No More Death Times
Everyone I know
has a death wish
everyone I know
wants to fucking die,
Everyone I know
hates the ugliness
they see inside themselves
everyone wants to
fuck themselves over.
No more death times
in this life time
no more death times
in this life time
not this time.
Back in the Summer of '84
I had a friend who told me
that he wanted to die
before he turned twenty one,
he said that he never wanted to be
one of those 'old farts'
who sat staring at the television
with their feet tucked under
a coloured, crochet blanket.
He never wanted to get old
and sit in a high-backed armchair,
watching 'old people's' programmes
like Coronation Street,
dipping soggy biscuits
into sickly sweet cups of tea,
listening to the
talk-back radio station
all night long
for company.
He said that he never
wanted to be like that...
I thought that he was kidding
so we drove up One Tree Hill,
reclined the car seats
and fucked in time to music,
with the stereo playing
and the headlights turned on
until the battery
went flat.
It was all I could think of doing
to shut him the fuck up,
stop him talking about dying,
hold him inside me
a physical reminder
that he was still
young, warm and alive.
No more death times
in this life time
no more death times
in this life time
not this time.
The next night
I walked into his flat,
witnessed his convulsions,
dry wretched with revulsion
as white foam bubbled
from the corner of his mouth,
like sea spray.
I bathed with him
in his excretion,
lay on top of him
pinned him down,
tried to hold him still
and I watched his mouth
open and close
like a fish out of water
gasping for air.
When I heard the mucus
rattle from somewhere
cavernous deep within him,
I knew that it was too late,
I let go of his wrists
and collapsed like a wave
breaking over the shoreline
on top of him.
I felt weird,
because the night before
we had fucked
and now I was on top of him,
but this time he was dead
and I wanted us to fuck again
I wanted to make him live,
feel him inside me
hard, hot and sweaty with life
not cold and damp
with death.
In two hours time
he would have turned
twenty one years old,
I sang happy fucken birthday
through a starched, white, death-sheet
in the back of an ambulance,
but the siren was turned off
because there is no urgency
or emergency
in death,
no need to hurry
no place to go to now,
no cake to cut
or candles to blow out...
No more death times
in this life time
no more death times
in this life time
not this time.
Wearable Art
This skin,
I'm going to step right out of it
and leave it lying here
at my feet
on the fucking floor,
Don't ask me to pick it up
don't ask me to stitch it up
don't ask me to wear it,
I don't feel comfortable
in it any more.
This skin
The skin that strikes
a spinal cord,
watch the zip break
against my spine,
uptight,
wrong fit,
shop-soiled reject
no guarantee
no replacement,
this skin isn't mine.
This skin,
it's the prickly side of velcro
sticky,
tacky,
salty,
saturated semen
rub salt in the wound.
I don't like it,
want it
or fucking need it,
so take it - it's yours
pin it on your bedroom wall,
poster-painted skin
yellow and blue bruises
contours and contrasts,
shadows and textures,
red blood,
seeping to the surface,
filling white space.
This skin
was once
my wearable art...
Undefinable Rage
"Because every day's the same
as the fucking day before."
He said, when I asked him
to tell me why the demons
he unleashed had left
blood stained imprints
on the wallpaper,
knuckles split,
eyes wide
with undefined rage.
What had happened
to the little boy,
who once I sat with
pawing over
school book dreams,
pages scrawled
with misspelled words,
fucked up grammar
natural creativity,
tomorrow's author
today's failure?
He traded his dreams
for synthetic nightmares
red ice,
clear, crystal meth
and spoke of some
wacko on the internet,
proclaiming to be
the 'New God'
in a drug induced heaven
where his mother
was the devil,
carrying a
white pillow
to smother him with
while he slept...
And though the battle field
exists in his head,
he lay himself down
on a pillowless bed,
trembling with rage
unable to see
his own lack of conscience
and insanity.
There is no self control
there is no sanity
there is no logic
there is no reason
he just wants to be
fucking free
of himself.
I stood before him
he saw right through me
I stood before him
he ran right through me
I stood before him
he didn't know me
he was a stranger
to himself.
When I asked
what he wanted
he simply said,
that he wanted to die
because he was worthless,
because he was evil
because he was hurting
because he needed a taste
of the fire too much,
more than he needed
a taste of reality
and in dying
he would
not kill
me...
One Less Bitch
"Fuck you" and "Bitch"
are the primal calls you hear,
grinding holes,
through cracked concrete
on suburban driveways
tonight.
A woman screams,
running out
into the darkness,
shrinking under the streetlight,
cowering, wondering,
where the hell will she go to now?
"Get the fuck back here, bitch!"
He shouts,
between burps and slurs,
mouth frothing and dribbling,
it's just the usual,
Saturday night
house-party bullshit.
Meanwhile,
a scrawny dog,
tits sagging
from her latest litter,
tries to break free
of the frayed rope that binds her
to a roughly sawn
plywood kennel.
...And it looks like another bitch,
is on heat this weekend.
Frantic barks
wake up the neighbours,
curtains part,
porch lights turn on,
eyes peer through slits,
seeing but not wanting
to be seen.
Typical.
...The fucking animal,
has woken them up again.
"Shut the fuck up!
Both of you,
shut the fuck up!" He shouts.
Someone's going to pay
for his shortfalls tonight,
the booze has run dry
and the money's run out,
It's Saturday night
and someone's
sure as hell
going to pay for it...
A four by two
piece of timber,
bears down on the skull
of the restrained dog.
...She wont be breaking free,
running away any place now.
I guess it's a safer bet
to kill your dog,
than it is to murder your wife,
chances are,
you'll get away with it,
an unreported crime,
no doing time,
and the other bitch
will return home
within the hour,
they always do.
Meanwhile...
At least one of the bitches
lies dead.
Whatever It Takes
You drink to forget
I fuck to forget
you drink to
I fuck to
you drink
I fuck
you
I
you
I fuck
you drink
I fuck to
you drink to
I fuck to forget
You drink to forget
