The truth’s my favourite uncle
Always brings me a surprise
The truth’s my favourite uncle
What ridiculous stories it tells
I like the truth I like the way it doesn’t simper
I like the truth it employs no PR men
I like the truth I’m very fond of its music
I like the truth I like the way it tastes
I like the truth it never gazes into mirrors
I like the truth I like its way of walking
I like the truth I’m very fond of its music
I like the truth I enjoy the way it tastes
I really love the truth
If it licks me I know it wants to lick me
If it leaves me I know it must be on its way
For the truth is the truth
Is a strange kind of animal
The truth is the truth
Only comes out when people sleep
So I stay awake listening for the truth
It doesn’t make hit records
It’s not often on the TV
You’ll see the truth more often
In the sadness of faces on trains
I like its grin I like its way of falling silent
I like the way that it snoozes on committees
At soccer games it watches how the grass grows
It rents a shop and puts the worst in the window
I saw the truth in a junkyard one evening
I saw the truth it was sitting by a bonfire
I asked the truth, I said: What’s your kind of music?
Tell you the truth, said truth, I like shining music
Yes I love the truth
For the truth is the truth
Is a strange kind of animal
The truth is the truth
Only comes out when people sleep
So I stay awake listening for the truth
Yes I stay awake listening for the truth
Wash Your Hands
(FROM Mind Your Head)
HUSBAND: My well-swept house is almost in the country
You can see woodlands from the upstairs window
On Saturday and Sunday there’s a deck-chair on the patio
And there I drink a can or two of lager.
WIFE: Oh wash your hands, my darling,
Wash your hands, my darling,
Wash your clever hands.
HUSBAND: With my arm across my eyelids, I sleep very soundly.
My wife likes Chopin but I favour Mantovani.
My little girl of five goes to ballet class on Wednesday.
My little boy of seven collects toy vehicles.
WIFE: Oh wash your hands, my darling,
Wash your hands, my darling,
Wash your gentle hands.
HUSBAND: Every other weekend I take to my mother
A cake from the kitchen or flowers from the garden.
I always have a word and a wave for the neighbours
As I go to do the work which I never mention.
WIFE: Oh wash your hands, my darling,
Wash your hands, my darling,
Wash your loving hands.
HUSBAND: Sometimes I sit and stare at nothing
Sometimes I sit and smile at nothing
Sometimes I sit and think of nothing
My job is torturing men and women
My job is torturing men and women
My job is –
WIFE: Oh wash your hands, my darling,
Wash your hands, my darling,
Wash your shaking hands.
Lament for the Jazz Makers
(FROM We)
As I was sitting all alone
Death called me on the telephone
I said – I’m sorry, I’m not free.
The fear of death is haunting me.
Death is the cop who can’t be bought.
You always think you won’t be caught,
Until you’re busted, finally –
The fear of death is eating me.
Death grabs the young cat by the neck –
He stomped upon Bix Beiderbecke
Whose cornet rung so silvery.
The fear of death is shaking me.
And death has locked up Lester Young
And Billie Holiday who sung
Her beaten-up black poetry.
The fear of death is clutching me.
Tatum, Django, Charlie Mingus,
Death snapped off their cunning fingers
Like twigs from some old apple tree.
The fear of death is breaking me.
Death took the great Duke Ellington
And wore him down to skin and bone
For all his generosity.
The fear of death is taunting me.
Louis, Mama Yancey, Dinah,
Bessie Smith and Big Joe Turner
All work in death’s bad factory.
The fear of death is chilling me.
He breathed in air, he breathed out light,
Charlie Parker was my delight
But Bird was cut down cruelly.
The fear of death is touching me.
And we must all of us go dwell
In Death’s enormous Black Hotel.
At least we’ll have good company –
The fear of death is killing me.
