Fun and games.

Two people are to die tomorrow
Drowned in love and alcohol
So another can live
Without dogs and rabid women
Spitting in his face

A truth here told
As prologue to an unfelt sorrow
Pardon, as of yet unfelt
For you see 't'will come tomorrow

I am so many people
And the people are in flux
If they'd but lend me their fragile ears
As I wade through the muck of scores
Of men and beasts
Gods and feasts
I am all and all are one

Frankie.

There's too much wine on the floor
And piss and vomit and more
A girl across the starstruck city
Cries because of me
Cries in bleak idolatry
And in the morning
I speak of kings and love and things
I heed no cry or warning
As I ready myself to sting

Her tears burn at my fingertips
No honey do I find here
Her hair is all colours, her hair is magic
But no solace either do I find there

My tongue of acid
Apparently
My tongue of fire and ash
Doused in wine
To save the lash

The wine spills onto the floor
Meeting my blood
And mingling into something more

And a verbose birthday to you.

Once a year
It comes around
And we toast to you
Every day
We toast something
I suppose you'll have to do

One step closer to the grave
Twenty leaps, by measure
And however 'tis we should behave
You take it with thy leisure

Once a life
You come around
In the universe, unique
Just once this year
The fog is lifted
And things just seem less bleak

Scarecrow Skin.

The man I love has scarecrow skin
The man I love is like a reed
And sometimes I'm the hurricane

Do I watch him bend and snap in the wind?
I can't, the man I love has scarecrow skin

The man I love is a lion
Or an elk
Or an oak
Tall, proud
The man I love is great and tall
Great and tall
Great and small

The man I love has patchy skin
Like the scarecrow, through the hay
I dived right in
Or will, one day

Steal Away.

I only whispered today
And stomped my way to oblivion

I was frightened in ways
I seldom feel

And soon I'll head out
Into the night, I'll steal
Away

To see the pretty people
I wonder what I'll have to say

News of the World.

Awash with the father's glow
I await news of the world
Spinning a coin off the axis of my finger
Slowly downing mugs of ash
Making circles in the air with
My petulant feet
That won't sit still

I check again
For news of the world
The umpteenth time this day
I wonder what the news will say

A melting pot of media
A flurry of fancy and fruitless words
And now and then the truth shines through
It's quite lovely to behold
Have there been storms?
Is there a flood?
Has the beating rain now turned to blood?
I await the news of the world
So that my own can carry on spinning

So
I check again
Hoping for news of the world
For the millionth time this day
Sometimes I know exactly what the news is going to say

The news comes to a halt
And the rotation stutters too
And I stagnate until the news of the world
Decides to continue anew

I read the news
The news of the world
Several hundred times a day
I just have to know
I need to know
What the news has to say

And you are the whole fucking world.
Got it?

Catch up.

I'm terrible at most games
And so I rarely play
I pick my battles
And I'd prefer
To keep my life that way

A point or goal is worthless
Adulation counts to none
Competitions?
Games of skill?
Is this what they call fun?

I'm brilliant at a handful
Of things, I really am
But to do them
For someone else
To me, would feel a sham

Bye-Bye.

Hello
All of you
Nice day
At least I hope it is

Or maybe I hope it's raining
So you all can hide your tear-stained faces
And now the rain chases
Me down into the ground
To the worms
Without a sound

So thank you all for joining me
Coming to bid me adieu
On the day of my descent
To the oak roots and the yew

Please, raise your glass
To the grass
I will become
Cry, by all means
Be sad as sad can be
There is a time for mourning
And that time has come

I'd not rob you of despair

If these words serve as anything
If these words should explain anything
Know that I'm not even sad
I came to terms with mortality
(Though not with complete apathy)
A long, long time ago

So, without further ado
Down into the ground I go

Enabled.

I'm not in need of enablers

No, not to say I don't need them
That would be absurd
I've got plenty of them
With whom I'll wile away the world
As smoke rises from the metropolis
So too will it from my lungs

And it's all in good fun
It's all just good fun

And one day I'll die
And think
"What good fun"

Mangy Dogg.

