds her orbit's swerve
And you watch her changing belly's curve
A seventy second part of her I won
When chess I played with the silver Moon
So five days over cold solstice I hold sway
I am named 'Ash-Te-Huti'
Astral guard to my Mistress
I measure the motions of my Sovereign
Lunar Deity
And divide the days and years
A calendar year wheel I have made
Of which mine is the first month
At Edfu, you may observe
The completeness of my accounts
It was I who from overseas brought
Treasures for the Egyptian Gods
Upon the sacred tree of Heliopolis
I scripted the names and lineage
Of all Kings
And upon it's golden leaves
I prophesied the name of the future
Pharaoh
I was heralded scribe and clerk to Ra
Who wished to know what I had known
And who lit the Underworld in my place
As I sojourned my seasons in the sky
My office in that lower place
I maintain
And there
I officiate over the dead before Osiris
Weighing souls against this feather
I proclaim the verdict
In my clear resounding tone
My baboons carving those fates
On eternal tablets of registry
And 'Reg'-istry is King's history
And Fulk...
I know your name
I preside over the world since ancient times
And have held office
Administrating for dynasties long dust
And I remember you Fulk
So, it is I who have come all this long way
To judge your soul
And that time is near
For your candle is guttering
Yet you cling to life
Look into my eyes
The eyes of Thoth
I who hatched the World-Egg
I read the matter of your existence
It is held within the torqued banks
Of your iris
Inside the pools of your pupils
The void of the window of you
There your flickering light
Is dancing low yet not gone
There is yet time before
I place this feather
Against your soul
It's weight against the other
Upon my scales
How many deaths Fulk?
How many killings in the name?
I am sure you laughed at the protests
But the little children, the horror they...
It was all...your scheme...
You believed...
Judgement is here now Fulk
Your cards are a 'split-mix-fix'
I mean some I just picked blind
Some I chose myself
Some I changed
First up :
You are only swords and staves
Which makes for a violent ride
The Devil really did pop up
Immediately and again later -
So he's definately here
Remember the Death card is a fixed thirteenth man
It all ends in Death
What's important is your journey and ultimately how you greet Death
I fixed the whole thing of course but there is only one distant
Nano-gramme of compassion or good numbed up in you at about
Fifty thousand fathoms and you've just run out of lucky stars
Anyway, the cards do my crust in, I just make up whatever fits
FULK
I don't believe in all that clap.
"One life only" It says so on the bumper sticker.
You want me to be frightened?
What of, Nihil?
A black hole of...Nothing
Matter antithesis
My own shadow?
Your taunts about
Afterlife haunts
Heh heh!
Hardly makes me quiver
We disproved all that long ago
THOTH
You won't mind our little game then?
FULK
You can't hurt me with a silly game
THOTH
Oh, we don't intend on hurting you at all.
WE couldn't if we tried
It's Nydhogr you want to watch out for in that department
Hogr and Ungoliant of course I might add
What could three girlies and a shadow like me
Do to the Great Fulk anyway?
PRAESENTIA
The Nydhogr works for us now . We got rid of the Ker.
FULK
Nydhogr?
FUTURA
Yes the charming little creature
He's about somewhere
RETRO
But he's in pieces
You'll have to guess him
FUTURA
Oh it's child's play
Like playing with bricks or dominoes
FULK
That doesn't sound too bad
I thought you said you were going to torture me?
PRAESENTIA
In a manner of speaking yes
- but really you are just torturing yourself
RETRO
We just appear as part of the programme
- to make it more of an occasion. Yes
FUTURA
You just answer as you can and when you have made
A total fool of yourself
PRAESENTIA
Or rather, revealed yourself unwittingly
as a tragic waster
RETRO
Of life, or use of limbs and other faculties, your own and of others
FUTURA
Then Nydhogr will take you out and that will be that
We will leave it to your imagination but Nydhogr is a serpent
Who breathes fire at both ends
Whose body has thirteen sections
Each section a riddle
If Nydhogr can't be bothered with you
We'll leave you here for Ungoliant to pick up
Bets on 7 - 1 Nydhogr has no taste for the bugger and leaves
'im trippin' savage hangin' up for Mama Spinner!
Heh heh heh!
