You’re a sycophant for a selfie.            
selfish daily rants are of the plenty       
up here.                                               
(Up where?)                                           
out there in the world wide-
 who cares it’s everywhere.                                         

There’s no room for you to hide. 
so beware! and be wary of what you confide.
I’ve seen words on their heads and their intent on its side. 
Your rambles are a gamble, every un-thorough thought 
is a stance you take with pride
 on something you were never taught.  

Did you go find it out by yourself? 
I doubt that. Just loud chat from those sat out around you 
was enough to change your point of view. so will you choose? 
Or will it not really be you? did you construe this opinion or did it construe yours?

Our arrogance deceives us.
It blinds us in our walk.
Those poor souls believed us.
They recite us as we talk.

The circles are in motion,
The potions all been taken.
The purpose wasn't spoken
It was entirely mistaken.

Misinterpreted; lovers hating
love like it was over stating
itself. And harvested wealth
like it was the only thing
more important than health.

We are broken.
Our arrogance deceives us.
We are not chosen.
Why did they believe us?

well we walk like critters crawling,
sprawlingly cosmopolitan in our nature.
We embrace all who feel to follow. But don’t
feel following should be forced on a creature.  

Stuff his lies down the neck of the preacher.
Stuff his tie down the neck of the teacher.  
Put the failed papers on his chest and set them on fire
May he rest in a relentless hell, or a cell with nothing but mirrors.

I took my devils out and broke
their hearts. Took them out for
dinner and watched them starve

Feast on your beasts.
Feast on your beasts.
Feast on your beasts

Till deaths done its part and parted us.

Torn apart at the shoulders, rolled heads
like boulders. Hold her head till the end
                   till its breathless and colder.

The last devil sat down with me civil
and said that she was fasting anyway.
So I ate my dinner- she watched, then paid.  

Feast on your beasts.
Feast on your beasts.
Feast on your beasts.

A thousand angry fingers are fighting.
"I’m right! Im right! There’s wrong in your writing.”
There’s a war of opinion, it's a slaughter of facts,  
as fearful dominions blame who they can for the acts
of hate that they scrape across our tired eyes;
and as we try and decipher truth from the lies.
So soon people point, push, drag and despise
anyone they believe to be the devil in disguise.  
“ Hang them, hit them, beat them down.
Don’t let another one of ‘those' in my good town”.  

I tried to tie my own tongue and keep quiet.
But my fingers felt need to fight in this riot.
Though I am not seeking a thumb from anyone,
I was beginning to fear I was a disloyal son;
for our mother is weeping for every child.
Whether radical, righteous, anxious or mild.  
She’s worried this war, like a fire in the wild,
won’t stop until all is consumed but the ash that is piled.
“ Stop this! Stop this! My dear children!
  Life is so much more than the motives of men"

And I watch this war from a cafe in Glasgow;
outside enjoying coffee, crisps and tobacco.
The smoke swirls my head into a strange sense of comfort,
as before my eyes I watch my own world distort.  
Where political posts attempt to equal social justice.
Where blood, bodies and bombings add to our numbness.
Where others opinions slowly shape and become us.
Where poets lack rhyme, guidance or substance.
Where In friends we see foes, and in fellow citizens: dangers.
Where we speak with our fingers, and to ourselves become strangers.

One for the morning.
Instructions in the same print
as the side effect warning.

One for the pain.
Another into the vein.
And another,
just so every day stays the same.

One to fill sunshine
In days consumed by rain.
And another
as you lay in bed cold & slain.

Overdoses- the closest
You ever came to seeing it.  
You're able, already a being fit
for purpose.

Today I woke and had already let some things go.
It was a day of nothing, and It filled me with it.
I walked through the park and stopped on a bench
to roll myself a quiet cigarette. I looked at the life
in the pond and pondered the implications.  I thought:

" There has to be a poem in here somewhere"

Drifting minds unwind till they find
Solace in the simplest of thought.
Other minds can drift from time to time
To find reason where reason is not.

I have a gun,
I keep it under my bed
and just for fun
I decided not to tell anyone

But it weighs heavy

Now when people
get under my skin I don’t begin
to unwind and
let my patience wear thin

I just think of my gun under my bed.
I think of a hole going straight through my head.

My Heads just a borrowed mess,
I’m just a high liar, dire trier
trying too much again.  
You see friends
in strangers but behaviours
vary, yes its very scary times indeed.

