Doomsday Device

His name was Robert and he had a twin brother Richard who, he explained, was on another ward because they could read each other’s minds.

“Together we are too formidable for the nurses to tackle.”

He was a tall, slender, carrot top of about twenty eight years. When he spoke his hands fluttered in his lap like birds trapped in a cage.

“My father was a minister in The Church Of Scotland. He resented our gift. There was a massive power struggle and he locked us in a time capsule for the sake of science.”

He looked around furtively.

“We don’t belong here, but they had the idea we were building a doomsday device, so they locked us in here. No vision you see. No vision.”

He stalked off with a loping gait when he saw one of the nurses coming into the ward. He had some complaint or other; he had many quite fanciful complaints.

The wards were named after Scottish islands; we were on Islay and Robert’s brother Richard was on the neighbouring island of Jura. It seemed appropriate to me that the wards were named for islands, because each of them seemed just like a little island separated from the mainland of everyday life. The building that housed these islands was a vast rambling Gothic Victorian asylum, a bedlam as they were once called. Locally its name, Bellsdyke, was synonymous with lunacy.

I was placed there as a voluntary patient under the understanding that if I had not volunteered I would have been ‘sectioned’ under the mental health act as a danger to myself or others. It was a Hobson’s choice - volunteer or we will make you. I would be detained there under observation for thirty days until it was determined what would be done with me. I had come to hospital a fractured personality with certain delusions and suicidal tendencies. I was a manic depressive, but did not know this at the time.

During the first few days I kept myself to myself. I felt I did not belong there anymore than Robert felt that he belonged there. I was deeply depressed and withdrawn. The nurses tried to coax me into interaction with my fellow inmates, but I would not be drawn. Gradually though I began to acclimatise to my surrounding, at least during the daylight hours. At night I found the hospital a weird and frightening place. All night I could hear people sobbing or crying out in distress. I could hear doors slam and footfalls echoing down long empty corridors. The boy in the bed next to me would not stop crying, I didn’t blame him I wanted to cry myself.

It was several days before I encountered Richard. He was identical to Robert in every way, except that he wore a three piece tweed suit. He was standing in the recreation room of Islay ward watching a joiner replace the sashes in one of the old wooden windows. He turned and walked to the rec room table, which was festooned with books and pamphlets and picked up a notepad. He approached the joiner and flicking through the pad informed him that he had the wrong window.

“It’s this window that needs fixed.”

The joiner nodded and dutifully undid his work and proceeded to the next window. He was nearly finished when the sister arrived and informed him that he had replaced the sashes in the wrong window.

“But the doctor”, he said, indicating Richard, “told me it was this window.”

The sister smiled forbearingly,

“He is a patient.”

Richard quickly about faced and skulked off like a guilty schoolboy.

That night, after his parents had left, the boy in the bed next to me was distraught and he sobbed for hours. I despaired of ever getting to sleep, but the nurses gave him a shot and he was soon out cold. I woke up in the early hours with the lights flashing on and off. Robert was at the light switch.

“What the fuck are you doing?” I asked groggily.

“Morse code,” replied Robert.

“Why?” I asked.

He just gave me an indulgent smile, stupid question.

“Who are you signalling?”

“That’s a secret.”

“Please stop it,” I implored, “I’m trying to sleep.”

Just then we heard footsteps approach the door and Robert jumped into his bed. “What’s going on?” enquired the nurse.

“He won’t stop talking,” said Robert pointing an accusing finger in my direction, but averting his gaze.

“Get to sleep Robert,” said the nurse and closed the door.

Robert had an aversion to television. Most of the other patients were avid viewers during the hours of seven till ten when we were allowed to watch. He believed television would steal your thoughts. However, he did not leave the television room while it was on. He paced about behind our chairs making cryptic comments while averting his eyes. One evening he became particularly animated while we were watching Top of the Pops.

“It’s propaganda!” he exclaimed. “Turn it off,”

he made a grab for the switch, but was intercepted.

