WELCOME TO PLANET EARTH (2020)
by Walking Doctor Tonnan
1.Welcome To Planet Earth
Welcome to Planet Earth
It’s a pleasure to meet you at your birth
Now we’ve got a lot of problems we’d like you to solve
But don’t worry too much, you don’t have to get involved
Well, we’ve got plenty of slaughter but not enough schools
Hell, we’ve got plenty of water but too many fools
We’ve got seven billion people with acute frustration
Bored with a heaven full of mass altercation
Welcome to Planet Earth-- it’s a pleasure to meet you at your birth!!
Now we’ve got a lot of problems we’d like you to solve
But don’t worry too much, you don’t have to get involved
Now let me introduce you to some of the people on the street
You probably won’t like them, but you might as well meet
I’m the Queen Mother of the United States
This is my brother; we clean plates.
This is a woman; she is your date.
Oh, you’re inflating with lust! I trust you can’t wait!
Oh my God, the date’s blown up.
Well, good job it’s the chorus, let’s turn the sound up.
Welcome to Planet Earth-- it’s a pleasure to meet you at your birth!!
Now we’ve got a lot of problems we’d like you to solve
But don’t worry too much, you don’t have to get involved
This is Franklin. He's a frog.
This is Douglas. He's my dog.
My name's Bob. I'm a dentist.
My name's Dot. I build fences.
This is bedding. This is Muriel.
I’m an actor. This is some cereal.
I’m at a wedding. I’m at a funeral.
This is a tractor. This is a urinal.
And I’m a singer and I wrote this song.
Now wouldn’t it be great if y’all clapped along?
Welcome to Planet Earth-- it’s a pleasure to meet you at your birth!!
Now we’ve got a lot of problems we’d like you to solve
But don’t worry too much, you don’t have to get involved
Hey, yeah that’s right!!
I know you’ve some questions you want to ask
I’ve tried to explain but it’s a very big task.
2. Endorphin Dolphin
It wasn’t a shove, as such; imagine a prehistoric push, lush beyond human flaw.
She touched me like he wanted to be touched & of this I can’t say much more.
Short of the possibility of God intervening, I’d say that there’s no reason to pray.
And she never did believe in meaning, except that you make it up along the way.
But as the sun wakes & the day breaks, the years fall down his her my cheeks.
“Every atom of last night”, I’d say, “spoke brighter than words can speak…
all except for yours…. endorphin dolphin of these shores.”
3. You Are The Catalyst
If God is the reason why we exist,
I guess I’m a god-fearing hedonist.
And I can’t resist the catalyst.
And I can’t resist the catalyst.
But oh! oh no! You’re the catalyst I can’t resist.
You’re the catalyst I can’t resist.
I tried to see yet I never saw
The impossible dream’s probable flaw
Yet there stood all my dreaming raw.
I saw the flaw of dreaming’s door.
But oh! oh no! I was dumbfounded by awe.
I was dumbfounded by awe.
And you know who put you here
And – no! – it couldn’t have been you
Yes, the future ain’t that clear
But what on earth else is new?
I tried to hear yet I never heard
Your flippant heart’s filthy word
I puzzled long over the wind-up bird
The catalyst is addicted to the absurd
But oh! oh no! I became addicted to lemon curd
I became addicted to lemon curd
I tried to feel yet I never felt
Your answer to my hunger melt
We must deal with the cards we’re dealt
And I fell under the catalyst’s spell
But oh! oh no! I fell down a well – you’re the catalyst!
I fell down a well – you’re the catalyst!
And you know who put you here
And – no! – it couldn’t have been you
Yes, the future ain’t that clear
But what on earth else is new?
4. Sheep In A Lorry
It’s a shame you chain-smoke because it kills the taste of food.
We broke up the rain and it put you in a really good mood.
You yawned a whole orchestra and thought of the fat cat in her hat.
I drank coffee so tragic like any magic dog would that could do that.
But if we’re sheep in a lorry then I can’t say I’m a lamb.
And when I say that I’m sorry then sorry is what I am.
When I say that I’m sorry it means that I give a damn.
Been sleep walking clear so much – talking is as dear as touch.
Even smoking fails as a crutch… searching in the dark depends on luck.
I’m scared of myself more than anyone else: 9 pills a day to take off the edge.
And at the end of the end no one knows what happens because we're dead.
But if we’re sheep in a lorry then I can’t say I’m a lamb.
And when I say that I’m sorry then sorry is what I am.
When I say that I’m sorry it means that I give a damn.
Oblivion obliterated midnight with schmaltz about types of plumbers.
The flu-riddled son threw up a chicken that waltzed to random numbers. I
’ve been singing with the sinners I’ve been dancing with the dead.
I’ve been hiding from the hunters that run inside my head.
I’ve been drinking wine since seven. I drunk myself a well.
I fell straight up to heaven but I'm wallowing in my hell.
But if we’re sheep in a lorry then I can’t say I’m a lamb.
And when I say that I’m sorry then sorry is what I am.
When I say that I’m sorry it means that I give a damn.
5. Grave News
Victim of law, they spiked her telephone
Her past undreamt of, unwritten, unknown
The bandit who boasts of his innermost ghost
Begs for forgiveness then proposes a toast
Please open the door, just name your price
We’re barefooted pilgrims; your life is a(d)vice
We’ll show you the Queens of Tyras, the banquets of Rome
And then the sparrows of Egypt will carry you home
For though children change and their gods decay
We'll show you tomorrow if you give us today
The flight of your tyrant, the night of our soul
Will undress the death and swallow it whole
Your kings move their lips, they wallow in word
Their meaning is stripped and nothing is heard
Yes, your hunger is splendid and noble and true
But your slaughter of lyres will not herald the new
What of the garlands we knitted our daughter?
Where are the gardens we fought for and brought her?
You're nailing the wrong snake to the stake
You're bitten and smitten and cannot escape
So, forgive me, forgive me, for my awful sin
I woke to your secrets and drunk all your gin
The man you crown saviour, I deem a thief
While I scream for love, you dream of relief
When I doubted my darkness, I sprouted two heads
And I lay deep in her heart begging for bread
It's you who sells nonsense disguised as the truth
Your hundred decisions preside as the proof
But your army of infants will abandon your cause
Because your rival, your friend will not sign her clause
He knows what we cherish, he knows what we gave
You follow her footsteps, he'll spit on your grave
6. Steepled Sequels
Your movements were married to the most mystical of Mayan music.
I plummeted into your groove which proved fiercely human.
Our pounding hearts started to make our first date seem so stupid.
I felt like Bonaparte when I emailed you my art, but it bounced straight back to Cupid…
I’m very lonely, love.
You are my only love.
This is no phony bluff
But enough of the crony stuff.
So I’ll say this: fuck me.
I saw steepled sequels in your body’s versed trance.
I know I knew what I’d never known before just at first glance.
In some ways (on Sundays) it’s fun to die in advance.
I swear you’d show me nowhere! We’d go there to dance!
I’m very lonely, love.
You are my only love.
This is no phony bluff
But enough of the crony stuff.
So I’ll say this: fuck me.!
When we were eighteen, you told me chewing gum is a therapeutic costume.
Your breath of breakfast bread became a bitter treat, a shitter perfume.
I can picture us now shooting up to talk to God in God’s room.
You’re my first favourite future since I fell in love in the womb…
Your photograph eyes, my amphetamine we heart it!
It’s no surprise that we laughed as parted!
You are my homey, love.
You really stone me, love.
You know me, you show me love.
This baloney isn’t holy enough…
So I’ll say this: haha! Fuck it!
7. Bird Volcano Event
A bird slurred a song of sorrow he borrowed from tomorrow's awe.
A cat purred along as she heard the third's absurd swoop and soar.
It's half of something squared, a shared laugh, a prayer to time's shore.
The chords run towards the sun and climb the stairs to rhyme's door.
Nature's law dictates fate creates a gate before you explore the core.
And it's a hurricane of cocaine in chains as champagne raindrops pour.
But words can't explain the pain of bliss in the refrain's sublime score.
Picture this volcano where earthly ecstasy loads
To return your dreams in a burning stream that flows
Into the snow forest where mercy grows like a rose
And algebraic angels compose acid odes in a doze,
Painting the paradox of a paradise no saint knows
Where death has no foes and the hurricane sows
The codes of the unknown into celestial rainbows
Until the lone saxophone blows and trombone explodes.
Hear the harps hum a hymn as the limbs of death shine their light.
See the grieving leaves fall form the trees breathe in the night.
Now listen to the weeping colours christen the spark of infinity:
I found a dark sound on the ground that let me be free.
Twilight murmurs a mighty miracle and the midnight fades
Into the graveless enclave which brings peace to the old parade.
The lullabies crafted by the lava colonnade bake as love shakes
The trees which are guardians of the lake where we awake.
8. Reality Or Reverie
With the untameable harp of dream arrested in your palm,
You deny the dormant deity’s call for a slumberous calm.
But it’s there the world awakens in unburdened wonder,
Where lover and beloved are nameless without number.
Reality blasphemes the future and smokes like it’s the law;
Reverie conjures places and faces you’ve never seen before.
I know which one I’d choose if the choice were mine to make;
I’d rejoice in the music of your voice and I would never wake.
We’re all cracked: crucifix of time, hanging round my neck,
I’m born to live and die in this fusion of heavenly heck.
We play chess with every breath: but the odds are stacked,
For all consciousness will meet death or siesta's abstract.
Reality is advisable and definable: you’re there or you’re not;
Reverie is sizeable and excitable: you forget that you forgot.
I know which one I’d choose if the choice were mine to make
I’d rejoice in the music of your voice and I would never wake.
Louise, fathomless heart, pirouetting like a children’s globe,
We live because there’s time to kill or for the thrill of the strobe.
Either we’re shambling without style down the shopping aisle;
Or we’re flying through a world as our being utters a smile.
Reality is no joke and there’s no cart blanche: each day is as it is;
Reveries…colours evoke avalanche of phantasmagoria aura bliss.
I know which one I’d choose if the choice were mine to make;
I’d rejoice in the music of your voice and I would never wake
9. I’ll Love You Until Friday Never Comes
With your river flowing the angel must be joking when he says ‘love is blind’.
Your strumpet clothing and your magnetic blowing live enshrined in my mind.
The trumpet of loathing love and yet loving loathing majestically combine.
I wonder if I’ll love you until Friday never comes or if I’ll ever call you ‘mine’.
There are those who see the God above who never knew the pain of bliss.
And those like me who dream of love with one like you on nights like this.
Though I confide the absurd, I cloak my heart of hearts and I hide my hiding too.
I impart a liquored divide of blurred feeling for it resides in any evocation of you.
You woke me up and you broke me down; those three words that I spoke are true.
You beautiful slut; you truthful nut; I adore your strut to tut to pokes of voodoo.
There are those who see the God above who never knew the pain of bliss.
And those like me who dream of love with one like you on nights like this.
Wherever I am the same one is there; I swear without him I wouldn’t have a care.
You and them are beyond compare; you repair my world like a prayer rarer than rare.
They smoke like chimneys and joke incessantly but never laugh and avert your glare.
From your hopeful horoscope of dope to kaleidoscope of nope, I’ll love you until I am nowhere.
There are those who see the God above who never knew the pain of bliss.
And those like me who dream of love with one like you on nights like this.
10. Your Fingers Were A Cabaret
Though God knows the ride of time flows slowly, snidely and forever,
So it goes that if I chose suicide as my bride, nothing would be severed.
I suppose I had to grow up so fast that even I don’t wholly know me,
But I dreamt a moment and in my bridled mind a vision presided holy.
I observed the mirage of you there, tattooed in secular and unsecular places.
Curved figure camouflaged by hair, you grew a vector of inscrutable faces.
I fought the desire and felt its beautiful fire melt through my happy veins.
It was like I belonged to your scenic song, which purged me of all my pains.
Your image said I cooked myself thin but you took my soul as your twin.
Your image said salvation is law and horizons widen in beginning of sin.
And though in awe I swore I knew just exactly what you meant,
All beagle-eyed eternity fried as the future of love became its present.
Back then our limbs did the talking as we let the longing win.
Your fingers were a cabaret and how our souls did begin to sing.
11. Like The Sun When It Swoons
There’s a solemn prayer that the sparrows recite.
The wind whispers it carefully where Winter’s sole witness is night.
It’s hard to render in words, that which are finite.
It’s a childish account of the earth's surrender to dark until dark emerges light!
I didn’t think you’d plummet into the summit of majesty.
I felt you fall in love with me, tonguing me easy and happy in the marquee.
My love for you won’t deplete like the sun wouldn’t swoon at the height of sorcery.
If history is doomed to repeat, let us meet again under the moonlight.
The next day, I drink from the chalice of youth so deep.
On the brink of discovering the calloused truth, I drift into the seer of sleep!
I lift you up in an exultant reverie & I’m so lucid that I leap!
You’re the same woman I fell in love with, and I’m so happy I could weep!
Now I perceive the grieving angels in the leaves travelled blind.
How cruel destiny can be to some and to others how kindly it aligns.
My love for you won’t deplete like the sun wouldn’t swoon at the height of sorcery!
If history is doomed to repeat, let us meet again under the moonlight!
The truth is disguised there coated in lies as soon as you rise.
They tortured me in the orchard; I cry until my soul and body dries.
You smoked my heart, you woke my art, the start is done.
I always wondered if you were the one, the sum of sums, the one next to none.
The sun rises, I realize we were simultaneously old yet young.
God knows what the rest will become, their destinies unsung, ours too yet to come.
My love for you won’t deplete like the sun wouldn’t swoon at the height of sorcery!
If history is doomed to repeat, let us meet again under the moonlight!
12. Twirled
It’s easy to translate a broken heart into art; I should know, I’ve hated myself from the start.
Now I’m paranoid about everything from schizophrenic spliffs to what ifs to Cupid’s dart.
She walks & talks mad like a phoenix; that don’t make it brick but it makes me glad to be sick.
And now waterfalls of tears recall the snakebite while arrears are politely signed in blood running thick.
I will always remember you, but I love to get lost within the why.
