section eight

I don’t make the rules    I don’t even follow them   perhaps that’s where I went wrong  some have called me crazy   but that’s open to debate   when they opened up my head   to take a peek inside    they found I was haunted   by a demon of conscience   and was inked bloody with the stains  of unforgiveable depravities    but you never know what secrets lurk   beneath the surface of a man’s alleged insanity    believe me when I tell you   everybody is crazy   but most just don’t realise it  

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

stones

 now is the time for gathering stones     slay a tyrant or two in the name of freedom      cracked skulls and broken bones   are the price we pay    for disobedience     but in this black economy     only troubles are free

my heart is emptied out      my hands are loaded with bricks      there’s  riot going on inside my head     a revolution on my doorstep      someone fetch a doctor     I’m haemorrhaging violent potential

maybe I’m sick from being locked in       or crazy resentful of being shut out     I need a lover to paint my garlands blue    this ring of roses is slowly choking me      so come share my cup     it could be our last     we’ll dance together one more time    and draw lots for the first stone cast

Clockwork Monkey

I cannot explain my existence    I never learned the sequence     mine was a comic wilderness   filled with oppressive beings     high on illusionary power   bought and paid for with my sweat and toil    I was so tired of being shoehorned into those awkward instances      I turned on to the dark    to get my business fixed   some use smooth words for ragged purpose    they beguile to deceive     and I was only too willing to be deceived

 I’d seen his face before    but we all have    he served me black wine     I drank it greedily     straight from the bottle     it filled me up     and I became a beast   my face is fluid now    it can take on many forms     and though I speak with the tongue of angels      my heart is dark and empty     I’ve been totally locked out     but he has the master key

all words are instrumental     that’s what he taught me    the real power resides in the space between the curses   invocations   and fragrant lies   that’s the space between naked intent and imagination    words are snares for the unwary   but weapons in the hands of lovers   he had words to raise the dead    and to bury the living     he made me his sounding brass    he wound me counter clockwise    and set me against myself     just another clockwork monkey     clamouring for the sun  

listen to the Creature EP

covid sheets

 

another cold grey start has shrunk my knackers for the specimen jar     bring out your covid sheets     and deliver us your dead     Beelzebub’s children swarm in for the warmth of my brain pan      I’m in the kitchen     wearing my butcher’s apron     I’m dissecting the dreams you bequeathed me      looking for some that match mine     from back in the days when I could still see your smile

I should have been there to hold your hand    I should have been there in my mortuary clothes    but I’m all choked with the consumption and my blackened lungs heaving      you were eaten by moths    in yet another night of dread apprehension     this is the land of the viral load    where we deal in the deadly statistics transmitted to us in bulletins

I shall mourn you in the privacy of my own bubble    my agonies augmented by local enthusiasts   who smother me with their cold indifference and carefully rehearsed denials     I just let everybody do what they have to do     there are priority listings for those on the rise     and cardboard coffins for distant cousins     

I must be paranoid   because I’m the only jailor in this prism       I locked myself down and threw away the keys long before the plague arrived     all my highs are from outside my head  I’m just a mirror for the sickness of the world     symptomatic of a deeper malaise    that makes demons of us all       I shall weep for us from within my simulation     you can gather my tears from social media         before you fetch a big policeman to show me to the door

listen to the Creature EP 

bedlam

I’ve been writing rubber cheques again   no problem really   it’s the thought that counts   right?    I was looking for solutions   but only found new problems    they say all problems are illusions of the mind   I say the need for illusions runs deep    it’s far better to struggle with illusions than with reality

 

according to science   a couple of twisted chromosomes     make me a madman    but madmen are alright   madmen are trying to fix things    what kind of things?    tiny things   like lives    so stick a little nembutal up my arse    blur my edges    numb my nuts    sort me out with psycho quackery    help me find a better place

 

I know where the edge is     because I’ve been over    that’s how I ended up here   this place is bedlam   it’s full of madmen   but madness is relative    it all depends whose cage you are in   but I see you    can you see me?  I’m one of those chumps who think too deeply     clever men think clearly   but we madmen think deep