“It’ll melt your brain!” he insisted.

Then after many attempts to distract us he said in a sly voice, “I’ll detonate the device.”

We ignored him. He began a countdown “10, 9, 8...” When he reached zero he slammed his hand into the fire alarm and all hell broke loose. There were bells ringing everywhere. The nurses arrived from their station to see what was going on and to evacuate us from the building.

“It was just Robert,” we protested, but regulations are regulations.

The whole hospital was evacuated and we all, many of us in pyjamas, stood outside in the snow while we were counted and the fire brigade did a search of the building. I was standing next to Robert and he turned to me and said, “BOOM”.

The next time I saw him he was being dragged away by two orderlies screaming for help.

“John! John! Help me!”

It was two days before he arrived back on the ward. He was a shambling shadow of his former self. The ‘chemical cosh’ the other patients called it; a drug called largactil, a common treatment for schizophrenia. I seemed like a punishment to me, punishment for unleashing the doomsday device.

.

Vicious Monkeys

vicious monkeys

getting frisky

all elbows and tongues

shaven heads

and swastika smiles

wrong man

wrong place

the power of the knife

twists in the stomach

men must fight

cowards must flee

with the pulse

beating in my throat

blood pool coiling in my gut

I fled

never looked back

whoops of laughter

still ringing in my ears

.

The Last Message

the heart is huge and soft
and melts like butter
you don’t have to ask me why
I still carry on with the Freudian Fraud
peace descends with God’s own medicine
the Japanese sandman commits hara kiri
bleeds on the sandals of Jesus’s son
the last ever message on the front cover
oh father – what have they done?
.

Quislings

I know that they have me under surveillance; some shady fucker with a telescopic lens hiding behind a neighbour’s blinds, undercover operatives tailing me in unmarked cars. You might think me paranoid, but these fucks are seriously nosy. Plod has an insatiable appetite for ‘intel’. I have a scrupulous fascination with privacy – there are conflicting interests at work here.

Tongues are wagging. Lies are being smeared. There are quislings in my camp – ready to turn me over. There are piggies with their snouts in my trough. They’ll know my schedule by now – they’ll have been monitoring my movements. Well, I can change my schedule, alter my movements. I’ll adopt a disguise and go incognito. They’ll have to get up early in the morning to catch this worm.

While they are watching me – I’ll be watching them. My eyes are peeled for signs of their presence and I have eyes in the back of my head. They lack the energy to keep up with me, I’m a veteran insomniac. While they doze I’ll be making my moves. I might be a target, but I’ll be a moving target. Crazy? I’ll show them who’s crazy!

.

Rat Boy

A nightstand with an empty cup and full ashtray – a book of placebo poetry – pretty words strung together for abstract effect. I garner images like the crumbs of toast itchily deposited on my mattress. I neck my medication after carefully chewing each pill with care.

(ONE to be taken at night. If sleepy do not drive or operate machinery. Avoid alcohol. Swallow this medicine whole. Do not chew or crush.)

I go for the heavy stone – the terminal rush. I reach out for a taste of oblivion and oblivion reaches out to me. I have no fear of falling. Gravity is my best friend. That heavy hand on my shoulder – that warm envelope of darkness is the closest thing to the womb – outside of death.

I like to write. I like the exercise of assembling the words – negotiating meaning – no obfuscation – there can be no doubt, no room for mistakes. Mine is a struggle for meaning; it’s more than a mere obsession, it’s a life or death contest. The notebook on the nightstand is full of scribbled impressions – most are indecipherable to all but me.

The bedroom window is open just enough to let the night seep in. I feel the hum of the city streets, hears the howls of monkey bands making their way home in the wee small hours. Just before I succumb to sleep I think I hear a scratching sound somewhere in the room.

I dream of a long corridor with locked doors on either side. I am running from something or looking for someone. I dream about a girl, someone strange yet familiar. She is my woman and I have to protect her from some unseen threat. 

