did you scan the broken icons? the
debris of heroic purpose? the fetishes of pain? here's
another dismal harvest of broken bodies and perished dreams security through violence no world without us we kill to live and live to kill I'm in awe of the awful symmetry in that
design I understand the tribal imprint the allure of us and them but
I'm a little older now and no longer
play the game that doesn't mean I'm safe it simply means I'm sane
17 March 2024
tribal
14 March 2024
entangled
it takes two to tangle in the dog eat dog but I’m resting my voice before I take another pounding my opening gambit was all cotton candy but my final word meant nothing at all I’ll ease on out on my magic pillow to take a repast that’s at least free of sorrow I might be back I might not bother but if I do change my mind you’ll see me tomorrow
4 March 2024
cyclops
there are no flies on you coz you’re the dog’s bollocks and the sun shines out of your arse you’re quicker than the devil but more grounded in reality you’re so single minded in your every conceit and brother you can talk you can talk yourself blue chew my fucking ears off go on, demonstrate the folly of your words you hate this you hate that the world pisses you off... truth is a matter of ingenuity we are what we pretend to be and you pretend to be wise but your wisdom is a ticket to hell coz shit gets under your skin there’s no defect in your vision you’re just selectively blind you’re so busy with the wrong you refuse to see the light that the good outweighs the bad to anyone with sight
2 March 2024
torquemada
questions circle like vultures but I’m not running away I’m
running towards I changed my face to fit the frame you could say I’m in disguise I don’t forget the things I’ve done man, I nearly choked on them but I got over it and now I’m on the gravy train but I had to give it up you know what I mean? I had to give it up pack it in and snuff it out no
embers left to fan but there are
questions always questions I’m not afraid of questions I
have one for you what the fuck do you
want? you don’t have to answer you might not know the answer some questions can’t be answered and some answers can’t be questioned is love
always the answer? or is love sometimes
the question? I suppose it makes no
difference to me because
I keep my own secrets and bear my stripes
without complaint
24 February 2024
denial
some lies are more useful than facts some facts are too hard to bear I’ve often indulged to excess in sex and drugs and wine and lost myself in the labyrinth of my fickle polluted heart of all the liars in the world the human heart reigns supreme but then it’s easier to disseminate falsehoods than it is to tell the truth things are made to happen somebody makes them happen so never do anything you can’t later deny surely facts mould fictions and the truth is often eclipsed by something more convenient these are not just words this is my religion I am my own god here to drink and fuck and fight and my truth is beautiful even if it’s hard to swallow because the truth feels like an insult to people in denial but let me tell you this there is one great truth there is one great lie they amount to the same they can both be denied
23 February 2024
teflon
I won’t cry foul I never was a victim I play the hand that’s dealt me and accept the consequences so go ahead and cast your stones no one is above criticism but some bear other’s faults jealous tongues spread bad news and magnify the false but I’ve broken no earthly law save the laws of prudery I sleep wherever I’m welcome and reap whatever I sow my critics only strengthen me their inhibitions make me bold my difference is a source of pride I’m unaffected by the crowd but if I walked a mile in their tight shoes I might just hate me too I’m a libertine by nature I never followed rules and I refuse to be held accountable by puritanical fools
18 February 2024
thieves
the first theft was an apple I hope it tasted sweet that was a long time ago now everyone’s a thief I was glad to steal for you and you were happy too was that just a little extra gravy? or something heavier still? in hindsight was it wicked? would you rather beg than steal? is it a curse to have a conscience? does your conscience bother you? you reveal your state of mind in everything you do right and wrong good and bad the mirror in your heart reflects the world you see a cat might have to steal just to make ends meet you’ve got to put food on the table and that shit don’t come cheap each of us is a fragment of an imperfect world heaven and earth are ten thousand things but we are thieves and nothing else here is the fruit of knowledge stolen from the vine if you would perfect your being you must master your desires or learn to think like a thief and steal everything you can whatever your dharma holds you’ll come to understand all roads lead to consciousness it’s part of the master plan
29 January 2024
lies
I like to drink but I only with my friends I don’t care to drink with strangers I have to factor in my concentration got to keep my story straight my lies always carried more weight than my truths after all, lies are the common currency truths are rare as diamonds I save the truths for the people I trust what do you say to that? I don’t know what to say myself it’s not my place to say but what do you think? coz I don’t know what to think I never knew what to think I always moved in the wrong direction is that symptomatic of a poor education? I could blame my past but with little conviction I’ve always been the victim of my own machinations I couldn’t care less now but I suffered then nobody suffers like the poor and I was impoverished in spirit I could tell some stories we all could tell some stories life is anecdotal and fifty percent deception but that’s to be expected how could we live with ourselves if it weren’t for our lies?
