zoochosis

I often drag the low end     as does anyone in bondage    but I’ll be exalted in heaven      when they read about me in the papers    so lend me your patience      coz right now I’m busy grinding out grievances     just another caged bird festering behind bars      a captive mistake in the world of injustice     

this cruel prison is an assault on my soul     a daily degradation of my higher being    I pace a cell full of creature comforts     where I waste and wither      day after day    I have to stifle the urge to attack my captors      and end my confinement       with a reckless dash for freedom     coz I have the ambition     to take everyone with me     and bring down the system      that keeps us all enslaved

killer

 everybody’s crazy for power     and power is all they need      me, I’ve got surplus energy    I got it coursing through my veins     I’m a mini hiroshima       I’m an improvised device     I’m going supernova    right in your fucking face     this a spontaneous detonation       I have become a killer      my love has turned to hate     I walk a murderous path      with violence in my hands      and anguish in my heart

live now pay later

 I’ve battened down my hatches      I’m now fully submerged        into my approximate cliché      am I drowning?     don’t tell me I’m drowning        is this hell?     please  tell me we’re not in hell     is this the niche that's carved me?      the petty bourgeois hero     of countless banal fantasies     panhandling for change in the world of broken actors        

 the inner eye never lies        and I can read my chart       I was high on the great deception      but I never had a dime       my life just flushed before me         sixty years a loser     and always arse deep in debt    but I’ve been informed by my sponsor    of a happy ever after    coz there ain’t no paupers in heaven       and there ain’t no tally men either       seems  like folk in heaven     are having a hell of a time

thermodynamics

 oh man   this is too easy    thermodynamics    natural flight     I’m just a snow flake     in a snow drift    just breezing along    at the speed of light    that’s me     skyjacking    eight miles high and climbing    there’s good news     spreading through my body     good news     unfolding in my mind    I’m turned on to something fantastic    but how long can I soar     before I must crash and burn?

13

the thirteenth unlucky apostle     was the bastard son     of a bastard son     and when the lights went out      he was nowhere to be found      no-one knows his name      but I’ve seen his face     I have his number     he’s a little less than holy       but more profound than some      he called himself a drinking man     and there was a certain kudos in that        among the poor and the derelict       and why not?      what else is there to do    here in the city of pain?      he was hard boiled and numb      his patter was filled with blood       but he sometimes pissed the bed     and he reeked of booze and fear     when asked about his friends      he could not recall their names       I think perhaps he lied     he may have been ashamed 

psychiatry

 they altered my prescription          to keep pace with the times       they want to pin me down       to sanitize my mind      but I can't get with that       I'd rather be considered crazy      than join the living dead       who serve their damned machinery            they've devised an inquisition        to cure me of insanity        they say that chemical infusions      will bring me to reality     but  they just want to steal my high       and send me to work in a factory

 

jailbird

I was hoping for a reprieve    it’s been a long time coming     but I since worked out     some new fundamentals     there is only one direction     and that direction is out     I’m a prisoner here        but do I work in a vacuum?     no, I’m just a thief with a library card      and if I didn’t do this     I’d do something reckless     I have a criminal heart      and  a liars disposition      so, there you have it      the story within the story     I’m an accomplice to deception      they might never let me go 

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

say uncle

 it’s in the nature of things      that I sometimes drag the low end     but I have to go with the flow      ride the waves of life   and if I fall behind   I must swim harder   hold fast to my dreams    coz if I gave up my dreams       what would I have left?   I can’t resign in protest      that would be defeat   another little death     what good is a life     that consists of a series of little deaths?

it’s a question of mindset    I say yes to the moment     capitulate with reality    let it work for me       not against me       at some point in my life     I learned to surrender to my path     it’s was a process of abandonment      not control     joy lies in learning to embrace the world as it is    so I yield to the tides    even when they break my heart   but I’m not drowning    I’m floating    waiting for the next great wave      to carry me away

 

serpent

 if my maker casts a shadow        does it ever fall on me?       am I a good man?    I don’t imagine so       where’s the reward for all my sins?          when are they going to kill me?       they broke me     more than once     but I’m stronger for the mending      will they kill me now?    haven’t I sinned enough?   they’ve killed the good and gentle      they killed the true and brave     why leave me to live?    I suppose they’ll get around to me       when they are good and ready

I’ll be waiting   one eye open    bolshy and defiant    sometimes living is an act of courage    but there’s some consolation to be found      in suicidal ideation      I must have thought about killing myself a thousand times     but I still cherish life     I must be crazy   I go on carrying a burden a sane man would gladly discard   mad    because I loathe my being     nevertheless I’ll hold fast to the serpent that devours    until it has eaten my heart away    no   I’m not death’s willing ally     I won’t relinquish my life so easily

hanging by a thread

you are never alone       if you have a friend     a friend with a thirst     and money to spend    it’s an ordinary madness       a tale of constant craving      but I’m under doctor’s orders      to stick close to the wagon     my kidneys need a break      and I require a change in society    so don’t come rolling by      unless you bring some dope     we’ll celebrate my sobriety      with a little smoke

dear reader     are you still there?    I hope you’ve been listening    I’d love to meet you one day    I could tell you stories       but you don’t want to hear them      personal histories are trapestries of posture and fabrication       right now in the moment    I’m swimming in circles       I’m not proud of being poor    but I’m not ashamed either     I’ll turn everything around     when my boat comes in   

