Crashing Out

Sometimes I get so low
I start to think about crashing out
All my life I’ve been crashing out
Crashing out of something or other
I get jammed up in situations
So I have to make a change
That’s when I have to crash out
Into a new scene, a new life
When I need help, I need it bad
But there is no help this side of hell
So, I just crash out – make a run for it
I pack my bags and get myself free
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River

I wanna be stoned
Like the meteor
That crashed into the earth
And killed all the dinosaurs
I wanna be stoned
Like a great muddy river
That flows down the delta
To feed the fishes in the ocean
The juice is good
The booze is so not good
I need a positive stone
Hurled in my direction
Heap me up with manna from heaven
One silver bolt
Would fix you with my meaning
There is no hiding place
From the miracle of creation
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Shotgun Messenger

You placed your bets
On a stranger's smile
But where did you go
When the lights went out?
You played the game
The best you could
But all you gained - you lost

You thought you could make it
All on your own
You thought you were a winner
But all that makes up our lives
All that’s wrong and right
Is but a fleeting memory
Ours to hold, but not too tight

Bindlestiffs

dummy up and listen good
while I pour moonshine in your ears
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
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Bloody Imposter

They never sicken of taking my blood
They must have gallons by now
Enough to reconstruct the man
To make a blood monster
To take my place
To kiss my wife with his bloody lips
To sleep beside her in my bloody bed
Perhaps I am that bloody man
How would I ever know?
Maybe I’m the bloody doppelganger
What if the real me is locked away
In some asylum somewhere
And I’m his crazy counterpart
The bloody imposter in his life
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Poppy Tears

The ancient Vedas describe the poppy as ‘heart pleasing’. There is no more apt description.The thin white latex leaks in milky droplets from the poppy’s skin and hardens into a sticky brown resin, the harbinger of dreams. It tastes of bitter lettuce and burns with an acrid smoke that lays soporific charms on the minds of savage beasts. It gifts the touch of night and lays a little death on the hearts of those bleached divers who drink the poppy’s tears on their fatal arc into oblivion.

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Mirror, Mirror

There are certain kinds of dust monkey who'll eat your fucking face off and vampires who’ll suck up your will to live. When I look in the mirror I see your face which could be the cause of deep self loathing. After all I wear the devil’s face, but I don’t care no more. I learned to live with that and any number of bad trips you laid on me.

So I’m the Antichrist and the bad Buddha. I abide in the knowledge that no man can touch my piece of mind. So I’ll be laughing my socks off come your judgment day.

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Silenced

I don’t want to talk today
I won’t want to talk tomorrow
the viper that bit me
had a morbid tongue
the bitterest black poison
threatens to drag me down
to my darker layer
but I’ll keep my silence
learn how to bite my tongue
I’ll die by degrees
and keep to myself
the secrets of a lifetime
that was lived in error
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The Real You

I saw your face
contorted with rage
fierce green eyes
tinted with hate
it wasn’t so pretty
but I think I was seeing
the real you
it struck me as funny
I could not help laughing
you looked so small
and seemed so far away

Birthright

Bake my bones
Brittle and broken
Flay my nerves
Fragile and shattered
I am grist for the mill
Meat for the table
Ache me, break me
Roast me on a spit
Cover me in misery
I am watered down
And poured out
Pain is my middle name
Agony is my birthright
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Written

You gotta have style
Something you can pour
From a tall pitcher
Into a short glass
That thing that oozes
From you fingertips
And shapes the words
Into shade and nuance
Imagery and thought
Something that says
This is me
Nobody else can do it
Like this
I’m not talking varnish
Not just a thin layer
Style is deep
Your style is you
In the abstract
Stamped into the page
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The War On Sleep

by the seventh night      I have torn the veil     and crossed the line     into the land of death and annihilation     my eyes are red and sore         my head buzzes with empty space        and I stand thinly      at the centre of my void     I am insulated by static mush       thinking in a single stream of mercury       I’m constantly in the frame      consolidating the one true IS      

everything speaks to me     and I speak to everything     this is the high on high      close to the heavens      and closer to the edge of oblivion      all this is more than I can translate     into cohesive thought        I roll myself a number and eat the smoke      just a little fire to ease me through the night     

insomnia is my oasis     where my dark thoughts and I take refuge       sleep is the kiss of death      the obliteration of my senses       nevertheless     the time must come for crashing     and the horrors inky black

naked    inert and defenceless    sleep beckons me with iron fingers     and I am too weak to disobey      she takes me down     into dark oceans     filled with forgotten dreams     I fight like a drowning man    but she takes me hard and relentless      down into the deep 

