messiah

I’m once more in the wilderness    after forty days and nights of moral turpitude    have left me both directionless   and very far from home    this is a country with no name    where the ruler is despair   and mercy is unknown    

I want to write about it     though my thinking is as bent    as my twisted mind demands   so in the end I just let it rip   imperfect as it is   one word follows another  a train of laden mules    climbing a mountain slope   and failing at each step

there's a beast that feeds on thought    deep within my gut   his filthy menacing maw   lurks behind my grimaced smile   his powerful bulldog jaws     seize my puny words   to render them in fractured dismembered portions    completely devoid of meaning    and lacking taste or form   

my body aches in ways   that Torquemada would approve   my insides have been riven    into soiled and tattered rags    I’ve been scourged and bloodied   for a station on the cross     this is my Golgotha    my season of disgust

I seem to have contracted   a spiritual disease   and my head has been adorned    with a crooked crown of thorns   I’m broken pierced and pinioned   to a stinking mandrake root     I'm a voodoo doll   a pin cushion   the child of countless woes   

my agonies rage right through me   as clouds of poisoned gas    all hope of resurrection   has long since been abandoned   my thoughts are totally inchoate   lacking any rhyme or reason    and yet somehow I endure    for even though I’m naked     in the ravening of my soul    I am still a man     and I am not alone

robber

 

I ain’t no robber     I don’t steal because I’m greedy       I only take what was due me      sometimes I helped myself to a  little gravy     payment for my patience     coz I got dreams to deliver      and I have needs       dirty horrible needs     this life is hard      but I know no better     and I guess I feel just fine

so when plod makes enquires       (and I know they eventually will)     simply tell ‘em the truth       I didn’t need your love      I needed an alibi        tell ‘em I been good     but only as good as I had to be       I never toiled a day in my life        some say that I’m lazy      but I maintain I’m free 

castaway

my rehabilitation has been a calamitous success     I’m straight     and that’s great  but my social appendages have withered      and I lost my appetite for people     (present company excepted)    I don’t need rescued     I am where I am      unacceptably sedentary      but not lost for words

I’m the soul survivor of countless indiscretions     and author of miseries far too dank to mention        so here I am       stranded in the wilderness  of interpersonal indifference         I’m writing again - for what it’s worth        and stashing messages in bottles      their purpose remains unclear      I might reread them later       I’m not sure I really care

 

Viva Babylon!

 

I’ve been incubating a brand new monster      and I have loved him dearly       since he was first conceived     in the eye of a solar storm       when my darkness exploded with a cosmic boom       was that the voice of God?      or the lightning flash of consciousness?      whatever it was    I can no longer live in the shadow of my former being        this world is a pressure cooker     you have to embrace that concept    Viva Babylon!      the crucible of reinvention       and mother of all whores       

failing

 

better men than I      have dissolved in liquid night     while others have leaped to their deaths    because their buildings were on fire      my best friend choked on pills     he was trying to blot out the sun       he wasn’t broken      he had no dark and terrible secrets        he just got careless one day      and that’s all it takes        for an accidental murder      just cop a few pills      washed down with hard liquor

this is a world of actors      a theatre of distractions       one day I went off script      people called me crazy       maybe I was crazy       perhaps you have to be crazy      to survive in this world      I rehearsed my death        though my heart wasn’t in it        but I still got the scars      that betray my intentions      I tried to escape     and I failed at failing      what that says about me      I’m in no place to tell

resurrectionist

 

yesterday’s blues     are a kick in the bollocks     I try to avoid them     but they still burn me down      they poisoned my blood    with a dubious concoction    they said it was an accident      I say it was foolishness      but we all agree something went wrong        because I died on the pillow     while my mind birthed a nightmare        I was walking in my sleep     casting heavy shadows        but I could not escape       they’d locked all the doors

I really can’t recall       everything that happened     but hallucinatory fragments coalesce in horror     a gory exhumation        the dead and near dead rising    I conversed with demons who seemed familiar and fluid    and feasted with ghosts who once were friends of mine       it’s a reoccurring dream      an affliction of memory    I’ve tasted my death and it plays on my mind 

blooded

 

I fought  hard and long     I’m due my day of rest       coz I lived through my darkest hour    and I’m the stronger for it       I once had the curse      I had it something chronic     I developed me some moves     which were totally suicidal        I made an awful mess of things    and don’t expect to be forgiven     but it doesn’t really matter now    I’m just grateful for the experience        it’s been an education       I can move on with my life now      bloody nose and all

 

lithium

just a little salt for my wounds       an unction for my mind     there is music inside me      but I can’t name the song        I’m in remission, and that’s a blessing      but it’s harder to write, and that’s ironic        I’m not complaining      don’t get me wrong      coz I was a madman      who once swallowed lightning       I suffered in wars no sane man would fight       I don’t miss the conflict     but I miss the inspiration        I still have that hunger       I still want to write

sobriety

 

ten thousand miles straight     without so much as a taste       I’m parched      got the thirst on something chronic     what about one more hit for posterity?       let’s celebrate my sobriety with a cup of god’s own remedy…  

my fragile remission hangs in the balance       I’m excavating the roots of childhood trauma    that’s not my only story     but it’s the one that hurts the most        I took twelve steps and faltered      I know no higher power       the world now seems so heavy      my heart cries out for ease       but I’m determined to stay sober     no matter what it takes

demonic

 

coming out of hospital      I suffered a century of frenzied depression      where every failure  and humiliation was played back to me on an endless loop of shame        what caused this horror show?     -  my shrink has been barking up the wrong tree here -  because it was parasitic beings    demonic possession       that’s what was wrong with me      I needed an exorcism     holy magic to wash my blood clean      a ritual sacrifice      something symbolic       a virgin whore     a calf of gold     or something of similar dimensions     instead they beat me with psychiatric clubs

