She remembered
it doesn't matter to them
because it does for them.
It ends where it should
a terminus
replica girls
central
stationed through time as through the now
when writing is solitary
not in isolation
of pain
human bleeding
expend the fluid
because I know the numbness is not me
because I can feel
because pain doesn't live in a deadened heart.
A mind's eye crucified
nailed to immobility
an insect pinned to a board of labels, of Latin descriptions; "Poetica nascitur non fit"
My machine grinding on and on
on and on
on and on
on and on
on and on
on and on
on and on
on and on
on and on
on and on
on and on
on and on
on and on
Compulsion exudes into mind
of laboured non-love
objects d'product
factory framed illusions of words in the realm
wrapping kings in robes so coloured
such rainbow attire
crowns now tarnished
absent
a family's jewel
a turban of thorns upon a father's head.
He tells the tales of the open road
of journeys back and forth
between our cities
where we all play
where there is no room for the iron maiden
casting spires into my self
bleeding my sickness
eager leeches so giant and thirsting
waiting in hollow tubes of a Hell's descent
to take me down to the truest night
the land of horrid Taoist nightmares.
I fight the invisible foes of trust
his one last ray of faith
sitting so radiant.

I would need to be a cosmonaut
man number one.

"One small step........"








Get down on your hands and knees
like a dog
roll in the shit.

Your shit

The stench of yourself
and your girlfriend says
"You fucked her last night, the mickey's on your tongue, her pubes are stuck between your teeth"
a meal of mad abandon.
You ate her cunt
and it was good.
It ran itself over your mouth
sucked your tongue up to it's origins
poured it's monsoon
drowned any love you had in insane animal lusting
tongue fucking.
She grabbed at sheets
clawed your hair
your head
tore the lid from despair
screamed for the rampant cock of your betrayal to fuck her hole
to pound her split-fruit of a ripened cunt
in love on it's own.

"What're you doing with your hand on my tit"? she squealed through a haze of cigarette as the second part of the double feature rolled into view on the screen.
"Feeling lucky"
Credits rolled on the big white wall beneath the stars and the horns of the cars sounded off like a fanfare of impatience.
"Well if you don't mind. This is the movie I came to watch, you know that"
"Whatever"
"Thank you"
The opening credits came to an end and the movie actually began, and then the flare of a lighter could be seen from the car parked directly in front of them. Then another red glare took the lighter's place and burnt for a moment before disappearing.
"Pulling bongs in front eh"?
"Sssshh"
"Wouldn't mind a couple myself. Typical that Pete'd be out the one time I actually want some"
"Sssshhh"
She curled her feet up under herself and grabbed the blanket from the back seat.
"That's the dog's blanket"
"You didn't complain the other night by the beach about it being the dog's blanket"
"That's different. That was outside, this is inside the car, and it's aawwwhhhh, still full of fucking sand"
"Sorry about that. I didn't mean to throw sand in the face of your six-stone weakling"
"Funny"
"The other night when I was forced to inhale the dog's stench while you did your business you weren't worried about sand or smell"
"Alright, alright, use the blanket if you can handle the smell then, just try not to throw too much sand through the car"
"Sssshhh. Now I've missed some of the movie because of you"
"Well don't answer then"
"Sssshhh"
"I'm going to the toilet. Do you want something from the shop while I'm out that way"?
"Some Fantails would be nice"
"Fantails"?
"Yep"
The door of the car opened, the interior light went on and then as the door closed went off again.
He was never seen again.
She drove home alone and content.
":Best movie I've seen in ages"





A six-pack is no more a trophy to be gripped like the well timed fingers of the adept lover whose push and touch can draw from you the essence of that orb-borne stream, to quench the thirst for orgasm known, the taste that leaves no doubt, as thighs may quiver to panted breaths both minds know and drive toward that moment when as one the Earth cleaves apart and born is true love.






A cavern that burns
where you stand or sit.

"Look at me" so golden
a child.

Jack-in -the-box stars
4 o'clock morning-dark sky
Christmas tree pressure-cooker
hours of the music I send to the dead-zones of their far-away world.
Send it back to me, here and now.

If I could growl and raise a Hell
as I was born
anger mad
a psycho-eyed stranger caught just once in pig-bound custody
to their wailing
their hopeful chains of flaky grey.

Wet sex in city jungle promise.
She always lied
he put the eye to a key-hole to spot that lady death
frothy soap lusting golden pubes
finger tucking to the hilt.
Freeze-dried now.
Whore-girl leaning awaits applause.
Could wank.
Could wank.
Be strong
hear his Highness
tripping head
lost to the belt-line doing dreams
rampant rolling back
glowing purple.
Don't
don't.

Steal me
the thief echoes hatred.
Shield eyes below a tilted cap and crawl away.

