broken

 

she said “nothing breaks like a heart”     ain’t that the gospel truth      that bittersweet gem         plays upon my mind from time to time      both of us crying alone       where’s the sense in that?        for my part I have no illusions       great and terrible moments     scar my entire life      but her memory feels like home      because hearts are meant to be broken     and I prefer mine to remain so      

yes, I hold a candle for her still         wherever she may be      I grieved for her presence     and a broken heart is an open heart    I handed out the pieces      like bloody calling cards      I must confess         I took it hard       but I’m over it now      more or less        I choose to remember       I don’t choose to regret      a broken heart you never forget       

justice

 

people say I have a wicked mind         that I was born a criminal        but I ride the punches dealt me        I only steal from thieves      and I never mugged a chump       I roll off easy from a hard days graft       with some pennies in my pocket       and a belly full of laughs        is that a crime?      I don’t feel guilty

it’s the law of the jungle        and this is a jungle     the rich steal billions      while we struggle for nickels and dimes        there are apex predators riding in limousines      while their prey eat from garbage bins       would you have me do that?      would you have me stealing garbage?        or is that just another crime      in your lexicon of justice?

sacred mechanics

 

words don’t come easy      I’ve forgotten how to write       (if I ever knew)        I mean what purpose does it serve?        why does it happen?       how?       I simply can’t remember       I think I’m failing      I’m going down      I have no words to hold me up      I’ve been bound and gagged by doubt         I demand to see a lawyer      before I am buried in apathy    so paint me as a child      light the touch paper        and set my rocket loose       I have a song trapped in me      I’d love to sing it to you        but I’m all out of juice    

apostate

 

everything they say is bogus    well intentioned fools     I closed my ears to their childish rhetoric      and the empty promises born of wishful thinking       there is no kingdom yet to come       there is only ever now

maybe I’ve taken a wrong turn      coz I’m nowhere near Nirvana         I’m someplace    outside nowhere      but I’m happy enough not knowing       I wouldn’t say I’m lost      I’d say I’m recently discovered

if I saw the face of Jesus        I likely wouldn’t know him        see, I’m not a big believer       I’m more touchy feely      I love the sense of concrete      underneath my feet       I’d like to know where I am going          but it doesn’t really matter        I know that much now      it doesn’t mean a thing     it doesn’t really matter    and I don’t really care

Mother

 

the fiercest  love in the world

is the love of a mother

for her children

all that’s good in me

I trace to her love

she may have passed away

but she hasn’t really gone

while we still speak her name

for we have prepared a place

 we have carved a little heaven

right here in our hearts

flicker

 

I had a dream

was it just a dream?

I dreamed I was a boy

I had always been a boy

I woke up into darkness

something flickered in the void

it was me       that was my life

I blinked and it was gone

nowhere

 

my red flag challenges heaven      there is no power in this universe greater than entropy      our days are numbered      though we can’t believe it      but I needn’t go searching through my imagination     death has already found me        and I know the weight of it     the shape     the taste of it    it’s a canker burrowing inside      it’s a car crash    an overdose      a lonely suicide

maybe I’ll opt out early       negotiate a hollywood exit       no, scrub that thought       I won’t cheat in death        I’m in it for the struggle       I’ll stick to my original course       I’ll become a human being       and the path that I shall follow     I shall follow completely        even though I know that all paths lead nowhere

nothing can stop us having fun

 

he brought a message from my sponsor     sedan delivery     he did not give his name     he just zapped me    with fifty thousand volts     directly into the brain pan        and it opened up my mind     to a brand new world of wonder    I founded a new science      based on a page torn from readers digest        it read: “discover your spiritual future in the new electric church”

so I did    I called down the thunder and lightning  -  you see I’m gifted with electromagnetic potential     and I stood where my guru stood     way back in the bygone      in that place where myths are forged       and I fashioned a few of my own

he had them suckers mesmerized      he laid the real thing on them      but it only blew their minds       coz they didn’t understand      some were taking notes       they later produced books       no one understood them either    it seems everything he ever said was open to interpretation     but I was there to hear him when he clearly said:        ‘nothing can stop us having fun’

messiah

I’m once more in the wilderness    after forty days and nights of moral turpitude    have left me both directionless   and very far from home    this is a country with no name    where the ruler is despair   and mercy is unknown    

I want to write about it     though my thinking is as bent    as my twisted mind demands   so in the end I just let it rip   imperfect as it is   one word follows another  a train of laden mules    climbing a mountain slope   and failing at each step

there's a beast that feeds on thought    deep within my gut   his filthy menacing maw   lurks behind my grimaced smile   his powerful bulldog jaws     seize my puny words   to render them in fractured dismembered portions    completely devoid of meaning    and lacking taste or form   

my body aches in ways   that Torquemada would approve   my insides have been riven    into soiled and tattered rags    I’ve been scourged and bloodied   for a station on the cross     this is my Golgotha    my season of disgust

I seem to have contracted   a spiritual disease   and my head has been adorned    with a crooked crown of thorns   I’m broken pierced and pinioned   to a stinking mandrake root     I'm a voodoo doll   a pin cushion   the child of countless woes   

my agonies rage right through me   as clouds of poisoned gas    all hope of resurrection   has long since been abandoned   my thoughts are totally inchoate   lacking any rhyme or reason    and yet somehow I endure    for even though I’m naked     in the ravening of my soul    I am still a man     and I am not alone

robber

 

I ain’t no robber     I don’t steal because I’m greedy       I only take what was due me      sometimes I helped myself to a  little gravy     payment for my patience     coz I got dreams to deliver      and I have needs       dirty horrible needs     this life is hard      but I know no better     and I guess I feel just fine

so when plod makes enquires       (and I know they eventually will)     simply tell ‘em the truth       I didn’t need your love      I needed an alibi        tell ‘em I been good     but only as good as I had to be       I never toiled a day in my life        some say that I’m lazy      but I maintain I’m free 

castaway

my rehabilitation has been a calamitous success     I’m straight     and that’s great  but my social appendages have withered      and I lost my appetite for people     (present company excepted)    I don’t need rescued     I am where I am      unacceptably sedentary      but not lost for words

I’m the soul survivor of countless indiscretions     and author of miseries far too dank to mention        so here I am       stranded in the wilderness  of interpersonal indifference         I’m writing again - for what it’s worth        and stashing messages in bottles      their purpose remains unclear      I might reread them later       I’m not sure I really care

 

picnic

 

it was a day of wonders      when nothing was concealed      you baked me outside in the sun     laid me down in the tall grass       and filled my loving arms       we celebrated the gods    with tongues and limbs entwined       the bugs feasted on our flesh      and fire rained from the sky        we spilled a little wine       and talked of life and death and love      we looked so good together     what’s the meaning of that?