When you’ve had enough
Of maniacs and hustlers,
Of fakes and phonies
And smooth talking hucksters
It’s time to pull back
And sort through the weeds
To find the flowers
And see what you need.

Not what you want,
That’s something different.
If your needs aren’t met
Life can get belligerent.
You need breath and water
And some other great stuff
Or you stop living a lot
And that is rather rough.

Once we move from needs
The rest are all your wants
And you can live without them
Despite all your rowdy taunts.
How many times have you heard
I need coffee when I wake up?
That is a case of your want
That comes in a handy cup.

Or, I need to buy cigarettes
But that isn’t really true.
You don’t think you’ll die without
I mean, not really, do you?
Or, I need some ice cream now
Or a cruller or two or three.
That doesn’t sound fatal
Unless you do that daily.

So, the best thing you can do
For your one and only body
Is to try your best to keep
The thing from getting shoddy
By separating the things
That your body best deserves
And realize that ignoring wants
Does nothing but get on nerves.

With that clearing of your head
And setting of new priorities
The Big Things of the day
Turn into pesky minorities.
Suddenly you see that you
Can choose who to ignore
And then see what you need
And need for nothing more.

There are two ‘Institutions for the Mentally Ill’ in my town
One is grimly Victorian. Lunatic Asylum.  
Forgotten by all but the pigeons and pylons
As it thrashes and wrangles and mangles the memories
Of the ghosts of the ghosts that lived out their non-lives there.
The other is a modern, glass, Christmas tree
A circus tent in brown and beige
Like sepia and coffee stains.
You aren’t Lunatics anymore, we got told
Like renaming a problem could diminish it.
You slip past us just a little too quickly
So that you don’t see the woman who smokes cheap cigarettes
Out the front
And who bites December like it was something that could be torn from the walls
And pressed out of sight somewhere
And the metaphors in her head get muddled in her oesophagus
And she speaks to a man who’s never been evicted from her right ear
And who’s never been born or been buried but has simply whispered
With meretricious comfort
Up the road you could pay to gawp at the carol singers
But why bother because she’s singing
Driving Home For Christmas
Like no-one ever wrote her a melody or an audience
Gives a nice festive atmosphere, our psychiatrist said
And I asked the car park if optimism had ever been so odious
And if the snow around our feet was ‘festive’ and ‘nice’
While a girl as papery as December
Tried to smother herself in it
She rolled it in her bare hands as if hoping there’d be nothing left of her
If she could only freezer her heart
And scrape back the whiteness of the snow and her skin to the ivory
That still lingered beneath
Unstable death trap, rigged scaffolding
Although it was threatening to slice its way out
From her shrinking face and arms and thighs.
She lay down and made a snow angel in the hope that she’d become one
If she could only riddle out a way to please Anorexia.
And did the car park see that no one cares that there’s a fourteen year old
Who’s hung a cigarette from his lips and is chewing on it
Because what more damage can be done
That isn’t already curdled and notched into the skin of his wrists?
And written into the lining of his skull
Or branded in each heckled vein or carved into his gums
By the lip piercing he’s worn since he was twelve.
He has pulled the arms of his sweater beyond his finger tips
And hugged them into him to stop the secrets
He’s stashed there from spilling in front of a car.
If only he could forget what he was.
And I kick my boots against the curled up world
And want to shout it out of my vision
And want to ask if I’m thinking ‘nice festive’ thoughts
Because I’m thinking about the snow I’m ploughing  
And the way that I’d like to tie fairy lights
Over my eyes until I can’t see anything but fairy tales
And I’m thinking about our parade of broken-bottle people
Wearing masks so empty that we don’t look human
Not to you
And I wonder if this is enough of a pantomime for you
That I’ve dressed my thoughts up in drag
And they’re telling you a ****** joke from a ****** Christmas *******
Thoughts rolled and congealed like the rims of strained bathtubs
Thoughts broken and fleeting and self-imploding like headphones
That got left to tangle beyond redemption in a back pocket
Too far gone to be saved
Thoughts that are forever curled back to the replay button
Re-destruct, re-punish, re-****
Pink Elephant thoughts that will never be sorted and thrown out
Cynical self-disposal
I’m on a retrieval mission that never knows what it’s trying to find
Because I’m a Chinese doll
And each face is cruller
And uglier
And blanker
Than the one before it
Until at the centre you find that the last doll is missing
And there are only a few jumbled messages where she’s supposed to be
And fairy lights
And maybe a memory of when Christmas meant stockings and fireside
Not carparks and frigidity
If only all my ******* repeats led to redemption.
Look;
We’ve built you a snowman, is that enough of a freak show for you?
Can you move on and join the carol singers in glorifying God
Safely out of Purgatory and back on holy ground
Or do you require something more?
The pitiful Christmas Dinner that’s currently being counted out in teaspoons?
The girls and the boy who’ll press their fingers across their lips
Like prison bars
And keep themselves under lock and key in their own
Lunatic Asylum

No horns, or box, or mourning
No tears, or even thoughts
This was not a young child's friend
Cruller to be uncaught?

The mangled body lies
on concrete hot and firm
No use or care for man
not even for the worm

Better to die quickly,
then rot in open sun
than slowly fade in forests
and ever merge as one?

Us humans, we know better,
we will bury a friend.
We may **** our own kind
but you'll go in style at the end

Celsius to Fahrenheit
they took each other's measure.
While you walked half the distance,
I got lost along the way.
I succumbed to ******* frostbite--
it was not a point of pleasure.
Meet me at minus 40
if you've got a thing to say.

Hang icicles from buildings.
Hang a frown on one long face.
Hung my hat on losing hands
                                            we'll
hang up halfway through this call
and I'll directly start to hate this place.
Heap reasons on these question marks.
Hot coffee, honey cruller.
Split the check, we'll split the difference--
               Celsius to Fahrenheit
       I fought through the conversion

Then I fought my way into a much worse place.

Chocolate, bear claw, Bavarian cream,
Am I really here or is this a dream?
I can smell coffee and fresh baked goods,
Swaying in line where so many have stood.

The lights are too bright, they’re hurting my head,
Can someone just give me some jelly filled bread?
And three apple fritters, a cruller or two,
At this point, any old fry cake will do.

Rev up those fryers and ready the glaze,
As I’m very drunk, and just as amazed
At the flavor they pack into frosting and dough,
Now stand the hell back and watch my bill grow.

Dozens or hundreds, I can’t get enough
Of these twists so sublime, ah, that’s the stuff.
The driver is ready, it’s my time to go,
I think I’ll just grab a half dozen or so.

We get in the car and start to head home,
What’s this in the bag? A bagel!? God, no!

running the reds
bleeding in threads
sticking as green algae
swirling the blues
in nostalgy
into the browns
pirouettes spinning
in striped corsets
plucking them strings
like Raymond Dorset
a palette of color
on a grey canvas
twisted as a cruller
Dust in the wind/Kansas

chipping off the painted
color. Twisted as a cruller,
hollow and hard. Life’s duller
after the accident. It’s an unlit

cigarette, a junkyard red corvette
folded like an accordion, scraps of old
pieces of tin. Memories mixed with lime and
gin don't wash out this suffering. Dings

and dents of cellulite. Dimpled skin
that once held tight now hangs low
just like the blues and mistletoe. The soft
December snow clings to the frosted window.