 

Pig God

the secrets hidden in your head
the occult pleasures of your heart
the treasures you have plundered
then passed off as your own
mark you out as a singular failure
the simulation of a man

in the solitude of your prison cell
you pray to your pig god
that no-one sees your true face
or the bloody hands
that betray those guilty secrets
and your empty aspirations
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Smoke

I love the way beer burns an empty stomach and leaves a heavy buzz in an empty head. I love the feeling of minor vertigo produced by a lung full of green and the gentle rocking of my boat in the calmer waters dreamt of in my cooler quarter. Send me sultry jazz messengers to soothe my mind and smooth out the corrugations of my life.

I deplore obliteration, but dig augmentation. I like a little spin now and then – to hone my edge and free up some space in my tool box. There are a billion jurors on my case who’ll condemn my predilections as errant criminality, but I pay no attention to dogs with no teeth. I like to cultivate a little distance between myself and the unclean thing, ‘cause the unclean thing really twists my nuts.

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I Don’t Remember

I don’t remember
ecstasy
the summer loves
and winter tragedies
softly spoken promises
and bitter recrimination
.
I don’t remember
you
any of you
partners in crimes
too sweet to resist
.
I don’t remember
wounds
carved by bloody lies
and broken promises
or the hand
that wielded the knife
.
I don’t remember
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Something’s Coming

Sshh,

Something’s coming…

Something’s coming

From a long way off

Bury your head

Plough a new furrow

Cultivate a little distance

From the past

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Kissing God

“Smoking this stuff is like kissing God”. Hyperbole, he did a good line in embroidery. Of course, the stuff was lethal – laced with DMT – Happy times spread across my face like the warmth of the morning sun and unfolded in my lap in a royal flush. 

I swam where the dolphins swam and ran where the children ran. I found the place where all the dreamers came from. I was as light as the breeze, as helpless as a child. I wouldn’t leave a ripple if you dropped me in the ocean. “See the little crystals? That’s the magic right there, in them crystals.” So he thought; the magic was in us – in the forms reflected in those crystals  – one of which was divine.

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The Biggest Lie

You was the giant killer
Big chief of the Zulus
You was a hard man
King of the Hoodoos
Your word was law
Your name was God
But you’re the biggest lie
That has ever been told
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Mute

I dreamed that they banned music and silence softly ate at our minds and infiltrated our hearts until we were made of nothing but emptiness. Our voices contained no lyricism, or colour. Our thoughts contained no conflict, or wonder. Even our faces gave up and died – their blank countenances conveyed neither happiness nor pain, their egoless expressions were one and the same. A world without music was a world without tears, a world without laughter. A world without music was like a play without actors.

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Image ‘Mute’ by Maya Kulenovic

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Brompton’s

Squeeze me a Brompton’s and blow my joint while I eat this bird. I have a hard on for the kind of high only a hard shot of junk provides. My old man got tarred for drinking this bug juice, but I don’t care about tar – it’s the feathers I object to. I’ll blow my own brains out before I let anyone turn me into a chicken.

Those cold-blooded bastards down at the lizard house have it in for dissenters who sup God’s own from the crystal cup. They incarcerate anyone who jacks up or spreads a little green on his lungs. Their war on drugs is a futile exercise in enforced conformity. The pressures of the market lead to standardisation and the ubiquity of mediocrity.

