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var snakePoem;
snk01= "SNAKE'S BIRTH SONG
I was curled round the world the world was curled round me I was curled in the roots of the grey ash tree
I rolled under the stormy thunder I turned with the turning tide I was flesh, skin and future hidden as seed inside
Bringing the dead back with me I rode earth's windy wheel on my ice bed of red diamonds on raw stars cold as steel
In my belly I hide a great light in my mouth is living fire I am held within an egg of night without hatred or desire
Under earth in the core of the fruit is a place without temptation the place wherein we are begun the same place that we end in
Out of the red egg split by the sun weak as flower, wise as root, upon the sallow willow I hung come to fall hard underfoot
All that is born is born without sin all is born is born without shame all that is born and struggles to light is born is born without blame
I slithered down the smooth branches through long leaves sear and dapple; on the garden green two figures stood and one held out ... an apple ";
snk02= "SNAKE'S DANCE
Sensuous slither slinkiest slide the slip in the silence the hiss and glide steadily sweeping shuddering squirm quivering question conquering worm
I start sliding this side, certain and sure, I spiral all scaley, coiling a tower, twisting and toiling, spellbound by stealth, I slip through the circle and surprise myself
Head is for seeing, tail is for squeezing, tongue is for telling and fangs are for seizing, stretching and spinning I sway to the song, I go as I must, as I must I go on
Sudden my speed like a wave of the sea, swift is my sense as wind in tall trees, strong is as subtle as wise is indeed, they kneel to no-one who're born without knees ";
snk03= "SHADOW PUPPETS
1. It starts with dropping paper it ends with nuclear waste O we'll dump anything anywhere there's a scrapyard out in space
We're living in a hurry it's buy sell use and dump whole towns in poisoned agony kids born with armless stumps
The sea's an open sewer there's poison on the breeze the world is turning into waste more chip-paper than trees
Just dump it round the corner in some poorer cheaper place: don't the human race look stupid with its shit smeared on its face?
2
It starts with robbing sweeties it ends in taking life let's grab whatever we fancy and try not to pay the price
The boys get cigars and whisky, the wife swanks in her mink it's all the same for Jack the Lad and Rio Tinto Zinc
This world's a bargain basement deals in hunger and disease we run it on the profits from the loot of centuries
It fell off the back of a peasant, we made offers they couldn't refuse, we've alibis, we close our eyes to what our hired gangs do
3
It starts out in the playground it ends on killing fields: small boys toting toy guns around learn hates that never heal
Small wars to hold a sheep farm, boozy brawls to show your brawn, old women robbed and beaten up; all frustration, spite and scorn
The law watch too many cop movies, politicans crave armies to lead, the hard the sharp the deadly are encouraged to succeed
We paid our protection money, the big boys look after our stuff: it's understood that we'll be good even when they play too rough
4
It starts with h.p. payments, it ends with CIA, someone's marking you good or bad and filing you away
Whose security is it? which law should we thank? the one that took the t.v. away or saved Johnson Matthey Bank?
Whose security is it? what secretly decides? and keeps its errors to itself strictly classified?
Security's for the powerful the rest are for the file: crunched-up lives and numbers in a paranoiac pile
5
You can call it economics but we all know the score: the old old path to make more cash is grind it from the poor
The homeless roam the cities from Huddersfield to Hell, twenty million refugees sit in heartbreak hotel
First share's to the bosses, second's to those they own, it keeps us in line, Mersey to Tyne, Shanghai to San Antoine
It's easy in the money to say no-one needs help: you'd soon sing a different tune if you were down and out yourself ";
snk04= "BRIDGES
All that is broken the same can be mended, pots may be different but clay is still clay. We are the frontiers, the closed gates, the fences, we can reach over and take them away.
All, we are in all, there has been no mistake. What we don't fight against we help to make
Who's keeping silent outside the doorway? who has the stick, who straddles the wall? Look at ourselves, at our weak greed and fury, what goes for one can happen to all.
All, we are in all, we are bonded by blood. We depend on each other as much as god
Rulers make speeches, armies make wars: the least thing we do is more important Pulling together is how we move forward, we are the state, is this mess what we want?
