Cinnamon

Listen to Cinnamon here

https://open.spotify.com/track/23n1N1lAOcVA1jmojjg5om

she took a piece

delicious little tart

I spun her some yarn

on the off chance

she still harboured

any romantic illusions

 

I dished out

some tired old boiler plate

straight from the top shelf

an awkward confection

of fractured truths

and outright posture

I could sell snow

to the Eskimos

 

I know my face

is my best device

so I still throw it in

though it’s seen better days

I don’t rehearse

I do it alfresco

but it all joins up

in the ancient ritual

and no-one gets hurt

there’s no crime committed

 

she said somebody

stole her cinnamon

but that someone wasn’t me

by the time I got to her

she was shelling it gratis

to every punk drifter

who cast a glad eye

 

I thought it was a good thing

but I didn’t realise

she had ghosts in her blood

and absinthe in her eyes

we were never really lovers

but we fucked once in a while

 

I was aware of her derelict status

and her approximate  cliché

 she’d cut a raw deal from life

she dreamed of adulation

but settled for acceptance

 

it was always quid pro quo with her

she always returned affection

because she felt obliged

I told her she was easy

but she did not reply

 

she was wearing thin by this stage

she still had last year’s flavour

no-one remembers her number

she was a day away from stony

and another from the street

so I let her crash at my place

Buddha’s Clothes

you caught me

picking Buddha’s pockets

wearing Buddha’s clothing

and eating Buddha’s lunch

 

you heard me

speaking Buddha’s words

in the Buddha’s voice

and claiming Buddha’s mind

 

but you know

you needn’t look around

or ask who Buddha is

I’m stashing Buddha’s loot

and pleading innocence again

 

Casanova

I’ve seen your data

you need sunshine

so come over here

to share in the light

and we’ll roll together

our limbs entwined

I have total control

over fleshy geometry

I can read the signs

that others can’t find

and I know the secrets

you keep confined

I’ll hold you tight

but love you looser

we’ll bump

slip and grind

into the future

and take our place

with those of our kind

I’ll be your pupil

you’ll be my tutor

tongues might wag

but we won’t mind

for true love is deaf

and lovers are blind

Temporarily Buddha

 

man

I was stitched up

like a fucking kipper

they were in cahoots

my erstwhile friends

spiked me with a ton

of LSD in my fucking tea

a malicious prank perhaps

or an assassination attempt

on my fucking psyche

what could I do?

you can’t fight these things

so I went all Alan Watts

totally transcendental

 

I was mousetrapped

and locked within my closet

my eyes were sewn wide shut

by myriad instructors

I fell from the gravy train

and lost all my luggage

my scribbled entries

were smudged by tears

and washed away in traffic

I was tippexed out

I had mislaid my name

and had to start again 

temporarily Buddha 

left out in the rain

Zombie King

 it calls for an extra dose

on those pale mornings

when my remnant dreams

still cling as shrouds

to another me

in some other world

and the cold grey sun

s – e – e – p – s

little shards of heaven

to prick my sleepless eyes

 

I’m as tired as an old joke

told in a funeral parlour

I feel like a dirty burlap sack

full of ossuary bones

I’m the prolapsed organ

they dare not resuscitate

and quite symptomatic

of a broader demographic

of disenchanted and careless

mercenary vagabonds

 

I could be zombie king

if I so desired

complete with

chocolate toolbox

the amnesia haze

and four flat tires

so give me the reds

give me the blues

give me the yellows

and the white ones too

patch me to that big linear zero

and fill my cranium with soup

we’ll have no thought here

no cognitive assemblage

is necessary

I sense the world

through my arsehole

and its diarrhoea burn

 

I’ve left no imprint 

on the world of men

I’m a trail of breadcrumbs

a chalk mark on the pavement

one good rain

could wash me away

 

I had expectations

slender ones

faint and penny-plain

tuppence worth, please

I'm counting costs

for my rainy days

I might never work again

my mechanism is worn

with repetitious strain

and I stand here waiting

for a bus in the sodding rain

while the blunt edge of depression

carves me slowly once again

 

the wind tugs at memory

in indistinct murmurs

of the wilder country

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 

Dark Altars

 

 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 believed 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    you have to be taught how to hate    each blow that landed was an education    they taught me and I learned it well    I wanted my pound of flesh on the bone    I’d dig my grave right next to yours    to serve the dictates of my primitive heart

the road to hell is paved    with the tenderest intentions    and even monsters  strike loving bargains    which servile souls    guard most jealously     because there are slaves      who kneel at dark altars    they revere their tyrants    and venerate their oppressors    they are only too eager    to wear their master’s collar    because the gods that we ourselves create    are ours to serve forever

 back in the bygone    I got my jollies    pursuing cheap thrills    with drink, drugs and sex    I feasted with the beast    in the house of inequities    I never ever figured    I’d get a gut full of the beast     or that I’d turn punk    and tear loose like a mad dog    

monsters in uniform    are hot on my trail    they can smell me    it’s the rotten blood     that’s stained me deep    I shall get no rest now     the night belongs to killers     and killers never sleep   

we fear the minions     of the bloody beast    as we fear the beast himself    and so we learned     to live as beasts     and follow beastly rules     for we were meant to serve    and are fit for purpose     because we adore the beast    while we despise ourselves

