revolupo - Poetry and Revolution: Recent Episodes
David Lee Morgan (davidword)
THE ODDS
Your odds are really good
If you’re young and healthy
And when you’re young
You do risky things all the time
You might have taken a bigger risk
Just this weekend
A new drug… a fast car…
Of course, you might kill gran
That would be a bummer
It’s risky
Maybe
But you’re feeling lucky
IT IS SO NICE TO LIVE IN A WEB
It is so nice to live in a web
Swim in a school
Run with a pack
Survive in a hive
Stay warm in a swarm
But silvery threads
So easily stretch
So painfully snap
So never come back
If i could give you my cousins
And nephews and nieces
My sisters and brothers
Give you my father
Take yours
Share mothers
Love your children like an uncle
Come to a manly understanding with your husband
That he wouldn't kill me
And i could still shag your brains out
Share toothpaste
Just with you
THE VALLEY
The valley is so deep
The hills become mountains
The mountains, clouds
And still the valley goes down
No river has carved this bottomless crease
In the fabric of the universe
No other foot has trod, only yours
And the way down goes on until
The stars are gone and the light dies
And the wind blows through you
As though you were not even there
But I can see you. I hear each footstep
Your breath is a river running through my heart
I know your voice. I shiver at your touch
Wherever you go
I am there beside you
No matter how lost
I will find you
SYMPHONY
You have a smile like a song, like a symphony
Like a novel with a thousand characters
And a million secrets, like a newborn pony
On stilt like legs, and i am embarrassed for
The way i can’t take my eyes off you
For a minute, for second, for an ever after
Happily grinning like a love struck fool
Babbling, gurgling, bubbling over in laughter
But it’s all wrong, i don’t belong in paradise
I keep hurting you, making you cry
I would tear out my tongue, puncture my eyes
Stab myself through the heart and die
If only i could take back all the stupid vile
Things i say and do – and just make you smile
STARCHILD
The problem is you sparkle
You can’t hide the inner light
You could never be invisible
Desire washes over you
And dries into a second skin
Walk in the sun and it shrinks
Disco lights do the same thing
Sometimes it’s hard to breath
When all you can feel is their need
When the chemical river inside you roars
Then dies into a whispered psalm
Even love comes with a sweaty palm
And the darkness inside – even that’s too bright
Sweet child of light
Stepdaughter of the night
WHEN I THINK OF YOU
When i think of you i want to cry
I am too happy, too sad
I think of the long wasted years
A desert reaching back, stretching forward
You and i are an oasis curled up
Under the tall shade of your husband
A good man, better than me
I don't care, i want you
I think of your children
So lucky, so secure
I don't care, i want you
I think of my fickle eye
So quick to wander when you are near
So desperate to see you in the distance
Will i break your heart or mine
I don't care, i want you
I know love cannot be so selfish, so careless
But what else could last so long, almost forever
I press my mouth into the warm curve
Between your shoulder and neck
And try to suck you into eternity
WHEN MORNING COMES
Christmas morning’s not so bad for me
The night goes on forever – by the time
The morning comes, i’ve lived a thousand lives
Without you and the heart grows numb
I know it’s wrong to want you on this day
When morning comes, i close my eyes and see
You with your children, every kiss a crime
Against them, every day a thousand lies
But i’m too lost to stop, too tired to run
When morning comes, you seem so far away
I wonder if i ever touched your face
And kissed your eyes and held you so close
I felt my heart would melt against you
Like a snowflake on a warm winter’s day
WHAT SHE SAID
I could have any man i wanted
I am slim and pretty and self-confident
Every man at the concert stared at me
I find fault with what you do
When you are mean to me
You find fault with who i am
What i am, i am old
I am wrinkled. You are cruel
THE MEMORY OF LIGHT
Let me try to explain what I don’t understand
I was a scarecrow in a barren land
No corn, no wheat, not even weeds
No hat, no coat, not even straw for a body
Just bones, a wooden cross staked in the ground
Then you smiled, and I was sun-kissed
The field blossomed into green and gold
My bones wore straw muscles and fine clothes
Beneath the soil, my roots began to grow
Inside the wood, my blood began to flow
I’m not sure if you can understand
You love so easily. I find it hard
I go for years alone, I don’t know why
I only know I feel ashamed
Like something is missing
Why can’t I love
Do you see what you gave me
Why I would do anything to keep your love
Or at least, to go on loving you
Even in the dark of night
To hold onto the memory of light
Yes, I was greedy for you
But also, I loved you
In a way that surprised me
That made me into someone else
Someone kinder, more human
I’d always hated gardening
But I could see it now
The joy of watching something rise up
Out of the earth and reach for the clouds
Take anything, I told you
Use me to build your nest
Tear up the corn, my clothes, the straw
My roots, take everything
I will even try to stop loving you
If that’s what it takes
To make you feel safe
But that was the one thing I could never do
WHY I LOVE YOUR SMILE
Up the street at the end of the block, the world
Would take a strange and wild fairy tale turn
The asphalt would crumble, the sidewalk would curl
Round a cedar tree and disappear in ferns
And nettles and needles and leaves. All things green
And mysterious, all things wet and delirious, hiding
Behind a sunlight and wind washed screen
Oh i was a happy child on the other side
And now when i look at you and see your lips
Curl and your teeth flash and your blue eyes
Turn green, and i hear your laugh, you look
So wise - as if we two were secret spies
In a wind washed world where the green sunlight
Holds court all day and long into the night
(trigger warning)
WHISPER
This poem is for you, only for you
I promise
I had to write it down
Dig a hole in the sand and whisper it to the earth
Only the reeds will know the truth.
I promise
I can’t get it out of my head
That you were in your secret place
The one spot you knew would be safe
That it was there he found you
I believe it was an angel
Just as you remember
Who licked away the blood from your legs
Who led you from the field
Who left you on the sidewalk
Not crying. Who would listen
I can’t get it out of my head
How you’d run around all that morning
Telling your friends, “I’m gonna fuck you”
Because you knew it must mean something bad
Why else would he have threatened you with it
I can’t get it out of my head
How I have known you all my life
And had no idea. No idea
I knew you were brave
I knew you could listen
Could hear with your eyes
I knew you had spent your entire life
Reading the secrets written in broken hearts
I never knew why
OKAY HERE’S THE STORY SO FARYou fell in love
Or at least went along with somebody falling in love with you
And it went a little further than most things had been going lately
Partly because he had a lot to offer: a ticket to the big city,
an introduction, maybe some inspiration
Partly it was the words
They were good
You liked that
And he seemed like a nice guy
And he did turn on
But he was so much older than you
It creeped you out what people might think
And he was trying to get a hold on you
And then he went back into the hospital
and it got disgusting but that was really
just the frosting on the cake
I like this game. Let’s play
You get to be the fairy tale princess
Captured and held prisoner
A prisoner of your own loyalty, actually
Your lines about him are some of your best
You tell everyone about him
How you won’t break your promise
(Not until you do)
But in the meantime
You can dangle it over every fish in the sea
Look at them jump just for you
And you genuinely do admire their beauty
And his
And you don’t want to hurt him
And there were some genuine possibilities
But maybe it’s time to move on
“That’s not love,” he said
What did you tell him about us
Was he just counting the years
And his own desire
Or was he giving you back what you had told him
It can’t go on like this
It’s too dangerous
You let a stranger put his hands around your throat
You make yourself sick
Deep down inside
I think you know
It’s a life threatening disease
And you wonder if I’m your last chance for sanity
But then you wonder if I’m not just an another safety wire
The last guy line holding you down. Maybe it’s time to fly
Live the dangerous life
Pay the consequences
Death is the ultimate derangement of the senses
POEM FOR THE X
The body remembers
The limbic system
It turns into a river of pain
It hollows out into an empty cave
Longing to be filled
You write about me with an enchanted pen
Spitting out hurt
A thorn growing up out of the page
Sticking into my eye
But I can’t hurt you back
It’s like we’re in a boxing ring
And I can’t climb out
There’s no way home
Maybe they’ve said only one of us can leave the ring alive
But I can’t take a swing
I can’t hit you
You’re too perfect
Too easy to hurt
How could I break you into pieces
They’ve already done that
I tried to glue you back together
I failed – of course I did
But even in pieces, you take our breath away
Those eyes
You see the world with eyes as big as the ocean
You fly over it with broken wings
You sing like a piece of heavenly choir
Fallen to earth
When you walk
Every footfall leaves a garden behind you
I follow after
My feet won’t listen when I tell them to stop
I reach out for the fruit
But the branches twist away
How could I swing at you
There’s nothing to hit
Only the empty air
That used to hold music
PUPPY LOVE
I'm so confused and unglued
I feel like a puppy with a growing up child
I know you are smarter than me, kind of the boss
But know you need protection too, taking care of
Know this is my job, if i can just grow up
Big and fast enough, know i am clumsy
With big awkward paws, sometimes
I jump up and knock you over
When all i want to do is lick your face
Wag my tail, and give you love
ON DARK STREETS
On dark streets and burning fields all over
The world, hands and feet pound and push
And pull life out of stone and leaf and seed
The ocean roars a terrible sound of wind and grief
The city cries out in the night for her lost children
And lonely old men and women greet each dawn
With shouts of amazed victory and sullen disbelief
All over the world my wounded eyes are bleeding
Only with you can i feel my heart believing
My mouth on yours and a hungry earth is feeding
OTHER WOMEN
You ask me if I look at other women in the gym
Of course I do
I look at every woman as a sexual object
And every man as a potential rival
That won’t stop
It comes from deep down
But it’s background noise
Drowned out by the trumpet blare
Ta-da
I’m in love
With you
And maybe there’s a million other women and men
Who would have done just as well for me
And probably better for you
But I fell in love with you
And you with me
And now we’re hooked
I love your honesty
I trust it because I know it doesn’t come naturally
You fight for it
You’re both the alcoholic and the alcoholic’s sober daughter
I love the way you’re at home with your body
And the way you make me feel at home with mine
I love the way you think
So different from me
I learn new things every day
And of course I love all the usual things
Your laugh, your smile, your body and every freckle on it
And maybe it’s only the hormones talking
But since I’ve loved you
Your body seems to set the norm that every other woman should aspire to
I can’t imagine wrapping myself around anyone but you
Your breasts in my hands
Your stomach kissed by my lips
I wish you were with me more of the time
I hate it when you go to that dark place that shuts me out
I miss you when you’re gone
NORTHWEST
Portland or Cannon Beach
Orcas or San Juan
Camano
Vancouver
Close to home or beyond reach
i'd stop the moon and climb on
To be now
With you dear
POLE DANCE
I saw you draped around the pole
A long thin phallus
From ceiling to floor
From life to death
This cant be right, I said
It has no cross beam
How can they nail you to it
But they did
You were so beautiful
Your blood as red as lipstick
When you cried
I tried to pull you down
But my hands were full
I was holding the nails
FESTIVAL
Kittens like to be petted
They like to sit on your lap and purr
Sometimes, they like to be scratched on their tummy
Or behind their ears
But kittens remember
They’re not like dogs
They don’t forgive
They can’t
They’re wild inside
They’re hungry for kindness and affection
And food
Of course
We all have to eat
But inside
They’re wild
And sweet
I should have been kinder
It made me happy being kind to you
But I keep remembering that one time
Where something meaner slipped through
I keep thinking
Maybe it was the real me
Leaking out
We all need to have special days
Days where the loving kindness
That should always be there
Is taken out of its everyday wrapper
Looked at
Danced with
Caressed
Shared
Festival
Where cruelty is forgiven
Love renewed
IF YOU SAID GOODBYE
If you said goodbye, it would make
A nice ending to this book. I might
Even look noble. I could try to fake
It, pretending it was my idea. The right
Thing to do. As if i could tear off
An arm. Why not? I’ve got two
Sometimes i think i’m a psychopath
Practicing emotions. I know what they
Should look like. I see them from the outside
So i can fake it better than the real thing
I can imagine what it would be like
To love you. I’ve seen others do it
Seen others love. Seen others love you
I’ve practiced all my life by loving me
Can it be so different loving another
Or would i get jealous, hate the time
I gave to you, miss my own touch
What if yours wasn’t good enough
I wish i could melt down my bones
Pour them into a fresh mold
Chop up my heart and liver
Bubble them up in a new stew
What kind of a person would i be
If mushrooms could walk
And turnips could ride
Splashing the mountain dew
Sword and pistol by my side
Stalking the wild with you
Who would have thought it could come this far
That you wouldn’t have seen through me long before now
Sent me packing with a broken heart and a badly damaged axle
Who would have thought i would get the chance to love you again
Love you forever
What’s wrong with me
Could i put this in a puzzle
Dazzle it with rhymes and Greek mythology
Maybe it’s just that now i’ve got the chance
My body is too old
Desire, desire i remember desire
I remember it so well i desire desire
But can it be real if it stays locked up in the head
And the heart
Arms
Legs
Fingertips
Never making it down
To the prick
I want to hold you, just you, nobody but you
I want to fuck every woman on the planet
Be a man like genghis can
King cong had a empty tank
Fired blanks
No thanks
Give me a horse
And i’ll ride the range
Sail the prairie
Johnny Applesemen
I want you
I want to cry
I want to be young again
I want a second chance
I never really had a first
Could anyone ever be as perfect as you
When you smile like a summer breeze
When you lay your head on my arm
I feel like i belong to the universe
MARKET LOVE
On Wednesday the Shanghai Composite dropped 6.5%
And the moon rose shining blood red through the volcanic ash
floating over the rolling hills of the Kennewick Highlands
This was shrugged off by U.S. Markets as the SPX rallied
on the release of the FOMC at a new all time closing high
It’s true, I looked at the moon and thought of you
The next benchmark for the SPX will be to close
over the loving miles and years of a life that galloped by
over the all time intraday high set in March of 2000
or was it 1999? But remember, no major market crash
has ever occurred without a new all time high being posted first
And so it’s no surprise our thirst for night skies, red moons
and volcanic ash has not reversed with age. The tumbleweed
and sage brush get lashed by wind and lightning and the
desert storms are a little frightening, but as you know
we have had a sixteen-twenty-five topside target for the SPX
for some time now. So while we did see rhyming with Feb 27th
and even though we had a clue it would not carry over
because of the failure of the U.S markets to close on Tuesday
above the targets we listed for the everlasting Monday
Still we both know someday, somewhere, before the market closes
You and I will profit share and dine on bread and roses
IF I KNEW
If i knew you were sleeping downstairs alone
I would call you and whisper words of love
Sleepy with sleep
You would pick up the phone that you keep by your pillow
The quiet buzz no one else could hear would be our song
And the long thin invisible line from mouth to ear would be our kiss
The far away dawn would hide in the shadows like a timid mouse
And you would be mine, only mine, and i would be gentle and kind
With a quiet voice and strong arms that could reach across the sea
And wrap you in moonlight. No traffic noise
The dawn would nibble cheese in a corner
And we would touch and whisper please forever
IS THAT THE WAY
Is that the way you love me, david?
It's true
i love you like an investment broker loves his portfolio
Counting the interest
Eyeing up other possible investments
Faithful to the bottom line
I love you like a kid loves candy
Don't care if it's good for me or how fat i get to be
Just want to chew and chew and swallow you forever
I love you like a boy loves his puppy
Roll over and let me scratch your tummy
I love you like a boy loves his mother
You make the world safe for me
When you are angry, i tremble
I love you like my sisters and brothers
Everyday family, secrets shared
Life lived in constant company
Never alone because you are there
I love you the way a man loves a woman
I love your body, your laugh, your smile
I am driven to make you shake and sigh
And need me the way i need you
I love you in ways i don't understand and don't even know
Selfishly, selflessly
Counting the assets
Giving you everything for nothing
My love is so good, so bad, so cheap and mean
So fine and full of heart
And liver and kidney
Oh kid
Come with me
Take a look at this
FIVE IN THE MORNING
It's 5 a.m. And i am waiting for you to call
I woke up from a dream about defending an ice fortress
With wooden clubs and anything that came to hand
We climbed up on the high ground so the invaders
Would slde back down on their asses
When we hit them over the head
But the invaders never came
I kissed you
And the ice
Melted
MAGIC MIRROR
You’ve been staring into the mirror for so long
That’s it’s starting to become you
The hard surface glaze, shiny and bright
Has crept inside
No sneak attack
No big surprise
You chose to invite
The stories you tell yourself become you
The romance of the disaffected
The acorn of disability grows into a mighty oak
The trunk thickens and takes root
The heavy branches weigh you down
Until the leaves crinkle and dry, like promises that died
They fall to the earth with you trapped inside
Shade in the summer becomes compost in the winter
When the leaves turn to dust, will you grow a new you
Will the stories untangle and set you free
Or sink back into the earth, tramped on by new feet
Searching for the path you turned aside from
HOW TO MEND A BROKEN HEART
Good nutrition is so important
Vitamins, minerals – and protein
Essential for the repair of torn muscle tissue
Complex carbohydrates are important too
But probably not as important as kindness
And friendship – so simple, so complex
If you stay in your room with the door locked
And windows closed, every wall becomes a mirror
And no matter what direction you look
All you can see is your misery
Unlock the door, open the windows
Break them, if necessary
Let in the fresh air
Let the spirit roam free
And breath
IF I WERE THERE
If i held on to you for an entire day. Didn't let you go anywhere
without me at least holding your hand. If i kept kissing your neck
over and over, kept wrapping my arms around you and hugging you, just
hugging you tightly to me… would you feel more loved or less if i wanted to strip you naked so i could get closer, touch you more, kiss you more, kiss you
everywhere. I want to kiss your stomach now. I'm in love with your
stomach. The smooth skin, the hollow inside your hip bone. If i
could lay on top of you, let my weight press into you, press you
into the earth or the softness of a mattress, trap you underneath me
but in a loving way, make you feel captured and free, loved and free
Inside me, part of me, but free, your own woman. But mine too.
