bauble

 in the spirit of the season    I wish you peace, love and understanding     I wish it for myself too      coz I always dragged the low end    until one day    I ran out of grievances       now I’m just another probationary human being      trying to do good     when I can afford it     and I can afford it     more often than not       but I’m unfit for a society      that’s unfit for me       I’ll always be a criminal   a heretic   a fool

I’ve been searching for something that has no name     so what was it I wanted?       I think that I’ve forgotten     there are words     and then there are words      but words alone won’t suffice       and I won’t be losing sleep      over secrets I keep from you     it’s evident that I think too much      you may think I’m high      but I’m just pretending     I emptied my mind into a bucket     and found this bauble fomenting there

aesop

kudos big man     you’ve got it all sown shut    no cunt’s doin’ what you’re doin’    I don’t know what you’re selling   but it’s the dog’s bollocks    cannot get enough    you should publish brother     you’ll make a fucking mint…   another punter gets a free dose   and says he liked it   but I’ll never see him again     I don’t really mind    but it’s paying customers I need     before I’m weaving shadows      and I’m moth-eaten    wafer thin

I got papers going back decades    they’re worth something to me     but they won’t pay the rent     I know stories that pay off     with a kick in the knackers      I stitched them all together     on endless reams of pulp     I’ll read you one now      for a small consideration     simply grease my pocket   I’ll pour moonshine in your ear     it won’t taste all that sweet    but I promise you won’t care

individuals

 there’s no rest for the wicked        I should know         I get no rest         even in my sleep      I sing the watered down blues       old men’s songs       idiot verse for the hard of thinking        god has blessed the common people       they got nothing but pipe dreams and empties        but they shall inherit the earth       it’s a bovine compact        strictly for the herd       that’s an evolutionary advance over the individual           the individual don’t stand a chance        I should know       I got bread but no butter        I’m a rare commodity        like dragon’s teeth          no-one has ever seen any        but we’ve all seen the movies      where everyone’s an individual      hero of some dime store melodrama airing on daytime television       along with our life insurance options and burial plans    coz in the midst of life there is death       and in the midst of death there are tears          old men sing the watered down blues        and the herd fashion icons from their dust

 

home

 home is where your head’s at     and my head’s at home    I ain’t stashing empty bottles      behind no shotgun shack     I’m organised for life    here in the digital world      I changed the lock on my door      and threw away the key    I’m walking that line      fingers crossed behind my back     

it’s fuel for life    totally automatic      sustenance by numbers        maybe it’s the environment       that best suits my clothing       or perhaps the process of osmosis       has slowly filtered out my ambition      but I’ve seen the world outside     and now I’m staying in

dust

 my words are carried to you     through electrical transcription     I type them out downtown      you hear them in your mind      I think I lost my mojo       to another cinnamon girl      do elephants keep diaries?     coz I remember every sorry kiss       how quickly we fade out       how slowly we ride on        the threshold of my mind      is bitter sweet with memories         baby. comfort me     coz I’m sorry now      sorry for all my lies       I went wrong       but in my own right      I simply wouldn’t follow       it’s the story of my life

minefields

 are you up too early?    or down too late?    did someone steal your dreams?    or did you give them away?    maybe that’s a question    for some other time     coz I’m the bastard son     of a bastard son      just another lazy sod      with magic in his pants     and I’d love to stir your pot      in the horizontal dance     

there’s been a revolution     though no-one fired a shot     our brave new monsters     are conscientiously amoral     totally natural     adjusted to the vicissitudes of love      and the demands of iconoclast

does it burn?      does it itch?    don’t get your knickers in a twist     stop  your sobbing     dry your eyes     I didn’t break your heart     I only bent your mind    it’s not your first disappointment    and likely won’t be your last    modern romance is a minefield     and that just cracks me up    

bovine ergonomics

are we shaped by our peers?    do I even care?     yes, I suppose I do!   is that really you?       is this really me?      no absolutes necessary       but I really prefer my shape      as freely expressed     beyond  the constraints of society     down in the motion of the ocean     so deep and far away      

