I waited up all night by the telephone when you eventually called I said I wasn’t home I’m sorry for that now coz baby I need your prayers I need your readies too there’s been a blues revival I’ve been chemically castrated stitched into my blankets and left out in the rain maybe something I desired crossed that invisible line I offered my contrition they stoned me just the same and left me still yet still conflicted bruised and torn subject to the tender mercies of the compassionately numb save me from do gooders who would save me from myself I just need a tonic to improve my mental health
14 September 2022
12 September 2022
the taj mahal
when I get low I get high I’m not gambling for salvation indifference is my prize when the sun sets on the good and clean the geeks and freaks and junkies join the medicine show our bankrupt ideals and crooked jungle rules weave loathsome pinprick tapestries that stain us to the soul and the wonders of the world dissolve on our dirty spoons to be regurgitated in an idiot geometry in the catch as catch can where our flight is stunted with leaden wings in another shabby paradise not the advertised cool blue nile or the taj mahal with the lover of our dreams but instead the squalid nightmare of endlessly repetitious junkydom and the eventual release of that fatal final dose
31 August 2022
radio rental
they say everyday is a school day and that knowledge is power so why are we ruled by apes? am I evolving? being? becoming? what the fuck am I becoming?
I’ve been
playing hooky they say I’m radio rental but I never burned a book I’m just a well intentioned idiot trying to carve an identity from bars of soap I’m none the wiser but
at least I’m clean some of the
time we’re all filthy now our carbon footprints lead straight to the gates of hell
if we’re lucky we’ll end up in a museum but no-one here gets lucky unless by accident I played the hand they dealt me it kept me in the game but I’m on a losing streak the whole world feels the same the world has gone radio rental we’re all of us insane
9 July 2022
brown paper bag
most
ain’t got no freedom some have
just enough we are all prisoners
here of our own devices me
I need an outside woman
someone who won’t steal my clothes I don’t want to play house just give me something pure I only want the medicine I don’t expect a cure so if she saw my pain she’d just spoon me out a dose so wrap me up in clover stick me in a brown paper bag we’ll know the party’s over when the hours begin to drag
24 June 2022
hooked
ain’t this life just precious? and doesn’t the world agree? the world says I’m your hook up that doesn’t bother me love me or loathe me I’ve never been strung out or lost my shape for love I don’t sing the blues I just show the way you may have disgraced me with a dirty back hander but I don’t seem to care what am I? some kinda wet leg? an insect you brushed off? are you still hooked up with your TV
set? have you seen me yet? let’s avoid the inevitable and fix some drinks I’ll have a long one death on the rocks I’m there in a heartbeat you’ll have me buckled down behind your baby blues so join me now young hearts beat fast but old hearts know what’s going on
8 June 2022
sugar
call me an ambulance
tell them it’s old flat face again
I took a tumble from the wrong side of my bed I dreamed I was dying but I wasn’t afraid I was merely disappointed see, I’ve been nowhere since they cancelled the lights all my chores are only half done and my papers are out of order but I’ll dust myself down start all over one more time ‘cause time is all I have left you can think what you want just wait until I’ve gone before you pass judgement meanwhile, lend me your bosom let’s make like lovers and play it for laughs I had the blues for breakfast don’t worry though I won’t implicate you I’m not blinded by tears I just need a little sugar to help the medicine go down
6 June 2022
death squads
your narrative is a dud a huge disappointment you should scrub it clean and hang it out with your dirty sheets bleached for sunday soiled again by monday you can try again if you dare or you can conserve your heat before you die of exhaustion there are death squads lurking behind your TV that’s a bargain get out combat the cost of living with a cheap and cheerful funeral plan because you are fading episodically dying by degrees the gravity of your armchair the inertia of habit your midlife anticlimax has you on your knees
2 June 2022
dreamer
they say
that fortune favours the bold
that quiet courage wins wars
but that only love can conquer all
I’m told
pride comes before a fall that the
harder they come the louder they
bawl
I tell you
that death lurks right there in
your living room where vicarious
thrills are no thrill at all
someone once
told me that life is a dream so
where does that leave me? am I the dreamer? or am I merely the dream?
30 May 2022
puddles
28 May 2022
woody
woody was an artist
he stole his supplies from
the council depot he said he
knew the score he sketched it out for
me with red paint and an old tooth brush he said life was bloody as was death and that the old world had to die to make room for the new I asked him what the new world would be
like “like new” he answered and walked away knowingly woody was heavily charismatic he’d never been called an arsehole
when he’d gone I took the opportunity to scope out his latest
work it was a murderous apocalypse
of a painting it was still
wet and I got some red on my
fingers I left my incriminating
prints all over the death of the old world or was it the birth of the new? I was a criminal in the both worlds it seemed this and the next
*painting by Picasso
jack the lad
but the mechanisms of
disclosure are often
misleading you played the angel of
mercy and I the prince of
thieves there were few flies on me I was keen as a blade I pulled a stroke now and then coz I loved a spot of gravy when there was gravy to be had
from here to there wasn’t so far but from there to here I spent some agonising hours I bled out between your sheets what’s that the symbol of? a pattern of self denial? or some form fatalistic love? I was only seventeen and I could touch the sky but my hope and my despair walked together hand in glove
time has dried our eyes you moved on and so did I I’m a creature of habit my life is an open book you’ve read this one before with the turning of each page I gradually metamorphosed into the ebb and flow
now
I crack with the dawn to bark with
the crows it’s an angular song with no melody but it sounds my name and suits my clothes I’ve been on the high serenity since I busted the final taboo I’ve lived long enough now to perfect my
illusion you could call me a modern
man but I have standards to
uphold
they
say that we only see just what we
want to see well I’ve seen enough to know and know enough to hold my peace I opted for peace I didn’t like the
power dynamic that some people
wanted to cut from my cliché I’m a
rarefied species the once in a
blood red moon I’m the one who cheated life through the needle and the spoon
21 May 2022
zentacles
can I just say I own this
space? I own this space and the spaces between the spaces between that’s of little consequence in the grand schemata but it butters my scones just the same
can I just tell you I
own this day? I own this day and the days between the days between not that it really affects anything or anyone beyond the scope of my own dharma
can I just add I own this name? I own this name and the other names that I have been stretching out into infinity but that’s old news of no interest to anyone let alone me