MOONLIGHT
The moon is cold and distant
But the light still shines
It doesn’t warm
It doesn’t blind
But it binds
I carry it inside
Like a knife
How do you cut a knife
NEVER
I never pretended
I only said my love would be suspended
I did my best to help
I never told you a lie I didn’t tell myself
They said forget her
My head said yes, my heart said never
(trigger warning)
ANTI-LOVE
He pounded into you
Then he pounded you again
Then he gave you to his brother
Who spit in your face
And you pushed up and kissed him
And sucked in his saliva
And you didn’t get wet
They had to use lube
But you liked it
How is that different from love, moist and wet
Is it irresistible, is it some kind of anti-love
That eats into the real thing, or is it the real thing
And the warm, sweet, everyday kind of love
Is just the best you can get
Until the real thing comes along
Or maybe this is a
Which-wolf-do-you-feed situation
Maybe you have a choice
(Obviously, I’m an interested party
Since I represent the moist and the wet)
Or maybe it’s a bit more dialectical
Maybe you need both
But which side rules?
Love happens on a battlefield
Thousands of years
Of the whip and the rod
And the burning at the stake
Love happens in flames
Always
No matter how sweet and pure
But I could be a warrior for you
I would fight, I’m fighting now
I want you to live
I want you to love
I want you to let me love you
BUFF
I am running and lifting weights all day
Bending and stretching, swimming through
Chlorine infested waters that would kill
A shark the way a salt bath melts a snail
On a green garden path. I am dieting and
Taking pills of every size, colour and description
Hoping for a body that will give you chills
Thrills and make you wet with anticipation
Even though i know you don’t give a damn
About any of this, well don’t care much
Anyway, don’t crave muscles and a well tanned
Hide, just want me, my body, such
As it is, because it’s got me inside it
There all the time, i guess, but it took you to find it
EVERYBODY WANTS TO FUCK AN ANGEL
Everybody wants to fuck an angel
Heavenly light streaming from their eyes
The flutter of wings when they sigh
The warm breath of creation hidden in a smile
The hope of redemption between their thighs
Everybody wants to fuck an angel
They call it love, when it’s only hunger
They say they care
But all they mean is
I am lonely – give me your tears
Oh my beautiful angel
So cursed with blessings of light and grace
How do I say, I love you, without joining them
How can I be for you
What you have been for me
Wings
Wings!
ADDICTION
I try not to think about it
Twenty five years, a lifetime
And now you’re going
You’re leaving him for me
A good man does not deserve this
A strong man would still be broken
I imagine myself losing you after a lifetime
Now that i’m old and getting weaker
Just when i need you most
Just when i ought to feel safe
Now that i’m too far down the road
To turn back and find another
I know how much i love you
Is it an addiction you ask
More than that
I imagine losing you, the stars, the grass, all music, all joy
I imagine myself alone for the rest of my life
Do they make a pill for this
If i swallow enough
Will it kill me
BUTTERFLY
Nothing happens all at once
Everything has a long body
Lamplight through the green trees
Read them like tea leaves
Poi in the park
Pie in the sky
I guess I’ll love you
‘til the day I die
Riding the wind
You think it’s your slave
But you go where it blows you
From cradle to grave
Tonight was the night
I saw it for true
Feelings don’t count
Actions do
CHAMPION
I am holding you in my arms and kissing you
Asleep. The owl is in the air and its dark wing
Fills the sky, but I am here whispering to you
Breathing into your mouth until the lark sings
You are my child, my baby, my good little girl
My fallen warrior, wounded but heart strong
Known throughout the seven kingdoms as a fearless
Champion of the small and weak, a righter of wrongs
Now you are laid low by the creatures of the night
Now you are shaking with weariness and fright
And your sword flashes at friend and foe alike
But I bare my breast, for you will not strike
And I press my heart to yours. My darling, rest
Tomorrow you begin again your quest
GENDER
- IDENTITY
Is kind of like a crab shell
You can’t live without one – if you’re a crab…
IDENTITY
Is kind of like a crab shell
You can’t live without one – if you’re a crab
It’s an interface with the outside world
It’s a tool
It’s protection
And it’s also your prison
If you keep growing, if you keep getting bigger
Sooner or later, you have to break out
But then you’re naked in the world
An easy target for predators
So without even thinking
You start growing a new shell
This one bigger and thicker
Until sooner or later
You grow a shell so big
So thick
That you can’t break out
And you die inside
AMERINAM
(September 11, 2001)
Do people who die on TV really die?
Some say yes.
Some say no.
Some say it’s clear as black and white.
Some prefer
Radio
I had a dream where an old man in striped pants
walked down the corridor of a nursery.
He wore a hat with stars and bars,
and he carried a basket filled with bombs.
He stopped at every cradle, placed a bomb,
it the fuse and passed on.
I followed close behind him,
stopped at every cradle,
picked up every bomb,
and I too passed on.
At the end, I stopped him to return them.
His heart melted into plastic
as the bombs exploded
and the babies cried.
I woke up and smiled.
Nine eleven, I’ll never forget. It was the morning they found Frankie face down in a pool of blood outside his own front door. Face down in the dark, because the landlord couldn’t be bothered to change the light bulb.
Of course it wasn’t the light bulb being out that did it. Whoever it was probably would have bashed his head in anyway, but we’ll never know. It was probably drug dealers, but whether it was the old traditional kind or the new bastards on the block was hard to say.
The ambulance came and took him away.
The cops came and wrote down a few names.
Nobody cleaned up the blood for two or three days.
Nine eleven,
There was a lot of collateral damage.
If only they had got the white house too.
But that was in the afternoon.
Would I be willing to ride that airplane on either side of the knife?
No.
But when I heard they’d got the Pentagon, I leapt in the air and shouted,
Yes!
We all sat down and watched – amazed but not in shock.
When the second tower collapsed, we couldn’t believe our luck.
No, no, no
They didn’t deserve to die, if by ‘they’ you mean the people who really did die, but then they never do deserve it, do they? It’s the axis of evil who deserve it, the real axis of evil who die in their beds of old age. Maybe they die hard, but I bet they don’t. I bet they mostly die happy little fuckers who didn’t get to rule the world – nobody does – but they got to ride up on top, so far up on the tip top, tip top, that we can’t touch them. We can’t lay even one fucking finger on them, and so we kill our own kind, because they’re useful to the people we hate.
Well, not me of course. I’m only imagining what it must be like.
I don’t want to die any sooner than absolutely necessary,
Not even for you.
I’m a casualty too,
Gut shot.
Frankie didn’t die right away. They kept him in the hospital for about 6 months while he tried to remember his name. Then they released him to “care in the community”, and he died after 27 days. I called the hospital about the post-mortem, and the nurse started to cry. She had thought he was still alive.
5am
It's almost 5am.
Going back to sleep in a minute
Just thought i'd blow you another kiss
This one lands on your lips, light and sweet
Like a hummingbird kissing a flower
Like a butterfly kissing the breeze
The hummingbird doesn't always come back
To the same flower
But i do
CHOCOLATE WORLD
Oh let me
Feed you egg and oatmeal mornings
Just like mother should have done
Dress you warmly when it's storming
Get you smiling like a hot buttered
Bun filled girl with a cocoa mustache
And a big brother on every street corner
Waiting to kick the ass of any stupid
Fool dumb enough to try to harm you
Oh won't you be my bun filled girl
And let me keep you fat and sassy
Play with me in a chocolate world
And you and i can be family
SLEEPING BEAUTY
The monsters came again last night. This time
They stayed. They wrapped you up in spider web
And filled your mouth with bitter taste, your eyes
With shade. They danced a line around your bed
And a forest grew. Thorns and brambles sprang
Up through the floor. The clock stopped. The minutes
Fled. And no sun rose for you. The rain
Came down forever with no forgiveness
I am afraid of monsters and the brambles
Tear my skin. I am afraid of spiders
And the webs they weave. I fear the jungle
But i will not leave. I am your midnight rider
With a strong right arm and a captive heart
And i will find a way into the dark
MY SLEEPING VOLCANO
When you rise up
You will shake the earth
You will fill the sky
With burning rock
And rattle our brains
With the shock
Of the deep
And beautiful
NO LIGHTS
No lights, no stars, maybe a half moon
Behind the thick clouds. After a while
Your eyes get used to the dark. The trees loom
Like an almost remembered tune. A forgotten line
On a roadsign comes to mind, and the wind whines
Like a lost child, or was it a cow's lowing
And i'm showing you the night for the first time
Your hand in mine, fear turns to a half knowing
Confidence and you laugh in the dark and let go
And oh so proud am i to be your guide
That i forget i've brought you to a wild
And scary place where time slows down
To a scream in a sullen forest with a hidden face
And even the crickets are not what they seem
IT'S NOVEMBER
I was counting the days for the first month or two
I thought i could hurry up the time by writing all the letters
I should have written when i was with you
But i wrote none of them
My friends know i'm alive
But are starting to wonder
I think of them often
I think of you often
Are you well?
Are you writing?
Are you fed up with me?
I leave for Paris on Wednesday
If you want me to write
I will
THE EARTH OPENED UP
The earth opened up and swallowed me
I held your hand in mine. Then it was empty
Darkness. Night. But hot and suffocating
Was it thunder or the sound of my heart breaking
I open my mouth and dirt fills my throat
My limbs are frozen, my eylids pinned open
I can’t close my eyes. They burn. I choke
I am buried alive. No breath. No hope
And i remember how much you loved me
So recently that i can almost feel
Your lips in a dying kiss. And i believe
You’ll come to rescue me, but the clock ticks
And the time goes by, and you don’t come back
And the earth presses down, and my bones crack
WAGON TRAIN
You save them up
And make a little wagon of each one
Cargo of bitterness. Yoke of steel
Our long sweet love broken on the wheel
And every sin becomes a story
Every story a rawhide whip
My back is torn and bleeding
As i draw our caravan across the burning sand
This is love with no forgiveness, no forgetting
A perfect desert in the iron grip of a perfect memory
And every day another wagon joins the train
I lift the yoke and dream of rain.
RACCOON
It wasn't a raccoon you heard last night
It was me
I roam the streets around your house
Hoping for a late night glimpse of you
Walking the cat or watering the lawn
(do they ever water lawns in seattle?)
I hang out with the raccoons
So i won't be noticed
Except by the raccoons
They think i'm kind of strange
I make funny noises just like them
But i tell such bad jokes
And i'm always sighing
And staring up at your window
Your psychotic cat comes out and growls at me
But it doesn’t scare me
It just makes me lonely
I miss you
I want you to scratch my tummy
And ruffle the fur behind my ears
I miss you
The other raccoons are friendly
But they're not much fun
And they never laugh at my jokes
I miss you
I want to bite your neck
Kiss your lips
And hear you sigh
THE MUSIC OF SNOW
You are the middle of a river
With no beginning and no end
A child opening a rainbow
On the first birthday party of the universe
A wise old woman
Who finally remembers how to sing again
After a thousand years of listening
To the sun rise
And the moon fall
You are my love hidden in surprising places
Smooth still water and ocean tides
I love your mouth
Because you taste of lemon and sunlight
When i kiss you, i hear the music of snow falling
MICE
I put them in a box with a checkerboard bottom
and counted the squares they covered
I counted the boli too, mouse turds
– another sign of activity, the professor told me –
then I put them in a cage and filled the sink with water
I lowered the cage slowly into the water
and watched the tiny bubbles rise to the surface
I didn’t feel bad, not at all, well maybe
I felt a little bad about not feeling bad
in the biology lab, men in white coats
would cut off the tops of the heads
and put the tiny brains into a centrifuge
some of the mice had been raised in a happy farm
with lots of playmates and plenty of toys and games
others had been raised alone
the theory was that these lone mice
would grow up with smaller brains
would be less active – even shitting less –
we also learned that if you gave them friendship
and then took it away
they would cower in a corner and shake with grief
Where do you go
When i’m not thinking of you
Skiing in Aspen or hiding in a haiku
Are you a snowflake or a yellow black tiger
When i forget you are you still my girl
Nobody else can hurt me so bad
Just by not being there
Nobody else can make the day so fair
Or the night glad
How do you disappear so perfectly
Into the bone, into the bone
I look at you and i see home
BASTARD
I was a bastard although i didn't mean to be, programmed to make myself unhappy along with anyone else foolish enough to get involved. I don’t generally bother to tell the story any more because every woman has heard it, had it so often, she just gets bored and irritated by it. Boy gets girl, feels tied down, so is mean and nasty and drives her away, only then realising what a treasure he has lost. Obviously to the extent i really love you, i would walk through fire to keep you away from me or anyone like me. I used to think the next time would be better because now i understood how stupid i had been, but that only meant i could see it coming not that i could do anything about it.
Why am i still here?
WRITE ME A LOVE LETTER…
Ok, Lucy, this is for you. I love
How you pull away the football just
Before I kick it. You drive me crazy and I
Love it. You make life a big surprise and I
Love it. You think you’re mean to me and
Sometimes I do too, but what would life
Be like without you?
A rock has no surprises
Neither does a football
Unless you’re holding it
MOVIES
I see you at the movies every night
The theater goes dark, the screen lights up
And you appear. You are a child. A woman
You are helpless. A warrior. Sometimes you are
A man. But always you are you. My love
And my eyes water, my heart fills my throat
Is it like this to be a mother? Does it connect you
With every upturned face? I love you
So much that i can't stop. Can't hold it in.
Can't limit it to just one version of you
When there are so many. You walk every street
And i know if i could just be true to this
Great love that you have called forth in me
I could be the man I was meant to be
OCEAN
I remember you climbing into bed with me
I left the door unlocked. Your skin was cool
As the morning breeze. Your lips were red
Your eyes were green. Your taste as sweet as sin
And i remember you fitting into my body
So perfectly i thought you were part of me
Lost in the mist of time, found in a lucky
Twist of fate. And oh so hard to believe
That all over the world there must be
Millions just as much in love as we
Holding each other close, full of the same
Ocean overflowing from soul to soul
It's time to go. I sigh your name. I kiss
Your mouth and try float above the pain
BROKEN
I knew it would hurt somebody
I thought it would be me
But that was alright
I’m used to that, made for it, even
And i knew that just one night with you
Would be worth years of unhappiness
Was i afraid of how you would hurt me?
No. But i knew i should be.
Then you did the one thing i wasn’t prepared for
How could you be so foolish, so careless, so brave
How could i know you would put into my shaking hands
Your family, your life, your sanity – and mine
Now as i stand here helplessly watching you
Torn into pieces by your own raging heart
How can i tell you it was never meant to be
I was already broken. I was giving you the pieces
Not taking yours. Not taking yours
ARGENTINA
We were at a party
And you were saying goodbye to two of your friends
They were from Argentina
One of them had long fingernails as if he played the guitar
You smiled at me and pointed at his fingernails
And i understood. We were so in love
You were wearing your red sweater
Dark red, maroon - and i was handsome
Everyone wanted you, but you were in love with me
It was the end of the party and someone was crying
You went to comfort her. You said to me
Someone always has a broken heart at the end of a party
I woke up and tried to call you
But no one answered
ME INSIDE
i am running and liftingweights all day
bending and stretching, swimming through
chlorine infested waters that would kill
a shark the way a salt bath melts a snail
on a green garden path. i am dieting and
taking pills of every size, colour and description
hoping for a body that will give you chills
thrills and make you wet with anticipation
even though i know you don’t give a damn
about any of this, well don’t care much
anyway, don’t crave muscles and a well tanned
hide, just want me, my body, such
as it is, because it’s got me inside it
there all the time, i guess, but it took you to find it
ADDICTION
I try not to think about it
Twenty five years, a lifetime
And now you’re going
You’re leaving him for me
A good man does not deserve this
A strong man would still be broken
I imagine myself losing you
After a lifetime
Now that i’m old and getting weaker
Just when i need you most
Just when i ought to feel safe
Now that i’m too far down the road
To turn back and find another
Is it an addiction you ask
More than that
I imagine losing you, the stars
The grass, all music, all joy
I imagine myself alone for the rest of my life
Do they make a pill for this
If i swallow enough
Will it kill me
WOUNDED
How can this be happening to us
Do we love too much or not enough
Are you and i so full of buried hate
That even the softest touch will only scrape
Away the skin and free the bitterness within
I know the enemy i strike at is not you
And yet i strike.