The king is late!
Whatever shall we do?
Whatever is to happen I should think
It's a to-do

The king is dead
Stabbed in his bed
And to what owe we this pleasure?
Why, now we may speak of treason
At our own pace, at our leisure

The prince is dead
And his father, the king
And the next one
And the queen, to boot
Let none see this as tragedy
Let none think applause and laughter moot

Melting Pot.

I will fall like an ocean
The clang and the steel
And your death sentence will be only to feel
Me falling like the sea
Onto your hearth, home
And family
When the machine comes
When the red is furnished over
By the clang and the steel
And witches are found guilty
Of nothing
And great men snap in two
And the broken-necked whores
Run to Boston, or Chicago
The clang and the steel will find us
Here across the sea
And I will fall like an ocean on the steel
For you and me

Le ciel nous tombe.

The sky is an ocean

Fall in too far and drown

Fling yourself into a dream

But don't let it become your anchor

Rust, without gleam

Don't drown in the sky

Unless you're sure you can fly

Guilty as charged.

Babylon rose up into the sky
And pirates swung out of my eyes
The moon exploded, the stars have died
If you're quiet you can hear the children cry
The children of the bloody night
Stained by shrapnel reflection's light
An ill wind robs them of their sight
The only ones who wouldn't fight
A fight breaks out among the stars
The hooligan night and the dank dive bars
Host charlatans from near and far
Tear across the land an angry scar
As kings raise their goblets to a toast
To the death of men, and their gracious host
The end is come, Death makes his boast
Simply because I forgot to post

Heroine.

You've made yourself a commodity
You've made a shroud of vanity
But those two things need not be related

A little snort keeps me going
From beforehand to the evening
A little anticipation stops me from going mad

Oh, but I'm already mad
I suppose that's your doing too
And yet somehow I'm glad of it

What was that Lou Reed said?
A needle to the vein
Makes me right in the head

Dante.

My whole body

Pulsing lightly with my heart

Balanced on a blood-red edge

Buffeting the comedies

With acid

Measured and full

A burn that bends with the wind

Breathes like the wind

Much too alike to a swarm unpinned

Bending and shifting like a hornet horde

Air slices like

A sword

Straight from my tongue

Eck.

Soon, soon the blind eyes
Will see
What's left of thee

In the land of the dead
The blind man is king
Where dead men sing
Of Gott
Gehanna
Great plots and parable
The king is dead
So the Prince's words may ring

Guten nacht
Children
Join the royalty

Prayer.

The idea of prayer is really nice, I think. Even if the prayers are for someone who doesn't have faith in whatever power the prayer is directed at. It's just a nice idea.

These people believe in an all-powerful, all-knowing being, who knows what is to happen, and probably, if not definitely, engineered the situation that warrants prayer: God gave you the cancer, God crashed the stock market, etc. God might be in the rain, but he's also in the monsoon, in the tsunami, in the hurricane.

These people have the sheer audacity to think they can change this being's mind. Do they think they know better than God's plan? Can they see the infinity of time stretching out before them in all directions? No. But God can, and they think they know what's best for the world.

So they ask him to change his mind, despite his omnipotence.

Isn't that nice?

Lion.

A mane

A patchwork mane

Rears up

And sets itself aflame

The eyes

The eyes of hollow hate

Unfold

Into the light quite late

A light

A brazen light

Renews

The senses in the night

Like jade

Like pearls of jade

Create

The lion that I made

Classical.

The spoken word is air
It is the wind that buffets our cheeks
And like leaves and bark in the gust
Speech carries you along
And before you know it you're racing along
With the wind in your veins!
And the words in your heart
But like all speech it can be cleaved in two
Shrugged off like a breath of air

The written word is Earth
Cold and unchanging
It shakes you to the roots
Little is needed
Being so well-grounded
To push you up and off your feet
But like the Earth it seldom changes
Even when one feels it should

One's own opinions take water as their own
They flow and change
They are ever different
Coalescing into one another
The rivers flow to the inevitable end
Of the ocean of opinion
And like the liquid of life
They fit to those who hold them
Beware the bogs, mind you
A body of water, and opinion alone
Will stagnate
Until it is become toxic and acidic
Even to its holder

And finally

Ideas are fire
A fire destroys, consumes it all
The entirety of the forest's being
Just like an idea
Left unchecked the mind will become necrotic
And be burned by blisters of progress
But also the sources of new life
Are fires
Flaming ideas give life anew

Michelangelo's David.