19 December 2023
mister natural
never worked a day in my life won’t sweat blood for the machine blood is heavier than gold but what do I know? I’m just a bum balancing the scales my advice to would be scholars is to do what you like but don’t let your imagination run away with you don’t lose yourself in the herd or let modest claims of individuality camouflage your bovine curiosity just plant a flag in the anecdotal and call it history
but don’t listen to me
I’m a certified fool I renounce history all histories are phony I have no history I just tell convenient stories this life was spent dreaming yesterday’s cause is lost let tomorrow care for tomorrow’s woes I won’t cry today I feel I’m halfway high just from thinking about it I’m pitching naturals from now on these dice are loaded and the table is
mine
17 December 2023
beatified
I don’t read the papers I just follow the signs I get all the information I need in stereo messages from heaven transmitted in high definition directly into my cranium my senses may be addled but my heart is instrumental in sorting out those waves I needn’t be sober to garner their substance the lyrics are set in time to a long familiar refrain
they tell me god loves a drunk because all drunks are poets and all poets are killers when it comes down to it and it often does we are all of us killers but
I don’t seem to mind I’ll gladly take
the blame if there’s any going my hereditary fault lines my bipolar distemper mete out eyeball for eyeball and subtle truth for gain
it ain’t rocket science
just simple dharmic law the
children of men are routinely tested
to live and love and lose again that’s
the sum of our existence those are the rules of engagement the nature of the game that’s how the courageous love as
lions among lambs in the pastures of eternity in a story without end
15 November 2023
modern babylonians
meanwhile… …at your local shop ‘n’ save the precepts of scientific management churn out well adjusted slaves they have chosen between conformity and freedom they are willing to be managed each has had their price I’ve been damaged and discouraged but I’m not crazy enough to join them I dressed like them talked like them and even ate like them but I could not think like them I can’t be moulded to society’s requirements I needed new horizons and ever greater highs so cut me some slack coz crazy amounts of spoon robbed me of my consumer status and left me on my backside you can sometimes buck the system but not the dark forces fear is the coinage of modern babylonians fear is the quirt that keeps the herd in check
5 November 2023
road kill
it was hard to tell what it had been just a pool of blood and gore plastered to the side of the road another failed crossing? or perhaps a suicide? success or failure are often hard to divine is that my destiny? it seems pretty bleak that’s the stuff I’m made of animated flesh and bone spilled and spoiled all dreams and aspirations flattened by a truck
I’m stumbling from crisis to crisis with no clear outcome in sight but I’m not defined by my problems I rise against the wind and swim against the tide I rail against my fate I will not be denied through inertia or assuaged by momentary pleasures I refuse to be another sudden impact I want to leave something more than a stain in the road behind
27 October 2023
plastic gods
more than sometimes
during a powerful lunar phase
I get the spiritual impulse to
make my own bible and live by its
verses to blow my own trumpet till the walls come tumbling down I am alive and always changing the crown of creation adorns my brow I’m truly living the human experience the high of all highs the most holy of holies the
revelation of incarnation has lit me
up a beacon of truth in the fog of ignorance
I’m getting into the world
and everything in it riding the waves of existence through
the ever expanding now where everything ever imagined is real we create ourselves from that mosaic of fancy but we’ve evolved into plastic gods makers and breakers of private worlds each
is imperfectly cast in their own distorted image we are
the graven idols in the temples of babylon
the worship of self is the
religion of hubris and hubris precedes disgrace sure as the ebb and flow of every lunar phase
solipsist
it was written in the stars that we were doomed from day one life has called the tune and beckons us to dance the universe will unfold as we always knew it would no one can change the past we can’t even change the future I curry favours in the here and now planting seeds in adjacent lots I glimmed for a moment there and exercised the will to fancy myself something special at the centre of the whole enchilada but I was lonely in the universal and I wondered has our god deserted us? or were we always all alone?
