heavy arithmetic

it’s a heavy arithmetic       that measures out the hours     and subtracts the days      time spent more in hope than reason        our rusted factory eyes lack lustre     they’re fixed on horizons far away       where our dreams now live in exile      and yesterday’s tomorrows accumulate decay       is it true what I heard you say?       you made a binding promise       that you would wait forever     forever and a day

lizards

another billionaire turned out to be a lizard     but it didn’t really matter     he’s chairman of the board     coz money is good    when you earn enough     to buy a small planet     he’ll buy your affections      and swing your elections      coz your aspirations      are shaped by his ambition

screwfaces

sometimes      often     I don’t want to go out      I don’t want to go out     mixing with them screwfaces      don’t get me wrong      I’ve worn faces      we’ve all worn faces     but you know faces     you can’t rely on faces     any more than words      they make you look       and you don’t want to look      but they make you look     and then you see      that faces conceal      and faces mislead      no, you can’t trust the faces      in this neighbourhood  

weirdo

 I’m a rocket    totally psychiatric    but I’m authentic     a genuine individual      I count it a privilege      to play the local freak     it’s not like I really care    coz I was never normal        but sometimes I’ve been free      I can fly in the face of reason     that might sometimes seem eccentric       but I’ve been wired    rewired    and strung out on the limbs of some unfamiliar trees     it suits me that I’m a weirdo     I don’t care what anyone says      I’ve never worn the shackles of social conformity

liquid energy

she said I had potential      in the form of liquid energy      the kind that runs right over      to saturate the page      in a red hot flush of synergy      she loved the cut       of my druggy cliché mystery       and though that stuff is history       she said it all so sexily      that I didn’t really mind        and we made love      in the shadow of the gallows       on a bed of poisoned arrows     they say that lust is blind      of that there is no doubt      she poured my head       into a bowl of wild piranha        she peeled back my banana       smiled once for the camera        and snuffed my candle out

 

treasures

those memories    that echo sunlight forever held within your mind worth more than gold or tea from China these are the treasures of your life

stupid

 people are stupid     that’s my defence     external forces      motivate my actions      I’m one of the masses       singularly  thick      collectively crazy       I don’t sweat it    I drown my sorrows       you won’t catch me      with native intelligence      and you can’t pin me down      with your phony logic     I’ll keep the council     of my blind      and foolish heart    I say we press on    and dance with the devil      he has credentials    that ensure his success    we don’t have to think      we just have to follow      we don’t have to march      while he makes us run

frankenstein

 there’s an air of quiet death about this house     there are ghosts in every corner     there are shadows      there are doubts      I’m being scrutinised by the inner eye     I’m naked and alone      with nowhere left to hide    I murdered you     to resurrect you once more    in the laboratory of my mind      you’re a stain that still needs scrubbing     in the life I left behind      I buried you deep     and hid the shovel     but you’re back again      and causing trouble       it’s a curse to have a conscience       I thought that we were quits     I don’t need to hear you crying     I counted every tear you shed    don’t make me relive this shit    just get the fuck away from here      get out of my fucking head

tribal

did you scan the broken icons?     the debris of heroic purpose?     the fetishes of pain?   here's another dismal harvest of broken bodies and perished dreams       security through violence      no world without us      we kill to live     and live to kill   I'm in awe of the awful symmetry in that design    I understand the tribal imprint      the allure of us and them      but I'm a little older now      and no longer play the game     that doesn't mean I'm safe      it simply means I'm sane

feline

 older now     but clearly no wiser     I showed a little interest     lapped it right up    the cat that stole the cream     but I won’t be neutered     by sympathetic vibrations      ‘no one fucks like that – unless they really mean it’    was that an accusation?      was it a compliment?      I showed a little interest      for a moment you were everything     but you murdered that moment       when you put it under the microscope       you murdered that moment      and I’m over it now…

entangled

it takes two to tangle     in the dog eat dog      but I’m resting my voice      before I take another pounding    my opening gambit       was all cotton candy      but my final word      meant nothing at all     I’ll ease on out      on my magic pillow     to take a repast    that’s at least free of sorrow     I might be back     I might not bother     but if I do change my mind     you’ll see me tomorrow

money

 money has power     if you choose to believe it     some people just don’t care about money       other’s care about nothing else    here I am sitting in my bed     reading my I.O.U’s   I don’t care much for anything    because beauty is a whore     and money is her pimp    I have no taste for poverty     nor for honest labour    that’s why I’m a thief   I will not serve a master     but I will not want for money    I’ll take what I’ve got coming     I’ll steal before I earn