I dream that the girl is pregnant. She gives birth to a rat. However I try to care for the child I feel revulsion and I cannot help thinking that this is my replacement. It makes perfect sense; Rat Boy is the ultimate survivor. It’s only when the infant calls me ‘Dad’ that I wake up with a jolt.

The sky is grey, the light is thin. It could be anytime, but my body tells me that it’s six am. I always awaken at six am. I kid myself that it’s a lifetime of routine, but it’s junk and I know it. My body awakens me every morning screaming for ease. I am less well equipped for survival than Rat Boy, I shudder as I recall my dream, Rat Boy has no weaknesses like junk.

Number Seven

I set number seven ablaze. I’m surprised I didn’t think of it sooner. I was stoned at the time – when the impulse took me. I put the chip pan on and went out. It’s the most common cause of household fire, the chip pan. I was standing across the road watching when the fire brigade arrived. It was only then that the enormity of what I’d done hit me. I was shaking. I was in shock. I stood there among my neighbours and watched the smoke fuming from the roof. I could see the flames through the windows. All my possessions were burning. Everything I owned was being turned to cinders.

I was a bit embarrassed when the fireman guessed correctly that I was off my face, “the most common cause of household fires” he said. Fire cleanses, fire destroys and fire renews. Friends gathered around to console me, “At least no-one was hurt – are you insured?” At that moment I just did not give a shit. I would rise from the ashes. I was looking forward to it.

A few days later I was allowed to enter the building to retrieve any belongings that I could. To my surprise my bedroom – though covered in a thick layer of soot – was basically intact. I found a shoe box crammed full of old letters and postcards, a lifetime’s worth of correspondence. They were miraculously undamaged by the fire. I scanned through them – old lovers, friends, relatives – bitter sweet memories. They burned very nicely. One by one they joined with the ash on the floor.

.

Manic

when it’s on me
it’s a speedball
an acid rush
the distilled rays of the sun
burned into my retinas
fusing the membrane
and flooding my head
with a rainbow song
then I’m a supernova
I’m a lightning strike
an atomic bomb
I’m the Empire State
and the monster Kong
I’m a gushing torrent
a tidal wave
I’m a rattlesnake
with a diamond back
I’m the seventh son
I’m a maniac
.

Black Dog

I’m sick to the soul of this shit. My days are long and drawn out in a thin visceral stream that twists around the landmarks of my life. There is a quake in my soul - a quickening of pulse and febrile brow. I am atremble, a candle in a draft. I’m sinking into the mire, I can no longer help it and I no longer care.

It is always a step before and a breath behind me. A miasma of waking dreams played out against my pillow in the constant churning of my incessant consciousness. It’s there in the tangle of my sheets that the turning and returning of my memories break as waves across my brain pan. Every embarrassment, every humiliation, is played out in slow motion for my morbid delectation.

I feel so strange. I’ve felt it before, like something, somewhere, is all wrong. It’s coming from someplace far away and it’s coming for me. I buried something somewhere and some-one is now digging it up. Zombies from the past are trailing me. There are conspiracies whispered just beyond my hearing.

I’ve been here so many times before but I’ll never get used to it – that’s the bitch - I’ll never get used to it. It's an insidious and complex torture, always new and yet familiar. That unhappy shadow is always nearby – and the promise of inclement weather is ever on the horizon.

.

Dead Man’s Shoes

Buy me another drink and I’ll tell you a story. It’s set out on the edge – out on the hard road. It concerns a travelling man who slaved all his days for a handful of nothing; that’s where it all goes eventually - down the fucking tubes. Virtues turn to vices and vices turn to chains. It’s a rough road to travel for rich and for poor. Over time the luxury of indulgence becomes the slavery of convention; emperors and hobos both wear tin crowns.

I walked those uncertain miles in a dead man’s shoes. They pinched, they chafed, and they left little room for deviation from an idiot course. The path of least resistance led to the bottom of the bottle, more dead soldiers littering the sorry path to hell.

