Dagger (Surgical Edit)

There is no gelt
In this writing lark
No final reward
Just a hunger
An insatiable need
To press the keys
And play the notes
That fill the page

Typing done

I am alone

I work best alone

But I sleep best

With company

And it’s meant

To be that way

No virtual life for me

I love flesh and blood

For I was born

Of flesh and blood

To go the way

That all flesh does

Not prematurely

But after a long while

When I’ve perfected

My papers

And catalogued

My women

In alphabetical order

Or numerical significance

According to rank

And ability

All writing is futile

I can’t express how I feel

Not in so many words

I’d like to take my pain

Roll it into a ball

And stuff it in your mouth

So you’d be mute like me

Your seams leaking

Blotting your copy book

With a silent crimson scream

My credentials are impeccable

At least on paper, if not in the flesh

Your papers were forged

But I don’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

Long ago

I abandoned rhyme

As I abandoned reason

I like my words jagged

As crocodile teeth

Dirty as a whore’s tongue

And rabid as the breath

Of infected dogs

I don’t require prettifying

Or disinfecting

Keep those nice words

For old ladies

To sprinkle on their cakes

I want you to feel me

In you

I have no time

For ambiguity

Or tickling ears

I want to ram my words

Right down your throat

One day I’ll find the beat

That forces the rhythm

Of my concoction

Into your heart

Like a fucking dagger

Bindlestiffs 2020

dummy up and listen good     while I pour moonshine in your ear     we got no homes to go to     and no-one waiting there     the world is big     but not big enough     for us to fit in     we’re the bad apples     who spoiled the whole barrel    fitted up on charges of vagrancy     for wearing out our shoes     we were kings of the highways      with no roof to tie us down      no man could boss us around

now we live with doors unhinged     and when the smoke has cleared     all we have is empty pockets     but once we’re back on the road      we’ll be livin’ high on the hog      low down on the greasy pole

 yeah - I’ll take you down     where skid row junkies     shuffle dance like broken bears     they smile spoiled milk      and stink of stale sweat      and rotted flesh     the zombie nation has risen     semi stiff cardboard men     flaccid humanity    face down in the gutter    

hostile corners teem     with cockroach people     knives half shut     displaying  disgraceful wings     in cardboard colours     blood     brown clotted     on the lips of scarecrow men      three overcoats     wrapped around breathless bodies     dull drunk and frenzied sober faces     searching for significance      thirsty souls on a death mission     every bum who can lift his lids     eyes you up for the short prize

“Buddy can you spare some change… “

 we are all forced out     to harvest bones in the wilderness     it’s a world away from titties and beer     but it puts meat on the table      and that’s what sifts the men from the boys      bindlestiffs deal in certainties      as sure as sorrow    down behind the beyond      we know the lost spaces     like the backs of our hands     

so dummy up again     while I tell you the best places    a man can write his name       large in the firmament     be it the name your mother gave you        or the name the world gave you       or the name you stole and made your own

you never know with these things     just where you come from     or just where you go        but you know where you are      and that’s enough to swallow in a single sitting      so all things being equal under a sorry sky      if you have the art     and the reach to gather stars      you just might leave a mark      which is more than you have a right to

Chocolate George (Unwrapped)

Chocolate George

Was a pussy magnet

He’d had more tang

Than Frank Sinatra

He said it was nice, so nice

And it all came from a nice place

That it was no mere gesture

But the gift of awareness

He said the algorithms of affection

Played out naturally

With no need for ceremony

Or archaic ritual

And that they were as beautiful

As they were natural

He stressed that

He was not the message

But the messenger

And there was no device

Or calculation

Behind his success

 George had once been a pariah

An untouchable

He had a definite shape

But it was asymmetrical

He was composed of acute

And awkward angles

Ragged contours

And sharp edges

Cutting edges

He had always felt

At odds with nature

a square peg

In a universe of round holes.

He felt powerless

In his predicament

There was no panacea

No prescription

No discipline

Or philosophy

To ease his discomfort

There was not even a name

For whatever it was ailed him

There was no diagnosis

For his wayward geometry.

His was the difficult path

And he stumbled often

And sometimes he fell

But over the years

His angles were chipped away

And his edges were made smooth

Through collision and erosion

So that one day George awakened

To discover

That he was practically formless.

Spartacus

I judiciously carved the bad news    into reasonable chunks that were easy to swallow   if hard to digest   there was the momentum of some terrible gravity   behind my every word   each was weighed   and then dispensed    on tablets of stone    saying    if you strike the first blow   I shall surely strike the last

 

it was a diabolical pact    but I just couldn’t see   for the blood in my eyes had so blinded me    I was manky   I had been less than diligent with my applications    you might call me lazy    but I was tired of the front   and so I 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     and the blood on my hands was not my own

 

the secrets stashed in my head   the occult pleasures of my heart   the treasures I have plundered    then passed off as my own   mark me out as a singular failure    the simulation of a man    in the solitude of my cell   I pray to my pig god   that no-one sees my true face   or the bloody hands that betray my guilty secrets   and my empty aspirations

 

in my lonely hours and minutes I fashioned myself a nifty club     from the jaw bone of some arsehole   it’s useful for beating my head with    I hear the talk   I know an ambush when I smell it    special preparations   whispers   glances   knives are being sharpened   plots are hatching and slithering home    the devil’s arithmetic comes up snake eyes for Johnny

 

if they knew what fragile cargo I was carrying     they might have cut me some slack     I won’t go into the inventory of misdemeanours   I’ll cut to the capital crimes   I murdered the days that led to the now  I squandered my time on cheap thrills and pricey highs    the flickering images sear the brain   those were the days of sexual mystique  and bold enterprise   the object of adoration wields a powerful magic over the obsessed   the grass was always greener over the next horizon   never satisfied with what I had    I’d trade all I possessed for a pocket full of mumbled promises

