voices

 

all day long I languished       there in the TV room       the attitude was somber        the tone was general gloom        they promised me a window        where I could see the street        when my executioners  arrived         I wanted a ringside seat

voices from the locked ward       were calling out my name       they said there’d been a murder         and  I was the one to blame          but it couldn’t have been me        I wouldn’t hurt a fly        besides, I’d spent the month in jail         and that’s the perfect alibi

but the voices from the locked ward          had my name and number      they’d primed the dreaded meat machine          and were eager to take me under         yes, there were voices in my head         who wished that I was dead          my thoughts gave voice to fear           and fear gave way to dread

the mind can play some tricks          and mine was in partial eclipse        there was poison in my blood          I’d explain it if I could        I’ve seen some wicked shit         that would make your stomach sick         but I learned to embrace the voices            I loved their crazy shtick 

withered

 

down at the meat rack tavern      no-one need drink alone       but I go there to breathe      I like it on my own      I’m no longer in the game     my wild oats are sown      I used to be a player       I lived by different rules then      I really was a cunt       I was frugal with my love       because it was all about my needs     I just lurched from drama to crisis        using women as my crutch

I was never short of partners     I still can’t work out why        but I think my appeal was based on charm         that’s another word for lies      I lied so well I fooled myself     for all I know I’m lying now      but I’d rather be a liar          than someone you can’t trust

I don’t really care that much     everything worked out fine    seasons wax and wane     all that trouble feels like a distant dream now       like someone else’s life      I no longer have that hunger      summer withered on the vine      lovers came and lovers went     their black and blue remembrances are tattooed on my mind  

morbid

 

I spend too many waking hours whispering to the dead     I’m preoccupied with death     it foreshadows my life    because   I’ve been close       close enough to have  tasted its venom      its icy cold tendrils  wrapped around my heart     death perches on every shoulder        waiting for the moment       to snuff the candle out     and claim another life      an ocean of darkness awaits      can’t you hear its roar?

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