allow for shrinkage

the engine was an old engine   it whined and coughed   but to me it was singing    it was the song the crows all sing  a song of life  and death   and chaos  I resonated in sympathy to each discordant note of the music that only I could hear  my gum had long since lost its flavour and my mouth was dry and reptilian 

 

roll the window down a bit and let me breathe 

 

there were many miles to go before morning splayed her thin grey fingers over the land   I rolled another joint   just a small one    all I asked for was a little dab of fire to light my way   the road was long   without even a whisper of which way was home   perhaps there was no way home   just the road and the memories

I went to see a man about a monkey and left her standing in the rain while I sipped warm tea with my doctor   I couldn’t care less  I was that kind of arsehole   the kind that bleeds for sympathy when he’s dark from psychosis and suicidal ideation    but blows smoke up your arse when he’s high    I could be quite charming when I was high

 

I heard you got married

 

yeah   I got married

 

what was she thinking

 

I have no idea

 

it would never last   it never did     I gave it two years before she worked it out    they all worked it out eventually   it was the secret that would not be concealed    this man had no soul    I did not sell it   or trade it for eternal youth riches  fame  or power   I didn’t gamble it away in some diabolical game of chance   I didn’t even throw it away in a fit of pique    no  I simply turned around one day and noticed it was gone  like a missing shadow   I had mislaid my soul and had no idea where   though I suspected I may have left it standing out in the rain somewhere

she said she liked the cut of my cliché   suburban dilettante with a splash of druggy mystique   but   she said   and here comes the wrecking ball    you have no soul   the girl with the raven eyes    said I had no soul   but of course I have a soul  that’s where the pain lies   she laid the boot in where it hurts   right in the ego   started a downward cycle    spiralling beyond my control

any fool can draw blood with the carefully chosen word  most use the scatter gun approach and just chuck them about till something sticks  this was different   I felt she knew me   that she had seen inside of me and found me wanting   an embarrassed silence was the precursor to deep despair

I have to report that I got very drunk   I tried to drown my sorrows   but my sorrows can swim    the flotsam of my life crowded my head with unhealthy vibrations   my clockwork messaging service told of rude change in the either region   either get it straight or go home to sulk   I have no home  just a domicile   somewhere to lie down when lying down is called for   somewhere I keep my junk   in case I need my junk

how banal   how very banal   the common place misery  the self indulgent woe why should I care what some stranger says    why did her words burn pathways of shame into my mind   it was a lucky guess that’s all    she couldn’t possibly know that I had no soul

I was sickened of my self pity   I was sickened of my life   if I was a real man I’d have a gun   I’d powder my nostrils with kif and royal jelly and bed every whore who gave me the glad eye   don’t ever let me outta here   I’m a serial disaster waiting to happen   I’m cooking up some of that good shit and I’m gonna lay it on thick and fearless   I’ll puke on your lap if you feed me enough   I always bite the hand that feeds    it’s expected of me    it’s part of my shtick

I got a third class education gleaned from the pages of stolen books   I was a part time visionary and a cut price casanova      but the charm of show business has long since worn thin   the antidote to glamour is working for a living    mind numbing boredom scoops your insides out and fills the spaces with dust  I’m not complaining  don’t get me wrong   I get high  I get low  repeat (ad infinitum)  the crest of the wave   the laxative slump   that tremor deep in the gut has me distended and extended beyond human limitations   I’m a regular chameleon   a hybrid human   a spaced out chimera

is my face on straight    do I look faulty   the phoney me   the painted smile  of synthetic man   the weight of me  the shape of me  everything is fragmented and broken   here in the marginal regions of sensory deprivation words don’t come easy   if they come at all  words are relayed by proxy here   laid out in some secret cipher known to no-one  but understood by all   there is no asylum here   no sanctuary   and no sanctity   there is room for one and one alone    it’s never an easy fit    you have to allow for shrinkage of the soul

mao tse-tung

it always rained in my hometown    the streets were slick as shit   beneath a toxic orange sky     where young aspirations  were squashed     each day at school   and dreams were all but murdered    when last orders came around    it was a place of broken promises     there was no explaining why

the dead    and undead   living    in the shade of the refinery   would pray each day to heaven     to deliver them from evil    but keep them in a job   to put meat on the table     and maybe save a couple if quid     for the saturday night debacle

poverty means crime   and crime means poverty   our lives were pressure cooked    in that bloody cauldron    violence was the release valve    and fearsome reputations   were forged in blood and gore    the mythology of violence      was part of our folklore    and we never questioned why

but we are the vital component    of the military industrial equation      living in barrack towns   hatched and batched as fodder    for some obscene machine     we have universal access    to the theatre of distraction     but we have no power over our lives    and we are forced to fight and toil     for other people’s pleasure 

it seems many may have settled     for criminal poverty      while others have been crying out for change    they don’t know what it means   but they know that change must come      that it will take a revolution   and there is no war   without blood   because all  political power     grows from the barrel of the gun

 

love bomb # 5 (covid blue edit)

where is my vodka   and the nubiles that I ordered?    I need a filler for an empty bed   some-one to sooth me   and help me negotiate the lockdown    I don’t need love   or anything transcendental   just serve me sexuality    and make it a big slice    it’s been a lunar year    since I tasted something nice   back when I still had lovers   in a former paradise

I appreciate the science     but the science is killing me   I’ve been walking around in circles     in something of a daze    and I’m dying to reacquaint  you    with my secret ways    so why don’t you come over   clandestinely    and spend a couple of days

