Bobby

Bobby and Susan were best buddies
It was purely platonic, so they said
In fact they were so close
That when I asked Susan home
Bobby came as well
I could tell he was crazy for her
His eyes never left her
As we sat drinking coffee
In my living room


I thought I had struck out
Things being the way they were
With Bobby there and all that
I stood up and stretched
Said it was time for my bed
Susan stood up and took my hand
As we both left the room
I clocked Bobby’s dial
There was a look on his face
I’ll never forget
.

Rose Of Jericho

I pushed her buttons
And she opened up like a flower
What’s that the image of?
An unfolding fleshy flower
The sacred rose of Jericho
Tattooed to my ribs
The five wounds of Christ
The seven veils of wisdom
The smiling secret cyphers
Signalled between a lover’s lips
Behind closed doors
Between the sheets
Beneath the heaving flesh
Sliding – rolling on the mattress
Pressed against her bosom
Jammed between her thighs
Inside her velvet prison
My walls come tumbling down
But just in the moment
.

Wake

Take him and lay him out on the tall trestles
Put him in the shop window
For passing trade to see
Maybe some use can yet be made of him
I won’t dirty my hands with the details
Some words cannot be retracted
I’ll just say that he was here and now is gone
On twenty one occasions I asked for his forgiveness
He just shrugged his shoulders and slouched away
“No”, was all he said
Come on girl – no use moping after him
His journey is over now
But ours is just begun.
.

Blackened

When did we learn how to hate?
Was it incremental
Like the constant drip, drip, drip
Of a leaking faucet
Delivering the droplets of hurt and humiliation
That gradually painted our hearts black?
Was it as sudden as the illumination of betrayal
The spike of ice cold acid in the veins
The shock of the inevitable,
The realisation of all our fears?
Or was it always there
Carried within
Before it ever had a name?
.

Sunny Side Up

it’s been a thin time all round
inky black and such
hard graft for the crooked
a long stretch for the touched
the good people of the parish
shell a little corn into my cup
but it’s one of those deals
where you fight for your meals
it’s not all sunny side up
.

Scream

This writing is futile
I can’t express how I feel
Not in so many words
I’d like to take my pain
Roll it into a ball
And stuff it down your throat
So you’d be mute like me
Your seams leaking
Blotting your copy book
With a silent crimson scream
.

Speed Bomb

awkward high <> like a speed bomb that went down the wrong way <> all new oblique angles <> strange dimensions and hollows <> each crevice a new expression in feeling <> strange there should be new situations to chart <> this late in the game <> a familiar sickly taste <> with a different flavour <> impossible to quantify <> pleasure and pain <> this knife cuts both ways <> unease has become an art form <> the pool is still <> but under lurks <> a drowning <> a car crash <> a train wreck <> a fucking catastrophe <> if it’s true <> it’s not true <> but what if it is true? <> get a grip <> your morbid imagination will be the death of you <> that which you fear <> you draw to you <> you have to reach for the man within <> or be the man without <> keep a sceptical eye on the bad news <> favour the good thing <> catch that positive curve <> slide in under the barriers <> when the bogey man looks away

.

Dolphin

He once failed a micro flocculation test. It came back positive for syphilis. He said it was the last time he ever paid for sex – the whores on Cockburn Street were riddled with the pox. I was feeling decidedly antsy – crank bugs from the blue flake – Peruvian magic dust, the finest money could buy, ninety percent pure, or so he said.

A creeping numbness spread through my limbs, my heart beat like a hammer and my mouth was dry as dust. He fuzzed in and out of focus for a moment and I listened as he traced the contours of depravity like a veteran whore master. “We are all whores,” he pronounced, “Everyone has their price. The only question is how much?”

We snorted some more charlie and he scratched his crotch with obscenely dirty fingernails. He said he’d just as soon fuck a hairy arsed boy as a beautiful woman and he eyed me salaciously. He seemed brutal and repugnant to my young eyes. He spoke with all the eloquence of a rabid baboon; “In this business you have to be like a shark. You have to be cold and ruthless. I understand these people ‘cause I’m a shark too.” It was then I realised for the first time that I was a dolphin.

.

.

Necrophiliac

poor boy has a gimmick
he contacts the deceased
with glass beads
and cardboard figurines
his memory resurrects
the dear departed
through necromancy
and bad poetry
he disarms them
with his european smile
and easy charm
but his smooth patois
conceals a deep distrust
of the living
and morbid fascination
with the dead
.

Euthanize

treatment is symptomatic
there is no cure
no wonder drug
no universal panacea
just elemental narcotics
to ease the pain
of twisted nerves
in a deviant body
a little chicken soup

for a tortured soul

who conjured up this
slouching abomination?
his furrowed brow
and unnatural posture
speak of untold burdens
so feed him, free him
turn him loose
put a bullet in his brain pan
and bid him farewell
.

Voiceless

Poor Boy looked into the sky and said:
“Oh God, please get me outta here...”
But God did not hear him
The distance

Between

        Heaven and Earth

Being what it is

Silenced at birth by unseen hands
It was more than just the money
(or lack of it)
There was a poverty of spirit
And a quiet sense of shame
That couldn’t be erased
He was a sounding brass
A hollowed out man
Just one of billions 
Stuffed down the crapper
The justice in that
For the moment escaped him
.

Undertow

cancellations will occur      due to unforeseen circumstances      I’m coughing my guts up     a gasping clearance     of the regurgitate     burning reflux     that’s a choking sign     many are the good men     who drowned in their own vomit     that’s not the way      I want to go 

the final slumber     the open gate     there’s an easy route       to accidental escape        gluttony and carelessness      don’t swim too far       there’s a shallow shelf      then it gets real deep       the undertow will drag you down     beware the undertow      drag you down

.

Indica

Lend me your implosion

Spin me some indica

Light me a sensitizer

Pass it on quick

I’m not long for this dimension

Give me metabolic connections

To the man within

Direct me through the proper channels

To the district coordinator

For the living dead/undead

The lean mean concrete machine

Is grinding me down

Dehumanised and processed

Into human pate

I got the F-E-A-R

Chronic

.

Ghosts

Chaos bless them – prisoners of the winter skies who await the settling of the sun when night sings songs of damage and pain. Silence seeps from the cracks of less well-ordered lives to soak the heart and stain the soul. There are those who would not trade their sadness for joy, but would hold it dear for it denotes the passing of something precious. There are some who would hold the empty night close to their hearts as the only remnants of loves lost, or dreams that died. They would eschew the dawn preferring the company of ghosts.