there’s an air of quiet death about this house there are ghosts in every corner there are shadows there are doubts I’m being scrutinised by the inner eye I’m naked and alone with nowhere left to hide I murdered you to resurrect you once more in the laboratory of my mind you’re a stain that still needs scrubbing in the life I left behind I buried you deep and hid the shovel but you’re back again and causing trouble it’s a curse to have a conscience I thought that we were quits I don’t need to hear you crying I counted every tear you shed don’t make me relive this shit just get the fuck away from here get out of my fucking head
18 March 2024
16 February 2024
let me be
day breaks bleak and hard my head is fit to burst I hate waking up in the cells I’m nobody’s hero now I can’t account for myself but I know that I’m still beautiful in a ragamuffin way I listen to my heart I let it speak for me there’s no mistake in nature and there’s no mistaking me I’ve broken many laws in my efforts to break free so lock me up again throw away the key break me on the wheel or fuck off and let me be
9 February 2024
shrouds
tell me brothers and sisters how well do you sleep? do you lie down gently with acquiescent lambs? or run in terror with ravenous wolves? do you follow secret paths known only to your heart? are the thoughts that await you there a burden to your mind? because we abhor what we fear and we fear what we don’t understand that’s ok just don’t think about it avert your gaze hide your eyes bury your fear somewhere deep inside where it will learn your secrets as it festers in the dark the lord of death knows each of us by name he nestles in our sheets as we sleep and we walk with the ghosts and spectres he sends to haunt our dreams
we’ve been to some dark places that’s the topography of life this world is made of fear and death there is love of course but that’s just on the surface deep down we are motivated by fear and our greatest fear is death but if we give it no name perhaps it will go away like a bad dream or a spell of rain it’s
three in the morning we’re wrestling angels and losing again but we’ll keep up the pretence as long as
we can there are burdens enough with
the coming of day we’ll shake off
our shrouds as we roll out of bed in
the land of the living there’s just no room for the dead
7 February 2024
archaeology
poor boy was a loner poor boy was a shadow he’d been banished from the tribe because he had this one weird gimmick you could say it was his calling poor boy used to dig up ghosts he found ghosts everywhere and people didn’t like it the ghosts didn’t like it poor boy didn’t like it either but he was obsessed with his ghosts he was so obsessed he became a ghost too and gradually faded away soon to be forgotten but I’ve seen him by the canal and on the viaduct too in the company of ghosts in the melancholic gloom
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
28 January 2024
the devil
they say it takes one to know one that the devil knows his friends and I’m not ready to repent I’m not through sinning yet I don’t care what people say I don’t care what they think if I pour the poison I can bear the shame I’ve often been the villain in other people’s schemes but now I set the agenda we’ll see where that leads I might play the devil I might just steal his clothes I’d rather play the devil than someone you don’t know it can take a little evil to get your business fixed but they say the devil is worldly wise and he knows all the tricks
16 January 2024
alligator tears
when I was young in my summer season I tarried with junkies, thieves, and other lepers I took the drugs they brought me and used the words they taught me those words are old now teach me some new ones or leave now in silence don’t stain my solitude with worthless gestures there’s not much time left and I’m busy writing eulogies
my best years are past
but I wouldn’t buy them back
the past is a curse that still
beats inside me I’m not complaining merely observing if you catch me weeping don’t be concerned now and again I’m struck with nostalgia it’s a vicarious vice for people my age my erstwhile companions have all crossed
over their
ghosts tell stories that play on my mind
13 December 2023
stronger
I made you my seed gave you life flesh of my flesh you belong to me you’re a chip off the old block but I’ll be old and grey before you get the better of me you’ve gotten too big for your boots coming on all high and mighty you need some bringing down boy get your feet back on the ground you’ll feel the back of my hand it’s the only thing you understand there’s only one god in this house and while you’re under my roof I will be obeyed and I will be adored because everything I do I do it for you one day you’ll thank me for making you stronger one day you’ll thank me for making you stronger
8 November 2023
war again
