Letter To A New Lover

Baby I'm as bleak as I am lonely,
Baby I'm as weak as I am holy,
and I don't know
where I'm going to.

Baby I'm a priest and I'm scholar,
Baby I show religion on my collar,
I gotta know
where I'm coming from.

Baby I'll show you youthful indiscretion,
Baby I'll pay you a hundred dollars a session,
if you will go
where I'm going, too.

Baby I'm afraid that I'm not worthy,
Baby I'm ashamed and I feel so dirty,
I wish I could know
What I'm running from.

Baby I'm a stranger at the station,
Baby I can't stay in one location,
and you should know,
I'm just blowing through.

Baby I'm a liar and a prophet,
Baby I got the dead sea scrolls in my pocket,
you gotta know
where I'm coming from.

Baby I will give you all that I can,
Baby don't expect much but I'm your man,
I wanna go
where you're going to.

Baby I'm an angel in disguise,
Baby I'm the sunlight burning your eyes,
how can you know
where I'm coming from?

Baby I'm as bleak as I am lonely,
Baby I'm as weak as I am holy,
I still don't know
where I'm going to.

The Purity of Defeat

Princess steps up to the platform
Bells are ringing round the station.
Diamond dolls, and protest songs,
violent afternoon of ageing
rock star longing, old recording
smiling through the screen.

This won't be the last of her
the dying voices call a rainbow
dashing all the colours over
concrete lips and yellow fever.
Falling first the sun retreating,
ever to release.

Artful pirouette the speechless
crowd collapses holding children
closing all the eyes that can't believe
there's any room for one last dance
into oblivion's embrace; the final
virtue is defeat.

Eyes are windowless expression
Burning desolation filled with
furniture, and lamplight music
Landing squarely in the gutter.
Octopus contracting with her
wrist upon the track.

The Race

Yes, I've read this morning's paper,

but no, it doesn't bring me comfort;

the whole world wants me moving

to a beat I can't keep up with.

Now the steps I follow daily,

well they move so very swiftly.

The quickening of paces

leaves me breathless, weak and dumb.

So I channel hop each evening,

and I let my eyes go roaming,

over pages, my fingers run

and my mind paces in circles;

But my body seldom reaches

all the targets that I set it;

The race has long been forfeit,

and and I'm resigned to defeat.

Now the bodies rushing past me

look so stern in their conviction;

they're heading onward, further

better places there await.

So I'll let my vessels thicken,

let the blood trickle in slower,

and languish here, for now, among

the sheets I can't fall out of.

I've not read tomorrow's paper,

though I doubt it'd bring much comfort,

I can hear the bugle calling 

me to step into the streets.

But for now I have my comforts,

my angels and my demons;

My tired eyes are closing 

and  the sunlight is quite warm.

the Hiker

Off the road the path turns brown
and all the leaves have been blown
from the trees, the whistling of birds
in the murky evening bloom

Stepping through the wooden archway,
footsteps muffled by fine petal powder
the royal blue curtain hangs low
over dark majestic hillside, and flowers

The wind blows through the woollen overcoat
your mother bought last Christmas
the cold slides up your chest, cautious
like a lover's hand in burning darkness

Those tentative steps on iron cold rock
lingering looks into the valley below
tepid hand wrapped tight in the other
the movement slow and taught and crisp

Up the side in bluest dark under bright
fluorescent sky and dusty stars still milk
and honey pouring over your bare face
lilting songbirds rasp and chew the ear

All wind and sky now poised to fall
on your face like the ice cold shower
you had last night as your pictured
your lover beside you in your struggle.

The blessed mound you stride to conquer
Climbing slowly like a fingertip reaching
for the most sensual and powerful
of all God's mountaintops.

At last the black subsides and all is stars
crouching behind the musty clouds they cry
out in proud applause at your triumph
burning beauty is all in the tears in your eyes

The blackest valley teems with earthy pleasure
and noise and scents corrupt the air
with utterly human stenches
and the sky curls up, and dreams of moonlight.

