baby buddha

I’m being ground down by the tyrant within     my mind is an elegant trap     a fractal of coloured lenses painting my emotions  various shades of sodom      I can’t go on living like this       but  what else do I know?        I have to move   and make my way by moving      somehow arriving and departing     constantly shifting       until I find some direction     that feels like I’m heading somewhere      I ought get into this      right into the heart of this      you kindled a flame in me       now watch me burn       art colours life     so paint me red     paint me gold       paint me anything at all     I’m losing my distinctions        it all blurs into nothing        and nothing becomes me like nothing at all 

alligator tears

when I was young       in my summer season     I tarried with junkies, thieves, and other lepers       I took the drugs they brought me       and used the words they taught me       those words are old now       teach me some new ones     or leave now in silence       don’t stain my solitude       with worthless gestures         there’s not much time left      and I’m busy writing eulogies

my best years are past     but I wouldn’t buy them back       the past is a curse     that still beats inside me      I’m not complaining       merely observing      if you catch me weeping        don’t be concerned      now and again     I’m struck with nostalgia     it’s a vicarious vice     for people my age     my erstwhile companions have all crossed over     their ghosts tell stories that play on my mind

entombed

habit is a killer     a slow insidious killer   they say the only constant is change       and that a change is as good as a rest       but I don’t want to change       and I don’t need to rest         there is no pillow for my head       I’ll take my ease in death        

I’m told I must move on      but I don’t want to move on       I’m settled here      through entropy      through denial      through fait accompli       I’m consigned to my fate         and I’m set too fast to change       

I believe     I don’t believe     beliefs are for suckers     beautiful and courageous suckers      if I had a little faith       I’d spend it in a tavern      I have little use for faith      I’ll stick with dismal reason     and the bitter draught of cynicism      I heard this joke before      and I no longer laugh

I’m told I must find myself       but I don’t want to find myself        I want to lose myself      in uncharted seasons    let me be forgotten over time    lost and never brought to mind       let me return to nothing         deaf and mute and blind      

silver surfer

modern life is mostly gossip     I remember the good things      at least I think I do     all I can explain with words      I drown beneath the significance of all these words      I liked life well enough        but I never understood it        are there words for that?       never thought I’d find the appropriate mask        because believe me     all accounts are fictional       you can’t be too emotional about it       emotions are all we have     when you get down to it     and we get down to it often enough

I have no designated function      I‘m the ghost of failed endeavours     but I feel safer now      with emotional parking       and appropriate buffer zones      my colours and tones inverted        I cast a slender shadow      across the now and then      I’ve earned my seclusion        but a happy isolation       would be just another cage      so just  look at me now        not a stitch to wear      but I go dancing just the same     the world is still young        it’s me who has changed        I would decline the invitation        but I expect that I’m expected        and I’ll show up just the same        

flagrante delicto

 a poor man is the image of want        and we don’t have a bolt to our names      but we have music       driven by demons        danced to by angels     the rhythm of saints and sinners       in eternal friction      as it is in heaven       so shall it be in hell    we got the tools      we can loose the lightning        it won’t stop     because we don’t stop        it was the language of our limbs        the lexicon of lust       that first betrayed our innocence       then exposed our love

we were caught with our pants down     and made ashamed of our bodies      but I’ve seen you with him       your faux lover     there’s no heat there      no magic     he will not feed your passion         nor spare you the force of his affections      so forsake his god of blood        come back to our tangled bed         we’ll dance the horizontal tango        and forget about tomorrow’s woes       at least until the morning       when we’ll be judged as monsters         by a jury of our peers