those slaughtered herds of a soundless Serengeti

Fortune has a strange way of
navigating a path to your door.

All we wanted to do
was kick a football around
and play in the dirt.

When his name was called
we just knew-
first pretending he hadn’t heard
he eventually rose from his desk,
circumnavigating our damp class room
until there were no more corners to conquer.
He eventually stood fidgeting;
shifting his nervous weight from foot to foot.
Hand
tightly clutching his penis as young boys will
in the face of danger – Petrified; justifiably thinking
that his donger may suddenly
and inexplicably drop off.
Not wanting to look at his angry teacher
who glared,
who towered ready to spring his
“I ask… you blurt… I pounce… you cry… I humiliate and you
remain traumatized for life” style of questioning.
Words hammered until the boy welled up:
Projectile vomit painted his teacher’s new suit,
urinated a lake at his feet and when his sphincter muscle
called a snap strike...

Fortunately, the rest of us had the afternoon off
kicking a football; getting filthy.

If we will ever catch up I must remember to thank him
while we crap on about the good old days.






Little lives of little gain
Grains of life that grind insane
Against cold cogs of calamity
Culminate to capture me
Drained of dreams my nighttimes now
Plough into days so frozen foul
Our little lives of little gain
Rain madness down upon our pain
A pain that pulls patchworks apart
Hammering nails through helpless hearts
And there they grind 'til what remain
Of these little lives of little gain?






Down on the farm
Everybody’s doing harm
We are all battery hens in a Battery Age
It’s all just product
Quantity we produce
We’re all battery hens in our little battery cage
Feed me
Protect me
This is all I know
But the moment I stop
That’s the moment I go
Don’t get tired
Don’t get old
Don’t get brave
Don’t get bold
Don’t get rest
Don’t get play
Just get slaughtered
Any day
Down on the farm
Everybody’s doing harm
We are all battery hens in a Battery Age






Don't bring your shirt and tie attitudes
to a Genghis Khan buck's night.
You only make yourself appear aloof or worse; simpering.

Some people look like a life support for sex.

Nights become bleak very quickly where I live:
From molten sun drenched days, balmy evenings
the seasons blink and it never looks like yuletide postcards.
We pariah Michael Jackson but think squeezing an old fart down a chimney
to enter our children's rooms in the middle of the night is somehow okay.
I have never seen snow and drifting ice in our city
just sleet and drifting homelessness.

She crossed the street ignoring cat calls,
wolf whistles. Taxi stopped, crowd had already gathered,
“He didn't stand a chance.”
Some helped to roll the taxi back off his mangled remains.

If I poured all my self pity into a vat, kept it for ten years,
people will drink it, comment,
“That certainly was one of the great years for self pity.'
1983 was good...but yes this really was the year
in which self pity came of age.”

Searching up the darken subway
of cappuccinos, Kentucky Fried and puke,
she stood before him. Tilted just enough with legs like an art form;
her short dress, glimpse of red underwear.
His one bleary eye opened.
This must be Heaven's subway?
He nudged his unconscious friend who fell off the end of a vandal proof,
bomb proof, knife proof, graffiti proof, style and shit resistant plastic seat
and continued snoring,
"Wow..." he mumbled to his half dead mate,
"she's a beaut!"

Such a fine line between what you want and what you become.

We live in an age of image. Substance -
What is it really?
She looked beautiful and some days that is all the substance required.





