Written

You gotta have style
Something you can pour
From a tall pitcher
Into a short glass
That thing that oozes
From you fingertips
And shapes the words
Into shade and nuance
Imagery and thought
Something that says
This is me
Nobody else can do it
Like this
I’m not talking varnish
Not just a thin layer
Style is deep
Your style is you
In the abstract
Stamped into the page
.

The War On Sleep

by the seventh night      I have torn the veil     and crossed the line     into the land of death and annihilation     my eyes are red and sore         my head buzzes with empty space        and I stand thinly      at the centre of my void     I am insulated by static mush       thinking in a single stream of mercury       I’m constantly in the frame      consolidating the one true IS      

everything speaks to me     and I speak to everything     this is the high on high      close to the heavens      and closer to the edge of oblivion      all this is more than I can translate     into cohesive thought        I roll myself a number and eat the smoke      just a little fire to ease me through the night     

insomnia is my oasis     where my dark thoughts and I take refuge       sleep is the kiss of death      the obliteration of my senses       nevertheless     the time must come for crashing     and the horrors inky black

naked    inert and defenceless    sleep beckons me with iron fingers     and I am too weak to disobey      she takes me down     into dark oceans     filled with forgotten dreams     I fight like a drowning man    but she takes me hard and relentless      down into the deep 

 

Pig God

the secrets hidden in your head
the occult pleasures of your heart
the treasures you have plundered
then passed off as your own
mark you out as a singular failure
the simulation of a man

in the solitude of your prison cell
you pray to your pig god
that no-one sees your true face
or the bloody hands
that betray those guilty secrets
and your empty aspirations
.

Smoke

I love the way beer burns an empty stomach and leaves a heavy buzz in an empty head. I love the feeling of minor vertigo produced by a lung full of green and the gentle rocking of my boat in the calmer waters dreamt of in my cooler quarter. Send me sultry jazz messengers to soothe my mind and smooth out the corrugations of my life.

I deplore obliteration, but dig augmentation. I like a little spin now and then – to hone my edge and free up some space in my tool box. There are a billion jurors on my case who’ll condemn my predilections as errant criminality, but I pay no attention to dogs with no teeth. I like to cultivate a little distance between myself and the unclean thing, ‘cause the unclean thing really twists my nuts.

.

I Don’t Remember

I don’t remember
ecstasy
the summer loves
and winter tragedies
softly spoken promises
and bitter recrimination
.
I don’t remember
you
any of you
partners in crimes
too sweet to resist
.
I don’t remember
wounds
carved by bloody lies
and broken promises
or the hand
that wielded the knife
.
I don’t remember
.

Something’s Coming

Sshh,

Something’s coming…

Something’s coming

From a long way off

Bury your head

Plough a new furrow

Cultivate a little distance

From the past

.

Kissing God

“Smoking this stuff is like kissing God”. Hyperbole, he did a good line in embroidery. Of course, the stuff was lethal – laced with DMT – Happy times spread across my face like the warmth of the morning sun and unfolded in my lap in a royal flush. 

I swam where the dolphins swam and ran where the children ran. I found the place where all the dreamers came from. I was as light as the breeze, as helpless as a child. I wouldn’t leave a ripple if you dropped me in the ocean. “See the little crystals? That’s the magic right there, in them crystals.” So he thought; the magic was in us – in the forms reflected in those crystals  – one of which was divine.

.

The Biggest Lie

You was the giant killer
Big chief of the Zulus
You was a hard man
King of the Hoodoos
Your word was law
Your name was God
But you’re the biggest lie
That has ever been told
.

Mute

I dreamed that they banned music and silence softly ate at our minds and infiltrated our hearts until we were made of nothing but emptiness. Our voices contained no lyricism, or colour. Our thoughts contained no conflict, or wonder. Even our faces gave up and died – their blank countenances conveyed neither happiness nor pain, their egoless expressions were one and the same. A world without music was a world without tears, a world without laughter. A world without music was like a play without actors.

.

Image ‘Mute’ by Maya Kulenovic

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Brompton’s

Squeeze me a Brompton’s and blow my joint while I eat this bird. I have a hard on for the kind of high only a hard shot of junk provides. My old man got tarred for drinking this bug juice, but I don’t care about tar – it’s the feathers I object to. I’ll blow my own brains out before I let anyone turn me into a chicken.

Those cold-blooded bastards down at the lizard house have it in for dissenters who sup God’s own from the crystal cup. They incarcerate anyone who jacks up or spreads a little green on his lungs. Their war on drugs is a futile exercise in enforced conformity. The pressures of the market lead to standardisation and the ubiquity of mediocrity.

Prohibition only causes the criminality that keeps the law enforcers in business. Everyone is a would-be snitch. Everybody is an enforcer trying to gun us down in a hail of psychic bullets. Pour me another baby; I’ve come over all terminal. I need to cradle my consciousness in velvet gloves.

.

Leave Me Be

My spring is wound
Way too tight
I’m on the fight or flight
The roaches beneath my skin 
Are threatening to do me in
I’ve reached a certain velocity
It’s an animal ferocity
.
I can’t sit still
I think I’m ill
I pace the floor
Make for the door
But out or in
I’m stuck on a pin
I can’t get free
Just let me be
.
I’m rotating left then right
There is no peace in sight
I’m spinning like a top
I don’t think I can stop
I’m struggling for breath
I might catch my death
.
I can’t sit still
I think I’m ill
I pace the floor
Make for the door
But out or in
I’m stuck on a pin
I just can’t get free
So please let me be
.

Fungaloid

Travel me
Unravel me
Baffle me
Turn me out

Fix me with a fungal crown

Pump it in
Pour it out
Rub it on
Inhale – exhale
Spark it up
Snuff it out
Skin it back
Tear it down

Anoint my head

With manna from heaven
Spike me upward
Drag me down
Ball my lightning
Take me under
Turn me on
Turn me around
Innovate
With my confusion
Make me whole
If not holy
Bake me outside
In the sun
.