The fear will find a home in you
will find a tumour to inflame to madness
a searing fester to torch the ancient rivers of guarded dreams.

Cerberus knows where the eels call home
electric gnawing.

Grow leather wings
be a pedestal Puck.
He sees buds spout in the blades
straining
muscles taught to find that ache of years.

See me in darkness
blinding darkness.

Kiss me here
here
here.
Trample the holy lie
wrapped about a baobab.
Dig Joshua dig.

The fall down so deep a void of so many slippery years
to return and look at memories
at faces.

See now the walls adorned with just myself
this temple of self-glory
gratified and delayed
an oft postponed orgasm of life, where that hand of fate plays strong against my will to destiny
to force
impose
to grab and sustain at existence.

You're so old
with your silk scarf and photos of the grand-kids
your comments about everything before we've even begun.
You snicker as he swears
go silent at "cunt"
and I'm here feeling myself expanding with each mouthful.

You're so old
with your chin on the steering wheel
your hair fresh from curlers or buried beneath a beaten old hat
any indication of direction given far too late to matter
and I'm being told to treat you with respect.

You're so old
so demanding of things you claim you can no longer do
that you never did
that we take for granted
as you take us for granted at times.

You're so old
with your repeated phrases
your washing that flies every Thursday, "Dry by lunch"
the favours we won't record
your views a general consensus.

You're so old
you can't move a muscle
and I wonder "Do you know"?
The promise made to never let this happen to each other
that death might be preferable.

You're so old
you flaunt your nudity without really knowing
like the curtain's open on purpose
the same as you forgot to shut a door
because you needed to piss so badly.

You're so old
that like when I'm tired it's sleep you seek
only with you it's all day
mouth agape, catching flies and zeds
trouser legs to your knees.

You're so old
you laugh when I dance.
Before I was king of a nowhere
but it's humour you need
it's distraction from fate.

You're so old
tattoos make a person "Common"
despite uniqueness and art
when you've never worked
ignoring the kindness.

You're so old
have you forgotten youth?
Things only happening since a loved ones departure
since you needed tending
since yours are the best of all.

You're so old
baby-sitting, baby-sat?
You don't understand the simple
yet keep it so much so
a change comes like a mystery.

You're so old
Will we that are young catch up?
Will we exceed?
Will we know if we do?
For we will be so old.

I just saw love bloom into a one night stand, lips locked and so gently removed.
But the ugly haunt here too
and the past
where there was no future because I dared to speak a mind and offer it for proof.
Did they take offense when they thought I was blind, or dumb, but never deaf?
Ears ringing even now
when rooms are small and they're always so loud.







There's always a thing of beauty to behold
bronzed skin just a slice of view.
Could I ask you to pose
or are you posing already
a question of volume over nerves
of accents versus language
such a modern classic.
And who is he
so unsuited, though he's trying
matching you drink for drink
when you're so dark and he's such a tree of green
so young to your travelling past
your exotic nature, urbane and to be loving
to be recognised by one who looks to know?







I saw you today
talking to yourself and gesticulating like you had a friend.
Maybe you did
maybe that's why they snickered
maybe that's why she looked scared?
I walked right passed you and noted you for now.

Do you know there's no-one there
driven to voice regardless of audience
movements almost a dance, a shuffle to and fro?

It doesn't seem to trouble you enough to make you stop.
Is help arriving from beyond your grasp?
Could you create a friendship from the madness?

And you!!!!
What's your claim to fame
a beauty Queen, something more obscene?
Drug dealer, scene stealer
gang banger, the cum squealer?
Are you a rock-star with a big car
or lobotomised with a small scar?
You wear tight pants, show your tight butt
you go down some, play the cheap slut.
Got the cash to splash, want to buy some gash
win the blue ribbon, the first prize sash.

You know all their names
they look all the same.
Do they dull your flame?
Take your name in vain?
Do they block the glare of the flashbulb stare?
Do they even care if you're not there?

And you!!!!
Do you need the fame?
The nowhere man in a nowhere land.
Bar tender, car mender
garbage man, gender bender.
Are you a bank clerk with an overdraft
or a housewife into handicraft?
You wear blue jeans, collared shirt sometimes
you've been down some, seen better times.
When you get the urge do you binge and purge?
All your life a learning curve.

