I've heard what you've been saying about me
To all who will listen
To poison the well, perhaps, maintain control
To keep me in my mental prison

People like you can never understand
Or take it when others see further and faster
People like you can only demand
A safe label like freak or disaster

You could have worked with me
But all along, you've worked against me
I suppose you wanted the guilt-free exit
Even if it meant my execution

If I respected you once
You have changed or I was deluded
So here I am alone and resentful
Utterly secluded

You offer condolences but do not change
You left your vows at the altar
Whether stated in word, or written in blood
Or made in the mind of the lover

And what will you think after a lifetime
Of believing you are always right
And never seeking help for problems
As ugly as mine or worse in the light?

And what will you do
When this whole thing is over
And I left you a suggestion, and a plea
But your certainty couldn't be bothered

You have a hand in this,
You had a role to play
You played the twist in this carnal play
Yet you have nothing to say

When the carnival is gone
And the players have had their day
To bask in the sun
You slink away

And what will people think
When they know the truth
And extricate the lies
From the crimes of your youth

And find a diamond, cold and black
Someone left abandoned
Who never ever gave back
To this world she so hated

For a robot duty
To a child who you raised to be
As paranoid as you are, dear
What will the people think?

For I tried to spark her wit
With tales of fancy and humor
While you were paying bills or buried
In your workstuffs like a tumor

That's all I really want to know
When all is said and done
How you can look me in the eye
When your humanity is gone

You've done something irreparable
To my life plowed fresh with laughter
I only wanted understanding
Not prescriptions after

Nor advice from your small mind
I hoped would open wildly
A mind to delve into my charms
And not to disembowel me

I ask you now, for without doubt
I handled many things poorly
But can you now countenance your own acts
And not regret your life sorely?

And if you can't, there is no heart
That beats in you for goodness
You fool yourself that you work on progress
And I am lying broken and bloodless

I remember upon a time
You promised me your love forever
No one made you feel as I did
I honestly thought we were Lovers

But as my illness grew and you
Supported me as you could
You also silently pulled away
Ensured that it was dead for good

Everything after that was lies
The person I knew was gone
You had your house and your precious child
And I was alone

Shuffled from hospital to treatment plan
Where peers thanked God for spouses
Who stuck with them through thick and thin
And never stole their houses

And you did something you said you'd never do
Keep my only child away from me
There's a place in Hell for people like you
You'll see,

I hope you'll see one day.

Morning time, 5 AM
The room is cold and pouring rain
Outside makes random notes again

Life can be fun but there's a limit to it
The rain may stop but the sun has to end
When nighttime comes to put us to bed

I have my hour now to spend
Before the quiet is rent
Before traffic ruins this perfect ascent

I've been praying all night and my body is tired
But my heart and my mind are rewired
And I think I'll go for a walk in the cold.

Still think rappers can't write lyrics?


THUG MANSION
(Tupac Shakur)

A place to spend my quiet nights
Time to unwind
So much pressure in this life of mine
I cry at times
I once contemplated suicide
And woulda tried but when I held that nine
All I could see was my mama's eyes
No one knows my struggle
They only see the trouble
Not knowing it's hard to carry on when no one loves you
Picture me inside the misery of poverty
No man alive has ever witnessed struggles I survived
Praying hard for better days, promise to hold on
Me and my dogs ain't have a choice but to roll on
We found a far spot to kick it
Where we could drink liquor and no one dickers over trick shit
A spot where we could smoke in peace
And even though we G's we still visualize places that we can roll in peace
And in my mind's eyes I can see this place that players go in passing
And got a spot for us all so we can ball in thug mansion

Will I survive all the fights and the darkness, troubled spots,
To tell my homies where the heart is when dear departed?
I shed tattoo tears and couldn't sleep good for multiple years
Witnessing peers casting gun shots
Nobody cares
See the politicians ban us
They'd rather see us locked in chains
Please explain why they can't stand us
Is there a way for me to change?
Or am I just a victim of things I did to maintain?
I need a place to rest my head
With the little bit of homeboys that remain
'Cuz all the rest dead
Is there a spot for us to roll? If you find it,
I'll be right behind you
Show me and I'll go
How can I be peaceful?
I'm coming from the bottom
Watching my Daddy scream "peace"
While the other man shot him
I need a house that's full of love
When I need to escape the deadly places slinging drugs
In thug mansion