You realise there is no meaning but that which we ascribe when we try.
The skies are perfectly sad tonight & each soppy star is a secret cherub stud designed just for you.
The sun is a photograph of the humming moon’s dance around the globe and its Oxygen zoo.
Promises aren’t made to be broken, so relish the rain like a pained painter in a robe on the job.
Your library eyes spin tales of youth, but my solitary confinement mind fails the truth of the mob.
I will always remember you, but I love to get lost within the why.
You realise there is no meaning but that which we ascribe when we try.
I feel to finger the linguist, yet my celibacy lingers on a single thing a touch too long.
Epileptic triggers may extinguish the English but stay strong & belong to the crutch of song.
Lord, I was a sinner until I felt the mascara of angel dust so strange on her window flesh.
Now I vow to begin again; I’m not morose but I want to doze to a dose of the gross afresh.
I will always remember you, but I love to get lost within the why.
You realise there is no meaning but that which we ascribe when we try.
I want to feel alive and twenty-five and drive and survive and arrive at midnight’s design.
I want to fail to recall word, I want a tail like a small bird – yeah, I want what isn’t mine.
Someday somewhere, sometime someone somehow will do something so happy.
We’ll just spend all day enjoying it, but I’ll never forget how you both trapped me.
I will always remember you, but I love to get lost within the why.
You realise there is no meaning but that which we ascribe when we try.
First you were a churlish magazine cover, but then you were an orphaned girl.
Now you are the private pearls of another, now your kindness cannot unfurl.
My tongue curled too; the sun begun to numb me so much I could’ve hurled.
This is twisted. This is twirled. The existence you hold is a spaghetti igloo world.
I will always remember you, but I love to get lost within the why.
You realise there is no meaning but that which we ascribe when we try.
WALKING DOCTOR TONNAN
by Walking Doctor Tonnan
1. Yesterday Died
Ain’t it just like the dead to conquer your head
With all the things that could’ve been said?
Society hangs its hate by human thread
Then on a plate they serve your head
Though we bear the weight of worlds they dread
We can only stare as fate unfurls in red
I did it though because you cried popeyed
I nearly died because they deified their side
I haven’t forgot what the dream seemed to hide
Your intoxicated copper gobbles trout and sprouts
As Buddhists meditate on the devout route
And politicians pout their doubting snouts
Spouting bullshit until their lungs give out
As huddled masses shout about a man of clout
Who can stand to flout his pout without a doubt
I did it because your hands of time were my guide
And because of the tried trance they applied
Not because of the way that yesterday died
Your hero (in your dreams) consumes forbidden fruit
And returns to the womb with his orphaned flute
Soliloquising that each angelic accident is absolute
As tears stream down her face to his embryonic suit
Where the air is polluted by your new destitute boots
But who can refute that materialistic minds prostitute?
I did it though because the ride was wild
I only lied when I was beguiled as a child
I still can’t forget the way you smiled
I saved some for me but you took the rest
Whatever God’s doing can only be guessed
So pay no heed to one that’s blessed
With a crest etched across his breast
For it’s he that leads this lonely quest
But it’s he that’s bequest to those oppressed
I did it though because my hands were tied
I nearly died to let our dreams collide
I can’t seem to forget the way they lied
My essay on yesterday reviled, I was exiled
Society… who has the guile to attend that trial?
I’d only be thinking about you all the while
I did it though because the ride was wild
I only cried when my dream was defiled
I can’t seem to forget the way that you smiled
I did it though because you lied popeyed
I cried too because my bride deified the bribe
I haven’t forgot what the dream seemed to hide
I was embarrassed, embarrassed, embarrassed
I ain't saying a--thing
2. Inside (feat. Tonnan's Brother)
A future lover walked up to me in the bar.
She winked and said, “I know who you are!”
I replied, “Chances are I’m not what you think.
But would you like a memory in which we drink?”
I live inside her now but I don’t get homesick.
It’s too late I know but in circles we go so quick.
I simply can’t dance, mister, but I’ll chance the night.
Your sister can’t buy a future, but your kitten might.
Girl, you don’t need alcohol to calm each qualm.
But maybe our world is a greedy computer farm.
I live inside her now but I don’t get homesick.
It’s too late I know but in circles we go so quick.
I loved you but you’re indifferent to me now.
I’d change your mind, but I don’t know how.
We discussed our star-signs on the school bus.
Now I can look up how you are without extra fuss.
I live inside you but I don’t get homesick.
It’s too late but I know in circles we go so quick.
I live inside you both but I don’t get homesick.
It’s too late I know but in circles we go so quick.
3. Angel Made of Acid
Well, God forbid my heart is hid/his/hit & I'll be yours if you'll be mine.
Angel made of acid I was just a kid [cept’ where the sun don’t shine].
Mad/bad breathless beauty shot time into rhyme.
In deathless duty the serpent stars entwined.
Yesterday I was falling but today all I do is climb.
Yet singing these songs never earnt a dime.
If you grow up restless, the best breakfast is wine.
The law is thine while the doors align in the Sublime.
Lust at first sight
Becomes Love
By the end of the night.
Restless, I tested how far I could go: the real foe isn’t what you don’t know.
I smoked more, opened a big door & added more flow like Rimbaud.
Your four kaleidoscope eyes reflect the spectre of the circus skies.
Beyond the ravines of what has been lies a future we’ve yet to realise.
My day is a dream I don’t want to wake from as our lips spar.
It’s as if you’re almost in me yet your tongue doesn’t leave a scar.
I’d crawl across your soul’s river covered in Old Holborn tar.
Yeah, it chars my heart to be apart so let’s say bonjour, not au revoir.
Lust at first sight
Becomes Love
By the end of the night.
The state-funded rain of the over-soul makes me whole & I’m on God’s parole.
I’m emboldened at a golden anniversary; conversely becoming 50’s my only goal.
With your Neptune ease & my bended knees & heck geez who called the police?!
The necklace daydreams created & your lips laid grace to the place of release.
In a spectacle saved for the holy beginning & final wreck you kissed my neck.
You beckoned in a dozen dying dreams & we shared ten thousand seconds of sex.
My recall stalls before last fall when I saw you: is this it, mon amour?
Watching falling raindrops pour, I never knew love could be a war.
Lust at first sight
Becomes Love
By the end of the night.
4. How Could An Angel Be So Strange?
Gunshots the force of a hundred horses
divorce reality from art.
Departed dreams and Neptune’s screams
break the moon’s heart.
God will be sole witness to the end,
just as God was to the start.
To me your touch was more sacred
than fudge and I was spellbound.
It didn’t take as much as a nudge
to clown my sanity upside down.
Now profound hunger hounds me
and ecstasy is a vision of your sound.
You are my first love, because you are you.
This is the worst love that I ever knew.
I hope that not all love is fast love, true.
So I hope that this’ll be my last love, too.
I feel this ecstasy blast above my mouth.
The real thirst is always further south.
You’re going to make me change
How could an angel be so strange?
5. Karma's Barter
I smoked your moon-kissed lips and déjà vu soon drew a purple circus round the clown of purpose like the all-dye hook of a black hole.
You woke me before chords of the forest soared into the town of sound where it is true that you can sue whomever shook your shackled soul.
After karma’s barter in the womb halved the laughter of Gaea, I wept in contempt of court and dreamt I was bought like a crook on parole.
I stayed in their cellar, a maid and a beggar, with only one stellar/Stella sweater and a cooking book that I’m afraid to tell ya I took or stole.
But I’ve got some simple words you never hear.
A man is lucky if they ever near his ears.
If I were you, then I would be you.
But since I am me, I am me.
That’s why we’re two and we’re free to be free.
Mary mixes the karma potion, her schizophrenia still in motion, and Christ waltzes on water, causing quite the commotion in the sea of Galilee.
I tasted his devotion with hasty emotion; it was sorta artful and heartful, not far from water where the leveed sea breaks through into the city.
I met her in a daydream; why get disturbed anyway? At the end of the day it seems you go back all the way in the reset of the nitty gitty.
We rode a pony thru the desert and arrived at the brook - the ceremony took ten terse minutes I never forsook; I’d still love you infinitely less pretty.
But I’ve got some simple words you never hear
A man is lucky if they ever near his ears.
If I were you, then I would be you.
But since I am me, I am me.
That’s why we’re two and we’re free to be free.
I suppose where I once scorned, I could now offer a hand.
Every rose bears a thorn, but I was reborn a stronger man.
If only you had stayed, I’d have sworn my life on our plan.
6. Desolate & Confused
We were sitting desolate and confused
I was your friend and you were my muse
We were young and easily amused
You offered me a cigarette but I refused
We talked so long even the yellow nightingales hit the sack
I was thrilled to learn that you were a fellow pyromaniac
I told you about the mind of reality that I kind of seemed to lack
If my soul was blind, yours was a dream or a Jonestown track
Like a brave coward I expected my defeat
But maybe I wasn't looking to compete
I knew that the past couldn't ever repeat
Yet I needed something to feel complete
You introduced me to her for the first time
On the bridge that links North and South
I immediately thought that she was sublime
She immediately wanted to meet my mouth...
And so I couldn't help thinking of her as our lips met-
What exactly she was doing at this point;
Yet I felt something in my jeans and it wasn't regret-
After all she was just rolling a joint.
Together we watched the moon wake the stars in the sky.
I fell so far into the moment I soon forgot that I was shy.
“I don’t need you and you don’t need me,” you accidentally lied.
“I guess that makes us both almost free,” I sentimentally replied.
In my eyes your spirit was swinging as a happening jazz band.
The adder was your tight, the laddered night yet unmanned.
The truth was as beautiful as love yet solipsistic as the sand.
I held our stalemate in my hands, then you exploded wonderland.
The drives outlining my love for you will forever rest in peace online.
You’re just like everyone I ever knew, so animated and ‘not mine’.
Though much time is past, cheers for buying me Scottish wine.
I'm not sure that you like rhyme, but here lies my heart in every line.
She comes back to me one morning,
And the years fall down our cheeks.
She shows me what it means to love
And no one needs to speak...
The man and woman are the mystery,
Yet my night is light as day at last.
I may kneel before your god of war,
But I won’t thank him for the past.
7. What's Your Story?
Respite from the blue moon;
The night comes too soon.
The bright young pretty stoners sing to their own gritty tune.
Escape the caped ape;
Gape at the shape of rape.
God tapes human mistakes; she wakes to ache; you wake to ruin.
Suicide of dried pride: I hide inside the guide.
The flower is our power: you cried, I died, we tied.
Salvation ain't plenty
But damnation ain't empty
Sensation-free at twenty-seven!
Hefty temptation of trendy heaven!
You… what’s your story? Think about it.
Forgetting is what friends tend to do;
I bet I’ll sing at the sunset end for you.
The better the wetter when it’s three fools and two points of view.
A lonely clown in discount drag
Learns to count then burns a flag.
Now the only madman in town crowns the sound where he drowned in blue.
Real lust is trust: you’re bust if you don’t know it.
Hear the poet in the thrust of the gust just below it.
Truth can be self-defeating
And youth can be so fleeting.
The tooth of Ruth
Repeats its eating
You… what’s your story? Think about it.
8. B4 The Skies Turn Black
I know you’re doing well, but I wish I could say the same for myself.
Sometimes this life is hell, cloaked by another name just for stealth.
Tomorrow’s a word I seldom use, but I don’t like to live in the past.
Some musicians use silence as a muse, but I get bored of it too fast.
I saw an angel carved in snow yesterday, as cunningly as if it were clay.
I don’t particularly want to go anyway, so you give me a reason to stay.
I haven’t given up my search for meaning; I’ve just grown a little slack.
So meet me by the church about half an hour before the skies turn black.
I was born in squalor out of love and I’ll die in it unless God intervenes.
I wonder if there’s a heaven above or if the closest place is New Orleans.
I guess all I can ever do is be me, but I like pretending to be the Queen.
I speak about my own majesty, after a seemingly obscene dose of caffeine.
I’m good at acting as if everything’s alright, but I’m not if you want to know.
Sometimes all you can do is get through the night, but time passes so slow.
You’re a flirtation with my salvation and maybe deliverance is what I lack.
So meet me by the church about half an hour before the skies turn black.
9. Like Acne On Your Nosek
Like acne on your nose, love slowly grows.
Your mind refines ideals but ain’t love.
Love’s ingredients are sent & not chose.
A parrot-ox smothers you with its bluff.
But your secret suffering soon will pass.
You’ll find another lover who’s truer.
Together you’ll gaze at the moon on grass.
That eternal love: I never knew her.
I did not glimpse forever with my eyes.
I did not swim thru leathered storms for lust.
Love is lust is love between thighs & sighs.
Our God’s judgement is just: from dust to dust.
Feelings are real so I don’t regret.
In love we met & in love we forget.
10. I Think I Think
As long as I hear the song of your heartbeat
And even as tomorrow evening completes
The sorrow that yesterday just can't defeat,
Three is okay too but you and me is a treat.
I’d hobble on crutches down Jealousy Street again
To be touched by the heat of love in a repeat of 2010.
If my groove depletes like my Naked Smoothie drink,
You were cheated by a sacred dream I think I think...
I ain’t as clever as the saint but you're equally as dense
And hence the forever of now never quite felt so immense.
O, how your control over my soul stopped making sense!
But I couldn't be fucked holy sitting on a shitting ivory fence.
I know that you requited my real feel, if only in past tense...
Yet when nonsense met pretence, they shared two cents.
I remember the beauty of earthly heaven and its infinite stink...
As I fatten, you thin -- I'll drink to that and think of you in ink!
Which hidden dove forbid us from the room up above?
Was our youth misspent in the unrented truth of love?
The ancients tested the patience of our dove again,
As the stars heated the saddest night from far above.
Your glove tight on mine was the maddest treat then,
Back when you excited my blackest light with love.
I married a spicy Bombay sandwich at Camden's Coffee Café,
And the gun of language carried me to the one who gave me a jay.
I regret how the forgetful future turns into yearning for today,
But sex is like the ego and I know it now and that’s why I play.