We battle on long after the enemy is gone
Long after we figure out the lies
The wounded child never dies
CHAMPION
I am holding you in my arms and kissing you
Asleep. The owl is in the air and its dark wing
Fills the sky, but I am here whispering to you
Breathing into your mouth until the lark sings
You are my child, my baby, my good little girl
My fallen warrior, wounded but heart strong
Known through the seven kingdoms as a fearless
Champion of the small and weak, a righter of wrongs
Now you are laid low by the creatures of the night
Now you are shaking with weariness and fright
And your sword flashes at friend and foe alike
But I bare my breast, for you will not strike
And I press my heart to yours. My darling, rest
Tomorrow you begin again your quest
CAROLYN WHO
Trying to imagine what it would be like
Living with you every day
Oatmeal for breakfast, maybe an egg
Line of sight blocked by a newspaper
Part of the deal. Everyday conversation
Not stardust, just sun and rain
And you sitting across from me
Not Christmas. Just business as usual
I wish i had the chance to forget you
Maybe i could take up golf. Follow sport
You would be ordinary, almost
Part of the furniture, but not quite
Carolyn who? I would have almost forgot her
But i would know you the way a fish knows water
FACE
But the love poem I wanted to write
Would tell about your face.
How much a face can mean.
How it can be a novel, a life time
A sharp spike pounded through the heart
And twisted round with unhappiness
How it can be a reason for living – if
A reason is needed. How it can be a call
To live a better life, to be stronger, pure
Of heart. How it can pull the fingertips
To the cheek, the lips to the forehead
How it can make a brave man stand up
And prepare to be counted. How it can
Make a coward into a brave man.
MAGIC RODEO
Even far away you fill up my nights and days
You wind up the clock that makes my world
Turn somersaults around the sunlight, while
I ride like a rodeo cowboy over the dull
Necessites of everyday life, sleepwalk
Through traffic as if i were indestructable
Just because i love you, sweet talk
On the computer screen as if my cannibal
Eyes could devour every kilobyte i see
And reconstruct you on this side of the ocean
As if my fingers could reach through the keys
And turn into a tongue that could lick your secret
Places until you quiver and cum, as if i knew some
Dirty magic that could shake and bake the air wave
And make every word in the universe your slave
BUGS
When my little sister was two years old
We lived in a house with no grass in back
Just hard brown mud dried into wide cracks
And when she cut loose, my sister would crawl
All over the cracks looking for bugs
Anything small and crawly would do for her
And when she found it, that was the cue for her
To sit down and cry until someone would give her a hug
As a strategy it worked pretty well
She got plenty of hugs
But it meant she had to keep looking for bugs
A VISIT TO GRANDPA’S
I would like to be for you like a visit to grandpa's
Safe and warm
I would tuck you in at night
And kiss the top of your head to give you sweet dreams.
In the summer
I would bring round a watermelon
And when you were big enough
I would let you carry it
And if you dropped it and it broke into a thousand pieces
And if your brothers laughed and your mother got angry
I would track you down to your hiding place
With a brand new watermelon
I would wipe away your tears and say
This is for you, my beautiful bright eyed loving child
A second chance
If I could be for you like a visit to grandpa's
You would always have a second chance
BROOMHILDE
I know you’re strong
And braver than any man alive
I know you will fight them
And they’ll see it in your eyes
I know they’ll try to break you
I know they will fail
I know they’ll try to make you a slave
But they never will
I’m coming to find you
Riding through the fire of hell
I’m bringing it with me
I know how to use it well
I’m your guardian angel
Darling, i’m your lucky charm
I’ll kill any man who tries to
Harm you
No one could ever make me forget you
Nothing will ever change the way i feel
I made a promise to love and protect you
Believe in me – my love is real
In the cool glint of the hard steel
In the lightning flash and the bullet squeal
A figure walking through the smoky blue
That’s me.
I’m coming for you
When I was locked up in
My own mental chains
You spoke the words that freed me
I found a meaning for my love and rage
I’m ready to follow
Where it leads me
No one could ever make me forget you
Nothing will ever change the way i feel
I made a promise to love and protect you
Believe in me – my love is real
In the cool glint of the hard steel
In the lightning flash and the bullet squeal
A figure walking through the smoky blue
That’s me.
I’m coming for you
Coming for you
Now, i’m no django
Just another guy
Never killed another man
Never even tried
Done a few brave things
Got a few scars
But mostly i hung out in bars
Young and stupid
I used to boost cars
Now i got a hustle
Play a bit of guitar
You come along
And shake my tree
And the fallout is mostly me
Like i’m coming out of deep sleep
And you’re there singing
And writing down wisdom
Guess we’re gonna need some
You’d be hummin’
My guitar buzzin’ and
Sometimes i’d just lie back strummin’
And let you fly
Watch you carve
Your name in the sky
One last kiss
On the edge of the abyss
Don’t jump, baby
I promise you this
Daddy gonna help you fix your wings
Daddy gotta see you fly and fly
Even if it means goodbye
Fly, fly away
Ride the wind, ride the wind and fly true
But if there’s mad days where you don’t what to do
Believe in me – like i believe in you
In the cool glint of the hard steel
In the lightning flash and the bullet squeal
A figure walking through the smoky blue
That’s me.
I’m coming for you
Coming for you
Coming for you
GUNS AND OIL
Guns and oil
Start with guns
Enough of them and the oil will come
A big stick and a greasy palm
What you can’t buy you can bomb
Guns and oil
Money and blood
Which one is your favourite drug
Nobody wants your junkie love
Guns and oil
Guns on wheels
Guns on wings and lazermobiles
Just like Fourth of July fireworks
Bigger than the original Star Trek
Guns and oil
Money and blood
Which one is your favourite drug
Nobody wants your junkie love
Guns and oil
Just for the crack
You live in fear of every match
No wonder you got such an ugly temper
You’re sittin’ on top of a gasoline empire
Guns and oil
Money and blood
Which one is your favourite drug
Nobody wants your junkie love
ATTICA
They call me a criminal, put me in prison
Lock me up, throw away the key
I’d rather be free than go on livin’
I know my people will remember me
CHORUS: Ten thousand bars in the Attica prison
There’s a million bricks in the Attica jail
Ten thousand bars in the Attica prison
Someday soon they’re coming down
They got their gas grenades, they got their rifles
They got their troopers and they got their law
Their guards are hostage but they don’t want’em
Think they can buy a million more
CHORUS:
This guard I guarded guarded me here
Made me live my life in hell
The men he worked for gave the orders
Made us both die in this cell
CHORUS:
They think they won because we died here
They think their guns can beat us down
But they won’t stop our peoples army
Our people’s love will make us strong
Ten thousand bars in the Attica prison
There’s a million bricks in the Attica jail
Ten thousand bars in the Attica prison
Someday soon they’re coming down
Someday soon they’re coming down
Someday soon they’re coming down
[I wrote this during the first Gulf War (i.e. the first Iraq invasion). It’s a brief fantasy about the assassination of George Bush – and the importance of wearing a condom to prevent the spread of sexually transmitted diseases… like George Bush.]
-- Michael Harding of Animat on production and guitar, me on sax and vocals, Julie Hadwen of Big Sound Authority on additional vocals.
OH GEORGIE
Georgie smiled his smile into the eye of a cold 44
The hammer clicked, the lightning flashed, little Georgie smiled no more
Oh Georgie, you never stood a chance
They took you down to the great big city, but nobody taught you to dance
He couldn’t do the Rumba. He couldn’t Cha-cha-cha-cha
Is it any wonder he fell afoul of the law
Out on the streets they’re all dancing, laughing and waving bye-bye-bye-bye-bye
You were a strange one, you had no rhythm. It’s not your fault you blew sky high
Some say the bigger the danger, the sweeter the sin
But what a waste if just one taste brings your whole life to an end
So all you Ivy League lovers, I know you want romance
But don’t go down to the great big city, unless you can dance
He couldn’t do the Rumba. He couldn’t Cha-cha-cha-cha
Is it any wonder he fell afoul of the law
Out on the streets they’re all dancing, laughing and waving bye-bye-bye-bye-bye
You were a strange one, you had no rhythm. It’s not your fault you blew sky high
TREASURE
Sunlight hair and sky blue eyes
Daytime smile and night time lies
Pain so sweet I cry with pleasure
Loneliness like buried treasure
Oh-oh is it love
Bonds of love that feel like chains
Touch my flesh a scar remains
Kiss me in my secret places
Smiling lips on all your faces
Oh-oh is it love
I need you to cut me
Make me bleed, make me bleed
I’m in need of emotional surgery
I need you to make me
Beg and plead, beg and plead
Why is it only the pain that can
Set me free, set me free
ROTTEN
My baby tore my heart out
And threw it on the floor
She spit on it and kicked
As she walked out the door
ch.
I feel so rotten, rotten rotten
Bloody useless thing I am
If my whole life was a river
Lord, I wouldn’t be worth a dam
Gonna cut my throat wide open
‘Cause that’s the only cure
I’ll bleed into the toilet
Flush my life down the sewer
ch.
I feel so rotten, rotten rotten
Bloody useless thing I am
If my whole life was a river
Lord, I wouldn’t be worth a dam
But don’t
Don’t
Please don’t pull that chain
I need some time to smell the roses
In the seconds that remain
I’m gonna love my baby
‘til I lie beneath the stone
‘til the worms eat out my eyeballs
And the flesh rots off my bones
ch.
I feel so rotten, rotten rotten
Bloody useless thing I am
If my whole life was a river
Lord, I wouldn’t be worth a dam
MAGGIE DON’T DANCE HERE ANYMORE
retread ronnie road into the big city on a big white horse and smilin’ so pretty
he moseyed on down to the local saloon, sucked on a cold brew and said
hey, let’s hear some tunes
ronnie we thought you knew the score
maggie don’t dance here anymore
the sheriff he got up and the major he got down
he said to ronnie would you like to sit in this
round. ronnie said boys looks like I’m tapped
I guess I better go home and take my nap
don’t much feel like keepin’ score
now that maggie don’t dance here anymore
I’m so sad and lonely
I’m so doggone blue
she’s my one and only
but maggie don’t dance here
boo hoo hoo
backroom barroom boardroom bad boys
with smoke filled ceegars, sexed up motorcars
fax filled willys and fantasy mars bars
they all got soul and they’ll show you the scars
ain’t nothin’ gonna stop them keepin’ score
not even if maggie don’t dance here no more
I’m so sad and lonely
I’m so doggone blue
she’s my one and only
but maggie don’t dance here
boo hoo hoo
We all miss them fishnet stockings
We all miss them spiky boots
you might find her costume shocking
but maggie don’t dance in her birthday suit
I’m so sad and lonely
I’m so tired and sore
she’s my one and only
but maggie don’t dance here
maggie don’t dance, no
maggie don’t dance here anymore
EVERYBODY LOVES THE WHALE
Sitting like a Buddha on a mound of recycled shit
But it don’t stink for you
No, no, no, it wouldn’t dare
‘Cause you’re oh so pure
And you’re oh so sure
You save your bottles an’ you don’t eat meat
Vegetarian farts that smell so sweet
You gonna eat
You gonna eat
You gonna eat your way to the higher consciousness
Eat your way to the spirit land
Christ and Buddha they all promise us
Earth gonna come to the meekly man
Got no time for blood and politics
Them that do power hungry scum
You don’t kill and you don’t even spit
But you sit
And you sway
And you hope
And you pray
Everybody loves the whales
‘Cause they don’t talk
Everybody loves the whales
‘Cause they just sing
Everybody loves the whales
‘Cause they don’t fight
Love’em to death
‘Cause they don’t biteRecycled organic ozone friendly orgasms
Of a strictly spiritual nature
Vitamin filled thrills for your own personal ecosystem
But all that meditation time’s gotta be paid for
Guess what
By who
It’s an easy wager
Hug a tree and kick the beggar
Are you judging you
By what you do
Or are you judging you
By what you don’t
So proud and green
So bright and clean
It oughta’ make you mean
But I bet it won’t
Everybody loves the whales
‘Cause they don’t talk
Everybody loves the whales
‘Cause they just sing
Everybody loves the whales
‘Cause they don’t fight
Love’em to death
‘Cause they don’t bite
YOU ONLY SEEM TO LISTEN WHEN I LIE
i used to be respected, considered kind of sweet
now my friends look the other way when i pass them on the street
i'm getting kind of worried and i don't know what to do
nobody wants to know me 'cause i'm such a rat to you
ch.
why don't you hear me when i give you good advice
you only seem to listen when i lie
being good just like i should you never do look twice
being bad i can always catch your eye
it's hard to be so evil when by nature i'm so kind
the first couple times i cheated, i nearly lost my mind
i don't want no other women, it's only you for me
but i can't seem to keep you 'less i keep your jealousy
ch.
why don't you hear me when i give you good advice
you only seem to listen when i lie
being good just like i should you never do look twice
being bad i can always catch your eye
i wouldn't be the way i am if you didn't drive me crazy
i'd do anything to keep you and i guess i have... well, maybe
but through it all, my darling, i have never been untrue
no matter who i'm with i close my eyes and think of you
ch.
why don't you hear me when i give you good advice
you only seem to listen when i lie
being good just like i should you never do look twice
being bad i can always catch your eye
STILL STANDING
hard as nails and proud as punk
with high ideals and fire inside
i guess it took me by surprise
you were just there for the ride
you looked at me through the eyes of fools
judged me by their stupid rules
they couldn't touch me on their own
but your touch was to the bone
ch.
it isn't fair, it isn't kind
you shouldn't laugh but i don't mind
you're up there and i'm down here
but you're on your knees and i'm
still standing, still standing
days go by, they turn to years
the flame burns high then the coals appear
the test of fire is never through
when the flame is low the steel is true
ch.
it isn't fair, it isn't kind
you shouldn't laugh but i don't mind
you're up there and i'm down here
but you're on your knees and i'm
still standing, still standing
THE PREY
They have to be smarter…
No
They only have to be more aware
The predator can kill, eat its fill
And then wander off for a little grab ass by the river bank
The prey
Never gets a break
It has to be thinking about the predator every minute of the night and day
But given equal intelligence
In human society, for example
If you got a master and a slave
The slave is smarter
Has to be
Their life depends on it
So in a world where knowledge is power
Sooner or later
The slave will become the master
Will this go on forever?
bobandalice
i want to tell a story about bobandalice, they were my friends. especially i want to tell about the stories they told me, about golden tongued robbie sterne, fiery intellectual suzie who died of a brain tumour, but that was a long time after, and about the guy with the bees who didn’t like sds. i want to tell these stories, but i can’t. they are buried in peanut butter, along with me and bob and alice
why couldn’t i be an alcoholic or a heroin addict? these are real vices that you can be very cool about. peanut butter just makes you fat and old. but enough about me.
bob and alice were a couple years older than me. they were not old enough to be like my parents, but they were like my grandparents. they told stories. in the underground office. waiting for the phone to ring. bob and alice and fred. bob and alice and fred were anarchists. fred had a dog. she was anarchist. i said her fleas were anarchist, but that was back when we were still friends.
bob and alice. they were waiting across the street. they still are. buried in peanut butter. waiting for me to dig them out. bob and alice and even fred and even fred’s dog.
alice was a strong woman. alice of bobandalice but only because bob was so short and quick. alice of bobandalice because they were really good friends and a good friend is better than nothing and nothing was better than what the nuns had planned for her. alice of bobandalice because that’s the way the world is and i cried when i found out the truth.
they were waiting across the street. at karen’s house. they had sent her over to make the first move. they were sorry. i knew it. i was sorry they had to be sorry. they waited. i was the leader of the peanut butter conspiracy. i drew funny pictures, but not like karen or dan. i could type really fast. big deal. i liked people, just about everybody. even cops when i got to know them, so i tried not to. i’m older now, but back then i liked almost everybody so they made me a leader. sort of. of the peanut butter conspiracy
karen came over to tell me they were there. karen who could draw really good pictures. karen whose father was probably an a number one bastard, whose boyfriend was definitely an a number one bastard but didn’t mean to be, karen who cried in my arms all night before her abortion in the morning, who i reached out and touched with lust filled fingers and said – don’t cry – when i really meant – don’t cry for him.
karen said they’re waiting. i knew they were waiting. she said they’re sorry. i knew they were sorry. she said fred was there too – with his dog. i liked his dog.
