SLAPP HAPPY
Complete Works

CASABLANCA MOON
Words by Peter Blegvad, Music by Anthony Moore

He used to wear fedoras but now he sports a fez
There's cabalistic innuendoes in everything he sez
Sucking on a cigarette, picking up a thread
Underneath the Casablanca Moon

He lurks behind a paper in the shadow of a mosque
He can't count all the continents he's crossed
Trailing party members, leavin' footprints in the frost
Underneath the Acnalbasac Noom

His cover was broken
Somewhere in Hoboken
The Man said his case was lost
He was sent
To the Orient
A double-agent double-crossed

There's a nicotine stain on his moustache
The pieces of his puzzle just don't join
People in high places want to stamp his many faces
On a Trans-Caucasian coin

He'd better watch his step
'Cause sooner of later
They'll find his headless body in a ventilator

Lines of sweat like tinsel start to smart his eyes
Neuroses seeps like water through the cracks in his disguise
Underneath the Casablanca Moon

Yesterday he finally lost his mind
The walls fell in, he saw mankind
Standing before him raising their hand
In a significant gesture he didn't understand

His cover was broken
Somewhere in Hoboken
The Man said his case was lost
He was sent
To the Orient
A double-agent double-crossed

ME AND PARVATI
Words by Peter Blegvad, Music by Anthony Moore

Me and Parvati
In Paris, France
Surrounded by musicians
Dressing to dance
On the tomb
Of aquisitions
Where bloomed
Our positions

Scattered like scars
On the skin of the stars
Needing a celebration
We entered a bar
The conversation
Centered on
Conversation

She dropped a tear
For the frozen beer
In the forstes of upper
Thailand (tigerland)

Out on the street
The fragrance of paste
Lingered on her fingers
The forms she traced
Blushed to feel their
Unfamiliar blood

She made her name
On the exit lane
Of the famous Stellar Highways (hideaways)

Out on the street
Sobbing with lust
I hoped for a banquet
She denied me a crush
I blushed to taste such unfamiliar blood

MICHEL
ANGELO
Words by Peter Blegvad, Music by Anthony Moore

Lying back to paint upon the ceiling...
No, he never uses black - just the colours of his feelings
He delineates saints on a sepia ground,
His tamper like his paints is albumen bound
Work and toil, well he ain't no dilettante
he conceives in oil and vatican chianti
The rumour's out, his hobby is dissection,
and there ain't no doubt he knows the body to perfection
Fourteen lines, that's what makes a sonnet
it even rhymes - Buonarroti's working on it
Through the streets, stricken by the urchins,
Wrapped in sheets, round the town he's lurching
Lurching to the church, heavy with a vision,
Continuing his search though they come with their derision.
All his works, you just gotta see 'em -
Ask the clerks at your neighborhood museum
Pope's on the phone, calling Buonarroti
But he's not home, he's gone a little potty
He's off again, waving paints and brushes -
Round the bend, to wind up in the rushes

THE DRUM
Words by Peter Blegvad, Music by Anthony Moore

Get in line, keep in time with the Drum
And don't forget you're nothing yet but water
Are you coming to or coming from
the understanding that I'm handing it to you?
Or is that a job you don't dare do?
Hey, my sweet patootie, that's a letter for you
(you'll find it on the shelf)
- Though it was posted in Calcutta
I know it's just another that you've written to yourself
We watched a distant drummer flashing
on the beat in all his parrot fashions

Get in line keep in time with the Drum
- Don't forget we're nothing yet but water
Don't move your feet until the next beat comes -
One of the laws says pause between
Though I would hate to mak th game seem mean
Hey my pretty flower can you guess where I've been?
Can you guess at all?
I've been to your rooms and learned
you have all the mirrors hurned against the wall
I've watched a different drummer flashing
on the beat in all his Parrot Fashions.

Listen now to the sound of the Drum -
And don't forget we're nothing yet but water
It won't be pleasant when the present time is done
testing nightly 'neath a sprightly summer moon
your spirit like a jelly in a spoon
Hey ma jolie fleur there's a cat in the room
And it's not the type you're used to
Though I think I led it to the sink
and tried to make it drink
it refused to.

A LITTLE SOMETHING
Words and Music
by Peter Blegvad

Here's a little something for all you lovers
Snuggle deep down inside your covers
Make yourselves at home and I'll sing you a song about love

It can start with just a chance encounter
He doesn't know a single thing about her
A casual thread and look out, it led to love

It takes too long to see what it takes two to love for it's soon to be
And you could easily forget to get upset and set it free

Sitting in the window at a table alone
Watching dancers circle to a saxophone
They get up to go now they know it's love

From the tip of Alaska to the edge of Spain in every long and latitude
You'll find it's the same put one and one together and you're not to blame
If it's love

SOME QUESTIONS ABOUT HATS
Words by Peter Blegvad, Music by Anthony Moore

Can one wear uncanny hats?
Can one weather hats? Can
one wear feather hats?
Concentrate on irate hats
Radiate from hats. When
sated, vacate hats.
Doors of open water
elicit ooh & ahhing. Can
the wet attract a hat?
Can hats favour fire? Can
a hat aspire to higher things?
Can one pit hats against
vicious things?
liquorice fish with wings?
Can one dismiss hats as
simple things?
vapid things?
scant, evanescent things?