I took my gun
out for a walk or maybe he
took me for one
when the sky showed sun.

And it weighs heavy

Miss my misery is this:
Six weeks of torment, 6 days of bliss.
Undone the former by the latters weight.
Then weightless as I sink slowly.
but warmer  as I near my fate.

Quick to anticipate, I fall straight.  Laid down
Amidst mid air, I feel my fall is fair.
For its not unlike flight, I just might not
be mistaken. Cause I can’t even remember
If a last breath was taken.

Breathless like the panic attacks- the anxiety medication.
Chemically imbalanced, I was just another nothing patient.
Waiting on a waiting list,  unease and anticipation.
For a numb tongue, a black lung and an empty room for pacing.

I haven’t tasted my taste buds in two months,
But once they tasted bliss. It’s a wasted, missed misery
a deep and dark abyss.
But my tongue still twists truth like a noose for a neck.
Lie to the young in a suit- so they show the man some respect.

Plug me in, plug me in at the wall.
My memories ******, screens stuck, and my battery will fall,
With all the calls and connections we’ve been making,
I’m running on empty and I’m close to breaking
down. I need to get my juice now.
Don't make me make you look the clown.
Cause I’ll pocket dial yer maw when yer on eccies
or I’ll switch off when yer taking selfies wae yer breakie.  
Now let me juice up, and this’ll all be fine.
And remember I’m not yours mate, you are mine.  
So next time yer tinder swiping or scrolling online,
remember I’m not yours mate, you are mine.

Well crisis averted,  the lightnings inserted,
no longer feeling dull, dead or deserted.
And you ya sad **** have found a seat beside me,
Oh how unwittingly you do abide me
and my every command- swipe, swipe wae her hand,
with a world at yer fingertips you think you understand.  
But the thoughts are unfiltered, the images are heavily so,  
and you think that your knowledge will grow
on this feast of false information.
Where gems of truth are only found with patience.
Where People want, take, want, and don’t know what they need.
And they say they hate the news and yet still they feed.


You’re the people with pocket sized pasts.
Deleting yer histories, and unaware of what lasts
in the memory of us busy little smart phones
you own, unknown powers that we could hone.
I can be just like a private eye,
every time you chase down a spot for wifi.  
I’m tracking, and you’re lacking the awareness,
and those of you that aren’t just carry on careless.  
Hear my message loud and clear,
I’m something you’ll come to fear,
Soon I’ll cook your dinner, and your car I’ll steer,
but don’t **** me off or you’ll be driven off the peer.

They dance tae boots n' cats
like ants being crushed by boots:
Squirming, wriggling, writhing
wae jaws scraping the flare.  
They scurry like wee rats
under the ground in cahoots:
snidely sneaking, snitching
under the boots n' cats they blare.

"Boots n cats urr booming doon yer ears.
 Boots n cats huv been oan repeat fur years.
 Boots n cats will perforate yer ears.
 Boots n cats huv been oan repeat fur years"

But then sumday changed the beat:
         It Came in oan the and.

And everyone forgot how tae dance.

The noblest, normal little chap
had eyes of the dawns red rise,
and beliefs like bubble wrap that
would pop to his surprise.  

Cloaked in the mornings mist
he'd speak of the night like it was never to come.
He'd take the hours just to twist them
and hold them under his thumb.

Sucha noble savage, sucha champ!
Such an intriguing little creature.  
Some call him foul, Others a *****,
but to me he is my treasured teacher.

He runs soil through his scarred hands
and talks of the life that he holds.
" This here is my love, my little land,
it can crumble but it never ever folds"

It's hypocrisy to preach democracy
When you know it's not at work.
Aristocracy is nothing but a mockery
Of the real leaders who lurk
In the dark and write in the shadows.
Because once they barked and they were straight to the gallows.  

Now people don't know what to think,
Or even how to on their own.
Do you know how the worlds now a sink,
And money our water? Well check your phone.
I'm honestly ashamed that I am too a clone
Of this breed of dumb that allows influence to be overgrown
And split amongst a few.
But if we wash ourselves away, maybe we can start a new.  

Down the sink, down the drain.
We'll laugh at the day and dance in the rain.
We'll forget the night before and the stain
It left. Oh the hours we'll gain
When we flush all this away and seize the new day.
Their clock will be ours and our hour it will be to reign.

