JETHRO TULL:   J-Tull Dot Com

Spiral

Kilometers from nowhere on a scented avenue -
Lined with poppy girls
I didn't stop, stop to say hello
Curious vendors - waving bric-a-brac -
Looked me over -
Thought it best, best that I should go

Don't wake me: I'm falling
Slow spiral into morning
Who's out there? Can't hear you
Ears covered - Early warning
Alarm bells ringing
Time to make my peace with the dreary day

I waited tables - I was tipped in roubles
Wine to water
was the best that I could do
Wild office parties split the silence
Loaves and fishes at an empty table laid for two

Down the spiral, spinning madly
Gathering momentum
On a Disneyesque adventure ride
I fly in colours from richer palettes
Famous artists running scared as worlds collide

Dot Com

It's a wide world out there
So much wider than imagined
I can't quite put my finger on the pulse
Of your heart softly beating
Just beneath the raw silk sheen
That reflects the tints of Autumn from the hills

So punch my name
And in case you wonder -
I'll be yours: yours, dot com

Executive accommodation
Bland but nonetheless appealing
Waiters discretely at your beck and call
Place the tall sun-down potion
Lightly by your velvet elbow
While you compose a message on the wall

So punch my name
And in case you wonder -
I'll be yours: yours, dot com

With your handmade leather valise
Packed and ready, ready waiting
Showered and dressed down lightly for the heat
Give a clue; leave a kind word
Hint as to a destination
A domain where our cyber-souls might meet

So punch my name
And in case you wonder -
I'll be yours: yours, dot com

AWOL

Stormy-eyed on the edge of dawn:
nose pressed against the triple glaze
Floor to ceiling, wall to wall,
silent traffic streams both ways
Along the fussy freeway drivers
dream of Sunday barbecues
Of a sudden, seems I can barely
face my self: no face to lose
Call the bosses Call supervisors
Won't be in today to work for you

E-mail that girl who's working nights
She can dress down for this wind and rain
Leave her new Korean compact:
let some cabbie take the strain
Take a shower Take big espresso
Take to the hills, and take a view
Little black dress stretching over
hard crystal peaks; soft valleys too
Call the bosses Call for nurses
Unfit today to work for you

No wet excuses Absent without leave
I'll be her dayshift driver: exotic engineer

Stormy-eyed on the edge of night:
(December, Eastern time: late afternoon )
Atlantic City tight behind
Trump Casino calls pontoon
Gristle-burger, frazzled fries
end this romantic interlude
Tomorrow morning's sweet awakening
could hardly prove to be as rude
Make the journey Make amends
Work some hasty overtime in lieu

No wet excuses Absent With-Out Leave
I was her dayshift driver: exotic engineer

Wicked Windows

I review my past through wicked windows framed in silver
and hung in toughened glass, upon my face, around and over
Now and then: memories of men who loved me
No stolen kiss - could match their march on hot coals for me

I have walked a line both faint and narrow, hard to follow
Caught up in circumstance Harsh truth for history to mellow
Through my eyes: loyalties and obligation
magnified Obedience: the better fellow

Better not remember me Don't miss my passing
Fierce winter fails to ruffle my icy sleep
We never quite vanish No wet soft surrender
Still waiting: bad blood running in close families
I laughed like any child - although you might find that strange
and Christmas was my favourite holiday

Christmas was my favourite holiday

I am not alone in seeing the world through wicked windows
while others hide likewise behind this vulnerable squinting
It's in the stare: it's in the silent scrutinizing
Strip you bare: I offer you no more disguising

Better not remember me Don't miss my passing
Fierce winter fails to ruffle my icy sleep
We never quite vanish No wet soft surrender
Same bad blood running in new families

Hunt By Numbers

Hey little buddies:
soft and silky night walkers
Dangerous species -
Tiptoe menace long grass stalkers
on my bed:
no butter melting in your jaws
Bonding monster -
Lethal weapon wearing claws

Let's go out to hunt by numbers

Tabby, spotted, black as coal -
Serval, Margay, Caracal
Moggie in the moonlight listens:
whiskered sensory miracle
Felis, befriend us -
Egyptian Mau - Freya's familiar
Long in the future -
Cloned disciples, the castle guard

