West End

the skag palaces
and liquor dungeons
of my youth
are now gastro pubs
and organic eateries
but the streets
are the same
there's a score
on every corner
flesh or drug
just name your tune
and some cunt
will dance to it
.

The Final Bulletin

Glad Rag
and
Mouse Trap
were here for a while
they just came by
to ring my bell
and drink my tea
they had cloth and candles
and were all kitted out
for the final big bulletin
the news was sadly
postponed indefinitely
nothing will happen
during prime time
no-one will stem
the systematic
appropriation
of the factual
all elected officers
will report to mommy
there’s been a spill
much milk was shed
some were crying
others laughed
a mixed bag
of metaphors
escaped into the crowd
Glad Rag and Mouse Trap
were first among them
.

Shades

Rab was wearing his cheap sun glasses. He was always wearing dark glasses. He claimed he was photo-sensitive, but he just didn't want any cunt tae see his eyes. They say the eyes are the windows of the soul and that cunt had no soul; but he had Mo. I'd have given my own soul tae be with Mo.

"Nah Johnny, Maureen will do her dinger if I'm late hame again."

"One wee drink cannae dae nae hairm Rab. We'll just be a minute."

"Aye, and if she finds oot ah was drinkin..."

"Who's goany tell her like? C'mon, one wee drink."

Rab relented, I knew he would. Nae alky can refuse free drink. Rab had it bad. The doctor had warned him that he was drinking himself into an early grave, but that wasn't deterrent enough for Rab. You'd think the thought of losing Mo might inspire him, but he took her for granted. He always had. She had carried him for twenty years or more. The cunt had never done a day’s work in his life. Rab just lurched fae one crisis tae the next while Mo skivvied for him; picking up his broken pieces and tending his wounds.

Maureen was a beautiful woman and I had loved her from afar since Rab first introduced us two decades before. We were best mates Rab and I. We still were, as far as Rab was concerned, but I watched him drain the soul from that woman and I wished him gone.

"Another pint Rab?" - we'd had four already.

"No thanks Johnny - ah've got tae head hame. Maureen will be worried..."

"One mair for the road then - one last pint - then we go."

"Maureen will freak if she smells the drink oan me."

"Get some mints oan the way home - and for fucks sake dinnae tell her I was buying - I'll never hear the end of it."

"I widnae grass ye up Johnny - we're mates, right?"

"Aye, we're mates Rab."

.

Drenched

I lost another lover

from standing in the rain

I leached the colour out of her

and flushed her down the drain

I saw the whole thing coming

I recognised the signs

she had some changes planned

when I read between the lines

there's no explaining some things

and there are some things best unspoken

like the crooked words that justify

the promises I've broken

Universal

Imagine a universe too big for gods. Where the angels are heretic and the saints are junkie hookers. You're getting the size of it. Bigger than a breadbox, but perhaps smaller than the human soul. Something large, but finite.

What were you betting on? Reincarnation? Resurrection? Did you opt for those desolate mansions and the companionship of ghosts? Perhaps you sought comfort from the cool indifference of the merciless universal? Where will we be when our benefactor finally calls our number? Would we even understand the answer - if we were ever shown?

.

Casey Jones

down between
the railway tracks
amidst the newts
and the sticklebacks
dead monuments
to industrial might
gather shadows
deep as night

in the kingdom
of heavy rust
where empires bloomed
then turned to dust
the bindlestiffs
and feral types
come out to play
in the dread of night
only to fade away once more
before the breaking day

there are ghosts
they boast
in these old yards
in shallow graves
that no-one guards
where evil deeds
lie undiscovered
beneath the weeds
where their cries
were smothered
.

Monkey Business

some slipped away    incognito   others turned sour    their cream had curdled    I don't give a fuck     I had a good time     I got my own     monkey business     and a boneyard     for my bygones     what's buried there       is buried real deep      and locked up tight         so it don't bring me down       I live in the now       it's the only space left me       and I like to make hay       while the sun still shines

Solitary

the threat of silence eternal
will not drive me
into the arms
of honorific whores
who perform gratis
acts of quiet desperation
in the hopeless quest
for something more substantial
.
I'm a solitary instrument
who keeps his own council
I'll never impart my sorry tale
to another living soul
I buried my burdens deep
but I watch them all the while
for there are promises I keep
and promises I deny
.