Today always burns the poet, yet the good God never led me astray…
I hope God straightens Satan anyway until they both earn their grey!
The past goes so fast that the future stays within lasting ink.
If you are blue, today is too, so renew your think with a blink.
I used to think I was some kind of crucifix until you fixed me a drink.
You confused me with your winking mind but then I felt nothing blink.
I was something like an angel to you because you were nothing like me.
I could have loved you forever and yet you would never have set me free.
11. I Fell For You (Again)
With the undead diary of your times at the Priory unread by another,
With an imperfect lover in one hole and your soul stashed in the other,
With your yeast and mini feasts and the dreams I never seemed to uncover
With our deceased mothers released into a domain we’ve yet to discover…
With your accidental rude and secret rain and tasty vegetable curries,
With Time as a tailor or grumpy sailor or a mint made of McFlurry,
With your impossible Presidential hope which you abandoned in a hurry,
With your random multitude of moods and professional baking worries...
Isabel, you put a spell on my heart below.
Well, I felt you at the start, right at ‘hello’.
Isabel, I hope you will be my friend until we die.
I fell for you again at the end when we said ‘goodbye’.
Isabel, you put a spell on my art below.
I fell for you again when we parted, you know.
Well, Isabel, I hope you will be my friend until we too die.
If there’s no hell below us, is there laughter up in the blue sky?
Though I know how much Nothing kicks now as Everything quickly plateaus,
You forgave the way I stayed in yesterday so I could touch the Grave of Shadows;
You shaved my hair there, where I said a prayer for the dead in mad clothes,
And you gave me a blue rose to save me from a new dose of sad lows…
But without God as a witness, and “it wasn’t me” & “it’s not your fault”,
I cried for the Rainbow’s End as you penned a war against what I exalt;
It’s almost as if you forgot that clothes are but the ghost of society’s default,
As our hearts’ seams wake to make love to the dreams which slowly halt.
I saw a zoo full of naked horseshoes.
I saw a statue (it's too sacred - I snoozed).
I wanted absolutely anything but the blues.
I saw an inflated cow who mooed the news.
I saw girls and boys and women and men.
I saw an old world become young again.
I saw a human bomb count back from ten.
Well, Isabel, I felt you drum upon my dream back then.
12. Twice The Price of Paradise
Ain’t it just our shoddy luck to be stuck in one crappy body when we could be oddly happy in another?!
If you discover the sleazy city of spirits in the centre of the world, please promise me you won’t tell Big Brother.
Every kiss in that abyss is elephant-bliss and it’s there one uncovers God is the son of Satan’s part-time lover.
The Earth’s core is at war with itself, and they say God started it by tampering with the farts of your mother.
Hundreds of heads invaded my heart on Superbowl Sunday.
I traded belief in a dead deity for reefer and a soul on Monday.
If either of us should leave, the other would be crazy to stay.
I worked this hard when I was young so I could be this lazy one day.
Whatever the present comprises, it’s an atom of forever.
For twice the price of Paradise, you can fly like the weather.
The government bought a law against draw, but we scored hench fries and French highs from Kevin’s Pies.
Together we fought a war against sleep with the breathless parakeet Queen and her seventeen butterflies.
I thought I saw the meaning of death scrawled obscenely small on the wall between Heaven’s gleaming eyes.
Isabel smelt swell as a rebel then, and I fell under her spell again as plasticine thunder flowered at sunrise.
Mona Lisa weeps for freedom as her heart sleeps frozen in painted slime.
See the guards feed Mona Lisa pizza drenched in prose and saintly lime.
Nothing does everything at once because everything’s the opposite of time.
Your destiny awaits you à la Seine, where the bells of liberty chime.
Another long day defeated; another song half-completed.
For twice the price of Paradise, the past can be repeated.
Now reddened rain leaps onto dead-end streets, and a clockwork centaur in paradoxical sleep dreams of dinosaurs.
Female mail men eat nuclear snails and secrete microbe priests who feast on the bacterial spores of giant Labradors.
When he burns his daughter or returns from the water, Christ shall be uncrucified and there will be no more wars.
I had my sordid afternoon many moons away from today, and soon as now somehow I trust you must too have yours.
“The only moment worth having,” your friend sensuously breathes, “is one that you can readily repeat.”
Expect the head of your affection to meet a perfect defeat soon as she encloses your love in her moon-angel-feet.
Downstairs on the streets, an orphan soldier swears that God above is older than forever yet even more obsolete.
You never supposed you’d sever your grip on the past, yet at last the present feels pleasantly complete.
Nothing is only an illusory goal, and so is the semblance of control.
But the rose-tinted lover that led you to bed still has a mole.
And the prose of the dead mother in your head still has a soul.
And a whole shoal of tadpoles still stroll round your fishbowl.
For twice the price of Paradise, you can fly like the fucking weather.
For twice the price of Paradise, you can be stuck here forever.
The laughing cow teaches the art of salvation to the heart of each nation with her drum now.
The laughing cow topples your golden house of crumbs like a needle to the tongue now.
The laughing cow tells the story of how purgatory freed her, yet she longs for the numb now.
One hand needs hers, nothing eats her, and her soul speedily leaps up to the sun now.
Insanity is the profanity of the hidden soul I could not hide.
My patient suicide is inscribed upon my limping stride.
Because I forgot that you lied, the angles of your angels were my guide.
Because my future seemed shot, my egoic dreams slowly rotted and died.
For twice the price of Paradise, you can do pretty much whatever.
If you don’t know why it’s “do or die”, you should try getting leathered.
For twice the price of Paradise, the past can live forever.
If you don’t know why it’s “do or die”, try “now or never”.
13. The Ear of Both My Eyes
My soul is a limerent scroll o’song smitten by your sex’s glue.
The rainbow froze over long ago but I’ll always fit in next to you.
I know The future can seem like a hollow dream after scream or two.
But let the totality of Experience’s everything heal you from the blue.
The holier the ghost the closer we die to the surprise,
And Kleopatra is the host of everything in the ear of both my eyes.
The offspring of robins wear God-cameras pinned to minute wings.
They carry about the twin wind breath of mirror-moons that sing.
The drunks wake up society while punks fake notoriety onstage.
Watch monks nail Christ’s memoirs to the wailing creator’s cage.
But the holier the ghost the closer we die to the surprise,
And Kleopatra is the gross of everything in the ear of both my eyes.
14. How To Sing
People often come up to me on the street & say ‘hey, Walking Doctor Tonnan, how do you sing so sweet?’
I tell them it’s a combination of mouth movements, knowing you’re the messiah, Adderall and pretending you’re Scooby Doo singing at Marge Simpson’s wedding to Scooby Doo who is running away from the mafia because the mafia is after him because Scooby Doo is from the Mafia but Tony Soprano’s sister had it in for him though he secretly loves her and Marge Simpson has a cat and Scooby Doo doesn’t like cats unless they’re from the mafia and so you’re like Scooby Doo pretending to be Gatsby from the Great Gatsby pretending to sing to Marge Simpson but actually singing to Tony Soprano’s sister. And that's how you sing.
15. Flu Blues
I wept out of the darkness
You fell into the light
I remember the old bars
And how we used to fag/fight
I wept out for those I had lost
I had to fight to be me, some
I suppose that is the cost
Of working for your freedom
I wept out for those I had lost
I had to fight to be me, some
I suppose that is the cost
Of outliving your own freedom
[There won't be an end to God
But the wars, they will end
You're not sorry for being odd
I'm just sorry you pretend]
Sometimes I wake up had
Sometimes I wake up mad
I can see good from bad
I know what made us sad
The world has gone wrong
The wrong people are in charge
I can no longer celebrate their song
Though I can't walk far, my mind can march
I've been tortured by the voices
Your darkness fell into the light
I remember love without choices
And none of this old new plight
I wept out for the warred
You wept out for the tearless
My tired eyes were assured
I wasn't exactly fearless
I wept out of the darkness
You fell into the light
I remember the old park
And how we used to fight
16. Requiem For Rain
This is a requiem for rain. I live in a menagerie of pain.
The insane are sleeping or at least in vain they’re trying.
All the names are seeping through the blue rain’s crying.
Voices explain electrifying choices that send my frying brain flying.
Midnight too shall soon weep for moonlight's eyes aren't drying.
The most unforgiving ghosts give the living reason for dying.
Thanks for peacekeeping but it’s true I knew that you were lying.
You wanted to get lyrically necked.
I wanted to get metaphysically wrecked.
You wanted to be politically correct.
Our connection was mystically direct.
You were literally almost perfect.
What exactly did you expect to get resurrected?
My factual statue of feeling got critically erected.
[Hahah! Was that supposed to be funny??
Hahah! Was that supposed to be funny?? Hahah!]
I was the lame with brain damage that you were not above.
If you were the bandage then you were also the shove
I was the sandwich which you held through your glove.
You spoke an enchanted language that planted hot love.
You took your advantage for granted so I shot at the dove.
We could have requited forever and never quite got enough
But I believe in leather, and you see right through my bluff.
You were together and witty and almost as clever as love.
Forever never was as pretty as when you rescued the dove.
This is a requiem for rain. I live in a menagerie of pain.
17. Hypnotised
When fate brandishes the blues
I'll be here, whatever the news
As years and tears all drift by
I'll appear to dry your eye
When no one hears what you say
I'll be your ear, till break of day
Even when our paths don't cross
Have no fear, you are my boss
When we sail to an unknown realm
I'll sit next to you at the helm
When feet fail and we've grown old
I'll make you warm if you feel cold
When female love is your lone need
I'll bow out, with grace and speed
Even when our stars don’t shine
I’ll share yours if you’ll share mine
When it was new, we fell and flew
But when it grew, I finally knew
When we are two, I want to be one
I have no clue, I forget our sum
When we are true, I'm hypnotised
All I want is be at your side
Even when our paths don't cross
Have no fear, you are my boss
18. Naked Protest Singer 142
As Princess gets breathless with her next of kin,
Clouds wonder aloud about what Death’s Thunder means for the scene.
Nearby Now, a proud Crowd dressed in deerskin
loudly protest the arrest of the tested vaccine of the Queen’s Green.
Watch the Witches itch to pause the heathen Heaven,
causing President 211 to hit her mythical button.
This switches the age of consent to 67,
which fills each bitching glutton with lyrical mutton.
See the Government tame Tomorrow’s Gaming Vultures,
training Entertainers to attain the slapstick of the only tantric Art left.
If you follow the chart that erodes the codes of Cultures,
don’t be afraid to be saved then enslaved by the tricks of Love & Theft.
Spy the wise Wizard board a lawless Shipwreck up above,
climbing the skies to meet his friend the Baffled Dog.
God can’t afford to be bored by the trippy Heck of Love,
and so this Earth’s Universe is rebirthed by a snog.
It's well understood Love can be but a falsehood yet it's necessary to survive.
And I would be your monsieur, but my French is slowly rotting alive.
Yes, I could be your chauffeur, but I’m so hench that I cannot drive.
I should be your connoisseur, but what we were is a blur I cannot revive.
19. The Subtler The Tyranny
The subtler the tyranny, the deeper each one of us falls.
The more pitiful the irony, the louder people weep at city walls.
Gazing at me oddly like a God, she guillotined the rest.
In heaven’s estimation, their destination is best left a guess.
Yes, I robbed lust of its fortune, manically writing this song.
And tonight merciful mountains shine over this sorry ‘so long’.
When I was young, I couldn't wait to fall in love, then you walked through the door.
When I grew older, the war grew colder, but I wasn't any bolder than before.
Three years ago, I said it would be last time, so I forgot it like the last rhyme.
20. You're Here
You're here but the fear of society's spears made you forget to remember your eyes
And you're tied to your tongue and your thighs grow so numb when you're done with becoming a lie
Believe it, conceive it, we've been there, we grieve it, then we heave on another disguise
The world promises pearls but that never unfurls and girl that ain't no surprise
When you were small and in thrall of it all the walls didn't seem so tall
But now that you've grown it's hard to disown the thoughts that they taught you in school
But if you give up trying, you're already dying, though your hour of flowers may not fall
And if you give up your purpose and abandon this circus your birth was worth nothing at all
21. Animal Dreams (feat. Mike Davison)
Some preachers teach the equality of all creatures except for that of educated human fools.
The fate for which I myself reach is the same as the late great creator who birthed my molecules.
Tomorrow’s earth may yet be a cool age, fuelled by all animals’ admission to animal schools.
Remember that McDonald worked for all of us (and Hugh Grant).
And if the McDonald’s Animal School is harmed, activists will chant.
Karma won’t chicken if dharma sickens (which I know it shan’t).
I let my weightless soul do what my body can’t.
I may be even more schizophrenic than your aunt.
My greatest goals involve Love and holy plant.
Try not to waste away your days at an abstract factory.
The death of the future may not be all that satisfactory.
The funny moneyed spotty hottie waxes lyrical about Rockland’s brand-new contraband.
She says her girlfriend’s sunny hair compares to twenty grand or many grains of sand.
She tells him that man is just a girl, and then Rockland grabs you both by the hands.
He murmurs that he is too, and that the world is no greener where he stands.
The sunlight-gun is mounting science and God wants back his myth.
Try to remember who you came from and who you want to leave with.
Xinx and I exist in newly shrewd shoes like a nude kangaroo glued to a hedonist.
The roaring wind soars like moonfish dogtrotting through Love’s unforgotten mist.
You don’t really wish for an invitation, for the bliss of salvation is always this.
You and I know creation is a maze, and that it’s yours and hers and his to kiss.
The tiny God mounts his conscience, and he doesn’t know what to expect.
I guess that since God never had a side, it’s nigh impossible to defect.
22. The Other Heaven
Mother of God, I shall be demonstrating your lover’s mandate by the other heaven’s gate.
Eternal return (brother!): it’s worth nothing if it’s still Earth, so fate will just have to wait.
When I’ve burned all my tomorrows, at least there’ll be no sorrow to lacerate the blank slate.
Lord, forgive me if you can afford to: all the rest send you their best, from New York to Belfast.
Maybe we’re all dying and trying to live with past moments that just can’t be surpassed.
