a smattering of raindrops pepper my window panes their ragged trails are bleached by another thorazine moon a thousand dark misgivings are nesting in my brain a swarm of ravenous locusts are wheeling on the wing there’s space beneath the blankets I’m slipping through again strange fruit and poplar trees I’ve seen this place before I’m talking to some woman I sense that she’s a friend I seem to know her face but can’t recall her name the local boys are rowdy on tonic wine and beer I’m peeling away my skin it’s a reptile house in here I can hardly breathe I’m running out of air someone is calling my name but I don’t seem to care I’m all fucked up again a little worse for wear is what’s inside leaking out? is what’s outside crashing in? I tore these words from the paper and pasted them into the void it’s a menagerie of countersigns a procession of disjointed images that could signify anything but most likely don’t it’s the dark side of morning and no one gives a shit most of us are sleeping perhaps I’m sleeping too maybe this is a dream I hope it is a dream cause if this is just a dream I could make an escape I could dial myself a ride and terraplane away
28 February 2024
15 February 2024
fraternity
after forty days and nights I’ve come in from the wilderness to make my bed where the wild things sleep naked and alone but I can bear the load coz in my story I am free but makes me so certain? what does freedom mean to me? well, I’m not free enough and I’m not satisfied where’s the peace of mind I was guaranteed when I cut the cords that bind? I cultivated a little space on the edge of society coz I’ve lost faith in people as they’ve lost track of me I’m something of a misanthrope it cannot be denied it was learn to love my neighbour or find a place to hide
10 February 2024
Las Vegas
my stones ache in the morning but that’s par for the course I’m doing jack shit and I almost regret it coz you can’t retrieve lost time and that don’t buy no sleep I could use some sleep I’ve been dredging the low end for forty days and nights I could tell it like it is but I would sound insane I bet my wages on a lightning strike but I struck out once again I’m eating crow for breakfast but this is chicken town I need to find a new game before the landlord comes around so I’m heading to Las Vegas to get my business fixed pump me a few while I wait for the bus this old dog is learning new tricks
9 February 2024
tyrannised
I guess I’ll tend to my own troubles and you can tend to yours don’t talk to me about feelings I don’t want to talk about my feelings I want to scream and shout about my feelings I want to roll them all up into one vicious ball and ram it down your throat so you can scream about it too we could scream our skeletons loose we could scream ourselves empty we could scream until we are free
your sympathy offends me I’ll have none of that I’m pinned up on a meat hook but I’ll suffer no pity from acquiescent sheep I’d
rather play the devil than earn a
place in heaven I’d like to burn it
down and erase it from my heart I’ve been tyrannised with love for more than long enough I’m
not asking for forgiveness I’m just
not ready yet I don’t want to be blessed if I must be content
6 February 2024
bipolar distemper
the blunt edge of depression rolls across my portion of the sky it’s gonna rain again nobody can gauge when or why somebody help me I’m coming undone we all have secret sorrows I’ve had enough of mine I woke up into a nightmare I might never sleep again some have wounds that do not show but they bleed they bleed from the soul I’m not helpless – I’m hopeless they call it suicidal ideation my life is a burning building I may have to jump it’s burn or dive there is a terror beyond falling the choices here are stark
bipolar distemper is a side effect of living and living is a disease with one
cure and one cure alone I
won’t cry in public I won’t rend my
clothes I’ll weep on the
inside I’ll weep from my soul there’s no comfort to be had no magic pills my soul carries more scars than living tissue this is not sadness sadness will pass like the common
cold this is cancer a cancer of the soul I feel so ashamed to carry this burden I’ve done something wrong something so huge I can’t even comprehend it the devil has hold of my soul and from where I sit now he’s welcome to it
22 January 2024
electrical therapy
I need a bigger brain none of this shit makes sense I want a long lie down in the cool room on virgin sheets over by the window where I can see the street because something is going wrong somewhere and I’m afraid it’s local there’s more misery in this neighbourhood than can be quantified we’re alive and that’s the problem and it’s quite a problem but it’s nobody’s fault
the living have troubles
that span all dimensions
electrical therapy might see them sorted a zap to the brainpan could do some good it’s said to work wonders for all mental maladies god knows it changed my motivations they
taught me to think straight with
little blasts of lightning they
lit the path to some near nirvana and saw me whole but not quite holy am I
the bad guy now? how does that work?