A WORM IS AT WORK
Words by Peter Blegvad, Music by Anthony Moore

Holding forth
on a topic of no worth,
a pissy myth about
birth of War
& as for those "Hats" -
they're a bore,
not amusing anymore.
Dare I ask myself what
it's for?
A worm is at work
in the core
No no no no no no no
Stop that cynical line!
Mind, cease your spinning
& unwind!
At stage right -
Good counsel dressed
all in white;
Temptation, black as night,
stage left, (& I've a hunch
his hooves are cleft!)
Between 'em am I, bereft.
Like tempter's hoof
my mind is cleft,
divided I fall, nothing's
left...

BAD ALCHEMY
Words by Peter Blegvad, Music by John Greaves

I dream Hermaphrodite & I sit up
all night our eyes on the horizon
of a wobbling bowl.
Heads in hands we ponder dregs
the bowl contains
a liquid's left putrescence
after being drained.
(What we feel we have to solve
is why the dregs have not dissolved)
When I wake I wonder what it means;
am I bad alchemy? It seems
I image Self unmixed, a risk,
in a dish for drinking
Fluid with a strongly stinking
sediment - is that what it meant?
Am I hermaphrodite?
Neither one nor quite the other?
(What we feel we have to solve
is why the dregs have not dissolved)

EUROPA
Words by Peter Blegvad, Music by Anthony Moore

Europa opens weary eyes;
all her pretty cities
levelled lie.
Sweet continent, courage,
don't cry.
The occidental Accident,
concerning Reason's acts
of treason, has short
to Hell what Heaven sent.
[Centered on playthings,
turning round toys,
our shaman drank duck's
blood & drove a Rolls Royce
We entered the circle,
a map was described,
we recognized Europe!
We broke down & cried]

She cannot call her myths
her own;
lupine nipples squirted
infant Rome,
but Reason turned
the Beast to stone [Stone,
when struck, released
a spirit.
From a spire spirit sang :
"A vitamin glimpsed
in a mirror might exorcise
Europe's dilemma"]

Europe let me thank thee
for these -
Minds unravelled travels:
memories.
'twas sweet to picnic
'neath the trees

RIDING TIGERS
Words and Music
by Peter Blegvad

We're not well, dear. Toll the bell, dear.
As our lives dissolve we revolve
Lonely & uninvolved.
Pencil thin, we're near done in, we're
masticating maize. An empty gaze,
sitting like that for days.
Try as we may, calendars
are scattered, furnaces go cold,
wardrobes flap in tatters, you & I grow old.

APES IN CAPES
Words and Music
by Anthony Moore

Harken child by life beguiled,
it's said that some come unsung,
sorry, no song for some,
sing-song's ham-strung.
Seasoned with lies, hardboiled
but still calling all of the tunes
he's donned his garb,
the costume of a buffoon - we rise
to applaud his disguise.

Tho miles of smiles will greet
your wiles, it's said that
some come unsung, sorry,
no song for some,
sing sad song sung.
If lady luck remain unstruck
or run amok aah!
What can he do? Shunned,
he's sure to come unstuck

Wrapped in white silk,
antelope's milk for soothing
his eyes. Apes traipse in capes,
it is unfortunate to see them
rise to applaud one's disguise.

STRAYED
Words and Music
by Peter Blegvad

All my dismembered, half-remembered yesterdays,
snowing sour rays,
interfere with clearly being here today.
I'm sorry to say
I think I've strayed.
She said "say it - go aheard & at a planet bay it,
bay - it's the same today
as any other day".
I've gone astray.
I confess it, why should I repress it?
Unless it's wrestled through
it grows on you,
when you've strayed.
Gone into hiding, can't abide the latest tidings
from the tribe. It's reported hopes are thwarted,
nothing of the wonderful survives.
Its resurrection is the purpose of our lives,
but who can rise?
How thick the lids lie on my eyes...

GIANTS
Words by Peter Blegvad, Music by Anthony Moore

She says she has known moments
when an outer bright & varied
world appears.
"Spots of time" in which inflected
perception of a sudden clears.
Mindful of time she repairs
to her room at the top of the stairs.
Pestered by Giants who bend
to her window with a will to win
her hand & turn her head,
she slipped out of her bed
in dread of what her Father said:
"Giants exist to deceive,
They retreat if the're clearly perceived".

WAR
Words by Peter Blegvad, Music by Anthony Moore

[invocation] Tell of the birth
Tell how war appeared on earth

Thunder and herbs
conjugated sacred verbs
musicians with gongs
fertilized an egg with song
Asleep in the sphere
her fetus was a knot of fear
she butted with her horn
split an egg and war was born
A miracle of hate
she banged her spoon against her plate

Upon this spoon her motto
wonderfully designed:
"violence completes the partial mind"

Stacking the bones
on the empty aerodrome
tinted turtle green
she haunts the slender submarine
she shakes her gory locks
over the deserted docks

Come follow me
out of dark obsurity
Follow my torch
pilgrims at the double march
through meadows and seas
abattoirs and libraries
The pilgrims increase
boasting they are led by peace
They gut huts with gusto
pillage villages with verve
War does what she has to
people get what they deserve