Truth

All truth is manmade. We make the truth; there is no truth that we did not create. Truth is dangerous, be careful with it. Truth can set you free, it can burn you too. Mostly truth is one big lie. The one big lie that ties you down, that draws you under. Beware of truth; truth is an imposter. Truth is stranger than fiction and usually less probable. They say that the truth will prevail, but it just isn’t so. Just as every lie contains a kernel of truth, so every truth is made of little white lies. Of course you should always tell the truth as you see it, but remember that one man’s truth is another man’s lie.

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Decisions

Between thought and motion lies a lifetime of indecision. Between impulse and action lies an eternity of procrastination. We live in the angles between those split vacillations; locked in the prisons formed by our accommodations, shut out by our deferrals and postponements. We are exiled to nations of the yea or nay behind the wire of choices, judgments’, compromises and reconciliations. Isolated from our feelings by other considerations; our final adjudications are questions of reason. There are a thousand judges awaiting our every verdict. The sentence is mandatory for acts of treason.

In the distance between the thrower and the stone cast lies an ocean of experience and shared guilt. Behind every curse there is concealed a blessing; a secret prayer for atonement through condemnation. Just as in every question lurks the desired answer, so every answer is a masquerade of some unasked question. Life is an island in an ocean of questions – questions and answers separate us into archipelagos of existence.

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Love Is The Law

the electric prickle of awkward instance pierces my skin with tiny dragons teeth      and circumstance rains down on my head as bags of hammers    I stand embarrassed before the blank ignorance of my judges     I’m speechless at their presumption     I am an innocent man    the crimes I am charged with were acts of love    they say that I’m a user and a lowlife dog     but I’m just wild that’s all    so don’t take my drinking hand     that’s all I got left

 

I’m pillared salt and oxy rush   you have to look within to see where you been    spastic colon and diarrhea mouth     my jury has been selected from jelly mountains     my fate is sealed before the judges of certainty in apocalypto jackboots    I’ve been a naughty boy and ought to be locked up     with all the other glorious bindlestiffs who dared to live a little    but love is the law     the law is love     for us down below     and them up above

Fences

Let’s be entirely zoological about this – cats and dogs don’t mix. One is east and the other is west and wherever you stand the twain does not meet. That’s why I say that you should stick to your side of the fence and I’ll stick to mine – sitting on that fence will only get you splinters in the arse. You can paint your side blue and I’ll paint my side red – neither of us wants purple do we? They say a good neighbour is a fellow who smiles at you over the fence, but doesn't try to climb over it – so be a good neighbour, stick to your own yard and I’ll stick to mine. Don't get me wrong – I’m all in favour of friendly relations, but you never take a fence down until you know why it was put up. I just don’t want to wake up one morning and find my yard full of cats that’s all.

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Fool’s Gold

Everything that glitters is not gold
Things are seldom what they seem
When the sands of time run out
It don’t mean you’re out of time
It just means you’re out of sand
And although fool’s gold
Is not real gold
The fools are real fools
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Now I Know Better

I used to think that people are basically good and that conflict arose from misunderstanding. Now I know better. People are basically stupid, selfish and cruel. We spend more on weapons than we do on medicine or food – what does that tell you about the human race? People only care about what’s in it for themselves and are only ever altruistic where it concerns self image. We want people to think well of us – no matter what our motivations and goals are.

I used to think that good would always prevail, but I’ve been disabused of that childish viewpoint. Now I know that stupidity always prevails. All you can count on in this world is crudity of thought and deed. You see we are just monkeys after all. Our basic outlook is tribal and our prime motivator is fear. It’s hard to think straight when your default position is fear – all you can do is react – fight or flight are the orders of the day. Shave a monkey and you have a man, but being human takes effort – constant effort. Most never make that distinction and so they are immersed in the tribal.

“It’s them or us” they say, “If you are not with us, you are against us.” Well they look just like me. We all look the same – stupid and ugly. I used to think that the good outweighs the bad. I still do. A little good can undo a whole lot of bad, but we live in a world where they tell you that to kill can be bad, or good, depending on the cause. So now I know good can be bad and bad can be good – depending on who you are. If that sounds crazy to you – you’re right, it is. I used to think people were basically sane and that enlightened self interest would save us from insanity. I know better than that now; the greatest insanity was to believe we were ever sane.

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Photograph ‘Shout16’ by Misha Cordon
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Like A Dagger

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
Rutting in the street
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
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Can you see me now?

I could feel your eyes on me
Your cold, dead eyes on me
I could feel the spittle
From between
Your clenched teeth
Spray against my cheek
I could hear your words of hate
Feel your fists slam into me
All I want to know is
Can you see me now?
Can you see me?
Set the stars alight?
I’m beyond your reach
But I always was
Can you see me now?
Did you ever see me?
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Haiku

Three Lines

To express

The intangible

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Turn to me

When rain pours down
And thunder shakes the sky
You can turn to me
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Laughs like a child

She moves like a woman
But laughs like a child

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Perfected

Shadows of the Earth

Echoes of the sky

Walks on many waters

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Lamentations

A pale orb silent shines
Over those at rest
Both the living 
And the dead
A million silver tears 
Are quietly shed
For lovers lost
And children taken
In the soft and bitter night
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Yo Yo Adjustment

 I don’t know which way is up   and which way is right   some police officers   from the zoological geometry division   was asking me the square   of the hippopotenuse   but I kept shtum     I ain’t as dumb as I look    and I don’t look as dumb as I seem    I just stared at their velcro macramé feet    and acted all sweet and innocent    like a cubic hyena in heat  

I had shoes like em once   I said    but they wouldn’t hang straight    they beat me relentlessly    they beat me   thoroughly    when they eventually left    I knew I’d been beaten    cops don’t hand out beatings    like that no more    no pride    no professional pride in their work     I’m not complaining see     and I ain’t going all nostalgic    it’s just I hate to see declining standards    

I lost my sense of up and down    so I went to have my yo – yo adjusted    the man said we don’t do that no more      people use scatellite navigators      I can’t afford no scatellite     if everybody gets a scatellite    they’ll blot out the sun!      but we’ll know where it is     he explained    we’ll track it on scatellites

I got a new string for my yo – yo     but he said I’d have to wind it myself    they had declining standards to maintain     I no longer know which way is up      and which way is right        my yo – yo pulls to the left    or maybe it’s me     standing a little to the right