she said they’re waiting. they’re sorry. they miss you. and i missed them, maybe even fred.
but i was the leader of the peanut butter conspiracy. i could type really fast. i liked everybody, even bob and alice and fred and his dog and her fleas. i was the leader of the peanut butter conspiracy, and i had principles, and a conscience, and promises to keep – and way too much peanut butter.
alice they fried you
over and over
the bastards
you had hair as black and skin as white as a nun’s habit
did that draw them to you
you could type really fast
even faster than me
you could talk and tell stories
you were hard and soft
and i loved you like a sister and a mother
i swam underwater wearing goggles and looked at your pussy hair
it was black, like a nun’s habit
you answered the phone late one night and said sorry, we were fucking
i thought it was for effect
no. for protection
from the nuns
from their doctors
from the wrong kind of love – the kind they burned you for
i wish my goggles had been painted black
SEVEN
Imagine you’re a delegate
To a planet-wide congress in a truly sane world
So… not planet earth, obviously
And on this kinder, saner planet
The coordinator of the world food bank is making a report
Shock
Horror
They are looking at the box for the number of starving dead babies per year
A forgotten category
Because the number is always zero
But this time it isn’t
It isn’t zero
The number is seven
A stunned silence throughout the chamber
The terrible news sinks in
How could we have let this happen
In all our abundance
They died of starvation
Babies – helpless, innocent
One would be heart breaking
But seven…
Oh no, says the coordinator
There’s been a mistake
It’s not seven babies
It’s seven million…
Babies…
A year
EXCITING TIMES
Hope
At last
Fan the flames
Don’t let them go out
The future is bleak
Probably
And maybe it’s not the dawn we see
Maybe it’s only the light from a burning cop shop
But it’s a start
THE PLATO MISTAKE
Variation one
Poets are liars. Kick them out
Variation two
Let the them stay, but make them be useful
THE INGREDIENTS FOR A GOOD POEM
-
No unnecessary rhymes
-
No unnecessary metaphors
-
No unnecessary words
-
Everything else
HOW TO WRITE GOOD POETRY
1.Read lots of poetry
2.Write lots of poetry
3.Tell the truth
4.Have fun
MUMBAI SUNSET
A river of cows and sewage
And on the bridge a dog is shitting
And four thin wiry men are unloading petrol tanks from a truck
The old man puts a spool of twine into the small boy's hand
He pays out the line
And the paper bird climbs
FALSE ALARM
Don’t read this if you’re emotionally vulnerable. Not sure why I’m writing it. Doesn’t mean anything. Just a memory burned into my brain that jumped out because of the fire today.
It was years ago. I was in Newcastle, doing a PhD, and working as a Resident Tutor in Halls of Residence, basically a baby sitter for about a thousand teenage alcoholics. Part of the orientation program was a visit from the Fire Department. They gave a talk about the damage caused by calling in false alarms – millions of pounds and more than a few unnecessary deaths.
Then they showed a film about a nearby tragedy. A single mother had left her three children alone to make a quick dash to the local shop for dinner supplies. She was gone less than fifteen minutes. During that time, a fire broke out and the children were burned to death. The fire was just down the road from the local fire station. They could have been there in minutes. No one had to die. But they were gone – miles away – answering a false alarm.
The film showed these big strong firemen, tears streaming down their blackened faces, as they carried out the charred bodies of the children. They had found them crouched behind the sofa. They were trying to hide from the fire. The little ones were huddled up against their big sister. I think she was eight years old. Her arms were wrapped around her little sister and brother, as if she could protect them.
The fire department never showed the film again. Too many students had been deeply disturbed. At the time, I thought they were spoiled little wimps. But I’m writing this through tears.
FACEBOOK STATUS REPORT
I'm dead. They got me.
Donald Trump's agents finally caught up and settled accounts. I thought i would never post on Facebook again, because i know they don't have Facebook in heaven... but it turns out they do have it in hell.
TUSKEGEE WORLD
Tuskegee, Alabama
From 1932 to 1972
In the heart of Black America
A criminal medical experiment was carried out
Syphilis
Watch black men die from it
Watch them infect their wives, their children
Check their blood, their spinal fluid
Observe carefully, write it all down
But the best is yet to come – wait for the autopsy
There is a cure, penicillin, but don’t let them take it
Follow them from county to county, from state to state
Don’t let them take it
Just another experiment – there are so many
So many murders
We are black. We are queer. We are prisoners of war
We are women. We are Jews. We are outcasts. We are poor
Like garment workers, who can’t afford the clothes they make
We are the guinea pigs, who die in experiments
For the medicines we can’t afford to take
Sing about the Nazis
Sing about Imperial Japan
Sing about the cotton fields of America
The prisons of Guatemala, South Africa
We die in their experiments, but the best is yet to come
Our children die, and our children’s children
Because the medicine they use us to make
Is medicine we can’t afford to take
What is this beast, this terrible disease
What is this medicine that kills us twice
Once, when they use us to make it
Twice, when they take it away
They call it science, but that’s a lie
Science does not own banks
It has no stock exchange, no bottom line
Science is the pick and shovel we use to mine for the truth
We dig up diamonds. They come out of the earth clean and bright
It is capitalism that steals them away and paints them with blood
Who are the victims of Tuskegee
Not only the men who died
Not only their wives and children
The victims are still being counted in every child
Who dies without penicillin, without proper vaccines
Without doctors and nurses who are trained in science
But then stolen away to serve in foreign countries
What is this beast, this terrible disease
That paints every act of kindness the colour of money
That takes every gift of science and coins it into wealth and power
That hunts and kills whatever it needs to feed the bottom line
They call it science, but that’s a lie
Science is a tool for exploring the world around us
The better we understand it
The better we can change it
Who are the victims of Tuskegee
We are
If we let these terrible crimes teach us the wrong lesson
If we let them drive us away
From the one chance we have
To make a kind and just world
Every tool is a weapon
Every weapon a double edged sword
They use science against us
But we can use it to end them
HATE
There is not enough hate in this world
Because there is not enough love
If we loved, truly loved
The newspapers would catch fire on our fingertips
Conflict minerals would melt out of our phones
And drip back down into the earth
Drones would turn on their masters
There is not enough hate in this world
Because there is not enough knowledge
If we understood, truly understood
We would see remembrance poppies run red with real blood
“Thank you for your service” would become an ironic curse
The idolatry of the flag would become…
Not a heresy – no such thing in a world of knowledge
But it would be seen as an affliction, like cataracts
There is not enough hate in this world
Because there is not enough hope
Hate needs the oxygen of hope
Without hope, it decays into despair
Without hope, we lie to ourselves and call it realism
We lie to ourselves and call it “baby steps”
We lie to ourselves and talk about love as if it had
No consequences, no need for champions, no need for warriors
As if there were no monsters roaming the earth
As if they lacked the power and the will to murder those we love
Do you believe this?
If you do
Pick up a newspaper
Sadly, it won’t catch fire in your hands
ROBERT E LEE – a missing statue testifies
(the true story of the man in the photograph)
Allow me to introduce myself
My name is Peter… or maybe Gordon
Not much is known about me
I walked into the history books
When we crossed the Union line
It was March of 1863
Just outside of Baton Rouge
We started out as three
We finished as two
Ten days of running and hiding
Crossing water as often as we could
Barefoot over the hard creek rocks
Cutting up onions
Rubbing them onto our skin
Trying to throw off the bloodhounds
When we finally crossed the Union line
We started to cry
We couldn’t believe our eyes
The first soldiers we saw had black skin
They were African
They had been slaves like us
We joined the Army that day
We threw away our rags
And put on the Union blue
When I took off my shirt
The white soldiers stared in horror
Some of them looked angry
Some of them cried
The black soldiers looked on without blinking
They’d seen it all before
My back is a history book
You can see America buried in the scars
Look at the photograph
The ridges are thick
The whip cut deep
But look at my face
Do I look bent and broken
My back is a witness for the truth
Look at the photograph
It was made into postcards
It toured the Union with a simple message
This is why you are fighting
This is what slavery does
My back is a weapon of war
Strong and straight
I carried a backpack and a rifle
And I fought for freedom
No quarter was given to former slaves
So when I was captured
I was beaten, tortured and left for dead
But I survived
Grew strong
And went back to war
I served as a sergeant in the Corps d’Afrique
At the Siege of Port Hudson, we led the charge
The records say I fought bravely
The records say I survived
Then nothing more is known
I disappeared from history
Just one of 180,000
180,000 former slaves
180,000 Union soldiers
180,000 African heroes
I was only one of them
But my back, my strong, straight and scarred back
Tells the story of us all
So listen up
You lovers of history
You lovers of the truth
As told by statues and monuments
Put your money where your mouth is
Tell the whole story
Give me my statue
Stand me side by side
With your Robert E. Lee
Let us both be seen
Write under his statue
I fought for slavery
Write under mine
I fought for freedom
CRAZY JURGEN AND HIS PASSPORT PHOTO
My name is Crazy Jurgen, because there’s another Jurgen, and he’s called Punk Jurgen. I died of a tooth ache. I waited too long. The infection had set into my brain. I think it was always there. At least since I was a little boy. They put it there. I held it off for as long as I could. I never gave in, not even in the little things, especially the little things, like photographs... I stuck out my tongue. I made funny faces over and over. They ordered me to come back next week with a normal picture. "These are normal pictures, it’s me that’s not normal!" "Come back next week." I did. They said, "Come back next week." I did. They said, "Come back next week." I did. They said, "Come back next week." I did. They said, "You shithead! Give it here." And I got my passport. I like to think of it as a victory for the free human spirit, but actually I just couldn’t help it – I had to stick out my tongue.
COWARD
I am a genetic coward
(my own personal term)
Cowardice, as a first response
Is bone deep in me
It’s the default position
Sometimes I can reason myself into bravery
If I have a second chance
Or a third
Sometimes I can be shamed into it
Sometimes I can’t
I’m not evil
I want to be brave
I’m not indifferent
I’m just afraid
THE CATERPILLAR
The caterpillar
Does not transform leg by leg
It sleeps, dreams, then flies
COUNTING HEARTBEATS
They used to go one, two, three
And keep on going just like that
Four, five, six, seventy beats a minute
Now I don’t know
Do I count the hiccups too
Or just the beats
Even the machines are confused
The heart stutters
But it goes on
Wounded
I used to be able to fix everything
Add a few vitamins, vegetables
A month or two of running and fasting
Good as new – or nearly so
A single year doesn’t show
But now I’m old
I look at young bodies moving and I’m amazed
They just keep on going
CHEMICALS
Chemicals give
Chemicals take
Chemicals do everything we do
Undo everything we do
Do it again
Differently
Do it again
Differently
You look back on a long life and wonder
What of the books, the projects
The questions I was going to answer
Maybe you ask yourself if it was worth it
Maybe you feel as if your life has been stolen away
Just as you were sliding into home plate, the game has been changed
You wonder if you were the big star or just the football – or just a fucking frisbee
Maybe you don’t ask any of these stupid questions because you don’t have the big ego, the look-at-me-look-at-me disease. Maybe you just wanted to be doing things, making a life, making a home, making a dinner salad, drinking wine with old friends after the long hard days of changing diapers and fighting on the streets for freedom.
But the chemicals come. Sooner or later, the chemicals always come.
GRASSHOPPER
Daddy was a grasshopper
He played the fiddle like nobody’s business
On Saturday night and Christmas Eve
In the good times
When he was on
He could show you in the palm of your own hand
Your heart’s desire glowing like the moon and stars
Daddy was a grasshopper
He played the fiddle all night long and slept in the afternoon
Daddy was a special treat
Not for every day
Not for every day
MY DAD AT WORKmaking phone calls, jotting down quotes
phone cradled on the shoulder like a violin
scraping of soft lead on blank newsprint paper
clatter of the press in the background
clatter of typewriters, clatter of laughter
white shirt stained with the ink of a thousand pens
blue eyes blue as a proofreaders penciled in notes
nose, face, chin, long as a lazy afternoon
lines trailing down, curving round the mouth
deep creases, the kind that come from laughing
as a habit, as a vocation, as a way of life
relaxed, sitting there talking into the phone
sucking down information
like black coffee on a smoke filled night
MOWING THE LAWN
Not the best way of controlling the weeds
Better to dig out the root
But the roots are deep
Cheaper to let them grow
And then mow them down
We regret the loss of every blade of grass
But they grow back
They always grow back
BILL GATES
Let’s hate Bill Gates
If he’s your mate
We’ll hate you too
He’s got his finger in every pie
His tongue is wrapped round every lie
Corona virus, vaccination
He’s the reason children die
Blow him up in a big balloon
Blot out the sun, blot out the moon
Bill is in the air, Bill is in the water
Who cares about this plonker
Whether it’s a Bill or a Tommy or Kate
When one of them goes
Another one grows
The world is full of greedy fools
But they don’t count
The dollar bill rules
Got a match?
BILL HICKS
Didn't just push buttons
He pushed buttons by speaking the truth
Most of the time
But even though he's one of my very few comedy heroes
I have to admit
He did do some pretty sexist shit too
You could argue that he had to do the sexist shit
He had to speak all, hold nothing back
That was the nature of his art and his power
I think I agree with that
He had to be honest
But he didn't have to be sexist
My theory of art
You are the reflection of the entire universe
From your own unique location
If you are totally honest
Your art will give a true picture of the universe
Even the things you say that are evil and disgusting
Will contribute to that true picture, because
– if you are totally honest –
The ugliness will tell the truth about you
PIG
You filthy pig
Fatty fatty two by four
Couldn't get through the bathroom door
So he let it out and licked it up
And let it out and licked some more
Napoleon is a friend of mine
He resembles Frankenstein
When he does a rig-a-jig
He resembles porky pig
Nah-nah nah-nah, nah-nah-nah
Nah-nah nah-nah, nah-nah-nah
A pig is a metaphor
Is a wild boar in a fairy tale
Who gores the prince
And sets him up to meet the princess
And free her from the clutches of the evil witches
It was a wild boar who ended the wars of religion in France when he got himself killed by Henry of Navarre, who saved the life of his cousin, King Henry the Third, and who ended up becoming King Henry the Fourth because of it, the first Protestant king in France, although he had to become a Catholic to get the crown, but after he got it, he wasn't so keen on killing his Protestant friends and relatives, and who could blame him? Certainly not the pig, because he was dead.
razorback, piggy back, piggy bank, piggy in the middle, in a pig's eye, pigs fly, living in a pig sty, eat like a pig, sweat like a pig, fuck like a, don't buy a pig in a poke,
pig ugly, pig-headed, pig latin, pig iron, pig skin, pig trotter, pork chop, bacon, guinea pig, pigtail, hog tie, hog wash, high on the hog wild, going the whole hog,
fat as a pig, dirty as a pig, slick as a greased ham gammon, squeal like a, feel like a, bleed like a lipstick on a stuck up piggily-wiggily, higgledy-piggledy, happy as a pig in shit
It was the Black Panther Party that coined the word “pig” as a term of abuse for the police. Eldridge Cleaver and Huey Newton are credited with coining the phrase, but it was Emory Douglas and his vivid drawings in the Party newspaper that burned the phrase into the Sixties consciousness and turned “the killer pig” into a metaphor for the entire political-economic establishment. A friend of a friend who worked as a temp for the city of Seattle spent six months in the police department. She said to my friend, “You know, back in the Sixties, everybody called them pigs and i went along with it, but now that i've been there for six months and gotten to know them as people… wow, they really are pigs.”
razorback, piggy back, piggy bank, piggy in the middle, in a pig's eye, pigs fly, living in a pig sty, eat like a pig, sweat like a pig, fuck like a, don't buy a pig in a poke,
pig ugly, pig-headed, pig latin, pig iron, pig skin, pig trotter, pork chop, bacon, guinea pig, pigtail, hog tie, hog wash, high on the hog wild, going the whole hog,
fat as a pig, dirty as a pig, slick as a greased ham gammon, squeal like a, feel like a, bleed like a lipstick on a stuck up piggily-wiggily, higgledy-piggledy, happy as a pig in shit
Bacon and pork sausage are two of the most unhealthy meats available to the modern cuisine. Besides all the undesirable chemicals, they have a lot of fat in them, and pork in general is considered to be unhealthy, unclean in some religions, and just too darn fatty even for atheists. But all that has changed in recent years. A lean cut of pork loin has about the same low fat content as white meat on a chicken. It used to be that living off the fat of the land was considered a good thing, but now thin is the new fat, pork is the new chicken, and nutritionists say we owe all this to the modern farm breeding techniques... But i think maybe it's just down to the fact that pigs are spending less time at Dunkin' Donuts.
razorback, piggy back, piggy bank, piggy in the middle, in a pig's eye, pigs fly, living in a pig sty, eat like a pig, sweat like a pig, fuc
IN THE SHADOWS
We come from many countries
On every wind we’re blown
We have one thing in common
It’s the British guns we’ve known
They plowed the earth with shells
But only bitter fruit has grown
I am homeless in your country
I was homeless in my own
The sun goes up
And the sun goes down
But it never sets
On the blood we drowned in
My parents lived in hate and fear
Of the mighty British flag
Now I’m standing in the shadow
Of that bloody butcher’s rag
When I imagined England
Every Englishman was fat
Every English home was warm and dry
And filled with spoiled brats
Now I stare across the fire
At the faces with me underneath this bridge
Some are english, some are foreign
In the shadows
You can’t tell which is which
In the shadows where the cold wind blows
In the shadows where the dying embers glow
In the shadows strange things grow
THE THREE AMOEBAS
a one act play
in a drop of water
supplies are running low
amoeba number one says
to amoeba number two
lets kill number three
we can eat all its food
then we can eat it too
yippee
the dawn of social cooperation
the biological root of altruism
the basic logic of survival in cutthroat competition
make friends fast
This is the last poem in Volume 4. LOVE.
