alligator tears

when I was young       in my summer season     I tarried with junkies, thieves, and other lepers       I took the drugs they brought me       and used the words they taught me       those words are old now       teach me some new ones     or leave now in silence       don’t stain my solitude       with worthless gestures         there’s not much time left      and I’m busy writing eulogies

my best years are past     but I wouldn’t buy them back       the past is a curse     that still beats inside me      I’m not complaining       merely observing      if you catch me weeping        don’t be concerned      now and again     I’m struck with nostalgia     it’s a vicarious vice     for people my age     my erstwhile companions have all crossed over     their ghosts tell stories that play on my mind

entombed

habit is a killer     a slow insidious killer   they say the only constant is change       and that a change is as good as a rest       but I don’t want to change       and I don’t need to rest         there is no pillow for my head       I’ll take my ease in death        

I’m told I must move on      but I don’t want to move on       I’m settled here      through entropy      through denial      through fait accompli       I’m consigned to my fate         and I’m set too fast to change       

I believe     I don’t believe     beliefs are for suckers     beautiful and courageous suckers      if I had a little faith       I’d spend it in a tavern      I have little use for faith      I’ll stick with dismal reason     and the bitter draught of cynicism      I heard this joke before      and I no longer laugh

I’m told I must find myself       but I don’t want to find myself        I want to lose myself      in uncharted seasons    let me be forgotten over time    lost and never brought to mind       let me return to nothing         deaf and mute and blind      

silver surfer

modern life is mostly gossip     I remember the good things      at least I think I do     all I can explain with words      I drown beneath the significance of all these words      I liked life well enough        but I never understood it        are there words for that?       never thought I’d find the appropriate mask        because believe me     all accounts are fictional       you can’t be too emotional about it       emotions are all we have     when you get down to it     and we get down to it often enough

I have no designated function      I‘m the ghost of failed endeavours     but I feel safer now      with emotional parking       and appropriate buffer zones      my colours and tones inverted        I cast a slender shadow      across the now and then      I’ve earned my seclusion        but a happy isolation       would be just another cage      so just  look at me now        not a stitch to wear      but I go dancing just the same     the world is still young        it’s me who has changed        I would decline the invitation        but I expect that I’m expected        and I’ll show up just the same        

flagrante delicto

 a poor man is the image of want        and we don’t have a bolt to our names      but we have music       driven by demons        danced to by angels     the rhythm of saints and sinners       in eternal friction      as it is in heaven       so shall it be in hell    we got the tools      we can loose the lightning        it won’t stop     because we don’t stop        it was the language of our limbs        the lexicon of lust       that first betrayed our innocence       then exposed our love

we were caught with our pants down     and made ashamed of our bodies      but I’ve seen you with him       your faux lover     there’s no heat there      no magic     he will not feed your passion         nor spare you the force of his affections      so forsake his god of blood        come back to our tangled bed         we’ll dance the horizontal tango        and forget about tomorrow’s woes       at least until the morning       when we’ll be judged as monsters         by a jury of our peers

Bethlehem

 there’s a poem lodged in my throat     I don’t remember the words       or where it all began     they say  god speaks through signs       that only prophets understand      where  the sky blankets the earth      in misty  morning dew       a child in golden chains      the sacrificial lamb      lost in winter storms      hostage to conflict       and there’s no star now over Bethlehem       just a testament to unending war

 

mister natural (again)

never worked a day in my life        won’t sweat blood for the machine       blood is heavier than gold      but what do I know?      I’m just a bum balancing the scales       my advice to would be scholars      is to do what you like      but don’t let your imagination run away with you       don’t lose yourself in the herd       or let modest claims of individuality     camouflage your bovine curiosity    just plant a flag in the anecdotal and call it history       

but don’t listen to me        I’m a certified fool      I renounce history         all histories are phony       I have no history      I just tell convenient stories       this life was spent dreaming        yesterday’s cause is lost        let tomorrow care for tomorrow’s woes          I won’t cry today     I feel I’m halfway high    just from thinking about it      I’m pitching naturals from now on      these dice are loaded and the table is mine

