tallyman

 praise be to the tallyman        who sells us back our shirts       and keeps our children hungry      for the sake of democracy        the nation’s books are balanced        on our broken backs        we make believe while making do       that we hang on in together       and he provides the glue

tonic

 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      

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

 

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

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

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

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

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  

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?     

 

puddles

 

sticky black puddles radiate       where unknown gods baptize       soft soothing words feather weight        in luxurious  and soft velvet sighs        on clouds of expelled opiate         to recombine and synthesize        soothing songs in tones sedate        tell beautiful and welcome lies

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

 some moments live with you       some moments linger on     like that first morning        our great false dawn       when I tipped head first into your coffee cup and dissolved    sweetly       later    looking back    we’d call it love at first sight       we had talked all night       I loved the sound of your voice       and mine       

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