…and where am I now? I’m in the glasshouse again and where are you? you’re home and dry open the window and breathe in that gloom it’s that kind of night in that kind of room don’t touch me now you’ll catch something cruel I love you some I hate you too but you didn’t bring me down I did that to myself you drink like a thief one eye on the door I should have seen you coming I’d have spit in your eye coz nobody loves a snitch or trusts a fucking liar…
he smiled and smiled as if he were willing to play the villain if necessary and that’s the way of it in my neighbourhood he was slightly fleabag you know the type vaguely disaffected stinking of skunk and sweat he spoke low and slow didn’t give away too much he played a private game no one knew it’s name all human suffering resided in his eyes but he didn’t seem to care he was nearly clued in almost wise his were written memoirs pen and paper torn from life he was veteran of some ancient revolution but he wasn’t a victim he was a survivor he’d seen thousands like me eager to impress with my vacuous knowledge but he was a book closed to me “…nothing matters anymore, the war was lost long ago… …I stopped resisting the flow and learned to let go… …it’s not the best of all possible worlds, but it’s the only one we know…” he was an individualist and if he ever got lonely he didn’t let on he’d been weathered smooth by millennia of dust and rain I was an acolyte - he’d send me to the shops but nothing he said was news to me nothing he said seemed real
ever since the funny farm my self doubt is crippling it’s an existential funk bipolar flavour I’m just a mirror to a world rotten with mediocrity I’m a television head I’ve abolished the dark of night and bleached my brain with photons my thoughts are merely the regurgitation of twenty four hour programming I’ve lost all sense of the real I’m a cartoon man moulded in a cartoon world I manage my appearance and the illusion of individuality but there’s no such thing as real there are only layers of fiction and that’s all folks that’s all she wrote
back to square one early doors the milkman cometh my war against sleep wages on I’m sick again wretched with it my mind is in meltdown there’s no silence left not with the newsflash the commercial breaks and incessant chattering idiocy of the internet there’s little sense to the information age we’re in it for the money we murdered god and filled the void with primetime cheesecake this culture is universally flaccid a succession of fragmented sensation and random nostalgia I’m sickened of it I overdosed on signification I’m puking my guts up on the swirl of empty meaning back to square one early doors the milkman cometh…
I won’t make a difference in your life I won’t make a difference in mine I have no power of attorney no higher authority the world will turn without me in it I have lived as other men lived I’ll die as they have died before me without meaning without purpose directionless, and ideology free life is an abattoir no-one escapes the jaws of hell I tried to build a heaven in the void of existence all I got were horrors and imprisonment in solitary confinement
I can breathe is
that a sign of life? I have the
classic zombie profile shambolic and
loathsome it doesn’t really matter on a cosmic scale - nothing ever
matters I have wrestled with god and
lost there’s nothing left to try I’m a machine a machine of flesh and blood my rage was pointless my prayers misdirected the universe is cold and relentless yes, I’ve been swimming with sharks
again it’s risky, but I have no
choice they won’t leave me alone
don’t know about you but my heart ain't in it this is not my idea of a good time hard knocks tough questions tougher lessons... excuse me I lost your signal I phased out heavy-lidded a little stoned vulnerable to kryptonite went all buddha for a moment the sun the moon the sky never said I had a better way there is no clearer route than your own heart
you were mindful
for the moment you kicked your shoes off and danced and you scoped me out with
the most exacting eyes gripped
with power and wonder can’t you
hear the summer calling? she calls on you by name she didn’t want to be alone she remembers the things we used to
do drunk on nectar in the season of promise it’s all in my imagination is it ever that way for you?
love is a mutt that follows you home an overfriendly guest with a huge appetite still, it’s your dime… and it’s better than being alone… isn’t it? well, isn’t it? or are you too tall for love? too proud to stoop down low? would you rather be a master than a slave? well, love makes slaves of us all some say love is life and indifference is death surely it’s better to serve something anything than suffer that gradual asphyxiation?
all truth is relative all judgements subjective nothing’s as concrete as you’re led to believe history is a lie and so are you but it’s too late now to sing that song I had my special k for breakfast and fell down a rabbit hole all the world’s tired old clichés are gnawing on my bones I stand accused of stacking the deck and playing by my own rules but I don’t care how far I go as long as I get my jelly roll I’m talking now as a friend who understands the violence that breeds conformity I have to stay real with myself I don’t always do as I’m told
they sent a man from the council to survey my state of being he condemned the building before he crushed my expectations and flushed them down the crapper he has a place in the country said I could get my head right there he promised me the good life as he understood it in supported living fucking do gooder has me on his list but I won’t move an inch I’ve embraced self improvement I’m seeing beneficial angles there might just be a score in this rehabilitation racket
we are all of us acquainted with sorrow and that being said we’re maybe better for it if that’s the natural order and it seems to be dear reader we have suffered we have suffered to our shame I hope for your sake that your greatest regret in this season of regrets was an affair of the heart that’s where it counts because that’s the best of us that’s where we live love and betrayal it’s a fearsome thing but the crimes we commit for love are perhaps our saving grace
don’t worry I’m not about to forgive you it’s not my place to forgive you people tell lies for all sorts of reasons it doesn’t mean they are bad it doesn’t make them wrong sometimes we lie to spare the feelings of others most of the time we lie because we are afraid fear makes liars of us all whole civilisations have been built on well-intentioned lies I know you meant no harm I’m sure you had the truth in mind at some point in the future this will be the past I’ve already burned my diary my last statement shall be ash life my friend is fleeting we shall leave no trace behind us and our troubles will have washed away diluted in the oceans of time
long about midnight a certain time ago someone spiked my tea before they rifled through my drawers may long standing repercussions settle on their bones he who laughs last… well, let’s just wait and see… I’m too cool to care coz my head is full of stars I’m only a poor boy with a bloody hammer I get high I get low the symptoms are axiomatic they’re no problem at all it would take more than a lethal dose to silence this fat mouth
brother, you gave me a mountain but I climbed it what’s that the image of? men heaving over mountains? or drowning in their shadows? a
man needs a mountain like a bullet
needs a gun a mountain’s a load for
one back but I’m drawn to the weight
of it like a moth on a fatal trajectory simply coz it’s there coz it’s in my path I’m just a poor boy with a bloody hammer I
survived the assassin’s cup and
occasional subsequent avalanches but
I’ve been to the top of the mountain
and I have seen the world
