bonfire

 you keep heaping up grievances       don’t you love me no more?      I try not to be offended     there’s no point to it      no one pulls my strings      I already cut them     I didn’t ask to be you       and I won’t dance to that tune      the sun speaks my name     I don’t need love letters       I feel her warmth when I touch the sky      but I don’t feel yours        not in the flesh     where it counts    your love is dead     from unnatural causes      you squeezed your stones until they bled        and made your compact        with some ordinary devil      he bought your lunch    so you feel like you owe him     but I wasn’t there     and I’m not bound       by promises you can’t keep        heavenly tides     turn and return      morning through to night       the seasons tread those waters      and so do I      it’s our autumn now     you can gather my leaves      and make a nice bonfire        you won’t see me again       but you can keep my memorial ashes      if you so desire

numbers

 I saw my numbers      etched on someone else’s wall     I don’t know what that means     I don’t suppose it matters       love is a foreign country      a stranger on the bus      it don’t come round here no more     it went out with the wind      and the trees     and my mother’s bones      it whispers soft      it whispers low       but it don’t remember my name       out here in the open      bleached by the summer sun       there’s no need for names        total exposure       the duality of nature    a biological exchange     who lives will see       it doesn’t matter any more

ten thousand miles

 I’m sick of life in the hobo jungle       I’ll have to concoct an escape    I’ve marshalled my resources      my charms and brittle toys       but nothing’s ever real     so I’ll keep my place       wait for my moment          you don’t need an excuse to be poor      you don’t need a uniform to fight in the war         but you need a little faith    to help you through the night     it’s a long way from cleaning windows       but it’s hardly sunny side up       I’m like you      I have lived in the odd moment     and I remember what you said      in your little voice      you said     “I think I’ve had enough, so thank you and good luck”       I didn’t require your ministrations       I expected no gratitude for mine       but I could have used your hand      these last ten thousand miles

poor cow

 

I was unaware of her darker dimensions    she’d been caught in the gaslight    but she wasn’t crazy    she was just weary       she made it easy for me to cross her killing floor    and told me with some certainty    that we had met before    we  coupled in a frenzy    but in completely different zones

in the languorous haze    of the afternoon sun    I stared at her breasts    heaving as she drew each labouring breath beneath me     and I drove home my seed      there amidst the tall grass     and I hated her then     I loathed her    as I wanted her    the flies surrounded     her corpulent flesh     I saw her dead in her rictus gaping     and the fecund detritus of her lust     and I knew it was over    before it had ever begun

listen to the Creature EP

 

sharks

she spoke red     it’s a very old trick    but it gets your attention     like a loaded gun      but whatever she said    I paid  no mind     it didn’t mean nothing     she was  just having fun      I’m the same     when it gets down to it     and it gets down to it     often enough

you have to dig deep    if you’re gonna crash out    but you got to stay sharp    when you slip your collar   you must forge your papers    and murder the past   we were both killers     honed to perfection    too well matched    to do no harm

they tell me baby sharks    eat their siblings    I know people     who are worse than that    they think they are special    because they feel no fear    that’s completely reflexive     but it sets them apart      I’ve  been bitten more than once      but she bit deepest       she could still take a piece        whenever she wants

hear the Creature EP

betrayal

teach me how cruel you are    cruel and false   you have wounded my heart    and those wounds last a lifetime   I know more than I want to know   I know you only lied   to protect me from the truth    you were only thinking of me   and never of yourself   what sacrifices you’ve made     all in the name of love   what a tangled web you’ve woven     just for lucky old me    

it’s all a big mistake you say    but the big mistake was mine    I never should have trusted you    I don’t even trust myself    I’ve shit on almost everyone who ever trusted me    and I usually told myself I was doing it for love

it’s hard to tell who really has your back   some have it just long enough to park a blade   but I shouldn’t be humiliated    or angered by that    betrayal is the inevitable consequence of trust       

I guess I can forgive   but I know I can’t forget    we’re still broken baby     I think we murdered love   the bed we shared is now a tomb   the faint edge of depression    blurs into constellations of hopelessness   and the tentative hopes  we wound between our sheets   flee the scrutiny of daylight       there’s nothing left to say     so I’ll just leave now     before the sun arrives      to confiscate what little dignity     is afforded us in our silence

listen to the Creature EP

Déjà vu (Revisited)

was it animal waves

or the scent of blood

that baited the trap

that captured us?

we had ringside seats

but were with the gods

ours were edgy vices

those stolen moments

were crimes of passion

but you were seamless

in your auxiliary actions

I figured this was not

your fist time around

but had a queasy déjà vu

that vertigo of the libido

when you regurgitated

the standard disclaimers

and the magic was all gone

your words were so familiar

I could almost sing along

because I recalled the singer

who used to sing that song

Everybody Wants To Steal My High

they tried to pin me down

but I had the perfect alibi

they had a new prescription

they wanted me to try

they didn’t say as much

but they were after my high

they tried to box me in

with some misbegotten lie

woven with innuendo

and I knew the reason why

they said they were my friends

but they wanted to steal my high

they gave me words to drown in

words that were clever and sly

they were trying to sell me

some shit I could not buy

but I would keep my head

they would not take my high

.

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

.

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?

 

 

Ripples

those stones
we so carelessly cast
birthed ripples
of unforeseen dimensions
now there’s a tsunami of shit
about to engulf you and I
and we shall reap more
than we ever sowed
in yet another dismal harvest
.
our practiced tongues
wove convenient fictions
from little grey lies
which we honed into truths
sharp as switch blades
I heard what you said
your words were ugly
I had words of my own in mind
but they escape me now
perhaps my conscience is cloudy
how about yours?
.

Running Away

Had to bounce
Had no alternative
That place was my grave
The end of the road
You may think me a coward
Be that as it may
But I was running towards
Not running away
.

Dirty Feet

me and my dirty feet do well enough
our stony egress from domestic strife
was sanctioned by our physician
and relayed by express riders
across the kitchen table
in a flourish of insult and injury
but we made good with smiles
and the enduring trace elements
of lithium and freshly squeezed irony
this was a bitter lunch, a scant repast
that cost too much
.

Spots

I turned a new leaf
shed my skin
sloughed of my previous
and wiped the slate clean
the new and shiny
appeals to my ego
worldly still, but clean
sleek and natural
in mint condition
without form
over distance
without the reproach
of my erstwhile peers
I discarded the things
that brought me only sorrow
but I just can’t forget
what’s foremost in my thoughts
that I’m still a fuckin’ leopard
even though I changed my spots
.

Accidental

it could happen   to anyone   at any time   but it should never   have happened here   not to me   and not to you   no, not to us   alone amongst smiling enemies   we’ll come to ourselves   on the rebound   praise the love sacrificial    eat our prayer books   and blot our jotters   with rapacious jealousy   but we’ll see it out    from the beginning   to the very end   all things being square   and on the level    in that moment    we’ll see the truth    that what should happen   will eventually happen   just like I said it could   just like you knew it would