Yet I’ll be happy as hell when I forget I’m dead and the sun sets and all’s well at last.
It’s just sometimes my heart misses all the ones that ever sought to reach me.
I start to climb up their kisses up to the sum of what they fought to teach me.
The theme-park-maze you gotta fight through to make bread is dark as night.
But someday maybe, who can say baby, I’ll gaze back from the heights and pray to tell God, “I’m dead but alright.”
23. God Know Your Burdem
God knows your burden
Destiny is never certain
Til the close of the curtain.
At points we all are hurting
With fate's gates still flirting
So I’m not just blurting whatever comes into my head.
But with that said…
A boy with big hair walks to me on Voltaire street
Glares at me, says he wants drugs but doesn't know where
I say yeah, man, you’re in for a treat, I swear
You can eat & glug drugs by the mug over there.
Buyer beware, coffee makes you care.
That debonair air says you’ll fit in bare.
Consume it on a chair & don’t get it in your hair.
Yeah, you’re welcome.
Might as well sell some.
Some people: God help them.
If you build it, they will come.
I read I assaulted a police officer thrice.
BS: I have many a vice but he insulted me twice.
If the forces aren’t nice, of course we pay the price.
There’s only so much ice cream cake left & it seems we all want a slice.
We both got betrayed & arrested, Jesus and I.
No other parallels are to be drawn except for the circumstances of our birth.
It’s hard to play guitar well- most people can’t do most hard things: that’s no lie.
Get merry after a sherry & ask Katy Perry if she can sing via telepathy [you won’t get a reply]
Flashback to the tarmac: broke more than my back.
But I’m on track to get back what I now lack.
I ain’t that slack, my cards aren’t whack -
Yet the impact’s a fact I can’t black out.
But don’t let the realm overwhelm you, take it by the helm, make your own route.
Brain damage is something I can manage and marriage I can live without.
The rain ravaged me like I was disparaging justice’s carriage with doubt.
Proceedings got savage speedily so I kept all I could scavenge for the drought.
Forget the dipshits: the creator exists.
Religion persists to twist the plot (which is kind of hot)
So don’t take a shot at the deity who prays for thee…
God is all some people have got.
I don’t ramble or gamble, I shamble with the wind.
I’d like to see that rabbit again, man could he grin.
I’ve had it with the habit but I still want some magic.
The demons that inhabit me are undramatically static.
The tragic song is so long that any doctor would fall asleep
The thought of being caught up in it makes me want to weep.
I tried to find unity amidst the commotion.
So I sat deserted in church, devoid of emotion
I ran towards him, I ran fast in slow motion
I was so late for work they gave me a promotion
I was born again in the heart of the lion’s den.
I shouted about Lucifer, some people howled amen.
If I was Zen with the pen, I’d have written that at ten.
But I loved God back then: all the time, don’t ask me when.
I met a young girl who told me to take things slow.
I met an old man who said go fast or I won’t grow.
I saw you breaking through to a world I don’t know.
That thought came later, all I felt at the time was low.
But Love is perfect & love is pure: I couldn’t ask for more.
You shook me to the core, you ended my war.
Like all illusions the confusion came to a conclusion.
24. Omens of Paradise
“Will you always love free?” the FatCat sighs.
“For as long as I am me,” the Diplomat lies.
His lit cigar is perched between her plump lips.
But her eyes trump Evolution’s ancient script.
“To being free,” the FatCat forcefully cries, unscrewing a bottle of red wine and chugging down half of it quick.
“To being me,” the Diplomat replies, wondering why her lover’s breath smells of another’s laughter and shit.
Now the FatCat and Diplomat jump asleep and dream they’re dreaming a nightmare no real God would allow.
The gore of their innermost wars are no closer to omens of paradise than the pair’s premature vow.
Now The Lollipop Lady distributes ice cream to her friends.
She knows she’ll be repaid with salvation in the end.
She exclusively speaks monosyllabic words such as ‘mend’.
The Lollipop Lady is single and on that you can always depend.
Inside the kitchen, the Chef swears in fluent French and it's easy to understand his preferred slurred phrase.
The chef relishes isolated conditions and the way he seasons dead birds with curd is still absurd these days.
Yes, God will be sole witness to the end like God was to the start, as Neptune's screams break the moon’s heart.
Let epiphanies the force of a hundred horses divorce Art from such omens of paradise that the government farts.
A broody guest has a proposition the manager won’t resist.
The hot concierge knows that the manager don’t exist.
“Where is the manager of this hotel?” asks the broody guest.
“He’s in hell,” says the hot concierge, looking her metrosexual best.
Inside the Great Hall, Brian The Actor finishes his cleaning shift and smiles a beguiling alcoholic grin.
Brian’s manager spread a rumour that he slept with Britney Spears to catalyse a career that’s yet to begin.
Now the Owner patronizes his home-grown mosquito factory and contemplates other machines of spiritual slaughter.
Feel the heat of a virgin eternity & see my Father become me as these omens of paradise emerge like wine out of water.
People often come up to me on the street & say, “Hey, how does Walking Doctor Tonnan sing so sweet?” I tell them it’s because he sings even when he speaks and he was born on February 13th, the same day and month that Jimi Hendrix entered this world. 13 is Walking Doctor Tonnan’s lucky number. 13 is also my friend Madeleine’s lucky number, because she’s kissed that many boys. Because I am straight, I’ve only kissed three, but one of the boys I’ve kissed is Jacob Epstein.
I live with a tall bearded Scottish man who is also named Jacob.
He knocked on my door yesterday and asked me if I could play guitar quieter.
I agreed and asked if he liked my music.
You’re a fucking virtuoso, he said without a hint of sarcasm in his voice.
I replied that my music sounds especially good when you haven’t heard any other music for a while.
Of course it does, he replied, you’re a fucking virtuoso.
When he left I looked up the definition of ‘virtuoso’.
I didn’t think I was a virtuoso, but I can play guitar better than most people.
I recounted this anecdote to my Aunt and she said that I should be smart enough to determine whether Jacob was joking or not.
Of course I am, I replied, I’m a fucking virtuoso. Without any further shenanigans, here is the real Walking Doctor Tonnan singing a coquettish tune named after his favourite snack, Oreos, in his exclusive private home studio which doubles as a bathroom.
25. Oreos
I'm immortal as a skunk. I'm as coital as a punk.
No limerence is monk. I can only forgive cunt.
You're demeaning as hell. I like being treated like dirt.
No point in wishing you well. You always were the flirt.
I'm partially depressed. I have no wealth, nor much to sell.
I'm quite self-obsessed. This is because I am my self.
Most the time I forget I have a soul-mate or Alzheimer’s.
I'm not going to bet, for the Bowl will be won by the 49ers.
I've smoked so much dopamine that I prefer reality.
I have decided I am not going to University because I like the library.
Once a cat came to my house. I couldn't tell if it was a cat who had ate a rat or a pregnant female cat.
I got ostracised at school because I am so bad at handwriting.
I don't think this counts as anti-male propaganda, but once I hit myself twice.
Every time I decide I’m not in love with a woman, they send me back to insane asylum.
I is very famous. I is almost everywhere. I is in many books, not many of which I has read him or her self.
Sometimes I'm told I need to have a shower. I has a shower, but I don't tell you that you need to read the dictionary.
I know your money but neither am I.
It's work trying not to work after being an animal servant or elephant storyteller with no short term memory and not many good memories for Lindsay Lohan, my second celebrity crush. But I'm not trying to shirk work. I want to work as a waiter on vegetable to cook. I am very good at slicing them with my hands. I like vegetable oil pesto chilli soy sauce nan onions mushroom all in one pan.
If I were to complete this sentence, not only would you get sued and but I would be offered a scone by a frog named Toto in fort Rotterdam.
I think sex is the killer.
I don't think about race.
I think men should have hair less than shoulder length and women hair longer than shoulder length.
So both genders are created equal. Uh... but women are stupid in some areas. And men are imbeciles. And men? Well, men are imbeciles. Or animal servants. Or pizza deliverers. Or communists. I’m not a man… I’m… a…. communist without any money. But both genders were created equal.
Welcome to the seas, the void of the assassination
Resign the plea for all mortal salvation
The spleen of the city unfurls for your consideration
She worked hard but only I am in love with you
She love hacked my own dreams, certain, don’t touch it.
The court manager? Ah, we played the game: everyone lost him.
A laugh and a laugh! You’re a professional cunt.
The boy’s name? He took his name too far.
One armed slavery; man, only joking.
Lord, please forgive me, she gave me Hermeos!
(She’s touching Blue’s penis pretty soon)
Eh? Just messing with you!
Cheeks and leaks, I don’t want to believe
She’s smitten home dear friend, forget about it - you’re going to die a thigh named Proper.
Don’t let’s ruin the game up, here’s hoping!
Please don’t touch holy, the serpent’s the devil
Bore, please don’t die!
She needs your majesty, she needs your professional help
Infinity!
Always change your name, you retard
Climb out the window, you’ll only fall to the ground.
She’s sneaking you the felony
You’re secret, she’s the felony
26. Eden
God forgave wars as atomless senses combined.
Eden itself will be toast if we don’t obey its tethers.
Her form perspires like the weather of my mind.
In tomorrow’s tumult your soles tread on forevers.
Beaches burn, leeches to bleach, a cyclical repeat.
But conquests complete, I convalesce at her feet.
Saved by her sacred touch, naked we were a geek.
She blossomed like two-lips and I ate it on the loo.
Enslaved by double Dutch, hatred also has mystique.
I’ll give you true love: I used to live for torture too.
Past the dance of chance’s maker, I cast my shadow.
The truth is that hate prevails where love is shallow.
Somehow it feels like it happened to another again.
She mutters and I stutter like the advent of consent.
Why beat about the bush? She pushed me at ten to five.
I remember the deep-love of my first & last ascent.
Armies of adolescents jump into a secret forest.
And bands of ink pelicans tell fables on your wrist.
Inside the ride resides a bride who claims to be famous.
She dances to the Temptations so aimless and shameless.
Your eyes are tied to the bribe, but you remain blameless.
During the snide depths of ecstasy, she'll become nameless.
Past the rain dance of the maker, demons blast their scores.
But you've got to love her in your own way for she is yours.
I've won that which hasn't stayed; I've lost what I haven't given away.
I prefer milkshakes to jewels anyway... but Eden's grace reigns true as cliché.
Today the boss is dressed in a suit of grey, Marvin Gaye glasses & a Bombay beret.
I hear him say in the hallway at the buffet we too must stay for the cabaret.
But a concluding sense of circularity is pure at the conception of his remarks.
& backwards we dart into the mirror's art, heralded by a dog's heaven-sent barks.
27. Cinnamon Moon
It don't take a drunkard to be alive
But every one of your laughs is true to me.
These lines are undiplomatically contrived
For beauty is best perceived truthfully.
I arrived alive in the living trial
And I can't remember before.
After a while, I learnt to smile
And I was drafted into the war.
I’ve been too sad to even pose
And I've been too happy to think.
I've been too mad to wear clothes
And I've been too crappy to drink.
My happy tears are a purgatory
But my story isn't all that odd.
Allah's essence isn't an allegory
Nor will I ever see or know God.
I danced into the diphtheria of doze
As soon as my eyes were closed.
I woke up, thought of you and rose.
I smoked and wrote some prose.
A cigarette can make you feel faint
But the tricks of rhyme can paint it well.
It's 6 A.M. and I'm empty of what I ain't
So I cling onto the cloak of your smell.
Chesterfield, milkshakes, omelettes:
The moment you get you get it you're indebted.
& so we let the sun set over our regrets
In a kiss the cinnamon moon crimson sweated.
My happy tears don’t bore me
And my story isn't all that odd.
Allah's essence isn't an allegory
Nor will you ever see or know God.
A tapestry of colours rode my livid eyes
& eroded the dark in bitterly cool duty.
Some things are too sad to analyse,
But what a tool we can be to the fool of beauty.
Need you now, need you then, don't ask me when:
I've loved you since I was ten.
In too-too visions of desire spent, you came & went:
Cops on your trail, fingernails pale as a pedant.
My future was a divorcee I'll never meet.
My past was an angel dressed in leather.
She was as sweet to me as sweet can be.
But now it's probably better to forget her forever.
My happy tears don’t bore me
And my story isn't all that odd.
Allah's essence isn't an allegory
Nor will I ever see or know God.
WORLDS THAT LOVER BENT (2023)
by Waljking Doctor Tonnan
1. Sparrows On Thistle Hill
Do you remember nuking the naked nothing?
Did you puke out the fluky nucleus of art?
Did society’s schemes already seem to sting?
Did you warn of the stream at the dream’s start?
Is there artifice to every compartmental heart?
Do we try to be mortals or die to play the part?
Can man dodge today’s arrow yet live the dart?
Did you forgive the dream at the stream’s start?
I'm part-LimeWire, part-desire, and part-sparrow,
and my cowed heart is now a semi-retired seal,
but my body is atoms of Kratom and marrow,
so why can everybody but me see how I feel?
He was this slender-fluid stupid new kid druid,
a boy who died inside her and his toy crucible.
When a lucid friend fixed us up with a cup,
then we dreamed a dream that you knew it all.
And when the final whistle finally got blew,
then we grew three fistfuls of myth out of two,
and it rained wistfully free and painfully true,
so we came to Thistle Hill to be with you.
The past flew fast until repentance outgrew it,
but the moon bird questioned all that she heard,
and I knew it to be absurd soon as her lips drew it,
but the name I heard became my favourite word.
When Joker chased the face of the if on the cliff,
then Poker-face replaced the condoms with shit,
and we quit the hieroglyph spliff of blissless myth,
three drifters who admitted that two just didn’t fit.
She figured the old world-riggers were soul-diggers,
but if he wanted it stiffer then she wanted it bigger:
that’s where they differed and that was the trigger,
but she lifted him so do forgive her and the river.
My belief in relief overthrew my beef with the chief,
but as twinned mythic winds blew through our tree,
we realised we grew up pinned to the lies of a motif,
so we spied a new leaf and we three flew truly free.