Dear mother don't cry your baby boy's doing good
Tell the homies I'm in heaven and it ain't got 'hoods
Seen this show with Marvin Gaye last night
It had me shook dripping peppermint schnapps
With Jacky Wilson and Sam Cooke
Then some lady named Billy Holiday sang
Sitting there kicking it with Malcom till the day came
Little Latasha, she's all grown, so tell the lady in the liquor store
That she's forgiven - So come home
Maybe in time you'll understand only God could save us
When my baby's cutting loose with the band
Just think of all the people that you knew in the past
That passed on, lay in heaven, found peace at last
Picture a place that they exist, together
It has to be a place better than this, in heaven
So right before I sleep dear God what I'm asking:
Remember this face, save me a place
In thug mansion.

Ghosts; Girls

Making faces at dogs.

People run around, and it seems funny. But it's not funny. And the gas fumes from the remains of vegetation and once-living creatures drifts into my logic, and all former certainties are up for grabs. I am out of shape but I have stared down death. I completely demolished a man who attacked me yesterday. I've not a scratch nor ache to show for it; he's a mess. It was instinct, bullet time, survival, not caring nor feeling any fear at all. I think he saw it in my eyes, the emptiness. I've given my time, my sincere efforts, and my heart to a girl who feels sorry for herself and forgets to say a simple thanks because she is tired. I had a marriage like that. I left with my left foot on a low cloud.

I am not concerned. Chemicals keep me a robot for now. I still miss Christine Deemer from the 6th grade; I miss Nicola; I miss my wife. I am not sad even though I should be. Don't comment with comforts for me, don't be fake. If it's an insight and not a comfort, be my guest. I was pulled into this world already screaming and shell-shocked. The wide eyed look you saw that seemed so aware? It was fear. I tear into a decaf coffee careful to throw the cup into a proper garbage bin. I have to live outside squalor to live at all. I feel like a fully grown gorilla on a chain. The chain could be a simple thread if I imagined it to be. I could destroy this world around me, the one who has stared at me all my life and made monkey faces at me, so clever and cruel. Me, I look at the faces of children and adults and feel like I'm making faces at dogs. Blank happy grins. Eagerness without understanding.

I love so much and it is so painful that I end up hating everything. But this is not who I am. I am kind, kinder than you, you idiots. I wish I'd simply float away and start the game over again, with fewer bullies and fewer nonsentient people. There is an old record store not far from here where I may go in search of Jacques Brel. There is a pool nearby too. Maybe I can put the two together and bring the past to a close and tuck the future sweetly into bed; maybe I can finish a novel; maybe there is kryptonite and adamantium and positronic brains. Hell, I don't know. But you don't either. Don't give me suggestions. Whatever you have thought I have thought till it made me sick. I must be on my sixth lifetime by now and unaware because I don't know anydifferent. I must be different, made of straw with a huge heart and brain and lashed to a pole suspended above eternity like Tuor in Angband. And you want to see my teeth when I smile.

It's just a dream
I convince myself
No teeth in my mouth
Blue blood covers my face
In the mirror
I see the back of my head
I'm falling into the sky
Inside the clouds are hearts
Beating
And outer space never comes
The air is red and
Breathing
It's just a dream
I tell myself
Black tears hit my feet
I have six sets of wings
Six fingers and toes
Seven virtues
None of them clean
It's my American
Upbringing
Now my ceiling caves and bleeds
And my bed is upside down
And inside of me
But still I have the nerve to think
It all must be a dream
Dream the dream of dead men
Just before
The well runs dry forever
You never told me your secret
Now I'll never know.

Drinking of you.

I'm crying in my beer
Tonight isn't a good time to try to talk to me
Just like all those other nights
Spilling tears everywhere
For my lover

They say when the mystery's gone
The woman moves on
I never wanted to believe that about you
And still I wonder where it all went wrong
Why you deserted me

So I'm propped here, drinking of you
While you're no doubt tucked away in dreamland
Why life is like this, I'll never understand
You wanted something real
How much more real could I be?