Tomorrow new adventures begin.
MY SCRUFFY LITTLE ANGRY PERSON
Maybe we tried too hard to believe
We would go back to the early days
The days of youth and magic
We would re-live them to each other
Sort of rub them into our skin as inoculation
Against the difference in our bones
But still I lived in your smile
Lived to make you laugh
Shivered when you touched me
Just like in the movies
And I felt such tenderness
Such a great desire to take care of you
Give you all the love you missed, longed for
You, the sweet little girl and the wise old woman
I loved you both so much
I loved your voice, your eyes, your long smooth legs
That special hollow inside your hip bone
You gave that to me, said it was mine, my special place
I know you feel I betrayed you first
Maybe I did
But I never took me away from you
I couldn’t
Now I am saying goodbye to an empty room
The only way I could ever have said goodbye
With you already gone
TWELVE LITTLE GREY KITTENS
(from her journal)
Twelve little grey kittens came to visit me. Some of them climbed up onto the chair by the kitchen table. Some of them crawled into the cupboard under the sink. They wrestled on the floor like kittens - how clever of them. They stared up at me with little grey eyes, and I wondered if they were hungry. Should I buy them some cat food? Should I get chicken or fish? I don’t remember how they left... but when they were gone, David called me. I told him about the kittens and how they disappeared. I think he was worried, but I told him, “Don’t worry, David. They were only kittens – twelve little grey kittens – and they wanted to play.”
SUICIDE
do you remember crying out, striking out with pain and rage, trying to hurt me, not to hurt, but to make me feel, make me love, be sweet, be kind, and I would fight back. why did I fight back?
do you remember crying out, striking out with pain and rage, pounding against the walls, down in a dark hole, buried alive, and I would try to hold you, comfort you, love you, but nobody, nothing could, until I gave up and cried like a baby, and you would stop in the middle of all this, you would stop and reach out with your sweet, mothering, lover's voice and say - don't cry, david.
do you remember this? oh love, my sweet, good love. I am crying now. not a performance, not for show, only you can stop me. please don't go.
BITTER BITTER BITTER
River ocean lava stream
Feel the sweet sickness grow
I wound myself over and over
Stab the words into my heart
You call me dear friend
Holding on, grabbing me
Will you kiss me or spit on me
Lick my cheek or shred it
I see the little girl and want to hold her
Sweet little girl who needs to be loved
Sweet little girl so funny and loving
Smile like a sunrise, light up my heart
I wrap my love around you and feel the serpent bite
I look at you, look away, look at you, look away
But you are first always, no others, no one else even comes close
And I am always second, always the promise of first, if only I would measure up, not raise my voice, not get excited or angry, only be calm, but I am the wind roaring, I love you in the wrong way, always the wrong way, never good enough, never right, never sweet enough, did you know that I love you, just you, just you as you are, not you the way you should be, not you the way I want you to be, not like a tap I turn on and off, just love you, but you never love me, are never satisfied, no never satisfied all the way, or never satisfied for long, I do the wrong thing and you bring in your army of friends and doctors and shrinks who have all certified me as self obsessed, abusive, narcissistic, not capable of love, you beat me with words every day, every night, your words, their words, my wrong words, you call me and lay your life in my hands, you would be well if it weren’t for me, my fault, I have stabbed you, and I have, but I have stabbed you as much by being me, as by being who I should not be, and I am wounded, sinking, drowning, maybe I am no worse now, maybe I am even better for the love I almost had, really did have I thought, but how could that be if it is gone now, surely a love like that would last forever, wounded biting scratching bleeding, god how I miss you, read your words dripping down the screen, body fluids, body fluids, how you hated body fluids, but they are drying up now, cracking the screen into little pieces, I look at you every night and the words stare back at me, stab at me, dry up and turn to dust in my eyes, blind me with shame that I was not good enough for you, time to grow old and die, time to grow old and watch tv, time to go up in smoke, they told me to take care of myself, did you know that, take care of yourself the doctors said, don’t just worry about her all the time, you’ve got to take care of yourself too, and it seemed funny to me that anyone would think that I was in danger, I am a rock not easy to break, and you were so hurt, so hurt all the time, and I just wanted you to feel better, feel free to go out and do your great deeds, I believed in you, in your talent, in your destiny, I still think you will rise up from the grave and amaze everyone, you did it all the time in little ways, and I know the big amaze is still coming, and I wanted to be there with you, the two of us, the amazing two, take care of yourself they told me, but I thought I would be fine if I could just, I don’t know, set you free, keep you warm, feed you breakfast, tie your shoes, pat your head, kiss you on the cheek and walk down the road holding your hand.
FROG
I thought i was a normal boy
Sure I lived under a bridge
Avoided the sunlight
Had trouble talking to girls
But i thought i had A good heart
I’d done a few mean things
Back when i was really young
But most kids do that, don’t they
I knew i was lazy, was good to people
Mostly because i wanted them to like me
But i did want them to be happy too
It’s hard to untangle these things
How lazy, how kind, how selfish, how sweet
I guess i gave myself the benefit of the doubt
I would come out under the stars and sing
I thought it was music. I thought my green slimy skin
Was soft and beautiful as i glided through the water
I used to love to sing in the night
I guess i sang for me
But i imagined i was singing for the stars
Now i look at the water and see my ugly green face staring up at the moonlight
Now i look at the water and see your drowned white body shimmering in the current
Now i look at the water and... Sometimes i blame you
Didn’t you ask me to sing?
Didn’t you listen and clap your hands?
Was i so horrible for wanting to tell the world you loved me?
You took the words out of my heart and put them on my lips
You made them so beautiful that even the stars listened when i sang
How could i stop singing?
HABANERA
The air, the ice
Everything is light
Like an alpine flower
Before the avalanche
The sudden collapse
The sudden collapse
I remember you
As a three year old
Riding on your swing
Chubby legs pushing
Up into the sky
Wearing a grin
OLD AGE
Old age is when time is not long enough
To find someone and get to know them
To get so close that your whole life
Is filtered through their eyes
Old age comes suddenly when someone dies
But old age is always a surprise
Even when you’ve been lonely all your life
Even when you know it will never change
Even when you know there is nothing more to come
Old age is always a surprise.
I thought i had buried you in time
An old sweet wound
You belonged to someone else
But the pain was mine.
Then you came to life
And loved me for a thousand days
And i woke up in the valley called old age
GHOST
I imagined it was you there
Sitting across the table
Telling me about your dead brother
Tears in your eyes, tears in mine
I was sitting across from you
And at the same time
Looking over your shoulder from the grave
I imagined I was dead
And you were weeping for me
Asking a stranger, “What can we do?”
And I had no answer. Of course not
I was your dead brother
Looking over your shoulder from the grave
My mouth was filled with cold earth
And i was weeping for you
DANCING WITH MOTHER
Last night I dreamt I was dancing with
my mother and everything was alright
She was laughing and having a good time
and she wasn’t mad at me. The whole family
was there – except for Dad – and Bri and
Anne and Rob were clapping as I tried
to kick off my shoes and not stumble
And when I did fall against her breast
it wasn’t sexual – she was my mother –
everybody laughed. Mom was having such
a good time, and I remembered that she
used to be a girl. She used to giggle and play
just like my sisters, just like you
I tried to remember the last time I had seen
Mom dancing – and I couldn’t. Do you remember
Your mother dancing? I think mothers should
Do lots of dancing. I think they would be happier
Not so angry. Not so sad.
THE PERFECT CANDLE
Love does not calculate
It does not count the tears
Or the beads of sweat
It cries, it sweats
The joy is not measured
Not weighed or compared
Love looks straight ahead
Neither to the left nor the right
It sees no lost chances
No missed opportunities
It reaches out with open hands
Open arms
Wraps them around the beloved
And holds on forever
It burns
Like the flame of a perfect candle
In the stillness of the heart
But my heart was never still
Never whole
Cracked open, i think
In the time before memory was formed
The wind blew through the cracks
And though the flame never died
It was not constant
I counted everything
I looked everywhere
I held onto you as if you were life itself
But at the same time, i pushed you away
I do not know how i could do this
Or why
I only know the cracks would not mend
And i hurt you with every breath of wind
I TRIED NOT TO THINK ABOUT IT
I guess I tried not to think about it for the entire time we were together. It seemed disloyal, like I was tempting you into something and then judging you for giving in. The fact that you had given in before me, to someone else… I didn’t like to think about that. It took away the magic, the fairy taleness of it all. I just enjoyed being with you so much – when you weren’t angry, or hurt. And you were so goddamned beautiful. You sparkled. But not like a movie star, not like a model, more like a mountain trail. Does that make sense? Kind of green and brown and surprising, always a new twist and turn. Like a chipmunk or a squirrel that seems just cute and lovable, and then I’d turn and catch you in the corner of my eye, and I’d see angel wings and a bright light. The beauty of a great hidden sorrow. Sweetness and sorrow, the quicksand of need, such deep, heartbreaking need, dancing naked in the sunlight. I wanted to cover you with my arms, my mouth, my body, protect you from burning. But I was bleeding already, not so sweet, not so beautiful, but bright and glittering with need, hungry for love, hungry for you. We were both of us the moth and the flame to each other. How could such a thing ever happen more than once? It defied the laws of nature to even think about it. And so I didn’t. I lived in the fairy tale. Not perfect – far from it – the beast, the prince, the toad. I was never quite what you wanted, but sometimes… when you touched me in a crowded room, when we were naked and alone, sometimes even when we were thousands of miles apart, I thought I could save you. I thought you could save me.
SALMON SONG
Green eyes
See, I remember
What the memory loses
Stays in the bone
What turns brittle with age
Still shivers in the light
I think of the forest
The cool green fir
The sparkling stream
The white water rapids
The deep blue lake
I always knew you were not for me
But I was drawn
You were my song
Singing in the mountains, calling to the sea
Ok here is the deal: you were, are beautiful, long limbed, graceful like the perfect dancer, like a wise woman of the ancient times, you carried the child in you, growing, glowing out of your eyes, out of the pores in your skin, out of your mouth, out of your finger tips, sticky sweet with love, fragrant and light as a sunrise on a summer morning, laughter like a waterfall, fragile as a lost faun in the dark forest, distant as the snow on the mountains, and then close and warm and caring, the warm breath of mother love, the warm breath of hot sex, the warm breath of a lifetime’s companionship counted in secrets and children and commitment, and see how I have just now written myself out of this without wanting to, hating the words as they fall on the page, lovely and doomed, I always knew you were not for me, but I was drawn. You were my song singing in the mountains, calling to the sea.
STEPHANIE RUHLE
Stephanie Ruhle
You’re so cool
Maybe I drool
But only because i respect your intellect
Your sense of humour
And the way you interact with what’s his name
I like the give and take
The easy partnership
Not like that other couple
Which is kind of hard to watch
It sounds like you’re a really good mom
That is such a turn on
You seem normal in a really sexy way
Like everything I’m missing
By being strange
LOCKDOWN LIBERATION
All my life I have found it hard to make relationships, hard to be in love, harder still to let myself be loved. And I have always felt… guilty, inadequate, judged – by myself as well as everyone else – for being alone. Those few times when I have been in a love relationship have been supremely important to me. I have learned so much from those I have loved. Every break up has hurt me a lot, but even in the middle of each one, I knew that it was a small price to pay for the richness that love had brought into my life.
But also, I was using love as a cover, as validation, as proof that I was a normal boy. And I never was normal, not even close. Maybe that’s why the loves never lasted – I was trying to cash in on love, rather than just… loving.
The lockdown – and old age – has freed me from this. Not all the way – a lot of who we are never changes – but I don’t feel the weight of expectation or judgement now. I have always enjoyed my own company, but now I’ve noticed this, maybe for the first time, noticed how much I enjoy being alone. Maybe I will be alone for the rest of my life. Maybe not. I think I’m at peace with either way. We’ll see.
FIELD RESEARCH
I think I would start with the back of your knees
I've never been there before, not with anyone
I would nibble and kiss like a hungry kitten
I think I would have to kiss your ankle
The one you broke so badly
A thousand kisses for every break
Would that be enough?
I know i would slide up the inside of your thighs
Silky and smooth, north and south
Skin to skin, mouth to mouth
I would stare up at you
Through the forest of your hair
And though my heart would be bursting full
I would lick you up like a hungry wolf
Then I would fold you in half, gather you in my arms
Spread you wide as springtime
Butter you with kisses
And fill you with my love
TO GUINEVERE WHOM I LOVE SO MUCH
To Guinevere whom i love so much
Who is so far away
Lost in a photograph
Twisting in a memory
Who sleeps with a mattress on the floor
So the monsters can’t hide under her bed
How i wanted to be the one to protect you
But you are grown now
Strong
As only those who have lived a full life can be
You have a son to love and protect you
A daughter to love and fight with
A husband i’d rather not think of
And i’m going back to see you as if thirty years
Have no more power than a bad dream
Wake up
The monsters are still there
Hiding under my bed now
Will you save me
PHOTOGRAPH
I imagine you sitting there at the table
Behind you. It is the table i look at. You are
Hidden in the foreground, in the shadows
Framing the dining room like the pillar beside
You. I imagine you sitting at the table, growing
Not old – the shadows wash away the lines
That must be there. Tulips, roses, something
Flowery in front of you. I imagine you sitting
There at the table for years. Did you paint
The room, choose the colours. What is it like
To be a mother? I turn the light up on my desk
A face can be like a word repeated over
And over until it loses all meaning. Are you
About to laugh? Even the ceiling makes me lonely
With the light streaming onto it through the window
i was studying rat psychology at the time
so i guess it was fair dues
“it doesn’t matter what’s inside the box
only what goes in and what comes out”
but i wanted to know what was inside
what made you smile
not just the output
the inside
the truth
i know it was wrong
i remember staring into your eyes
open up, let me in
the mona lisa mile
the eyes are not windows
they are walls
CATHOLIC LOVE
We lie on our bed and stare out at the terns diving into the deep
Rising with beaks flashing silver in the sunlight
Birds feeding for our amusement, fish dying for our amusement
We hear the crows laugh and the bed shakes and the empty wine glasses rattle
I open my mouth to you and swallow the sea
You are my childhood sin, the priest I lied to, the nuns I defied
You in your white dress and holy communion smile
Ten years on and two hundred miles before I would find you
Seven years old and the age of reason swallowed us up like a bible plague
How to corrupt what the young believe in and coin it into a power base
Cover the world with true religion, fill a young heart with guilt and shame
Stuff a young throat with catechism and light the fuse with grief and rage
Lock me up in a dark confessional, talking to a priest through a metal cage
Why do you have to know so much about me, why do I have to believe your lies
Why did you put this beast inside me, do you think you’re safe
Two hundred miles away is the big city
Only two hundred miles and I can be free
Two hundred million people in this big country
And nobody knows me, nobody knows, nobody hears
The melodies bubbling up between my ears
Plato and Socrates, Heffner and Jack the Ripper
Over the mountains and across the river
Out of the desert and into the trees. Are you running with me, Jesus
You and your nuns and priests, you and your sin and sacrifice
You and your twisted love, you and your everything I don’t believe in
But can’t get free of. I am a prisoner in my own heart.
Then everything stopped
I was staring at a girl with dark hair and green eyes, and she was staring at me
Staring into me, and all the secrets and lies, the dreams and ambition, we both of us
Could see them. We shivered in the cold morning light with the shock of recognition
Who are you
How do you know me
And if you know me
How can you love me
And I ran.
