Mescalito (Augustus Owsley Stanley Edit)

A thousand Kafkas, arithmetically sound, file the dreams scouted awkwardly in my sleep. It’s the low sleep; the sleep of dogs left dying. None shall trespass here in hollow space – none will hear my cries, or read my laughter. It is a wretched thing - scrutinized by panels and commentators in the prime time of my imagination – it is a wretched thing. 

I am a pile of limp bedclothes in an empty room. I am the blossoming of dead flowers in the dark. I am the silent echo of screaming corruption; poured out as congealed blood into the night. No-one can reach me now; I’m out of kilter. This place is the last elaborate station before damnation – there are no roads out of here, just a gradual sinking into nothing. 

This journey was in my stars; this place was always primed for my acceptance – I want to go home, but I am home. I was incarcerated for possessing a criminal mind. I saw crime in everything. I saw injustice everywhere. But I lacked the imagination to act like a criminal – I had to play the martyr. So take this crown of thorns and sow my dirty sheets. There are betrayals and crucifixions to re-enact before I ever see another dawn.

The first hit of the day gives me that edge – a soft fuzzy boundary that cushions me from the agents of chaos. I’m surrounded by idiocy and brute ignorance. I have my blues for breakfast and wonder who they will kill today. They are rounding up all the queers and taking them to the bus depot. They are rolling bums in the alleyways and sacrificing school kids in the classrooms. We are all marked out for adjustment – it’s your innocence that condemns you, not your guilt. After all, everyone shares in the guilt.

I don’t belong here – I never belonged anywhere, but this town ain’t big enough to deviate in – I can barely turn a phrase that isn’t weighed and rejected as madness or vanity. While wounded congregations pray for consolation I watch the cactus god tear open the sky and angels come pouring out as snowflake confetti to melt like whispers on the ground. Heaven is empty; there will be no resurrection, no day of judgement. There is no final authority – just unending stupidity.

 

I have my blues for breakfast and cacti for my supper. I walk with Mescalito who tells me that the actions which define us are often difficult to understand, but there is nothing unnatural in this or any other world.

I swapped the charismatic for the lead-lined Kafkaesque. If I’m turning over a new leaf I want my papers in order before heading south. The latest developments suggest there may be trouble at the border, but my disguise is perfect. I wear reason like a crown and I’m so very high I may never lay it down. 

Fungaloid (Green Mind Edit)

travel me

unravel me

baffle me

turn me out

fix me with a fungal crown

pump it in

pour it out

rub it on

inhale – exhale

spark it up

snuff it out

skin it back

tear it down

anoint my head

with manna from heaven

spike me upward

drag me down

ball my lightning

take me under

turn me on

turn me around

innovate

with my confusion

make me whole

if not holy

bake me outside

in the sun

now and then

I’m a supernova

I’m a lightning strike

an atomic bomb

the Empire State

and the monster Kong

I’m a gushing torrent

a tidal wave

I’m a rattle snake

with a diamond back

I’m the seventh son

I’m a maniac

Odysseus

I copped me the full dose     and licked the wrapper too     I ramped up the mandy     and downed it with cheap wine     that shit gets complicated     but I don’t seem to mind     it fit me real snug    just like my birthday suit    it was christmas in july    did everything it promised      it may be forbidden      but every now and then    it does a little good

got the crank bugs     something chronic     my skin was crawling    with electrical potential    I was jammin’ in a hard place     but that was alright    I’m a lean machine     and I got the numbers     stashed beneath the hood

I was unfolding     into something linear     straight ahead clean    wrapped in a bundle     tighter than my ball sack     and delivered at light speed     with harmonic dissonances     of appalling beauty     I was all jelly bone     and knee tremble    slick with anticipation    surfing in the air      on the cusp of complete delusion     tomorrow    was another    creosote sundae     but the night     was a total eclipse  of reason

I bided my time    spilling my oats     on barren ground     to be washed away  in the menstrual cycle     my instruments     calculated hostility     I’ve been a naughty boy     and word soon gets around       no one has any secrets     here in monkey town     while you  were all prostrate      with your lamplight bleeding      I’d been on the randan      and filching all the fun     but you’d rather play the martyr     than set the twilight reeling      you’d rather bathe in tears     aren’t you the noble one?