beatified

 I don’t read the papers       I just follow the signs    I get all the information I need in stereo        messages from heaven      transmitted in high definition     directly into my cranium      my senses may be addled       but my heart is instrumental     in sorting out those waves      I needn’t be sober to garner their substance      the lyrics are set in time    to a long familiar refrain

they tell me god loves a drunk       because all drunks are poets      and all poets are killers      when it comes down to it     and it often does    we are all of us killers       but I don’t seem to mind      I’ll gladly take the blame      if there’s any going     my hereditary fault lines      my bipolar distemper       mete out eyeball for eyeball      and subtle truth for gain   

it ain’t rocket science      just simple dharmic law     the children of men are routinely tested       to live and love and lose again    that’s the sum of our existence        those are the rules of engagement      the nature of the game       that’s how the courageous love       as lions among lambs     in the pastures of eternity       in a story without end

eulogy

 I said a prayer to the highway god

“Please don’t let me die alone

Out on this road

So far from home”

Some say that hungry worms conspire to rend the flesh of the recently expired. That we return to whence we came – to that unknown place which bears no name. Some day perhaps we’ll rise again to know no sorrow – to feel no pain. I don’t know the truth in that, because I’ve seen death up close and I don’t see no way back from that. So if I fall before my time; bury me beneath the sign that points the way back home; and simply say of me ‘he once was here and now is gone’.

stronger

 I made you    my seed gave you life      flesh of my flesh     you belong  to me      you’re a chip off the old block       but I’ll be old and grey         before you get the better of me        you’ve gotten too big for your boots      coming on all high and mighty       you need some bringing down boy       get your feet back on the ground      you’ll feel the back of my hand          it’s the only thing you understand      there’s only one god in this house       and while you’re under my roof      I will be obeyed       and I will be adored      because everything I do     I do it for you     one day you’ll thank me      for making you stronger         one day you’ll thank me      for making you stronger

weasels

 it gets complicated  when the weasels come to town         some critters only love you when the sun shines       they turn carnivorous in the dark      weasels are sharp and unrelenting     theirs are worlds of meat and necessities       I don’t care      what did the old assassin say?      the coup de grace       always stick one in the brainpan      that’s what I’m doing      gimme the blowtorch      we’re smoking moon rocks        testing the limits of gravity        stick it to my brain pan      I feel the rapture coming on strong     I’m all about having a laugh     vibing with the positive        success is having fun       there’s no maybe in paradise     no excuses      no exceptions    and no mealy-mouthed weasels to ruin the party for everyone else   

in the land of uz…

 sort me out with a spoonful      coz a black cat crossed my path      mail it if you care for me      or just leave me alone     but you know where I am     if you want to treat me like lover     just come on down     I got lightning in my pocket     but I can’t spare a dime      so don’t expect my call      I’m a hostage to necessity       and have no friends at all

so fuck me up      turn me out     distance me from all I love     bury me in winter squalls      twist my nuts and turn me off       tell me now I’m going home      where no-one lives but me alone      now that all reason has fled       teach me how just cruel you are     furbish my weapons      poison my bread      pour for me a bitter cup     take my tears and drink them up

I’m going all the way down     never has so cruel a season rained down on my head     it has carved for me a heart from stone     no lover’s lips can relieve my doubts    no knockout blow will count me out      no fiery brand will light my path     I grope in the darkness and eschew the light     coz there’s only one fight      and I’m in it thick     so murder me      but please make it quick

 

bugsy

all my life they had me drag the low end     they say I’m not worth knowing       that I don’t amount to  much      so I deserved their soft betrayals     the kind that stuck fast    a leaking of confidences  unanswered phone calls    unanswered doors     they’d cut a little distance        and leave me in the cold       maybe they caught a glimpse of my crazy        maybe they just lost patience       I’m used to that now      no one knows you when you’re mental     I guess my company isn’t easy      no one owes me anything      friendship least of all       but it doesn’t really matter now      I’m tempered by experience       and hardened to the bone      I flourished on the outside      I made it on my own

*Bugsy; adjective  infested with bugs; dirty; weird; buggy. Crazy; unstable; bughouse, He must be bugsy to behave so impulsively!