Gather Together
(FROM We)
Gather together
The snow-drinking waterfalls
Gather together
The tears of the pine
The glassy-winged insects
The woodpecker’s drum
Gather together
The soft-springing forest floor
Gather together
The lumbering bear
Inflammable maples
The spears of the sun
Gather together
The cry of the falling tree
Gather together
The apple-green pond
The leap of the squirrel
The patience of stones
Gather together
The snaggle-toothed undergrowth
Gather together
The spite of the storm
The acrobat swallows
The glaring of bones
Gather together
The green-fountain conifers
Gather together
The choir of the wolves
The strong breath of mushrooms
The butterwort flowers
Gather together
The shouting of cataracts
Gather together
The racket of rooks
The songs of the forest
The forest is ours
The Pregnant Woman’s Song
(FROM The Blue)
I am an ocean
And in my deeps
There is a baby curled
I am an ocean
And in my deeps
I keep a little world
My heart is strong
Strong as the burning sun at noon
My baby’s heart is clear
Simple and light as the floating moon
Yes I am an ocean
And in my deeps
There is a baby curled
I am an ocean
And in my deeps
I keep a little world
Jake’s Amazing Suit
(FROM Silent Chorus)
When you see me in my suit –
You’ll look and at first
All you’ll see is a burst
Of shimmering electric blue.
Then you’ll focus in and see
That the vision is me
And I’m walking
And my suit is walking too
When you see me in my suit –
Flowing soft as milk
It’ll be Thailand silk
That follows any move at all.
And its cut and its drape
Will lay on me a shape
Like I’m st
anding
Underneath a waterfall.
When you see me in my suit –
I won’t be able to walk out in public
Because of my wonderful threads
Never mind, instead
We’ll spend our life in bed
With nothing but love in our heads
When you see me in my suit!
I once saw Miles Davis
Walk across the tarmac from an aeroplane.
Yes I once saw Miles Davis walking
Oh now let me explain –
His face was carved from a living mahogany tree-trunk.
He wore power sunglasses over his eyes
With silver pistons connected to his ears.
His beret sat on the top of his head
Like a little powder-blue cloud
And when he smiled it turned you to stone.
His suit was four-and-a-half times too big for his body.
It was kind of a tweed woven out of mountain light.
It had criss-cross lines of the sort of luminous
Green you only see on the top of birthday cakes.
And the luminous green lines
Criss-crossed over a meadow of bright creamy white
I once saw Miles Davis
Walk across the tarmac from an aeroplane
Yes I once saw Miles Davis walking
I can explain –
I want a suit like that
I want a suit like that
I want a suit so electric
If I leave it alone
It’ll jump off the hanger
Take a walk on its own
Give me a suit like that
Give me a suit like that
So that my love will love me
Even more than she loves me
When she sees me in my suit
When she sees me in my suit.
Secret Country
(FROM Pied Piper)
There is no money
So there is no crime
There are no watches
Cos there’s no time
It’s a good country
It’s a secret country
And it’s your country and mine.
If something’s needed
You make it there
And we have plenty
For we all share
It’s a kind country
It’s a secret country
And it’s your country and mine.
There are no cages
There is no zoo
But the free creatures
Come and walk with you
It’s a strange country
It’s a secret country
And it’s your country and mine.
There are no prisons
There are no poor
There are no weapons
There is no war
It’s a safe country
It’s a secret country
And it’s your country and mine.
And in that country
Grows a great tree
And it’s called freedom
And its fruit is free
In that blue country
In that loving country
In that wild country
In that secret country
Which is your country and mine.
Cardboard Rowing Boat
(FROM The Siege)
All I know
Is that when I go
I will stand beside an unknown sea
And that’s why I ask my best friends
When I die won’t you make for me –
A cardboard rowing boat
For my coffin
Painted in greens and blues
And dress me up in my
Faded denim
And my favourite running shoes
In my green and blue
Cardboard rowing boat
The poems of Blake in my
Left hand pocket
Navy rum in my right
And in my hand put an eating apple
And bury me late at night
In my green and blue
Cardboard rowing boat
And I’ll row away
Cross that starry sea
Singing and drifting with the tide
And I’ll row away
And maybe I’ll meet you at the other side
In my green and blue
Cardboard rowing boat
OUR BLUE PLANET
The Castaways or Vote For Caliban
The Pacific Ocean –
A blue demi-globe.