your kind of love is for suckers     strictly for slaves and losers     you’d find it more rewarding      if you’d just take it as it comes     you’ll win more than you lose      if you’re keeping count     it all evens out eventually      if you spread enough around      so you should heed my words    next time you’re sucker-punched     get yourself some symmetry        don’t get your panties bunched

Dagger (Surgical Edit)

There is no gelt
In this writing lark
No final reward
Just a hunger
An insatiable need
To press the keys
And play the notes
That fill the page

Typing done

I am alone

I work best alone

But I sleep best

With company

And it’s meant

To be that way

No virtual life for me

I love flesh and blood

For I was born

Of flesh and blood

To go the way

That all flesh does

Not prematurely

But after a long while

When I’ve perfected

My papers

And catalogued

My women

In alphabetical order

Or numerical significance

According to rank

And ability

All writing is futile

I can’t express how I feel

Not in so many words

I’d like to take my pain

Roll it into a ball

And stuff it in your mouth

So you’d be mute like me

Your seams leaking

Blotting your copy book

With a silent crimson scream

My credentials are impeccable

At least on paper, if not in the flesh

Your papers were forged

But I don’t mind

You brought me more pleasure

Than a thousand dead poets

“The only good poet is a dead poet.”

Isn’t that what you said?

Imposters pout and posture

Across the page

With borrowed icons

And stolen voices

Genius lays face down in the gutter

Death is the final measure

Of its dedication to the craft

But not for me darlin’

I want to be adored, at least once

However briefly

And in this life, not the next

Long ago

I abandoned rhyme

As I abandoned reason

I like my words jagged

As crocodile teeth

Dirty as a whore’s tongue

And rabid as the breath

Of infected dogs

I don’t require prettifying

Or disinfecting

Keep those nice words

For old ladies

To sprinkle on their cakes

I want you to feel me

In you

I have no time

For ambiguity

Or tickling ears

I want to ram my words

Right down your throat

One day I’ll find the beat

That forces the rhythm

Of my concoction

Into your heart

Like a fucking dagger

Bindlestiffs 2020

dummy up and listen good     while I pour moonshine in your ear     we got no homes to go to     and no-one waiting there     the world is big     but not big enough     for us to fit in     we’re the bad apples     who spoiled the whole barrel    fitted up on charges of vagrancy     for wearing out our shoes     we were kings of the highways      with no roof to tie us down      no man could boss us around

now we live with doors unhinged     and when the smoke has cleared     all we have is empty pockets     but once we’re back on the road      we’ll be livin’ high on the hog      low down on the greasy pole

 yeah - I’ll take you down     where skid row junkies     shuffle dance like broken bears     they smile spoiled milk      and stink of stale sweat      and rotted flesh     the zombie nation has risen     semi stiff cardboard men     flaccid humanity    face down in the gutter    

hostile corners teem     with cockroach people     knives half shut     displaying  disgraceful wings     in cardboard colours     blood     brown clotted     on the lips of scarecrow men      three overcoats     wrapped around breathless bodies     dull drunk and frenzied sober faces     searching for significance      thirsty souls on a death mission     every bum who can lift his lids     eyes you up for the short prize

“Buddy can you spare some change… “

 we are all forced out     to harvest bones in the wilderness     it’s a world away from titties and beer     but it puts meat on the table      and that’s what sifts the men from the boys      bindlestiffs deal in certainties      as sure as sorrow    down behind the beyond      we know the lost spaces     like the backs of our hands     

so dummy up again     while I tell you the best places    a man can write his name       large in the firmament     be it the name your mother gave you        or the name the world gave you       or the name you stole and made your own

you never know with these things     just where you come from     or just where you go        but you know where you are      and that’s enough to swallow in a single sitting      so all things being equal under a sorry sky      if you have the art     and the reach to gather stars      you just might leave a mark      which is more than you have a right to

Chocolate George (Unwrapped)

Chocolate George

Was a pussy magnet

He’d had more tang

Than Frank Sinatra

He said it was nice, so nice

And it all came from a nice place

That it was no mere gesture

But the gift of awareness

He said the algorithms of affection

Played out naturally

With no need for ceremony

Or archaic ritual

And that they were as beautiful

As they were natural

He stressed that

He was not the message

But the messenger

And there was no device

Or calculation

Behind his success

 George had once been a pariah

An untouchable

He had a definite shape

But it was asymmetrical

He was composed of acute

And awkward angles

Ragged contours

And sharp edges

Cutting edges

He had always felt

At odds with nature

a square peg

In a universe of round holes.