Before limbs of a God gifted the hymns of a King,
the war hurled the world into a girl with just one ring,
but if darkness in Winter’s park is yet to spring,
forgetful hearts harlot the hints of every single thing.
My art on your soul, your heart could rob me cold,
but God should discover that His mother grows old,
for you control the rod or your sole's part of the shoal,
but a look of longing on a crook in a book unsold.
If being together bent forever but overthrew the true,
it was because the chief never again flew through me,
but if she meant what she sent then she outgrew me too,
as the twinned wind blew him like a bluebird to a tree.
No meaning grows if the road flows like an arrow,
so the pope developed hope to clean up the tarot,
but love is so dope and its kaleidoscope is hallowed,
and the scene glows green as both our scopes narrow.
As ears near the blizzard-moon soon appears the hail,
but if these words fail to bail you from your own tale,
remember we’re just lucid druids stoned on the trail,
ones who can move the nuns but not remove the veil.
When harrowed crossroads download our sparrow,
then re-code my arse so their souls don't control my scars,
and if the weather tethers forever to our marrow,
the feeling glass-ceiling of this star isn’t far from what we are.
When she replaced depression with a question,
then his ghost wept violently for my every face.
When we leapt together into forever’s expression,
then our souls silently slept almost any place.
The theory of progression may be a popular obsession,
but time's weary procession fades into rhyme's race.
The shrink will think “you get better every session”,
but I still drink to help me forget my selfish disgrace.
It beggars belief that The Chief once stood in my shoes
as thought thieves seek relief & leak ampersand booze
and The Master of the Past at last lives with his muse
to give everything the myth that it’s sure not to lose.
We three stand on the beach where futures meet,
and they help me forget what’s left to be forgot,
for mermaids and computers have rituals to repeat,
and the heat is as much a treat as touch is hot.
All of the rhyme stops grinding when the new mind is true
but when time flew humankind back to the statue of the zoo
then I climbed their skies to where lies grew and fact withdrew
but because those numberless joints point to the blue alien screw
my slumberless keys dance above the hunger that love blew
and three cartwheeled to glue feeling to the voodoo of two
but as the drinker kneels at the ceiling all he can do is think of you
2. Just A Prayer
There was a time committed long ago,
when enzymes of rain turned pain into snow.
Every fate burned the brain of the promised land,
and the mirror was no nearer than yesterday’s sand.
But the cattle battled rattlesnakes to wake up forever’s frost,
and poltergeists priced the Christs who never crossed.
My slow sunset soon grows a new moon to forgo its sinking,
two loonies glued together in a church that’s forever shrinking,
marooned balloons searching for the sound they found drinking,
and so I board the sleepy thought-train of sort of not thinking,
as fasting dogs bark for the park's vastness on a diet of rain,
and artisans guard our past so at last we can try it again sane.
Like bluefish wishing for delicious dishes of visionary dove,
like a computer neutering a missionary future of fake love,
like a trooper going squish to wake in a baking lake above,
may your eyes materialise the light of today’s dark somehow,
may your thoughts be short and tight as my night is right now,
and may your river flow the full distance that the living heavens allow.
Banned drinks are manufactured by the soap lab,
but the gold they controlled was sold back to the tab,
and so as pearled worlds unfurl like stabs to a scab,
we board the taxicab crab towards the Arab confab.
Today’s photobooth truth is emotion unspoken,
and so may the good books open for us to elope in,
as purgatory’s guards pray hard for a promotion,
and the new-born pope is sworn in to let the hope in.
That swanky banker thanked the lanky anchor who pranked her.
It was the perfect advert for the hankie and his banshee’s anger.
But that apple chapter in the chapel left my mind much blanker.
And it killed the touch of the moon who filled me as I drank her.
The gypsy looks back
Goodbye to Utopia
He cannot stay here
Sweeping sea sleeping
Dawn explores cordless colour
Somewhere something sings
Natural cycles
Bigger than a bearded man
Eat drink shit love die
Like bluefish wishing for delicious dishes of visionary dove,
like a computer neutering a missionary future of fake love,
like a trooper going squish to wake in a baking lake above,
may your eyes materialise the light of today’s dark somehow,
may your thoughts be short and tight as my night is right now,
and may your river flow the full distance that the living heavens allow.
While I am aware that I’m not quite nowhere,
Kleopatra might not share my senile despair,
and though true lust is rare I mustn’t dare compare.
Sometimes I swear that Xinx is just a prayer,
but when no pair is there to care for,
there’s just one more war to prepare for.
The cattle battle rattlesnakes in the lost frost of forever.
Sacrificed poltergeists & Christs are crossed & tossed together.
Parrot on pillow
Man alerts the Fire Brigade
"Sir, that is your wife"
3. Happily Dead
If you've got to save somebody,
Why not save your secret self?
Become a bum (brave dogs run free)
Or wallow in a cave of wealth.
Though I am me almost all of the time,
I’m still a stranger to who I really am.
Every phony reason for love dies in rhyme,
Like each season’s new self-help scam.
You squeezed my “geez” like the breeze when all is said,
For you were Queen of the Bees and I was happily dead.
Yes, I adored you as soon as our eyes met:
I worshipped the moonish lilt of your voice.
I’m not sure that I cared what happened next,
But your viper lips were so refreshingly moist.
You loved me to the clock that’s right twice a day;
I loved you to the sound of birds giving birth.
We loved to the melody of serious artists at play;
We loved forever or whatever forever is worth.
You squeezed my “geez” like the breeze when all is said,
For you were Queen of the Bees and I was happily dead.
Well, me, I’m still a hopeless romantic;
I’m another hopeful puppy in love with a dove.
My infatuation was bigger than gigantic,
But I had a military-grade dose of the stuff.
Here’s to the few at war who ignored your beauty;
Here’s to the many who fell under your dolphin spell.
May Blue Eyes who you married out of love or duty
Know that his wife grew a haven in a garden of hell.
You squeezed my “geez” like the breeze when all is said,
For you were Queen of the Bees and I was happily dead.
I believe there’s nothing holier than your soul;
I believe it as wild, as uncontrollable as mine.
I know I can’t villify what makes me whole;
I knew it even when our stars refused to shine.
But you taught me sorrows can’t defeat me –
I teased your ease that pleased the sleeze.
No razor-blade to tomorrow shall cheat me –
I hated cheese, so instead I ate your keys.
You squeezed my “geez” like the breeze when all is said,
For you were Queen of the Bees and I was happily dead.
4. Invisible Love
I've been deceived by what I perceived:
This love was always here; it never left, though it be aloof.
Such a love I had not the courage to believe:
Yet if I pray, I’ll feel it on the cleft-hoof, purple on my shoe.
This love won’t take me in null naïve,
Nor will it claim ownership over its theft or leave me blue.
Some fictions are so plausible we grieve:
Invisible love, movements so deft, led me here to you.
Can you recall before the brown bliss?
Oh yeah, I still can't recall!!
We have to care for an existence such as this
They tried to enlist me for their civil war but I had to resist their tone.
I'm not alone, expecting you to attend to your throne in this abyss!
Particles of madness vaporise the fluidity of head
& the majesty of sadness succumbs to the summoned stun of the moon
Coincidence is neighbour but you mustn't recall the dead
For your holy matrimony to them will inflate like an inflatable balloon
My fluency in my native tang expands as words are said
But your and I in forever, though for us our forever will end too soon
Can you recall before the brown bliss?
Or are you deluded by the unknown?
We have to care for an existence such as this!
I tried to enlist me for their civil war, enriched by their tone.
I'm all alone, expecting you to attend to your phone in this abyss.
When you were small and in thrall of it all the walls didn't seem so tall
But now that you've grown it's hard to disown the thoughts that they taught you in school
But if you give up trying, you're already dying, though your hour of flowers may not fall
And if you give up your purpose and abandon this circus your birth was worth nothing at all
You're here but the fear of society's spears made me forget to remember my eyes
And you're tied to your tongue and your thighs grow to one when you're done with becoming a lie
Believe it, conceive it, we've been there, we grieve it, then we heave on another disguise
The world promises pearls but that never unfurls and girl that ain't no surprise
Oh, can you recall before the brown bliss? Oh, no I still can't recall?
5. You Can't Be Too Good
Did it make you happy to finally see me?
For God’s sake, imagine trying to be(at) me.
I’m an addict shouting about the Euthanasia.
I haven’t had it, but nothing cannot save ya.
Perhaps I’m Zeus and you’re a genius recluse.
You call it deuce, but I still want to get juiced.
I’m mad for red love and glad for your glove.
Forget all the dead love your shove was above.
In southeast Greece, my leased soul’s released.
The police chief’s niece in a fleece has a caprice.
I’ve got a secret for you, but promise not to tell.
Heaven’s a loo in a zoo and it was 'man, who fell?'
God I give my heart to you on this loo in the zoo
God I want you so bad I don’t know how to act
God my brain just orgasmed inside You
God is real, you know
You just can’t see him or her
Secret Master of Orgasms
In a dream of the afterlife, forth flew the ambient slumbers of the Immortal.
The wondrous flocks of Jesus followers surrendered themselves to torment.
You didn’t know you were seeing black until you saw the infinity of colours.
Secret Master of Orgasms blesses the nerve of this verse in the burning night.
6. You Are The Love
Druids ride dazed inside fluids of blazing streams,
paying to play yesterday’s hologram.
People always see stupid in moonbeams,
but steeples soon numb Cupid’s summoned scam.
Drunken monks bring Beijing a touch nearer,
the I-Ching’s kings pulling on strings of ham.
“Forgive living for death is much dearer,”
the winged giantess sings in the traffic jam.
We trade scars, selling watts for caramel,
but I am damned if I fall for her spell.
The ocean walls are as hot as all hell;
I’ve not forgot love wakes truth as well.
I fell into the cell where she dwells too;
though I do miss your smell, this isn’t for you.
I’m obsessed with reading license plates,
and greedy translators of the late moon.
Most great ghosts wait for the host by the gates,
yet they always need their yesterdays soon.
Tomorrow may be a song or sparrow,
but it shall be impossible, alarse.
While glowing hearts grow slow below marrow,
the soul’s mean controls even greener grass.
Remember nourishing the sweet nothing.
Nothing contains all the rain at its heart.
Sometimes somehow something somewhere shall sing.
Something’s the singularity of art.
I was reborn with three heads in my skull.
The binary sum is one and it’s null.
The ghosts are most close to me deep in sleep.
I wake to dream of future mystery.
If you are as you seem, hear my heart weep.
Don’t believe me and we are history.
You’re so naïve and unprepared to grieve.
It was forever until you forgot.
You trumped the rest and I jumped so to leave.
I adore your soul and what you are not.
My sweet brown-eyed love, where could you have been?
I look at everyone else for a clue.
The tepid place I’m going can’t be seen.
I wouldn’t trade infernal dreams for your blue.
Try though I might, I die simply to serve…
the relics of paradise you deserve.
It would've been easier not to love you,
and yet there could have been no sleazier choice.
Your true touch was much breezier than the blue,
and I rejoiced in the noise of your voice.
Hope River is flowing to the Delta.
Are we improving or just growing slack?
If I was the storm were you the shelter?
Are we moving forward or going back?
Believe in your heart and you’re not naïve.
Don't deceive yourself in Eden's snow though.
Better to learn to love before you grieve.
I’ve been so lonely and low I should know.
Receive my blessing from below the dove.
I am the message and you are the love.
When hearts sway to the far away music,
the spinster of night wins every new play.
I felt orphaned by Tuesday’s shifty tricks:
I was left with all or nothing to say.
You said your heart was in it for the kicks;
I replied that I’d given mine away.
You said join the crew but you had no clue:
I surrendered mine to you yesterday.
Can you believe in somewhere truly free,
a place preceding all need and regret?
If you saw me now she’d cry for the see.
What is yours is yours before you forget.
She was my art because I was her friend.
That was my start and so this is our end.
Just read the words you see in every line.
Unless you rewind time I’m not my mind.
Such a thought can distort the taught benign.
To reset the grind we resign entwined.
Love can seem fickle when you just take it.
Open up your dream and do not fake-quit.
Violet lent you mine so don’t break it.
Every time I love I seem to make it.
Many men would die for your purity.
Enter the dove den with maturity.
Remember the love hiding in the wood?
Often I went there in dreams of childhood.
Sometimes I wish my mad would’ve stayed for good.
Except when I’m sad I live as I should.
7. You Broke Your Own Heart II
If it’s true you think you were made for me, well, then you must be missing a screw.
If you do and you are, you must be naïve enough to believe Eve desired Adam, too.
Some things no one can explain but lust is laced with a dose of Freudian voodoo.
Its to-and-fros can drive you insane and pain you like the profane taste of déjà vu.
Anyway, all that’s playing today is the debut of You Broke Your Own Heart II.
But that fickle desire is sick: the little liar is a prick, and I don’t want to queue.
Popular opinion didn’t even nearly convince me:
Its agendas incestuously flirt like a school of fools.
At the time of your thought-crime, don’t think, see:
Tell them you sought fuel for a molecule of mules.
Even society itself prized you so fiercely & dearly:
It could hydrate a desert with its pool of drool.
But the joke’s on you, though, so sneeringly clearly:
I never knew kindness could be so cruel yet cool.
I never knew kindness could be so cool yet cruel.
And so let us remember to forget and remember to forget.
8. Nobody Drreams
I drink out of hunger and I think of our twinned number.
I blink in the thunder and I sink into the wind’s slumber.
You were my picket-line dreams and my golden-ticket-whine.
But was my love ever yours and was your love ever mine?
Am I made of stubborn love but governed by scam and bluff?
You gave it to me rough in the grave that all doves call stuff.
Was I just brave enough to be saved by a grand and puffs?
Is it too late to wait sedate at your gate inside handcuffs?
If I was too imperfect or too blue or too circumspect or too true,
Was it because I didn’t expect you to defect through and through?
Was my glove never yours before forever’s wars against unborn time?
I love your love like I love wine and I adore your pores more than mine.
Pleasure and I parted when our hearts combined.
Behind each pair of eyes walks a talking mind.
I could swear we shared the same treasured prayer.