I cut a solitary figure in this situation but I don’t need a rainy day woman to come and make my bed clean my clothes or serve my daily bread don’t get me wrong I
don’t want to be alone I just need a friend to talk to when I’m stoned I’m
loaded with electrical potential some find that strange they might think I’m mental but I know who I am and that’s pivotal to my way of thinking
21 January 2024
mercy
I can’t complain though I’ve seen better days today was stillborn dead on arrival dismal as an infant’s funeral bleak as a winter in hell I don’t seem to mind there’s no evil portioned to me I haven’t witnessed before I have always believed that whatever comes my way for good or ill I must have earned it so I will own it quietly en sotto voce I don’t believe in drama or the daily toil and trouble I believe in something spiritual manna spilled from heaven where I trust I’m not forgotten because I still hope for mercy in the kingdom yet to come
19 January 2024
bed
I will not take to my bed no, I will not take to my bed I’m sick and tired and I need to sleep but I will not take to my bed the day is dark and sorrowful and my heart has turned to lead I could lie in for a day or two but I will not take to my bed the world has me by the throat I wish that I was dead I’m ready to jack it all in but I will not take to my bed
17 January 2024
baby buddha
I’m being ground down by the tyrant within my mind is an elegant trap a fractal of coloured lenses painting my emotions various shades of sodom I can’t go on living like this but what else do I know? I have to move and make my way by moving somehow arriving and departing constantly shifting until I find some direction that feels like I’m heading somewhere I ought get into this right into the heart of this you kindled a flame in me now watch me burn art colours life so paint me red paint me gold paint me anything at all I’m losing my distinctions it all blurs into nothing and nothing becomes me like nothing at all
14 January 2024
entombed
habit is a killer a slow insidious killer they say the only constant is change and that a change is as good as a rest but I don’t want to change and I don’t need to rest there is no pillow for my head I’ll take my ease in death
I’m told I must move on
but I don’t want to move on
I’m settled here through
entropy through denial through fait accompli I’m consigned to my fate and I’m set too fast to change
I believe I don’t believe beliefs are for suckers beautiful and courageous suckers if I had a little faith I’d spend it in a tavern I have little use for faith I’ll stick with dismal reason and the bitter draught of cynicism I heard this joke before and I no longer laugh
I’m told I must find myself but I don’t want to find myself I want to lose myself in uncharted seasons let
me be forgotten over time lost and never
brought to mind let me return to
nothing deaf and mute and blind
11 January 2024
silver surfer
modern life is mostly gossip I remember the good things at least I think I do all I can explain with words I drown beneath the significance of all these words I liked life well enough but I never understood it are there words for that? never thought I’d find the appropriate mask because believe me all accounts are fictional you can’t be too emotional about it emotions are all we have when you get down to it and we get down to it often enough
I have no designated function I‘m the ghost of failed endeavours but I feel safer now with emotional parking and appropriate buffer zones my colours and tones inverted I cast a slender shadow across the now and then I’ve
earned my seclusion but a happy
isolation would be just another
cage so just look at me now not a stitch to wear but I go dancing just the same the world is still young it’s me who has changed I
would decline the invitation but I
expect that I’m expected and I’ll
show up just the same
2 November 2023
icarus (grounded)
not all birds winter in the south some of us are flightless moribund and exhausted some of us are accidents car crash victims veterans of unhappy wars long since wounded and purple hearted they say having flown you’ll forever walk the street with your eyes on the sky for there you have been and long to return not to reap or sow but to soar without constraint beyond imagination
I have wounds hidden scars but
all my surfaces such as they
are present spotlessly clean at least to the naked eye but I’m filthy by decent human standards and my wings of wax drenched in lust fucked up and sorry have failed me in the hour of my disillusionment forever fixed in space in the moment of crashing I am leaden now and planted in the soil of my woeful discontent
26 October 2023
autumn leaves
buried under autumn leaves the shadows of summer feed the soil winter did not cheat them of life it laid them down in silent pastures to gift them rebirth in future days I am wounded now at least in spirit I don’t know how or why the winter has kissed my lips the cold has touched my heart but I still know how to love and I’ll be coming back so bury me in rotting leaves rest me now for future days just don’t lose my number lover wait for me
10 February 2021
allow for shrinkage
roll the window
down a bit and let me breathe
there were many