Funeral

a burning cold haze out there
through the trees fiery black clouds
and summer's promise flickering out

funeral faces for the ugliest dances
hope in the dark unworthy places
between the thighs, behind the teeth
the earthen mouthed lovers cry out

a vicious incestuous love
with one's hand down one's trousers
touching but only just, and wishing it were gone
somewhere locked in some vile dungeon

the ceiling mounting and thrusting
in the cool chill of the evening the birds
chatter and gossip about your terrible body
fingering and pointing at the out of place hairs

bloody fingers claw at the sheets and rest
lying alone and wanting the beast to
feed your virgin desires in the least sensible prophecy
that the heart ever dreamed

lusting after cold nights and blue balled mornings
burning all the clothes you can't bear to smell
the ghosts all gone now but spirits remain in glasses
strewn about and sideways spilling their stink

wanting only to be forgotten under a black sheet
and carted out under dark medieval skies and breaking television's
evil spell

lost and untroubled by vanity

Gloom

Back again in the gloom
Lingering shadows wallow in corners
Chattering ghosts smile darkly
Talking up my failures

The bare walls ache with heresy
Shattering the illusion of power
and there behind the plaster
the barefaced cheek of empty mirrors

All blackened planets seep through
windows as empty as bare walls
stunning silence wrecked by rain
and effortless painless sleep

All around the hum of lonely souls
devouring dinners and licking up semen
cradling their lovers and speaking
in tongues so rough they burn the flesh

Dirty ashen faces in dirty ashen boxes
all dark and black like so much coal
or soot, or cotton bedsheets
Skin as vile as the day that tired them

All lights and empty faucets drip incandescence
luminous airs and still bleak faces
angry silence and vacuous burbling
mumbling through bleak corridors

Back again in the gloom
back in the earthy box it seems
back to the tired gaze and satelite feelings
back to the gloom, back back,

Room

It is not without hesitation that I boarded up the doors, and shut out the world. I wanted nothing more than to live a life, free from worry, and privation; but when life among civilised men proved repugnant, I gathered the timber from the lumber yard - paying what was owed - and the nails from Mr. Mickelson, who ran the hardware shop.

The night I bought the boards I spent by my window, watching the scenes of the street outside. The window looked out onto the corner of the main street – dimly lit by a lantern suspended from the rafter of the corner-shop. On the left the street ran down a short way towards the church square, in front the street headed straight, past Mr. Mickelson’s hardware shop, and the baker’s. To the right the road headed out of the village and into the wilderness, which is where the woodsman who ran the lumber yard lived. I lived on the edge of the village, and to the right of the road that ran in front of my window, a desolate scrubland extended towards the forest. A small row of hedges ran along the side of the road, so as to provide a natural border for the village. Roughly thirty or forty feet from the hedge, there stood a gibbet, covered in weeds. It has long been unused, but it stands uneasily watching over the village.

People were still idly walking around in circles in the bright evening air. I saw the butcher at least three times, I am sure. Possibly headed to his mistress' house, and then to the shop, then back home to his wife. Any order of those things, certainly. I saw the tanner, and the smith. They all broke down and headed home eventually, after nightfall. It is awful the way they go about. They are always saying things, dull, oppressive things; and questions, endless questions. My grand experiment with life among the living came to an end there, sat staring out into the street. I took the decision after hours of deep contemplation, when the streets had emptied

There are two main entryways to my house, one at the front, leading onto the main street - where the people strut in their leathers - and the rear, leading to my garden. I took the heavy boards outside into the street and held them, one at a time, against the front door, hammering the nails as softly as I could, trying not to distract anybody from their business. I received a few calls, or yelps in my direction but carried on without paying any mind to it. When I was satisfied that my amateur carpentry would prevent any unwanted entry I proceeded to complete the same procedure for the rear door. Once complete I entered the rear window, closed it, and was alone, finally, and for good. For the windows, a single sheet of wood nailed in place would suffice for each - and when all was finished, the building was dark, and silent.

Scrambling around in the dark provided much comfort at first; I removed my shoes and socks and walked around the kitchen barefoot. Feeling the cold stone on my feet, and touching the walls with my fingers, scraping my hands along the paint so that it gathered underneath the nail; these little pleasures were more real to me than any of the shadows that scraped along the streets outside. I survived in darkness – enjoying the utter silence, and utter blackness; living and breathing in a world removed from the living.

