Paul Heaton
Is a very talented man
Who sings
And writes songs
Who swears
And drinks too much
Once upon a time he was in a famous band
Who had hits
Were on TV
Sold millions
Now he plays
To 200 people
Looks out into a crowd of bald men
Middle-aged women
Where once there were groupies
I wonder what it’s like
To rise
And to fall?
Probably it’s all right
Depends on the person
We all grow old
And die
I was musing:
Before email and facebook and texts
Did we write to each other much?
Some of us sent letters
Though not many
So...
What did we do,
If not the written word?
We talked on the phone
- and worried not about our ‘minutes’ -
And we talked face-to-face
Did we say more?
Or less?
Where did we put
The things we now feel able to express
In type, in text?
Is it better?
Or worse?
Every time I try to make a plan
Even for the next week
A voice in my head goes:
One day at a time
And sometimes it says:
You never know what’s around the corner
Well, uh, okay
Seems to be working out so far
Isn’t nature beautiful?
There is something I can love
A tree
Some grass
A flower
The sun
Nature will never open her mouth
Blah on and on
Pollute the whole world
Cover it with motorways
And destroy herself
Though she will sometimes destroy us
And waves are quite noisy
Whenever people talk about Canada
They always say how clean it is
I never understood that
Now I do
They must have come from a place like South Elmsall
Is there a clumsier sentence
In the whole English language
Than
“The next station’s stop”?
Last year
I lived in London
I worked
I found a big posh house
I did certain London things
And at the end of the year
When I looked back
It seemed to me I’d done nothing
Except pay the rent:
I’d become a cog
In a machine
That exists to pay bills
I can imagine few worse things
Than finding your dream home
Or buying a piece of land
- maybe some cottage in the country
the quiet village steeple -
And then standing by and watching helplessly
As the diggers move in
A road is built
And peace is destroyed
Sometimes I think
We won’t ever be satisfied
Until every man, woman and child
Has 24-hour access
To the roar of a highway
Or the sound of a plane overhead
The worst toilet in the world is,
By general reckoning,
The one from the movie Trainspotting
But I think I’ve found
The number two
And speaking of number twos:
It was full of them
Even the cistern
And when you flushed it
The water ran brown
South Yorkshire
Is so different to West Yorkshire
Everything there
Is blue
And the people are trapped
In the 80s
The food is mostly tripe
There are no bananas
Or courgettes
South Yorkshire houses
Are made from houses demolished in West Yorkshire
Many decades ago
Even the trees
Lean a little sadder
South Yorkshire is Barnsley
Grimethorpe
Wothupondurn
West Yorkshire is Leeds
Haworth
Ilkley Moor
Though North Yorkshire
Pees on them both
Is a very talented man
Who sings
And writes songs
Who swears
And drinks too much
Once upon a time he was in a famous band
Who had hits
Were on TV
Sold millions
Now he plays
To 200 people
Looks out into a crowd of bald men
Middle-aged women
Where once there were groupies
I wonder what it’s like
To rise
And to fall?
Probably it’s all right
Depends on the person
We all grow old
And die
I was musing:
Before email and facebook and texts
Did we write to each other much?
Some of us sent letters
Though not many
So...
What did we do,
If not the written word?
We talked on the phone
- and worried not about our ‘minutes’ -
And we talked face-to-face
Did we say more?
Or less?
Where did we put
The things we now feel able to express
In type, in text?
Is it better?
Or worse?
Every time I try to make a plan
Even for the next week
A voice in my head goes:
One day at a time
And sometimes it says:
You never know what’s around the corner
Well, uh, okay
Seems to be working out so far
Isn’t nature beautiful?
There is something I can love
A tree
Some grass
A flower
The sun
Nature will never open her mouth
Blah on and on
Pollute the whole world
Cover it with motorways
And destroy herself
Though she will sometimes destroy us
And waves are quite noisy
Whenever people talk about Canada
They always say how clean it is
I never understood that
Now I do
They must have come from a place like South Elmsall
Is there a clumsier sentence
In the whole English language
Than
“The next station’s stop”?
Last year
I lived in London
I worked
I found a big posh house
I did certain London things
And at the end of the year
When I looked back
It seemed to me I’d done nothing
Except pay the rent:
I’d become a cog
In a machine
That exists to pay bills
I can imagine few worse things
Than finding your dream home
Or buying a piece of land
- maybe some cottage in the country
the quiet village steeple -
And then standing by and watching helplessly
As the diggers move in
A road is built
And peace is destroyed
Sometimes I think
We won’t ever be satisfied
Until every man, woman and child
Has 24-hour access
To the roar of a highway
Or the sound of a plane overhead
The worst toilet in the world is,
By general reckoning,
The one from the movie Trainspotting
But I think I’ve found
The number two
And speaking of number twos:
It was full of them
Even the cistern
And when you flushed it
The water ran brown
South Yorkshire
Is so different to West Yorkshire
Everything there
Is blue
And the people are trapped
In the 80s
The food is mostly tripe
There are no bananas
Or courgettes
South Yorkshire houses
Are made from houses demolished in West Yorkshire
Many decades ago
Even the trees
Lean a little sadder
South Yorkshire is Barnsley
Grimethorpe
Wothupondurn
West Yorkshire is Leeds
Haworth
Ilkley Moor
Though North Yorkshire
Pees on them both
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