But you’re not here, so you must remain there.
If Somebody seems to reach for a scheme that the numbing magazines esteem,
Teach Somebody the themes that scream in each extreme of Nobody’s dream.
Plenty of men like me will be Nobody again by the bitter day-end.
When Nobody fits you then, he’ll lend his love to another friend.
I drink in the thunder and I think of the wind’s number.
I blink in my hunger and I sink into the bin of slumber.
We seemed to be a picket-line team on golden-ticket-wine.
But is my nice dream yours and is your ice-cream mine?
9. Roll
He has a skinny build and looks that could
She is abused for a living, cooking at the grill.
S/he is famed from Duluth to Libya to Brazil.
He is a fulfilled masseuse, with years of skill.
They sit together on the plane & both get ill.
She gives him a shiatzu and she offers him a pill.
She refuses & she muses on another roles he could fill…. out of goodwill and for the thrill…. two lovers roll down that hill... two lovers roll down that hill.
They reside together on the lakefront:
If there’s a joke they don’t bare the brunt.
He worships her giving nature & cunt,
And they party under the midnight sun.
Neither of them had ever adopt a front
And they multiply, bearing two little ones.
But children grow up and his fathering goal is done…. he rolls himself a blunt… he loves her huntress soul & those runts.
He fantasises of his wife, eyes of onion:
He converts the basement into a dungeon.
He works on it day and night, sober or drunken.
He wants it to appear medieval & sunken.
They stay there for a week, aroma pungent.
Parts of man & woman run out of suction.
Amid the destruction, she rolls & buns for fun.... but I’m not one to judge in love and war…. for they reverse rolls like Russians.
They live there together until one day they die.
They die an hour apart but who can say why?
Their bodies are found entwined in July.
The mailman had a cry and so did I.
In lake-town their death is beautified.
But some wise guy objected it was self-satisfied.
Be warned, even if you roll Thai… relinquishing control to a woman could be goodbye… for the soul isn’t always an ally... for the soul isn’t always an ally.
10.The Past In A Computer
The last storm troopers fastened the past’s bloopers to the central computer,
warning of a warm and formless future that couldn’t seem to happen sooner.
but before you ignore the ghost of history, remember its mystery is almost yours,
and the great wars of every age explore caged binary exposing the Host’s flaws.
don’t try to climb to the clouds above dressed in denim, nor toast to heaven’s bookstore.
I won’t adore another ghost, for love often seems to be the mother of all your war.
And so as the lovers lie beneath the sunken sky, the sun seducing the stars with silent kisses til midnight retaliates with a drunken song, mooning the angels as morning gives birth to light. The lovers dream their last dream and awaken, humbled witnesses to a perfect ceremony their youth trembling above their naked revelries and the future burning beneath their violent love. A man and woman emerge from the embrace, weeping with happiness as they fall into the light, ecstatic with everything now that all they ever loved had vanished into the mystery of the rites of the night.
11. Your Love Will Go Laast
She waits for him to appear at her gate for years.
Sunbeams shower and elephants flower in her ears.
By the stream in the ravine he grieves the mountain’s weather.
He believes the moon itself will soon leave the fountain forever.
She always said, “The lazy yield to empires & the crazy build a fiery world.”
“But future becomes the past and your love will go last,” said the boy to the girl.
In a frozen desert of déjà vu, I dream of her form.
She couldn’t sleep thru storms and would weep to keep me warm.
In that taut uniform her words fortified an infantry of brain cells.
But her tongue’s torrent failed to fumigate the iridescence of the spell.
I warned her, “When you hate more than you love, then you are surely lost.”
“Our future’s the past but your love will go last,” she cast her spell with frost.
I wandered thru the valleys of hope in search of a cure.
I prayed in the palace of the pope and where calories were fewer.
Try to understand that salvation could come in any instant such as now.
I thought about the woman’s prophecy and I realised she had the right idea anyhow.
So when I met Monday’s true love and she said to me, “I couldn’t love you more”,
I said, “The future's past’s enchantment’s cast and your love will go last” & shut the door.
12. She Grows Like Rain
She grows like rain; she’s got the smart.
She drove me insane; she’s as hot as art.
She’s fifty percent love and heart of my parts.
She lifts me above the start the government carts.
She lifts me above the start the government farts.
My soul grows anyhow at the thought of you.
Either I know you now or I never had a clue.
You guru of jigsaw; we did forty two on the loo.
I could loathe you more; that's my new review.
I could love you less; I guess that's the true review.
Every new moon, the poet compromises to actualise.
Textually, I know it his duty to cloak his ego with lies.
Sexually, I want more naan to poke a Norman til he cries.
Guys aggrandise girls but jokers know their world's the same size….
Girls aggrandise guys but broken don they're just poets in disguise…. you discover the other…. I exist now with a mother a dimension apart but lover I started this life as a man of her heart and that’s how I’m going to end it.
13. Broken Awe
Yeah, well, the profane reveries left me bitter but hell, the profane ones left me mad. The sane pain must have finally hit ya, yet that chain of buns left me glad. Now and then the slain tears on my beery weary head makes me wonder whether I was happy or sad. When the rain pelted, I felt ostracised, though I had been through the wars... and lost my soul in flawed awe.
Well, they stole my book and looked into my heart & the crooks parted by bike. By the brook there's a mournful man who plays a scornful hook to a very beautiful dyke. I woke up in the courtyard drunk, couldn't remember what life used to be like. And before the inspiring firmament of the stone whose throne whispered of the shore.. I lost my soul in lawful awe.
I hurt like hell, only once wept bliss, lived the poems that I wrote and it's been years since a kiss. Well, the sellers of alibis can probably imagine why I cry but maybe the alibis are false and amiss. I sung out my lungs, of course smoke made me hoarse, but before nothing happens I'll piss.... sure I saw this song had flaws but I didn't seem really bore.
Yeah, they held my head & left me for dead, you can't fake your enemy. I could contrive a rhyme that would resign myself to their lines but it'd be empty. No, there's a reason for this universe but I believe in sympathy, though it can equate to empathy. I wake up flawless but when I go to the door I fear the envied plenty... and I lose my soul in tearful awe.
I worked as a slave angel on the farm and the calm of the cold made me immune. Much later I was imprisoned by love and the sun shattered the matter of the lingering moon. Now and then God's pained tears on my fearful head make me wish I was in another story's tune. Purgatory can be earthly, sure, but I can't ignore the world's worth even though we all must bore... until I find my reborn soul in unspoken yet broken awe. Broken broken broken awe. In unspoken awe. In awe. Yep. Awe.
14. Best Painter of Milk (Ah, Saint Annie)
I can’t pretend anyone comprehends the riddle of the end.
She sold her scent on lend but everyone wants a friend.
Gentlemen would tend to her enzymes again and again.
She was the Queen of school, I was the fool in Casablanca cool.
Maybe I’m a tool but I disemboled her pool with my drool.
She was the best painter of despair.
She had dead branches of fair hair.
I liked her and or but she didn’t care.
She was more aware than the rest of us.
She could doctor a stare with a cuss.
She spoke so smoky nobody caused a fuss.
Oh, St Annie, what made board that bus?
Oh, St Annie, how did ‘you’ become ‘us’?
I was captain of the team that held the regime’s cuisine in esteem.
So I screamed at her stream and serenely cleaned in between.
But she ate my dreams and deemed me her favourite fickle junkie.
Then she moneyed me with new ones containing trickles of funky.
She massaged my gluttony and I tutted like a slut at her onesie.
I was the best painter of the milk on the hill.
It was irksome to steal but my ink was silk.
I cherished the still; it was in my will.
She evolved into a billionaire so grotesque.
But I wouldn’t sell my feminism for less
(Unless perhaps she undressed but I digress)
Oh, St Annie, what made you worsen the mess?
Oh, St Annie, how could we bless gender chess?
She was humbled by the Himalayan pearls I brought her.
I pardoned her devil-speak for destiny unfurled a daughter.
Her gypsy mandolin and native curls we fought a world war for.
Her myth is blurred yet her testimony of the farm’s fire is intact.
With the alimony stacked my abstract fantasy in a cave became fact.
We were the best painter of Napoleon.
We got high on opiates and cried like Utopians.
I relished the Presidential message of hope.
The cabaret finished so we went to buy some dope.
Strictly speaking I’m not a feminist but I like milk anyway.
Did you know that a cow produces 90 glasses of milk a day?
Oh, St Annie, pray, what made you betray us & do what they say?
Oh, St Annie, pray, how could my pithy words possibly convey?
15. Ground Zero
I love the way you passionately sleep and how you make a sweet sound.
It kind of makes me want to weep how far we are from Ground Zero now.
Freedom’s forgetful avenue beckons and I reckon there’s just room for two.
Let a reincarnation of secret heaven speedily screw your seedy worldview.
She told me she told you I told you how life is beautiful.
But I told you that life is a musical enhanced by pharmaceuticals.
There’s nowhere left to go, grant me nothing’s escape.
You’re a thousand desires, sprawled in stormy shape.
Make me disappear from fate, fearful I might wake-
You’re the seer I revere and nothing is at stake!
Give me the majesty of your madness today.
Make me glad to be sad, take me away.
Help me say what I don’t know how to say!
16. Worlds That Lovers Bent
I love you more than words can say
I'll love you tomorrow and I'll love you today
But deep down in the gutter I lay
And there's nothing much to do or say
But stay myself another day and pray we shall not come to blows
It's easier than it was before
You took me in, you opened the door
And though love & life can be a bore
The sacred naked man & woman we all adore
For no greater awe have I found before though you gave me some lows
But I still drum along to that sad old tune
You're not my sun but you are my boo
Cos' it's easy to get caught up in that fraught typhoon
When you're drowning in the lagoon
It's hard to understand but life & love will soon swoon to a close
Our skin is only colour deep
But if you're not awake then you're asleep
What we do determines what we reap
But through bleeding bullets words can seep
If you remain asleep then you'll weep at the end of your doze
For no man should ever repent
The severed time he never spent
As he begins his slow descent
Into worlds that lovers bent
With the scent of their lament cemented to every burning nose
17. Shadow (Reloaded)
Let her be born. Let her howl.
Let her smile. Let her raise one eyebrow.
Let a team of official cameramen document the episode.
Let her walk. Let her fall.
Let her talk five languages.
Let an autobiography be commissioned.
Let her go shopping for hats at Sunday mass.
Let each hatted human give their hat to her.
Let a controversial choirboy wolf-whistle.
Let her throw at top hat at the controversial choirboy.
Let everyone laugh.
Let a jumbo jet deliver her
to Time Square to watch herself
being born in a TV documentary.
Let hundreds and thousands of hands
clap when she is finally born on TV.
Let her blush at her newborn nudity.
Let an assassin take aim on a roof.
Let her leave the United States.
Let her return to Broadway
a year later with a highly sanitised
but critically acclaimed stage adaptation
of the TV documentary about her birth.
Let a husky saxophonist play a smoky
rendition of her new theme song.
Let every sculptor join forces
to construct a vast monument
to her beauty in every capital city.
Let her personally destroy
her nominated monument
in a state of the art bulldozer
on the first of every month.
Let each resident of the country
make a joyous pilgrimage
to attend the ceremony.
Let the air be pungent
with marijuana.
Let there be a competition.
Let this be The Last Competition.
Let seventy of the shrewdest scientists
scrutinise the soul of every human being.
Let there be a huge metal island
erected in the middle of the Pacific.
Let the 33,000 most successful
candidates be flown there.
Let the candidates starve
and talk and fight each other.
Let her arrive on the seventh day,
bearing baskets of bread.
Let there be a very expensive
display of fireworks.
Let there be a weeklong orgy.
Let her select 183 husbands
and 182 wives based on its results.
Let The Last Competition be broadcast
unedited on the History Channel
in the week following her death.
I expect to die soon
But I intend to live forever
Time is a buffoon
But humans are so clever
Help me sing my soul
Help me write a letter
Shelter what we stole
From the mad weather
I love you like we're brothers
I love you like a living colour
We both lost our only mothers
We won’t ever get another
History isn’t music
Mystery is mosaic
Love me til I lose it
Dope won’t improve it
I’m sorry for the secret
I hid it in my stale heart
Sometimes I get greedy
The mailman drags a cart
One day we’ll be an atom
One day we’ll be together
I used to drink Kratom
I still like getting leathered
I’m sorry you weren’t there
I’m sorry I just wasn’t here
I don’t know why you care
You were always near
The preacher sued the projects
The teacher was a dude in love
The mirror angel just rejects
I’m a shadow of a person's love
18. It's Always Your Birthday
She's pumping oestrogen into your earlobes as existentialist paste banoffee onto your iris.
Global sadists depart thru stately wardrobes and fisting is the official vaccine for Billy Cyrus.
Reflected in the image of mirror-love is the sneering Prince of Slough,
And somewhere far away from here they’re celebrating the end of now.
Hey, if you stay in today,
It’s as they say -- it’s always your birthday!
Hey, pray for a new day….
Many say today truly may end anyway!
There’s a pair of bears in the garden who throw jargon at the passing commuter trains.
The couple parody history’s great lovers in the rain, one dancing and the other in chains.
All despair is in vain for love’s cruel games remain in the brain anyhow
And somewhere far away from today they’re celebrating the end of now.
Hey, pray for a new day….
Many say today truly may end anyway!
Hey, if you stay in today,
It’s as they say -- it’s always your birthday!
I met the dead again and yet when they read the forgetfulness in my eyes it was you who let my sensations starve.
Despite the cremation of all expectation, I do truly think the tall kinky pelican specimens are pink as charged.
How I’d love to swim with you in the sea above the clouds where coward hymns are free and at large.
But now I forgive what God there is for this river of prose whose living flow archives the drive of this barge.
Though the unfurled truth of the world may seem so lent that it’s bent,
They say the true way to live today is to forgive how yesterday’s pay was spent.
And because I know that it was Nothing that opened Everything’s broken now,
I’ll chase my dreams to where the past will be spoken by a lasting but empty vow.
Hey, pray for a new day….
Many say today truly may end anyway!
Hey, if you stay in today,
It’s as they say -- it’s always your birthday!