17 February 2021
heroes
they
say a hero is partially courageous but mostly foolish that maybe a hero is just a regular guy who made an honest mistake a guy who wants to run like everybody
else but doesn’t
what’s he afraid of do you think?
maybe there are no heroes maybe
we are all driven by fear maybe we’re just a
pack of dogs marking
our territories with piss perhaps the real
heroes know this because
they’ve been paying attention and they know that
this life just a childish game
just
who is and who isn’t a hero? that would depend
who’s side you are on one
man’s hero is another man’s villain
we are all heroes in our own minds
few
ever see themselves as villainous
until it’s too late and the villainy is done
for some a hero is someone
willing to die for a cause maybe heroism isn’t about dying for something but living for something in truth the common notion of heroism is
a fiction an entertainment our prisons are full of heroes but nobody cares about them
I’m
told there is a hero within each of us
but there are more tyrants than heroes within us I pity anyone who needs a hero because heroes are thin on the ground villainy is much more common you can always count on villains to show
up on time
*Image: ‘The Death Of Achilles’ Corfu, Greece
16 February 2021
society
they tell us man was made in the image of his creator but society was forged in the
image of the beast I’ll
have no truck with society society is a killer driven by hatred and greed we gave power to
our demons and we’ll never get it back from inside the prison of society
nothing ever changes within existent reality it
will take a brand new paradigm to
really shake things loose to keep your hands clean you must live outside society you
cannot claim your freedom while on your bended knees
we’ve ignored the potential of love to raise us above
savagery we’ve embraced a
machine that celebrates conformity and crushes individuality in this bloody system there’s
little room for sentiment we define our cultural history as a record of atrocities
I once believed that to be human was
our highest attainment now I
see that to claim our humanity is to admit that we are monsters I reject the
callous mechanism we call society I
never belonged to society and it never belonged to me
15 February 2021
Janus
stem your tears and dry your eyes they are
trying to steal your name they want to modify your temperament to make
you feel ashamed you ain’t been cutting the mustard at the
image factory
and they can delete your profile
any
time they choose
get a hold of your sunshine learn how to
play the game
the benefits are obvious there is no other way don’t be yesterday’s hero when you
could eat this whole world raw don’t tell them you’re a nobody they
pegged you for a star just make your ego porous and try
to enjoy the ride
you’ll need two faces now
one for them and one for you be careful who you trust with yours because some
would sell you out they’ll imitate your action even
your mistakes
they’ve got no imagination and no creative juice they have to feed off you you’re
the only show in town
try not to worry too much no-one sees your pain they want you to be glamorous and maybe just a little flawed that way you make good copy when they nail you to the cross they say the greater the exposure the deeper runs the doubt don’t bend yourself all out of shape trying to work it out
1 February 2021
the villain
I hear that you never tire of spreading
the bad news and I’ll
happily play your villain on any day you
choose I heard what you’ve
been saying and some of it is true but I never put down anyone in the cowardly way you do
I’ve nearly always done just what I wanted to while you’ve relied on others to tell you what to do of course I have regrets but they are so very few I’ve lived to be free that was never true of you
you are so deeply pious but you haven’t got a clue and I refuse to be consigned to live the way you do we were once good friends but you possessed a jealous heart you wanted what I had and that’s why we had to part
you’ve been casting stones but always from afar you
know deep in your bones that’s the kind
of man you are you talk behind my back but never to my face is
it courage that you lack? or just any
sense of grace?
29 January 2021
big dog
he looked like a big dog
he barked
like a big dog
I was
suitably unimpressed
I’d
forgotten to be afraid
somewhere
along the line
I had shed that
fear
and the air
of casual violence
that once
served to mask it
strange how
we forget our chains
only to
recall their chaffing
in the occasional
moment
of ritual
confrontation
how could I
ever have dismissed
the memory
of bondage
and a
lifetime of enslavement
to my petty tyranny?
9 November 2020
emperor of dystopia
disinfect me a postcard issue me a missive I can’t reach you on this line and I have no means of transportation venomous snipers nest in my shoes but I have other shoes and sometimes I walk and sometimes I crawl and sometimes I don’t do anything at all I’m not elastic enough for a life in limbo treading water dreading time I’m cutting out for an alternative reality where I’m the emperor of dystopia the last living giant on a planet filled with pygmies our world is dying now please help us knit a new one before we run out of wool