In droves they came so as to string her up by her retarded mentality.
She swung on long after her twitching had ceased, almost like it was a testament to the effort she'd put into dying.
I looked at her eyeballs and wondered whether any minute they or the sockets that held them might burst. How strange to see eyes so strained and know they observe nothing.
The way she fouled herself at the last, so common now since she'd lost her memory to that time. I refused to join the "Hurrahs" as they'd seen it trickle down first one leg then the other, pooling in a pile on the ground.
Flies feasted on semi-digested offerings, and those with limited senses of smell craned their necks for proof of what she'd told them she ate.
One or two pulled at her feet in order to salvage shoes or socks and to check for traces of sand that they said dwelt between her toes. Why they'd wasted clothing at all on one so wanton with her flesh bemused me as I sat and watched them dance a merry jig upon pronouncement of death. In time to the music they swigged and passed round home-rolled cigarettes, the air fairly reeking with hedonistic intent.
I see all this in a haze of red and wonder whether it's of their projection or the gauze my mind slips over itself in order to strain that which I view.
Some form of tribal dance manifests itself amongst all this mayhem and I see one after the other lift their partners by the throat, shake several times, then release. The one gripped smiling with this show of attention, this excuse for some liquid refreshment. On long into the night their revellry continues, the corpse like a mistle-toe to be kissed under in the hope of luck, hanging limp and lifeless, slowly bloating.
Dogs lap at the pool the flies had vacated when the air began to chill and the sky became dark. Barely a slither of moon tonight and the stars, if there were any, and we all know they just don't disappear, so far away as to be invisible.
Hand-held torches light the festivities and give the impression of sunbeams gone epileptic, jumping from here to there, then back to here, and off to where, and then gone off completely, saving themselves for something worth showing.
One of the hounds sniffs at the air scenting the source of it's rich meal, nose up-tilting, eyes skyward, piercing the night for more excreta on which to feast. It stills and I can just make out a tongue licking chops, bare fangs, and the steam that issues jet-like from it's nostrils. It leaps high, but not high enough. It's jaws snapping loudly and emptily still a good distance below toes once known to sand now dangling enticingly before the hungry horde.
How silent and sadistic my vigil?
Perhaps I should have intervened and protested some kind of humanity or shouted innocence in the face of the maddened crowd..
Maybe I could have swollen their number by one and turned them from a rabble to a gathering, my presence giving them some form of direction or stability.
It's the dogs that worry me inside, their domestication slipping with every drive of that tongue into the ever decreasing pool. I see them poise, hackles up, frame low and all teeth bared as one of the celebrants teeters on the brink of collapse. Several of the mindless cur leap ceaselessly at the feet as if hypnotised by their effort. To cease now would see them leave what is there staring them in the face, filling their nostrils with it's stench, turning their stomachs with hunger, obsessing their entire being, go to waste or become something for some-one else. Some soap for the beauticians, some hair for the wig-maker, a filling for the undertaker, breakfast for the worms.
It's the obscenity of this vision that holds me. The endless possibilities of mixing animal instincts with hunger, fired by a taste, with intoxication, all stirred by the knowledge that they survived longer that her.
I close my eyes and sleep takes me back to it's safety before Hell breaks loose and man starts to eat man, while dogs watch and feast on scraps. Those remaining are then ravaged by the need to remain blood-crazed and dominant, to the extent of collapse, which offers their canine audience the opportunity to consume at will.

Just another teeny-bopper's shared wet dream
another hairy appendage in a hairless seam.

Long nights fearing mother's knock
another uncle
the bed-spring punch-clock

"Where's Daddy"?
"When will he be home"?
Another Christmas so alone.

Just another brides-maid's tale, virgin-white love
'til the death, golden bands, signed and sealed it up

Hot days sweating the money Jones
another day of fingers working to the bone

"Where's daddy"?
"When will he be home"?
Another Christmas so alone

Just another tough guy lament, beer-soaked thoughts
another loner looking for paradise, out of reach, uncaught
every night sleeping arms spread wide and clutching
early morning when Hell's been watching.

"Where's daddy"?
"When will he be home"?
Another Christmas so alone.







