I’m being ground down by the tyrant within my mind is an elegant trap a fractal of coloured lenses painting my emotions various shades of sodom I can’t go on living like this but what else do I know? I have to move and make my way by moving somehow arriving and departing constantly shifting until I find some direction that feels like I’m heading somewhere I ought get into this right into the heart of this you kindled a flame in me now watch me burn art colours life so paint me red paint me gold paint me anything at all I’m losing my distinctions it all blurs into nothing and nothing becomes me like nothing at all
17 January 2024
16 January 2024
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
14 January 2024
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
11 January 2024
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
9 January 2024
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
27 December 2023
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
19 December 2023
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
17 December 2023
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
13 December 2023
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
6 December 2023
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