Mel Collins

I am the ocean
Lit by the flame
I am the mountain
Peace is my name
I am the river
Touched by the wind
I am the story
I never end.

Concrete cold face cased in steel
Stark sharp glass-eyed crack and peel
Bright light scream beam brake and squeal
Red white green white neon wheel.

Dream flesh love chase perfumed skin
Greased hand teeth hide tinseled sin
Spice ice dance chance sickly grin
Pasteboard time slot sweat and spin.

Blind stick blind drunk cannot see
Mouth dry tongue tied cannot speak
Concrete dream flesh broken shell
Lost soul lost trace lost in hell.
Fripp, Sinfield

Cadence and Cascade
Kept a man named Jade
Cool in the shade
While his audience played.
Purred, whispered, Spend us too
We only serve for you
Sliding mystified
On the wine of the tide
Stared pale-eyed
As his veil fell aside.
Sad paper courtesan
They found him just a man.
Caravan hotel
Where the sequin spell fell
Custom of the game.
Cadence oiled in love
Licked his velvet gloved hand
Cascade kissed his name.

Sad paper courtesan
They knew him just a man.
Fripp, Sinfield

Plato's spawn cold ivyed eyes
Snare truth in bone and globe.
Harlequins coin pointless games
Sneer jokes in parrot's robe.
Two women weep, Dame Scarlet Screen
Sheds sudden theatre rain,
Whilst dark in dream the Midnight Queen
Knows every human pain.

In air, fire, earth and water
World on the scales.
Air, fire, earth and water
Balance of change
World on the scales
On the scales.

Bishop's kings spin judgement's blade
Scratch "Faith" on nameless graves.
Harvest hags Hoard ash and sand
Rack rope and chain for slaves
Who fireside fear fermented words
Then rear to spoil the feast;
Whilst in the aisle the mad man smiles
To him it matters least.

Heroes hands drain stones for blood
To whet the scaling knife.
Magi blind with visions light
Net death in dread of life.
Their children kneel in Jesus till
They learn the price of nail;
Whilst all around our mother earth
Waits balanced on the scales.
Fripp, Sinfield

Lady Supermarket with an apple in her basket
Knocks in the manager's door
Grooning to the muzak from a speaker in shoe rack
Lays out her goods on the floor
Everything she's chosen is conveniently frozen.
Eat it and come back for more
Lady Window Shopper with a new one in the hopper
Whips up a chemical brew
Croaking to a neighbour while she polishes a sabre
Knows how to flavour a stew.
Never need to worry with a tin of Hurri Curri
Poisoned especially for you
No use to complain
If you're caught out in the rain
Your mother's quite insane.
Cat food cat food cat food again.

No use to complain
If you're caught out in the rain
Your mother's quite insane.
Cat food cat food cat food again.
Lady Yellow Stamper with a fillet in a hamper
Dying to finish the course
Goodies for the table with a fable on the label
Drowning in miracle sauce.
Don't think I am that rude if I tell you that it's cat food,
Not even fit for a horse!

Peace is a word
Of the sea and the wind.
Peace is a bird who sings
As you smile.
Peace is the love
Of a foe as a friend;
Peace is the love you bring
To a child

Searching for me
You look everywhere,
Except beside you.
Searching for you
You look everywhere,
But not inside you.

Peace is a stream
From the heart of a man;
Peace is a man, whose breadth
Is the dawn.
Peace is a dawn
On a day without end;
Peace is the end, like death
Of the war.

Houses iced in whitewash guard a pale shore-line
Cornered by the cactus and the pine.
Here I wander where sweet sage and strange herbs grow
Down a sun-baked crumpled stony road.
Dusty wheels leaning rusting in the sun
Snuff brown walls where Spanish lizards run.
Here I'm shadowed by a dragon fig tree's fan
Ringed by ants and musing over man.
I'll unwind my old strings while the sun shine down
Won't climb any high thing while the sun shine.
Formentera Lady sing your song for me
Formentera Lady sweet lover.
Lamplights glows on old guitars the travellers strum
Insence children dance to an Indian drum.
Here Odysseus charmed for dark Circe fell,
Still her perfume lingers still her spell.
Time's grey hand won't catch me while the sun shine down
Untie and unlatch me while the stars shine.
Formentera Lady dance your dance for me
Formentera Lady dark lover.

With quill and silver knife
She carved a poison pen
Wrote to her lover's wife:
"Your husband's seed has fed my flesh".

As if a leper's face
That tainted letter graced
The wife with choke-stone throat
Ran to the day with tear-blind eyes.

Impaled on nails of ice
And raked with emerald fire
The wife with soul of snow
With steady hands begins to write:

"I'm still, I need no life
To serve on boys and men
What's mine was yours is dead
I take my leave of mortal flesh"

A flower lady's daughter
As sweet as holy water
Said: "I'm the school reporter
Please teach me", well I taught her.
Two fingered levi'd sister
Said, "Peace", I stopped I kissed her.
Said, "I'm a male resister",
I smiled and just unzipped her.
High diving chinese trender
Black hair and black suspender
Said, "Please me no surrender
Just love to feel your Fender".
All of you know that the girls of the road
Are like apples you stole in your youth.
All of you know that the girls of the road
Been around but are versed in the truth.
Stone-headed Frisco spacer
Ate all the meat I gave her
Said would I like to taste hers
And even craved the flavour
"Like marron-glaced fish bones
Oh lady hit the road!"
All of you know that the girls of the road
Are like apples you stole in your youth.
All of you know that the girls of the road
Been around but are versed in the truth.

