ghosts

 I’m sickening again       I’ve been infected      I have ghosts in my blood        you best roll me a stony      make it a hard one    I got the fear something chronic         but I’ll keep on going        I’m bound to get lucky       I’m prepared to die trying      this world can make you        this world can break you    but there’s no coin in self pity     and there’s no solace in tears        

 

I don’t believe in resurrections        or in tearful reconciliations         the past is gone forever       ghosts take shape in its shade        my head is haunted with that fearful geometry        and the friends undone by time and tide          I’m a single link in the chain forever broken        my heart has formed a compact       between the living and the dead 

 

ghosts come to me     through my own reflection         ghosts come to me    in the wake of my dreams         ghosts come to me     with untimely reminders       this life is hard          and shorter than it seems        so take your best shot        and maybe another       you might win some      but you’ll likely lose more         this life pays out        with diminishing returns      no-one passes this way        with bridges left unburned

 

outside

 I’ve got the deep chill      from standing on the outside      coz while all the world was fast asleep      I was on a bender       and burning out my innards        with jugs of liquid fire           the intrusion sparked the fear within     and I blew a heavy fuse trying to contain it        back in the night       back where the fun begins      I’m all fingers   thumbs    and knotted nerves      but I’m skinning up      and dumbing down        I have avian reflex in beak and eye       but this rooster’s teeth      are worn      from gnawing on old grievances 

 

she always thought       I wore my heart on my sleeve      but she was wrong     only the sleeve was real      the heart was an affectation       heart  or soul    what’s the difference      when they’re both absent?      she said I’d carry that load      through the ages     and that I’d been enslaved    by my own instruments      I serve     but do not know

 

 I learned to run from her sagacity     I need no commentary on my decline   I leave my own words as reference      a salutary lesson in personal abuse      my words are as brittle as my bones       and as hollow as my intent       I didn’t force the world on anyone    I acted as an outsider     a mere observer    in my capacity as counterfeit hero    if my efforts fell short of my bourgeois pretensions       it was more a matter of attention span     and my penchant for the seemingly exotic      than any predilection for deceit    

 

somewhere on my covenanted half-acre of hell     there stands a mausoleum     washed smooth with tears      here the holders of my promissory notes  are interned     along with the wax effigies of former lovers       I lie    but not through intention       I lie from carelessness      and a casual disregard for facts      I have a proven record of self-deception        and quiet ineptitude       may the evidence show  that I was never deliberately cruel    but was perhaps reckless in the pursuit of pleasure     the most damning indictment against me is selfishness      I confess my guilt       but reserve judgment to myself

 

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