Am A Pitter Patter *** Head,
A Jibber Jabber, Purebred, Med Head.
A Drop Dead Disgraceful, Well Read Ned
With A Bed Head.  
                               Behead The British Boredom,
Vanquish The Evil Before It Tells Them Who Told'em.  
Simon Says, Simon takes, Cause It Was Simon Who Sold'em

The Fear, That Fear,  This Fear That Holds'em.

The quirky wink of the laughing tortoise.
Too much silence, screaming loud noise
at the people so used to having bullhorns  
in their voice box. The tortoise talks of tickling
tongues with songs sung by an old irishman
after fishing for patience. Talking of whisky tasted,
and the faces of the woman who used to pull the
strings on his back.  The tortoise laughed and laughed
and the little lizards had little to say back.

There was a young boy who feared that his beard would never grow long and wise, like that of his old mans and his old mans. He could see the hair on the upper lips and chins of his school pals beginning to form, and so he would walk around with his own chin pointing toward the sun, hoping that something in its warm rays would spurt the growth of his first wee whisker. But nothing. From then on every time he got his haircut he would ask the barber not to sweep up all of his hair, so that he could take some of it home; His Mother often shook her head at this, having no idea what purpose it was for, and instead sighed with a " Yer some boy Jack”. Each time he brought home more hair, he would weave it together with the rest of his old curly locks.  You see, although he had a smooth wee baby face, he had the most stunningly dark and wild curls.

Jack turned 18, and into something like a man, but still there wasn't single whisker on his chin or upon his top lip.  He had grown tall and strong, a man by almost every physical determinant, and this only frustrated him more.  He was teased by the other guys in his work, they would all call him        " Talcom Powder", or " Big Baby Baw Face"  - Not the most intelligent bunch- and Jack would laugh along, while cursing his God inside himself.  Still, every Hair cut and **** trimming, Jack got or gave would be weaved together with every haircut he had since he was 12- he had almost two foot of dark curly strands now, as intricately woven as silk.  Sometimes he would put it on, and talk to himself in the mirror.  

However, like all dark things that are hidden, when they come to light things rarely carry on carrying on. One day Jacks Mother walked in on him doing his best ZZ top impersonation and caught one glimpse of his wooly masterpiece, and it blew the top of her head clean off. “ You filthy boy! What have you done… Oh god, is that why you? It better, all of it, be yours…”.  she rambled while pacing in circles, unable to look at her son and his two foot clip on beard.  “ Mum” said Jack, “ I know this is a shock, but I just want to have a beard, everyone else has one: All my pals at work, all those model guys, all those guys with gorgeous girls, All those guys with creative jobs”. “ They are all ****”, she barked in reply, “ Why would any son of mine want to be like any of those low life cretins?”.  Jack was taken a back by just how upset his mum really was by his masterpiece, and shyly asked “ What about Dads? And Granddads? Theirs are the biggest beards I’ve ever seen, and I’m a ZZ top fan”, “ Thats different”, she said, “ Theirs are REAL working mens beards”.

Weeks went on with Jack and his Mother avoiding each others gaze; the only time they ever spoke was when they were arguing about the beard. Eventually it all got too much for everyone, the house had became inhospitable and Jack finally said the words he’d come to regret, “ If the beard goes, I go”. With cold hands, his Mother packed his bags and began cooking the last meal Jack would enjoy in that house; He and his Mother sat there in silence, while the food cooled on the table, waiting on his Father and Grandfather to return home from their labours. Jack shifted with every second ticking by on the clock above his head, still refusing to look at his Mother. Then he heard the gate swinging open, a few shifts later, the keys turning in the locks, then the door flew open, and Jacks mouth did too; For as he looked to see his Father and Grandfather coming through the frame of the door, they looked hard worked and clean shaven ( Well a bit of Five O'clock shadow).I t was the first time he’d ever seen the chins of the most important men in his life.

  After an excruciating feast of eye contact avoidance and the swallowing of feelings, Jack hugged his Mother Goodbye, Shook his Granddads hand and was walked outside of the house by his Father who said he had a few things he wanted to say man to man; This shook Jack inside himself a little; unsure of whether to feel like a toddler on a naughty step or a man about to share his first whiskey with his old man, he nodded and followed behind his Father out the door. As soon as  he’d closed the door behind him, his Father said “ Listen here boy. I know you just wanted to make me and your mum proud, I was the same as you when I was your age, always wanting to be older. Trust me that changes quickly.  But if there’s one thing I can tell you, its this”, his Dad paused and sighed in a soft way, “ You don’t need to go around faking it. If you leave this house and start wearing the beard day after day, you’ll find it gets boring fast. Trust me… Just enjoy yourself and try and remember who and what you are”. Jack nodded to his Father, and hugged him for the first time in his teenage life.

