The Fool On The Hill

Bulging eyes stare,
Fingers search abysses
Of toothless mouths.
Middle-aged women
With the voices
Of 90-year-old men
Pick their noses
And play hide and seek.

Then someone shrieks.
Someone else laughs,
The first falls,
The second runs.
Men flood in
And, one at a time,
Tear at the body.

Later, satisfied and bloody,
They fall to the ground,
Fast asleep,
With yellow grins
On mellow faces
Of 6 year-olds.

They won't sleep for long,
No-one ever does.
They can't.
There's always someone -
Laughing, grinning, mocking
at the man in the house
At the top of the hill.

He's frightened to come down, they say.
He's built a wall
So that he can't get out, they say.
He plays music
So that they can't hear him, they say.

He has windows
So that he can see them coming, they say.
He's different - queer, weird.
He has weird, queer things
And he grows
Things
Behind the wall.
They say. They say say say.

He looks wrong:
He has two legs
Two arms
Two feet
Fingers
On both hands
And other things
Other things
They say.

Yes, there's always someone
Laughing, grinning, mocking
At the
Fool
On the hill.

January 1968 Influenced by The Beatles' track of the same name on their newly released Magical Mystery Tour EP

A Day In The Life

A boy woke to the patter
Of rain on the window
But that didn't matter -
He was already feeling low.

He got up out of bed,
"What a terrible day,"
Was all that he said,
But his thoughts were of  another day.

Such a day - he'd never forget
When he went for a walk...
The pretty girl he met...
When they started to talk...

It all came out. He'd seen her before
And felt she was the one.
Their hours couldn't be more
Filled with laughter and fun.

Hand in hand they strolled.
Together through the town
Neither really very old,
She in blue, he in brown.

Both about fourteen
And perfectly content.
Age. What does it mean?
What had it meant?

That day was timeless
Or so it was seeming
That first caress -
Surely he was dreaming?
But it was real
And it was true
But they knew and could feel
That the day would soon be through.

They soon decided
That they would meet again.
Let their age be derided
They felt no shame.

Yes a perfect day
That seemed to stop time.
They could have stayed all day
And lain in the sunshine.

The sun was just sinking
Later behind a night cloud,
Alone the boy was thinking
How to dispose of the shroud
Of disgusted glances
That were shot at the pair,
The shroud that enhances
And hangs in the air.

Why can't those who've lived long
Try to understand
That there's nothing wrong
In holding a girl's hand?
Why this segregation
Of teens from adults?
Forcing separation
Like two different cults.

Yesterday was fun -
My spirits were high,
And happy I'd become -
Yes that boy was I.

I had often dreamed
Of that special day -
A day that seemed
To, come what may,
Dispel everything bad
Or, rather, just delay
All that was sad
Until today.

May 1967 About the first time I actually went out with a girl called Gillian Hawkins in Hemel Hempstead.