all words have failed us so we turn to the violence boiling in our hearts we’re talking war again our words are crimson with the justification of blood an eye for an eye the blindness of lust but we will have justice we shall wreak revenge we shall kill in the name of humanity vouchsafe our security through the shedding of blood we must defend our lives and love the bloody sword the only good enemy is a dead one they’re not even human number them with their murdered children their hearts are breaking now god grant them peace when this madness is done
10 February 2021
sorrow falls like rain
you can’t betray your enemies you
can only betray your friends and when you stick the knife in that’s
when the friendship ends there’s no betrayal without trust there’s
no hatred without love I didn’t think about betrayal I
thought only of my lust but I try not to look behind me where I see only ashes and dust
now my joy has gone but my sadness lingers on it’s a sadness I have earned and regret that I have learned my heart is twisted black because
I know there’s no way back I murdered the love we shared and destroyed
the life we’d built I’d rather I had died than shoulder
all this guilt
sorrow falls like rain
washing hope down the drain no-one ever told me that grief would feel this way I drink not to forget but to keep the pain at bay no amount of booze can
make it go away I drink until I’m numb but
the sadness stays the same for time
and time again my anguish and my shame will chase me through the shadows but my
sorrow will remain
31 January 2021
leaden
the margins are minuscule in this cruel season it’s hard enough to raise a buck never mind
a smile I sing with the
crows
and bathe in the dark cold fibre is scant reward for all
the bareback adventures and romantic misdemeanours that blot my copy book (kudos to the
phallus imperator)
my chapped
lips and caffeine smile reveal there’s fear in my monkey his silver
tongue and leaden heels have me hobbled in the blocks those softer metals conduct static directly
to the brain pan
and my blood’s impurities leave
a tell-tale stain on the inside but there’s no point in concealment no-one gives a fuck what’s written
there anyway
30 January 2021
oxydation
countless measures of synthetic junk have arranged my psyche as euphorically drunk I experiment
with words and their rhythmic possibility
and I’m all wired up with a new
found mobility I take inspiration
from needle and spoon to dance with the devil and howl at the moon
I found my ease in an exotic narcotic a new alchemy that’s darkly hypnotic I mix my medicine
with booze and snake oil and then cook
it all up in aluminium foil I
study my dreaming at my own leisure with a bitter
concoction that I’ve learned to treasure and I savour its taste as the ultimate
pleasure
but my little boat is slowly submerging
as the beast from the deep is
likewise emerging I need his
poison the way I need air but he
promises bounty that just isn’t there
he
dangles his riches just beyond reach and holds fast to my flesh like a blood
engorged leech
22 January 2021
grave expectations
I should develop myself a positive
hustle forge some new gimmick and take it a million miles away from
confinement and isolation yeah I’m shaking off the leg irons that shape my
footprints into the too familiar patterns of helplessness and despair
fetch me a doctor to inoculate my
spirit I’m crashing out of this jail before new variants of old killers nail my
lid shut I’ve seen those monsters they were six miles high and loaded with terminal velocity they have my name and post code etched in memory there’s no negotiating with their dark
intentions they’ll seize my lungs and
pump me dry it’s a matter of time and time is limited by nature I want to live if only for the moment I want to live like I’ll never die
3 December 2020
monsters
someone just walked across my grave maybe they poured a libation on my stone maybe they just
stamped the dirt down I have to manage my infestation perhaps I need to
up my dose I hear blades being sharpened did they find me? how
did they find me? plots are being hatched that will never
reach fruition these are the conspirators
of an idiot nation familiar monsters with blood in their
eyes
it’s unwise to get foolish at this stage of play but I have big
feet and clumsy ambitions all my mirrors vacillate between
repulsion and adoration there’s little there that’s of comfort to me so I avert my
eyes when I
get low I
get high all I seek is equilibrium a place to lay my head and some
respite from the monsters
but it’s not the
monsters that offend me it’s the people who make them the monsters aren’t so scary
if you speak the lingo but their masters
possess a murderous reflex and sharp teeth
they have shark like ferocity and no feelings
at all
18 November 2020
Fleabag
I’ve seen your bubonic lymph nodes and your ripper smile you’ve gone
fleabag and I
won’t touch your unclean things not at these rates so ring your parish bell and
roll out your dead we’ll cart them off to the knacker’s yard just don’t
touch their skin you’ll catch the dread