THOTH
Ladies! and Fulk
Your attention please
Let us play
Twelve cards have I
The thirteenth has us players
Soon enough you will
Cry of your pangs of love and pain
Then begone and never be seen again
Twelve cards I will now deal
The thirteenth's face will to you be revealed
See your little life depicted
And riddle then the sygils encrypted
Watch you life flash before you
It won't take long once we've begun
I'm not laying bets with you girls
Because you know his fate up front
Number sixteen Tower Struck Down
The Keep of the realm
The Tall Citadel
The Bastion of defence
Is in flames
Men and women
Are throwing themselves
From the windows
Falling to their deaths
A King's crown topples
From it's high crest
Struck by a bolt
In the blackest of skies
RETRO
Sounds a bit like you Fulk
That's good for starters Thoth
FULK
I am in full control of my self
Do I not, even now, sit in this great chair
You can topple my tower
And I am still in power
I placed my deal long ago Thoth
And you can't frighten me
With my own propaganda!
Topplin' crowns is my buisness
As you can see
I've too many fingers in too many pies
And just put on another stupid mask
Fools them everytime
THOTH
You are deluded Fulk
Look where you are
Your course of history
Stands at a particular point
Not just for you
Glibly put, the causes you furthered
Have brought us to a place
Where the order of Kings
Will be the Termination of Things
PRAESENTIA
Check it out Fulki
Look into the Mirror of Gnomimirrom
FULK
I will not
RETRO
Well then, you must answer this riddle:
"What is always ahead but never seen"
FUTURA
Nice easy one that
FULK
It's staring me in the face-
My Eternal role of Omnipotent Omniscience
King of King of Kings
Forever flowing fast forward for a firstly Fulk friendly
F U T U R E ! Obviously
Future it is
But is this quiz for a child?
RETRO
And you have grown so far
THOTH
Card the second number twenty, it is:
Judgement.
To me Fulk, this is clear enough
Come-up-ance for any wicked stuff
Against my feather you will see
The balance of your destiny
PRAESENTIA
It's not necceserily so simple as it sounds
But it works out the same
RETRO
So we brought in Thoth and his
Accountant Baboons
Who have done your paperwork
They have accounted for everything
THOTH
It's not over yet
It's what I call 'Aeon'
And I can't and won't try and don't need
To convince you
That an Aeon is a long time
FULK
I have done nothing wrong
Because who is to decide?
You and your follysome baboons
Why do I have to feel
Responsibility
To anyone
Go on
Unify me, make me feel one
Then I can begin to learn to love
Those bastards out there
But until then
I can find no reason
To think of anyone except myself
Even though I keep becoming
Different people
FURURA
All shades of the same
Look into the mirror
FULK
I will not!
THOTH
We must pass on quickly now the game is begun
PRAESENTIA
"I know a word of letters three
Add two and fewer there will be"
FULK
That's curious
It gets smaller
As it takes more
What if it took so much
That it disappeared
Ha ha
Or became less than zero
Then it would be an un-thing
Not a something
'Add two fools and fewer fools there will be'
PRAESENTIA
Having trouble Fulk?
FULK
Lesser letters is less
So fewer fools is a few
It is "few"
THOTH
Well done Fulk
That's two child level riddles under your belt
RETRO
But you were not a
very nice child were you
Though your parents were despicably cruel
To you from infancy
So I guess for you
It was how things were in the world
You had ambition but no imagination
To see things from another perspective
Or another's point of view
And continued a daily regime into adulthood
Of violence for violence's sake
A theatre of violence to keep things in shape
To force a yolk upon masses you knew not
And to cream the milk of their life's toils
Giving nothing back but enchainments
And the call to arms and to consume
FULK
No no no
It's because they love me
They work happily for me
To further the Realm
They give their lives
Because they love me
And believe in me
Their God-Emperor
THOTH
Ok
The third card I deal is number three
And the Three of Swords
Much to to your pity
And dolores
A red heart is
Thrice lanced
By blades three
All under a mis'rable sky
That weepeth full sorrowfully
PRAESENTIA
This is a bit near to the bone isn't it Fulk/
FUTURA
Straight through the heart
If you ask me
Look at that card
Does it bring up anything for you Fulk?
FULK
My heart was long ago beaten and broken upon the anvil
So that any impurities of feeling in it
Unrequired for my office
Be rendered swiftly
A non-liability in each case
Thus to my human sentiments
That grow from the weeds of my naive youth
I repressed each in turn
So as to your knives-in-the-heart
I feel nothing
I am impervious
THOTH
Very well
Now moving on from riddles so fully novice
And leaving a hint re. the running of your office
Will you look into the mirror now
Before you the tertiary test attempt to trow
FULK
What is it about this mirror?
