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4 August 2020

Dagger (Surgical Edit)




















There is no gelt
In this writing lark
No final reward
Just a hunger
An insatiable need
To press the keys
And play the notes
That fill the page


Typing done
I am alone
I work best alone
But I sleep best
With company
And it’s meant
To be that way

No virtual life for me
I love flesh and blood
For I was born
Of flesh and blood
To go the way
That all flesh does
Not prematurely
But after a long while

When I’ve perfected
My papers
And catalogued
My women
In alphabetical order
Or numerical significance
According to rank
And ability

All 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 in your mouth
So you’d be mute like me
Your seams leaking
Blotting your copy book
With a silent crimson scream

My credentials are impeccable
At least on paper, if not in the flesh
Your papers were forged
But I don’t mind
You brought me more pleasure
Than a thousand dead poets

“The only good poet is a dead poet.”

Isn’t that what you said?
Imposters pout and posture
Across the page
With borrowed icons
And stolen voices

Genius lays face down in the gutter
Death is the final measure
Of its dedication to the craft
But not for me darlin’
I want to be adored, at least once
However briefly
And in this life, not the next

Long ago
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

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


3 August 2020

Bindlestiffs 2020


dummy up and listen good     while I pour moonshine in your ear     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

 yeah - I’ll take you down     where skid row junkies     shuffle dance like broken bears     they smile spoiled milk      and stink of stale sweat      and rotted flesh     the zombie nation has risen     semi stiff cardboard men     flaccid humanity    face down in the gutter    

hostile corners teem     with cockroach people     knives half shut     displaying  disgraceful wings     in cardboard colours     blood     brown clotted     on the lips of scarecrow men      three overcoats     wrapped around breathless bodies     dull drunk and frenzied sober faces     searching for significance      thirsty souls on a death mission     every bum who can lift his lids     eyes you up for the short prize

“Buddy can you spare some change… “

 we are all forced out     to harvest bones in the wilderness     it’s a world away from titties and beer     but it puts meat on the table      and that’s what sifts the men from the boys      bindlestiffs deal in certainties      as sure as sorrow    down behind the beyond      we know the lost spaces     like the backs of our hands     

so dummy up again     while I tell you the best places    a man can write his name       large in the firmament     be it the name your mother gave you        or the name the world gave you       or the name you stole and made your own

you never know with these things     just where you come from     or just where you go        but you know where you are      and that’s enough to swallow in a single sitting      so all things being equal under a sorry sky      if you have the art     and the reach to gather stars      you just might leave a mark      which is more than you have a right to



1 August 2020

Chocolate George (Unwrapped)



Chocolate George
Was a pussy magnet
He’d had more tang
Than Frank Sinatra
He said it was nice, so nice
And it all came from a nice place
That it was no mere gesture
But the gift of awareness

He said the algorithms of affection
Played out naturally
With no need for ceremony
Or archaic ritual
And that they were as beautiful
As they were natural
He stressed that
He was not the message
But the messenger
And there was no device
Or calculation
Behind his success

 George had once been a pariah
An untouchable
He had a definite shape
But it was asymmetrical
He was composed of acute
And awkward angles
Ragged contours
And sharp edges
Cutting edges
He had always felt
At odds with nature
a square peg
In a universe of round holes.

He felt powerless
In his predicament
There was no panacea
No prescription
No discipline
Or philosophy
To ease his discomfort
There was not even a name
For whatever it was ailed him
There was no diagnosis
For his wayward geometry.

His was the difficult path
And he stumbled often
And sometimes he fell
But over the years
His angles were chipped away
And his edges were made smooth
Through collision and erosion
So that one day George awakened
To discover
That he was practically formless.

Spartacus

I judiciously carved the bad news    into reasonable chunks that were easy to swallow   if hard to digest   there was the momentum of some terrible gravity   behind my every word   each was weighed   and then dispensed    on tablets of stone    saying    if you strike the first blow   I shall surely strike the last

 

it was a diabolical pact    but I just couldn’t see   for the blood in my eyes had so blinded me    I was manky   I had been less than diligent with my applications    you might call me lazy    but I was tired of the front   and so I dropped my guard     the signature of a chump

 

I took the blows due me   and maybe more besides    but there’s always a final straw    an injury that cannot be borne    often it’s a concealed blade    nestled in the hand of a friend    I’d be a hypocrite to complain   my dabs were all over that instrument     and the blood on my hands was not my own

 

the secrets stashed in my head   the occult pleasures of my heart   the treasures I have plundered    then passed off as my own   mark me out as a singular failure    the simulation of a man    in the solitude of my cell   I pray to my pig god   that no-one sees my true face   or the bloody hands that betray my guilty secrets   and my empty aspirations

 

in my lonely hours and minutes I fashioned myself a nifty club     from the jaw bone of some arsehole   it’s useful for beating my head with    I hear the talk   I know an ambush when I smell it    special preparations   whispers   glances   knives are being sharpened   plots are hatching and slithering home    the devil’s arithmetic comes up snake eyes for Johnny

 

if they knew what fragile cargo I was carrying     they might have cut me some slack     I won’t go into the inventory of misdemeanours   I’ll cut to the capital crimes   I murdered the days that led to the now  I squandered my time on cheap thrills and pricey highs    the flickering images sear the brain   those were the days of sexual mystique  and bold enterprise   the object of adoration wields a powerful magic over the obsessed   the grass was always greener over the next horizon   never satisfied with what I had    I’d trade all I possessed for a pocket full of mumbled promises

 

my biological imperative was strong    I couldn’t keep it in my pants   my road was paved with dodgy intentions and fleshy desires    you have to stay ahead in that game   the greedy always bite the hand that feeds    it’s expected of them   it’s dog eat cat in those kennels

 

my heart has been bleached    I’m slightly out of phase and still have blood in my eyes   but I’ll survive    I’m no tourist     I’ve been here before    this place is like any other    the good or bad in it is no concern of mine     it’s not like I curry influence     I’m a foreigner here   some would say I was an exile    but you need a home before you can be exiled    I just drift within my cranial roof

 

I have no time for crime   for contradictions and contractions   for passions spent and passions lent    smothering every innocent pretence    with fearsome glamorous intentions    each new lover helped themselves to my pieces   handling them like hot rocks    and chewing them in their charnel mouths   so to speak with the tongues of angels  

 

my suicide warden  garnished my chains   with a single red rose   inspected my arsehole    where morning had fled   and kissed me once for luck    my pothole eyes peered through a lysergic purge    and witnessed only the contents    of my dingy abode   which was crowded with the wearying trinkets of monstrous dalliances    licentious attacks    and falsified intentions    these are the things I’ll remember    during those lonely repasts   of xanax and hard liquor    green tea and ground glass   

 

I learned to sleep in shallow latrines   on egyptian cotton and busted bed springs    gazing up at cracked ceiling mirrors     where decades of hope dissolved like baby aspirin   I’m an aged gigolo    a smudged entry in last year’s diary   my sleazy charm and phony smile    always seemed like my last best defence    but my life has grown cold     from hustling for change    and god knows I need change    there’s one more hit left in my locker    I’m going to nail that number    and then lay back     to dream as gods do