He felt powerless

In his predicament

There was no panacea

No prescription

No discipline

Or philosophy

To ease his discomfort

There was not even a name

For whatever it was ailed him

There was no diagnosis

For his wayward geometry.

His was the difficult path

And he stumbled often

And sometimes he fell

But over the years

His angles were chipped away

And his edges were made smooth

Through collision and erosion

So that one day George awakened

To discover

That he was practically formless.

Spartacus

I judiciously carved the bad news    into reasonable chunks that were easy to swallow   if hard to digest   there was the momentum of some terrible gravity   behind my every word   each was weighed   and then dispensed    on tablets of stone    saying    if you strike the first blow   I shall surely strike the last

 

it was a diabolical pact    but I just couldn’t see   for the blood in my eyes had so blinded me    I was manky   I had been less than diligent with my applications    you might call me lazy    but I was tired of the front   and so I dropped my guard     the signature of a chump

 

I took the blows due me   and maybe more besides    but there’s always a final straw    an injury that cannot be borne    often it’s a concealed blade    nestled in the hand of a friend    I’d be a hypocrite to complain   my dabs were all over that instrument     and the blood on my hands was not my own

 

the secrets stashed in my head   the occult pleasures of my heart   the treasures I have plundered    then passed off as my own   mark me out as a singular failure    the simulation of a man    in the solitude of my cell   I pray to my pig god   that no-one sees my true face   or the bloody hands that betray my guilty secrets   and my empty aspirations

 

in my lonely hours and minutes I fashioned myself a nifty club     from the jaw bone of some arsehole   it’s useful for beating my head with    I hear the talk   I know an ambush when I smell it    special preparations   whispers   glances   knives are being sharpened   plots are hatching and slithering home    the devil’s arithmetic comes up snake eyes for Johnny

 

if they knew what fragile cargo I was carrying     they might have cut me some slack     I won’t go into the inventory of misdemeanours   I’ll cut to the capital crimes   I murdered the days that led to the now  I squandered my time on cheap thrills and pricey highs    the flickering images sear the brain   those were the days of sexual mystique  and bold enterprise   the object of adoration wields a powerful magic over the obsessed   the grass was always greener over the next horizon   never satisfied with what I had    I’d trade all I possessed for a pocket full of mumbled promises

 

my biological imperative was strong    I couldn’t keep it in my pants   my road was paved with dodgy intentions and fleshy desires    you have to stay ahead in that game   the greedy always bite the hand that feeds    it’s expected of them   it’s dog eat cat in those kennels

 

my heart has been bleached    I’m slightly out of phase and still have blood in my eyes   but I’ll survive    I’m no tourist     I’ve been here before    this place is like any other    the good or bad in it is no concern of mine     it’s not like I curry influence     I’m a foreigner here   some would say I was an exile    but you need a home before you can be exiled    I just drift within my cranial roof

 

I have no time for crime   for contradictions and contractions   for passions spent and passions lent    smothering every innocent pretence    with fearsome glamorous intentions    each new lover helped themselves to my pieces   handling them like hot rocks    and chewing them in their charnel mouths   so to speak with the tongues of angels  

 

my suicide warden  garnished my chains   with a single red rose   inspected my arsehole    where morning had fled   and kissed me once for luck    my pothole eyes peered through a lysergic purge    and witnessed only the contents    of my dingy abode   which was crowded with the wearying trinkets of monstrous dalliances    licentious attacks    and falsified intentions    these are the things I’ll remember    during those lonely repasts   of xanax and hard liquor    green tea and ground glass   

 

I learned to sleep in shallow latrines   on egyptian cotton and busted bed springs    gazing up at cracked ceiling mirrors     where decades of hope dissolved like baby aspirin   I’m an aged gigolo    a smudged entry in last year’s diary   my sleazy charm and phony smile    always seemed like my last best defence    but my life has grown cold     from hustling for change    and god knows I need change    there’s one more hit left in my locker    I’m going to nail that number    and then lay back     to dream as gods do