Daisies

them trombone dildos     are masked and ready    they got the swing   that don’t mean a thing    they’re just grateful    for the company      in their jism schism     there’s rhythm    in their method      and they play real music      for the nectar sockets    in a dance best performed      on the horizontal plane     or bent over double      bareback for your trouble    in unholy carnal daisy chains    necessities children     have no need of names    just a stranger’s hand    with a loving touch    and they don’t mind paying   but not too much           

Hangover

we’re running low on drinks

this party’s hit the doldrums

and as the morning sinks

we godless frozen forms

pitch headlong into ashtrays

and empty bottles counted

then recycled in the telling

like the evidence that’s mounted

in the stories you’ve been selling

so paint me black in tales of woe

and fabricate the reason

to justify the fatal blow

and your final act of treason

.

Mandy

copped me the full dose
I licked the wrapper too
I ramped up the mandy
downed it with cheap wine
that shit’s complicated
but I don’t seem to mind
it fit me real snug
just like I knew it would
it was Christmas in July
did everything it should
it may be forbidden
but sometimes
it does some good
.

Insatiable

I shed a score

every time

I went

to the well

soon I was skint

and the well was dry

those are the dues

owed the

golden monkey

when your appetites

outstrip your means

and gluttony

obscures your reason

.

The Final Link

I seen you in your big boots
threshing out your grapes of wrath
you only harvested bitter fruit
from your black vineyards
but you could never touch me
or the dope that I had stashed
even then I knew too much
to take your shit to heart
.
they say the sins of the father
are meted out to his sons
I guess you merely did
what own father had done
but that shit stops right here
I won’t let it go on
if I’m a link in that bloody chain
I’ll be the final one

Judas Kiss

it’s not the stranger danger
but the et tu bruti
you have to beware of
there’s no more bitter repast
than the judas kiss
served from
treacherous lips
straight to the heart
and she took a piece
mucky little tart
we were only casual
I shouldn’t really care
but she took a bite
and she left her mark
somewhere between the folds
of my deepest  dark
.

Sleepless

nowhere to rest my head

no cradle for my dreams

I pace the lonely hours

just bursting at the seams

I measure dusk ‘til dawn

and see them back again

I’ve little need for sleep

I have a faulty brain

in the cold grey dawn

I feel as thin as rain

it’s mornings such as these

could drive a soul insane

.

Kingpin

kudos to the big beasts

and the fabled ocean riders

ixnay on the dharma jockeys

and the children of the sun

I am stand alone dysphoric

quartered by the meat racks

sliced down to the bone

I shall complain most bitterly

to my trusty dictaphone

.

see that bastard smile?

that’s the local kingpin

and he’ll turn away no more

I’ve got the essential matrix

that the cunt is looking for

he’s a fucking lean machine

and an arsehole to be sure

but he’s the only gig in town

there’s nowhere else to score

.

Coffee

it calls for extra coffee
on those pale mornings
when my remnant dreams
still cling as shrouds
to another me
in some other world
and the cold grey sun
s – e – e – p – s
little shards of heaven
to prick my sleepless eyes
.
I’m as tired as an old joke
told in a funeral home
I feel like a dirty burlap sack
full of ossuary bones
I’m the prolapsed organ
they dare not resuscitate
and quite symptomatic
of a broader demographic
of disenchanted and careless
mercenary vagabonds

Parade

I’m no knocker

no tattle tale

but I was at the front

of her big parade

remember me?

I was the arsehole

with the big bass drum

counting steps

and keeping time

with regimental

precision

.

everything was cushty

everything was sweet

until the rain

put the mockers

on her big day

there were tantrums

there were tears

she put on quite

a performance

and in all honesty

she preferred it that way

.