Prohibition only causes the criminality that keeps the law enforcers in business. Everyone is a would-be snitch. Everybody is an enforcer trying to gun us down in a hail of psychic bullets. Pour me another baby; I’ve come over all terminal. I need to cradle my consciousness in velvet gloves.

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Leave Me Be

My spring is wound
Way too tight
I’m on the fight or flight
The roaches beneath my skin 
Are threatening to do me in
I’ve reached a certain velocity
It’s an animal ferocity
.
I can’t sit still
I think I’m ill
I pace the floor
Make for the door
But out or in
I’m stuck on a pin
I can’t get free
Just let me be
.
I’m rotating left then right
There is no peace in sight
I’m spinning like a top
I don’t think I can stop
I’m struggling for breath
I might catch my death
.
I can’t sit still
I think I’m ill
I pace the floor
Make for the door
But out or in
I’m stuck on a pin
I just can’t get free
So please let me be
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Fungaloid

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
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My Old Man

Meat and two veg
On a formica table
Jim Reeves and distant drums
Twenty Kensitas Club
An ashtray full of dog ends
India Pale Ale and glass of rum
Plastic teeth in a grimace
The smell of Brylcream
A splash of Old Spice
And a clout round the lug
Tailored suits immaculate
And cuban heeled boots
Off to see a man about a dog
He was hard as nails
My old man
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Paint Me Yellow

Sodium yellow
The colour of caffeine
Paints the street
And invades my room
My nights are long
Measured in solitude
The world is sleeping
But there’s no peace
For the wicked
And I am wicked
So turn me over
And paint me yellow
I have hours to wait
Before the dawn
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Noah

Noah built an ark

He was thinking of the future

I built myself a raft

I was thinking of myself

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Stranger

left to the mercy of the weather god
drenched in the rhythmic rain
a man – a foreigner perhaps
dark and curly – straight and bent
is lost in the open country
he carries the casts of his funeral face
and the relics of fallen saints
always a stranger – stranger than life
he quarries great stones of remembrance
once he was this – once he was that
now an alien in these parts
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The Electric Messiah

There have been many messiahs, but none ever touched the majesty or lunacy of The Electric Messiah. The Electric Messiah kicked in the doors of the temple and set fire to the money changers. He did that a lot; he was bi polar you see. On the positive side he was very generous, but on the negative side he was quick to anger. The people had not asked for an Electric Messiah, but you get the messiah you deserve.

In a world of conflict he was the supreme arbiter; smashing the unjust and delivering the pious with a beatific smile. His days in the wilderness had taught him that temptation was a blessing and to succumb was to conquer. His right hand held a flaming sword and his left the book of mercies. He could draw thunder bolts from the heavens and calm the seas with a whisper. His road to Damascus was filled with doubtful blind men – The Electric Messiah offered judgment, but not redemption.

I met him in rehab, which was compulsory for him after the great pharmacology scandal of 76 when he was convicted of turning communion wafers into methamphetamine and baptizing new converts with LSD. The papers compared him with Charles Manson, but Charley was never so gifted as The Electric Messiah. We got on like a ward on fire – he was good at starting fires. He told me of his early life as the son of an electrician from Glasgow and how his great potential as a conductor of electricity was first discovered.

At the age of six he was caught in a massive electrical storm and struck by lightning several times leaving great charred craters behind him. His mother said it was a miracle, his father said it was a question of conductivity. All through his formative years he was known as Lightning Rod, but it was only in his teens while experimenting with magical mushrooms did he realize his manifest destiny as The Electric Messiah.

Things were to go disastrously wrong for The Electric Messiah when his doctors doped him with omnopon, strapped him to a table and crucified him with electrical oscillations. The electroconvulsive therapy was meant to cure him of his addiction enabling delusions. Instead it triggered a massive explosion which destroyed the hospital and sent out an electromagnetic pulse that destroyed London’s communications apparatus causing a major catastrophe.

