suckers

I was reading my tea leaves when my arse hit the fan        maybe I’m not who I seem to be     outwardly I’m sanguine     but inside I’m nourishing ancient grudges     my past is a poisoned river     but what’s done is done     my tears will not erase my exploits    I stopped crying a long time ago     when I realized that all lives are built on lies    some are harmless      others brutal     I have told lies that were fucking biblical      and frankly preposterous    but people believed them       Christ, I believed them too      the world is full of suckers    who never catch a break      I’m the biggest sucker of them all    I contrived to fool myself

obituary

 

I wonder what they will say about me when I am dead and gone      I imagine my obituary will be heavy     I’ve taken on mythological significance in certain quarters     because  I corrupted god’s will and made an abomination of my heart    the searing light of reality brings old lies and fractured truths into sharp relief    pitiless disclosure leaves no place to hide      I’m that terrible man     who feasted on people’s dreams      and then sold them down the Swanee      I’ve done some terrible things      but never by intention      things went wrong       things went horribly wrong     it’ll say so on my headstone

soul sickness

 

christ, I hate the daily grind     the bravest thing I do is live every day      I tried to evade it    I even tried suicide   but in my attempts to escape pain I was only creating more pain     and not just for me     I shared my pain    it’s communicable that way    I think too much     it’s a disease    thinking too much      I’m coming down hard again     I have a bad case of the bends      I’m trapped again  in limbo    snared by the pain in my mind   

I’ve been trifling with psychiatrists    they’re a bit like lovers     first they fuck with your head       then they break your heart    because there is no fucking cure     mental illness is an immense organism dedicated to fucking up the entire human project      I’d rather have anything wrong with my body     if I could just be right in my head      how can an illness be mental?     I got soul sickness      that’s what I’ve got      I got soul sickness    and I’m fading away fast

immortality

 

I don’t know why I write     or who I’m writing for   but I’m hoping for a breakthrough     before the vicissitudes of age grind me into dust      I regard old age with a shudder        I won’t be an old man     too weak to hold myself together      drooling down my chin    and   shitting in my pants      I’ll check myself out     before it ever comes to that

I never rejected the possibility of an afterlife       I intend to fight my way to immortality      but there are three major obstacles     fear     power      and time    and I’m running out of time      every man carries his own death with him       a natural man confronts that fact at all times      but he fights to be immortal       even as the universe conspires against him    

news

 

I’m high again for no specific reason     I needed space and I found it    the space between intention and action    the boundary between hope and despair      eternal vacillation pins you into yesterday      it’s the same old, same old doldrums    but I no longer care      I’ve had news about tomorrow     and tomorrow’s almost here

psycho ward

 I’m a seasoned performer   I’ve played this gig before    the mind jarring   hallucinations      the confusion of signs and significance    all new oblique angles and novel geometries      vast oceans of awkward instance    it’s a total mindfuck acid burn   but I’ll keep my head down     go by the numbers      ‘til I’m discharged and I can go home

going home?    I thought I was      they won’t let me leave     they say my blood is toxic and I’m in the danger zone     coz someone mixed my meds up and dealt me a lethal dose     now I’m scared like never before      it all seems real     of course it does     I suspect it is    but I won’t let on    I’ll just dummy up tight     least said, soonest mended    

they tubed me up   and leeched my blood    pending the obligatory psychiatric interrogation      when they issued me with papers    and stuck me here in the psycho ward    where they can better observe my exploits    my prognosis still looks scary    the devil is at the door    the main event this moment    is the battle for my soul     

the killing floor

I’ve been straight and sober now     for nearly a thousand years     coz the game that started out as fun      ended in bloody tears      some drink to remember      some drink to forget      others drink as penance for the crimes that they commit      me, I drank in self defence     I was fighting in a war     though I never knew who the enemy was      or what I was fighting for    people at war with themselves     will find no peace in a bottle      no matter how much they drink      they can never win that battle   it brought me piece of mind     to leave that life behind      it was a fucking nightmare    that somehow I survived

achilles

every villain is a hero       at least in his own mind      well, I’m no hero     but I keep on digging       there’s no light at the end of my tunnel    but I keep on digging    coz that’s who I am     I’m just an old dog with a bone      I got no fucking teeth     but I do have a bone

am I the hero of this story?      I’ve had moments of triumph      and I’ve had moments of despair     but I’m still here     the world needs heroes     I know my world does     so here I am    in the flesh     totally heroic     but fatally flawed

without troubles there are no heroes     without heroes there are no stories    without stories there is no culture      but heroes are people      and people are complicated    nobody is intrinsically heroic     everyone is somehow flawed       perhaps there really are no heroes    just ordinary people       who persevere somehow 

debauched

 

when I was a young man sex, drugs and alcohol seemed the only adventures available to me    so I played the covert Casanova using my seductive wit and charm to evade detection and responsibility    I felt I’d found the secret of happiness when I scored portable ecstasies for body, mind and soul    I reveled in the sensation of being alive and lifting the veil on carnal delights   

however, a lifetime of excess leaves its mark on a man      I was rotting away inside     but I was in good company      I was never alone in my debauchery      there was no shortage of willing accomplices     but they dried up       or died off    as I got older       those days are past now   I no longer indulge in drunken thrills     I’m too old to cavort with boys and girls       passions wane and memories blur    for the sole survivor of a fallen world

pawned

I pawned my soul      to buy some drugs      I was stoned for a while      but it’s never enough      I left my best girl in the rain     so I could go get stoned again     I loved that girl      but I let her down       all for a little golden brown     a junkie’s life is filled with woe      they’ve got no friends      they’ve got no dough    and some of us are filled with shame       for lovers left out in the rain     

missing you

 

I wonder if you ever think about me     the way I think about you      I’ve been missing you bad      sad to confess, but true      so if all your fair weather friends have cooled     some dark and cloudy day    you could call on me    I’d never turn you away      my mind says I am foolish      but  my heart does not agree       I’m starving for your presence      you mean so much to me      with us it was always easy come      easy go     easy come again       so you know I’ll always be there      if you ever need a friend

singular

 

I’ve become an individual      it was quite accidental      a gradual erosion of my social organs      saw me cut off from the herd       but I don’t seem to mind      I like my own company       I like to get things done    I’m not a total misanthrope       it’s nice to be liked       but it isn’t essential      I don’t care if someone hates me      if there’s nothing they can do about it      the world can go to hell      if I can have my way       I have made myself grotesque     to become an individual      I’m the weirdo down the road      I’m the dissident cliché