My cause was lost, the spirit had ebbed away, but I made my crooked way to where the grass was no greener and the people were no kinder. Always onward – never back – I kept on until they found a reason to hang me in those dead man’s shoes.

I’ve seen men hang, hang by degrees, with the life choked out of them over the course of decades. Lynched by the mob,  ostracized, and exiled to the barren regions. Naked men left out in the rain. Men without a friend, men without a home, men starved of love.

There are no second chances for those already dead. They say hope is the mother of all men, but I had no mother, no father, no companions. I’d nothing much to remember and nothing much to forget. I had nothing much to celebrate, but everything to regret.

Some say that Jesus awaits us at the end of this long road. That he’ll relieve us of our burdens and wipe away our tears. So put the pennies on my eyes to pay my fare, wrap me in a pauper’s shroud, but first take off these fucking shoes.

Gouge

All my life they spat on me
Because I dragged the low end
I got used to fighting for what’s mine
Blood of my blood and bone of my bone
I believe in an eye for an eye
I’d gouge away with bloody thumbs
Even if it rendered the whole world blind
Everyone is born with love in them
But you have to be taught how to hate
Each blow that landed was an education
They taught me and I learned it well
I want my pound of flesh on the bone
I’ll dig my grave right next to yours
I will pluck out my offended eyes
And serve the dictates of my primitive heart
.

The Secret World

I don’t have to live like this

I could give up the bug juice

I could get creative

Tear up my notebook

And start again

I could pluck out my eyes

Block up my ears

Tear out my tongue

And write in the air

There is no truth

And that being true

There are only lies

Stories that you tell

To make it seem alright

The object of thought

The indelible link

To predictable reason

The assassin of truth

Obscures the way

To self expression

There are no words

With which to write

The secret world

The inner life

For lies abound

Where silence prevails

.

Bones

Man I'm fucked. Inertia has carved me a mountain to climb. I’ve got bad bones - dry and brittle. They ache in the rain and fracture into vicious shards that pierce my flesh with darts of pain. I’m sick of my body – old and flabby. I captured a few pounds along the way, or they captured me. I’ll beat this vessel into an older shape – such a handsome youth – before the spilling of blood.

(He says he will. He’ll later say he did, but he’ll hold his place – it comforts him to remain inert.)

Bongs and bombs left craters in my bronchial organs. I wouldn’t smoke one of them – that’s a needle for the lungs. The wheezing, gasping instruments of life – collapsible bags of phlegm – expelling life by the root and tubers of my chest.

No more graveyards for me – too close to home to bring comfort – full of old bones and memories – such places only bring me down into the cancerous layers of yesteryear – coughing spluttering bloody handkerchiefs. Coffin nails stain my fingers brown – the colour of creeping death – the sepia tone of ancient photographs – windows on the dead. Brown is the colour of the sod that covers my corpse - the colour of my rotting bones beneath the dirt. My tired old bones embrace the inevitable – I’ll be gone, but my bones will remain.

.

* Graphic ‘Cyclops’ by Stanley Mouse

.

Shadows

I own my shadow

thank you Dr Jung

it’s always been there

companion and jailor

adversary and friend

some nameless arseholes

have suggested that I’m morbid

in my preoccupations

but I don’t need the remedy

just the culture

I exercise my shadow

with brisk forays into verse

our stories are shadows

they follow us around

the proverbial bad penny

or a lousy streak of luck

you can’t shake them

with drink and drugs

but you might lose

the plot in trying

this life will kill you

it’ll make or break you

I was forged in adversity

that’s true of everyone

that I’ve ever known

each had burdens to bear

and every burden borne

had a story of its own

.

The day I died

when I called out
you couldn’t hear
I turned to talk
but you weren’t there
you left the works
but took the gear
.
how I wept
how I cried
I sent for a priest
but none arrived
things were rough
the day I died
.

