Ghosts In The Blood

you got ghosts in your blood   you best get you some stony   I got the fear on  roll me one too    I’m bound to get lucky   I’m prepared to die trying   you can fetch me solace   from another man’s gutter   because I’m headed home   where there will be a welcome   or a maybe just a lynching   they might have forgotten   I hope they’ve forgiven   what’s done is done   and I paid my dues 

I don’t believe in resurrections    or in tearful reconciliations    the past is gone forever    ghosts take shape in its shade    and my head is haunted    with that fearful geometry    and the friends undone    by time and tide   you take your best shot   and maybe another   you might win some    but you’ll likely lose more   no-one passes this way     unless they pay the toll

The Final Straw

I lost my spit and shine

And the all weather finish

That had served me so well

Against the inclement

I had been less than diligent

With my applications

You might call me lazy

But I was tired of the front

And dropped my guard

The signature of a chump

I took the blows due me

And maybe more besides

But there’s always a final straw

An injury that cannot be borne

Often it’s a concealed blade

Nestled in the hand of a friend

I’d be a hypocrite to complain

My dabs were all over that instrument

The blood on my hands was not my own

My complicity was beyond all reasonable doubt

.

The Boy Who Wept

His name was Calum Fraser and he was seventeen, though none of us knew this at the time. The folk on the ward just referred to him as the boy who cries. Calum cried a lot – no, Calum wept a lot. You might say he was inconsolable, but I don’t remember anyone actually trying to console him. It was heart rending and it was embarrassing. So we did our best to ignore him. I thought about going to him once or twice. To put my arm around him and ask him what was wrong, but I never did. I always figured he had lost someone. You only grieve like that when you have lost someone.

Poor Calum. He wept both night and day. I know because he slept in my dorm and kept me awake with his sobbing. One night I lost the rag and told him that if he did not shut up I’d give him something to cry about. I felt instant shame. Those words shame me still. He stopped crying a few days later when he fashioned a noose from a bed sheet and hung himself in a toilet cubicle.

It must have taken a determined effort to hang himself on his knees like that. He was still kneeling in the doorway of the cubicle when I found him; the improvised noose held him upright in cruel mockery of prayer. His had been a gruesome death, a violent death, the bulging eyes and bloated tongue attested to that. I hoped to God that he’d found some peace and that death had finally dried his tears.

.

Power

Most people are lost

In power games

Of their own devising

Ensnared in the he said/she said

They endorse misery and conflict

For all of their lives

But it’s hard to hold your head high

When you’re swimming in shit

And that’s the greatest threat

To your personal freedom

Not that some unseen hand

Takes away your power through force

But that you give it away freely

As a matter of course

.

Wrapped

And you were there with me
In the clouds and the rain
What does that signify
In the landscape of dreams?
Is it one of those things
Only lovers would know?
.

Ripples

those stones
we so carelessly cast
birthed ripples
of unforeseen dimensions
now there’s a tsunami of shit
about to engulf you and I
and we shall reap more
than we ever sowed
in yet another dismal harvest
.
our practiced tongues
wove convenient fictions
from little grey lies
which we honed into truths
sharp as switch blades
I heard what you said
your words were ugly
I had words of my own in mind
but they escape me now
perhaps my conscience is cloudy
how about yours?
.

Sparky

dope him

rope him

tie him down

and smoke him

electrode his brainpan

with 20,000 megajolts

zap some sense into him

teach him to be well again

then take him downstairs

and chemically castrate him

with the great abomination

pump him with the ga ga juice

until he’s lost the will

kosh him ‘til his lights go out

.

Adored

My credentials were impeccable
At least on paper, if not in the flesh
Your papers were forged
But I didn’t mind
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
Across the page
With borrowed icons
And stolen voices
Genius lays face down in the gutter
Death is the final measure
Of its dedication to the craft
But not for me darlin’
I want to be adored, at least once
However briefly
And in this life, not the next
.

Running Away

Had to bounce
Had no alternative
That place was my grave
The end of the road
You may think me a coward
Be that as it may
But I was running towards
Not running away
.

Owsley’s Bunker

I swapped the charismatic
For the lead - lined Kafkaesque
If I’m turning over a new leaf
I want my papers in order
Before heading south
Latest developments suggest
There may be trouble
At the border
But my disguise is perfect
I wear reason like a crown
And I’m so very high
I may never lay it down
.
This is coyote weather
The season of the cow
The days are drawing in
The nights grow more profound
Anything could happen here
And very often does
So I’m barricaded in
In case push comes to shove
They say a little orange juice
Will help to bring you down
But someone cut my strings
I no longer see the ground
.

Solus

she was in worse shape
than any woman I'd ever seen
she'd had the life ground out of her
until she signified nothing to no-one
one sorry night
just for the hee haw
we jacked her 
into the sing song
and we heard her howl
just like she was dying
we saw that crazy bitch
had ghosts in her bones
and that she was infected
with pain beyond reason

Radiance

the best part of me
is too often obscured
by the daily grind
of an ordinary life
only to be
rediscovered
in the unexpected hour
as a strange and familiar
radiance
beyond the reach
of the human eye
.