All, we are in all, there is no known cure each of us is creating the others future. ";
snk05= "SPRING
all our lives are twisted ribbons tangled in the may-tree's shadow woven in the hope that plenty will come
as the new life breaks the waters as the dark root finds its longing what we make now is the future and all of us want to grow but where to we don't really know
feel the sap flow through your body lift your heart's wings in the dancing turn your face up to the sunshine and fly
o, how we long to go upward thin windblown stalks in the sunshine o, how we dance for the makers but have we roots strong enough to hold us earthborn to earth as we rise?
all our lives are twisted ribbons as the new life breaks the waters feel the sap flow through your body o how long to go up to the sun ";
snk06= "RISING
leaf over cold streets bird drifting over cornfields gold shard of sunlight black scrap blown from the burning
cloud over still pond moon gleaming on the wet world shadow of high smoke slow spinning in the starlight
time-wearied, windblown, all is, is floating and gone, from here to beyond the edge of endless drifting
drawn down to earth or flying to the horizon, dance in the sun's eye, don't fear the fall till
it comes ";
snk07= "HELIOKLEPTIC
O when I was young and bright and thought that all I did was right, half-man, half-child and half afraid, I marvelled how the world was made and mad with curiousity I had to see, I had to see
O when I was bright and young I set myself to search the sun to understand and share the light - magician on the towering height - but tempted by the slaves of power I tried to pluck the burning flower
And in my tiniest heart of hearts I felt the whole world split apart - a firestorm thundered through my mind, I sang the pure force, greedy, blind, war-dogs were barking in my head 'Now make it kill for us,' they said
And none of us believe we're cruel we just can't see the person who'll suffer most from what we do, and carelessly we rush to choose: so in the triumph of desire, ablaze with pride, I gave them fire
Who finds a marvel finds a god, a lavish gift, a threshing rod, endless delight or tomb of lead - this god whispered,'You are dead'
Flare-up, melt-down, hard rain, fall-out, drifting slow death shrouds the garden behind the money talk and war-shouts comes the moaning of dry grasses - no-one will be left to pardon from the dust and funeral ashes ";
snk08= "FIRE SONG
Dark and still are the sleepers in earth freed from the sun and the thunder but we squirm from night to feed on light, to explore, to make, to wonder.
To chase the clouds down the great highway, to cast the bright bronze dolls, to sing the mewling surge of birth and learn from hollowed skulls.
Round and round we tread the ground, not knowing where it leads, the blacksmith turns to armourer, enjoyment turns to greed.
The young men danced to the edge of the cliff, they limped as they danced to the sun: whose cunning gave them eagles' wings? who knows where they have flown?
In the heel the arrow poisoned by power as the face flames, burnt by desire, in the heart of the maze its maker howls in bull-mask and bonfire.
Haughty their wings, decietful our dance, see how greed leads on to violence! Blazing sun-kings fall from the sky - a comet, a bird, a silence. ";
snk09= "THREE JUDGES
* I've made a bob or two, it's true, by lying in my teeth, and so I find you guilty too, to burn like me without relief until you learn to use your wits with self-restraint for common good, compassionate in deeds not words: till then you burn - heart, brain and blood.
*
I've made a bob or two, it's true, by keeping things in my control and so I find you guilty too, to burn with me, a living coal, until you learn to use your power without secret smiles or blah and but, a trustee not a tyrant of the people: till then you burn - spine, skin and guts.
* I've made a bob or two, it's true, by killing people off, and so I find you guilty too to burn like me in woe and wrath until you learn to use your strength to fight your fear, to make things whole, to see the cruelty's to yourself: till then you burn - bone, flesh and soul. ";
snk10= "DRAGON'S TEETH
In the neglected garden the dragon's teeth are sprouting, through eyeholes of smashed skulls flower the killers of the future who are born in waste and anger to blossom in bright shell-bursts in the rubble of crushed cities
O don't ask who began this - someone pushed and was pushed back and lies and fears, old grudges, made mad hates grow thick and fast and for some it makes more money and for some it makes more power - their poison's poured on hearts and minds, we're fuel for their bonfire.
