It’s not that I haven’t been trying
But my arms are against me just now
And it’s not just a matter of smiling
Though I honestly wouldn’t know how
Neither is it the cracks on the pavement
Or the hammer that bruises my thumb
For not one of these things is the reason
That I desperately need to be numb

It wasn’t the look that you gave me
Or the words you can’t hope to retrieve
It was never the place you were standing
But the space which remains when you leave
There was never a time it was easy
And we battled for every crumb
But the fighting has left me in pieces
So I need to be comfortably numb

This morning, as in bed I stirred
A most disturbing thought occurred
It felt, to my increasing dread
Like I had someone else’s head
Some other pair of hairy thighs
I saw through someone else’s eyes
I stood at not my normal height
With stringy arms all pale and slight
A bubbling chest and throaty wheeze
The click and crunch of knackered knees
I think I should go back to bed
And wake up somewhere else instead

The distant shadows flicker
There’s a glow above the trees
A bitter taste of searing bark
Is borne upon the breeze
My anger is the fire
How she dances as she burns
Twisting into darkness
The helix turns

The gates are locked and bolted
But the bars are wearing thin
The walls are getting shorter
And the world is spilling in
My fear is the panic room
Concealing my concerns
From the vortex of reality
The helix turns

The wind has dropped to nothing
So sails are hanging slack
Delirium has hold of me
The sun pours down my back
My madness is a spiral
Of diminishing returns
We tumble ever onward
The helix turns

The day old Eddie Barricade
Departed from this world
The florists turned a busy trade
And handkerchiefs unfurled
The sky was blue and overcast
And the ****** Mary cried
A flock of emus hurried past
The day that Eddie died

The day that Eddie Barricade
Was buried in the ground
Lightning struck a chambermaid
And twirled the girl around
A cow gave birth to a marching band
For seven hours steady
A vicar grew an extra hand
The day they buried Eddie

The light seems *****, second hand
Yet scores his eye with a purple brand
With no more ears to fall upon
Unheard is the voice of the hopeless one

Certainty replaced by doubt
His words are vacant, hollowed out
And cynical his lexicon
With a tarnished soul, the hopeless one

Hemoglobin understaffed
The blood bank in its overdraft
Prescription fed automaton
A neutral mask for the hopeless one

On the deck of the HMS Randalls
Were sorry array of antiques
They would amble about in their sandals
To a chorus of ominous creaks
The crackle of bone upon gristle
With a litany grumbled above
Just give them the slip
If you feel a grip
Like a handful of dice in a glove

In the galley of HMS Randalls
Where the tables were ******* to the floor
There’s a chef with a dwarf where his leg was
He was bombed in the Argentine war
If you ask him about his ‘prosthetic’
He just winks and he taps on his nose
But the dwarf will admit
That they make a good fit
And a noteworthy total of toes

At the engines of HMS Randalls
With her overalls smeared with blood
Stood cannibal kind of mechanic
By the name of Veronica Spud
Her hunger has never been sated
Or her eye been the source of a tear
Her teeth have been chipped
Into screwdriver tips
And a spanner protrudes from her ear

On the bridge of the HMS Randalls
Sits the captain, Geronimo Spent
His unblinking and pallid expression
Say he left but he never quite went
But he puts on his hat and his jacket
He fastidiously logs his report
With a secondary list
Of the passengers kissed
As he figures that life’s too short

**

Twenty years ago today
I met a man at sea
Though I was standing on the dock
Aboard a boat was he
With he on sea
And me on land
I found it hard
To shake his hand
So twenty years ago next week
I stood trial for manslaughter