Meet your meat...

"There's more to life than books, you know - but not much more."

No concentration of brilliant things ever seems as brilliant
As its individual parts do left to their own,
In amogst the pieces that are not so brilliant
Who downplay expectation and build up suspense.

It is this reason no greatest hits of songs ever works
No anthology of timeless poetry impresses
No feast of rich delicacies ever satisfies
And no frantic drug-riddled expectant clawing for happiness succeeds.

Here I am on my own again
Wondering when to fold

Everything seems boring,
Everything seems old

Here I am and I don't want to be
The sun is dying anyway

The universe is crying anyway,
Or I'm blind.

Happy Thanksgiving!

H5N1


Take me out
Take me now
I'm walking home with both hands full
A canopy of pregnant clouds sprawled out above me
Lit seemingly from within
Night came too soon tonight
I think it's too light
For magic to happen
But the air seems right
And I march on to my apartment singing under my breath
A tune that withers in the still air
No paths to lead me where I'm going
Just the yellow look of death
In car windows reflecting the sky
The stuffed gutters,
Heat bubbling up from worlds beneath the city
And the few who do tumble around these streets laughing
Who'll sleep restfully in their beds
Won't ever awake to see this sight
That I alone take in.

I live on the fringes
Funny but I may be the first to wish to go,
And the last to catch the pandemic they predict
To hit the cities like an atomic bomb
And kill millions who serve each day in some impactful way
By taking your movie tickets, or salting slugs
Or trying to determine if you're the people we hate
At the airport terminals
And I, terminally minded, will be confined
To a place far out of the way, locked in my room
Never eating anything or drinking
But purified water, scared to die unknown
Feuding with a wife and a daughter
And an absent father
I should be "case 0" with all its stigma in tow
But I know,
I will be among the last to go
And I will see people fall before me
Good people, who never asked the Poet's question
And those I never knew, but would have liked
Who had an escape from each situation
Trapped mentally or physically they found a way
To slip their knots and swim away
They will liquefy inside
And collapse in the madness
And be dragged away

There were pasts we could sprawl on a queen bed
Engrossed in a novel
Dream about a future land
Human colonies of survival, but unplanned
This pandemic struck before the governments of the
Sane nations of the world could understand
Because no one plans anything
They just react to what is bad

Pandemic
I want to feel pain
Be deprived of food and water
All bodily needs, feel the lightening of spirit
That perversely accompanies disaster
I want to lose my brain, and let
The questions melt to rainwater forever after
I have seen attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion
But I have never touched or photographed them
I have lived under a sky which growls and then purrs
But never held it in my arms
I have conjured the worst of my enemies
Archdevils, spirits of restless men, animated death
I have written of my travels from dawn to dusk,
Evil to good, green life to death
But I have never been granted that last breath
Accuse me of cowardice
There is no shame, I stand accused
I cling to life with genetic resolve, a pity
Solving absolutely nothing but to search for one
Who could spread my genes
By spreading her jeans
Give birth to another "first one"
I think the Anasazi were correct:
We were here first, but "we" were not who we are today
Their root-headed gods still circle my sky
And inhabit my veins
With the vision leaving my eyes
And I have always been the worst one

H5N1
At last, perhaps, you are the one
My princess charming, my salvation and my tragic ending
Wrapped into one
The only person I would have renewed myself for spurned me
And never earned me
I just hope that she stays free from the scrum
Escapes to the beautiful Banff rivers
Paws her way like the survivor she is
Up into safe self-sufficient towns
Rides out the tragedy, like an asteroid from space
Takes her place among the new generation
With her mind so relevant, her body so young
I've stopped coming up with reasons for renewal
Or plans for simple survival
They don't work anyway and I just want to see the sun again
Rise over the majestic hills off Sonoma Highway
The most beautiful place in the whole world
Maybe Noah's building his boat again
And my kind are about to be packed off and sent to hell
Pandemics serve to strip the populace
Of weaklings like me with all their eggs in one basket
Benefits the world by killing human beings who think too much
Reduces the burden on the planet ecologically
And snuffs out fantasy where it has started to green.