Why do you keep on about this mirror?
And what do you mean test?
PRAESENTIA
You say you were tested at the forge
When you were smelted
Your heart never yet melted
But beaten into submission
Became keen in precision
So let us see the metal you are made of
If your metaphor holds strong
That is the test we have made for you
We will see the results before too long
FUTURA
"Who makes it tells not
Who takes it knows not
Who know it wants it not"
FULK
Hrmph! Sounds a sorry secretive
State of affairs if you ask me
PRAESENTIA
Or perhaps Affairs of State
If the truth be known
FULK
Something that if you know what it is
You don't want it
What's the point in that?
Unless...
You are tricking someone
With something you have made
That isn't what it is supposed to be
Isn't what they think it is...
Has to be money
Forged money
Counterfeit money that's it!
And what's that got to do
With Affairs of State
I'd like to know
THOTH
Yes but you blocked the enquiry
Next card is the Five of Staves
Behold the enquirant beset by problems
Of internal strife
This could be factions within one's Kingdom
Or within one's self
FULK
Just pay them off or send in the troops
AS regards my inner self
I AM the Realm
I'll get the money back in taxes
Soon enough
FUTURA
You have an answer for most things
With your voice commanding and bold
But soon will come a polarising of your view
To the opposite of that which you now hold
RETRO
Then things will settle out
PRAESENTIA
And you may come to realise this:
FUTURA
That there is nothing holding you up
PRAESENTIA
That you are standing upon an abyss
ALL NORGS (sing)
Hoop-La! Hoop-La! Hey Nonny Noh!
Johnny's through the Hoop-La don't you know
A Hoop-La is a jolly big 'O'
Johnny's through the Hoop-La don't you know
FULK
Don't talk crap
No one can stand on nothing
You'd have to be No One or dead
And not even then
Maybe figuratively speaking
Suspended on a big O
Oh nO!
I can feel myself beginning to go
Where I don't know
Where am I?
Quick, cling to the rim of this big hole!
Back again, where was I?
RETRO
"One sits still
Two consumes all it is given
Three makes a fast exit"
THOTH
Where did he get these gags from?!
Anyway, go with it
FULK
It is a metaphor of the times
A prophesy for the Rulers
Of the Future
The All-consuming genius -mind
Of a centralised power
Rampant and throwing off all transgressors
PRAESENTIA
Aim a little lower mighty one
FULK
The Three children of Drax the Giant?
FUTURA
No. You are penalised
It's Stove, Fire, Smoke
RETRO
So are you going to look in the mirror - yet?
FULK
I don't see no mirror
PRAESENTIA
Then you do see one. "don't see no"
That's a double negative.
FULK
I'm not being negative!
THOTH
The next card is the King of Swords
A pale faced ruler tall and grim
Throned ancestrally clad in ermine
Sword ready in hand
Surveying his land
The wide sky witnesses his Lordliness
FULK
There in all my glory sit I
Don't I look magnificent
Don't I strike awe into the heart!
Don't you just want to be like me!
THOTH
Watch out Fulk I'm channeling Alfred
Incoming King! Incoming King!
I hereby absolve myself of complicity
With ideologies not of my own begatting
Spoke when channelling noteable others
And sign myself over contractually
For the period to Alfred's Agents
No. 2 the Mound, Athelney. Somerset
Presenting Alfred the Great:
KING ALFRED
Absolute rot of stuff and nonsense
Come on out where I can see you boy
Where's that serial userper
Call yourself a King
You are just clinging
Limpet
King Limpet
Up yer arse Jack
You don't even know you're born
Think the people love you do you?
Do you really?
Well, boy, it's give and take
Or have you never heard of
Each bringing something to the picnic?
I must just sound like a King Nag of Nig
But I don't hate you
I was expecting this
And did what works I could
To stem the tide of detritus like you
Who have never done anything
For the people
To make them call you Great
In any sense
Apart from the perjorative
You Great Tosser
I'm off now
Do better
(ALFRED LEAVES THOTH)
PRAESENTIA
There you have it Fulk
Look into the mirror
FULK
No
PRAESENTIA
"A case with no lock or lid
Yet a golden sun inside is hid"
FULK
That's impossible!