apprehension from a dead man’s skin
and don’t you lay in a dead man’s bed there
are critters nestled there between those sheets that will bleed you dry and fill your lungs
with broken glass that’s a gasping wheezing death a fish out of water
drowning in air
flesh
of my flesh flowering corruption what malignant monsters lurk within? I got
the saint vitus itch from a reckless encounter at an
afternoon séance my
death has been scheduled for
a month on sunday I was lucky to get the slot it’s their busiest time
3 October 2020
rubber knives
to whom it may concern two can play at your game don’t tread on my stones I’m only setting my papers in order because
you murdered me with
innuendo accusations and bitter
lies call
the waiter there are vermin
in my soup
you tapped my wires rifled my drawers and
embezzled my contents just
for the malice in it you took my anguish and fashioned it into nails then you pinioned me on charges no-one had ever heard of but don’t cry baby you were
only doing your job and I was only doing mine
my bones are heavy from your excuses you saw
an opportunity the same
size as your boots so you
weighed in I might have
done the same myself if I was
a cunt your new friends
had hard
junk faces wrinkled dead like burst balloons
scary in their pit bull nightmares
full of toothless bite and spit weeping from an excess of white lightning
theirs is
the zombie flesh rising some say it
tastes like chicken but everybody knows it’s pork I’d zap ‘em all straight in the fucking brain
pan rattle their sensitivities the alky villains who stole my coat looked just like you do lonesome
confused and in
search of a decent fit
21 September 2020
COVID blue
COVID 19 was the catalyst
that painted us blue
if you weren’t crazy before you
sure are now when
I look outside I see
nothing when I look
inside I see
less I’m on emotional
lockdown all is
blank and suffocating my happiness is long overdue another bus that won’t
be coming soon
schizophrenic pandemic aggression may hold us in a
confinement beyond physical arrest some minds will corrode with the loss of
personal liberty others
might grow morbid and lonely but I
banquet on my own thoughts and sing like a caged
bird
oh lordy don’t cut me no slack I’m making no applications for beneficiary status I require no validation from abstract strangers or fawning supplicants lead me not to
redemption but deliver
me from the tender
mercies of holy
rollers and curtain twitching superintendent do gooders
I’m your regular egoist who recognises the limitations circumscribed by charity and I know that sometimes you have to cut a sucker loose before he drags you down these are the days of pestilence and woe my kettle’s on the boil and my cup is overflowing with final demands and
hate mail but you won’t catch me counting any beads I’d rather risk insolvency than go on bended knees
17 September 2020
soledad
I have an itch I need to scratch but it’s beyond my reach it’s on the inside where the piranha shoal and old wounds fester in the inky black it’s dark outside but it’s darker in the night claws it’s way into my room with tedious certainty my lights are lit and curtains drawn my barricades against it all
the weight of gloom e x p a n d i n g invades my skin filling me with darkness and
I’m small and all alone so very far from home here
at the edge of the world there is silence in my bones
this
world provides no nourishment for those who feel alone
is all life lonely and lacking purpose despite the masks that we all wear? that prospect is appalling loneliness is the most terrible poverty sex has always been my consolation when I can’t have love but that’s no use now because I’m all alone and now
there is a great big hole where she used to
be and I have fallen in and can’t climb out
can you feel too much? or feel in the wrong way? is every man an island on a cruel and lonely
sea? loneliness is so human and it scares the shit out of me the way it burrows
into you leaves a mark on your soul we can never outgrow loneliness and
no-one can fill that space the best you can do is do for yourself fuck everybody else
8 September 2020
Goofballs
some nameless arsehole suggested that I was morbid in my preoccupations but I exorcise my demons with brisk forays into verse I don’t need the remedy just the culture I own my shadow I was forged in adversity but that is true of almost everyone I ever knew each had burdens to bear and every burden borne was a story to be told
teach me to sleep I feel like a mutt with three legs I’m
all awkward angles and nauseous instance a blunt blade drawn through rancid entrails I’m expanding into unanswerable questions goofball
bums have no stories they’re shambling zombies and shadow men those goofballs triggered my psycho
reflex
I
call that progress I still get trapped in my
thoughts pure gestalt no paradox I’m running on empty high on fumes this
is my parade I don’t care what anybody thinks seen from the shore we are all of us drowning