section eight

I don’t make the rules    I don’t even follow them   perhaps that’s where I went wrong     no fucking discipline      some have called me crazy   but that’s open to debate   when they opened up my head   to take a peek inside    they found I was haunted by a demon of conscience   and was inked bloody with the stains  of unforgiveable depravities    you never know what secrets lurk   beneath the surface of a man’s alleged insanity    believe me when I tell you   everybody is crazy   but most just don’t realise it  

I slay the beast every morning   and every fucking night    but they don’t give me medals    they just give me pills    and send me on my way     it’s a wild and torrid wind that blows through my skull    and on any given day of wonder and of peril there will be a fearful storm    I’ve had a lifetime of bastard storms   and I demand a reprieve   and maybe stronger pills    from the very top shelf please   I have forsaken a peaceful mind   to make war with the beast  

thinking of the life I’ve led   the desolation I’ve endured   and the meagre mercy I’ve received   I feel weary   I feel heavy in my bones    when I brood on all of that    and the way I sought nourishment    with casual lovers and liquid fire  and then those sorry times  I was more beast than man    when the madness   the sheer fucking frenzy   fuelled by my boiling blood     raging with pathos and fury   would shame me to the core

 I am truly tired of the burden I must bear   I could weep    and sometimes do    when my heart simply cracks and my brain implodes     I am the most pathetic excuse for a man to ever shed his load   but the sickness which afflicts my life     does not define my soul    or rob me of my humanity    would you dismiss me as a crazy man?    don’t you ever feel the same?    have you never felt alone?

the villain

I hear that you never tire     of spreading the bad news       and I’ll happily play your villain     on any day you choose       I heard what you’ve been saying      and some of it is true    but I never put down anyone     in the cowardly way you do    

I’ve nearly always done     just what I wanted to      while you’ve relied on others     to tell you what to do      of course I have regrets     but they are so very few    I’ve lived to be free     that was never true of you

you are so deeply pious      but you haven’t got a clue     and I refuse to be consigned     to live the way you do     we were once good friends      but you possessed a jealous heart     you wanted what I had     and that’s why we had to part

you’ve been casting stones      but always from afar      you know deep in your bones       that’s the kind of man you are      you talk behind my back    but never to my face      is it courage that you lack?      or just any sense of grace?    

leaden

 

the margins are minuscule    in this cruel season       it’s hard enough to raise a buck    never mind a smile     I sing with the crows     and bathe in the dark     cold fibre is scant reward     for all the bareback adventures     and romantic misdemeanours     that blot my copy book     (kudos to the phallus imperator)

my chapped lips      and  caffeine smile     reveal there’s fear in my monkey     his silver tongue and leaden heels      have me hobbled in the blocks    those softer metals conduct static       directly to the brain pan      and my blood’s impurities      leave a tell-tale stain on the inside  but there’s no point in concealment     no-one gives a fuck what’s written there anyway

infinite space

when I’m dead and gone     don’t you cry for me      and I’m simply moving on    and I hope you’ll come to see     that no-one ever really dies    for each of us lives on in immortality

none of this is real      but thinking makes it so      this world is an illusion      that one day we’ll  let go     I tried to live this life      without a single care    I never made a penny       but I’ve been everywhere       

I’m an immortal soul    and I’ll still be about    long after the sun has died    and the stars have all burned out    when everything we’ve known     has  disappeared without a trace     my journey shall continue       somewhere in infinite space

oxydation

countless measures of synthetic junk      have arranged my psyche as euphorically drunk    I experiment with words and their rhythmic possibility      and I’m all wired up with a new found mobility    I take inspiration from needle and spoon      to dance with the devil and howl at the moon

I found my ease in an exotic narcotic    a new alchemy that’s darkly  hypnotic      I mix my medicine with booze and snake oil     and then cook it all up in aluminium foil      I study my dreaming at my own leisure   with a bitter concoction that I’ve learned to treasure     and I savour its taste as the ultimate pleasure  

but my little boat is slowly submerging     as the beast from the deep  is likewise emerging      I need his poison the way I need air    but he promises bounty that just isn’t there     he dangles his riches  just beyond reach     and holds fast to my flesh     like a blood engorged leech