That was the end of The Electric Messiah, or so they said. However, many have reported seeing him whenever there is a great electrical storm and his words have lived on, though his body is apparently gone. His intolerance and his anger are evoked whenever the powerful seek to justify the use of force. His generosity and kindness are evoked whenever they seek to preach restraint. Yes, The Electric Messiah left his mark on the world – you can’t be a true messiah unless you do.

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Jonah

the wind tugs at memory
in indistinct murmurs
from the wilder country
full of forbidden places
and ancient curses
I learned what it feels like
to become a beast
my face is fluid now
it can take many forms
angels and demons
dance across my surfaces
twinkling like children
in orphanage rags 

I took to the streets

to deliver the bad news

but the streets were so wide 

they swallowed me whole

Spotlight

When the spotlight hit us we were frozen in helpless fascination. We’d stayed longer than we meant to and just wanted to go home. From my point of view – and presumably hers – it was all over. Even the wildest of adventures becomes mundane with familiarity and it’s true what they say – familiarity breeds contempt. In the cold glare I could see that it was over; I felt no more remorse than I would for stepping on a roach and I viewed the whole thing with the same detachment. Whatever we had together had long outlived its usefulness.

Our thing was nourished by lies – from the start to the finish we never knew each other. Fear drew us together; the fear of loneliness, the fear of discovery. That’s the history of the world – boy meets girl, boy lies to girl and gravity does the rest.

They say nothing lasts forever, but some things last a lifetime; like fear, anguish and shame. Ever since the Garden of Eden we have been covering our shame with little white lies. When the black dog begs at my table and the cold wind hampers my doors I review my liturgy of falsehoods with a wry smile. Every lie begets another – each a building block in an empire of self deception.

Ash Wednesday

Someone must’ve spiked me with methedrine because I’m way too high. That shit gives me crank bugs and the heebies. Another nightshift scheduled – my body aches and my mouth is dry.

I saw him, we danced real close, he has black eyes and the blackest smile. The drinks were on him, black wine from Corsica. I’m halfway to Ash Wednesday and my penultimate oblivion. I hooked an angel with my kite and cut him loose with the Devil’s scissors. I wrapped him up in a parcel and mailed him to the Church – they said it was a miracle he ever arrived considering the state of the Italian postal system.

You must send the boy away. If he goes to his father the old man will think him evil and wild like his mother. His father has religion now and has become a terrible bore. He sits all day issuing sober soul orders; “Repent! Everyone is responsible for everything they do. The Lord God demands his supper!” His inquisition isn’t welcome around here; we’ll have to stone him one day.  We’ll mail him to Church as pate for the Holy Father. All organisations are built on lies, but he has all the best ones.

Exile the boy and nurture the man - with regular beatings. Spare the rod and spoil the child. It’s in our nature to nurture, so beat him relentlessly. Cut him with the devil’s scissors, make an end to his childish ways. Take him to Church and bury him - every church is a tombstone for the spirit of man.

My mind is my church; no altar, no preacher, no ceremony – just thought. The Church is theatre and religion is politics. The God venerated in the church is completely at odds with the natural universe. Iconoclast is the answer; smash the idols, burn the churches, free the mind.

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The Sickness Of The World

I have always been the victim of my own machinations   I always gave in to the blunt and vicious side of my nature   I feed that hump monkey with my bitter delusions and confectionery lies   I’m not a victim  I’m a volunteer  the sickness of this world is fear  fear of disclosure  fear of truth  fear of death    creeping fear is the prime motivator  the scent of excitement  the stench of dread apprehension  take a little whiff and he’ll make your wildest nightmares seem true

 my cloak of invincibility  my masquerade of masculinity   are driven by the shameful quirt of fear  the whole public edifice hangs on one tarnished nail   the threat of exposure   the disgrace of discovery  fear is the touch of death   my most secret paramour   fear has driven me to the contortions and exploits that map the surfaces of my life   but the hidden depths are his alone  he is emperor of the interior  my internal story is one of revolution   of my struggle against his tyranny I’ve learned throughout the years that inaction breeds doubt and fear    you gain in strength courage and confidence   when you confront your fear

A Criminal Mind

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

You are a pile of limp bedclothes in an empty room. You are the blossoming of dead flowers in the dark. You are the silent echo of screaming corruption; poured out as congealed blood into the night. No-one can reach you now; you’re 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 your stars; this place was always primed for your acceptance – you want to go home, but you are home. You were incarcerated for possessing a criminal mind. You saw crime in everything. You saw injustice everywhere. But you lacked the imagination to act like a criminal – you had to play the martyr. So take this crown of thorns and sow your dirty sheets. There are betrayals and crucifixions to re-enact before  you ever see another dawn.

