he barked
like a big dog
I was
suitably unimpressed
I’d
forgotten to be afraid
somewhere
along the line
I had shed that
fear
and the air
of casual violence
that once
served to mask it
strange how
we forget our chains
only to
recall their chaffing
in the occasional
moment
of ritual
confrontation
how could I
ever have dismissed
the memory
of bondage
and a
lifetime of enslavement
to my petty tyranny?
death is the bird perched
on your shoulder who counts your days and marks out your time that song is mine and never grows older so show me good grace for I am your master this world belongs to my children and I
I live alfresco don’t need television I gather my news straight from the vine we’re crashing out to
another dimension these shoes were meant for sunnier climes pour us some sense from an unopened bottle and drink of a truth that won’t be denied
there’s nothing to fear so don’t get excited it’s
so hard to live but it’s easy to
die you’ll
hear music wrapped up in thunder you’ll
feel the essence of something divine I
am the raven that carries you over and
paints you immortal if you’re so
inclined
we scored a thousand trips the wonder kid
and I we weren’t in it for the money we were in it for the high they
were consciousness expanding and we thought
them heaven sent I can’t remember
where we got them but I can tell
you where they went
love was everything and everyone was high and we were messianic the wonder kid and I we distributed our treasure with
evangelical zeal and
bestowed upon our punters a once in a
lifetime deal
we told them it was manna that had fallen from the sky we told them it was powerful which no-one could deny we sold a benediction to liberate the mind a journey they’d remember until the end of time
I should develop myself a positive
hustle forge some new gimmick and take it a million miles away from
confinement and isolation yeah I’m shaking off the leg irons that shape my
footprints into the too familiar patterns of helplessness and despair
fetch me a doctor to inoculate my
spirit I’m crashing out of this jail before new variants of old killers nail my
lid shut I’ve seen those monsters they were six miles high and loaded with terminal velocity they have my name and post code etched in memory there’s no negotiating with their dark
intentions they’ll seize my lungs and
pump me dry it’s a matter of time and time is limited by nature I want to live if only for the moment I want to live like I’ll never die
my heart is emptied out my hands are loaded with bricks there’s
riot going on inside my head a revolution on
my doorstep someone fetch a
doctor I’m haemorrhaging violent potential
maybe I’m sick from being locked
in or crazy resentful of being shut out I need a lover to paint my garlands blue this ring of roses is slowly choking me so come share my cup it could be our last we’ll dance together one more time and draw lots for the first stone cast
someone just walked across my grave maybe they poured a libation on my stone maybe they just
stamped the dirt down I have to manage my infestation perhaps I need to
up my dose I hear blades being sharpened did they find me? how
did they find me? plots are being hatched that will never
reach fruition these are the conspirators
of an idiot nation familiar monsters with blood in their
eyes
it’s unwise to get foolish at this stage of play but I have big
feet and clumsy ambitions all my mirrors vacillate between
repulsion and adoration there’s little there that’s of comfort to me so I avert my
eyes when I
get low I
get high all I seek is equilibrium a place to lay my head and some
respite from the monsters
but it’s not the
monsters that offend me it’s the people who make them the monsters aren’t so scary
if you speak the lingo but their masters
possess a murderous reflex and sharp teeth
they have shark like ferocity and no feelings
at all
I’ve seen your bubonic lymph nodes and your ripper smile you’ve gone
fleabag and I
won’t touch your unclean things not at these rates so ring your parish bell and
roll out your dead we’ll cart them off to the knacker’s yard just don’t
touch their skin you’ll catch the dread
apprehension from a dead man’s skin
and don’t you lay in a dead man’s bed there
are critters nestled there between those sheets that will bleed you dry and fill your lungs
with broken glass that’s a gasping wheezing death a fish out of water
drowning in air
flesh
of my flesh flowering corruption what malignant monsters lurk within? I got
the saint vitus itch from a reckless encounter at an
afternoon séance my
death has been scheduled for
a month on sunday I was lucky to get the slot it’s their busiest time
disinfect me a postcard issue me a missive I can’t reach you on this line and I have no means of transportation venomous snipers nest in my shoes but I have other shoes and sometimes I walk and sometimes I crawl and sometimes I don’t do anything at all I’m not elastic enough for a life in limbo treading water dreading time I’m cutting out for an alternative reality where I’m the emperor of dystopia the last living giant on a planet filled with pygmies our world is dying now please help us knit a new one before we run out of wool
I was unaware of her darker dimensions she’d been caught in the gaslight but she wasn’t crazy she was just weary she made it easy for me to cross her killing floor and told me with some certainty that we had met before we coupled in a frenzy but in completely different zones
in the languorous haze of the afternoon sun I stared at her breasts heaving as she drew each labouring breath beneath me and I drove home my seed there amidst the tall grass and I hated her then I loathed her as I wanted her the flies surrounded her corpulent flesh I saw her dead in her rictus gaping and the fecund detritus of her lust and I knew it was over before it had ever begun
I
cannot explain my existence I
never learned the sequence
mine was a comic wilderness filled
with oppressive beings
high on illusionary power bought
and paid for with my sweat and toil I was
so tired of being shoehorned into those awkward instances I
turned on to the dark
to get my business fixed some
use smooth words for ragged purpose they beguile to deceive and I was only too
willing to be deceived
I’d seen his face before but we all have he served me black wine I drank it greedily straight from the bottle it filled me up and I became a beast my face is fluid now it can take on many forms and though I speak with
the tongue of angels my heart is dark and empty I’ve been totally locked
out but he has
the master key
all
words are instrumental that’s what he taught me the real power resides
in the space between the curses invocations
and fragrant lies that’s
the space between naked intent and imagination words are snares for the
unwary but weapons in the hands of lovers he
had words to raise the dead and to bury the living he made me his sounding
brass he wound me
counter clockwise and
set me against myself
just another clockwork monkey clamouring
for the sun
another cold grey start has shrunk my knackers for the
specimen jar bring
out your covid sheets and deliver us your dead Beelzebub’s children
swarm in for the warmth of my brain pan I’m
in the kitchen wearing
my butcher’s apron I’m dissecting the dreams you bequeathed me
looking for some that
match mine from
back in the days when I could still see your smile
I should have been there to hold your hand I should have been there
in my mortuary clothes but
I’m all choked with the consumption and my blackened lungs heaving you were eaten by moths in yet
another night of dread apprehension this
is the land of the viral load where we deal in the deadly statistics transmitted
to us in bulletins
I
shall mourn you in the privacy of my own bubble my agonies augmented by local
enthusiasts who
smother me with their cold indifference and carefully rehearsed denials I just let everybody do what they have to
do there are priority
listings for those on the rise and cardboard
coffins for distant cousins
I must be paranoid because I’m the only jailor in this prism I locked myself down and threw away the keys long before the plague arrived all my highs are from outside my head I’m just a mirror for the sickness of the world symptomatic of a deeper malaise that makes demons of us all I shall weep for us from within my simulation you can gather my tears from social media before you fetch a big policeman to show me to the door