How can something so big get in
It's like saying that people
Are intrinsically free
Or some tosh
About discovering yourself
To be discouraged!
The sun shines only
Out of my arse
The riddle is about me
I am a case full of sunlight
RETRO
Wrong
PRAESENTIA
It's an egg you oaf
FUTURA
Why do you think everything is about you?
RETRO
We have a song about someone's neggs
Jack's codpiece was stolen along with his two eggs
By the naughty cuckoo who laid her eggs next
And fooled the pea-fowl that they were all hers
Till Jack was cuckolded worse and worse
Though Jack could feel the cold on his nads
He just would not perceive that he'd been had
And continued to strut about the place
As people quietly laughed when he turned his face
The crested pea-cock made such a display
When he saw the eggs cracked at the dawn of the day
But when the pea-cock crow clocked at Jack's two broken crocks
He belooked that nothing indeed therein there was
The conning cuckoo had come in the night
Fooled the fooled pea-fowl and sucked those eggs dry
Leaving four crowns in the codpiece for posterity
And in that codpiece were founded four lost cities
Of which but sad the tale there is to tell
Their holy well is just a hole and not very well
That nurtures nothing to the first holy ground
For the albumen had been for the elder men
And the yoke had been for the younger folk
The cuckoo had grown and swallowed the Throne
Leaving Jack with no Kingdom and nothing he owned
RETRO
And let that be a warning to you
THOTH
Next is a nasty card
Funnily enough it's all about deceptions
But of course you know nothing about that
FULK
I know nothing about deception
PRAESENTIA
You seemed to know something about everything
FUTURA
Maybe you call it 'self-furtherment'
And file it under company policy
RETRO
How many denials have you left
Sheltering your head-in-the-sand
From the inevitable inescapable
Hole in your hollow crown?
THOTH
The Eight of Swords
Told you it was all sticks and swords
It's cos you never gave so much
So there can be no cups
No profitable pentacles neither
Cos you were ever the miser
But the Eight of Swords is you Fulk on the inside
Trapped within your own world-wide lies
You have backed yourself into a corner
Avert your fate or you will be forlorner
The mirror's surface is gleaming
You cannot escape it's meaning
Look now
And avert a greater tragedeos
FULK
I will not look in your trick mirror
Take it away
FUTURA
"Eliza, Elizibeth, Betsy and Bess
They went to the woods to find a bird's nes'
They found a nest with four eggs in it
Took one a piece and left three in it"
FULK
Who are they?
What's their game?
Stealing eggs?
Not mine I hope!
No one's going to steal
My eggs
A gang of girls
Abject horror
So many of them
And no escape
When they come with their nasty
Thievy girl hands
Urgh
But where did they hide
All those other three eggs
It's done with fake eggs that's what
PRAESENTIA
Is that your answer? Fake eggs
FULK
I, er
FUTURA
Fulk, the fours names are all a '
der-der-derivative
Of the one name Elizabeth
They are the same name
So it's the same girl
And she took only on egg 'apiece'
PRAESENTIA
Just one girl
Not four
So you don't need to feel
Too floored
But you lost the round
THOTH
Now I did some tinkering with your cards
But this beastly fellow
Kept falling out of the pack in his enthusiasm
The Devil
Self explanetary really
And he's raring to go
Good job it's only a game eh!
Not really sure what to add about this guy
Maybe you'll see a bit of yourself
It wouldn't be a show without him
(FULK CATCHES A GLIMPSE IN THE MIRROR)
FULK
Arrgh!
RETRO
Think carefully now Fulk
"Often held, seldom touched
Always wet, never rusts
Sometimes wagged, sometimes bit
To use me well, use well your wits"
FULK
The Mirror!
I saw!
PRAESENTIA
Yes but don't think about that now
FUTURA
Just because you saw it now
Doesn't mean it wasn't there all along
RETRO
Concentrate on the riddle
FULK
Often held, never touched
It's not rude then?
Never rusts?
It's not metal then
Wagged and bit?
Hmm, some kind of dog?
No, it's something you use
Are 'Wits' a kind of cigarette paper?