I was afraid of you, of the way you knew me, the you in me/me in you
We were too close, too soon, too young, and I was too dumb to know what I was losing
I crossed mountains and rivers, oceans and continents
I played music in a thousand cities, I sang on the street for nickels and dimes
Too late, your children, too late, your husband, too late, the lost time like an angry river
And I come sailing back to you, your demon lover, your love like a wound
I sink down into the stigmata of your lips. What else but evil could be such bliss
Yet oh what a miracle is the ocean of your eyes, your hot wet skin, your tangled limbs
Your storm tossed cries, and I am the sailor of a million lost ships
Drowning in your kiss
This is the fifth of five poems I wrote when I was 14 and off in the seminary, studying to be a Catholic priest. (The first two were at the beginning of this series.)
NIGHTMARE
deep in your head
deep in your mind
a shadow peers out
through an open lid
it howls at the walls
that encase your head
it scrapes at the bones
of your skull
it yearns for the day
of your body's decay
it waits for the death
of your soul
do you run, do you hide
do you try to forget
the shadow is faster yet
This is the fourth of five poems I wrote when I was 14 and off in the seminary, studying to be a Catholic priest. (The first two were at the beginning of this series.)
THE BALLAD OF EAST AND WEST
If i were half the man
Who lives within my dreams
Or half the fool who dreams him
Then i would close my eyes
Cast off my fear
And leap
And if i did not fall
Or if my head
Came down before my feet
It would be over then
And fool and man would meet
This is the third of five poems I wrote when I was 14 and off in the seminary, studying to be a Catholic priest. (The first two were at the beginning of this series.)
THE BALLAD OF EAST AND WEST
If i were half the man
Who lives within my dreams
Or half the fool who dreams him
Then i would close my eyes
Cast off my fear
And leap
And if i did not fall
Or if my head
Came down before my feet
It would be over then
And fool and man would meet
THE SORCERER
I bed with stars
As distant as my soul
And sup with stones
As frozen as my heart
You call me wise
And follow at my heel
But like the fool
I only play my part
I am a prophet
Hear me cry
From out the deep of hell
A seer with no god am I
And i know suffering very well
FROM THE TIME BEFORE RELIGION
From the time before religion when wonder was born
To wood nymph and water sprite, sun god and thunder storm
We looked out into the galaxy, dug deep into the atom
And god retreated into the blue hills of abstraction
We went looking for love in the moon and the stars
We went looking for god
Instead we found us
We dreamed of a world less cruel
Before we could clothe it in words
We cradled it in our arms
Nursed it on our breast
Buried it with our dead
Watered it with our tears
And when the green shoots of our longing blossomed into speech
We wove such tales of wonder and consequence
Every parable and myth, even our commandments
Came dripping with the sweat of the wonders we would do
But only if we understood that the stories were not true
Until we made them true, here on earth
THE MILK OF HUMAN KINDNESS
Mothered by the universe
We sucklings
Greedy for love
Taught by hunger
To step out of our skin into another
A river, a mountain, a tiger, a lover
What would they feel
What would they do
If I do this
Or this
The connection is more than mental
It’s in the bone
In the limbic ocean
Flowing in our veins
Not smooth
It is mountain and earthquake
Avalanche and snow
But it flows
From spring and raindrop
To river
To ocean
And the finest mist
Rises to the clouds
And rains down
Into our open mouths
This was a real movie. It was laughably cheesy, and I stuck with it only because it was late at night and nothing else was on. When I wrote this description, I was intending a piss-take, but something happened in the writing, and now I can’t read through it without tears coming to my eyes.
I SAW THIS MOVIE…
I saw this movie where the forces of the devil were killing all the six year old children for fear that one of them would grow up to be good, and there was this one little girl who was really good, and they wanted to kill her so bad, and her mother tried to save her but she was just a single mother and the forces of the devil were very strong, they were too strong for the mother and she was all alone, but every time they almost succeeded in killing the mother and child, a stranger would appear, a different stranger every time, but each one of them looked like a really nice person and they would do something to help, something small and insignificant, but at just the right time and just the right place, and it was always just enough for the mother and child to get away, and finally the forces of evil were defeated because the little girl was so very good and her mother loved her so very much and there was a whole convent of nuns praying for them night and day, and there was one good cop, more than a cop, he was an FBI agent, a good FBI Agent, how about that! And together they saved the world, and made it safe for all the children in it, and I couldn’t help thinking all the obvious things, like… were there enough nuns in enough convents to pray for all the children in Iraq, and would god give a shit, because after all even if they were such very good children and their mothers loved them so very much, and maybe there would even be a good CIA agent, how about that! But how many good strangers are there in the world, are there enough, and can they do just the right thing at just the right time, even if it’s small and insignificant, could they do that, could it be enough, are there enough nuns, are there enough good strangers, do you think we could find even one good cop? We probably could. At least one. Would that be enough?
THE CHURCH OF THE UNIVERSAL WOW!
When you try to get back to the beginning, to what happened before things started happening, you get to the point where there is no why. Science doesn’t have an answer to this because it isn’t really a question. It’s bigger than a question. All you can do is say WOW!
postscriptheidegger asked why are there things rather than nothing?
why not? = the end of theology
there is only science and wow
everything else is gilding the lily
and actually, even gilding the lily is part of the wow
disco jesusalways pleases
she knows he is
he knows she’s his
disco jesus
always pleases
she knows he is
he knows she’s his
disco jesus
always pleases
she knows he is
he knows she’s his
disco jesus
always pleases
she knows he is
he knows she’s his
disco jesus
always pleases
she knows he is
he knows she’s his
disco jesus
PRAYER
and the holy dove turns into a bald eagle, into a warplane, into a screech owl, is the terror, is the killing, is the dying, is the prey, is the predator, is the sin, is the tiny patch of longing for the sweetness of love, of giving, of caring for someone, something, anything other than the me that i hold onto, that i care about more than any living thing, is the dead weight of me, is the desire to be, the desire to be worth, and i think of kirsty, of carolyn, of caitlin, of my sisters, of my little brother that i betrayed, ran away from, abandoned, couldn’t love, couldn’t love enough, is the baby drowning on the beach, always coming back to the babies, the easy tug at the heartstring, is the music of a world that is more than me, that goes on after me, is the hooded wish to, wish, to wish to, want to, story story story take me, make me, me me me me me…
there are those i know who love in a way that escapes the me me me, i, who have all this magic, all these gifts that i use, trying to do good, but not with good intent, only with the claws of a hungry hunger, wanting to be loved, to be held, to be sex in a bottle, fermented mischief, wickedness baptised in the holy font of a typeface, two-face, caritas, sidewalk flower growing up out of a crack in the ego solo, riding a broomstick, clean sweeping with a hammer and popsicle, floating on a sea of the me me me me me me…
there are those i know who love because they love, not because they want to be loved, not just love hungry, but because they see soul, they cherish, hold close, closer than life, closer than death, kind all over, kind deep down inside, and brave – without bravery love is nothing – and i can sing their praise, i can see their wings, i see-dream their dream, but no not never holy me, never feel their heat, never bleed their bleed, never give the way they give, i am sick and twisted, but i can see the spring bloom booming around the me me me, moses looking down at the promised land, but never setting foot, because my feet are stones holding me down, down deep, and i can never sing the pure sweet song of the dispossessed, glue sniffing demons cackle with demented sarcasm mocking at the me me me me me…
on a good night, i can catch the easy cry of a child in a code on a keyboard, but no never crack the sidewalk chalk-mark ghost of the me me me, i can never tell the good story, not from deep inside, but i can see it in you, i can almost touch it, maybe even bring it to life, not because it is there in me, so… not coming from the core, so… hollow and empty in a way, but on the page maybe, where the hard body does not live, but only suggests, gives an impression, maybe there the ghost skeleton is enough for you to read into it the honest love that i am missing but can almost catch, almost write down, and in the almost, maybe you can read a soul, not because it is there, but with enough of the almost, maybe i can lay it down on a page for you to pick up and breath into it.
this is my prayer
that my life so smothered i ego can find meaning
not rest, but purpose, usefulness
because you can see in me what isn’t there but almost is
please find these words and glue them together with the courage i wish for you
because i want it to be me.
PIECES OF LOVE
Pasted over a neverending blanket of
White emptiness. Flecks of blood on the snow
Now I remember, this is the mortal sin I learned about in grade school
The root of all sin, the temptation that brought Satan from heaven to hell
That made him a kingdom all his own
The blood is frozen and cold
God comes and goes
He nothing owes
I think love must be like
waking up in the morning, and you’re tired, bone weary, and you just want to close
your eyes, crawl back into the warm bed and sleep. So many pleasant dreams are
waiting. But your eyes stay open, and your numb fingers button on the scratchy
clothes. You force down a cup of coffee and a slice of bread. You open the door and
push out into the wind. It slaps your face, and the tears that come are real tears,
work tears, giving up your life tears, and there’s a job to do, a wage to earn, a mouth
to feed that’s not your own. Love comes in the early dawn. It wakes up in the wind. It
lives and breathes because you don’t close your eyes, you don’t sleep, and the
mouth you feed is not your own.
But maybe that’s wrong. Too narrow. Too sad. Only showing one half. The tired
bones. The hungry mouth. What of joy. What of sunlight and blossom. What of the
life that grows on the other side of the mouth. The child. The parent. The person.
The whole entire world of another person, another kingdom not your own, and so,
wonderful and mysterious, fertile with surprise. And here, you are another kind of
god, giving and receiving, not worshipped, not alone, not frozen, not numb, not hidden under the blanket with your own sterile dreams.
ANGEL KISS
I had this intense dream last night where an alien creature – it turned out later that it was Satan – was killing off all my friends, one by one. We tried to stop it, but it seemed to have these supernatural powers, it could do amazing things, we were helpless in the face of it.
Then I was drinking in a bar, trying to forget, I imagine, and this beautiful woman – it turned out later that she was an angel – came up to me and said, “The creature has no real power, not the kind that could kill anyway. God wouldn’t give it that kind of power. She loves you too much. She maybe even loves the creature too much – to give it the weight of such power. The creature can only deceive you and turn you against each other. You are killing yourselves.”
Then it was like the phrase in the Bible – the scales fell away from our eyes. The creature had no power over us. We were free, maybe not safe yet, but free. Then the angel kissed me. I looked into her eyes. I saw you.
FUNERAL TODAY
Everything has changed
It used to be in Latin
Now it’s in English
Makes sense, I guess
It rhymes with gibberish
So much kindness and love
Mixed in with sin and blood
I used to sit, silent and grim
Today I tried to sing the hymns
I didn’t take communion
But I went up for a blessing
My friend was dead
So he wouldn’t care
I bowed my head
In atheist prayer
SISTER MARY
Sister Mary teaches us how to love
Jesus and write our abc's in big letters
On a green blackboard. Buzz buzz
In the cloakroom and Sister is sick
And tired of telling us to shut up
What does she expect? We're six years old
And full of our own piss and vinegar.
Good luck, Sister. I hope you're not too
Cold down there in the dark mouldy space
That isn't what you promised us
Isn't what you promised yourself either
Innocent children with an innocent teacher.
Face it Mary. They trained you to be good deceiver
But i still grew up to be an unbeliever
THE MORTAL SIN COMPLEX
Once you’ve had your first hot fudge sundae, you are going to hell, which is infinite pain and agony for all eternity
You can’t
Trump
That
So between that first mortal sin and the next time you go to confession, begin your next diet, and get your sins washed away, you are a fool if you don’t
Pig out
THE PROTETANT WAY
If you wanna do something that you know you shouldn't do, but you wanna do it anyway, then think about it. Think about it some more. Consider it from all sides, from every angle. If you think about it long enough, you can come up with a reason why it’s okay to do it, not only okay to do it, but you should do it. In fact, it’s your obligation as a member of the human race to do this very thing. It’s part of why you were put on earth. It’s your mission in life.
THE CATHOLIC WAY
If you wanna do something that you know you shouldn't do, but you wanna do it anyway, then do it and feel guilty about.
FATHER SHUFFLEMEIR - part two
but it wasn’t that simple
it couldn’t be
because you were complicit
you had to be
I guess this is part two
with no music
silent night
smell the incense
latin mass and black robes
I remember all the little things that were so wonderful
missa luba high up in the mountains
a little coal mining town just like the one my sister was born in
I was on my way to the happiest year of my life
for one whole year my heart was at peace
I did god’s will
no shoplifting
no masturbation
every morning I would talk to jesus
every night
before and after meals
and in the evening, I would study and write poetry
and I had the best teachers, wonderful teachers
a college of wise young men who read diary of a country priest
and tried not to despair
I was on my way to the happiest year of my life
and we detoured to visit you up there in your lonely exile
your mountain stronghold
you played us missa luba
jesus and africa
I told you what father haspides had said
that in the seminary they called you
the mad dutchman
and you said
I won’t tell you what we called him
he’s going to be your teacher
and you must have respect
silent night
because it was all a lie
marx called it the heart of a heartless world
maybe because sometimes the heart must lie
but that doesn’t make it true
my sister never liked you
Father Shufflemeir
instructions for the band (but only for part one)
start this lightly
in a major key
climbing and climbing, higher and higher, gradually building up momentum until you reach a crescendo and come to a sudden
halt
a pause for thought
then you begin again
this time in a minor key
steady
more deliberate
an army of the dead, risen from the grave and marching for justice
father shufflemeir
could he ever kick a ball
kick a ball kick a ball
brother could he kick a ball
father could he kick a ball
football soccer ball
whatever you call it he could kick it
it was irish rules
irish american rules
which is to say no fucking rules at all
I pick up the ball and you smash me in the face and take it away then I kick you in the kneecap and take it back, there we were bleeding all over the football field and he would lift up his cassock and dance around us like an irish angel like a mad dutchman, none of us could touch him, it was only the once he did it, only to show us, only because his spirit was flying high, a little too high that day and he couldn’t rein it in, he had to let it go, let us know what he could do, what was possible, the beautiful glorious wonderful possibilities of a wild spirit of an untamed heart, I remember I remember I remember it forever because it wasn’t just a football field, it wasn’t just a game, it wasn’t just that day, it was a brief glimpse of infinity he gave us before they locked him away in a mountain stronghold, he had a wild love of true and dangerous ideas and we were dead meat on a football field waiting to grow old get drunk and fuck until he showed us the mountain top dancing in the lightning with only the stars for a limit and only one rule to whom much is given
much is expected
he was the first in a long line of priests and nuns who led me out of the desert who came down from the mountaintops of peru, back from the fields of africa breathing fire and anger at the bastards who had murdered and pillaged their flock in the name of america the beautiful in the name of a lost russian revolution in the name of betrayed god christ crucified by his own popes cardinals and movie stars, I look at the life you led and I am ashamed of the little I have done
I wrote this around 15 years ago about a friend of mine, a sweet guy and a wonderful songwriter – a victim of the Christian Brothers in Ireland. A couple years later, his family asked me to speak it at his funeral.
The first time I performed this – at the Poetry Cafe in London – two other poets got up after and defended the Christian Brothers. I remember one of them said, "I went to a Christian Brothers school here in London, and there wasn't a one of them I wouldn't be glad to sit down with and have a beer right now."
The first time i performed it in the US, it was at an Italian-American poetry event in NYC. I was doing it along with a very anti-american poem about 9/11, and it was a less than a year after 9/11. I'd always thought of Italian-Americans as very patriotic and I was kind of worried the 9/11 poem. After i'd finished my set, the president of the society stormed over to my table, pointed his finger at me and said, "You have to promise me one thing. You have to promise you'll do that Christian Brothers poem at every show on your tour. Those bastards can't be allowed to get away with what they've done."
Blackbird
It was the orphans who got it bad from those bastards - the ones who had no one to look after them, no one to notice the bruises and broken limbs, no one to notice if they disappeared. The Christian Brothers were an organisation of sadists and pederasts, but in Ireland and elsewhere they had two sides – there were also lots of really good teachers who ran the posh prep schools that trained half the rulers of the Irish state.
My friend Tom was put in a christian brothers home when he was eleven years old. He was beaten and tortured, but his mother and sisters were still alive, so compared to the orphans, he 'had it good'. He said you would see a kid in the hallways who had become small and withdrawn, who would jump at sudden noises, and you would know that they had started in on him.
A few years ago, the rulers of the Irish state flew my friend Tom back to his old school to show them where the bodies were buried. There is talk of him getting money in compensation - big, big money - but so far as i know, it hasn't happened yet.
The Christian Brothers murdered my friend
He walks the streets and writes songs
Beautiful songs that break your heart
But he is dead, long dead
He waits for the time they will cart him away
He drinks Tennants and Special Brew
And has long since abandoned his wife
His son, his chances, all his wonderful chances
He's a selfish bastard
But no one blames him very much
In my courtyard there is a blackbird who has come unstuck in time
He wakes us hours before dawn and sings his heart out
Only to fall silent long before the sun has thought of coming up
This morning, he woke me at three a.m.
I thought of Tom and wrote this down
This is probably the nastiest, most offensive poem I’ve ever written. I love it. Not many do. I’ve only ever performed it live once – at an event where I used to perform regularly. They haven’t asked me back since. When I wrote it, Joey the Rat was Pope. Now it’s Francis, a much nicer guy by all accounts. But he’s still the Pope.