Far away

more haste – less speed
the minutes s t r e t c h out
racked in terrible instance
tortured in the passing
the throbbing mechanism
of desire
the beatings of fleshy drums
pulse off into nowhere
on and on
the cycle persists
the dim morning
cold grey light
seeping gently in
through empty windows
framing the silence
with spine chill –
and frozen sap
another day of coffin nails
and cellophane smiles
of sleeping lovers
far away in time
.

Ageing

Old man, his hands look dead. His neck is creased like a scrotum. His eyes are milky blue. He looks right into me for a second and something flickers and disappears. He’s moved on – moved within to some ancient memory that seems more real than I. Age draws the mind inward until we live on memories. The world at large loses its allure. The world gave up on the old man long before he deserted the world.

Will I grow old I wonder, real old I mean? Will I live long enough to grow raven’s claws and a purple veiny beak? I can just about imagine losing my marbles and retreating into my yesterdays. Becoming some drooling old fart sitting in my own shit. I’m terrified of that. Not having my faculties, not even knowing what kind of hell I’m living in.

Maybe I’ll get lucky and die before that ever happens. Maybe I’ll get luckier still and live to a ripe old age with my mind intact. Either way, I don’t relish the prospect of aging, but there is little I can do to negate the process – short of suicide and that is an even bleaker prospect.

.

Funeral

Heavy industrial gloom
Settled like a mantle of black ash
On my old hometown
The crushing weight of sanity
Cast an oppressive pall
Over the grimy rooftops
I had to prise open his coffin lid
To ascertain the cause of death
They say he jumped
But he was pushed
No-one ever jumps
They are all pushed
We lifted him from his coffin
And left him in the open air
Where the crows could get at his flesh
Where the sun could bleach his bones
And the wind could caress his carcass 
While the rain poured down 
On my old hometown

Pistol Whipped

Writing without drugs is like squeezing spunk from stones. I promised myself I’d write for an hour every day, but I can’t find the head room for that. That unbearable straightness precludes the flash of inspiration. I cannot shoot no-one with an empty gun. You can try beating sense into the words, but you end up with a fistful of bloody words.

I underwent analysis to make myself more likeable. All I got was a navel load of introspection and an even greater craving for drugs to wipe away the memory of self. Who can I shoot with an empty gun? I can only beat myself around the head with it and hope that concussion brings me some measure of euphoria and I am pistol whipped into some kind of order.

.

Mysteries

the three great mysteries       life, love and death     compass all      our little knowledge     borne like jewels      is of no advantage       in the face of the unknown     deep in the heart of the sun       the sound of tiny hammers     beating on golden anvils        ring out in a single wavering note      they are pounding out our dreams   too vague to make sense of    and as fleeting as our lives  

.

A Little Blood

a little blood?
well, what did you expect?
every birth is an act of violence
life is bloody, beautiful and short
at night we lay us down to rest
in the morning we shed our dreams
and take our place on the treadmill
the dreadful work begins again
bloody ankles and deadly smiles
men fall as the leaves fall
each is whittled into nothing
by the relentless mechanism
of commercial necessity 
an unseen hand wields a final blade
we are enfolded in black wings
and ferried across dark waters
out into the nevermore
.

Bad Luck

I’m reaching critical mass. I may implode, explode or expire. All that’s pent up within is spilling from my lips in a language I don’t understand – all the wrong words in the right order. I blurt, I spurt – my negativity appalls me. I wish I could stop, but I’m playing out the reel and can’t change the script. There are explanations for my plight; a lifetime of suppressing my emotions so that I occasionally blow a fuse and spill my guts. The curse of manic depression crosses the wires in my head causing emotional overload. I put it down to bad luck. It’s bad luck I have the curse.

I believe in bad luck. There is no justice in this world – only good and bad luck. The people experiencing good luck are far outweighed by the people experiencing bad luck. Bad luck is ubiquitous and it’ll find you out sooner or later. Destiny is a concept we are willing to accept if we are fortunate, but we call it injustice when we are not. We regard good luck as a right, and bad luck as a betrayal of that right.

