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?      

my final temptation

this voice needs a wilderness      somewhere to scream in       the religion of solitude     has eaten up my mind        I don’t require validation      I know no one is listening     I speak now to power      word after word after word     laid out like crazy paving       now that is power       there is really nothing to it      you just have to bleed across the page      you have to cry like you mean it

some will think I’m the devil’s bagman      my truth is hard on the ears     but anything else is wasted ammunition       fear has lost its power over me     and power is the name of the game       make no mistake about that      power attracts the corruptible      and I am corruptible      power is my final temptation       and I fully intend to yield to it      I will become a force     amidst competing powers 

time and time again

 

we were taught to fear it       but we learned to face the unknown      our mouths stopped in supplication      blinded by the starlight in our eyes.       a trillion dying suns testified to our insignificance      but then, every action is a first in the history of creation      the fear we cannot name     stains us inky black inside     where forbidden gods baptize in pools of liquid night      the unknown draws us     as moths to the hidden flame     we seek to awaken the stranger within      because to truly live is to be reborn time and time again

Viva Babylon!

 

I’ve been incubating a brand new monster      and I have loved him dearly       since he was first conceived     in the eye of a solar storm       when my darkness exploded with a cosmic boom       was that the voice of God?      or the lightning flash of consciousness?      whatever it was    I can no longer live in the shadow of my former being        this world is a pressure cooker     you have to embrace that concept    Viva Babylon!      the crucible of reinvention       and mother of all whores       

kaleidoscope

 

it’s a finite sequence of choices       one filthy deed after another       no-one said it was going to be easy      but does it have to be this hard?      you won’t catch me complaining      Christ knows I’m not complaining      I’m just marking time       counting broken promises      and licking open wounds   

 I cut myself on your mirror      its shards cast fractured reflections     of what could have      should have    might have been      seen through your distortions    I couldn’t recognize my face    oh, I have made mistakes     everyone makes mistakes    but I’m not the man you painted     with your faulty kaleidoscope

birdies

 

I’m up with the birdies     indolent and cool     I don’t have to be good or bad     I play by nature’s rules     why should I take to my knees      when I can float on the breeze?      I was never meant to be caged     I was always meant to fly free

I’m aligned to the cosmic      tuned to the infinite variations of the one mother vibration      songs for the wild      songs for the free      songs that shaped my world and me

every creature builds a world     ours are beautiful and dangerous     joyous and cruel      we have imposed an order      which is predisposed to violence       because our worlds are fierce and unforgiving     and just like the birds we struggle      to make our voices heard