Pages

16 February 2019

Donut

















for a while there
Donut had the key
to his knackers
but it was all display
Blondie was a closet case
who hid his true vocation
behind a heterosexual smoke screen
but it was a thin veneer
which fooled no-one but Donut
she was a grade A junkie
who professed a grade B love
for her young suitor

her man Donny found out
but he was supposed to
he reckoned he was
going to get basic
on Blondie’s arse
and I could understand his feelings
but I told him the road to Blondie
ran through me, so he backed off
I liked the man
he was a decent sort
who carried his own burdens
like a man
not all junkies are thieves
most are just ordinary people
with monkeys to feed

anyway, Donut heard about
my conversation with Donny
and immediately switched tack
I was round there one day
looking for a little hash
and she was crying about Blondie
who’d been giving her space recently
I put my arm around her, as you do
when Donny returned
and she pushed me away saying:
“No Johnny, I won’t fuck you!”

I was amazed, then amused
you see, it was all about Donny
it was all about power
Donny was giving me the hard look
which made things even more amusing
from my perspective
I left with peals of laughter trailing
but I did not return
for the matinee performance



13 February 2019

Curio















those were the dog days
of starving klepto mongrels
home before the bell
who knows what lessons
were successfully evaded
in those truant hours

back in my laboratory
I had been dissecting
the entire enchilada
and I found it suspect
from its shabby suburbs
to its furtive interior

our buxom benefactor
was obtusely square
and everything she did
seemed strangely angular
but her association
with me was perhaps
most oblique of all

I was a mere curio
the prodigious man-child
a worldly innocent
in a cabinet of horrors
and I wondered
how many junk shops
she had trawled through
just to find me



6 February 2019

Pistolero



















it was an ordinary pistol
highly sexualised
it only cost him twenty
they had asked for twenty five
he stuffed it in his pocket
with pharmaceutical intent
now he had the power
readily to hand

he showed the fucker to me
its number had been filed
it had a dodgy provenance
but that was no surprise
I told him he should ditch it
but he ignored my advice
it only cost a score
but it made him feel alive

5 February 2019

Flashback




















flashback
big piranha
got the fear
body quake
and adrenal
expulsion
it’s that
weary
old
fight
or flight
paradigm
I’ll shake it
though
I go
by the
numbers
it’s just
a question
of time

Snow



the snow lies deep
and cold
painting the world
a ghostly hue
no more
will you grow old
your moment here
is through
and mother nature’s come
to throw a blanket
over you


31 January 2019

Candles















I’ve seen people dying
incrementally
believe me
folk are soluble
and they can fade away

sometimes people die
very suddenly
believe me
folk are fragile
and can break so easily

and people simply vanish
unexpectedly
believe me
folk can disappear
without a bye or leave



21 January 2019

Societal Disease


















I started on the razzle
out of my fucking head
stumbling blindly onward
where angels feared to tread
but I didn’t fade away
I hung on by a thread
while the ladies of the parish
furnished me with bread

I had bills I couldn’t pay
and a monkey to appease
but that kind of generosity
meant I didn’t freeze
the truth is I was crawling
on my bloody knees
I was just another victim
of societal disease


19 January 2019

Solitary Confinement














unscheduled hallucinations
and psychotic interludes
plagued my formative
and shaped my destination
my beat bastard subscription
lapsed before endorsement
but I wish I could lie down
take a fucking telling
I’m so tired right now
I could drag the world with me
through dark corridors
to the great panopticon
where elastic promises
and suicidal compacts
are made by strange bedfellows
there are no
casual acquaintances
in solitary confinement

17 January 2019

Blood Rite

















I’m all jelly bone
and knee tremble
my brothel creepers
and crepe soul
slick with anticipation

tomorrow
is another
creosote sundae
but tonight
is a total eclipse
of reason

I bide my time
spilling my oats
on barren ground
to be washed away
in the menstrual cycle

my instruments
calculate trouble
word gets around
there are no secrets
in monkey town


16 January 2019

Sundowners

















don’t kid yourself
you know these people
just cause they button up
the same way you do
they got secrets to cash
and monkeys to feed
by day they hone
their grievances
forge alliances
and swear their oaths
as playground innocents
but at night
they are a different
species of stupid
when their kamikaze hearts
spur them to perform
localised atrocities
of obscene and banal
dimensions


14 January 2019

Liars

Last-Tango
you taught my tongue some tricks
I can weave real eloquently now
with a winning smile
and a twinkle in my eye
I've even fooled myself at times
we all want to believe in something
we all want to trust in someone
but I don't even trust myself
I'm dirty as the thirty pieces of silver
that secured my ounce of solid soul
and as deep as the phony veneer
that fails to conceal my corruption
so, ask me no questions
and ditch the disguise
save us both the effort
of more graceless contortions
as we make our goodbyes
.

13 January 2019

My Friend

white-peacock


they persecuted him

because they could

because it’s easy

to close your mind

to the different

and he was different

he was a peacock

amidst vultures

he was a libertine

in the company of slaves

he was a shooting star

who burned too brightly

and he was my friend

when there was no other

.