The Last Dog

I’ve used up all my shadows and I’m bleached naked from the big light. It’s been typical and that’s to be expected. It’s beyond four in the anus mundi and time to see what treats await me in the bumper box of pain.

My days are short lived, but my nights are so very long and weary thin. These are measured in endurance; each instance squeezed from bloody stones. Twenty thousand nights proceed as hollow headlights on empty cars. That’s many inches travelled, but hardly enough to justify the effort.

This is the hour of broken lovers and solitary maniacs devoted to causes long lost in the not so long ago. My lot in the sodium yellow cathedral quiet is quantification – the grand introspection. The detailing of the acute and sorry tales that constitute the most mundane of disasters. I’m sickened by the stench of self-indulgence, but my hammer is on the table and I’m in the frame until the last dog dies.

.

Barley

this happy heart

will be the death

of poor me

I tilled the earth

then scattered

cancelling

my subscription

to the ever after

to carve myself

a solitary path

through golden

fields of barley

in the soft

summer rain

.

Golden Apples

channelling

exclusively

via satellitic intent

this monomaniac

is deeply fixated

on our nearest star

and that’s where

you’ll find him

from now on

lost in an orchard

dazzling bright

stealing golden apples

from the heart of the sun

.

Tragedian

Sally threatened suicide

she did from time to time

it was no cry for help

but a demand for servitude

I’d have given her anything

under any other terms

but she came as the victim

of numerous insoluble crimes

her eyes were always offended

they were tuned to disappointment

she said she’d turned a corner

on another dead-end street

.

I felt the momentum

of some terrible gravity

dragging at my entrails

hers was a brutal surgery

born of desperation

the decision was mine

my choices were limited

by narrowing circumstance

to a fight or flight scenario

so I reluctantly opted out

but I still have a pillow for her

if she ever feels the need

.

Jelly Beans

stop my mouth    anaesthetise me    I need panic pills      merciful medicine    my beautiful mutation  is murdering me    I’m withering into psychosis      so nourish me pharmaceutically     I know I’m bat shit crazy   the world makes me crazy   her beauty is fouled     from the misuse of mirrors     in the still of my room      I’m gradually transforming     into a psychiatric emergency

my heart beats too loud      I can’t hear me think       my life no longer sparks    I’ve been harvesting my sickness    I’m the effigy of moral weakness    I require psychotropic medication    it’s my rod      my staff      my crutch     my blood is charged with electric potential    the bipolar extremities beckon me     I need some proper insulation      faith is not enough         

in the shadow of existence   where the dark things flourish   surrounded by tender tyrants     and outflanked by awkward instance     I’m a hostage to necessity    and have demons to placate      I need a little something      added to my recipe     I require a magic bullet       to get me off my knees     so get me an extension    I’ll call for some assistance     to feed me psycho quackery      in the shape of jelly beans