 

my biological imperative was strong    I couldn’t keep it in my pants   my road was paved with dodgy intentions and fleshy desires    you have to stay ahead in that game   the greedy always bite the hand that feeds    it’s expected of them   it’s dog eat cat in those kennels

 

my heart has been bleached    I’m slightly out of phase and still have blood in my eyes   but I’ll survive    I’m no tourist     I’ve been here before    this place is like any other    the good or bad in it is no concern of mine     it’s not like I curry influence     I’m a foreigner here   some would say I was an exile    but you need a home before you can be exiled    I just drift within my cranial roof

 

I have no time for crime   for contradictions and contractions   for passions spent and passions lent    smothering every innocent pretence    with fearsome glamorous intentions    each new lover helped themselves to my pieces   handling them like hot rocks    and chewing them in their charnel mouths   so to speak with the tongues of angels  

 

my suicide warden  garnished my chains   with a single red rose   inspected my arsehole    where morning had fled   and kissed me once for luck    my pothole eyes peered through a lysergic purge    and witnessed only the contents    of my dingy abode   which was crowded with the wearying trinkets of monstrous dalliances    licentious attacks    and falsified intentions    these are the things I’ll remember    during those lonely repasts   of xanax and hard liquor    green tea and ground glass   

 

I learned to sleep in shallow latrines   on egyptian cotton and busted bed springs    gazing up at cracked ceiling mirrors     where decades of hope dissolved like baby aspirin   I’m an aged gigolo    a smudged entry in last year’s diary   my sleazy charm and phony smile    always seemed like my last best defence    but my life has grown cold     from hustling for change    and god knows I need change    there’s one more hit left in my locker    I’m going to nail that number    and then lay back     to dream as gods do

 

listen to the Creature EP

Anus Mundi (Redux)

This place  is beyond bleak - it’s fucking grotesque. I have the faint edge on. Gloomy clouds signal inclement weather. Tired baleful concrete tenements glower down on deserted streets during the daytime and the place seems deserted;  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 fly.

What am I doing here?  I hate this fucking town   Everything went wrong here.   I fucked up big time. I crashed and burned. You expect to be kicked when you are 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 piss and cancer here. It has a soul crushing ambiance. The shithole that used to be home - but not by choice -  never by choice. I got out,    but I came back to find that there’s fuck all here, but the undead junkie hoards   and their feral klepto offspring.

I could do this of my own accord you know. I don’t require the spike. I do alright on my own and I could write if I could just get some sleep!  Men of a certain age find it difficult to sleep. Shit loads of pent up emotion and barely suppressed anger keeps them awake at night. You’ll find that men of a certain age carry luggage heavy with pent up emotion  and barely suppressed anger. But, they have the fear on.

This is my hometown - anus mundi. I came here to get away from it all and I succeeded. I’m decades away from anything. 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 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. Instant gratification; in vitro fertilization for the brain.   (exhale)

                less haste    more speed  

I stand enthralled.  I’m still drawn to the scene. I do not say I’m compelled.

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 done, but the consequences were still  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 deal. I’d already forged my connection along with my papers    and was on the first bus out of there.

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. Smother me with candy kisses. 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.

hear my voice

Muzzle Up

of all things now
and nothing later
wring out your covid sheets
lockdown your positive membranes
you're getting a raw deal
your kind always does
you're the proud citizen
of an idiot nation
you won't muzzle up
because you have rights
all lives matter you say
but some more than others
it's always been that way

Babylonians

they stole my breath away   those burning babylonians   I was with them   at least in spirit   I'd tear the whole thing down   and grind the rubble to dust   lest some vital spark     be forged in fire and prayer     I want to feel that heat on my face    the barricades and burnt out squad cars   the looter shooters   and lambs to slaughter      this world is old    bring on the next    I have a hard-on for dread vibrations     the death row convulsions  of a dying culture    we refused to live as children      and so we die as beasts

The Great Grimaldi

heavy weighs the crown

on your crooked brow

you’re master of inanities

and king of all the clowns

but that sugar breath of yours

smells of shit to me

for you have shovelled moths

into your gaping maw

and you’re wearing kind of thin

tell me of that vision narcotic

you pass off as your own

it has the familiar flavour

of someone else’s gum

you got no metal in your veins

or I’d simply cut you down

but I’d be just as happy

if you no longer came around

.

Mutton

there are skag villains neatly
bungalowed  on every suburban street
and there are fleshy instructors
festering in every tenement close
I've seen uncle bluebeard
and his tribe of mutant terriers
cashing subs at the post office
they normalised incompetence
so that he could claim disability
the poison radiates outward
from the point of corruption
I picked mine up at school
because I was paying attention
all justice is arbitrary
and rope is for lynchings
there is comfort within the flock
but we must obey the dog

Tremors

we felt tremors - but we ignored them

when cracks appeared we just filled them

with scrap metal and toxic waste

the world rattled as she screamed and tore

and we tried to ignore that too

but we all bunkered up for the bat flu

it seemed the world had turned on us

just as we had turned on each other

we fell in with dank villains and petty tyrants

and we pledged allegiances to avaricious gods

some of us tried to follow the way

so far as we were allowed

don’t get me started on the games people play

it’s hard to harmonise with nature

when you are a parasite and a killer

….

Bleached

my bones ache

I’m infected

with ghosts

the kind that grind

a man to dust

this confinement

withers me

desiccated notes

and ancient rituals

crowd my nights

with recollection

I shield my eyes

from the righteous

dread vibrations

of straw witnesses

and trial by radiation