Heartbeats
Heartbeats
Tingle
Tingle
Heartbeats
Heartbeats
Tingle so sweet
All us tingle
Make us complete
Heartbeats
Heartbeats
Breathing
Breathing
Red head
Red head
Red hot in bed
Crash though walls
Like trains its said
Choof!
Choof!
Choof!
Choof!
Right behind you
All aboard!
Bomp-bomp
All aboard!
Bomp-bomp
Choof!
Choof!
Bomp-bomp
Woof! Woof!
Bomp – bomp
How’d I find you
Deeper
Bomp-bomp
Deeper
Bomp-bomp
Build it up
Bomp-bomp
Build it up
Bomp-bomp
Build it up
Bomp-bomp
Coming to the surface
Coming right now
Coming to the surface
Coming right now
Banshees scream
Let it out!
Let it out!
Monkeys scream
Let it out!
Let it out!
Hyenas scream
Let it out!
Let it out!
We scream
Let it out!
Let it out!
Deeper
Deeper
Let it out!
Let it out!
Deeper
Deeper
Let it out!
Let it out!
Walls blow out
Let it out!
Let it out!
Bombs going off
Bomb bombing my brain
Screaming out love
Screaming insane
Bomp-bomp,
Bomp-bomp
Let it out!
Let it out!
Quicker
Quicker
Breathing
Quicker
Drive it in harder
Drive it in deeper
Bomp-bomp
Bomp-bomp
Let it out!
Let it out!
Banshees scream
Let it out!
Let it out!
Monkeys scream
Let it out!
Let it out!
Hyenas scream
Let it out!
Let it out!
Breath drawing in
Nails clawing in
Breath drawing in
Deeper
Deeper
Your soul
My soul
Into the night
Bomp-bomp,
Into the night
Bomp-bomp
Love you
Love this
Passion and fire
Screaming and yells
Want you!
Want you!
Screaming and yells
Let it out!
Let it out!
Oh God!
Louder!
Louder!
Let it out!
Let it out!
Louder!
Louder!
Screaming to neighbours
Screaming to walls
Screaming
Screaming
Screaming some more
Let it out!
Let it out!
Banshees scream
Let it out!
Let it out!
Monkeys scream
Let it out!
Let it out!
Hyenas scream
Let it out!
Let it out!
Deeper
Bomp-bomp
Deeper
Bomp-bomp
Heartbeats
Heartbeats
Tingle
Tingle
Heartbeats
Heartbeats
Breathing
Breathing
Deeper
Bomp-bomp
Deeper
Bomp-bomp
Let it out!
Let it out!
Banshees scream
Let it out!
Let it out!
Monkeys scream
Let it out!
Let it out!
Hyenas scream
Let it out!
Let it out!
Let it out!
Let it out!





In rhizocarpous scenarios of fractured love,
I stay for what?

Not this tortured abeyance
where every word
dies a humiliating death
of an exiled dissenter-
this was never my land.
Umbrage is kept hostage:
Poked to life as catapulted spleens
fly vengefully across this wasteland.

Let us gambol in feisty joust, in baffling parallax,
in debilitating disgust for who can fling one’s motley cap
on this career move? Thank Christ
I didn’t have a crystal ball.
I’d have pulverized my brain then and there
rather than skulking around this grim suburbia;
feeding my sanity piecemeal to your mother’s blue ducks
escaping south across her beige wall.

It gets to a point these iconoclast arguments
aren’t even good for a reconciling fuck.

I watched a busker playing a ukulele,
he looked like Django Reinhardt:
It was then I burst into tears.






Upon the sea
The open sea
No land I see in sight
Dark angels know
As I may know
No one sees my light
Beg as I may
As beggars do
For something more than this
Can’t change the world
Can’t change myself
Can’t change the way I live
Another wave
Another wave
Another wave across my bow
I’ve never felt
So frightened
As the way I feel right now
What is truth
What can be said
Of this dead man washed ashore
Dark angels know
As you may know
A lost soul lost once more





Tinkling ivories without hinting guilt
for those slaughtered herds of a soundless Serengeti:
Lace soft murmurs across this sad etude.
Nothing ages, nothing falters.
I loathe this stranger who killed my friend with timid jabs,
with crushed conform.
Plead for life, trapped in a tangle,
strangled by debt notices –
I fucking loathe this stranger who killed my friend.

There is infidelity throughout our thoughts.
I lied to myself; I cheated on me.
No archangel comes to my prayers,
no Hi-Ho Silver of ragged redemption;
I gazed into that blank middle distance
to a shimmering mirage of utter failure:

Such sweet music this soul can create.
My fingers caress and play your flesh
building this rhapsody
slowly,
slowly moments of distraction.
Deeper

for all is laid in shroud and waste.
There is no feast, no Welcome Home.
Days of Dark, of Bleak, of Tremble - I loathe
this stranger who killed my friend.





What is Death
But a dark ribbon of time
Which runs through our hearts
Like a clock with no chime
Nothing to tell us
Where life has gone
Tattered and frayed
Sad and “So Long!”
Goodbye we are mortal
Die once in our flesh
Then die in each memory
Until nothing is left
No name on a photo
Found in a box
Who was this person
This no named person?
Who was this person
Whose memory is lost?