Rat Boy

A nightstand with an empty cup and full ashtray – a book of placebo poetry – pretty words strung together for abstract effect. I garner images like the crumbs of toast itchily deposited on my mattress. I neck my medication after carefully chewing each pill with care.

I go for the heavy stone – the terminal rush. I reach out for a taste of oblivion and oblivion reaches out to me. I have no fear of falling. Gravity is my best friend. That heavy hand on my shoulder – that warm envelope of darkness is the closest thing to the womb – outside of death.

I like to write. I like the exercise of assembling the words – negotiating meaning – no obfuscation – there can be no doubt, no room for mistakes. Mine is a struggle for meaning; it’s more than a mere obsession, it’s a life or death contest. The notebook on the nightstand is full of scribbled impressions – most are indecipherable to all but me.

The bedroom window is open just enough to let the night seep in. I feel the hum of the city streets, hears the howls of monkey bands making their way home in the wee small hours. Just before I succumb to sleep I think I hear a scratching sound somewhere in the room.

I dream of a long corridor with locked doors on either side. I am running from something or looking for someone. I dream about a girl, someone strange yet familiar. She is my woman and I have to protect her from some unseen threat. 

I dream that the girl is pregnant. She gives birth to a rat. However I try to care for the child I feel revulsion and I cannot help thinking that this is my replacement. It makes perfect sense; Rat Boy is the ultimate survivor. It’s only when the infant calls me ‘Dad’ that I wake up with a jolt.

The sky is grey, the light is thin. It could be anytime, but my body tells me that it’s six am. I always awaken at six am. I kid myself that it’s a lifetime of routine, but it’s junk and I know it. My body awakens me every morning screaming for ease. I am less well equipped for survival than Rat Boy, I shudder as I recall my dream, Rat Boy has no weaknesses. Rat Boy don't do drugs.

Number Seven

I set number seven ablaze. I’m surprised I didn’t think of it sooner. I was stoned at the time – when the impulse took me. I put the chip pan on and went out. It’s the most common cause of household fire, the chip pan. I was standing across the road watching when the fire brigade arrived. It was only then that the enormity of what I’d done hit me. I was shaking. I was in shock. I stood there among my neighbours and watched the smoke fuming from the roof. I could see the flames through the windows. All my possessions were burning. Everything I owned was being turned to cinders.

I was a bit embarrassed when the fireman guessed correctly that I was off my face, “the most common cause of household fires” he said. Fire cleanses, fire destroys and fire renews. Friends gathered around to console me, “At least no-one was hurt – are you insured?” At that moment I just did not give a shit. I would rise from the ashes. I was looking forward to it.

A few days later I was allowed to enter the building to retrieve any belongings that I could. To my surprise my bedroom – though covered in a thick layer of soot – was basically intact. I found a shoe box crammed full of old letters and postcards, a lifetime’s worth of correspondence. They were miraculously undamaged by the fire. I scanned through them – old lovers, friends, relatives – bitter sweet memories. They burned very nicely. One by one they joined with the ash on the floor.

.

Manic

when it’s on me
it’s a speedball
an acid rush
the distilled rays of the sun
burned into my retinas
fusing the membrane
and flooding my head
with a rainbow song
then I’m a supernova
I’m a lightning strike
an atomic bomb
I’m the Empire State
and the monster Kong
I’m a gushing torrent
a tidal wave
I’m a rattlesnake
with a diamond back
I’m the seventh son
I’m a maniac
.

Black Dog

I’m sick to the soul of this shit. My days are long and drawn out in a thin visceral stream that twists around the landmarks of my life. There is a quake in my soul - a quickening of pulse and febrile brow. I am atremble, a candle in a draft. I’m sinking into the mire, I can no longer help it and I no longer care.

It is always a step before and a breath behind me. A miasma of waking dreams played out against my pillow in the constant churning of my incessant consciousness. It’s there in the tangle of my sheets that the turning and returning of my memories break as waves across my brain pan. Every embarrassment, every humiliation, is played out in slow motion for my morbid delectation.