Being foolish is not just for animals
Playing for the flesh
Is not just for cannibals
We've made something of both

A life
What?

White and stained
Can you be both?
You can, apparently
I think it's quite hilarious
Rather funny

I think it's lovely

Aqua Mortis.

I come down with the rain
Bearing gifts
And fire
Ripple! Puny puddle
Show me my distortion
As I swim
Into your face
Ocean
Give me sweet release
To soak back into the clouds

Perjury.

Flesh
Flesh
How fluid
It comes in waves
In rivers and swathes
I've developed
A talent

Not just for my own
I tear my flesh
Yes
Left to my own devices
I'd fall to my vices
And beat myself bloody
Scratch myself raw

I'll tear the flesh
No
That's just for me
The reality
Is that their flesh comes in waves
I would but wade
But they would not wane

I require something higher
In the armory
The perjury

Murderer.

Patchy, grinning, screaming and mocking
Harpy, vain as all hell
I let him yell


Red haired, blue haired, black haired
Trickster, olive skinned
Don't let him in

Another red haired, blue haired, black haired
Siren, olive skinned
I let that one in


Startled, honest, kept isolated
Unchecked fire in the wastes
No longer chaste

Dead-eyed, bright mouthed, jumpy
Little thing, I might call foe
I still don't know

A lark, a nightingale, an owl
On separate paths, under my nose
I plan to know

Smoldering, chanting, self-destroying
Stick insect, out of the northern wood
Be simple, would that we could

Vultures.

If I'd known the vultures were coming

I'd have put my nice feathers on

I do so love it when they're bloodied

By your insolence

Pieces.

Some people are pleasant in passing
But at length they become anchors made of conversation
And I'm dragged down and I drown in my apathy

-

There's a figure in the corn
A figure all in black
I don't think it has eyes anymore
It's watching everything
Maybe it can hear my thou-

-

Rea died that night
I beat her brains out and she sank into the dirt
Some say when the moon is right
You can hear her singing from the trees
So, I failed
I suppose

But at least she felt hurt
Like I once did
Who knows

-

When I was but a catechumen
Ludibrious and vain
I came to the necropolis
To shield myself from rain
Lupine invaders followed me
Into the hallowed halls
In crypsis I evaded them
Ascending the tower tall

-

The Vodyanoy!
That slimy beggar with deep green eyes
Shambling like the river tide
Inexorable

Have you made the appeasement, dorogaya?

Adjectives.

A selfish problem
I'll admit that I describe herein
Petty perhaps to say at all

Venn cages envelope me
And I am forever to be
A collection of falsely apt adjectives
And analogies

The funny one
They called me
And that made me rage and rage
So I became angry
And became the angry one

The angry one
They called me
And I contrarily, as I do
Overcame myself with calm
And became the quiet one

The quiet one
They called me
No virtue, yet no fault therein
So I gave them a show
And threw words in their faces
And became the clever one

The clever one they called me
And now I've come to a halt

Fine, I'm all of those things
Call me what I am to be
But leave well enough alone
Let me just be me

Arthropoda

My spider legs
And spider web
Are not for hunting
No, not at all
I web myself in damp cocoon
And as it hardens
I am safe

Spider fangs
Scorpion sting
Work much better than butterfly wings

No, butterfly wings are for different things

Watercolour.

An island drawn from water's colour
I escape
By seahorse and carriage
Before the wolves come out tonight

And back again
Every night
Until the tallest island forest tree
Is mine

But what fault of this place
Do I so malign?

Hurricane.

Let's write things at the height of caffeine delirium.