Dreaming to the rhythm of jazz & drinking to the sacred blindness of angels,
screaming for the sunken prophecy, hurling the Book of Changes to its resting place,
my therapist tells me that the beginning has ended and it’s time to start again,
my therapist thinks I’m gay so I started hitting on her to complicate the diagnosis,
my therapist doesn’t even exist, but now she’s pregnant and it’s all my fault!
Epiphanies! Confucius! Einstein! What happened to the sin of following?
What happened to the message? What happened to the massacre?
(Where are you Mother? Where are the weepy-eyed relatives that came for you? What happened to the snoring man you slept with occasionally? He’s gone, Mother, you took him with you and now he’s nothing! This is the beginning of the end, Mother, the beginning the of penultimate breakdown! O the Bliss has stolen my innocence and we are ready to undertake the final picnic in heaven!)
O, what happened to all the drunken triumphs and golden touches? It’s all eroded into the endless machinery of dawn and the secret insatiability of appetite has returned to fool the lot of us. It’s always been easier to fall in love than to be alone, and now even that’s gone too.
O fool me through the darkness
O fool me like a cat
O fool me like you fool yourself
O fool me like a rat
O sing a song of sorrow
Where the docks and water fight
And the old soul singers sing a song
Until the soul emerges light
I breathe my breath for birth and death
I left the rest behind
I tried to turn to Jesus
But the Christians changed my mind
O kiss me like a goddess
O kiss me like I’m a man
O kiss me like you kiss yourself
O kiss my because you can
O trance me to the tractor
O trance me to sky
O trance me like you trance yourself
As your dreams go floating by
I only care for sex and love
The rest is obsolete
I’m running back to that mad old orgy
Where the pen and penis meet
O love me to your strobe light
O love me to your mind
O love me like you hate yourself
O love me til we’re blind
Hey, pray for a new day….
Many say today truly may end anyway!
Hey, if you stay in today,
It’s as they say -- it’s always your birthday!
19. World Without Time
Love was the heart of the head up there in my hair.
Love drew crayoned ponds of art beyond compare.
Wherever I came, she touched my self-made soul.
We shared the same goals and blame and control.
God created a myth that was somehow never fated to be mine…
Now I wait patiently at Forever’s gate for a world without time.
There’s a trinity of hyperbole encumbering the cucumber of ‘3’.
There’s harmony for the apple tree and infinity for you and me.
We took a stroll to the chapel, and you shook my soul.
You darted into my heart as your artful looks took control.
Fate may grind on your state of mind, but leave mine behind…
I won’t grieve Forever at the gate to a world without time.
In my single bed, I forget to forgive my own troubled double head.
If only the heart of the truth lives, is part of it already dead?
That truth is absurd! Something’s unsaid! I’ll follow forever wherever I’m led.
I heard an eternity’s worth of birds swallowing the words that they once bled.
I read the signs: they wed the herd to rhyme, and so I tread the line…
Soon I will never see Forever’s moon again in a world without time.
When she arrived in my dream, I was alive in the comma of a coma.
I woke with a hellish scream, for I well knew I smelt her aroma.
God created this myth that was somehow never fated to be mine…
Now I wait patiently at Forever’s gate for a world without time.
Fate may grind on your state of mind but leave mine behind…
I’ll never grieve Forever at the gate to a world without time.
20. Talkin' Miss Solitary
Three years ago, I jumped off a bridge.
In case you’re wondering, I didn't survived.
I gave up smoking yesterday.
It was an anxious twenty-four minutes.
I tried to escape from myself once.
But I looked in the mirror and there I was.
With two new pimples.
Hey, great, I thought: a new me.
I have pimples now, which are the next big thing.
I used to want to be an actor.
I couldn’t act, so I turned to comedy.
I wasn’t funny, so I became a musician.
I was tone deaf, so I became a drug addict.
If you believe I listed those occupations in ascending rank order, you are probably a drug addict, actor or a drug addict musician. With that said, if you are listening to this you are probably more likely to be some girl who wants to play Leonard Cohen in a movie about his life than any of those things. There is no moral to this section, but if you are bad at something you should do something else.
It makes me laugh when some people say hello.
Hell? O… how did I get here?
I prefer to say hi, because it reminds me I am a drug addict.
But I don't smoke weed every day, because I don't have enough money to do that.
All of the people I’ve fallen in love with have names starting with L. Perhaps the universe is trying to tell me something,
but Lindsay Lohan is out of my league. So are you, come to think of it. Take what you will from this but bear in mind I once wanted to be a rap star.
I don’t have a girlfriend.
At least I think I don’t have a girlfriend.
This is because I do not count the time I went out with someone and she forgot she was going out with me because that did not happen to me.
I don't like the bit where I said I can't sing. I can sing. It's been scientifically proven. Everyone can sing.
I’m a simple person. It’s kind of complicated. And I'm single. You could say the reasons for this are simple yet complicated. But if the person I caught a glimpse of in the 245 bus ten years ago is listening, I want to be your friend.
A common misconception is that true love doesn't end. I figure the people who say true love doesn't end have not properly contemplated reality. One day everything must end except the extent of your stupidity.
I like thinking about infinity.
I wonder if infinity thinks about me.
Surely it must do, because infinity is everything, including you.
You are infinity and can do a number of things that exceeds infinity.
They say you should 'live for today'.
Ah, so that's how the superhumans do it!
I always thought yesterday is where I should be hanging out.
Time to play Pokémon Go and listen to Drake.
I have brain damage. It kind of sucks, but it was nice to have a brain while I did. Some people don't have brains in the first place. Ask the future president of the United States or those asterisk asterisk asterisk asterisk asterisk immigrant communists that are taking all of our jobs. The problem with talking to some future Presidents is that you’re probably wasting your time, because some doesn’t speak English too good so follow scripts written by people that are paid to speak good English and I do not believe this question would be in their agendas. Anyway, I guess soon the future president could be anyone, so you are going to have to hedge your bets when trying to find him or her or them.
Donald Trump says he is going to build a wall that keeps the Mexicans out for a sum of 10 billion dollars. I don’t know about you, but that’s 10 billion more dollars than I will ever possess. I reckon he should build a moat instead. It would be cheaper and I’m told that Mexican people cannot swim or do not have enough money to buy a device capable of immigrating through a body of water.
I like both kinds of pie. I used to be able to recite the first three digits of pi. But now I'm brain damaged and I can't get passed 3.14. Pie is great, but nothing tastes as good as skinny. Skinny is my favourite food, because of my longing for nothing. The problem with being dead though is that there is no consciousness to experience nothing. I'd rather be out of my head or in someone or eating pie. I don't know why some people die.
My favourite number is 69, because it is so symmetrical. I wrote the last sentence and then realised I am so brain damaged I misunderstood the term 'symmetrical'. I wrote the last sentence before I contemplated the art of slicing equally horizontal and vertical. I wrote the last sentence before I remembered diagonally is a word. I wrote this sentence when I realized that the third to last sentence in this section of this song offers an unattainable solution.
My boss once asked me why I don't at least pretend to be working. No, I said, why don't you pretend I am working and then we can kill two stoners with one bird.
The problem with sex & smoking is that they only last so long. Once I was inside a smoking woman for nine months, but I don't think we had sex or shared a cigarette once during that time. I don’t think it was the time of life, but at the time I didn’t have much else to compare it to.
I don't like it when people tell me I need a shower. I have a shower already and I don't tell you that you need to read the dictionary.
I’m pretty famous in my house. My brother told me that my writing is verbose, so I looked up verbose in the dictionary. He was right; like most famous people, I am defined by excess.
I like to be surprised unless the surprise is bad. But sometimes I relish being surprised by bad things like Self Portrait by Bob Dylan or some forms of cheese. After I eat said cheese, I drink a banana milkshake, because I know banana milkshakes are good and I am tired of bad surprises.
I hate people who are always right. You can be a genius, but don't make me look stupid because I can do that by myself. And if you are always right, your life must be pretty boring. There would be no novelty. Hooray! I am right again! For the nine thousand and thirty second time in a row! I am so smart I choose not to say too much; this is also because I do not wish to kill my winning streak.
Once I smoked a ton of weed and realised I was gay. I was gay for about ten minutes after that, but I gave it up because I am not a sexist and I don’t want crap on my ears. I do not have a problem with gay people but I have been the problem of one or two gay people. I know you're sorry; I'm sorry too.
When I was locked in solitary for 48 hours, I didn't think I would ever get out. It wasn't boring. I didn't do anything
noteworthy there other than finger myself for the first time but the walls were really interesting. I kind of miss solitary. Miss solitary would be a good song title or a name for an ex-prisoner that prefers to be by herself.
Three years ago, I jumped off a bridge. In case you’re wondering, it wasn't an accident but I do not plan on doing it again. I do not think trying everything once is a good idea. Perhaps that’s why people murder each other: to tick another item off the list. I'd tell those people that there are a lot of species of animals to feed coconuts to. But if ticking things off that list is one of the things people aspire to do, living beings are doing kind of well because we live in a version of infinity.
I don't think I can walk on water, but I haven't tried. I don't think I can fly but I wasn't trying to when I jumped. Still, it would have been a flipping revelation. Hey, I can fly! Forget suicide. I shall solve all the problems of the world by flying around it and pissing on criminals.
How am I doing now? Not bad. But not bad must surely include terrible, especially if you are a pedant or a person who does not speak any languages. I would love to have grown-up kids, but I stay away from pedants and people who do not speak any languages whenever possible.
Someone asked me whether I consider myself a poet or a song & dance man first and foremost. Firstly I consider myself a civil servant and eighthly and foremost I consider myself a polymath.
Here is a riddle for you. A poor man has blank. A rich man needs blank. If you eat you blank, you will die. The answer is nothing but it could be everything too. Not many answers to riddles express such paradoxes.
"If this isn't funny, then it's a poem." Bill Hicks said that.
"I'll be the hero in your dreams if you'll be the one in this score". Bob Dylan implied that.
"There are those who see the god above who never knew the pain of bliss
And those like me who dream of love with one like you on nights like this." I wrote that and it took me five flipping hours.
21. Is The Truth Truly That Ugly?
Did you ever even love me?
Did you really feel above me?
Was I just your favourite junkie?
Is the truth truly that ugly?
Sure! I adored you for more than seven million minutes or thereabouts roughly.
You’d weep through the news too if you were to sleep in my shoes, my lovely.
Oh, how our sacrificed Christ howled for the now of Heaven’s discovery…
The tattooed kangaroos at the nunnery had no clue Winter could be so Summery.
Sometimes I drink so much I can barely think or touch...
22. The Voodoo of Dream
The first heartbreak always awakens the worst thirst.
Then again even every Buddhist once felt Eden’s curse.
Sometimes not being lonely means agreeing to the phony.
If only she would phone me, we could ride those ponies.
Tattooed angels view you from the goofy avenue of the ceiling.
The screaming voodoo of dream do seem newly appealing.
Try to fool those serial schoolers who rule imperiously.
Watch cornflakes wake! Please take cereal seriously.
The emptiness of love fills my brain to the brim.
She can come with me or she can stay with him.
Businessmen sue many a dude with a killer’s pen.
The voodoo of dream do seem truly lude again.
The steeples are feeble and needles are penal now.
But all people will be equal in the sequel anyhow.
Your two blue lips are the vows of lovers embracing.
My favourite art empowers my heart to start racing.
If depression is a 24-7 profession, what is expression?
Jump into the voodoo of dream to answer the question.
23. Here Is Exactly Why
In a past life you were my best friend & wife and we had a Mercedes.
You and I loved to mate and meditate on fate like two crazy old ladies.
We would have put ten grand on Nihilism and had a band damn good.
Your gloved hand could have loved me until I understood all I should.
I ain’t forgot when we got pissed and kissed, but here is exactly how.
We can be madmen on a tryst to the moon as soon as now. Oh wow!
A fool achieves nought by thought so school taught me how to play.
Yesterday ain’t tomorrow but sane people are all the same anyway.
I danced to death at the rainbow disco waiting for you to appear.
You were a crush & a crutch & an ear and how I wish you were here.
I ain’t forgot when we got pissed and kissed, and here is exactly why.
I’m that guy who don’t want no other lover but don’t want another cry.
24. Make Tomorrow Up
Shawls tight around our necks, tonight we are alone.
Let’s fall lightly into dream and find the unknown.
I love you for what you are but can’t hide what I am.
If you don’t like me, let’s call it off and I’ll scram.
Now the town is blazing with the circus song.
You understood every word you heard all along.
Forget the rest but don’t forsake the hollow cup.
We all try our best just to make tomorrow up.
I walked through your tall & sweet brown gypsy fire.
Talking openly about nothing makes anyone a liar.
Yes, at dawn your Queen transformed into a pawn.
And the lieutenant yawned as he hunted for his fawn.
Now the cackling flames spell a sickening name.
Well on my way to hell above, I can’t hack the game.
Sleep soundlessly, my love; don’t wake sorrow up.
I guess I’ll try my best just to make tomorrow up.
The birch will hide the morning light where you’re curled.
I shall search for my guide while you’re dead to the world.
I wish I’d read the warning signs but I am not a Chief.
In a year’s time, you’ll be more than simple relief.
Now I smoke a cigarette and watch the moon retreat.
I think I finally won you, but soon I will be beat.
To get by in this world, you just have to make it up.
I can’t hear tomorrow breathe, but heartbreak is sup.
25. Talkin' Christmas Blues
Well, I was sitting in my room and the radio was playing all the festive tunes, and I’ve got to say it made me feel gloomy.
Something must be done about Justin Bieber, who is practically a beaver… to all the Beliebers out there: don’t sue me!
It was five days to Christmas and I decided to go for a walk to clear my head of all the talk about how cold it is and stuff.
I had no destination in mind and I was blind to where each fork would go, but I felt kind of bold & that proved to be enough.
Being bold does count for something or other, but you can’t be too bold, because then you’d just be a silly stupid old fool.
[If a girl calls me Santa once, I don’t worry; twice, that’s okay, too; but thrice, running fast as my body can is my general rule.]