Now, let's go out and hunt by numbers

Hot Mango Flush

Hot mango flush
Ladies with ice cream hair -
Gyroscopic pink neon beams -
Everybody's happy 'bout something
The crowd moves like a flock of starlings: they
switch direction as one
Jive on the jukebox - Jack and Joker
split the night air with whoop and holler
Faint aroma - wood smoke, old fish,
diesel harbour, roadside mongrel,
painted man with buttons barely
holding, bursting belly bulging
Doe-eyed ragamuffin mumbling -
Scolded for some vague infraction
Stole a penny candy-coloured
sweetheart kiss down at the market
Down at the market all the world
seems to simmer:
Hot mango flush

El Nino

As one, wet merchants turn their eyes towards the west
Trade winds falter as if in dire consequence
Freezing fish to fry, fail to materialise
Christ-child, blood-warm current sends to touch the skies

El Nino

Bathing in uncertainty, another age
seems to wing from T V screens in weather rage
Savage retribution makes for a headline feast
Planet-warming, opinion-forming headless beast

El Nino

Cold thrust tongue extends its dark and watery touch
Forces gather, martial stand against the rush
Wily child in mischief here to make his play
Leaves toys for little sister on another day

El Nino

Black Mamba

Hand in the snake pit - black mamba chase
Head through the lion's cage - head on a plate
Two feet on the hot coals - last dance at the ball
Blindfold on the tightrope - whenever you call
Be my slippery slider Black Mamba crawl over me

Dark thoughts of the sleepless - hung out to dry
Slip through the bedclothes - unblinking eye
Long tongue flickering -fixed stare grip
Sweet venomous potion, held to my lip
Be my slippery slider Black Mamba crawl over me

A tropical whisper A sibilant kiss
Soft strike teasing Dangerous bliss

Bends Like A Willow

She's catching the wind: the gentlest of breezes
It's a sensitive passage she's sailing---
Through stormy straits, navigates my unfathomable failings

She rises before me, reading me clearly
Empty nest left pressed in the pillow
She can shift, she can sway
and bend like a willow

I'm swept in the riptide Caught in a fish trap
Gift-wrapped in my soft self centre
Summer sun leaves me as one who can only taste winter
She's a good, a good God-send: she can bend like a willow

With a fully armed angel to cover me quickly,
I'm cool under enemy fire
If I fall, she can crawl right under the wire

When I'm caustic and cold, she might dare to be bold -
ease me round to her warm way of thinking:
fill me up from the cup of love that she's drinking
And I find, given time, I can bend like a willow
She bends like a willow

Far Alaska

Placing people in their dreamscape
with fantasies of foreign fields
Lofty spires all well appointed
In off-season special deals

To far Alaska: down to Rio in the Carnival
Norwegian fjords in the ever-light of Solstice call

A part of me might travel with you
in a freebie bucket seat for one
Business First - at last, forever
Hopeless thoughts of flying fun

Now get me out of here I cry in air rage psycho-doom
I'm only dream-arranging from the safety of my room

Pick a place or stick a pin in
any corner of the sphere
Post me cards and tell me nicely
Say you wish that I was here

To far Alaska: down to Rio in the carnival
Norwegian fjords in the ever-light of Solstice call

The Dog Ear Years

Rusted and ropy
Dog-eared old copy
Vintage and classic,
or just plain Jurassic:
all words to describe me

Relaxed in the knowledge
that happily present
are all things to sustain me,
nurture and claim me;
roll back the mileage

You have settled beside me
To the far and the wide of me
A matter of choosing,
of finding and losing
on the rough ride with me

Take whisky with water,
kick stones down the gutter
Think back to long days with
stale breath recycled in my face
Rattling through airways -
plastic on cold trays
Watching through windows,
deep landscapes below
await another time and space

There must come some time
to walk through the night line
Hands tight: heads high
These are the dog-ear years
Don't turn back Don't linger
For God's sake keep moving
Primitive shadows sidle beside

A Gift Of Roses

I count the hours: you count the days
Together, we count the minutes in this Passion Play
Walk dusty miles And I ride that train
on a first class ticket, just to be with you again

Picking up tired feet Back from a far horizon
Cleaned up and brushed down Dressed to look the part
Fresh from God's garden, I bring a gift of roses:
To stand in sweet spring water and press them to your heart

Like the Kipling cat, I walk alone -
Never inviting trouble, never casting the stone
But this badge of honour is of tarnished tin
Light your guiding beacon to bring this fisher in