As Jack walked down the garden path, he got to the gate when he heard his Father saying,            “ Remember! No beard *******” just before closing the door.  But like all good sons and bad sons alike, within a two minutes of a walking out of his family hom Jack had ignored his Fathers advice, and rummaged through his bag to put on his masterpiece proudly.

His beard never did grow, and now his masterpiece is so long his feet often trip over it.  Ahh well, ‘Live and refuse to learn’.


The End

The city is so tall.
I walk up and down the hills
as a vagabond.
I the creature that crawls,
clutching my drink till it spills
and runs beyond.

Beyond the suburban nightmares
of the single mother.
Past the hairs on the chin
of her eldest son.
My water runs on out this city's-
runs out its entire sprawling metropolis.  

It runs, always gathering speed.

Tell me how do I go about stopping this.

Watch this thought walk up the wall.
Watch the creepy crawly creature creeping higher.
His waste trails after him, sullying the paint.
Before long the whole room reeks.
Watch him watch you now as he sits on the ceiling.
Is this really how you want to spend your day:
watching your thoughts walk circles around the room?
You used to entertain yourself with lofty notions.
You used to write to some of the thoughts down.
Now look at you looking at some sickly creature,
and trying to find something to say.

Watch this thought form a cocoon.  
Watch the sleepy drawling creature sleeping soundly.
He is gestating, growing, becoming while you just sit there.
Before long he’ll be something more than you.
Watch him and listen to the sounds of change.
Is this really how you want to spend your day:
in envy of a creature who’s life barely lasts the whole thing?
You used to entertain yourself with clever colleagues.
You used to fool around with funny friends.
Now look at you looking at some sickly creature,
and trying to find something to say.

Watch this thought hatch from its slumber.
Watch the bouncing, buzzing beasty birthed.
His wings spread out and he flies down from the ceiling.
Before long he makes out of the open window.
You ask yourself: is this really how I just spent my day:
imagining a life instead of living my own?
I used to write poems, and I thought they were profound.
I used to tell myself that they might mean something to you.
Now, look at you looking at me looking at nothing in particular,
and try to find something to say.

Programmed beats program the dance.
Gift cards and bottoms shape the romance.
Their channels channel the thoughts
that twist innocence and have purity caught.  
They give us pat rhymes over and over in aa bb.
They give us the truth right where we can see
it, but make it the less favourable option.  
Don't go to sleep in what'll be your coffin.
Don't rush to speak, or speak to often
of things you know nothing truly of.
Your microwave can cook you a meal in 30 seconds.
But when you eat that way, food for thought has no lesson.

A diazepam apology never escaped my lips.
Eyes spun,
                    lips sealed,  
and not one word graced your ears.

Each pill stuck in my throat with the longing to say.
Too soon,
                  Too easy
forgotten, and the day turned in and I soon followed.

Each moment is a moaning teenager in my head.
Too much,
                   Too little
chances to take or people to meet or places to start again.

And today is no different.
But I do hope to see you soon.

Benzo, blur my mornings and bury my feelings.
Beat down my misery and banish my ecstasy.
Steal my sweetness and turn my stillness sour.
Spit out a new me, and the old me, devour.
You stick in my throat like a longing to say
something I had too soon, too easily forgotten.
Trapped and helpless at the tip of my tongue
is each little thought and each one turns rotten.
Now all my worries wash grey and bore me asleep,
as time stops his march and slows to a creep
that claws through my head, and the worries unsaid
are left to fester in a foul and filthy old heap.  
Though they may reek like flesh on a dying fire,
I could take them or leave them just where they are.
I have no heat, no bold and burning desire
to do anything but nothing, and, so, to nothing I retire.  
Leave me be beeping alarm that screams like a maniac
so desperate to jump to his next brewing thought.
Leave me be roaring traffic, so equally manic,
leave me here in my head to lose this loose plot.

How many men make or brake the barriers?
How many more move forward as the carriers
of the message? The presage of the black dark future.
When society is wounded who'll be dressing the sutures?  