Earth, stream and tree encircled by sea
Waves sweep the sand from my island.
My sunsets fade.
Field and glade wait only for rain
Grain after grain love erodes my
High weathered walls which fend off the tide
Cradle the wind
to my island.
Gaunt granite climbs where gulls wheel and glide
Mournfully glide o'er my island.
My dawn bride's veil, damp and pale,
Dissolves in the sun.
Love's web is spun - cats prowl, mice run
Wreathe snatch-hand briars where owls know my eyes
Violet skies
Touch my island,
Touch me.


Dark harbour quays like fingers of stone
Hungrily reach from my island.
Clutch sailor's words - pearls and gourds
Are strewn on my shore.
Equal in love, bound in circles.
Earth, stream and tree return to the sea
Waves sweep sand from my island,
from me.

Night: her sable dome scattered with diamonds,
Fused my dust from a light year,
Squeezed me to her breast, sowed me with carbon,
Strung my warp across time.
Gave me each horse, sunrise and graveyard,
Told me only I was her;
Bid ne face the east closed me in questions
Built the sky for my dawn ...

Cleaned my feet of mud, followed the empty
Zebra ride to the Cirkus,
Past a painted cage, spoke to the paybox
Glove which wrote on my tonque -
Pushed me down a slide to the arena,
Megaphonium fanfare
In his cloak of words strode the ringmaster
Bid me join the parade ...

"Worship!" - cried the clown. "I'm a T.V.
Making bandsmen go clockwork,
See the slinky seal Cirkus policeman,
Bareback ladies have fish."
Strongmen by his feet, plate-spinning statesman,
Accrobatically juggling -
Bids his tamers go quiet the tumblers
Lest the mirror stop turning ...

Elephants forgot, force-fed on stale chalk,
Ate the floors of their cages.
Strongmen lost their hair, paybox collapsed and
Lions sharpened their teeth.
Gloves raced round the ring, stallions stampeded
Pandemonium seesaw ...
I ran for the door, ringmaster shouted,
"All the fun of the Cirkus!"

Indoor fireworks amuse your kitchen staff
Dusting plastic garlic plants
They snigger in the draught
When you ride throw the parlour
Wearing nothing but your armour -
Playing Indoor Games.

One string puppet shows amuse
Your sycophantic friends
Who cheer your rancid recipes
In fear they might offend,
Whilst you loaf on your sofa
Sporting falsies and a toga -
Playing Indoor Games, Indoor Games.

Your mean teetotum spins arouse your seventh wife
Who pats her sixty little skins
And reinsures your life,
Whilst you sulk in your sauna
'Cos you lost your jig-saw corner -
Playing Indoor Games, Indoor Games.

Each afternoon you train baboons to sing
Or swim in purple perspex water wings.
Come Saturday jump chopper, chelsea brigade.
High bender-trender it's all Indoor Games.

No ball bagatelle incites
Your children to corspire.
They slide across your frying pan
And fertilise your fire;
Still you and Jones go madder
Broken bones - broken ladder -
Hey Ho ...

Happy family, one hand clap, four went
by and none came back.
Brother Judas, ash and sack, swallowed
aphrodiciac
Rufus, Silas, Jonah too sang, "We'll blow
our own canoes,"
Poked a finger in the zoo, punctured
all the ballyhoo.

Whipped the world and beat the clock,
wound up with their share of stock.
Silver Rolls from golden rock,
shaken by a knock, knock, knock.
Happy family, wave that grin,
what goes round must surely spin;
Cheescake, mousetrap, Grip-Pipe-Thynne
cried out, "We're not Rin-Tin-Tin."

Uncle Rufus grew his nose,
threw away his cirkus clothes
Cousin Silas grew a beard,
drew another flask of weird
Nasty Jonah grew a wife,
Judas grew his pruning knife.
Happy family, one hand clap,
four went on but none came back.

Happy family, pale applause,
each to his revolving doors.
Silas searching, Rufus neat,
Jonah caustic, Jude so sweet.
Let their sergeant mirror spin
if we lose the barbers win;
Happy family, one hand clap,
four went on but none came back.

Grass in your hair stretched like a lion in the sun
Restlessly turned moistened your mouth with your tonque.
Pouring my wine your eyes caged mine glowing
Touching your face my finger strayed knowing
I called you lady of the dancing water.

Blown autumn leaves shed to the fire where you laid me.
Burn slow to ash just as my days now seem to be.
I feel you still always your eyes glowing
Remembered hours salt, earth and flowers flowing.
Farewell my lady of the dancing water.

Farewell the temple master's bells
His kiosk and his black worm seed
Courtship solely of his word
With Eden guaranteed.
For now Prince Rupert's tears of glass
Make saffron sabbath eyelids bleed
Scar the sacred tablet of wax
On which the Lizards feed.

Wake your reason's hollow vote
Wear your blizzard season coat
Burn a bridge and burn a boat
Stake a Lizard by the throat.

Go Polonius or kneel
The reapers name their harvest dawn
All your tarnished devil's spoons
Will rust beneath our corn.
Now bears Prince Rupert's garden roam
Across his rain tree shaded lawn
Lizard bones become the clay ?
And there a Swan is born

Wake your reasons' hollow vote
Wear your blizzard season coat
Burn a bridge and burn a boat
Stake a Lizard by the throat.

Gone soon Piepowder's moss-weed court
Round which upholstered Lizards sold
Visions to their leaden flock
Of rainbows' ends and gold.
Now tales Prince Rupert's peacock brings
Of walls and trumpets thousand fold
Prophets chained for burning masks
And reels of dreams unrolled...