THOTH
Time's up
It's a 'tongue'
And we're just out of Wits papers
FULK
The Tongue
The people who make these up are too clever for their own good
PRAESENTIA
Well the riddles can help excersise the mind
FULK
My mind doesn't need excercising
It's as fit as the day I bought it
THOTH
Moving on swiftly now
The Queen of Swords
Seated upon her ornate Throne
Looking so Right and Regal to Reign
Yet she the unscrupled perfidious Queen
Wo cares not for you and feelings feigns
And so good looking these evil Queens
Got to have your wits about you
What's the matter Fulk?
Someone you recognise?
FULK
She was so cold
She got through all my defenses
She was cruel
She said she loved me
I thought she said she loved me
She dumped me
She took all I had
She took me to the cleaners!
Boo hoo!
Boo hoo!
She didn't love me at all!
FUTURA
OK then look in the mirror
FULK
Ah! Ah!
Is that me?
No-ooooooo
Darkness
PRAESENTIA
"What is loved more than life
Hated more than death
The contented desire it
The poor have it
The rich require it
Misers spend it
Spendthrifts save it
The dead carry it"
FULK
Deeper darkness
Falling through a hole in the sky
I am standing on the abyss
No one's home
I am nowhere
These words are impenetrable
Or they seem to be
I cannot tell
The Queen of Swords
Took my sight
All now is blackness
Only your word riddles
Hold any faint incandescanse
But what is this curious commodity
That seems the opposite in each case
To that which one would expect?
Maybe it's contrariness can explain my predicament
I, Emperor Omniscient
Surveyor and Overlord of Everywhere
Ruler of the wide realms and
Arch-arch-Commander in Chief
Is Nowhere
I, King of the Infinate Hegemony
Master of Everybody
Has become a no-body
And I own
Nothing
That is the answer to this riddle
PRAESENTIA
Very good Fulk
At least we now know where we stand
Live by the sword, die by the sword
Oh, and here come more swords!
THOTH
Pierced by ten great swords
He lay slain in the wilderness
The black night gathering
Over distant mountains
That's the Ten of Swords Fulk
And pretty devastating it must be
To fall so far
It could happen to anyone of course
But if you burn all the bridges
Then there is far more chance
Of being left to die
When it comes to it
Do you get a feel for the way this is all going?
Another two cards till Death
Another two till you die
It's not actually a very good, or funny game at all
Would you care to look in the mirror?
FULK
I can't, she took my sight
RETRO
This one will tease you
"Walks in the wind
Runs in the rain
Makes dry oceans in the sun
Counts time
Stops clocks
Swallows Kingdoms
Gnaws rocks"
FULK
Great Monsters! Who is this fearsome being?
I will be afeared of it
But ever will I guard my Realm
With elite warriors
Against it's coming
They shall advance in the van
They shall man the battlements
My eternal guard against the foe
Ever protecting
Ever watchful
This terrible adversary
Will be brought down
And presented to me
Head on a spike
It's power forever nulled
PRAESENTIA
Your sentinels must be sleepless
Your warriors infinatly tireless
Your horses inexhaustable
Your archers ever true
Your strategies foolproof
Your fools...
Your fools given license
To observe and report
Your great folly
Then all your vast forces
Plentiful in aggression
Will as of one man
Make a great laugh
And they will laugh because
They know better than you
That this enemy will forever
Grind them down
And so better for their children's games
For they will play it it
Making brief castles - like your own
Yet made of sand Fulk
Made of sand
THOTH
Ok next round
When I was fixing your cards
Before the show tonight
I couldn't decide between
The Fool and the Moon
But as they both have
Two 'o's in them
That's two 'o's in a Fool
And two 'o's in a Moon
Which is four 'o's in all
Plus some consonants
However on close examination
Are they 'o's or zeros?
If they were zeros
The four would be nothing
Four times zero being nothing
Four equal nothing?
That can't be correct
I've mixed up my vowels and numerals
And a zero is a non numeral
But really, who can tell at such a great distance
That they are not indeed
Great hoops of flame
Or the Rings of Saturn
The Fool is card zero
And he steps gleefully
To the chasm's edge
Regarding all this while
The sky in his eyes
With head full one presumes
Of riddles, daydreams and song
The Moon is huge and melancholic
A big 'O' herself
Gazes down upon the Dog-Wolfs and Sea-Beasts
That she has drawn up on her surging tides
MAD BOYS ALL GO ROUND (refrain)
He made his love a garland all for her pretty head
It was a ring around the moon and this is what he said
(repeat refrain, etc etc.)
