dagger

there is no gelt     in this writing lark      no real profit      no final reward      just a hunger      an insatiable need         to press the keys        and play the notes         that fill the page       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

but those are just  words     I don’t mind you in the least     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      all across the page     with borrowed icons     and stolen voices       but genius lays face down in the gutter     death is the final measure     of dedication to the craft       but not for me darlin’    I don’t believe in tragedy    and I want to score in this life     not the next   I don’t intend to exit  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

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

god must die

 god is dead     long live god   the god of mercy   that sacrificial lamb    paved the way for the church of sex and violence    we are all subscribers now     to the show that never stops    

we kill god again   and again    every time we murder innocence    when we kill for killings sake   when we make children enemies of the state   we doubled up on that shit   we never tire of killing gods

happiness is fleeting   but your pain will always be attended   god whispers to us in our joy     and screams at us in our pain     I murder god in my sleep   in my very dreams   I murder god for breakfast   before I start the day   

our prayers are an admission of our weakness     ours is a hunger that cannot be satisfied   we were meant for some other world    some world of eternal love    because of what remains for us    faith    and hope    and love    the latter is sovereign in our hearts   they say the darker the night    the brighter the stars    the deeper the despair    the closer to god    and that is why god must die

mendacious

 

there are things you never forget     especially things that didn’t happen    the past is what we remember    or pretend to remember   it’s purely subjective    there is no past really    just shady memories   and stories we tell ourselves

there’s no real distinction between the true and false   most things are neither   most of what people say is evasion   to expose the poverty within ourselves   is a frightening possibility    best to make something up   do a little dance   and hope no-one is watching

I don’t remember you    I remember me    and what I thought of you    I had you pegged as a liar    but we are all liars   our lives are one big lie   and our lies are beautiful   they help us perfect who we are

don’t all lies lead inexorably to the truth?   is there not a kernel of truth in every lie?   all stories    true or false   lead to the same conclusions    sometimes lies are easier to swallow than truths   the truth can blind    but lies merely illuminate

we are all actors in our lives    we just pretend to be who we want people to think we are     as actors each must play their part as if it were real    but we are all of us works of fiction     in this world of monstrous truths    it’s probably just as well

 

listen to the Creature EP

assassins

some tender moments remain uncharted   those rendezvous are covert affairs   instant hook-ups are of little consequence   cause if nobody knows then nobody cares   but beyond the cheap thrill and the base gratification    it’s still a charade    I was never really there

I severed those ties with definitive force   I cut them off and cast them out   then I set them on fire   powdered the ashes   and buried them deep   far far away   but they haunt me still    the flesh of my flesh   that lost appendage cleaved from the bone   a bloody sacrifice   to some lesser evil   they’re a revenant organ   or a phantom limb    they’re a forbidden exhumation and a filthy itch I long to scratch

 

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   of sorrow and despair

 

our practiced tongues wove convenient fictions from little grey lies   which we honed into truths sharp as knives   some kinds of love can smell like hate   some kinds of devotion feel like possession  

 

there are truths made of lies   like the stories told by jealous souls of bitter adoration   where romantic weapons are used with cooler calculation   yes  some kinds of love are poisoned daggers   wielded by lovers who are gentle assassins

 

 

homo rejectus

it’s a tedious chore   and no mistake   around the houses   and home again   the whole rigmarole    a wasted journey   a tortuous trek   in an inclement season   but I’ll find myself    on some darkened street   soaked to the skin   but no worse for wear

 

I need a whole new bundle   to keep me on my feet   I’m winding ancient nightmares    between my dirty sheets    I got nothing left to bargain with   I’m on my fucking knees     my native electricity    has deserted me

 

I purchased naught for nothing   I’d like a refund please   these are times of want   in the chaos factory   I’m surrounded by tender tyrants    outflanked by awkward instance   I’m a hostage to necessity    and have captors to appease

 

I need a little something   added to my recipe   I require a magic bullet    to get me off my knees    so get me an extension   I’ll call for some assistance     to feed me psycho quackery    in the form of jelly beans

