live now pay later

 I’ve battened down my hatches      I’m now fully submerged        into my approximate cliché      am I drowning?     don’t tell me I’m drowning        is this hell?     please  tell me we’re not in hell     is this the niche that's carved me?      the petty bourgeois hero     of countless banal fantasies     panhandling for change in the world of broken actors        

 the inner eye never lies        and I can read my chart       I was high on the great deception      but I never had a dime       my life just flushed before me         sixty years a loser     and always arse deep in debt    but I’ve been informed by my sponsor    of a happy ever after    coz there ain’t no paupers in heaven       and there ain’t no tally men either       seems  like folk in heaven     are having a hell of a time

cockroaches

this is cockroach  weather      the season of decay      I’m staying indoors – less cosmic radiation       it’s the rays that wear you down in the end       ultraviolent    radioactivity     desiccates the flesh     and leaves the husk behind     but my body is a temple    secluded and derelict         hidden in the shade

I read somewhere that life came to this planet on comets      I wonder how it will leave      they say that when we have finally fucked this world up all that will be left are cockroaches        maybe that’s all we do that’s of any significance         we feed the fucking cockroaches       the true masters of planet earth

you can’t kill them with pesticides or atom bombs     there’s evolutionary excellence for you – to eat shit and never die    unless someone flips you on your back      the cockroach god is waiting for accidents like that      I saw this movie once where cockroaches learned to impersonate people     it turned out to be true     there are billions of cockroach people     who look like me and you

thermodynamics

 oh man   this is too easy    thermodynamics    natural flight     I’m just a snow flake     in a snow drift    just breezing along    at the speed of light    that’s me     skyjacking    eight miles high and climbing    there’s good news     spreading through my body     good news     unfolding in my mind    I’m turned on to something fantastic    but how long can I soar     before I must crash and burn?

the beautiful life

 sometimes it takes an age       for the penny to finally drop     it seems I was the last to know      that I carry the weather in my head        and can only make hay       when the sun shines        this life is short        and that's a fact       there will be pain     you can count on that       I got the call up        to become a believer       but their words are just moonshine     for the gullible and feeble     I could appoint a personal saviour       or simply save myself     and do the world a favour      I might become a human being        or go on toiling as a beast       without ever seeing      that the beautiful life     is the only life worth living

 

valediction

 I fashioned this cruel distemper        from accursed fleshy instruments     and dark intentions        I bit the hand that bled me        and poisoned the well behind me       it’s too late to throw a blanket on my grave          I’m frozen root and thorn        a few will sing my praises        many more will mark my passing             with revelry and scorn

I was the author of misfortune           I was callous and unkind         I was a drunkard and a lecher        a bloody handed sinner         who left no stone untroubled       in the pursuit of a good time         I’m a criminal by nature        and now I have been caught         so commend me to the cold dark earth        without a second thought

13

the thirteenth unlucky apostle     was the bastard son     of a bastard son     and when the lights went out      he was nowhere to be found      no-one knows his name      but I’ve seen his face     I have his number     he’s a little less than holy       but more profound than some      he called himself a drinking man     and there was a certain kudos in that        among the poor and the derelict       and why not?      what else is there to do    here in the city of pain?      he was hard boiled and numb      his patter was filled with blood       but he sometimes pissed the bed     and he reeked of booze and fear     when asked about his friends      he could not recall their names       I think perhaps he lied     he may have been ashamed 

psychiatry

 they altered my prescription          to keep pace with the times       they want to pin me down       to sanitize my mind      but I can't get with that       I'd rather be considered crazy      than join the living dead       who serve their damned machinery            they've devised an inquisition        to cure me of insanity        they say that chemical infusions      will bring me to reality     but  they just want to steal my high       and send me to work in a factory

 

crazy love

 so much for easy lovers      who will not heed the call      who measure out necessities       because they’re afraid to fall      I have loved  as others    yes   but I had crazy love     even when it seemed futile      I had the crazy love     and in the face of hate      I dished out crazy love      when I had the hard edge on       and my words were sharp as knives       I did not ration my feelings      I killed for crazy love     

aesop

kudos big man     you’ve got it all sown shut    no cunt’s doin’ what you’re doin’    I don’t know what you’re selling   but it’s the dog’s bollocks    cannot get enough    you should publish brother     you’ll make a fucking mint…   another punter gets a free dose   and says he liked it   but I’ll never see him again     I don’t really mind    but it’s paying customers I need     before I’m weaving shadows      and I’m moth-eaten    wafer thin

I got papers going back decades    they’re worth something to me     but they won’t pay the rent     I know stories that pay off     with a kick in the knackers      I stitched them all together     on endless reams of pulp     I’ll read you one now      for a small consideration     simply grease my pocket   I’ll pour moonshine in your ear     it won’t taste all that sweet    but I promise you won’t care

individuals

 there’s no rest for the wicked        I should know         I get no rest         even in my sleep      I sing the watered down blues       old men’s songs       idiot verse for the hard of thinking        god has blessed the common people       they got nothing but pipe dreams and empties        but they shall inherit the earth       it’s a bovine compact        strictly for the herd       that’s an evolutionary advance over the individual           the individual don’t stand a chance        I should know       I got bread but no butter        I’m a rare commodity        like dragon’s teeth          no-one has ever seen any        but we’ve all seen the movies      where everyone’s an individual      hero of some dime store melodrama airing on daytime television       along with our life insurance options and burial plans    coz in the midst of life there is death       and in the midst of death there are tears          old men sing the watered down blues        and the herd fashion icons from their dust

 

something shines eternal

 is love a universal energy?    is it love that keeps us human?     some people know no love      they are human nonetheless      allegedly cast in the image of a long-dead god      a persistent schizophrenic       who pits us against ourselves     everybody’s been found wanting in his theatre of distraction    I know what I lack     and I don’t give a damn     

living on planet earth      in this 21^st century     has been a real kick in the teeth      I was all set up      for the socio-technical revolution       I was prepared to be blinded by science      but all I got was fake news     conspiracy theories     and the new fascist state    the world seems darker now    but something shines eternal      and it can’t be found in scriptures     folklore    or even those stars above     something shines eternal     and some have called it love

jailbird

I was hoping for a reprieve    it’s been a long time coming     but I since worked out     some new fundamentals     there is only one direction     and that direction is out     I’m a prisoner here        but do I work in a vacuum?     no, I’m just a thief with a library card      and if I didn’t do this     I’d do something reckless     I have a criminal heart      and  a liars disposition      so, there you have it      the story within the story     I’m an accomplice to deception      they might never let me go