feel good naked

 you have to turn the lights off      if you want to see outside       fix that scene in your head       you can serve it up later        when you’re in bed        just an ordinary guy         with love on his mind        god was looking at you        but just for a moment        it was a beautiful thing         a brown paper bag       discarded on the pavement       the chords of intent      tug on your shoulders         it won’t be long now        til you reach fulfilment       you’ve got to know what you look like       before you go out        you want to feel good naked          while you freak out         you are so very beautiful        and you’re doing great        if only you knew it

crushed

take a picture of this          lives that whisper low and soft    like desiccated leaves        of yesterday’s plasticine lovers         buried in shallow graves        old songs and new          of love betrayed        or bitterly entangled         some that withered on the vine          or were stolen in the dead of night      and eventually strangled             a billion working stiffs       eat when they are able           while bands of renegade junkies        feast upon their entrails           so indelicately dangled

they said the fighting was over        so we would drop our guard          then they sucker punched us        with world war three        staged in our back yard          there’s an app built into your phone          that turns your mind to mush          and replaces all your memories          with electrostatic slush       this is as a voice preaching to the deaf           whose words would make you blush       if you were of the living          and weren’t already crushed

john the revelator

 time means nothing       conventions are shackles       are you in the mood      to see something special?       I don’t know       I never did         maybe I got religion        it didn’t bring me joy         I’ve seen this movie before       I remember how it ends       the sun shines cool and thin       on the gilded palace of sin        it’s an open casket affair      the world is pale and weary     in her winter skin         these are the final days      of our cockroach empire       stupefied and dazed         like so many dancing bears         the latest, lastest craze     oxygen deprivation       we’re choking on our dreams        our chemical castration        it’s been a long time coming      but we refused to read the signs       it’ll be a long time gone          before we make amends         

cotton candy

 I sleep like an old man       half in      half out    somewhere in between        dreams and memories      wrapped around my head        like winding sheets         this is my death       I die by degrees in the 3 am          there’s no peace for the foolish         and I have been foolish          coz I got shit for brains          and cotton candy for a heart

in the kingdom of the blind

 my one good eye blinked      and  just for an instant         the world went dark          I looked upon myself        and silently cursed my fate          I took a screwdriver to my mind           rewired my persona     but there was no relief          from the literal devices        that only brought me grief

everything’s a cliché       practiced well enough        this is a world of actors      we simply have no choice         it’s a question of survival        we are mythology        out of contention        misdirected entertainers          creatures in a zoo      

but you don’t have to be afraid      not of me       I’m a misprint        a blemish        a social disease         all that’s been eating you       for the last ten thousand years      are pre-packaged excuses       and  crocodile tears     from where I am      you don’t understand       but I could be your guru       I could be your holy man

angel

she was a sweet thing       that much is true     but when I saw her at rhe window        lit up by the morning light      I thought she might be an angel      sent to save me       from myself      but my angel had claws      she’d been hurt before

I was a ragamuffin       no fixed abode      but I could talk the birds from the trees      I laid it on thick       with a big fuck off brush      maybe I said too little      maybe I said too much       I guess I’ll never know      my angel went away      we didn’t stay in touch       the taste of her lingers still      the woman in the window      what’s that the symbol of?

entropic

I don’t know the devil       but I know his ways        I’m familiar with deception           and the patterns of disgrace      so strap me down       or turn me loose        it’s sad       but it’s true     I’m overdue a jolt      more power to my elbows       more gleam on my machine     I’m not strung out       I’m just down       but there’s a cure for those blues      stashed in your arms       

I had to bend       I had no choice         I’m  a man of straw            a fool for hire       I dry my eyes      and blow my nose         I caught a chill      from deep inside          baby, I’m hurt        can you heal my wounds?      I forgot how to fly      so I’m learning to fall       do you think god truly loves us?        coz I  reached out         but he doesn’t answer my calls      

winter rain

 she was too good to me      I could never repay her kindness        a certain amount of magic        is necessary in love          but all magic comes at a price      my pockets were empty       but my head was loaded        any other weapon      might have proved less destructive        but I’m a killer        with a killer’s destiny      she spoke to me        about heroin     and death      and love        she tried to rehabilitate me        but my heart was still captive       to the oriental curse       and I rewarded her devotion         with slow burning indifference       I smothered her with darkness         and left her in the winter rain

the yule tide

 it’s something o’ clock     on the astral calendar      that time of the year     I’m put in the stocks     cause I am tangential      to the status quo      too fucked up     to go with the flow        I’m all jammed up     and glued to the spot       because hell is social     but I am not

 

I’m out of sync        with the conversation      another symptom       of my growing alienation          a greyish catastrophe     unfolds behind my eyes       as another fraction          withers away and dies       it’s the same old singer      it’s the same old song        something      somewhere      is going wrong

nauseous

 I spent my last afternoon burning foil        every day I went to the well        till one day my bucket sprang a leak         the arse fell from the world       nausea had my throat         and I was humping air and filthy water       I’d found the entrance       to the 7^th level of hell         I was dissolving in a puddle of puke           my revulsion was purely organic           borne on waves of reflux action        I was sickened so deep my organs ached        my ego has taken a bruising        but I’m bound to get lucky someday     I’ll come back and buy this town      smother the bitch with gasoline       and burn it to the ground

the dreaded love machine

  if only  in my head    I always felt free      let’s call it cheeky    or maybe libertine       I seize opportunity       rock hard  and ready     sheathed in latex gloves        I’ve more than once been mangled       by the dreaded love machine       but I have no regrets      no bitter feelings      more than once I figured      I was only dreaming

there are no substitutes in this life         everything that is      is what it ought to be        we are all just dreamers      and this is just a dream        but keep the channels open         you can call on me    I will not be defeated        by the dreaded love machine   

the colours of the night

the moon was slung real low       in a big lazy coupe de ville     so close I could have smashed her windows        but I don’t carry no stones in my pockets       I’m merely  packing bones        I beat the sun into an early submission         it’s gonna be dark       for some time to come

the world has dissolved at my fingertips        I know every colour of the night      they were revealed to me          one layer at a time     it’s not so confusing           I saw it for a second         it flickered in and out        the symmetry of being      has never been in doubt