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Flight

At a run we could leap between the garages quite easily. The wooden rooftops would give our footfalls an extra spring and help us to build up momentum until we reached the final garage in the row. Then we would launch ourselves into the air with a final thrust, our arms and legs still flailing as if we were running on air. We experienced a moment of exhilarating flight then, a moment of ecstatic buoyancy, before gravity took hold and we landed with a thud on the grassy ground. We would compete to see who could fly the furthest. My brother Tommy was the best flier by yards. He was part bird, my brother Tommy.

Joyride

Richard brought her around

they brought some booze

which soon ran out

while he was out buying more

I fucked her on the kitchen table

I still can’t remember her name

but she was a looker

or I was very drunk

Richard arrived back just in time

to see her straighten her dress

and me pulling up my jeans

he had that resigned disappointed look

that told me this was not his first time

he dropped the booze and left

not all bad news then – he left the booze

we drank some more

she tearfully told me she loved him

as I undid her blouse

we fucked with less passion than before

we took the time to get low down and dirty

when the booze was gone

she remembered

she had a full bottle of gin at home

I was beginning to get the impression

that booze was a big part of her life

she took a minute to locate the car keys

“Les go” she said

“No” I replied, “Les call a cab”

she would have none of that

she pronounced,

 in slurred speech,

that she’d drive home

with me or without me

that’s how I found myself driving shotgun

in a weaving death trap

I steered from the passenger seat

and she operated the pedals.

we were both blind drunk.

still, I wasn’t so drunk

that I wasn’t terrified

all the time I was thinking;

will I die like this, drunk in a pile up

with a nymphomaniac alcoholic

squeezing my crotch

as I steer through the blurred traffic

on my way to a bottle of gin?

Christ, I don’t even like gin.

Plague

Rats! – I saw rats. What kind of rats? - Big fat hairy bubonic rats, delicious rats with long juicy worm tails. That’s how I know this ship is sinking. Flea bitten scurvy rats are deserting in droves; it’s not too healthy around here anymore.

This place is a cess pool of vice and debauchery – not the fun fleshy kind, oh no, but an inane limp variant of isolated key punchers and video hoaxers vying to impress with the vacuousness of their thought. This is a plague of ineptitude, the triumph of mediocrity. Mankind is doomed to die of impotence; a whimpering lovelorn adolescent reaching across the net searching for human contact by remote console. They have not deserted the sinking ship, they have locked themselves in their cabins. They say the Roman Empire died of decadence – our civilisation will die of negligence.

There’s a pandemic stretching an ugly hand across the globe – one that reduces all it touches to the commonplace. An imagined empire of sameness; the current composite existence is dwindling into a mire of self restraint and tasteless simulacrum. We no longer touch. We no longer experience firsthand. We share. We share a pseudo reality where even our dissent is manufactured and orchestrated by unseen commercial interest. Our every thought is digested by the combine and regurgitated to inform new patterns of consumption. The machine has set us free. The machine has relieved us of the burden of thought and feeling. There is no choice to hate in this brave new world; only the option is to ‘like’ – not love – ‘like’. Even our emotions are being reduced to the mediocre. We can rage against it, but will do so next to advertising selected by the machine to reflect our current status.

Feast of Souls

the dogs will have their day

when the beast calls us home

we will devour the world

at the last great feast of souls

.

we shall call on a saviour

but no saviour will come

we shall eat our children

at the last great feast of souls

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there will be no burial rites

no funerary procession

no-one there to mourn us

at the last great feast of souls

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