The Last Dog

I’ve used up all my shadows and I’m bleached naked from the big light. It’s been typical and that’s to be expected. It’s beyond four in the anus mundi and time to see what treats await me in the bumper box of pain.

My days are short lived, but my nights are so very long and weary thin. These are measured in endurance; each instance squeezed from bloody stones. Twenty thousand nights proceed as hollow headlights on empty cars. That’s many inches travelled, but hardly enough to justify the effort.

This is the hour of broken lovers and solitary maniacs devoted to causes long lost in the not so long ago. My lot in the sodium yellow cathedral quiet is quantification – the grand introspection. The detailing of the acute and sorry tales that constitute the most mundane of disasters. I’m sickened by the stench of self-indulgence, but my hammer is on the table and I’m in the frame until the last dog dies.

.

Barley

this happy heart

will be the death

of poor me

I tilled the earth

then scattered

cancelling

my subscription

to the ever after

to carve myself

a solitary path

through golden

fields of barley

in the soft

summer rain

.

Rental Dogs

Do me a favour would you? Lift the lid and let it breathe. Let some of the heat out, we don’t want it boiling over do we? We just want a gentle simmer to bring out all the goodness. Cooking is an art form Johnny and it takes patience to prepare a masterpiece. This is what it’s all about boy – meat on the table. A man must provide for his own and no one else is gonna do that for him. A man must provide even if he has to steal. Not too much like – only what he needs; you leave some for the next guy. You nibble the hand that feeds ye Johnny. If you leave teeth marks you’ll soon find a pack of rental dogs oan yer tail.

Those rental dogs are meaner than the average mutt and just love the taste of blood. They smell your fear and so you must keep that shit well hid. Never look ‘em in the eye. It aggravates ‘em if you look ‘em in the eye. The eyes are the windows to the soul and those mongrels have no souls, see? Most rentals are bereft of souls. Whether they were stolen by pimps, or dealers – notorious soul thieves – or worn away from the inside by worry, hatred, or avarice; the rented have a legendary soul deficit.

Remember Poor Boy? He went insane and sold his soul to complete strangers. He got a sawbuck for one weighed ounce of solid soul. He bought a wrap with the proceeds and smoked it, but it never filled the hole left by his soul. No amount of gear ye smoke, or booze ye drink, will ever relieve ye of a missing soul. Take all those rental buddies and barflies who congregate in the temples of oblivion, or the crack heads and junkies they look down on. They got no souls.

Half the world have no souls and mostly that’s avoidable. It’s a question of intent; of how much ye want something and how much you are willing to pay for it. My advice, Johnny Boy, is to never want anything too much. Besides, you’ll see the price come down if the seller knows you can walk away. Some have no means of paying for whatever it is their hearts desire, so they go rental. You’re only rental so long before you realise that yer soul is part of the deal.

It’s a nightmare to live without a soul Johnny. The soul is that vital spark that kickstarts the emotional and intellectual energy that makes you unique. The soul is yer passion, yer intensity, yer mojo, and without it you’re an empty husk. Take it from ole Buddha, ye never want tae go rental. You never want tae lose yer soul; not for fortune, fame, for women, or drugs. Because nothing you can ever possess is more valuable than yer soul.

.

Golden Apples

channelling

exclusively

via satellitic intent

this monomaniac

is deeply fixated

on our nearest star

and that’s where

you’ll find him

from now on

lost in an orchard

dazzling bright

stealing golden apples

from the heart of the sun

.

Tragedian

Sally threatened suicide

she did from time to time

it was no cry for help

but a demand for servitude

I’d have given her anything

under any other terms

but she came as the victim

of numerous insoluble crimes

her eyes were always offended

they were tuned to disappointment

she said she’d turned a corner

on another dead-end street

.

I felt the momentum

of some terrible gravity

dragging at my entrails

hers was a brutal surgery

born of desperation

the decision was mine

my choices were limited

by narrowing circumstance

to a fight or flight scenario

so I reluctantly opted out

but I still have a pillow for her

if she ever feels the need

.

