the only thing
that got me
through the week
in one piece
was the thought
of who’d take my dog,
Albus,
for a walk
if i stopped
breathing.

A slow suicide called life and state sanctioned.
It is the condition of the carceral society.
Paranoia has become a proper state of mind.
And there's a despot around the corner.

Omnipresent surveillance.  Society of control.
The cattle are guided by passageways like electrons in a closed circuit to the killing floor.

Exchange market value of currency against convenience.
The stock that won't drop.
However, liberty and security are not interchangeable in a war machine that never stops.

at the back of a truck
like dogs wagging
their tongues
tasting the night
singing songs to
a sky that lacks the light
of the moon or the sun
tasting the night
a sweet taste of nostalgia
i know I will remember
these winding roads
and high rise walls
an atmosphere of uncertainty
adults created
we will remain naive and
young
until this music no longer
brings us joy and these
labelled shirts
we wear feel outdated

- t.m

A darkened bar
An old guitar
A stage that once played host
To all the Delta greats and now
to Robert Johnson's Ghost

An old man
His spitting can
A boy from up the coast
Learning how to play the blues
In the home of Johnson's Ghost

You gotta feel the music boy
You sure don't feel too much
Your fingers skipping half the notes
You're playing double dutch
Slide it, let the music meld
That's what folks all want the most
You got to feel it, yes sirree
Like Robert Johnson's Ghost

Five hours passed
Time went fast
But what he learned the most
Was feel the notes
That were wrote
By Robert Johnson's Ghost

The spirit has to fill you
You have to suffer for the blues
You can't come in and play for us
In shiny, brand new shoes

The old man
his spitting can
Made the young boy cry
He played the notes
That Johnson wrote
on the day that Johnson died

Until you feel the music boy
And stop playing double dutch
You got to slide the fingers son
Don't use the guitar as a crutch
Remember where you're playing
And to who it still plays host
You're playing for the netherworld
And Robert Johnson's Ghost

Silence twists around my throat,
serpentine in the inky light,
as the paint sticks
and dries beneath my fingernails.

Ideas claw at my solar plexus
threatening sycophancy
treason and madness
in a world of stale passion
and stuttering ignorance.

They wake up and shower,
****, shave, apply the mask
with painstaking detail.
They die before they reach thirty
and go on walking about
as if they know the secret
to eternal bliss-
it's possible that they do,
after all.

I mean, consider the alternative-
an artist haunted by the colors
that live in a winter sunrise,
a nomad reaching for no one
as he chases the sun
across mercurial landscapes,
a writer living through ink
because there's no other way
to quell the storms,
a human shedding expectations
for beautiful things
that will always be broken.

Thank you for visiting my memory,
thank you for just dropping by,
replaying that day -
yet again,
repeating in vivid technicolor,
the last long an sad goodbye,
I don't have a single tear though,
as none are left for me to cry,

Predictable,
like a broken record,
how, when an mostly why,

My bedsheets are my torture,
I smell you - an I feel you too,
I twist and turn just ALL night long,
so terrible an so sadly very true,

Well I guess I'll never know those answers,
but if you're bad memories they never fade,
if you never let me let you go,
if my debt is never really ever paid,
if at the alter,
if I am always, always laid,
I can't do that-

Just please stop the technicolor,
dream parade,

Becuz if you never stop haunting my sleep,
you know baby I am not sheep,

I may never get any,

Because I will never be able,
to find real love again,

I'll be much too busy -
out howling -
and baying at the stupid, stupid moon.

Ma Cherie © 2017

What have we here?

A shy boy who wouldn’t swing

When all the other monkeys played,

Who didn’t like to speak

In case the others laughed and brayed,

Who didn’t quite fit in

With the other boys in school,

And ducked and dived

And hid from sports

When he couldn’t grasp the rules.

The boy who missed the girls

While he hid within his room,

And couldn’t speak when they were there

In case they spoke his doom

And wished and dreamed

For something more

Than others would assume.

The boy within the man

Who argued to the end;

The man of right and wrong

Who fought the standard trend,

And stood up for

The little things

That no others would defend.

The sad pathetic loser,

The one who had no friends,

Fought the fight for all of us

While we scrabbled to ascend,

And, at the last, the misanthrope,

When he could do no more,

He stood beside his principles

That he learned so hard before.

He watched the so-called good

Sell out their souls for lies,

Either to themselves

Or the devil in disguise.

He stood for truth and honesty,

And was typically despised,

But now he’s gone,

We’re all alone;

Slaves we realise.