Sinking.
(r. smith)













i am slowing down
as the years go by
i am sinking

so i trick myself
like everybody else

the secrets i hide
twist me inside
they make me weaker

so i trick myself
like everybody else

i crouch in fear and wait
i'll never feel again

if only i could remember
anything at all

If I live, I want to live with passion. I want life to be a completely genuine experience, face to the elements. I don't want to be a zombie floating in an air-conditioned electronic bubble. I want to see the earth's roots and shoots.

If I go on, I want to feel like I did when I was 17. When I was her age, and everything stunk of art and strangeness and tingling sensations. I was cocky and dismissive outside then, scared and insecure inside. If I could return, through conditioning, lifestyle changes, not talking about it like I am now but getting out and doing it, I wouldn't take it for granted. I would live with all the heart I was given. How do you go back?

Dirty and cold makes clean and warm so much better. Forget what I said about conditioning, I'm always planning for a future that never arrives. You just have to start doing it. The only way to get in shape for life is to jump in.

If I can.

missing

soft sad days
like a glow outside rain-
spattered glass
among the trees, mystery
never feel this way again
as i get older
my finger on the pulse of the world
getting colder

she listens to the drums of the rain
her world is open
strange, still filled with
holidays and long weekends
friends, bonfires, lazy dreams
along the seams of the grass and the flowers,
she sees
with her strange visionary power.

Dawn is beautiful
Stay up with me
You'll see
Dawn is a renewal
It's beautiful
It wipes yours sins away
Whatever they might be
Stay up with me
Let's see the sun rise
But first,
The light will get brighter
And your heart feel lighter
It's beautiful
Dawn is a renewal
In every sense
Your problems go away
If you look to the light
You can find peace right now
When the time is right
And never look back
It wipes all your fears away
Makes you want the day
Makes you seek to master
Yourself in the quiet,
Expectant air
Life is right here
Not "out there"
Dawn is beautiful
You'll see
Stay up with me
In every sense
In every way, each day
Foggy or clear
Or sheeted with rain
Or backed by the choir of
Some birds' angelic refrain
Or even just plain
Dawn is beautiful.

The Human Back. By Justin Sias.

The human back sucks. It hurts whenever you do anything trivial, like give 3-year-olds horsey rides or move some boxes or furniture around, or think about diamonds. My back has been bad my whole adult life, to the point where I really should seek medical treatment - most likely physical therapy or something equally disappointing not involving strong opiates.

I know we weren't "designed" to walk upright due to our simian ancestry... Isn't that proof enough to these Intelligent Design idiots that we weren't created by some loving God? He designs this brilliantly intricate eye, brain, and so forth, then gives us a spine than hurts if we lift more than a couple doughnuts at one time. Hmm. That's an utterly convincing argument for God.

Anyway, my back hurts, and it hurts to the point where it makes me mad at other people and start to despise inefficient programming code and cellphones that don't get reception in the right places. And dogs. In other words, I'm like a kid eating about seven super-sours all at once and somehow one or two of those atrocious Japanese peas got in there by mistake. Just all around PISSED OFF.

That's the end of my story. I hope you've learned something about the human back. If you have any comments about physical therapy, etc., that's cool. Write them down in case you hurt your back and keep them somewhere safe. Me, I'm gonna go find some candy right now since I brought it up. I wish they made lemonheads with intense opioid centers. That would rule.

The end.

San Francisco Zoo pictures (partial). Zoos are cool.

Life is just an endless string of Nows. If you make good choices each Now, the results down the road will reflect that. That is my downfall. I dream about faroff success, but my choice in each insignificant Now is usually for the short-term gain, which is to my detriment long-term. At worst, I get fatter, dumber, and unhappier. At best I maintain some kind of status quo with my current mind/body. But I want improvement! Well, then I must learn to master Now.

But it's hard when pain is shooting through your back nonstop.

Just an idea...

