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10 September 2020

brand new semiotics for mind body and soul


 

some days I drag the low end      but it doesn’t matter    it doesn’t bother me     I won’t be writing any suicide notes     on that account    I’m not fixing to die anytime soon       I just began learning how to live       but I have  circumstances to accommodate     and those can be a bitch      but I can’t complain

I won’t reach out      if there’s no need      it’s not just my pride      there’s no point in me spilling my guts   if I’m only crying wolf     it doesn’t pay to take yourself too seriously     when you are subject to sudden change    I might foment a little poison in my cup from time to time       but I always have the antidote in my pocket     

I take life as it comes      I make no demands of anyone      and I only do what I want to do      so you can stow your neutral gaze      I’ll have  passion in my playpen      and the freedom to live as I please 

I’m just a dog with a bone      still fighting a war     that ended long ago     I could tell you things     you would not believe      so I won’t waste words      you’d only call me a liar   but you wouldn’t know which me is really me         or if my words are matched by deeds

which me is me?    the crazy wild impulsive me?     or the darkly reclusive suicidal me?    someone picked me up and shook my  shadow loose   now the pieces have fallen back to earth    but nothing is where it ought to be      I tried to run away        but you can’t lose your shadow     even if the sun shines a little less brightly for you

everything happens     for a reason     or it doesn't     it's hard to tell        when you so often see       just what you expect to see        my story is not a sad story      my story is an abstract    about a boy who survived a storm he thought would never end        but it was during that terrible storm   that he discovered he carried a fire within    he learned to kindle that flame at will    and always keeps the makings close to hand



8 September 2020

Goofballs


 some nameless arsehole     suggested that I was morbid in my preoccupations     but I exorcise my demons      with brisk forays into verse     I don’t need the remedy     just the culture     I own my shadow     I was forged in adversity     but that is true of almost everyone I ever knew      each had burdens to bear     and every burden borne        was a story to be told  

 

teach me to sleep     I feel like a mutt with three legs     I’m all awkward angles      and nauseous instance     a blunt blade drawn through rancid entrails      I’m expanding into unanswerable questions     goofball bums have no stories      they’re shambling zombies     and shadow men    those goofballs triggered my psycho reflex     I call that progress     I still get trapped in my thoughts     pure gestalt     no paradox     I’m running on empty     high on fumes     this is my parade     I don’t care what anybody thinks      seen from the shore      we are all of us drowning



7 September 2020

Catechism # 371

 

I pulled the plug           cut the chord          the dividends        were huge        I learned to breathe        to be myself      no more pretence       no more posturing        I renounce the instrumental       in most situations        I own my fear         if fear becomes me      when moved I cry        if tears are called for      I celebrate my     little triumphs      as treasures won         if they suit my      temperament      and they ain’t           too heavy       for me to carry


4 September 2020

Beaters

 


I’m just a dope

straight from

the lollipop factory

I’m a bird that can’t fly

a fish that can’t swim

a crock of broken promises

and a cesspit full of lies

flightless birds

and drowning fish

there’s a menagerie

of zoological interest

 

I traverse this page

to bindlestiff rules

weary and wary

incongruous momentum

sowing havoc at my heels

that’s some heavy shit

to scrape from my shoes

the distillation of excreta

stockpiled for decades

spread by the soles

of my vagabond beaters

 


3 September 2020

V2 (carnage edition)

 


in appropriate order    the processional disconnect     mixed horses in midstream     an incessant pouring of cats and dogs     a menagerie of cold calls and strange encounters     to tell the truth     I’m having a V2 moment      earth shattering in its hellish brilliance     the cause of my ceilings cracked


I was cold-cocked      and lynched     by mercenary hyenas      then left to decompose in my own slime      my rotting bones ached with the stench of old ghosts    my cup overflowed with the heartache that burns     I was drowning in yet another tsunami of shit     I was stretched beyond breaking     with no place to lay my head      this was my Golgotha      my funeral pyre       I stand now in the ashes      bewildered and deathly tired     my friend Ross said it best when he told me he’d been carpet bombed       but had somehow survived

 

don’t remember me      not this way     put fresh flowers on my grave      pour ointment on my stone    smooth my sleep     and stamp my dirt down     you won’t meet me in heaven     my subscription has expired     I won’t be reaching for eternity     I’m imprisoned in this fleshy tomb        by my primitive vision of corporeal bliss        there will be no resurrection       I believe I’ve had enough of this