Eye to eye says I see you Eye says I got some
He put the ring into his palm and said "Now I got none"
Big eye to little eye says "Why are you so small?
If you were more small than small you'd not be there at all"
Little eye to big eye says "I am small but true
And as you are a stupid eye I can see through you
Big eye to little eye says "I hope this all ends soon"
Said Little eye to Big eye, "'Tis but early afternoon"
Mad boys all go roundall go round x 2
Mad boys Wild girls round the outside
Round the outside
Round the outside
RETRO
Where are you Fulk?
FULK
An blind sea creature I am
From such depths I never knew!!
I have no eye
I have other senses
I could be prey or predator
I do not know my nature
I am afeared. I am out of my depth
Or I my secret depth have descended
Deep am I now within the mirror
THOTH AND NORGS RECITE:
THE INON
On the sun there was a flea
The flea was in a card game
The card game was on a wheel
The wheel was in a story
The story was on a tapestry
The tapestry was in a locked room
The locked room was on a cloud
The cloud was in a conversation
The conversation was on time
The time was in a castle
The castle was on a tea tray
The tea tray was in a conundrum
The conundrum was on a quest
The quest was in a melody
The melody was on a teardrop
The teardrop was in a bowl
The bowl was on a table
The table was in a forest
The forest was on a crest of a wave
The crest of a wave was in a dream
The dream was on a footstool
The footstool was in a joke
The joke was on a star
The star was in an armchair
The armchair was on a camel
The camel was in a slipper
The slipper was on a rosary
The rosary was in a lamp
The lamp was on the sea
The sea was in a basket
The basket was on a crescent moon
The crescent moon was in a void
The void was on a pin
The pin was in a crystal
The crystal was on a precipice
The precipice was in a clamshell
The clamshell was on a rainbow
The rainbow was in an acrobat's eye
The acrobat's eye was on the future
The future was in a pocket
The pocket was on fire
The fire was in a pulpit
The pulpit was on the wind
The wind was in an egg
The egg was on a boat
The boat was in a turtle
The turtle was on a mustard seed
The mustard seed was in a whale
The whale was on a four poster bed
The four poster bed was in a coracle
The coracle was on borrowed time
The borrowed time was in a plastic cup
The plastic cup was on an atom
The atom was in a unicorn
The unicorn was on the way home
The way home was in doubt
The doubt was on a spoon
The spoon was in a holy house
The holy house was on a golden wish
The golden wish was in a silver locket
The silver locket was on an angel's hem
The angel's hem was in a tiny casket
The tiny casket was on hold in winter on trial
In the belly of the She-Wolf Fenris who ate the sun
FUTURA
Your gazeless sockets
Count for two more 'O's
Or zeros
So they are all happily adding up to
Nothing
Or "OO-OOOOOO"
Keep that going sisters
OWATAGITAMEYE
PRAESENTIA
Here's the ultimate clue for you
Before you push off
The key to your secret identity
That's been longing to get out all these years
Enjoy
Ohwhatagitameye
Ohwhatagitameye
Ohwhatagitameye
Oh what a git am I
Oh what a git am I
Oh-
What!
RETRO
You said it Fulk
But it's not over
Not just yet
Deep deep in your being there
Fathoms fathoms deep
Are there any...nuggets
Lying around?
FULK (groping about)
Well, there is one
FUTURA
Oh well done Fulk.
That's your last marble
Deep in the mirror
That cost you your sight
In payment for being able to see
THOTH
So look now Fulk
With your inside eye
And see the Wheel of Fortune
Held in the very clouds of Heaven
By creatures mythologic
That learned are in
The logic of your myth
Or,
Your journey's story
In precise and exacting detail
Of deeds done and the balance
Thereof upon your account
Which my Baboons are presently auditing
Anubis carries the great wheel aloft
Well out of the Underworld
And, fittingly, the Sphinx
A sharp sword in her hand
Waits atop with the penultimate riddle
But the card is also choice
Fortunes can be won and lost
They are always being used up
And there is not only material wealth and power
FULK
Submerged
Deep in Gnomimirrom
I hold my last
Moments
This marble
Containing
All my lost memories
Now rushing past me
All in a cascade
The many lives
I worthless lived
Though I held myself highest
Now is my ultimate test
To face those souls that I sent
To their deaths?
In their prime
For my glory
No don't think of them
They are just dead
And I will live forever
That's all there is to it
PRAESENTIA
"Who makes it needs it not
Who buys it does not use it
Who uses it does not know it"
FULK
What's the use in that?