Monster (Reanimated)

 

another merciless dawn has fused my metaphoricals and shrunk my knackers for the specimen jar labelled ‘P S Y C I A T R I C’         I cast a pretty thin shadow in the every now and then      but that’s my modus operandi       wax and wane    ebb and flow     it’s all snakes and ladders in my playground

 

unscheduled hallucinations     and psychotic interludes plagued my formative years      and shaped my final destination      my beat bastard subscription has lapsed and just 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

the girl on the bed had a question       an unkind and supercilious question      but her query resonated in the psychotic regions of a bleached mind      and sounded an echo in memory       something about my missing soul

“What kind of monster are you?”

I suspected it was more a rhetorical device than a question     so I ignored it     but later I got to thinking        what kind of monster am I?       I’m a blind monster or I would have seen her coming        I’m a deaf monster         or I would have heard her lies         I’m a mute monster      because I said nothing       I’m a numb monster because I felt even less      she was one gift horse      I should have given the full dental     those sceptic teeth made ribbons of ambition      I have little time for those awkward manoeuvres        imposed by some milquetoast Mussolini       I have an agenda sublime to accommodate      we each must follow the mandate of our own hearts       I take solace in the fact that I may be a monster       but I’m closer to heaven than hell

 

 

Attritional

 

3 am again

same old

same old

pavlovian routine

the incessant splatter

of bloody raindrops

on my window panes

the drip, drip, drip

of memories predisposed

to the devices

of my wicked

but splendid fallacies

my nights grow fainter

and are spent figuring

memorial alphabets

into novel expressions

that pierce my eardrums

to fill my head

with poisoned splinters

 

a little milk and honey

is all I’m asking

a little milk and honey

to nourish and sustain me

through the bitter hours

before the coming dawn

 

more haste – less speed

the minutes stretch 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

and on

the cycle persists

through 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

faraway in time

there are three

great mysteries

life, love and death

and they 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

forged in the fragility of being

ring in a single wavering note

they are pounding out our lives

with the finest of intentions

but I cling to that great curve

with my suicide pants

bunched around my ankles

and my arse hanging in the wind

 

I long ago abandoned

any pretense of modesty

and my protestations of innocence

sound ironic in the circumstances

all I seek in this theatre of distraction

is the instant gratification of minor vices

and the reassurance that I am good people

despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary

Mescalito (Augustus Owsley Stanley Edit)

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

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

The first hit of the day gives me that edge – a soft fuzzy boundary that cushions me from the agents of chaos. I’m surrounded by idiocy and brute ignorance. I have my blues for breakfast and wonder who they will kill today. They are rounding up all the queers and taking them to the bus depot. They are rolling bums in the alleyways and sacrificing school kids in the classrooms. We are all marked out for adjustment – it’s your innocence that condemns you, not your guilt. After all, everyone shares in the guilt.

I don’t belong here – I never belonged anywhere, but this town ain’t big enough to deviate in – I can barely turn a phrase that isn’t weighed and rejected as madness or vanity. While wounded congregations pray for consolation I watch the cactus god tear open the sky and angels come pouring out as snowflake confetti to melt like whispers on the ground. Heaven is empty; there will be no resurrection, no day of judgement. There is no final authority – just unending stupidity.

 

I have my blues for breakfast and cacti for my supper. I walk with Mescalito who tells me that the actions which define us are often difficult to understand, but there is nothing unnatural in this or any other world.

I swapped the charismatic for the lead-lined Kafkaesque. If I’m turning over a new leaf I want my papers in order before heading south. The latest developments suggest there may be trouble at the border, but my disguise is perfect. I wear reason like a crown and I’m so very high I may never lay it down. 

Fungaloid (Green Mind Edit)

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

now and then

I’m a supernova

I’m a lightning strike

an atomic bomb

the Empire State

and the monster Kong

I’m a gushing torrent

a tidal wave

I’m a rattle snake

with a diamond back

I’m the seventh son

I’m a maniac

nearly

never

or hardly ever

not now and then

but now, forever

sinking

they are out to get me

I know they are

whispered fragments coalesce

to form steel traps

for my clumsy feet

tectonic plates shift

beneath the gut

beyond the entrails

into the deep

the heart of things

my fingers are stained

with nicotine and blood

I’m high now – too high for comfort

each horrifying impulse

passes through my colon

with a nauseous thrashing motion

tearing like baby sharks

devouring their birthing sacks

so roll me a stony

make it a fat one

my brand of choice

God’s own medicine

something I can use

to feel the touch

of some native power

I love the sensation 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 toolbox

there are a billion jurors

on my case who’ll condemn

my predilections as errant criminality,

but I pay no heed 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