Ashcan

least said, soonest mended
so I dummy up nice
and batten down tight
stick it in the shade
and avert my eyes
from the unclean thing
that foul device
it’s just old news
bitter rebukes remembered
with a bullseye to the heart
I turn once more
down a path well trodden
but put the stoppers on
I don’t remember
or choose not to
those things that drag me down
who rakes for coals
in an ashcan full of yesterdays?

Promethean

what kind of monster am I?
I’m the man fortune made me
only as good as circumstances allow
and only as bad as I have to be
this heat and light are stolen
they obscure a multitude of sins
it’s an old cliché tailored to fit
and worn with a swagger
because I’m stepping tall
when I roll out my thing
this candle burns exceedingly bright
is neither hidden under a bushel
or extinguished in the night
.

Porcelain

At the eleventh hour she knew she could not fly, her mother had clipped her wings to minimise risk and circumvent adventure. Her limitations I ascribed to a troubled childhood, she was fragile, more doll than woman. Her porcelain was milky white and smooth as a babies butt. She was encompassed by phobias, riddled with irrational fears. She lived inside her head; perfectly manacled to her dreams.

She was married of course – to a stranger as it turned out. They collided on the periphery of their daily lives, never knowing the other with any depth. She possessed a wicked temper and drummed her heels in great tantrums which bemused the man; he had a phlegmatic nature. They never bit deep; there was no blood in that relationship.

I was there for a short while – under their roof – close to the hearth. I betrayed them both, as was my style. I could dig her skin and her brittle smile. I wasted little time in plotting her seduction. I presumed she had hidden depths as yet unfathomed and that I would be the one to draw them to the surface. An error on my part; her goods were on display, at the surface, they went no further than that.

It was a woeful misadventure; a giant tactical miscalculation. Often what seems exciting in the dreaming is fraught with sorry entanglements in real life. When it was drawn out into the light our dirty little secret seemed as retched as cum stained sheets. There was a scene and shown the door I left like a scalded cat. Some people are so uptight about a little play. There were tears, of course, but mine were from laughter.

.

Icarus

How high is too high? How low is too low?

I’m stretched across impossible altitudes. I got the vertigo, that cold dizzying flush, but who cares when flying is suddenly so easy? I can see my life from here; it seems so small and lacking any real significance. What matters is now, this moment of flight, this instance of freedom. I’m reaching for forbidden constellations while my feet, caked in mud, are sinking into the earth. These unnatural avionics, they say, are the result of faulty wiring. Who needs drugs when you have aerial acuity and are filled with grandiose intentions?

Oh, this is cool – this is sweet. My trepidation gives way to exhilaration as my aerobatics become practised and concise. You never lose it, the power of flight, and having once flown you never forget the exaltation those wings of wax can bring. This apparatus has been well examined and its flaws are well documented, but I’ll milk this sensation for as long as I can. I’ll ride this fucker until I hit a cul de sac and slam once more into sodden ground. Crash landings are the price you pay for your time aloft; some reckon it’s worth the fee.

.

Incendiary

Damn the stupid – for they are greedy fuckers lacking grace or art. There are holes in my mind where I tried to burn them out with poisoned liquor. One day it all got out of hand; I set the whole place on fire. I lit the inferno but others supplied the fuel. I saw them later, sifting through the ashes for trophies. Their laughter crackled in the air as they picked over my memories with hands as black as murder. The fireman told me that alcohol and drugs were common contributing factors in most fires. I am incendiary it seems – high as a kite – ready to light up and burn down the sky.

.

Worms

this story for the most part

is lodged in my throat

I could choke on my words

if I could just bring them up

some people make me sick

because they’re unkind

those green fingered monkeys

who plant worms in my mind

they tie knots in my guts

and bring tears to my eyes

they dissect my entrails

with their blunted knives

to divine terrible truths

and more terrible lies

.

Sabotage

I tried to polish the connection again, but there was grit in my unction and it got into the mechanism. Now it won’t run with the smooth action that I was used to. Still, I rubbed and rubbed until I’d scoured its surfaces with tiny little scratches and its once smooth finish was dull and coarse to the touch. 

I don’t know what I was thinking. That was no way to treat something so precious. Perhaps I was trying to pare it back – to reach beneath the skin to a previous state of being. Whatever the reason the device is now scarred forever and it grinds where once it glided. It still works, I’m sure of that, but it will never be the thing of beauty that it once was. With a little effort I believe can still make the connection work – if I can ever forgive my little act of sabotage.

.

Wasted Time

the spastic membrane
in my gelatinous mind
plays havoc with
my recollections
and I have turned
from fire to ice
I’ve embraced the cold
and the numerous devices
of frosty indifference
they came readily to hand
that thin line crossed
I barricade my borders
with bitter recrimination
and self serving lies
the heart is fickle
and memory selective
there is a history here
I care not to remember
I banished such reflection
from heart and mind
and labelled the past
wasted time
.

Hinterland

the sky is dark and heavy
dismal as an infant’s funeral
tones of grey and black
divide the days
and we are hostage
to perpetual winter
the sun is dying
heaven is weeping
darkness reigns
in this hinterland
.

Crimson

nearly

never

or hardly ever
not now and then
but now, forever
sinking
they are out to get me
I know they are
their whispered fragments coalesce
to form steel traps
for my clumsy feet
tectonic plates shift
beneath the gut
beyond the entrails
into the deep
the heart of things
the end of night

my fingers are stained
with nicotine and blood
I’m high now – too high for comfort
each horrifying impulse
passes through my colon
with a nauseous thrashing motion
tearing like baby sharks
devouring their birthing sacks
I cannibalised my ego
to construct a prison
with no walls
and no means of escape
this crimson shelter
affords no respite
from the luxury
of self reflection
or the aching desire
for sleep
.

Crematorium

crematoria tears 
fell freely on the Monday
lapsed into silence 
on the Tuesday morn
we were all here
dutiful and penitent
we were all here
but you were gone
I heard you breathing 
shallow now
soft as snow
but far away 
someone still wept
through the aeons
that followed
for you had heard 
the mother of voices
she spoke to you
and not to me
.

Dinghies

 

It no longer hurts. I plucked out the offending instrument with bloody fingers and drew me a new one with eight crimson limbs – each an organ of enlightenment – according to my sponsors @badbuddha.com.

I believe there is no saving anyone, not even ourselves – especially not ourselves. We are each bound to a fatal trajectory; we all reach the same destination over time. We spend our days with the masses chewing the cud and shitting it out. We are all members of the one great herd - all bound for the abattoir.

But enough of this bovine philosophy – I have a boat to catch and my memoirs to forge. This shit does not cook itself. It takes days of careful preparation and intense deliberation to float these little dinghies. There’s a cheap and cheerful cliché – a clumsy metaphor requiring little imagination; little boats adrift on the glittering ocean; the flotsam and jetsam of tiny shipwrecks; no survivors to tell the tale.