oxydation

countless measures of synthetic junk      have arranged my psyche as euphorically drunk    I experiment with words and their rhythmic possibility      and I’m all wired up with a new found mobility    I take inspiration from needle and spoon      to dance with the devil and howl at the moon

I found my ease in an exotic narcotic    a new alchemy that’s darkly  hypnotic      I mix my medicine with booze and snake oil     and then cook it all up in aluminium foil      I study my dreaming at my own leisure   with a bitter concoction that I’ve learned to treasure     and I savour its taste as the ultimate pleasure  

but my little boat is slowly submerging     as the beast from the deep  is likewise emerging      I need his poison the way I need air    but he promises bounty that just isn’t there     he dangles his riches  just beyond reach     and holds fast to my flesh     like a blood engorged leech

big dog

 he looked like a big dog

he barked like a big dog

I was suitably unimpressed

I’d forgotten to be afraid

 

somewhere along the line

I had shed that fear

and the air of casual violence

that once served to mask it

 

strange how we forget our chains

only to recall their chaffing

in the occasional moment

of ritual confrontation

 

how could I ever have dismissed

the memory of bondage

and a lifetime of enslavement

to my petty tyranny?

universal dogma

the universal dogma     is a liturgy of fictions     the fable of creation     is an article of faith      that binds the entire race    in a suicidal compact   of ignorance and hate    there are existential dilemmas     that will not be resolved   through  ritual supplication   to a non-existent god      we are slaves to an orthodoxy      that has us blinded and divided    if we eliminated those illusions     we’d see that supernatural forces    are products of the imagination    the key to our destiny     lies in our own hands

raven

 

death is the bird      perched on your shoulder        who counts your days    and marks out your time         that song is mine      and never grows older      so show me good grace    for I am your master      this world belongs to my children and I

I live alfresco    don’t need television     I gather my news    straight from the vine    we’re crashing out    to another dimension       these shoes were meant    for sunnier climes     pour us some sense    from an unopened bottle      and drink of a truth     that won’t be denied

there’s nothing to fear    so don’t get excited     it’s so hard to live      but it’s easy to die       you’ll hear music wrapped up in thunder    you’ll feel the essence of something divine     I am the raven that carries you over    and paints you immortal    if you’re so inclined  

 

the rainmakers

 

we scored a thousand trips         the wonder kid and I     we weren’t in it for the money     we were in it for the high    they  were consciousness expanding    and we thought them heaven sent    I can’t remember where we got them     but I can tell you where they went

love was everything     and everyone was high     and we were messianic    the wonder kid and I        we distributed our treasure    with evangelical zeal       and bestowed upon our punters      a once in a lifetime deal

we told them it was manna      that had fallen from the sky      we told them it was powerful    which no-one could deny    we sold a benediction     to liberate the mind      a journey they’d remember      until the end of time

grave expectations

 

I should develop myself a positive hustle     forge some new gimmick     and take it a million miles away from confinement and isolation    yeah    I’m shaking off the leg irons that shape my footprints into the too familiar patterns of helplessness and despair

fetch me a doctor to inoculate my spirit    I’m crashing out of this jail    before new variants of old killers nail my lid shut    I’ve seen those monsters     they were six miles high     and loaded with terminal velocity    they have my name and post code etched in memory     there’s no negotiating with their dark intentions    they’ll seize my lungs and pump me dry    it’s a matter of time    and time is limited by nature  I want to live    if only for the moment    I want to live like I’ll never die

 