I’ve been waiting for a woman   who will not run and hide   to come to my amusement park      and take a forbidden ride    so say  you’ll come on over    later     when it gets dark   it’s a breach in regulations    but it could just be the spark    that detonates our love bomb    and gives us both a lark

section eight

I don’t make the rules    I don’t even follow them   perhaps that’s where I went wrong  some have called me crazy   but that’s open to debate   when they opened up my head   to take a peek inside    they found I was haunted   by a demon of conscience   and was inked bloody with the stains  of unforgiveable depravities    but you never know what secrets lurk   beneath the surface of a man’s alleged insanity    believe me when I tell you   everybody is crazy   but most just don’t realise it  

I slay the beast every morning   and every fucking night    but they don’t give me medals    they just give me pills    and send me on my way     it’s a wild and torrid wind    that blows through my skull    and on any given day    of wonder and of peril   there will be a fearful storm    I’ve had a lifetime of bastard storms   and I demand a reprieve   and maybe stronger pills    from the very top shelf please   I have forsaken a peaceful mind    to make war with the beast  

thinking of the life I’ve led   the desolation I’ve endured   and the meagre mercy I’ve received   I feel weary   I feel heavy in my bones    when I brood on all of that    and the way I sought nourishment    with casual lovers and liquid fire  and then those sorry times  I was more beast than man    when the madness   the sheer fucking frenzy   fuelled by my boiling blood     raging with pathos and fury   would shame me to the core

 I am truly tired   of the burden I must bear   I could weep    and sometimes do    when my heart simply cracks    and my brain implodes   and I am the most pathetic excuse for a man   to ever shed his load   but the sickness which afflicts my life     does not define my soul    or rob me of my humanity    would you dismiss me as a crazy man     don’t you ever feel the same    have you never felt alone

the infinite and radiant IS

the infinite and radiant IS   bestowed upon me a kiss   and she whispered in my ear    that she’d always held me dear     she banished all the shadows   that once played upon my heart     she said that though I’d felt alone     we’d never been apart   she knew that I had suffered   the countenance of men     but I would never lose her love     or lose my way again   

she said that I now owned the world   and everything therein    and nothing that I would ever do   could ever be a sin   and it filled my heart with joy      to know I was her favourite boy    how do I explain?   I was reborn again

she told me she was everywhere   and she was everything      from the fish deep in the ocean    to the birds out on the wing   she said that none of this is real  but thinking makes it so   this world is an illusion   that we must one day let go   

she is the love supernal   and her light shines eternal    she has been my lover   since the dawn of time   she’s my sister and my mother   there’s never been another    she's a lifetime confidante    and the dearest friend of mine    I know her most intimately   so I can assure you of this   everything that ever was   and everything that is   has always been the property of    the infinite and radiant IS

 

the villain

I hear that you never tire     of spreading the bad news       and I’ll happily play your villain     on any day you choose       I heard what you’ve been saying      and some of it is true    but I never put down anyone     in the cowardly way you do    

I’ve nearly always done     just what I wanted to      while you’ve relied on others     to tell you what to do      of course I have regrets     but they are so very few    I’ve lived to be free     that was never true of you

you are so deeply pious      but you haven’t got a clue     and I refuse to be consigned     to live the way you do     we were once good friends      but you possessed a jealous heart     you wanted what I had     and that’s why we had to part

you’ve been casting stones      but always from afar      you know deep in your bones       that’s the kind of man you are      you talk behind my back    but never to my face      is it courage that you lack?      or just any sense of grace?    

leaden

 

the margins are minuscule    in this cruel season       it’s hard enough to raise a buck    never mind a smile     I sing with the crows     and bathe in the dark     cold fibre is scant reward     for all the bareback adventures     and romantic misdemeanours     that blot my copy book     (kudos to the phallus imperator)

my chapped lips      and  caffeine smile     reveal there’s fear in my monkey     his silver tongue and leaden heels      have me hobbled in the blocks    those softer metals conduct static       directly to the brain pan      and my blood’s impurities      leave a tell-tale stain on the inside  but there’s no point in concealment     no-one gives a fuck what’s written there anyway

infinite space

when I’m dead and gone     don’t you cry for me      and I’m simply moving on    and I hope you’ll come to see     that no-one ever really dies    for each of us lives on in immortality

none of this is real      but thinking makes it so      this world is an illusion      that one day we’ll  let go     I tried to live this life      without a single care    I never made a penny       but I’ve been everywhere       

I’m an immortal soul    and I’ll still be about    long after the sun has died    and the stars have all burned out    when everything we’ve known     has  disappeared without a trace     my journey shall continue       somewhere in infinite space

oxydation

countless measures of synthetic junk      have arranged my psyche as euphorically drunk    I experiment with words and their rhythmic possibility      and I’m all wired up with a new found mobility    I take inspiration from needle and spoon      to dance with the devil and howl at the moon

I found my ease in an exotic narcotic    a new alchemy that’s darkly  hypnotic      I mix my medicine with booze and snake oil     and then cook it all up in aluminium foil      I study my dreaming at my own leisure   with a bitter concoction that I’ve learned to treasure     and I savour its taste as the ultimate pleasure  

but my little boat is slowly submerging     as the beast from the deep  is likewise emerging      I need his poison the way I need air    but he promises bounty that just isn’t there     he dangles his riches  just beyond reach     and holds fast to my flesh     like a blood engorged leech