Jelly Beans

stop my mouth    anaesthetise me    I need panic pills      merciful medicine    my beautiful mutation  is murdering me    I’m withering into psychosis      so nourish me pharmaceutically     I know I’m bat shit crazy   the world makes me crazy   her beauty is fouled     from the misuse of mirrors     in the still of my room      I’m gradually transforming     into a psychiatric emergency

my heart beats too loud      I can’t hear me think       my life no longer sparks    I’ve been harvesting my sickness    I’m the effigy of moral weakness    I require psychotropic medication    it’s my rod      my staff      my crutch     my blood is charged with electric potential    the bipolar extremities beckon me     I need some proper insulation      faith is not enough         

in the shadow of existence   where the dark things flourish   surrounded by tender tyrants     and outflanked by awkward instance     I’m a hostage to necessity    and have demons to placate      I need a little something      added to my recipe     I require a magic bullet       to get me off my knees     so get me an extension    I’ll call for some assistance     to feed me psycho quackery      in the shape of jelly beans

 

Joe the Movie

Not so very long ago, and not too far away. There lived a man called Joe who’d worked hard all his life for very little gain. Joe was that dedicated chump that bosses all adore; he’d go that extra mile for very scant reward. He’d always be the first to arrive and very the last to leave. There was always one more final task to keep Joe working late.

The other men could count on Joe to always lend a hand. He’d even put their tools away when they could not be arsed. They said he loved to graft, that he worked like a machine. He’d clock up fourteen hours a day, for seven days a week. His family hardly ever saw him. He was a stranger in his own home and a mystery to the wife and kids he’d hardly ever known. They said that Joe would give you the shirt right off his back. There was certainly some truth in that. Joe was always giving out, but seldom getting back.

Then one day it seems that he’d finally had enough. Perhaps some grand epiphany had turned Joe’s head around. Or maybe the growing realisation that he was being taken for a clown. Whatever the reason; Joe turned up for work that day with a can of orange spray paint and daubed “Joe the Movie” on the factory wall. Then he squatted there beneath the sign taunting his fellow workers and giving them the full rhetorical.

“You cunts are nowt but fucking slaves. They have you by the balls. They control your every move. They control your fuckin’ thoughts. They tell you that you’re free, but the combine owns you all! You’ll graft away your days to earn an early grave, but everything you make – they’ll simply take away. They give you with one hand to take back with the other, the combine has commodified everything you need. They even orchestrate your dreams to make them seem attainable, but these are only opiates tae keep your noses tae the wheel. Your only purpose in this life is to satisfy the greed of their insatiable machine. So you can work from now till doomsday, but they’ll never set you free!”

Joe refused to get to work, or to talk to management – or answer to his slave name. As a free man he insisted on being addressed as “Seeker”. He declared he would be writing his own screenplays from then on. He wouldn’t be coerced into speaking other people’s words down the barrel of a gun. The bosses called security to show poor Joe the gate, but they were a little shy of him in case he ran amok. Eventually the cops were called and Joe was hauled away in chains. He was scrutinised by two quacks and sectioned under the Mental Health Act of 1983. That’s what they do to heretics in this day and age. They simply lock them away and castrate their minds with chemicals, they say it’s more humane than physical restraint.

They say a prophet is never recognised in his own hometown. The doctors labelled Joe as paranoid schizophrenic – he took to it the hard way round – and labelled them as his torturers and instruments of the combine. They pumped him full of Thorazine and other abominations, but he would not be silenced, he was evangelical in his cause. He would not be dissuaded through their psychoanalytical rhetoric, or through their chemical cosh. Joe planned to smash the system, no matter what the cost. He steadfastly resisted the combine and all its fiendish instruments until he eventually realised he was fighting a losing battle, simply because he had his tactics all wrong. So he adopted subtle subterfuge and employed a little guile. He learned to play the psychiatric game and responded well to treatment after just a short while. Joe was the soul of discretion and kept his cards well hidden. He never mentioned the dreaded combine, or espoused his true beliefs. So he passed his days quietly in relative grace and peace, while he awaited the revolution and his inevitable reprieve.