Something you don't need
You don't use
And whoever uses it
...doesn't know it
What, are they asleep?
Why don't they know about it?
It's a bed sold by a company
That doesn't need more beds of it's own
Or what if they were dead?
Oh no
I know what it is
It's a coffin
It's my coffin
THOTH
Indeed
Though correct in the former, not the latter
We are not giving you a coffin
We are just going to split
And let Nydhogr and Ungoliant
Fight it out over you
Now we want to keep the show rolling
(if you could get ready with the snippers sisters)
We are bringing on someone
Very special in the riddle department
With a big hand to the Norgs
Their excellent riddle posing
But could you kindly step aside now
Presenting the one-and-only
Sphinx
Everyone put your hands together now
For Sphinx
Who brings you the original riddle
SPHINX
"What has four in the morning
Two in the afternoon
And three in the evening"
THOTH
Thank you Sphinx
I've always wanted to hear you say those words
FULK
Thoth, why do I have to answer these riddles?
THOTH
Well, there isn't anything better to do
And it is a bit of therapy for you
And some amusement for us...
FULK
Why is this whatever in the riddle
Changing number all the time?
THOTH
Because everything is constantly changing
Whether you accept it or not
FULK
Four then two then three
What has it got
It must be something quite sublime
Cos I cannot work out the meaning this time
Morning, afternoon, evening
It's all in a day
And come night time what?
And what are these things
That it says it's got
It can't be meals - too many
It could be medication but I don't think so
It could be bets down the bookies for all I know
But I think it is deeper and more profound
And more obvious too
Such as the stages
That one goes through
A noble path if you are that way inclined
Less than noble I am feeling most of the time
And what come the night?
Yes it's legs
Crawling babe on all fours
Then grown man on two
Then elder walking with a staff
Which makes three
Though evil I have laughed
At schemes of men
Save those of my own
Yet I secretly know
Though in armour I hide
My death shall come swiftly
When it does come nigh
For come it will
P'raps come it soon
And so then will end
The life of King Lune
Just because I called myself King
And wear this brow blistering crown
Don't for a moment think my type
Are a thing of the past
We've had the divine right of Kings
Been executed
And shifted stance to make us
Seem closer to the people
It's a matter of personal style
Some monarchs appear with
Some aloof
All use mercinaries
And recruits
Press ganged against their will
Or convinced with belief
People imagining they know the
Depths of political intregue
Fools
All I had to do was mutate
Into another form
Sinking my command into the environment
Furthering myself by becoming obscure
Slowly being absorbed
Into the sub-strata of thought
Incrementally extending myself
Into something presentable
Mother's sons stockpiled for the power game
Still a ready resource
You have been a franchise in my name
Your loss my unworthy gain
Kings!
A subject to vast
For common people to grasp
You fools
You imbeciles
THOTH
Card Thirteen
Death
(THE NORGS CUT FULK'S CORD. FULK DIES)
Dead Man's draw
Dealt and drawn and done
Complete
The twilight of Kings is over
Come now the night
And new games dreaming
Come now the Knight
Of rearranged
Come to joust wordplay
Of a dawn day
This Knight by Fool we heard of
First by Prophesy summoned
Tho Fool of his words quoth
That he cannot know
But the Kscur came anyway
That Knight he spoke of
Has taken his cloak off
Beneath yon tree
I'm sure he'll lead us on
With a conundrum song
Of how and who he is
And where indeed he comes from
All hail the Left-Right Knight
THE LEFT-RIGHT KNIGHT
Ho ho ho hee he he
The Left-Right Knight is hard to see
Half sinister his body bright
He is half left she is half right
Arms and legs opposite in pairs
You think I am splitting hairs
The Left-Right Knight is both at once
Don't look at me like I was a dunce
The Left-Right Knight is he and she
In Quert orchard walks this mystery
Kscur Avalon is balanced quite right
Both left and right is the Left-Right Knight
He he hee ho ho ho
The Left-Right Knight wants you to know
Embedded in the language deep
Long forgotten rhymes that keep
Humans in a funny trance
Where in it is we never glance
At the side that least we use
So half our self it is we lose
Never learning from the left
We have ourselves in two halves cleft
Male and female dark and light
Hooray! Hurrah! The Left-Right Knight
END
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