the truth is in the feel in the root and sinew the truth is in my gut twisting in my bowels I don’t have to think the truth is in my blood I have it in my power to light my own fire so they tried to lock me up and quench my flame in the name of good order they put a pox on my house and softly dragged me under they gave me poisonous pills to alleviate their pain but I took their tender ministrations and flushed them down the crapper they tell me hell is still half empty its streets are paved with lies they say the devil knows my name which comes as no surprise
26 June 2024
24 June 2024
night
I felt the heat from the stars radiate across the universe as I lay in the tall grass with the good green earth growing all around me there, at the end of the world night reigned supreme and night seeped into the heart of me into my very soul and I knew my days were numbered but the nights would last forever
21 June 2024
alibi
I came and came ten thousand times into warmer embraces than these through summer’s misadventures and reckless indiscretions I once had a life or so it seemed to me but you’ll never reach me now these are my darker days when I’m perfectly alone you say the dark don’t bother you but it sure as hell bothers me you can take the load off but I’ll never be that free I wish I was loaded I wish I was high I wish I was somebody else coz that’s the perfect alibi
7 June 2024
deathbird
the cry of night the sound of the street deathbird spread your wings take me to that other place but not just now not for a while give me space I only need space to rest a bit to gather strength before the day so kiss my lids bless my dreams don’t murder me just let me sleep
4 June 2024
ten thousand miles
I’m sick of life in the hobo jungle I’ll have to concoct an escape I’ve marshalled my resources my charms and brittle toys but nothing’s ever real so I’ll keep my place wait for my moment you don’t need an excuse to be poor you don’t need a uniform to fight in the war but you need a little faith to help you through the night it’s a long way from cleaning windows but it’s hardly sunny side up I’m like you I have lived in the odd moment and I remember what you said in your little voice you said “I think I’ve had enough, so thank you and good luck” I didn’t require your ministrations I expected no gratitude for mine but I could have used your hand these last ten thousand miles
28 May 2024
I thought I won the war
I have a hard time waking most mornings I have a hard time sleeping most nights but I dreamed I won the war and everything was alright there was dancing in the streets and I saw myself on TV but that was sometime yesterday I only own today
when I get low I
get high they can’t take that away what do you make of a man like me? I got one foot on the platform the other foot on the train I thought I was me for a moment but I’m somewhere back in time I thought I won the war but it was only in my mind
23 May 2024
instrumental violence
you can’t control me now you’re no longer in my scheme I’m not afraid of you you won’t hurt me again there’s nothing you can do nothing you can say I’ve had enough of you and your brutal ways you call your aggression justice and my resistance crime I’ll no longer play your victim just as I’ll never play your thug but if you think I’ll be a bystander then you can think again there are forms of subtle violence that breed conformity I will not acquiesce to them you won’t get that from me
21 May 2024
northern lights
I hear the jets tearing across the sky they’re on their way to hell peals of rolling thunder the muted cries of death I’ve had my share of sleepless nights but I’m at home in the dark and home is where the heart is, right? sometimes I think about dying I think of little else I’ve gone transatlantic I’ve learned to fly myself I’m drinking what you’re drinking neat scotch the drink of free men the red eye to oblivion I ripped a hole in the night my dreams came tumbling out
13 May 2024
maggots
I’m not feeling too clever today someone shrank my knackers and obscured my true identity I’m out of bed or so I think It’s still dark outside but it’s darker in there’s a hole in my bucket I’m leaking spiritual energy but I’m rid of her and she’s rid of me summer died, she blamed it on me I don’t hold that against her we both know I have it in me you see, it was easy to smile as I lied easier than the taste of fear and shame but it feeds the worm inside and he’s a hungry maggot the guardian of my psyche the one who’s in control here I am fucking, eating, grunting I’m just rotting meat in a garbage can maggots rule my world my maggots have a master plan it’s called metamorphosis on the other side of heaven they’ll have sprouted wings and they’ll be planting eggs in the fertile ground of my decomposing mind
12 May 2024
snitch
…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…
6 May 2024
hip priest
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
5 May 2024
looney tunes
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