.

Tin God

I was always frenzied

with my Aztec instruments

and my rituals inevitably

ended in an act of betrayal

and the archaic justifications

of injustice and tragedy

the theme of my soap opera

and the playground melodramas

I classified as historic crimes

.

I cast a giant shadow

in the kingdom of the pygmies

my erstwhile sycophants

were eager recipients

of my every crumb

that collective approbation

really warmed the ego

but I could remember when

I expected so much more

.

*Image: Mesoamerican god  Xochipilli ‘Prince of Flowers’

.*

Fat Bastard

King of the big fat bastards – apologetically corpulent – a sedentary warrior on a motionless battlefield. I’m sick of this shabby body and its flaccid interior. Bashful and shamefaced I pace out my days on the inside. I know where everything is in here – no surprises. They think I’m crazy, but I’m just hungry. Buddha wants me for a dumpling and I can no longer hide my embarrassment behind a jocular disguise – I’m going the full agoraphobic – I might never go out again.

Disfigured, bloated and monumentally fractured. The faulty chemistry, the kink in the grey matter that winds me up to draw me down, has me flip flopping and gasping for air. My stars twinkle softly; they shine low. I eat the silence. The silence allows my delusions to flourish. I can almost buy into them.

The rest of this story for the most part simply withers on the page. I could drone on without meaning or direction, but I won’t. These are the hollow words of a foolish man; too vain to leave the past well enough alone. My days pass so slowly – must be the road I’m on – a road only traveled by the weary and the lost.

*Image ‘Window’ by Fran Yule

.

Immaculate

I just hopped off the bus

to fulfil my statutory obligations

I been zapped in the brain pan

by that solar radiation

if she had only seen me

back when I eclipsed the sun

she’d have a little more patience

with her beloved skid row bum

now she was feeling mystic like

and squatting on her haunches

she cast an evil eye on me

so I gave her beer and roses

I was coming off some slick machine

and was very nearly empty

this was in the morning after

on a day of rest and prayer

I played the messianic dope fiend

she made out she didn’t care

.

Monsters

there’s no sleep for me
there are monsters in my bed
the creeping sons of chaos
just will not let me rest
.
they’ve fashioned lethal weapons
from my sacred memories
to lacerate my consciousness
with morbid fantasies
.
I plead not for redemption
that’s far beyond my reach
I bargain for the mercy
of eventual release
.
deliver me from kindnesses
invested in by strangers
I have no use for enemies
when friends will steal my tongue
.
this union of erstwhile companions
this compact of seasoned liars
have anointed me with kerosene
and lit my funeral pyre
.

Meat

I could afford to laugh it off

it was only dirt being dished

and I’d heard it all before

my lips were sealed

so my hands were clean

but she had her snout in deep

and was up to her ears in shit

she ought to get herself a read

drop the plastic facsimile

of injured humanity

and learn how to dig deep

for something more substantial

than gaining friends and influence

through her poisonous inquisition

I’ll take no lessons

from some menopausal midlife crisis

and her alky reject fancy man

I could see it in their eyes

no fucking empathy

they see only meat

and they left me feeling raw

down at the bloody end

of their killing floor

.

Mislaid

it’s a tedious chore

and no mistake

around the houses

and home again

the whole rigmarole

a wasted journey

a tortuous trek

in an inclement season

but I’ll find myself

on some darkened side street

soaked to the skin

but no worse for wear

.

Excision

I severed that tie

with definitive force

I cut it off

and cast it out

then I set it on fire

powdered the ashes

and buried it deep

far far away

but it haunts me still

the flesh of my flesh

that lost appendage

cleaved from the bone

a bloody sacrifice

to some lesser evil

it’s a revenant organ

or a phantom limb

it’s a forbidden exhumation

and an itch I long to scratch

.