I was thinking of hand-making a limited number of books of my poetry, bound in leather to the best of my ability - I would like to take some classes to teach me to do it right. So it's a project a year or two off at least. But I was wondering who would be interested. They would be limited to something like 25 or 50 per book, with three books planned. All hand-bound, hand printed (I am practicing calligraphy at the moment, and plan some kind of ink illustration in a manner not yet determined). The idea is a hand-made illuminated manuscript of old. I don't know whether I'll have the talent to to produce anything worth owning, but my initial idea is some along the lines of $100 per copy, numbered and signed by me, with $25 going to a charitable cause, probably something to benefit endangered animals or fighting child abuse. The person ordering might even be able to choose.

It would obviously be an indulgence on the part of the purchaser, but perhaps not quite so much. After all, these could become valuable commodities if my mainstream work were to succeed commercially. But I get tired of thinking in those terms. I would rather produce something of outstanding quality and charge a premium for my work than to cut corners and pass the savings along. This isn't to say I won't keep offering free pictures and poetry via my blog, and reasonable priced material via more mainstream commercial means (all proceeding as I hope it will). It's just another level for those who want the best and most intimate, and would like to contribute to a good cause along the way. I'm not looking to profit per se from these editions; indeed the time and effort required will probably negate any financial gains I might see. But it's a way to keep the enterprise afloat, to keep a few dozen people happy and amazed, and a way for me to express myself completely unbridled and not go broke in the process. Sound interesting?

Sound off one way or another. Like I said, it's still some time off. I've already started writing and drawing the material, and I hope to add original paintings and photos as well. You can expect something of the strangeness of the 1980s mixed with the German expressionism of the 1920s and just possibly some French existentialism thrown in to keep things light. One thing people may not know about me is that for every poem or photo exhibited on my blog or featured in a PDF "publication," there may be 5 items never to see the light of day, and perhaps 1 or 2 of those are better than the revealed piece. I tend to cherry-pick my best work from any session, copy it into a special file, and not use it. So I've quite a backlog of interesting material. It is up to you, the reader, to decide whether or not it deserves such special status, but I'd hate to grow old and die without doing something with it. Thanks for your consideration and opinion.

Prince Charming.
(Adam Ant)

Don't you ever, don't you ever
Stop being dandy, showing me you're handsome.
Don't you ever, don't you ever
Lower yourself, forgetting all your standards.
Silk or leather or a feather
Respect yourself and all of those around you.
Silk or leather or a feather
Respect yourself and all of those around you.
Prince Charming, Prince Charming
Ridicule is nothing to be scared of.
Prince Charming, Prince Charming
Ridicule is nothing to be scared of.
Ridicule is nothing to be scared of.
Ridicule is nothing to be scared of.

I'll grant creationists one thing. The arising of today's complex life by natural selection in the time given seems highly improbable. This is is just my own gut feeling. I'm not saying it didn't happen, I just think that our current understanding of how DNA first evolved, and the pacing of adaptive radiation, is somehow off the mark. It doesn't "feel" like it could happen that way even in a period as long as 4 billion years. We don't even know how life bucks the trend of entropy. It DOES seem somehow designed. This is why I have more respect for someone who understands all the complex orthodox darwinian explanations and yet adopts an Intelligent Design scenario of some sort, then I do for ignorant idiots who don't know a thing except "Darwin's wrong". Still, it doesn't do to pawn the problem off on an Intelligent Designer, or God. That very concept still breaks the second law of thermodynamics and leaves our current understanding of physics either local or wrong. And it still implies a supernatural realm outside our natural universe. This in turn just moves the question of existence arising from either chaos or nothingness to another shell one step out, and doesn't really explain anything. If WE could create life inside a laboratory, that wouldn't solve the problem of how WE got here, after all. Unless it's turtles (Gods) all the way UP as well as down.

Skull soup.

I filed a claim
With my life insurance company
They came out and did an investigation
And totaled me

An evolutionary line of unbroken successes
Persisted for 4 billion years to produce me
Culminated in this mess you see
I can't even build a good campfire.

(unknown credit)

Seems I’ve leapt from my own cloud nine
This truth serum lied to me
Robbed me of my only gift
I feel dried up inside
Like a vampire
Days float by nondescript and hollow
Weekends are born in ashes, evil dreams linger
Worst of all the desire I nursed in my heart
The jewel I clutched in my hand
I let them crumble, ruined them on purpose
There must have been some look in my eyes
I cannot imagine.