I was waiting for the punches to start, it seemed like one of those weddings.
Grandma mingled with ink-blotted drunks, cherry-topped breasts heaved and wriggled with the escapists mind as the white-lace drew heartily on yet another nicotine teat. Criss-crossed purple strands bluntly dissuaded imploring eyes and let limp hands slide away unfulfilled.
The clink of glass through both celebration and intoxicated clumsiness chills the air with the expectation of that sound that either stills or hurries, the dropped tray that brings cheers from the invited and groans of waste from the free-loaders a set of hasty steps from me and an a almost silent curse from the slippery fingered.
All those flash-bulbs tonight and tomorrow the complaints of "You weren't looking" or "You moved" or "What's his hand doing on your arse"? flying like the elephants in pink tights on unicycles carrying tiny umbrellas that flash in heads that moved too suddenly and stirred the sludge the night left.
I keep lifting and stacking the abandoned glasses in my left hand and cogitate about the time when those carrying leftovers would have vanished without a murmur. The days I would have been the drunken palms touching thighs or grabbing at free-swinging breasts, the slurrer gently side-stepped for the bean-eyed and restless.
"Have you heard about the midnight rambler", and here's me 9.15 Saturday night at club central dressed like a piece of some Grand Prix finishing flag, with a material throat-choker as an inverted noose, two hands full of the cheapest glass money can buy wondering when I might be able to add a jacket to my attire and partake of nuptial-night bliss.
I escape this orthodox madness for the serious insanity of the casino room where the once one-armed have now become push-button-money-suckers, with their operators perched shag-like hoping for a five-in-a-row on a bet five with five free spins to follow.
Voyeuristically I stand watching numbers fall by tens and fives occasionally rattling up by forties and fifties.
She just got lucky and popped a 500, the skull and cross-bones in a line, with Long John Silver and his hook a reminder of the good old days when you could pull away in public and still be called normal. The poker machine graveyard full of still sweating knobs atop slender silver searching for a warm palm to keep them company, these machines like come-on whores, shining, promising, offering opportunity if you're willing to spend. How could you choose? One much like the other, all reliant on luck and the odds much improved on the one some-one else is playing or the one they've left without satisfaction.
The new Mrs What's-her-name stands braced by a brides-maids words at one of the symbols of fortune and casts coins into it's slot much as she had just cast her garter into the wall of hands thrown blindly roofward. The heavy-lidded eyes of it's human brickwork still fixed on a slowly disappearing thigh clad in patterned white silk held up by matching elastic. A brattish melee had ensued and from the scrum emerged the victor, tie wildly askew, smile even more so, and the gleam in the single open optic as he slid the elastic up a tweed covered arm augured well for his solitary version of consummation.
How did I end up at the front-desk answering telephones and paging the long departed?
"Checking in"?
Sign here, take your change, and I'll check your mind so you can retrieve it on your way out when you're dollars lighter
I'm the registrar of names intent on enjoyment and I feel like I should just call them all "Smith" and give them a key, some towels, and a pamphlet on the "Joys of Sex". Instead I wish them luck and ask them not to attack the door quite so violently, it'll still be there on their way out.
"Down at the end of lonely street" comes from the auditorium as the bistro manager flips "Closed" to the empty hallway and any empty stomachs to whom a plate of chips might seem a suitable filler. "Heartbreak hotel".
I knew it. I am in a cheap hotel with couples as unmarried as they are unsuitable doing the unimaginable and I'm the the one taking names for history's sake and leaving faces and other physical traits for burglars and stand-up merchants.
Too soon it's over and I'm back creating glass statues and adding schooner to middy and seven ounce to empty bottle and wondering "Where do they get the money"?
Unfed dogs follow buggy toting horses round and round on the huge screen as the yelps and woes of winners and losers become bookends wedging those present between the betting-window and the pool-table.
I disassemble my statue and arrange it's pieces on the racks for a steam-bath and hose-down content on my position as spectator. No longer fit enough for the rough and tumble of intoxication, too many long-term injuries, too many notes with wings and minds of their own flying from opened wallet to cash register and some-one else's profit, with no hope of finding a way back. Too many times checking for chewing gum and how many screws are missing from the underside of too many tables.
Out passed those shimmering nightmares and the fray of wedding bliss I venture oblivious to the possibilities that unhinged minds can create.
At least they're all seated which takes away the possibility of some-one toppling over and creating the gravitational precedent of a body falling Earthwards while still at rest.
They're all becoming apprentices to my artisan and erecting mini glass monuments of their own. The joy of being imitated like the step up to a dais bathed in uninterrupted light, and I shuffle and dance at the realisation that I'm noticed and thought about.
A bride's smile, and in white so virginal, greets me as I round a blind-corner and steady a blind customer, who offers blind judgement on whether the band is playing in four-four or in some other kind of alcoholic off-beat.
What was that ancient tradition of best-man and bride?
If I'm the best man for the job then so be it
Too late she's gone and I notice she's complaining to a sympathetic, over-used, sponge about a burn from a mishandled cigarette.
Those misallied couples I'd booked in for the evening are shuffling away to a tune I think was once a Kenny Rogers number, though now, after this band has finished wringing it's neck I doubt he'd recognise let alone own up to ever having been a party to it.
"You've go to know" screams the resident table-tapper as his company politely smile and enquire about closing times and take-aways. I couldn't pick them for stayers, they looked more the at-the-club-hiding-in-the-shadows-cowering-against-the-wall-with-every-heavy-handed-thud type to me, but then I only work here.
"Midnight close and I'm sorry it's too late for take-aways" I respond, and with a little work I might be able to fit that into the bridge between the third chorus and the fourth verse. I'll keep it in mind for my next encounter with Mr Rogers and his song-writing team.