Heavies

it was my party

and I was having

a right hee haw

when the heavies

came crashing in

it can happen that sudden

like the flick of a switch

or an amphetamine surge

with the rock steady dread

and the big bass drum

big boys took my high

and buried me

with knuckle dusters

they came mob handed

tooled up for a killing

it was totally hopeless

but my delusion

was so fantastic

I still fancied my chances

.

Chocolate George

Chocolate George

Was a pussy magnet

He’d had more tang

Than Frank Sinatra

He said it was nice, so nice

And it all came from a nice place

That it was no mere gesture

But the gift of awareness

That the algorithms of affection

Played out naturally

With no need for ceremony

Or archaic ritual

Were as beautiful

As they were natural

He stressed that

He was not the message

But the messenger

And there was no device

Or calculation

Behind his success

.

Empty

I need a whole new bundle

to keep me on my feet

I’m winding ancient nightmares

between my dirty sheets

I got nothing left to bargain with

I’m on my fucking knees

all native electricity

has deserted me

I purchased naught for nothing

I’d like a refund please

these are times of want

in the chaos factory

.

Snowball

snowball had the loathing something chronic       she’d smashed all her mirrors in iconoclast  and said she’d pan my windows too if I didn’t lick her wounds        self inflicted wounds are often the last to heal       least said      soonest mended they used to say       but they were wrong

she had come on like a breath of sunshine        but she had dark roots      I’d been keeping a beady on her peroxide explosion       altruistically fucking her from time to time          it cut both ways      we both had needs

I was pretty liberal with the advice     but more frugal with my affections        I like to think of myself as a coward       that’s the best spin I can place on my actions       I couldn’t dive in       because I can’t swim        so  I turned  away      at the crucial moment I closed my eyes        but I still heard her cry  

I guess for her I was yet another disappointment in a long series of disappointments          was I a user?     an abuser?     or just a man of straw?     I’m not the best judge of that      for my part      her voice is one of many       all asking the same question    do you now   or did you ever   possess an ounce of soul?

 

 

Formless

He’d once been a pariah, an untouchable. He had a definite shape, but it was asymmetrical. He was composed of acute and awkward angles, ragged contours and sharp edges. Cutting edges. He had always felt at odds with nature, a square peg in a universe of round holes.

He felt powerless in his predicament. There was no panacea, no prescription, no discipline, or philosophy to ease his discomfort. There was not even a name for what ailed him, no diagnosis for his wayward geometry.

His was the difficult path and he stumbled often, and sometimes he fell. But over the years his angles were chipped away and his edges were made smooth through collision and erosion. So that one day he awakened to discover that he was practically formless.

.

The Temple of a Thousand Buddhas

On the first day of summer,
In the Temple of a Thousand Buddhas,
You turned and said to me;
“Your smile is a blessing to my heart”
That was long ago, but I’m smiling still.

.

Coydogs

Do you see those ferals over there? They are my murder squad and that’s my blood on their sandals. They must have gotten my number from some old directory, because I’m unlisted now.

They came to chasten me for some mythic infraction in the by gone, but it’s never too late to deliver bad news. Apparently I had robbed some whore to feed some bitch. I can’t recall the details; they were pretty inchoate with their charges.

I was all negotiable, but they were not. We reached an accommodation where I shut the fuck up in exchange for a kicking. However, I take succour from the knowledge that they will one day turn on the hand that now feeds them.

.

Panthers

the sickly hours draw near       I’ve been out on the prowl     feasting with panthers      and laying with the low        life bleeds out from my promiscuous regions     my seed, the gift of our benefactor      was spilled on vulgar ground      a menagerie of brightly polished fossils     perched four and twenty deep on a blackened bow      each was perfectly honed       to provide the keen edges a boy could shred his soul on

 

there’s a laboratory in my mind       where pornographic experimentations are crudely coupled with shameful memories     so I make meat in wee small hours to feed the fire that burns in my loins     ever the same incessant pounding of a thousand heartbeats      a tide of lovers float into memory      people like us know what we’re doing       people like us have rapacious hearts