In the grip of three
Lie leads untaken
She shows me cellophane eyes
I want to believe
But my fear is too strong
It's not enough to be five-sqare
And a-okay
I was born a monster

Tell me tomorrow
Why we are made this way
Strapped down and starved
Arranging pleasures around us
Within easy reach
My hands are shaking
Too much to mold anything
Except disasters.

Miniver Cheevy.
(edward arlington robinson)

Miniver Cheevy, child of scorn,
Grew lean while he assailed the seasons
He wept that he was ever born,
And he had reasons.

Miniver loved the days of old
When swords were bright and steeds were prancing;
The vision of a warrior bold
Would send him dancing.

Miniver sighed for what was not,
And dreamed, and rested from his labors;
He dreamed of Thebes and Camelot,
And Priam's neighbors.

Miniver mourned the ripe renown
That made so many a name so fragrant;
He mourned Romance, now on the town,
And Art, a vagrant.

Miniver loved the Medici,
Albeit he had never seen one;
He would have sinned incessantly
Could he have been one.

Miniver cursed the commonplace
And eyed a khaki suit with loathing:
He missed the medieval grace
Of iron clothing.

Miniver scorned the gold he sought,
But sore annoyed was he without it;
Miniver thought, and thought, and thought,
And thought about it.

Miniver Cheevy, born too late,
Scratched his head and kept on thinking;
Miniver coughed, and called it fate,
And kept on drinking.

Max Ernst

There are some really good people in this world
And then there are the rest, the huge majority
I wish I could kill everyone who is hurtful
I would be ok with going down as the last monster
If only I could make the planet better for the rest
Of the people and the animals that remained
In service of good, my conscience would be unstained.

You have me in your back pocket
And you know it
So why do I go through it
Give you so much
Give up my own time
Divide my chances

We rocket through the stars like
Limousines on fire
You once held me in your arms
I could have stayed with you
Till the stubborn
Weight of your beliefs got tired.

UP MOOD
Where have you been
I've been crawling in sheets
wrapped on my body like sweaty skin
I've let my thoughts spiral out like a galaxy
and in like a whirlpool of human blood
I took a hundred pills to make sure you stayed
the hell away from me for good

UP MOOD
You're here oh God you're here
you've driven the fear away
breathing is easier now, moving is easier now
I can get things done in a timely way
and it doesn't destroy my whole day
in fact I springboard from one thing to the next
and all the light and motion and sex

UP MOOD
Are like slow fireworks that tear the air
with supple silence
and clear the way for me to go on
by making the nightmares gone
removing the lethargy that shackled my soul
don't leave me again, though it's all in the plan
just comfort me for as long as you can!

Stina Nordenstam

We, the daily sufferers of depression
watch the splendors of this world behind glass
and know what can be had
and know what we can never have
our worlds are forever separate
unless we can bridge that gap
and then we're miles behind
in preparation, and must adapt
when our senses are blind

We, who are depressed
we see the veins of gold ore running through the hills
we see the shards of crystal jutting from the rock
we the the elk and bison and sheep and cattle
we see fields of wheat and sun pouring down on wildflowers
but there's nothing for us to eat
no meat to fill our carnal needs
no treats of the mind to fill our hours
no warmth from the sky to keep us from going mad

We, who are depressed live imprisoned
with visitations occasionally
from a man calling himself normality
seems like a jerk to me
gives us a sneer and a pat on the back
and a hearty 'good luck' slap
and all we can do is sit back and cry
there's no fighting back against
something that is part of you
something that grew old as you did
and learned to survive
and even if you want to kill this vine
which saps your strength and dulls your mind
change is slow, slower than the light from
distant dark stars
it seems it's on its way one day
other times the time flows backwards
and it seems a million miles away
and I look at my plastic bag and my rubber bands
and just sometimes,
I think there must be no other way.

I.
Her skin is fair and plain
freckles and moles, a sturdy frame
her curves are pleasing and her smile's like rain
in some arid, eastern abyssal plain.

Her hair is flaxon, of the kind
cascades one day, pulled back and tied
the next, and each does mesmerize
me in its time.