I don’t fear the depths      no,  I fear the shallows     that slender existence       measured out to the bovine      coz habit carves the unreflective into  inchoate    ignorant    tyrannical   monsters      that’s why I swim somewhere far upstream from the defecating herd      and their bullshit conventions     you could call me heretic       black sheep      blasphemer     that’s just the ruminant tribe       trying to pin me down

punk

 in the pageantry of youth      I mixed my own colours     in iconoclastic fashion        and I’d be the boy to smash things up        but I was in it for the long con      softly softly catchee monkey        patience gains the day    I made busy doing nothing    or something close to nothing     of course if they catch you doing nothing      they pack you off to the job centre     for a heavy dose of conformity     I can’t complain      not out in the open     maybe if I’d been a bad boy…    but I was too lazy for a life of crime    I just wanted to lay in bed all day    exercising my autonomy      standing on my rights     subverting authority     withholding my labour from the babylon economy

if my people were called by name

once upon a weekend     I’d like to get fucked up     with all my fucked up people     have them come over    for a totally fucked up party    deeper still    I need a positive connection     coz I’ve been in unhealthy situations     on more than one occasion   my people kept me straight    at least they tried to keep me straight   coz I don’t always listen     and that’s as it should be     for an independent man

we are judged by the company we keep    my people may seem shady     maybe even a little crazy    but I can vouch for their credentials     they have my back     and they’re alright by me   naturally our appearance     is luridly discussed    by ornery screwfaces with bovine brain pans    I don’t care what they say   my people are heaven      my people are heaven on a saturday night

scientific violence

 we are honed to bloody perfection   instruments of chaos     agents of wanton destruction      we were built for conflict     war is all we know    peace is an illusion     peace is for losers and wimps     but they are dishing out equilibrium     down at your local dojo       e-q-u-i-l-i-b-r-i-u-m      it’s intrinsic to the teaching     but its attainment comes at a price     you have to pay attention      and you have to learn to fight     

you have to learn to fight     if you want to live in peace      that’s not a contradiction      it’s really good advice    this is a dangerous world      it’s a jungle on the street     some people love the drama     but it’s not for you and me      somewhere in an ancient temple        they master subtle forms of violence    that protect your flesh from injury    open your inner eye   and set your spirit free   

everything lies within        you must always have faith in yourself     you can’t be anyone else    so you ought to stick to the truth      and learn to defend your being     you are on the path that leads to perfection      when you slay the petty tyrants      that so often crowd your psyche    to poison your heart and soul      with their corrosive energy

when it comes down to the nitty gritty       you’re your own worst enemy      nothing else in creation      fights against itself     but the duality of human nature     means that we must      whether we  lose battles or we win     all accounts are fictional      and no-one gives a fuck     who wins fictional battles      yet everybody fights them just the same

word pimps

 your coffee is getting old…

 

why don’t you drink it up while you carefully weigh your words     and strip them of feeling      before you press them into your album with them opposable thumbs of yours?    I’m crashing outta here      the night is getting young      and I’ve got fires to start.

 

your words are tired and cold…

 

you suck the life outta them      before committing them to dread asylums      where they are measured for straight jackets and confined to padded cells      never to be heard from again      me – I’m going down to Union Square to scream a lung out

 

this place is a cage…

 

café society is an aviary       where the featherless and loveless perch on the brink of boredom surveying an endless procession of days without names     they say repetition is reassuring     but I don’t like to take the same trip twice – that’s why I never read your stuff.