Islands like punctuation marks.
A cruising airliner,
Passengers unwrapping pats of butter.
A hurricane arises,
Tosses the plane into the sea.
Five of them, flung on to an island beach,
Survived.
Tom the reporter.
Susan the botanist.
Jim the high-jump champion.
Bill the carpenter.
Mary the eccentric widow.
Tom the reporter sniffed out a stream of drinkable water.
Susan the botanist identified a banana tree.
Jim the high-jump champion jumped up and down and gave them each a bunch.
Bill the carpenter knocked up a table for their banana supper.
Mary the eccentric widow buried the banana skins,
But only after they had asked her twice.
They all gathered sticks and lit a fire.
There was an incredible sunset.
Next morning they held a committee meeting.
Tom, Susan, Jim and Bill
Voted to make the best of things.
Mary, the eccentric widow, abstained.
Tom the reporter killed several dozen wild pigs.
He tanned their skins into parchment
And printed the Island News with the ink of squids.
Susan the botanist developed new strains of banana
Which tasted of chocolate, beefsteak, peanut butter,
Chicken and bootpolish.
Jim the high-jump champion organised organised games
Which he always won easily.
Bill the carpenter constructed a wooden water wheel
And converted the water’s energy into electricity.
Using iron ore from the hills, he constructed lampposts.
They all worried about Mary, the eccentric widow,
Her lack of confidence and her –
But there wasn’t time to coddle her.
The volcano erupted, but they dug a trench
And diverted the lava into the sea
Where it formed a spectacular pier.
They were attacked by pirates but defeated them
With bamboo bazookas firing
Sea-urchins packed with home-made nitro-glycerine.
They gave the cannibals a dose of their own medicine
And survived an earthquake thanks to their skill in jumping.
Tom had been a court reporter
So he became the magistrate and solved disputes.
Susan the Botanist established
A university which also served as a museum.
Jim the high-jump champion
Was put in charge of law-enforcement –
Jumped on them when they were bad.
Bill the carpenter built himself a church,
Preached there every Sunday.
But Mary the eccentric widow…
Each evening she wandered down the island’s main street,
Past the Stock Exchange, the Houses of Parliament,
The prison and the arsenal.
Past the Prospero Souvenir Shop,
Past the Robert Louis Stevenson Movie Studios,
Past the Daniel Defoe Motel
She nervously wandered and sat on the end of the pier of lava,
Breathing heavily,
As if at a loss,
As if at a lover,
She opened her eyes wid
e
To the usual incredible sunset.
Quit Stalling, Call in Stalin
I’ve got a system
A system a system
I’ve got a system
And everyone’s going to fit in
The white folk the black folk
The brown folk the yellow folk
The men folk the women folk
Yes everyone’s going to fit in
And if you don’t fit my system
My system my system
If you don’t fit my system
There’s something the matter with you
You’ll be locked up in a hospital
Hospital hospital
Locked up in a hospital
With thousands of others like you
Locked up with the misfits
Misfits misfits
Locked up with the misfits
You’re going to be there till you die
But I’ll be out in the system
The system the system
Working within the system
Having the time of my life
Two Good Things
there’s one good thing about a cow-pat:
if you leave it in the sun it dries.
and there’s one good thing about capitalism –
it dies.
Remember Suez?
England, unlike junior nations,
Wears officers’ long combinations.
So no embarrassment was felt
By the Church, the Government or the Crown.
But I saw the Thames like a grubby old belt
And England’s trousers falling down.
Written During the Night Waiting for the Dawn
Let’s unplug the radiotelescope.
Pablo Neruda, that abundant planet,
Has been eradicated from the Southern starscape.
Come on Everybody Page 14