I feel so strange. I’ve felt it before, like something, somewhere, is all wrong. It’s coming from someplace far away and it’s coming for me. I buried something somewhere and some-one is now digging it up. Zombies from the past are trailing me. There are conspiracies whispered just beyond my hearing.

I’ve been here so many times before but I’ll never get used to it – that’s the bitch - I’ll never get used to it. It's an insidious and complex torture, always new and yet familiar. That unhappy shadow is always nearby – and the promise of inclement weather is ever on the horizon.

.

Dead Man’s Shoes

Buy me another drink and I’ll tell you a story. It’s set out on the edge – out on the hard road. It concerns a travelling man who slaved all his days for a handful of nothing; that’s where it all goes eventually - down the fucking tubes. Virtues turn to vices and vices turn to chains. It’s a rough road to travel for rich and for poor. Over time the luxury of indulgence becomes the slavery of convention; emperors and hobos both wear tin crowns.

I walked those uncertain miles in a dead man’s shoes. They pinched, they chafed, and they left little room for deviation from an idiot course. The path of least resistance led to the bottom of the bottle, more dead soldiers littering the sorry path to hell.

My cause was lost, the spirit had ebbed away, but I made my crooked way to where the grass was no greener and the people were no kinder. Always onward – never back – I kept on until they found a reason to hang me in those dead man’s shoes.

I’ve seen men hang, hang by degrees, with the life choked out of them over the course of decades. Lynched by the mob,  ostracized, and exiled to the barren regions. Naked men left out in the rain. Men without a friend, men without a home, men starved of love.

There are no second chances for those already dead. They say hope is the mother of all men, but I had no mother, no father, no companions. I’d nothing much to remember and nothing much to forget. I had nothing much to celebrate, but everything to regret.

Some say that Jesus awaits us at the end of this long road. That he’ll relieve us of our burdens and wipe away our tears. So put the pennies on my eyes to pay my fare, wrap me in a pauper’s shroud, but first take off these fucking shoes.

Spike

this place is beyond bleak

it’s fucking grotesque    

I have the faint edge on

gloomy clouds signal inclement weather

and tired baleful concrete tenements

glower down on deserted streets

during the daytime

and the place seems deserted

and long ago abandoned by man

but at night the place comes to life

when troops of cocaine fuelled primates

fill the air with tribal war cries

and furtive indigent lepers

go about their business on the sly

what am I doing here?

I hate this fucking place    

everything went wrong here

I fucked up big time  

and paid the price

you expect to be kicked

when you’re down

but not by your friends 

that really hurts      and I got mad   

I thought about vengeance   

I’d be good at that     

but I’ve seen their lives

and that’s enough

it still smells of urine and cancer here

and has a soul crushing ambiance

the shithole that used to be home

but not by choice

never by choice

I got out

but came back

to find that there’s fuck all here

but the undead junkie hoards

and their feral klepto offspring

this is my hometown   anus mundi

I returned to lick my wounds

and escape from my failures

I’m decades away from anything here

this place was designated pointless in 1962

and filed under forgotten do not resuscitate

some part of me has died here

and shall forever remain

stashed in an unmarked grave

does what you’re doing

make you wonder

where you are going?

best not to think about it

the remedy is simple

press the needle to the membrane

now plunge     for  instant gratification

in vitro fertilization for the brain

less haste more speed

I stand enthralled    

I’m still drawn to the scene     

I do not say I’m compelled

but the inca in me

holds a morbid fascination

for the patterns of disgrace

so many faces to remember

so many to forget

I was young

I was arrogant

I was doped up

I was right

I was always right

everything that could be done

was eventually done

but the consequences were brutal

I held him in my arms

as his life ebbed away      

he didn’t remember my name

that’s when I knew   he was never coming back

his papers read DOA

they called it death by misadventure

but I killed him with kindness

and an extra generous hit

I’d already forged my connection

along with my papers

and was on the next bus to anywhere

don’t tell me how bad it is

I already know

it’s a suicide sport

and I’m all out of bullets

nevertheless

I’m geared up for excess

bicarbonate of coca

the ancient inca curse

so smother me with candy kisses

and take this poor boy home

it’s the last big deal

coughing up rocks

and surfing on air

but it’s all good

at twice the price

they’re shanking junkies

down in the park

bloody lubricant

for a vicious mechanism

those black market forces

can be so exacting

but that’s the economy

in my hometown

.