 

I’m being eaten slowly by my thoughts     consumed by my feelings   I wonder what it means to die   do I consider myself alive?     sometimes I want to flee this awful place    but the devil I know has a compelling argument   all things considered I’m better off where I am     just where else would a madman go?

listen to the Creature EP

bipolar

 

when you are crazy     as crazy as I am   you don’t realise it    because your perceptions have shifted    away from the reality of the crowd     to a reality of your own   bipolar is a thief   it steals who you are    and replaces you with some imposter      someone you don’t even know   and you are forced to live in a world that’s no longer your own

I cannot escape my illness     any more than I can escape my shadow     on the dark days I scream    on the bright days I laugh    there is no in-between   but even in the depths of misery    there is music inside of me   I get high    I get low   but I can live with myself in either mode  

perhaps there is a world     far far away    that has a darker sun    and that’s where I’m supposed to be    some here think I’m too much    but from my perspective    they’re just not enough    they judge what they don’t understand   and I pity them for that    selective blindness is a dreadful affliction

my illness may be invisible    but believe me   I am not    I do not go quietly    you’ll know where I’ve been     I am a creature of irrepressible emotion    and it’s a life I’d gladly exchange   if I could find a recipient wicked enough to be deserving

between the mania   agitated depression   mixed emotional states   and suicidal ideation    no-one can understand bipolar geometry    least of all me     it’s the will to die    and the motivation to try    it’s a morbid dread scouring the streets in search of murder   it’s a dark well full of bitterness and despair  it’s a curse I wouldn’t wish on the devil himself

listen to the Creature EP

dagger

there is no gelt     in this writing lark      no real profit      no final reward      just a hunger      an insatiable need         to press the keys        and play the notes         that fill the page       all writing is futile      I can’t express how I feel        not in so many words     I’d like to take my pain      roll it into a ball       and stuff it in your mouth    so you’d be mute like me       your seams leaking      blotting your copy book      with a silent crimson scream

but those are just  words     I don’t mind you in the least     you brought me more pleasure      than a thousand dead poets

 “The only good poet is a dead poet.”

 isn’t that what you said?    imposters pout and posture      all across the page     with borrowed icons     and stolen voices       but genius lays face down in the gutter     death is the final measure     of dedication to the craft       but not for me darlin’    I don’t believe in tragedy    and I want to score in this life     not the next   I don’t intend to exit  prematurely         but after a long while       when I’ve perfected      my papers       and catalogued     my women     in alphabetical order    or numerical significance      according to rank  and ability

I like my words jagged    as crocodile teeth       dirty as a whore’s tongue       and rabid as the breath of infected dogs        I don’t require prettifying           or disinfecting      keep those nice words       for old ladies       to sprinkle on their cakes      I want you to feel me in you     I have no time       for ambiguity          or tickling ears       I want to ram my words       right down your throat            one day I’ll find the beat       that forces the rhythm          of my concoction          into your heart       like a fucking dagger

stop

one drop     two     three drops     four     feed me to the scum suckers     pour flash in my pan     rifle me     stifle me     blow me from the rafters     fuck me     in the brain stem     but     deliver me from arseholes     enthralled in semantic developments     I have no need for enemies     when my friends     will bite my tongue     that union of close affiliates     and worn out excuses     lit my funeral pyre     with a bluebell match     and a kerosene drum

always     mostly     arseholes flee     from any thought     that might rattle their cages      but my pen is    mightier than my sword      and made these pages mine     before they had names     when these words were thoughts    and vague recollections      my head was mince      I’d had a proper seeing to      later I crept home     half arsed incognito      having formed the opinion    that all is either lost     or found      while groping in the dark

once satiated     my dying manhood     glistened in the lamplight    what’s that the symbol of?    I howled with laughter    I’m a dirty old mongrel      why don’t I stop       cock stop     stop cock    why don’t you     just stop     stop     stop it     fasten the impulse     reject the necessary      stop     stop where sign says red     red means stop          stop means stop

hear the Creature EP