I’m not averse to change     philosophically    I’ve had many hues and shades      though I always returned to grey    but I just forged a new prescription    I‘m intent on getting high    I’ll extinguish all self reflection      to let my mind float free     and make myself possible again    coz I’m hanging by a thread      but that’s a normal state for me       and they say that where you are        is where you’re meant to be     

broken brain

 the truth is in the feel      in the root and sinew      the truth is in my gut      twisting in my bowels       I don’t have to think      the truth is in my blood       I have it in my power      to light my own fire      so they tried to lock me up        and quench my flame       in the name of good order     they put a pox on my house      and softly dragged me under       they gave me poisonous pills        to alleviate their pain       but I took their tender ministrations       and flushed them down the crapper       they tell me hell is still half empty     its streets are paved with lies      they say the devil knows my name       which comes as no surprise     

alibi

I came and came      ten thousand times      into warmer embraces than these     through summer’s misadventures      and reckless indiscretions      I once had a life       or so it seemed to me     but you’ll never reach me now      these are my darker days       when I’m perfectly alone       you say the dark don’t bother you       but it sure as hell bothers  me      you can take the load off      but I’ll never be that free       I wish I was loaded       I wish I was high      I wish I was somebody else     coz that’s the perfect alibi 

I thought I won the war

 I have a hard time waking most mornings     I have a hard time sleeping most nights      but  I dreamed I won the war     and everything was alright    there was dancing in the streets      and I saw myself on TV     but that was sometime  yesterday      I only own today   

when I get low      I get high       they can’t take that away     what do you make of a man like me?   I got one foot on the platform     the other foot on the train      I thought I was me for a moment       but I’m somewhere back in time     I thought I won the war      but it was only in my mind      

looney tunes

 ever since the funny farm     my self doubt is crippling      it’s an existential funk       bipolar flavour      I’m just a mirror to a world rotten with mediocrity      I’m a television head     I’ve abolished the dark of night    and bleached my brain with photons      my thoughts are merely the regurgitation     of twenty four hour programming    I’ve lost all sense of the real      I’m a cartoon man      moulded in a cartoon world      I manage my appearance     and the illusion of individuality     but there’s no such thing as real       there are only layers of fiction      and that’s all folks      that’s all she wrote     

nobody

 I won’t make a difference in your life     I won’t make a difference in mine    I have no power of attorney      no higher authority       the world will turn without me in it      I have lived as other men lived       I’ll die as they have died before me       without meaning      without purpose     directionless, and ideology free      life is an abattoir    no-one escapes the jaws of hell       I tried to build a heaven    in the void of existence      all I got were horrors     and imprisonment in solitary confinement

I can breathe     is that a sign of life?      I have the classic zombie profile    shambolic and loathsome    it doesn’t really matter       on a cosmic scale - nothing ever matters      I have wrestled with god and lost     there’s nothing left to try     I’m a machine       a machine of flesh and blood       my rage was pointless      my prayers misdirected       the universe is cold and relentless       yes, I’ve been swimming with sharks again       it’s risky, but I have no choice      they won’t leave me alone

 

I don’t always do as I’m told

 all truth is relative      all judgements subjective      nothing’s as concrete     as you’re led to believe       history is a lie      and so are you       but it’s too late now      to sing that song      I had my special k for breakfast     and fell down a rabbit hole     all the world’s tired old clichés      are gnawing on my bones      I stand accused      of stacking the deck       and playing by my own rules     but I don’t care      how far I go       as long as I get my jelly roll       I’m talking now as a friend       who understands the violence that breeds conformity       I have to stay real with myself     I don’t always do as I’m told

rehabilitation

 they sent a man from the council        to survey my state of being      he condemned the building       before he crushed my expectations         and flushed them down the crapper      he has a place in the country     said I could get my head right there      he promised me the good life      as he understood it      in supported living    fucking do gooder       has me on his list     but I won’t move an inch    I’ve embraced self improvement     I’m seeing beneficial angles     there might just be a score     in this rehabilitation racket

ascension

 long about midnight      a certain time ago      someone spiked my tea      before they rifled through my drawers       may long standing repercussions     settle on their bones      he who laughs last…     well, let’s just wait and see…       I’m too cool to care    coz my head is full of stars      I’m only a poor boy with a bloody hammer      I get high       I get low     the symptoms are axiomatic    they’re no problem at all    it would take more than a lethal dose    to silence this fat mouth            

brother, you gave me a mountain     but I climbed it    what’s that the image of?       men heaving over mountains?   or drowning in their shadows?     a man needs a mountain      like a bullet needs a gun     a mountain’s a load for one back     but I’m drawn to the weight of it     like a moth on a fatal trajectory    simply coz it’s there     coz it’s in my path    I’m just a poor boy with a bloody hammer     I survived the assassin’s cup      and occasional subsequent avalanches      but I’ve been to the top of the mountain      and I have seen the world        

 

problems

 I’m no slave to silence      I have the words     but I don’t use them all      you said I had a great face    the kind that’s been lived in        well it is      lived in  that is    died in too     but that’s another story       you said I was gifted      but that’s just a lie     I’m experienced      that’s what you bought      no social experiment     you bought a man      a man of flesh and blood     I fought the law     but I never did no time    they caged me in a hospital     they said I’d lost my mind       but minds are ten a penny     they’re not so hard to find     I’ve had problems      we’ve all had problems      but I used my imagination     to finally cut loose     what on earth did you do    when hard times came around?