Gouge

All my life they spat on me
Because I dragged the low end
I got used to fighting for what’s mine
Blood of my blood and bone of my bone
I believe in an eye for an eye
I’d gouge away with bloody thumbs
Even if it rendered the whole world blind
Everyone is born with love in them
But you have to be taught how to hate
Each blow that landed was an education
They taught me and I learned it well
I want my pound of flesh on the bone
I’ll dig my grave right next to yours
I will pluck out my offended eyes
And serve the dictates of my primitive heart
.

The Secret World

I don’t have to live like this

I could give up the bug juice

I could get creative

Tear up my notebook

And start again

I could pluck out my eyes

Block up my ears

Tear out my tongue

And write in the air

There is no truth

And that being true

There are only lies

Stories that you tell

To make it seem alright

The object of thought

The indelible link

To predictable reason

The assassin of truth

Obscures the way

To self expression

There are no words

With which to write

The secret world

The inner life

For lies abound

Where silence prevails

.

Bones

Man I'm fucked. Inertia has carved me a mountain to climb. I’ve got bad bones - dry and brittle. They ache in the rain and fracture into vicious shards that pierce my flesh with darts of pain. I’m sick of my body – old and flabby. I captured a few pounds along the way, or they captured me. I’ll beat this vessel into an older shape – such a handsome youth – before the spilling of blood.

(He says he will. He’ll later say he did, but he’ll hold his place – it comforts him to remain inert.)

Bongs and bombs left craters in my bronchial organs. I wouldn’t smoke one of them – that’s a needle for the lungs. The wheezing, gasping instruments of life – collapsible bags of phlegm – expelling life by the root and tubers of my chest.

No more graveyards for me – too close to home to bring comfort – full of old bones and memories – such places only bring me down into the cancerous layers of yesteryear – coughing spluttering bloody handkerchiefs. Coffin nails stain my fingers brown – the colour of creeping death – the sepia tone of ancient photographs – windows on the dead. Brown is the colour of the sod that covers my corpse - the colour of my rotting bones beneath the dirt. My tired old bones embrace the inevitable – I’ll be gone, but my bones will remain.

.

* Graphic ‘Cyclops’ by Stanley Mouse

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Shadows

I own my shadow

thank you Dr Jung

it’s always been there

companion and jailor

adversary and friend

some nameless arseholes

have suggested that I’m morbid

in my preoccupations

but I don’t need the remedy

just the culture

I exercise my shadow

with brisk forays into verse

our stories are shadows

they follow us around

the proverbial bad penny

or a lousy streak of luck

you can’t shake them

with drink and drugs

but you might lose

the plot in trying

this life will kill you

it’ll make or break you

I was forged in adversity

that’s true of everyone

that I’ve ever known

each had burdens to bear

and every burden borne

had a story of its own

.

The day I died

when I called out
you couldn’t hear
I turned to talk
but you weren’t there
you left the works
but took the gear
.
how I wept
how I cried
I sent for a priest
but none arrived
things were rough
the day I died
.

Far away

more haste – less speed
the minutes s t r e t c h out
racked in terrible instance
tortured in the passing
the throbbing mechanism
of desire
the beatings of fleshy drums
pulse off into nowhere
on and on
the cycle persists
the dim morning
cold grey light
seeping gently in
through empty windows
framing the silence
with spine chill –
and frozen sap
another day of coffin nails
and cellophane smiles
of sleeping lovers
far away in time
.