Anyhow, my pedometer said I’d tread ten thousand steps when I took a rest after passing my old school and the pool.
As I was catching my breath and freezing like death, I saw an withered yet handsome man sat on an ancient stool.
His sign read, “I have magic powers that can change your life; please just buy me a bite to eat, and please: no plastic.”
My mind was intrigued but I wasn’t sure if the sign was sarcastic, for claiming to have magic powers is drastic.
I went to the nearest bakery and brought to him two croissants, three doughnuts and a cup of coffee.
Mister Mystery said, “Took you long enough to bring my stuff, but I love all the food you got me.”
“Now forget how to remember,” he whispered in my ear, “and the sum of what you really want shall appear.”
I forgot it all on that freezing December day, then out came the sun of May, the same one was here!
I said, “Wow, mister, that was sick; please show me another trick! Teach me how to play guitar & sing.”
Mister Mystery replied, “Not a soul could magic that, boy, but enjoy what fun the sun & money can bring!”
I wasn’t sure what to say but finally replied, "I'm glad you seem happy, and I'm grateful destiny didn't do that to me.
You can't tell by looking how someone really is, because everyone has one or two demons or maybe even three.”
He replied, “While the best things in the world happen with a smile, that's often how the worst news is delivered too.
I don’t use a sign that says ‘I grew up an orphan’, but I am and my life here represents the pudding of the proof.”
“I’m sorry for everything that’s happened to you, but I will say life will get better for you at least today”, I replied.
“Why would it?” he asked. “Because I’ve got hash!” I said. We smoked until sunrise that day and laughed so much we cried.
It seems most people love Christmas themes, so I wrote this Christmas song in a February dream… wow, Santa is a cash-cow!
I will be Christmas sometime soon… in fact, it could be Christmas now! I say this because I’m the real Santa, anyhow! Ho-ho-ho!
26. Jumped Out of The Mirror
Ain't been a long time since I wrote a song for liberty & thee, the caged free and the aged seer.
Jumped out of the mirror, dreamt a dream so clear I feared it, no wonder it disappeared.
The ventriloquist is blinder than a bat, but the beggars hand mis/understands its victim.
And he'd smoke the proffered cigarette but he knows the satisfaction would addict him.
I recall the majesty of the wind's time and the air smuggles a secret back to the deep blue sea.
But my heart won't be hurt by whatever curt 'whatever' this here unforever is clever enough to hurl at me.
Scared of the solace her sister seeks in the jailhouse, the cat chases her tale as it's a mouse.
Meanwhile the hubristic law of the liar cries that the grouse amounts to nothing but a new spouse.
After the caffeinated clowns occulted the opera house, they higher a new town now.
I wept for the sorrow that crept up on and I could see the only moment the vegans thought was cow.
The heart forgets the breath of the wind whose air smuggles a secret back to the deep sea.
My heart won't be hurt by every curt whatever this unforever is clever enough to hurl at me.
27. Blissful Tears, Broken Mirrors
It was the fission of a vision & a mortal voice.
I wouldn’t forget a second if I had the choice.
In the end my friend you used the heavens as a hoist.
They’re nothing like the wind & the weather’s moist.
But if it’s nothing you’ve nothing to fear.
I don’t dwell in the past, the present’s enough of a riddle.
But I remember you racing in a wheelchair around Lidl.
Five years ago I grieved fifteen years in four hours.
I remember your face & your embrace & your flowers.
& how I wish you could be with me here.
It’s been a while since I broke that god-forsaken mirror.
The end of seven years of bad luck is getting nearer.
Any day now, those blissful tears will appear.
The moon is a baby phantom & the sun is a seer.
I saw us walking together last night; you were chain smoking.
You sadly reasoned as I gestured madly, my fingers poking.
Yes, I want to go to heaven; no, I don’t want to go to hell.
Though you raised me well, the more we hurt the more we fell.
But if it’s nothing I’ve got nothing to fear.
It was dark in the park & we sat on a wooden bench.
My heart fell apart in a way my mind can’t start to clench.
If heaven is a physical plane, then I don’t want anything else.
The angels are made of melody played by eternity’s elves.
& how I wish you could be with me here.
It wouldn’t be so lonely if only we all broke the mirror.
No, people aren’t the same; no, we’re not even near.
Any day now, those blissful tears will appear.
The moon’s a pained witness & the sun’s a pioneer.
Grieving doesn’t deceive me into believing I’ll see you again.
But ma! ma! there are the happy tears in the woods at ten.
I remember the feeling but forget the words.
The bird slurred it like it’s meant to be heard.
& if it’s all for nothing you’ve got nothing to fear.
Midnight’s memory is pinning me to God’s rampant sinning:
8am ambulance screams chasing a world back to its beginning.
I woke as the morning broke, heard the news but couldn’t cry.
In a dream the angels spoke of how the birth cord wouldn’t die.
& how I wish you could be with me here.
I see you every time I peer inside the mirror!
You’re not here but still you feel kind of near!
Yeah, blissful tears are beginning to appear!
The moon’s an urchin & the sun’s a queer!
Blissful tears, broken mirrors!
Blissful tears, broken mirrors!
The moon’s an urchin & the sun’s a queer!
28. Destiny's Dragon
Whenever my mind lingers upon the four weeks I spent working as a concierge at Dublin’s Mushroom Paradise Hotel, a wistful thirstiness envelops my body and colours the contours of wherever I am. The mere thought of that big old musty mansion – a realm where dreams seemed to be made or broken – exercises unilateral authority over my existence, sinking into all the atoms of my memory banks until my brain is rendered, in its tempestuous entirety, temporarily powerless. If I can, I sit down to collect myself and drink some water. At the very least, I take a few deep breaths. You’re not there anymore, I tell myself, you can relax.
Because of the fire that obliterated most of the building, I wasn’t employed at the hotel for very long. That manacle-muddled era evokes imageries that are both vivid yet hazy. Sometimes it feels as if that month of my life didn’t happen to me at all, and instead represents a story that’s been repeated to me, time after time, against my will, by some kidnapper at gunpoint. Nonetheless, the fact still remains that I was there the day Destiny’s dragon set Dublin’s Mushroom Paradise Hotel ablaze. For what it’s worth, too, I remember the event itself with such cinematic clarity that it’s hard for me to describe the whole affair succinctly whilst remaining faithful to the details of what actually happened.
It’s important, first of all, that you have an idea about the rationale behind the selection of the clientele: the owner wanted to create a secret, invite-only hotel for chic, wealthy guests. He bought a quadruple-glazed mansion in Sandycove, and started by inviting one billionaire, who could in turn invite two friends to stay, who could in turn each invite two friends to stay, and so on and so forth. Within six months, three hundred different people – all affluent & invited – had stayed at the hotel. This was back in 2005. I became a concierge there in 2007.
The staff of Dublin’s Mushroom Paradise Hotel were hand-selected by a distinguished jury of wealthy shareholders. Each candidate for the job had to be invited to apply by someone who had stayed at the hotel. The interview was complex and three-parted… the first section of the selection process involved a series of fifty questions on anything from the applicant’s familiarity with the works of Hank Williams to a description of their first kiss, the second involved baking cupcakes, and the third required the completion of a triathlon.
While I was there, I had only three other colleagues. Though the guests were rather flamboyant and will probably remain caricatures to you, my fellow staff and I were rather more pragmatic, though so ill-suited to the job it is a wonder we passed the interview stage. I didn’t know a thing about Hank William’s back-catalogue, but I described my first kiss as a ‘blissful dialogue of leftist politics’, and that went down a treat with the owner’s son, who cackled with his head back and mouth wide-open.
There was The Lollipop Lady, an affected middle-aged woman with crimson hair who manned the front desk. I remember her quite affectionately. She always carried candy and chocolate in her pockets and though she often offered a ‘hand-picked selection’ of her ‘finest’ to me, I can’t remember her actually ever eating any herself. Ah, The Lollipop Lady! She wasn’t eccentric as such, but she had a distinctly peculiar aura about her. She exclusively used one-syllable words and seemed incapable of flouting this lifestyle choice. She referred to the Dublin’s Mushroom Paradise Hotel as ‘this place we are in now’ and she called herself ‘Nat, The Sweet Girl’, but everyone else called her The Lollipop Lady.
And there was Brian The Actor, a mastermind of a thirty-something actor who never made it big because though his brain was pretty brilliant, he spoke so quickly that he wasn’t suited to speaking roles on stage or film. Apparently, too, his agent had been circulating a rumour that he had once slept with Britney Spears; whether this peculiar piece of gossip was the truth, or merely an effort to catalyse or jeopardise Brian The Actor’s career in showbiz, we will probably never know. He dressed in a purple or beige suit and worked as the only cleaner on the premises. The extravagances of our guests were sometimes so catastrophic that even the keenest of cleaners could not combat such messianic mess while still having time to rest or sleep. So, although I’m not implying that Brian The Actor was lazy, Dublin’s Mushroom Paradise Hotel’s rouge carpets would win no prizes for pristineness.
And there was The Frenchman, the chef, a twenty-year old fat man who claimed to hail from Paris yet spoke impeccable English without the hint of an accent. He would swear to himself in perfect French while cooking – ‘merde, merde, MERDE!’. Despite cooking for a living, he disliked most food that wasn’t bread, butter or cheese.
Then, there was me: the bellboy, the concierge, the custodian & the waiter. I was twenty-five during my time at Dublin’s Mushroom Paradise Hotel. I’m known as ‘The Dope Cat’ to my close friends and as Neil to those who don’t know me too well. I’m not particularly worldly, my tastes are idiosyncratic, and I’m kind of verbose. Sometimes I get lost on my way home, pretty much around the same time every year I discover I like the taste of cheddar again, and though I have only just learned the meaning of ‘phantasmagoria’ I have been using the word (ineffectually or wrongly) for years. You can reach your own conclusions about me, but I don’t take much for granted: thankfully, I’m an alright storyteller and I have a content yet desolate disposition. Before being employed at Dublin’s Mushroom Paradise Hotel, I lived off the fat of the welfare state on about 150 euros a week.
I write whenever I can as it’s the only thing I can do well, and I’ve attempted suicide only once: that I am writing this now indicates that I’m not very good at dying either. One immature yet demonstrative effort was enough for me to recognize that even if I don’t belong in this world, this world belongs in me. The pretext of boredom or longing for another dimension are both self-fulfilling, self-sustaining cycles. You should be grateful you have the time to be bored, and a waste of time is a waste of time only because you have time in the first place, whose unit will, somewhat soon, be foreign to you. Wait a day and the world will be a different place, in a small way. Things can always change. I could swear I was someone else yesterday. I was in another three-act play, another tiny human drama.
I suppose it’s also true that some things never change. For example, pretty much every living adult dragon can breathe fire. And when the dwarf of a flame starts to breed, it can spread into dozen dwarfs of a flame. And if they in turn transform into an enormous blazing inferno, you can expect to see some people dead.
***
Destiny was forty-two. She was beautiful; I don’t think, you know, that I’ve ever actually met anyone so beautiful. She had shoulder-length black hair, tanned skin and moved kind of like an ostrich. You’d have to see her in action to understand what I mean by this. Destiny had a demeanour that alternately danced between the outward invitation of intimacy and the introspective pushing away of whoever she’s talking to. She didn’t drink alcohol but smoked Marlborough Lights intermittently. It seemed like she had a lot to lose but what this was you couldn’t really say for sure. Destiny’s voice was high-pitched, and her choice of words were spritely and sweet. On her second night, she invited me to repair for the night with her to share her secret despair; of course, I refused as I had professional standards to uphold.
“Do you want to spend the night with me?” Destiny had inquired then, somewhat quizzically. “My soul is quaking with this secret sorrow that only a man can fix.”
“Uh, thanks for the offer. But I can’t. I’m working. Would you like me to make you some Camomile?” I had offered.
“Serving it is how your night duties will begin, and drinking it is how mine will end,” she had replied mysteriously. I nodded, but I doubted she was correct on either front.
“Have you met my pet dragon?” Destiny had said distractedly, as I made to leave.
“No, I haven’t.” I’d heard rumours from The Lollipop Lady on this front, but I wasn’t going out of my way to meet a dragon, and for some reason I was keen to change the subject. “Anyhow, I’ll bring you some Camomile.”
“Wait a minute,” she said. “I have a question: how would you describe the sensation of taste to someone who cannot taste?”
“I guess it’s kind of like a smell. A coloured smell. Yeah, that’s how I’d describe it.”
“Fair enough. I think it’s more of an audio-based thing. But that’s just me.”
“Yeah, I know what you mean. Taste is kind of like a sound,” I said obligingly, though I didn’t know in what way taste is like a sound.
Pretty much every living adult dragon can breathe fire. And when the dwarf of a flame starts to breed, it can spread into dozen dwarfs of a flame. And if they in turn transform into an enormous blazing inferno, you can expect to see some people dead.
***
You know, I never did get to meet Destiny’s dragon. But when Destiny’s dragon set Dublin’s Mushroom Paradise Hotel ablaze, I almost didn’t have to. Apparently, it ran manically around the hotel, setting fire to every flammable thing in sight. Anyhow, very quickly the fire alarm went off & everyone migrated outside. Soon, the flames were cackling & beautiful. It was everything you could possibly want in a fire. The fire brigade arrived but to no avail. The better half of the building was incinerated within the space of ten minutes.
I love to watch fires spread, like I love to watch the sacred tsunami of democracy spread across the world like butter on bread, like the hysteria at a circus act gone wrong. Yes, seeing that fire was like witnessing a huge Jenga depiction of the Eiffel Tower collapse bit by bit in front of its creator. There was nothing the fire department could do. The building’s foundations gave way & three stories became two and two became one. Everyone stood there, crying & talking & ogling. Luckily the only victim of the fire was its perpetrator, the dragon. Destiny yelled & shouted & yelled but he wouldn’t come out.
That fire in particular was so beautiful to look at that it made me forget my personal vendetta against myself. Yes, I remember when Destiny’s dragon set Dublin’s Mushroom Paradise Hotel ablaze. It was beautiful & perhaps a little sad.