with certain forms of demonic infestation     there is a crazy person who despises the human race and it’s illusions     he longs to trample them into the blood stained earth      when you hear of human atrocity     think of demonic beings      sick, depraved beings      with eyes filled with blood      and mouths full of cancer      in a world of anger and hatred    demons are the masters       they play with idle hands      and make war within tortured minds

suckers

I was reading my tea leaves when my arse hit the fan        maybe I’m not who I seem to be     outwardly I’m sanguine     but inside I’m nourishing ancient grudges     my past is a poisoned river     but what’s done is done     my tears will not erase my exploits    I stopped crying a long time ago     when I realized that all lives are built on lies    some are harmless      others brutal     I have told lies that were fucking biblical      and frankly preposterous    but people believed them       Christ, I believed them too      the world is full of suckers    who never catch a break      I’m the biggest sucker of them all    I contrived to fool myself

soul sickness

 

christ, I hate the daily grind     the bravest thing I do is live every day      I tried to evade it    I even tried suicide   but in my attempts to escape pain I was only creating more pain     and not just for me     I shared my pain    it’s communicable that way    I think too much     it’s a disease    thinking too much      I’m coming down hard again     I have a bad case of the bends      I’m trapped again  in limbo    snared by the pain in my mind   

I’ve been trifling with psychiatrists    they’re a bit like lovers     first they fuck with your head       then they break your heart    because there is no fucking cure     mental illness is an immense organism dedicated to fucking up the entire human project      I’d rather have anything wrong with my body     if I could just be right in my head      how can an illness be mental?     I got soul sickness      that’s what I’ve got      I got soul sickness    and I’m fading away fast

psycho ward

 I’m a seasoned performer   I’ve played this gig before    the mind jarring   hallucinations      the confusion of signs and significance    all new oblique angles and novel geometries      vast oceans of awkward instance    it’s a total mindfuck acid burn   but I’ll keep my head down     go by the numbers      ‘til I’m discharged and I can go home

going home?    I thought I was      they won’t let me leave     they say my blood is toxic and I’m in the danger zone     coz someone mixed my meds up and dealt me a lethal dose     now I’m scared like never before      it all seems real     of course it does     I suspect it is    but I won’t let on    I’ll just dummy up tight     least said, soonest mended    

they tubed me up   and leeched my blood    pending the obligatory psychiatric interrogation      when they issued me with papers    and stuck me here in the psycho ward    where they can better observe my exploits    my prognosis still looks scary    the devil is at the door    the main event this moment    is the battle for my soul     

lightning struck

 

good morning suckers       and how is your head today?     me, I’ve no grounds for complaint      flashbacks not withstanding     this remission business is a blast    I think I found my balance       the mundane seems less ordinary        I got my music        got my books       got no money       what else is new?      I no longer hear the thunder       I am not lightning struck       I don’t suffer the manic maelstrom      and I don’t give a fuck

sickened

 

I’m trying to make sense of my pain       does that mean I’m crazy?     should I have turned the other cheek?        dare I demand recompense?     I was suddenly swiped by a bus    my barely human remains     slickened the street      my brain dashed on the pavement        leaking out my dreams

sick thoughts can devour a body     I’m crawling through shadows     I need a little sunlight     maybe I’ll take a walk      perhaps I’ll just rot here in my room     don’t take me to the hospital      I have friends there who won’t seek remedies       they got a bag with my name on it   

don’t mind me      I am just a fool       lost in the vacuum of the universe       mine is the madness of spirit     that leaps into the abyss       without a single care in the world       I fell and kept on falling     there’s no centre to my existence     I’m a leper      and an outcast      I may have lost my bearings      but I might be heading home

Casanova

 

maybe I have a pornographic mindset     perhaps just a lonely heart      I am my own master     and I have tasted freedom      I’ve been told I was greedy       but how much is too much?      how much is too little?      I think I’ve had my share      some say that’s quite enough       but let me tell you      it can never be enough      things were different for me       you have to allow for that      I was doing my favourite thing     and paying dearly for the pleasure     for I embraced the world      and every sinner in it

madness

 

the god we made is crazy      but everybody’s  crazy     you have to be fucking crazy    to live in this crazy world

I’m not the first to realize  that I’m a little crazy      my doctors say it’s normal      given the circumstances     they said a little poison would cure me of my ills     so they dosed me up on lithium        and locked me up in a hospital      until I learned to play nice

and you dear reader      do you recognize your madness?     do you let it shine before you?      or does it drag you down?      the symptoms after all     are part of human nature    so embrace your inner lunatic    and give your madness life    

 

incognito

 

I identify as human      but ’ll admit to bogus credentials     mine is an assumed identity     I’m really not the man that I appear to be      my history is fiction      I lack a legitimate story     on which to  base a life

my whole façade is plastic     it takes on many forms      it conceals some dreadful truths       I do my best to hide       I’m a divided man      with all the heartache that implies     there are  wars I wage in secret        that cannot be described

treatment

 

it was bad news all round     I’d been punished for my crimes      they put me in the hospital     to sanitize my mind    it felt like I’d been damned    condemned to a living hell      it altered my reality      though no one else could tell    it was a sorrowful dark experience     as ugly as it gets     I’m so I’m grateful for the treatment        but I haven’t recovered yet …

Pagliacci

 

I have played the clown     most of my adult life      my humour concealed my pain     though sometimes I would weep    when laughter let me down     I’ve been careful with my mask      it’s been no mask at all     I’ve been up     I’ve been down     my heart has done the rounds      but I learned through indiscretion      to never wear a frown     I’m not a clever man     but I do the best I can     I’m told god grants fools wisdom        when there’s no one else around