The time I spent scratching around on all fours, pretending I was sub-human was good for my spirits. I barked and howled away long into the night, ripping furniture with my teeth. The utter black was penetrating, but liberating. Not knowing what you looked like anymore, not knowing what anything looked like, meant you could be anyone – anything, and you could be anywhere. The imagination creates such monstrous aberrations. For a few days I decided to lie still, on the floor of my living room, on the hearthrug, arms folded across my chest and my eyes closed. There – while my heart thumped I knew the serenity of the grave. The softness of the floor, and the awful, terrible, calming silence that grew all around me like some careless creeping grass, all so subtle in my head. I did not stir, and imagined the whole world was there with me, in the darkness everlasting. If I opened my eyes, I saw nothing, the same as if I closed my eyes. I imagined I was surrounded by everyone who had ever lived and died, lying side by side by side with me. One hundred billion people lying motionless in my living room – in the ever enclosing, ever growing dark, expanding and contracting with my breath.

After time however I realised that the light of the sun was more necessary than I had anticipated. The skin felt tight, and the nails brittle. With great sadness, after a few hours bungling about in the dark searching for my hammer, and then the living room, I pried off the wooden board that covered my front window. Sunlight, after weeks of darkness, is not a pleasant sight for the eyes. Staggering back I collapsed clasping my head with my hands, dropping the hammer, narrowly missing my foot. There shone the sun, bright as ever, scarring the retina. Worse still there was humanity again, back from the dead – alive and well and hurtling towards me with such velocity that I ran up the stairs as fast as I could, retreating into the darkness of the bedroom once again. I was not prepared for such ferocity, and so for some time, forgetting the light cascading into the living room downstairs over my heaped and trampled possessions, my crushed valuables, forgetting all that I fell asleep on my bed, in the deep void, several walls of brick and wood away from the bothersome sunlight, and the jeers of the passers by.

The new arrangement was satisfactory. I enjoyed crawling about in the shadows, staring out of my window. Yes; it is most satisfactory that I should see the creatures I most despise. Mr. Mickelson from the hardware shop, Captain Dunstable the ship’s captain, and Moira Bernhard the whore; there was a stench alright – foul as all the rot in the knackers’ yard. God forbid any of those come knocking on my window- asking for entry. I could sit for hours in my armchair, which I had turned with great effort to face the window, there playing my little games, gripping the spout, as I gripped the people with my eyes, holding them tight I could not help myself – and sweet release was inevitable. Ah, the days passed so quickly – the sunlight grasping and clawing its way across the wall from left to right, desperately hoping to find my eyes.

The primary concern for me soon became sustenance. For weeks I had passed the time playing my games, lying on the floor, and masturbating, sometimes making games of masturbation, and relied only on bread and water to keep me alive. The bread though, ran out within a matter of weeks, and I was soon on the last few crusts, hardened from being left out in the gloom too long.
As a matter of necessity, rather than desire, I took in the service of a young boy, Jean-Paul. I did not allow him into my house; that would defeat the point of my labour, to eject the living from my life. The young are innocent – fresh. They have not yet been corrupted by the stink of civilisation. Unless they are privileged, in that case they are brought out of the womb and into the shit of culture and finery right at the beginning of their precious lives. Jean-Paul was not privileged and I was happy to provide for him a wealthy sum if he were to provide me with nourishment. I had no other use for money, in my hole. In that dark there are no shopkeepers looming, disgusting palm upturned, awaiting the cold rattle of brass. I called to the boy one day, through the window in my front room. He approached and looked awfully frightened – I imagine my appearance is not flattering these days, having spent so long cooped up. An ugly bird locked in a cage, that’s what I am. I asked him who he was. He told me his name, and that he was a carpenter’s son. It didn’t matter so much what his father did. I struck a deal with him, that I would pay him five pounds a week plus expenses, to bring me bread, eggs, and bacon for my nutrition. He was a good lad and was proud to be earning. Reliability is uncommon in this world, and I did not like to trust anyone but the boy. Many times people would come to my door and knock, or yell. I would either ignore them or holler and throw plates or mugs from my window. The largest of the police would turn up every so often with some sort of decree. As time went by I learned that ignoring the people was for the best. They boy kept to his deal however. Perhaps he kept it quiet. It is understandable that he would not want to be seen dealing with the village pariah. He came in the evenings, when the sky was pink, delivering a basket filled to bursting with eggs and bacon and ham and cheese – I had not asked for these luxuries, but he had provided them nonetheless - a cornucopia of food stuffs was presented to me, and I took it gladly, snatching it and hurling the coins in his face. He was glad to receive his money, and I was happy to receive my food.