 

I’m not gonna tell you porkies    I was only ever as good   as   circumstance demanded   my virtue was a thin veneer    which obscured my need   there’s shit I’ll do    and there’s shit I won’t   but I feel less inclined    to go that extra mile    no    not for strangers   not for no cunt    for out of sight   is out of mind

 

I used to put it about   back when I had the tackle   but now I’m invitation only  and three square daily    the world is full of fools   present company excepted   we’re all just waiting    for nothing specific    we’re just waiting    it’s the game we all play  

 

my angle of inversion is acute    I waste a lot of time    concocting excuses    and orchestrating cancellations    I guess that’s no big secret   but what they don’t know    is that I’m the evolutionary response   to collective neurosis   the final adaption    the end of the line

 

all due consideration given    to the various permutations     I’ve cancelled my subscription     and turned my back    on the whole sorry scene   it’s time in life for a little radial mutation   I don’t know where that’s going    but I do know where it’s been

COVID blue

 

COVID 19 was the catalyst that painted us blue   if you weren’t crazy before you sure are now   when I look outside    I see nothing    when I look inside    I see less    I’m on emotional lockdown   all is blank   and suffocating   my happiness is long overdue     another bus that won’t be coming soon

schizophrenic pandemic aggression   may hold us in a confinement beyond physical arrest   some minds will corrode with the loss of personal liberty    others might grow morbid and lonely    but I banquet on my own thoughts    and sing like a caged bird

oh lordy   don’t cut me no slack   I’m making no applications   for beneficiary status     I require no validation    from abstract strangers   or fawning supplicants    lead me not to redemption    but deliver me from   the tender mercies   of holy rollers   and curtain twitching   superintendent   do gooders

I’m your regular egoist   who recognises the limitations   circumscribed by charity   and I know that   sometimes you have to cut a sucker loose   before he drags you down   these are the days of pestilence and woe   my kettle’s on the boil    and my cup is overflowing   with final demands and hate mail   but you won’t catch me    counting any beads   I’d rather risk insolvency   than go on bended knees

vox dei

 

I was certified ordinary at the lollipop factory    but an undetected defect seized me by the knackers     and I seen the god of babylon riding on his chariot    through the cooperative store    and I seen he had sharks eyes    cold and dead and joyless   and he was just a boy   a youth of eternal summer   but he made my blood run cold    I’d give that cunt a wide berth     but he’s the master of this world

I hid from him then    but I won’t be caged no more    I won’t play his bloody game    it’s my turn now to forge secrets   and manufacture a legacy   he kept us in the dark    but he forgot to hide the books     I’ve been a busy boy   I know all his secrets   he cannot chain my mind    with snake oil and magic lotions   so he can just dream on    because I can think for myself

all gods are false gods    there ain’t nothing behind the curtain     there are no wizards in Oz      all religions are man made    we crowned the god of babylon and we can bring him down      is that seditious?     am I laying a crime on your ears?     dummy up and  listen good     while I lift the veil from your eyes      the seditious are the only honest beings left   we will not live the lie    it’s something of a handicap    in a world where liars and charlatans are deified  

I was as distant from him as I could be    then I was plunged into darkness   on the 5:15    there was brief a spark of recognition    but it was swallowed by the inky black  and the god of babylon spake unto me      his first lie was epic   but his last was pathetic   I don’t judge   but I was never a believer  he was all transmission    how could he know what I was thinking?   that limp procession of falsehoods and threats bemused me    you don’t have to do that    not if you are a god      he smote me then    with instruments of my own devising    it took me a lunar year to scrape my arse off his shoe

sweet pilgrim you’d better beware    so many people around you are phonies    and you could be a phony too    and never know   there was a time you knelt in prayer   and the words were a comfort to you     now you suspect you were only talking to yourself    and that the god you built from old stories and wishful thought   has a veracious appetite     and he gorges on his makers day and night    that god is the fountain of all lies    and a parchment of your imagination