Her words can be thorny but fair in a way
a less feeling person could never say
and in her artist's eye nature is at play
all sunshine and berries to pick along the way.

II.
Her skin is darker, near olive as mine
she's thin and youthful and her brown hair shines
round a face so sweet I could never design
a happier thing given endless time.

She's sassy and sweet, her tantrums short
she forgives more easily but keeps in her heart
a record of all the hurt fate's ever brought
her way unsought.

Her words to me are childlike but knowing
unlike the other she's still timid and growing
she's seen the bad side and in her eyes it shows
and yet she walks with a purpose unslowing.

If I remember you at all
It will be as a sideshow to a greater thing
Which played out handsomely one spring
And then did fall

And underneath that ruin that year
My one true love was lost forever
And you emerged, unhurt and clever
And lost my ear

I search for her with eyes so tired
While you are scraping the meat off bones
And boiling supper for a family you loathe
As I try to rekindle desire

Here Today.
(mark burgess)

Don't know what happened
But somebody lost their mind tonight
Not sure what happened
But I don't think I got home tonight
And there's blood on my shirt

The clap of thunder
And I see my life go flashing by
The smell of sulphur
And I weep as I embrace the sky
I heard somebody scream

My chest is burning
I think someone set my soul alight
Don't know what happened
But I don't think I got home tonight
I wonder why
I wonder why

Ahhhh, there's madness here today
Ahhhh, I think I'll go away

Where is my wife?
Where is my wife?
I'm draining away
I'm draining away
Here today.

An open letter.

I got caught up in making a mess
Out of every situation my wife tried to redress
I was out of control, but splendidly dressed
But it wasn't really like this at all
I was sick all the while, just so deeply depressed
It felt like a gunshot wound ached in my chest
And dandy or not, I did nothing to impress
I was drowning in my own sloth, baiting The Fall

I am so sorry to everyone I let down
I wanted to live the perfect life
To make an attempt at a meaningful life
I lost it all in a day
I have no sympathy for those who have none for others
But the rest of us can pull together and help each other
All of us are sisters and brothers
In a very real way.

I'm sorry to the people I hurt as I lost my way.

Být příjemný psát až k mne. Nemusím až k dostat dopis od tebe. JÁ nebude trápení tebe.

by veronica jones

Golem.

Let's not mince words
I've said something you've not heard
You went into your rehearsal again
It's gotten old
And far too thin
To go on like this
When so many good people would take me in
Why should I stay in the cold again
At your foul whim?

I've paid the fool's price twice it seems
Once in years that now are dreams
The promise of a family seemed
To be in reach, and who could beseech you
More than I for some growth inside?
Then twice was when you ran to hide
As I turned loose the man who rides
Both steeds and monsters, lives and dies
By steel and pride

So this is how it's shaped to be
You bide your time till you are free
Of the burden of having to be
A mother of a child
Who might want to see me and have a go
At a closeness we had not too long ago
But you washed your hands then, and so
It's counseling forever,
And on it goes.

Slough.
by John Betjemen

Come friendly bombs and fall on Slough!
It isn't fit for humans now,
There isn't grass to graze a cow.
Swarm over, Death!

Come, bombs and blow to smithereens
Those air-conditioned, bright canteens,
Tinned fruit, tinned meat, tinned milk, tinned beans,
Tinned minds, tinned breath.

Mess up the mess they call a town-
A house for ninety-seven down
And once a week a half a crown
For twenty years.

And get that man with double chin
Who'll always cheat and always win,
Who washes his repulsive skin
In women's tears:

And smash his desk of polished oak
And smash his hands so used to stroke
And stop his boring dirty joke
And make him yell.

But spare the bald young clerks who add
The profits of the stinking cad;
It's not their fault that they are mad,
They've tasted Hell.

It's not their fault they do not know
The birdsong from the radio,
It's not their fault they often go
To Maidenhead

And talk of sport and makes of cars
In various bogus-Tudor bars
And daren't look up and see the stars
But belch instead.

In labour-saving homes, with care
Their wives frizz out peroxide hair
And dry it in synthetic air
And paint their nails.

Come, friendly bombs and fall on Slough
To get it ready for the plough.
The cabbages are coming now;
The earth exhales.