miles to go before morning splayed her thin grey fingers over the land I rolled another joint just a
small one all I asked for was a little dab of fire to
light my way the road was
long without even a whisper of which
way was home perhaps
there was no way home just the road and
the memories
I went to see a man about a monkey and left her standing in the rain while I sipped warm tea with my doctor I couldn’t care less I was that kind of arsehole the kind that bleeds for sympathy when he’s dark from psychosis and suicidal ideation but blows smoke up your arse when he’s high I could be quite charming when I was high
I heard you got
married
yeah I got
married
what was she
thinking
I have no idea
it would never
last it never did I gave it two years before she worked it out they all worked it out eventually it was the secret that would not be concealed this
man had no soul I did not sell it or trade it for eternal youth riches fame
or power I didn’t gamble
it away in some diabolical game of chance I
didn’t even throw it away in a fit of pique no I simply turned around one day and noticed it
was gone like a missing shadow I had mislaid my soul and had no idea
where though I suspected I may have left it standing
out in the rain somewhere
she said she
liked the cut of my cliché suburban dilettante
with a splash of druggy mystique but she said
and here comes the wrecking ball you have no soul the girl with the raven eyes said I had no soul but of course I have a soul that’s where the pain lies she laid the boot in where it hurts right
in the ego started a
downward cycle spiralling beyond my control
any fool can draw blood with the carefully chosen
word most use
the scatter gun approach and just chuck them about till something sticks this was
different I felt she knew me that
she had seen inside of me and found me wanting
an embarrassed
silence was the precursor to deep despair
I have to report that I got very drunk I tried to drown my sorrows but my sorrows can swim the
flotsam of my life crowded my head with unhealthy vibrations my clockwork messaging service told of rude change in the either region either
get it straight or go home to sulk I have no home just a domicile somewhere to lie
down when lying down is called for somewhere I keep my junk in case
I need my junk
how banal how
very banal the common
place misery the self indulgent woe why should I care what some stranger says why did her words burn pathways of shame
into my mind it was a lucky guess that’s all she
couldn’t possibly know that I had no soul
I was sickened
of my self pity I was sickened of my life if I was a real
man I’d have a gun I’d
powder my nostrils with kif and royal jelly and bed every whore who gave me the
glad eye don’t ever let
me outta here I’m a serial disaster waiting to happen I’m cooking up some of that good shit and I’m gonna lay it on thick and
fearless I’ll puke on your lap if you feed me enough I always bite the hand that feeds it’s
expected of me it’s part of my shtick
I got a third
class education gleaned from the pages of stolen books I was a part time visionary and a cut price casanova but
the charm of show business has long since worn thin the antidote to glamour is working for a
living mind numbing boredom scoops your insides out and fills the spaces with
dust I’m not complaining
don’t get me wrong I get
high I get low repeat (ad infinitum) the crest of the
wave the laxative slump that
tremor deep in the gut has me distended and extended beyond human limitations I’m a regular chameleon a hybrid human a
spaced out chimera
is my face on
straight do I look faulty the phoney me the
painted smile of synthetic man the weight of
me the shape of me everything is fragmented and broken here in the marginal regions of sensory
deprivation words don’t come easy if
they come at all words are relayed by proxy here laid out in some secret cipher known to
no-one but understood by all there is no asylum here no
sanctuary and no sanctity there is room for one and one alone it’s
never an easy fit you have to allow for shrinkage of the soul
5 February 2021
section eight
I
slay the beast every morning and every fucking night but they don’t give me medals they just give me pills and send me on my way it’s a wild and torrid wind that blows through my skull and on any given day
of wonder and of peril there will be a fearful
storm I’ve had a lifetime of bastard storms and I demand a reprieve
and maybe stronger pills from the very top shelf
please I have forsaken a peaceful mind to make war with the beast
thinking of the life
I’ve led the desolation I’ve endured and the meagre mercy I’ve received I
feel weary I feel
heavy in my bones when
I brood on all of that and the way I sought nourishment with casual lovers and liquid fire and then those sorry times I was more beast than man when the
madness the sheer fucking frenzy fuelled by my boiling blood raging with pathos and fury would shame me to the core
I am truly tired of the burden I must bear I
could weep and sometimes do when my
heart simply cracks and my brain implodes and I am the most pathetic excuse for a man to ever shed his load but the sickness which afflicts my life does not define my soul
or rob me of my humanity would you dismiss me as a crazy man don’t you ever feel the same have
you never felt alone