 

I’m flying this coop…

 

fare-thee-well my fair weather pals      you no longer rock my boat and though it’s been swell    I really think it’s time to split before we come to blows    remember that hippy who told us he’d rather die than fight?     well he did   somebody beat him to death last night     I think I made my point

 

I’m starting fires…

 

in this life I’ve been spiked    stabbed    shot and stamped on    so often it don’t hurt no more      I swallowed more poison and stopped more bullets than Rasputin       I lived to tell the tale and do I have tales to tell     but I didn’t learn them in here    I’m gonna torch this jail before I leave    but you can stay      feel free

graft

 work without reward is slavery      they say there’s dignity in labour      I must’ve missed that scene    I worked hard for my meat    but never got any satisfaction       I’d rather be a thief than a slave     I’d rather help myself       than receive a weekly wage      I take my pleasure without conscience       coz nothing was ever given me      I had to prize it loose       I bit the hand that fed me    I wouldn’t be the first     I shouldn’t be the last     to shape my own reality      and live by my own graft     

night

 I felt the heat from the stars     radiate across the universe     as I lay in the tall grass        with the good green earth        growing all around me         there, at the end of the world       night reigned supreme       and night seeped        into the heart of me      into my very soul    and I knew my days were numbered       but the nights would last forever

semiotics

 back to square one      early doors       the milkman cometh    my war against sleep wages on      I’m sick again       wretched with it      my mind is in meltdown      there’s no silence left      not with the newsflash      the commercial breaks      and incessant chattering idiocy of the internet       there’s little sense to the information age      we’re in it for the money        we murdered god      and filled the void with primetime cheesecake       this culture  is universally flaccid     a succession of fragmented sensation      and random nostalgia      I’m sickened of it      I overdosed on signification      I’m puking my guts up on the swirl of empty meaning       back to square one      early doors      the milkman cometh…

it’s all in our imagination

don’t know about you      but my heart ain't in it        this is not my idea of a good time    hard knocks       tough questions      tougher lessons...     excuse me     I lost your signal     I phased out     heavy-lidded     a little stoned     vulnerable to kryptonite     went all buddha for a moment    the sun    the moon    the sky        never said I had a better way       there is no clearer route than your own heart     

you were mindful for the moment     you  kicked your shoes off and danced      and you scoped me out     with the most exacting eyes        gripped with power and wonder        can’t you hear the summer calling?     she calls on you by name         she didn’t want to be alone       she remembers the things we used to do      drunk on nectar in the season of promise     it’s all in my imagination      is it ever that way for you?

bluebottles

I was my natural self     being in a particular groove    when I was accosted by bluebottles     they was low types     full of guile and craft    and tried to locate my stash     by rifling my pockets     they were due a disappointment   coz I’d already imbibed      and was well off my rocker    yeah   herb means life, or so jah say     everybody’s doing it nowadays      I was indignant and stood on my rights      they got suss      and fled through the night      but the war on drugs is never over      we’re bound to meet again      on another sorry day

outside women

another outside woman     is borrowing my clothes        she’s got my name and number       that’s about all she knows         she doesn’t bother to feed me      and I don’t really care       coz we’re only buying time       while her man’s not there       it’s become the well-worn ritual       we don’t talk that much       we keep it nice and simple     and communicate by touch      it’s a temporary arrangement      we can always walk away     but she likes to keep me stashed nearby    for a rainy day

pyrite

don’t mind me    I’m just a basic guy     with extravagant needs     but a man’s got to live      as he sees fit     there’s no secret ambition     burning holes in my pockets     I’ve got natural medicine      to spell me some cheer       they say it’s a weakness       but I don’t really care      some diversions are sacred       like words from the bible     so don’t shoot me down       until you hear what the deal is      your complete satisfaction     could be moments away

heavy arithmetic

it’s a heavy arithmetic       that measures out the hours     and subtracts the days      time spent more in hope than reason        our rusted factory eyes lack lustre     they’re fixed on horizons far away       where our dreams now live in exile      and yesterday’s tomorrows accumulate decay       is it true what I heard you say?       you made a binding promise       that you would wait forever     forever and a day

screwfaces

sometimes      often     I don’t want to go out      I don’t want to go out     mixing with them screwfaces      don’t get me wrong      I’ve worn faces      we’ve all worn faces     but you know faces     you can’t rely on faces     any more than words      they make you look       and you don’t want to look      but they make you look     and then you see      that faces conceal      and faces mislead      no, you can’t trust the faces      in this neighbourhood