PSYCHOPOPE
Psychopope
He’s dope
Swinging on a rope
Ringing that bell
Ding dong dell
Psychodad
He’s bad
Hot and bothered
Holy father
Is he evil
Or is he just mad
‘cause you been getting
What he ain’t had
Psychoprick
He’s thick
Swollen head
Bloated with puke and sick
Thinks you’re gonna sing hallelujah
When he gets ready
To sock it to ya’
The rest of these religion poems won't be chronological, because i can't remember which was when. Clearly, this one was written after I'd left the Catholic Church - as were all the ones to come.
IN A CATHOLIC CHURCH
In a Catholic church with a crucifix on the wall
I used to get down on my knees and learn to crawl
I’d whisper secrets in the dark confessional
Every priest I ever loved has found a friend in alcohol
In a Catholic church where every glass is stained
I reached the age of reason when I learned to be ashamed
There’s a room with no windows in a house with no door
In a stone cold prison that don’t even need bars
And I don’t know what’s inside it, when they built it I was small
But I know that something’s missing and they’ve nailed it to the wall
In a Catholic church where Jesus waits for me
I tried to love him so I wouldn’t burn in eternity
I tried to be just what he wanted me to be
And I counted sins just like nails in his hands and feet
In the land of the living when I look back on the past
And I tell myself you’ve seen some shit but now you’re free at last
Then I try to remember what I was before the fall
But I know that something’s missing and they’ve nailed it to the wall
In a Catholic church
I was 19 when i wrote this, still a believing Catholic, but starting to ask questions... Well, I always asked questions, but I was starting to open my mind to possibility of different answers.
This is the second of two poems i wrote when i was 14, away from home in the seminary, studying to be a Catholic priest.
PERPETUAL ADORATION
I kneel before your face
And look and try to see
In all your form some trace
Of concrete majesty
But nothing, only common bread
Is there in front of me
And only paper tears are shed
For gold I cannot see
This is the first of two poems i wrote when i was 14, away from home in the seminary, studying to be a Catholic priest.
FAITH
it seems that when I’m walking towards the glowing sun
I either have to close my eyes and trust my feet to find the path
Or doubtful, stop, and turn my steps another way
Welcome to volume 3 – religion.
I’m gonna start out with poems from when I was a kid and then gradually work up into old age. At the beginning there will be poems that are very specifically about Christianity and Catholicism, because that’s how I was raised. Gradually, they’ll get more general and more philosophical. Some of them, but not all of them, will be angry and bitter. At least one will be downright offensive, something I wouldn’t ever write about Buddhism or Islam or any other religion, because I didn’t grow up in them. I don’t have the right to speak. Even though they probably deserve just as much anger and bitterness, I can’t speak about it from the inside. Christianity, Catholicism, I think I have the right to speak. Anyway, I’ll start tomorrow with a poem from when I was fourteen years old.
As ever, thank you for listening.
NAZIS NEED JEWS, by David Lee Morgan: a series of 9 poems, first performed at the Morecambe Fringe Festival, where it won the prize for Best Spoken Word Show, further developed at the Edinburgh Fringe, and now published by LONDON POETRY BOOKS..
1. Don’t Stay In Your Lane
2. Conspiracy
3. Antisemitism
4. Bigotry: a user’s manual (chapter two)
5. Israel
6. Palestine
7. Building a Nation on Stolen Land
8. The Enemy of my Enemy is not my Friend
9. Communism
I started writing this show out of anger at the way the charge antisemitism was being used as a bludgeon against those who were critical of Israel, but also out of horror at the resurrection of antisemitic ideas that I thought had died out with the defeat of Nazism after WW2.
Conspiracy theory is not wrong because it is untrue – many theories are true, many are false – it is wrong because it is only one piece of the puzzle. It is a necessary but not sufficient explanation for the evils of capitalism. Nobody is in control, not even the greedy bastards on top. I wanted to do a case study of antisemitism because it is the granddaddy of all conspiracy theory.
"Communism" is the ninth and final in a series of 9 poems, condensed from the show, NAZIS NEED JEWS, first performed at the Morecambe Fringe Festival, where it won the prize for Best Spoken Word Show, further developed at the Edinburgh Fringe, and now published by LONDON POETRY BOOKS. It’s a study of conspiracy, antisemitism, Nazis, Jews, Israel, Palestine, and the possibility of worldwide revolutionary change. The poems form a kind of a narrative, so I ask you to listen to them in order and to reserve judgement until the final poem. Thank you for listening.
"The Enemy of my Enemy is not my Friend" is the eighth in a series of 9 poems, condensed from the show, NAZIS NEED JEWS, first performed at the Morecambe Fringe Festival, where it won the prize for Best Spoken Word Show, further developed at the Edinburgh Fringe, and now published by LONDON POETRY BOOKS. It’s a study of conspiracy, antisemitism, Nazis, Jews, Israel, Palestine, and the possibility of worldwide revolutionary change. The poems form a kind of a narrative, so I ask you to listen to them in order and to reserve judgement until the final poem. Thank you for listening.
"Building a Nation on Stolen Land" is the seventh in a series of 9 poems, condensed from the show, NAZIS NEED JEWS, first performed at the Morecambe Fringe Festival, where it won the prize for Best Spoken Word Show, further developed at the Edinburgh Fringe, and now published by LONDON POETRY BOOKS. It’s a study of conspiracy, antisemitism, Nazis, Jews, Israel, Palestine, and the possibility of worldwide revolutionary change. The poems form a kind of a narrative, so I ask you to listen to them in order and to reserve judgement until the final poem. Thank you for listening.
"Palestine" is the sixth in a series of 9 poems, condensed from the show, NAZIS NEED JEWS, first performed at the Morecambe Fringe Festival, where it won the prize for Best Spoken Word Show, further developed at the Edinburgh Fringe, and now published by LONDON POETRY BOOKS. It’s a study of conspiracy, antisemitism, Nazis, Jews, Israel, Palestine, and the possibility of worldwide revolutionary change. The poems form a kind of a narrative, so I ask you to listen to them in order and to reserve judgement until the final poem. Thank you for listening.
PALESTINEThe Levant
The Land bridge
Connecting the River Nile to the Tigris and Euphrates
From Egypt to Mesopotamia, you were the trade route
You were the battleground, you were the crossroad
For an astounding number of kingdoms and cultures
And it wasn’t just north and south between the two empires
It was up and down between the hill tribes and the flatlands
The Jordan Rift on one side
And the Mediterranean on the other
A long thin microcosm of everything
That was happening across the planet
Condensed
Toughened up by constant war
Driven out of the plains and up into the hills
But then always coming back down again
And like everywhere else
When women and men of different cultures get together
They tend to do what women and men of the same culture do
They fuck
They make babies
And they make new ideas
Egypt, Arabia, Mesopotamia
Babylon, Assyria, Nineveh, Samaria
Moab, Ammon, Edom, Aram
Judah, Israel, Galilee
The Philistine and the Canaanite
The Hittite and the Hyksos
The mystery of the Sea Peoples
The Persians and Medes
The Arabs and the Greeks
Jew, Christian, Muslim
And a thousand half remembered pagan deities
Imagine you could have all these riches
All this crazy quilt of history and religion
Economies and philosophies
And take out just one ingredient
War
True
This land, these cultures
Would never have come into existence without war
That’s how the mountains and valleys were carved
But does that mean it has to go on forever
What if you were living in a science fiction world
And your skies were filled with alien machines
If alien beings ruled the earth
What if when you fought back with sticks and stones
The machines would slaughter you
But when you hid
They would come for your children
What if you were living in a science fiction world
With alien beings and their killing machines
And the only possibility of resistance
The only means of causing pain for pain…
What if the only aliens you could touch
Were the alien children and what if
The alien children
Were as innocent
And sweet
As your own
"Israel" is the fifth in a series of 9 poems, condensed from the show, NAZIS NEED JEWS, first performed at the Morecambe Fringe Festival, where it won the prize for Best Spoken Word Show, further developed at the Edinburgh Fringe, and now published by LONDON POETRY BOOKS. It’s a study of conspiracy, antisemitism, Nazis, Jews, Israel, Palestine, and the possibility of worldwide revolutionary change. The poems form a kind of a narrative, so I ask you to listen to them in order and to reserve judgement until the final poem. Thank you for listening.
ISRAELYou are hunted
Over the centuries
They destroy your cities
Tear down your temple brick by brick
You are scattered in all directions
But you survive
You retain your identity
You maintain your traditions
You build new communities
Then sooner or later
No matter how safe it seems
You are driven from your homes
Slaughtered in the streets
Kings own you
You are the cash cows of the Middle Ages
Forbidden to own land
Driven into trade and commerce
Periodically squeezed dry
You become the face painted onto every bank note
Blamed for everything from taxes to the Black Plague
Forget about hungry Jews
Day labourers, tailors, pedlars, traders
Lens grinders, shoe makers
Weavers, bakers, doctors, scholars
Let them live
Said Saint Augustine
To show God’s mercy
But let them suffer
Then
The Enlightenment
Revolution
Tear down the walls
Set free the mind
All men are equal
Maybe even Jews
And not all the walls come tumbling down
You’re still in prison
But you go from solitary into the general population
Welcome to capitalism
Slavery, enclosure, civil war, colonies, silver from the Incas, gold from the Aztecs, blood in the cotton fields, death at the bottom of the sea
Welcome to capitalism
Convulsion after convulsion, each spasm more gut wrenching
Squeezing out money, capital, progress, bigger ideas, bigger machines, more people, more hungry people, war
No money, no work, no food, no hope, despair and anger in the street, time to feed the beast red meat
Welcome to Hitler-ville
Break out the pitchforks
You’re hunted down scientifically now
No matter what you have done or who you are
What does your bloodline say
Back then they used records
Now it would be DNA
What if Hitler had won
What if the next Hitler does win
Blending in with the general population didn’t work
It led to slaughter
Joining the revolution didn’t work
The revolutions were crushed
And so the cry goes up
We’ve had enough
We need a nation of our own
We need a nation to protect us
We need a nation to be a vessel for the courage and strength, wisdom and kindness we have built up over the centuries
We have so much to give
We have been a scattered people for two thousand years
We want to go home
But there is no home
Unless you take it away from someone else
"Bigotry (a user's manual)" is the fourth in a series of 9 poems, condensed from the show, NAZIS NEED JEWS, first performed at the Morecambe Fringe Festival, where it won the prize for Best Spoken Word Show, further developed at the Edinburgh Fringe, and now published by LONDON POETRY BOOKS. It’s a study of conspiracy, antisemitism, Nazis, Jews, Israel, Palestine, and the possibility of worldwide revolutionary change. The poems form a kind of a narrative, so I ask you to listen to them in order and to reserve judgement until the final poem. Thank you for listening.
"Antisemitism" is the third in a series of 9 poems, condensed from the show, NAZIS NEED JEWS, first performed at the Morecambe Fringe Festival, where it won the prize for Best Spoken Word Show, further developed at the Edinburgh Fringe, and now published by London Poetry Books. It’s a study of conspiracy, antisemitism, Nazis, Jews, Israel, Palestine, and the possibility of worldwide revolutionary change. The poems form a kind of a narrative, so I ask you to listen to them in order and to reserve judgement until the final poem. Thank you for listening.
"Conspiracy" is the second in a series of 9 poems, condensed from the show, NAZIS NEED JEWS, first performed at the Morecambe Fringe Festival, where it won the prize for Best Spoken Word Show, further developed at the Edinburgh Fringe, and now published by London Poetry Books. It’s a study of conspiracy, antisemitism, Nazis, Jews, Israel, Palestine, and the possibility of worldwide revolutionary change. The poems form a kind of a narrative, so I ask you to listen to them in order and to reserve judgement until the final poem. Thank you for listening.
[video version available on https://youtu.be/TqUxF_Op-KI ]
CONSPIRACY
Forest and trees
This is a perfect example
The capitalist world is full of conspiracies
Many have deep roots
Some spread like an epidemic
They tower over us
They blot out the sun
We stand in the middle and say
Why is this tree here
And this tree
And this tree
When the question should be
Why is there a fucking forest
Conspiracy
Can be an addiction
What a comfort to know
Some things are going to plan
Even if it’s evil bastards doing the planning
At least there is a plan
Someone’s in charge
And we can get to them
And fuck with them
We can do something
Maybe
Conspiracy
Is the tip of the iceberg
It really is there
But if that’s all you see
You better know how to swim
Conspiracy
Maggots on a rotting corpse
But you can’t blame the maggots
They’re maggots
That’s what they do
If your view is only maggot deep
You’ll be sweeping away maggots forever
"Don't Stay in Your Lane" is the first in a series of 9 poems, condensed from the show, NAZIS NEED JEWS, first performed at the Morecambe Fringe Festival, where it won the prize for Best Spoken Word Show, further developed at the Edinburgh Fringe, and now published by London Poetry Books. It’s a study of conspiracy, antisemitism, Nazis, Jews, Israel, Palestine, and the possibility of worldwide revolutionary change. The poems form a kind of a narrative, so I ask you to listen to them in order and to reserve judgement until the final poem. Thank you for listening.
[video version available at https://youtu.be/HQ0vrzPokCw ]
DON'T STAY IN YOUR LANE
Don’t
Stay in your lane
Don’t
Stay in your lane
Don’t
Stay in your lane
Don’t
Not even if you’re a cis white, male, able bodied heterosexual, middle class, young and beautiful
Don’t
Stay in your lane
Don’t
Not even if you’re too dumb to understand
just how privileged you are
Better to speak up and get your ass kicked
Than stay stupid forever
Don’t
Stay in your lane
Don’t
Solidarity is not a “yes, darling, whatever you want“
You gotta put your head on the chopping block
Privilege is an obligation
Privilege gives you power
What are you gonna do with it
Lie back and enjoy
Or try to make a better world
True
Privilege can blind you
It can give you a voice
When the only choice you should be making
Is to shut up and listen
But sooner or later
You have to come to your own decision
What are you fighting for
Don’t
Stay in your lane
Don’t
Oppression is real
It fucks you up
But sometimes
Injustice and cruelty can be a kind of high octane fuel
You can become incandescent
The damage remains
Hidden in dark caves
And we can be blind in places we don’t even know exist
But we are training each other to be warriors
Our superpower is that we can see with more than
our own two eyes
I can see with your eyes
You can see with mine
Don’t
Stay in your lane
Don’t
Revolution is not
“You fight your corner, I fight mine”
We must all be on the same side
In the war against injustice
We are not parallel streams
We are one mighty river
Or we are nothing
Don’t
Stay in your lane
Don’t
This is a series of 9 poems, condensed from a show of the same name, first performed at the Morecambe Fringe Festival, where it won the prize for Best Spoken Word Show, further developed at the Edinburgh Fringe, and now published by London Poetry Books. It’s a study of conspiracy, antisemitism, Nazis, Jews, Israel, Palestine, and the possibility of worldwide revolutionary change. The poems form a kind of a narrative, so I ask you to listen to them in order and to reserve judgement until the final poem ten days from now. Thank you for listening.
The lead song from my second independent album, CRASH LANDED ON THE PLANET EARTH. I wrote this as i watched the first Gulf War being shown on the TV like a fireworks display. [mixed by Michael Harding @theonlymichael, backing vocals by Julie Hadwen of Big Sound Authority, lead guitar by Jon Klein of Siouxsie and the Banshees.]
UGLY WORLD
When I found out I’d crash landed on the planet earth well naturally I was horrified
To be stuck in the middle of stone age morality and 21st century technocricide
I turned to my ship’s computer kicked it in the cathode and said listen Clyde
I wanna know what’s out there on this planet, and it told me-- just before it died
It’s an ugly world don’t you know it
It’s a dangerous place to play
Poison everywhere flowers grow it
Tough to visit and hell to stay
So all the walls came tumbling down except for the ones in our own mental attitudes
And the smarmy little creeps on TV spewed out their duck billed platitudes
There’s gonna be a new world order backed up by the old nuclear force so
It’s gonna be real democratic just like the old one only more so
It’s an ugly world bought and paid for
Everything comes with its own price tag
Born and bred in a life-long trade war
Make your home in a body bag
Now I’ve been told we can never have a sensible centrally planned economy
And we shouldn’t expect life to be intelligible and kind just because it ought’a be
But it all goes in one ear and out the other because there’s at least two or three of me
And I don’t see a way for any of 'em to fit in outside of a good old fashioned prefrontal lobotomy
It’s an ugly world why deny it
Might makes right and weak makes wrong
Justice only for those who buy it
I’m so glad that I don’t belong
I’m so glad that I don’t belong
I’m so glad that I don’t belong
Every Easter, when I was in Catholic grade school, the nuns would take us on a school trip to visit an ‘old folks home’. It was a good thing to do. They were lonely there – and so grateful for our company – but sometimes...