Some say we make our own luck and to some extent that must be true. Poor decisions and bad luck are bed partners. However, the universe is a big place and it’s chaotic. It’s only natural that chaos touches us sometimes. There are unhappy situations that cannot be attributed to any logical theory of causation – we call them bad luck.

.

Mortality

 

“Life is for the living.
Death is for the dead.
Let life be like music.
And death a note unsaid.”
― Langston Hughes

 

They say cats actually purr as death takes them. That seems a healthy attitude to have. Me, I get apprehensive just thinking about my own mortality. I can’t imagine non existence any more than I can imagine some noncorporeal existence, or reincarnation. I can’t even imagine my final moments, but I’m sure I won’t be purring.

.

Rain

prisoners of the rain
bearers of bad tidings
trudge into the east
two stops beyond Eden
where dark beasts are born
within the hearts of the loveless
and false witnesses deny the dawn
and are forced to live in the dark
they pack empty suitcases
and run in diminished circles
like blind men hitching rides
to any other place devoid of light
the lies they spread infect the ear
and flourish like cancer
in the minds of the uncaring
.

Tapeworm

The worm in my gut tells me when, and who, to eat. I know he’s crazy, but he’s insistent. I draw the line at Methodists – too dry – too organised. Now they have that see see TV so you have to watch who you pick up and where. A guy can’t get away with a thing. Used to be that these dark winter nights covered a plethora of covert activity, but nowadays they have cameras that fit into your colon. 

The tapeworm writhes in disgust at the thought of that kind of exposure. He likes the dark seclusion of the bowel and its squishy warmth. My gut is home to numerous infestations and hunches. I feel things with my gut the way you might feel with your fingertips or your love pump. My worm keeps me well informed – though he suffers a right wing bias I have to filter out through my spleen. I can ignore his more extreme fear fuelled demands – until he lays on the brain pulse and cripples my membrane with the hurt. Then I have to go do something drastic which will inevitably humiliate and embarrass me. Such is the frailty of human nature – we are often in the squishy dark groping for comprehension in the shit and slime. We are often thinking with the gut instead of with the mind.

.

Lazarus

Don’t dig me up.

I’ve resigned myself to the inevitable and I just don’t give a fuck. I have heavy blood. I’m sorry the fighting ended, but glad that the struggle is over. I’m going to lie here and die by degrees – unnoticed and unloved. My sheets carry the aroma of soured dreams and my head is full of snakes.

Why can’t I just breathe? Open up to the possibility of resurrection. Get myself a shovel and dig. Wave the ju ju stick – toss those bones and divine a new day with my name on it. I could leave this place and never look back. I could start again in a new town, with a new identity.

Why don’t you dance for me? Give me a pirouette, a pasodoble. Go on - give us a twirl. The worst things in life are free and misery abhors company, but you are never alone with your memories.

I’m a puppet to my memories. I peer dimly through second-hand daylight at my empire of dust and I don’t care – I’m going nowhere – I’m in too deep to resuscitate. 

1973

Meat and two veg
The order of the day
Egg and chips
Those trusty standbys
Powers cuts and strikes
Lock outs and riots
Calor gas evenings
Radio by candle light
The white heat of technology
The Tiber foaming red
Unfulfilled prophesies
Littered the dirty streets
Those were the days
Of sedentary bombs
In secret locations
Policemen & revolutionaries
Armies of occupation
The other Battle of Britain
Was waged in the dark
.

Murderous

I’ll have his guts for garters
He’ll make me a murderer
I’ll swing for him if I have to
I don’t care for consequences
I’ll bash his tiny brain in
Stick his head on a spike
I’m at the end of my tether
About to cut loose
I’ll slash him, stab him
Throttle and drown him
He’ll be the victim
And I’ll be the fucking monster
I swear I’ll do him in
Just one more word
And I’ll do him in
.

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
.

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
.

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
.

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
.

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.

.

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.

.

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
.