Dragon's teeth grow dragon men breathing fire to burn the world Dragon tail sweeps like a scythe as it feeds on hate and fear as it stamps on hope and life
In the dark of the tunnels the poor people are singing in praise of the good earth, in fear of its failing, while with crosses and banners the rich and the powerful stand so proud in the boneyard feeding death to the dragon
Dragon thinks only of dragon, dragons don't know when to stop, it's so easy to be cruel. If you start him on your pet hates in the end he'll eat you too
In the tunnels, candles flicker on the dead who line the walls 'Is the war over?' they whisper,'is the garden feeding all?' Hot winds blow through their sockets from the gold mouth of the dragon: all, all in the mouth of the dragon bright as ten thousand suns. ";
snk11= "SNAKE REBORN
notes of the same key respond to each other, fire rises to dry, water flows down to damp, clouds follow the dragon, winds follow the tiger, when the limit is reached only change will succeed.
in the burnt-out forests, in the foul fall of rain, between slow scorching waste and earth-searing bombs, in the ash of despair, in the burnt-out lives, at time's edge as always at the edge of the fire
we are examined by future and past - what we knew, what we learnt, what we left what will rise from the fire, from the ash of our lives? will we light straighter ways or raise hell? ";
snk12= "Raven SONG OF THE SIX
Our pet is hungry, we must feed it. Throat of darkness, light devourer.
I bring the bright flame of life, blown out by the thin wind of a bullet
I bring the sour gleam of coins, in shadows, well greased by sticky fingers
I bring the pallor of neon, furtive flicker on false papers in locked cellars
I bring the glare of raw sun, carving flesh off my swollen starved debtors
I bring softsoap-box smiles, teeth glinting like long knives in the darkness
What will it eat when there is no more light? What shall we do when there is no more light? ";
snk13= "Raven/BALLAD OF THE BUREAUCRAT
I wasn't born a bureaucrat wrapped in the civil list, once I wanted to make a better world not just the office typist
but mum said get a steady job with the fully-indexed pension, push paper round for forty years on a disconnected extension.
Now I've got my own place in the bunker that stops me worrying 'bout the bomb and I bend to each political wind whichever end it comes from
for I'm paid to keep things going and not to bother where, to keep the powerful in position and the poor in their despair,
to create rules none can understand and forms you can't fill in, bland answers to turn away your wrath, shredded lives in my litter bin.
Sometimes in the long afternoons as the tea-trolley rattles by I file myself in grey tin cabinets under doubt and fear and cry
but they made me promise by her majesty to act blind nd deaf and dumb, so if you want my true opinion you'll have to listen to my bum. ";
snk14= "Osiris/MOON OVER WATER
don't think this is how it will be always with self styled gods smashing our lives apart in their daft feuds, treating us like fools.
And these gods, generals, politicans they should be ashamed of the mess they've made - do they really want to be remembered as
as cruel as soulless as destructive as they are? And maybe we too should feel sad, a little angry, with ourselves
that we so rarely take them to task so seldom stand up and tell them that they're wrong: for when people rise
from within themselves, not pulled by silver tongues or brazen trumpets, the world turns in a tide that sweeps away
the years of indifference and indignities and for a moment, washes clean. No stars that night. Moon over water. Time for change. ";
snk15= "Osiris/THE CAPTAINS AND COMMUTERS DEPART
down on the river ships moan in the fog dark tides are running into the land out in the backyards hysterical dogs scream in the cold for a comforting hand
somebody's painted the street signs rasta somebody's trying to make a break on higher walls the past is still master black figures drawn on a white landscape
where the gold headlights slit the fog curtain - is this all that you want to know? what can you see when you're thinking of home and your eyes are glued to your time and the road?
in the confusion somewhere someone's talking: a voice and another, all over the night lovers and fighters, wounded and walking, mixed in the shadows, the black and the white.
out on the lost ships old slave chains rattle - what did their drivers choose not to see? here in the darkness are people not cattle who want free, who want free, who want free. ";
function pomm(sore,sns,len){
snakePoem = window.open('','pomm','toolbar=no,location=no,directories=no,status=no,scrollbars=yes,resizable=no,copyhistory=no,' + 'height=540' + ',width='+ len);
text = "" + sns + "";
text += "";
text += "
";
text += "
";
text += "dave calder";
text += " ";
text += sore;
text += "