Ride on, ride on

For every man
a motorcycle's calling
To take a ride
along the king's highway
Through twists and turns
Down every wooded valley
Ride on, ride on
there's miles to do this day

And every mile
you ride on your great journey's
another mile
away from hearth and home
But every town
and village where you wander
will take you in
and treat you as their own

So when you leave
leave nothing bad behind you
Just memories
of days and things done well
That way you'll know
a welcome will await you
should ever you
return again to dwell

Then when at last
you've ridden every pathway
from north to south
and sea to shining sea
You happy man
will find that well known turning
that brings you home
to where you want to be

One perfect day

Wake up refreshed and early in a comfortable bed
A long relaxing shower to wash the sleep out of my head
Barefoot to the kitchen for black coffee and fresh bread
and look out of the window at the morning.

To see the cherry blossom blowing gently in the breeze
To smell the warm spring garden with not one hayfever sneeze
To hear the morning concert from the birds perched in the trees
and see the perfect day the world is forming.

Then later to the village to my favourite lunchtime spot
A muffin or a pastry and a latte with a shot
Then sit down for a gossip with the best friends that I've got
While the midday sun this perfect day is warming.

After we have set the world and all it's wrongs to right
We spend the afternoon in watching cricketers in white
play our side against their side till they run out of daylight
Then all back to the pub where pints are drawing

When all of this is over and I've gone back home to bed
Alone or with sweet company to fill the night ahead
It will have been one perfect day by which my soul was fed
I'm hoping for the same when next comes morning

One Rider

When all the separate lands unite
and man at last with man will dwell
Conquest will disappear from sight
become a story to retell

When swords are beaten into ploughs
and spears reforged as reaping hooks
When armour's hung on oaken boughs
War will retire to history books.

When working folk at day's end, will
all gather round a groaning board
and take their time to eat their fill
then Famine falls before this hoard

But

One rider still will hold the field
The last of four who once rode out
A ghastly scythe is his to wield
and in his eye you'll see no doubt
For every man that once drew breath
must meet him face to face one day
and more certain than taxes, Death
will with one stroke all debts defray

Tears in rain

I listened to the thunder
and how it changed the world
The old flag I walked under
that lies forever furled

I search for hope in vain

The safe place that I came from
New frontiers and pain
Memories of before the bomb
my mind struggles to retain
All these things are lost

lost like tears in rain




A poem out of it's time I know, but I wasn't writing in the sixties.

"Tears in rain" from the death soliloquy in Blade Runner

You gotta try

A man with a life
as empty as a pocket
As likely to succeed
as a stick without a rocket
Sets his heart on the stars
like a man that's really got it
and then he fails, fails, fails

But is he wrong to try
to light the blue touchpaper
To leave where he is
and be the great escaper
To change his world
and be a history shaper
Or should he stay, stay, stay

Well if we learn a single
thing from evolution
It's that playing safe
never brings the revolution
And a cunning plan
needs actual execution
So if you want to fly, fly, fly

You gotta try.