Brush-stroke from my palette
Fore-ground the tableau
Render-recondite
My painting by moonlight
With nymphs in antic pose
Down those cobbled streets
Come marching soi-disant critics
Canvas for canvas – and focus their cameras
To enhance their politique

Do I shock you ?
Can you see the way I feel
Can you come to grips
With the paint that drips
Have you come to steal ?
‘Thought I may leave this squalor
For the lure of a dollar.

The words on the page may improve with age
But I don’t call the tune
My vocal disclosure
Come under exposure
Am I just barking at the moon ?
Down those cobbled streets
You’ll find the artist at his peak
Appealing the masses
So you raise your glasses
To his musical mystique.

Does it move you ?
Do you feel the way I feel ?
Does it take you back ?
Will it make you crack ?
Confuse, confound appeal ?
May I leave this squalor
For the lure of a pound or a lire or a mark or a dollar ?

The making of a man
The decline from greatness
You will do all you can
But you’re not in control

Avarice
Tasteless
Abuse
Abuser
Downtrader
Guilty
Innocent
Disillusionned

The making of a man
The decline from greatness
You will do all you can
But you’re not in control

Homeless
Wandering
Hopeless
Wondering
Harsh
Divide
Monochrome
Goldy

The making of a man
The decline from greatness
You will do all you can
But you’re not in control

Curled-up tight, twixt quilt and sheet
It’s four A.M and still not asleep
Turn things over in my head
The places I’ve stayed
The friends I should forget
And around her thighs and hips
The added extra weight
Drooping shoulders, sagging breast
Her stoop her posture and her gait

I dare not open my eyes
I shall wait until dawn
An d stumble through another day,
whilst aching limbs and toth decay

Run things through in my mind
How taut – How supple
Was her skin – was her spine
A flight of stairs has knokned me out
A twisted back that makes me shout.
Furtive coupling in our darkened room
Either never ends or I come too soon

I dare not open my eyes
I cannot look upon
Her doting moribund gaze
Pallour and manner seen better days

I dare not open my eyes
I shall wait until dawn
And sift through fragments of the past
That beer, this smoke may be my last.

Screwed-up and thrown away, begin another page
Roll-out and smooth down, another waste of space
Pen touch paper and thought touch nerve
Let the words flow with grace and verve.

A borrowed phrase here and a stolen line there
Digging-up the past and leaning out my hair.
Well-worn clichÈs from a photo-fit album
Air it out and stick it back with spirit gum.

Ahead of their time, the youth music explosion
But what could rhyme with such.
Newspaper articles and half-chewed particles
come from his mouth in a slow fast-food chain.
We shelter from the rain
See above.

Keep it simple – Keep it sweet
Inspiration from the street.
Perspiration and defeat
Nice and easy
Would just about do it once in a while
Afternoons in the park or nights on the tiles.
Just keep it simple
Keep it sweet and you will land upon your feet
Humiliation and defeat.
Nice and easy