 

stones

 now is the time for gathering stones     slay a tyrant or two in the name of freedom      cracked skulls and broken bones   are the price we pay    for disobedience     but in this black economy     only troubles are free

my heart is emptied out      my hands are loaded with bricks      there’s  riot going on inside my head     a revolution on my doorstep      someone fetch a doctor     I’m haemorrhaging violent potential

maybe I’m sick from being locked in       or crazy resentful of being shut out     I need a lover to paint my garlands blue    this ring of roses is slowly choking me      so come share my cup     it could be our last     we’ll dance together one more time    and draw lots for the first stone cast

monsters

 

someone just walked across my grave       maybe they poured a libation on my stone     maybe they just stamped the dirt down     I have to manage my infestation     perhaps I need to up my dose     I hear blades being sharpened    did they find me?    how did they find me?      plots are being hatched that will never reach fruition       these are the  conspirators of an idiot nation        familiar monsters with blood in their eyes

it’s unwise to get foolish at this stage of play    but I have big feet    and clumsy ambitions       all my mirrors vacillate between repulsion and adoration       there’s little there that’s of comfort to me     so I avert my eyes    when I get low      I get high      all I seek is equilibrium     a place to lay my head      and some respite from the monsters

but  it’s not the monsters that offend me    it’s the people who make them       the monsters aren’t  so scary      if you speak the lingo       but their masters possess a murderous reflex and sharp teeth     they have shark like ferocity      and no feelings at all        

Fleabag

 

I’ve seen your bubonic lymph nodes     and your ripper smile   you’ve gone fleabag      and I won’t touch your unclean things       not at these rates       so ring your parish bell     and  roll out your dead         we’ll cart them off to the knacker’s yard        just don’t touch their skin      you’ll catch the dread apprehension from a dead man’s skin

and don’t you lay in a dead man’s bed     there are critters nestled there between those  sheets     that  will bleed you dry    and fill your lungs with broken glass    that’s a gasping wheezing death      a fish out of water    drowning in air    

flesh of my flesh     flowering corruption     what malignant monsters lurk within?      I got the saint vitus itch from a reckless encounter      at an afternoon séance        my death has been scheduled       for a month on sunday   I was lucky to get the slot     it’s their busiest time

listen to the Creature EP

emperor of dystopia

disinfect me a postcard         issue me a missive        I can’t reach you           on this line           and I have no means of transportation            venomous snipers      nest in my shoes   but I have other shoes    and sometimes   I walk         and sometimes      I crawl        and sometimes      I don’t do anything at all             I’m not elastic enough       for a life in limbo       treading  water      dreading  time     I’m cutting out    for an alternative reality   where I’m the emperor of dystopia        the last living giant    on a planet filled with pygmies        our world is dying now       please help us knit a new one       before we run out of wool

listen the the Creature EP

poor cow

 

I was unaware of her darker dimensions    she’d been caught in the gaslight    but she wasn’t crazy    she was just weary       she made it easy for me to cross her killing floor    and told me with some certainty    that we had met before    we  coupled in a frenzy    but in completely different zones

in the languorous haze    of the afternoon sun    I stared at her breasts    heaving as she drew each labouring breath beneath me     and I drove home my seed      there amidst the tall grass     and I hated her then     I loathed her    as I wanted her    the flies surrounded     her corpulent flesh     I saw her dead in her rictus gaping     and the fecund detritus of her lust     and I knew it was over    before it had ever begun

listen to the Creature EP

 

Clockwork Monkey

I cannot explain my existence    I never learned the sequence     mine was a comic wilderness   filled with oppressive beings     high on illusionary power   bought and paid for with my sweat and toil    I was so tired of being shoehorned into those awkward instances      I turned on to the dark    to get my business fixed   some use smooth words for ragged purpose    they beguile to deceive     and I was only too willing to be deceived

 I’d seen his face before    but we all have    he served me black wine     I drank it greedily     straight from the bottle     it filled me up     and I became a beast   my face is fluid now    it can take on many forms     and though I speak with the tongue of angels      my heart is dark and empty     I’ve been totally locked out     but he has the master key

all words are instrumental     that’s what he taught me    the real power resides in the space between the curses   invocations   and fragrant lies   that’s the space between naked intent and imagination    words are snares for the unwary   but weapons in the hands of lovers   he had words to raise the dead    and to bury the living     he made me his sounding brass    he wound me counter clockwise    and set me against myself     just another clockwork monkey     clamouring for the sun  

listen to the Creature EP