THE VISITI remember she had long claws and a hook nose
Skin like parchment
I knew there was no reason to be afraid
But I was afraid
I was ten years old and she was a thousand
In the village of the dying
A few days before Easter
The visit was over
Our school bus ready to go
But she grabbed at me
And held on as if I were life itself
She had wild eyes
Like a bird’s
So hungry
Clearly Biden is a piss poor choice for beating Trump – and not much of an alternative anyway. So in the interests of the survival of the human race, i'm willing to throw my hat in the ring. This is my program.
IF I WERE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
I would go to work every day
with a nuclear warhead strapped on my back
But I wouldn’t press the button – not right away
I would choose my time
If I were president of the United States of America
I wouldn’t pull our troops out of Afghanistan and Iraq
I wouldn’t cut off military aid to all our bought and paid for dictators
I know I wouldn’t live out the week if I tried
I would throw a big party for the generals and bankers
And their pimps and their whores – excuse me, senators and congressmen
I would feed them all chocolate ice cream and birthday cake
And when they asked me whose birthday it was, I’d say
Not yours, suckers. There’s a new world comin’
Then I would press the button
This song is not so much about my dad as by him – through me. I think i he kind of speaks in this song. If you knew him, i think you would have liked him. And he probably would have liked you – he liked almost everybody. He used to say, "I believe in Christ, Buddha, Lao Tsu, and all the rest of the saints..."
SLEEPIN’ IN CHURCH
Theres nothing in the world like sleepin in church on christmas
No nothin like sleeping in church on christmas day.
Youll never find anything anmy more relaxing
Youll never find anything any less taxin
Than sleepin by the babe in the manger filled with hay
Theres nothing in the world like sleepin in church on christmas
No nothin on earth like the heavenly peace i know
Far away from the wind and the wintery chills
You forget about worries and christmas bills
I can guarantee you brother theyll still be there tomorrow.
‘Cause if i ever had a thing, it was a thing about stained glass windows
And the quiet flow from a peaceful candy glow.
And i love that peaceful mumble of that priestly mumbo jumbo
And if snore i know im soundin mellow.
Theres nothing in the world like sleepin in church on christmas
Just sittin here dreamin i kinow im a lucky fella
I may not be up on all the rules and regulations
But i feel myself at peace with the whole conregation
When the choir dies down and the people go home
Dont be surprised if im on my own
Snoring acapella
The second of two stories about people from a nearby housing estate. What were you doing on 9/11?
AMERINAM
(London, September 11, 2001)
Do people who die on TV really die?
Some say yes.
Some say no.
Some say it’s clear as black and white.
Some prefer
Radio
I had a dream where an old man in striped pants
walked down the corridor of a nursery.
He wore a hat with stars and bars,
and he carried a basket filled with bombs.
He stopped at every cradle, placed a bomb,
it the fuse and passed on.
I followed close behind him,
stopped at every cradle,
picked up every bomb,
and I too passed on.
At the end, I stopped him to return them.
His heart melted into plastic
as the bombs exploded
and the babies cried.
I woke up and smiled.
Nine eleven, I’ll never forget. It was the morning they found Frankie face down in a pool of blood outside his own front door. Face down in the dark, because the landlord couldn’t be bothered to change the light bulb.
Of course it wasn’t the light bulb being out that did it. Whoever it was probably would have bashed his head in anyway, but we’ll never know. It was probably drug dealers, but whether it was the old traditional kind or the new bastards on the block was hard to say.
The ambulance came and took him away.
The cops came and wrote down a few names.
Nobody cleaned up the blood for two or three days.
Nine eleven,
There was a lot of collateral damage.
If only they had got the white house too.
But that was in the afternoon.
Would I be willing to ride that airplane on either side of the knife?
No.
But when I heard they’d got the Pentagon, I leapt in the air and shouted,
Yes!
We all sat down and watched – amazed but not in shock.
When the second tower collapsed, we couldn’t believe our luck.
No, no, no
They didn’t deserve to die, if by ‘they’ you mean the people who really did die, but then they never do deserve it, do they? It’s the axis of evil who deserve it, the real axis of evil who die in their beds of old age. Maybe they die hard, but I bet they don’t. I bet they mostly die happy little fuckers who didn’t get to rule the world – nobody does – but they got to ride up on top, so far up on the tip top, tip top, that we can’t touch them. We can’t lay even one fucking finger on them, and so we kill our own kind, because they’re useful to the people we hate.
Well, not me of course. I’m only imagining what it must be like.
I don’t want to die any sooner than absolutely necessary,
Not even for you.
I’m a casualty too,
Gut shot.
Frankie didn’t die right away. They kept him in the hospital for about 6 months while he tried to remember his name. Then they released him to “care in the community”, and he died after 27 days. I called the hospital about the post-mortem, and the nurse started to cry. She had thought he was still alive.
The first of two stories from a housing estate near where i lived. This one is kind of a love story – and kind of not.
The Ballad of Nikki Slagg and Mary-Go-SlowNikki Slagg
Was a magnificent animal
Strong and sleek and a bit like Marlon Brando
He played the guitar and drew and painted
And everything he touched turned beautiful
He was a bad lad though
Just the kind of bastard you had to get to know
If you were a hot babe with a big libido
Mary-Go-Slow
Was a country gal from a very big island
Said she’d never seen anything like him
Take me Nikki and drive your spike in
I want a taste of your liquid lightning
I wanna learn how to be a wild thing
Just like you
Do what I want to, when I want to, to who I want to
Let’s see who can really screw, you do me and I’ll do you
You do one and I’ll do two, you do three and I’ll do more
Let’s do heroin, let’s do crack, let’s go crazy and never come back
Nikki Slagg
Was a pretty good teacher
She was all “mummy, daddy look at me”
And he was glad to look at her
Show her how to fill a canvass
And then watch her do it
Let’s cover the planet me and you, let’s
Open the bottle and drink it
Mix up the paint and paint it
Roll out the canvass and fill it
Fuck everybody else, it’s
Just me and you
Mary-Go-Slow
Was so goddamn beautiful
Just about once every other week another Catholic priest
Would take one look at her and leave the church forever
What if the Virgin Mary in all her heavenly virginal glowing young motherly beauty
Gave out a first rate blowjob to just about anybody that really wanted one
They say heroin keeps you young, as long as you keep it fed
It’s going without that makes you old, she said
I’m a private investigator, none of this is very true
It’s the best I could put together, but everybody was lying
All of the time, so I wouldn’t believe any of it if I were you
I’m a private investigator, my technique is to sit and listen
I used to smoke a cigarette, that would give me something to do
Did he hit her because she was too beautiful
Too good at it, too bad at it, too many bodies ahead of him
Did he even know he was doing it when he was doing it
Of course he fucking did
Nikki Slagg
Is an old man now… fifty-four I think
Look at this leg, he says, it’s all puffed out
He limps around the room
Look at this book, he says, she wrote it down
So I wouldn’t forget: Tuesday afternoon… or is it Friday
Seven long years of methadone rehabilitation
Shaken and stirred with the occasional
Target of opportunity, target of opportunity
Too many of everything, and Nikki never could say no
But Mary-Go-Slow
He did her a favour in a way he kind of saved her
The day she walked out on Nikki
She walked out on everything else
Now she’s drug free with an arts degree
And she maybe even owes a bit of that to Nikki
He used to tell her she could do anything –
Between punches
She comes on Tuesday… or Friday afternoon
She watches and listens
He waves his arms and limps around the room
His old paintings hang in the air like ghosts
Like witnesses. The brushes are dry
He still wants to fuck me, she said
I just don’t want him to die
GUNS OR BUTTER
It’s not true what they say about guns or butter
They go together – that’s the terrible news
Killers grow fat and their children are happy
It’s a liberal fantasy that we have to choose
Between war and prosperity
Winning a war is good for the economy
Total slaughter even better
Guns and butter go together
It’s not true what they say about guns or butter
They go together and that’s our curse
Bastard child of a beautiful mother
Thirsty and with sharp teeth
Nurse and the earth bleeds
Forget her
Guns and butter go together
CHEMICALS
Chemicals give
Chemicals take
Chemicals do everything we do
Undo everything we do
Do it again
Differently
Do it again
Differently
You look back on a long life and wonder
What of the books, the projects
The questions I was going to answer
Maybe you ask yourself if it was worth it
Maybe you feel as if your life has been stolen away
Just as you were sliding into home plate, the game has been changed
You wonder if you were the big star or just the football – or just a fucking frisbee
Maybe you don’t ask any of these stupid questions because you don’t have the big ego, the look-at-me-look-at-me disease. Maybe you just wanted to be doing things, making a life, making a home, making a dinner salad, drinking wine with old friends after the long hard days of changing diapers and fighting on the streets for freedom.
But the chemicals come. Sooner or later, the chemicals always come.
The reason that Jesus was able to rise from the dead is that he was fed on a diet of rabbit eggs. This closely guarded secret, that bunnies lay magic eggs, was passed down to Joseph and Mary by the three wise men. "The gift of the magi" was a batch of three magic bunnies, a male, a female and a shmale (magic bunnies have three genders). The reason Jesus was born in a stable was that they had to be able to hide the bunnies and keep them warm while they produced magic bunny eggs.
Alas, there are no known magic bunnies in existence now, although some may be kept secretly (There are those who assert the reason Dick Cheney is still alive after all those heart transplants has something to do with magic bunny eggs). Nowadays, since there are no magic bunny eggs available, Christians make do with chicken eggs.
And that, Virginia, is why we fool around with chicken eggs on Easter.
Stay tuned next week, and I'll tell you the true story of Santa and what his reindeer get up to.
CORONARANT
The virus is real
The danger is real
The need for isolation is real
More deadly than the average flu
But a lot less lethal than SARS or Ebola
Corona is the perfect mix of innocence and murder
Yes, fight the “bailout” robberies
Yes, fight the fascist controls
Creeping in hidden under a viral cloud
But denying reality
Does not make the fight stronger
Denying reality doesn’t work
Because reality bites back
It always bites back
You know why?
Because it’s reality
Did you think we could rape the earth for 200 years
And there would be no consequences
The virus is the earth biting back
Fuck your 5g conspiracies
Fuck your lizard fantasies
And fuck your anti-vax, anti-science bullshit
Yes, there are conspiracies
Yes, there are conspirators
But they are not lizards
They are not Illuminati
And they are not fucking gods
They are mean little bastards
Who have money and power
They are riding on top
Riding on the back of the tiger
But guess what
They are not the tiger
They are terrified of the tiger
You know why?
Because we are the tiger
We are the dumb beast that carries them
It is our ignorance that gives them power
In the days of slavery
The penalty for learning to read was death
Nowadays
The penalty for not learning to read is death
And not just our own personal demise
But the end of our entire civilisation
Maybe the end of all human life
Science
Is how we learn to read
How do things move
How do they change
How do we grab hold of the complex contradictions
That make up the modern world
And channel them in the direction of human liberation
Fairy tales about evil wizards
However true they may be
Are not enough
Worse
They blind us to the reality underneath
The virus
Is a tiny little beast
But armed with ignorance
It can take down tigers
Learn to read
THANK YOU FOR YOUR SERVICE
Thank you for your service
Thank you for teaching our children
Thank you for giving them numbers, letters
And windows to far away worlds
Thank you for your service
Thank you for nursing us
For giving us shots and carrying bed pans
For holding our hands when we sat by the bedside crying
Thank you for your service
Thank you for the harvest
For the farms and orchards that feed us
For your strong arms that carry the baskets
Turn the wheels, spread the seed
Thank you to the second responders
And the third and the fourth
Those who love
In a practical way
Day after day
Thank you to the renegades
To those who refused
And to those who left as weapons of war
But came back fighting for peace
Thank you for your courage
Thank you for the truth
When the Dalai Lama went to Yugoslavia
Everybody thought it would be very nice
Very nice indeed
All the people came from far and near
And the Dalai Lama decreed
High, high, high in the high Himalayas
We lived in a paradise
And everything was so very nice
Very nice indeed
We had no rich and no poor
Our monks were holy and pure
Even Buddha woulda' been impressed with us
But we never made a fuss, no not us
We just went on being holy and cool
When the Dalai Lama went to Yugoslavia
Everybody thought it would be very nice
Very nice indeed
All the people came from far and near
And the Dalai Lama decreed I am here
And I'm not
Now it may sound insane
But you're cold and you're hot
And you're free and you're caught
And you do and you don't got
And I feel your pain
But then possibly you won't
'Cause it's here and it's not
And they cheered him a lot
You're overloaded
Aren't we all
You're overheated
Gonna stall
You're overdue for
An overhaul
You're under pressure
To conform
You're undercover
In uniform
You're under
Everything but chloroform
You're under
Cardiac arrest
Ugh
Cardiac arrest
Cardiac arrest
Ugh
Cardiac arrest
Cardiac arrest
Ugh
Cardiac arrest
HEART ATTACK HEART ATTACK HEART ATTACK HEART ATTACK HEART ATTACK
Cardiac arrest
Ugh
ESSENTIAL WORKERS
This is dedicated to you
Who get up every morning
Drive the buses
Stock the shelves
Care for the ill
Going to war
Against an unseen enemy
Now I see you
Maybe for the first time
How you have saved us every day
How you have built the world anew
And rebuilt it
And rebuilt it
Long before the virus
You were there
Tilling the fields
Building the houses
Taming the rivers
Now I understand about heroes
I see you more clearly now than ever I did
When you were there in front of my eyes
Now, locked away in my room
I see you
And I see myself
Because I am one of you
With all my failings
All the times I have been a coward
Have run away from the enemy
Have pretended it wasn’t there
You inspire me
Going to war
Against an unseen enemy
Not the virus
The virus is only a messenger
Telling us what we have done to ourselves
Warning us that it can’t go on forever
Death comes to the marketplace
With a wonderful gift
With a warning
And a promise
We can change the world
We must
SCHRÖDINGER BABY
I am a box. Look inside me. I am the future. I do not lie. But I did. Did not. Did. Did not. Did. I am a box. Look inside.
I wanted to have babies. God made me to have babies. I look at my sisters – not the dead one – and they all have babies. I play with their babies. I love them. They say to me, I wish you were my mother. But I am not your mother, I am a box. My baby is inside. I am the future. And I am dead not dead, dead not dead, dead not, did not, but I will someday but not my sister. They say it was her boyfriend, and they say they only need the proof, and they say she’s probably not the only one, and I say I am a box look inside me. I am the future look inside. I am your babies dead not dead I am not your mother, I am not your I am not I am I black eye brown eye blood red sing the blue I but not my sister not the dead one.
Babies for you and you and you but I have no man no seed no slime sticky blood thick kill me I said but I am dead not dead I am a box and you are locked inside forever.
THE PEACE PROCESS
On Picasso Tv
There's no war any more
No, no, no
For genuine all around evil
From genocide to tooth decay
Give me peace any day
The peace process
Is ongoing, has no end
Is the ultimate good
The eternal now
The piece process is an animal
Is alive
When peace is born
The animal dies
The peace process is beautiful
Mozart on mushrooms
The peace process is heart warming
Like a really good Star Trek episode
The peace process is dead
Less than dead
Never was
When it begins how can we know
Blood will flow
While peace comes and goes
Body bag, body bag, be my love
Just like in my mother's belly
I've no need to see the sunrise
All my brains have turned to jelly
The peace process is real, is there
Is what don't go away when you stop looking at it
Is business as usual
Is god
Amen
RUNNING INTO THE WAVE(26 December 2004)
Love no one
Do not let yourself be seduced
By the kind word or the helpless gesture
Cultivate a godlike indifference
Imagine you are the stock market of the world
And that a million people can be swept away
Without causing a flicker of your ticker tape
So long as they are poor
If you weaken
If you listen to the tides of your own heart
You may be drawn down onto the beach
Beyond pity and terror
Helplessly caring
Running into the wave
AUSTERITY(a mother’s lament)
How has it come to this
Once a week I visit my daughter
I kiss her lips
I tell her I love her
I promise I’ll never forget her
I beg her to forgive me
I bring her stolen packets of sugar
She is growing so thin
Her eyes are so haunted
I hold her as if I will never let go
But I let go, I leave her there
To the kindness of broken windows
I go out into the wind
I am grown so light I could almost blow away
But I am tethered to the earth
Oh my daughter
I will always return
I will bring you packets of sugar
And when the sugar is gone
I will bring you my tears
I’ve been writing most of my life. I’ve got a lot of stuff that’s never seen the light of day – and a lot that’s gone out in performance, video, a book or a magazine and then disappeared. I’m going to be dipping into all of that here.
I’ve called it Poetry and Revolution, because for me, they’re both totally intertwined. Every poem is a love story. Every song is about love and hate. And revolution is not just politics. It’s life.