Break him
Like the twig in hurricane
Bending at the reed

Soon the flesh
Will flee from hurricane
And the mind will

Be cast
Into the fearsome hurricane
Like red leaves in

Torpor
Fluid and bloody
Into the windy maw

A glass so heady
Into the windy maw
Like scarlet leaves

In torpor

Unfold like
Orchid's spring
For broken is

The animus
Unstuck has come
The hurricane

The birdsong
Morning has finally come
I am released

From torpor

Boy with the bear hat.

Boy with the bear hat
Fumbling with the microwave
Fiddling with his buttons
Twisting that silver ring he covets
He dreams of colourful crowds
And a future in the promised land
Which one?
He doesn't really know
Monochrome mass sings into his ear
But the banshees scream
(He fears they'll never tire)
Until his ears catch fire

Boy with the bear hat
Dreams of angels wings
And halos and mats of matted hair
Only to find the Devil there
He runs an artful finger over his scalp
And catches his hand on horns
Makes music out of whiskey and ash
Using the milk and honey
Of his hooves
One day in the promised land
He'll throw himself into the sky
And fall, happy

Boy with the bear hat
Makes rituals out of torture
His head and body are fortified
To an insane degree
The gawking crowd does as such
Boy stands until the spotlight burns
Through his clothes
A bucket of poison drops from the roof
Into his gut
Maybe it was the other way around
Spotlight begets the ritual poisoning
Poison begets the disrobing spotlight
The lure of either is sure to entice

Boy with the bear hat
Grizzles at everyone
Smiles too
Catch it if you're quick
He's not ashamed of what he does
His cup is empty
Just you try and fill it

The Devil's Cup.

The Devil's cup
Is a cocktail glass
Filled full with spice and aspic
Acerbic herb and absinthe
Fill full my Devil's cup tonight

He pointed cameras at himself
And called in the grinning surgeon
And retrospectively
Looked through photos, and then he
Knew what he looked like on the inside
Under his own skin

The Devil owns his skin
And a heart and lungs are all that's left
To him
The Devil's cup is full of acid

Machete.

To dispense with pride
Would do little for me
For there's little I am proud of

To dispense with shame
Would leave me empty
To bear aloft my chains for me
Is what it really means to be

Apparently

Brother.

Brother
I watched you grow into a man
And fail again and again
I watched you appropriate your very manhood
And shoot awful rebuttals
At the hand that feeds

Under your fortress hair
I descry no light, no tenderness
The black in your hair has seeped into your soul

In rebellion?
From what?
The light that bore you selflessly
Or the foundations of your forgotten life?

In defense of your wicked life
From attacks you projected from yourself onto us
We have left you alone
Now leave us be

Butterflies.

The sands are shifting
Under me
Like fire
Or the deep blue sea
Where once was something great to see
The sands have shifted under me

A raging storm
Forever and on
The aftermath we'll see
Anon
I am the butterfly
Forced to don
The raging storm forever and on

Forever and on
I'll weep no more
Lest tears build up
In scores and scores
Like the fortress I must be
Where sands have shifted under me
Blown by storm
Of insect make
The sands
The fire
The deep blue sea
I'm at the bottom of the lake

Hecate.

A small world makes
These things inevitable
Car-crash conversations are a part of
My life, now more than ever
Where the highway diverged
I signaled
Not caring if you did
And here the other roads come back to the fray
As I expected and feared that they would
One day
Birnham wood marches along the great highway
Prophetic doom
That I proclaimed myself, in my own mind
I wept for the day when the past was to return
Witches, hags, that all are me
Have I put too much stake in prophecy?
The forest brings joy, apparently

I'm expecting to be murdered outright
Before the end of this bloody night

By none other than the child I used to be

Trance.

I'm not even there

A sidling smoke floats like an orphaned pup

After the rain, the scent is gone

I've spent a week on the trail, on the hunt

The moving targets are just too much!

Overly satisfying to me, they seem to be

The over-stimulation is my only present salvation

So I ran from them all

Holed up in the wastes

And I moved

And I sang

And I will keep singing

I'll never stop moving