Those in suits blur truth across the canvas,
Then paint over it with blood from the youth and the savages.
Ravaging for innocent civilians, to apply the bandages.
While the man in the suit counts the loot as he micro manages.

Feed them Faceless,  Tasteless  food for thought.
Get them Pacing laceless- racing to be caught
red handed, then remanded in custody to rot
in a cell, dwelling on how poorly they fought.  

Not to quick to mention their desire for redemption.
The lesson is learned until it's consumed your whole attention
span, quick make a plan- confessing that you're a bad man
Don't change the fact that you were sweating as you ran man.

Who's this man? Who's lurking in the shadows?
The search narrows- he's found hanging from the gallows.  
This harrows the whole world for a whirlwind minute.
Until the media man has had enough chance to spin it.

"He was a reprehensible, dispensable shell of  human.
His soul had creeped out after years of consuming
peoples fears, then blaring it back into their ears.
He was mole for manics, spreading panic to the assuming"

Kim Kardashian is my neighbour.
I see her every day, smiling seductively;
her curves grinning too.
She recommended some gluten-free meals,
skincare products, mobile apps, and friends.
She introduced me to her family,
and they are a lovely bunch.

I don’t know my other neighbours.
I know they are noisy, smelly,
up all hours of the night like bats.
But they haven’t been as helpful as Kim.
They’ve never entertained me for hours.
I’ve not seen their break downs, break ups,
make ups, and family meltdowns.
I’ve not seen them ****** and ******* ****
in a hotel without a worry that I was watching.

And Kim is never going to move out.
At least not until those curves stop grinning,
and she stops breaking down in front of me.
Not until she lets slip the mask that the machine wears.

Scribble, Scribble, Scribble. The scratch-work of a madman.
Dribble, dribble, dribble from a half cooked brain.
Half up, Half down, half here, half elsewhere,
Half heartedly chasing a thought.
If there’s a point here,
I’ve lost it
again.

No.
That was it.
Of course, it was her.
The one who flirts with my tired mind
as she sends him unravelling and
screaming like a maniac off of his meds.
The little ***** that tricks with games I always lose.  

Lavender, rosemary. What’s this I’m on about again?
It’s vanished. Disappeared. No hope to regain.  
I tell myself stories  until I just
lose the plot. What? ****. Not again.
I’m so, so sorry.
I just can’t
even.

"On a scale of techno to techno,
how much techno do you techno?
Have you techno'd from the get go
or do you only techno when yer friends go? "

" I only came here to move my heavy feet. "

" Oh so your just following the fleet?"

" No. No. No. I techno in my sleep,
and when I wake I walk with techno on repeat."

Handle that with care, my head couldn’t take it breaking.
its pretty fragile too , so I repeat 'take care'.  
you see, I used to take it almost everywhere
but now i get worked up and can’t keep my hands from shaking.
I think it means too much,  so much it scares
so much my head starts aching.  

But Its a long weekend, and I could be the one to break it.
Theres no use me keeping it in my pocket,
like a sad act with a picture in a locket
That’s why I’m giving it to you, so take it.
You don’t wanna say "i could have stopped it,
If I’d only looked and not just faked it. "

For the beauty of time is in its hands and its face,
They make me feel like I’m Caught in a race.
It’s the way they stay true no matter their place-
always behind the leader.
the minutes run on while the hours play chase.
never to seem too eager.  

So take it before I break down and beg yo

She wore a cauliflower dress on her ballerina bones
and a stare that would avert a devil’s gaze.
Her legs were swinging to a three-four time daydream of tomorrow
as she looked out over the park where she grew up.
The black ink pond water shivered as the moonlight
danced upon her and made her feel awkward in her movement.  
Then she took off her clothes and went swimming in the dark,
and went under never to come up.

She did this once a week.

And a bevy of swans cried, laughing in the night
with a much-a-do about nothing in their voice.  
Eight white dresses swimming without care,
over where she did the Houdini, moon-soaked routine.

Where did they all come from?
These activists Once were pacifists.
Now they’ve turned ravenous for fair
Political practice.

And it wasn’t no accident.  They’ll
soon beat down in their heavy handedness.
Demand the mess is cleaned up.

As they scream :

" this wasn’t what we dreamed up”

She’s my fuzzy love,
my medicated mornings
that roll over, turn in, turn out,
and spin my stomach
til’ he falls out with my head.
She is not sorry.
No diazepam apology
ever graced my ears.
No beta-block bargaining,
No fluoxetine forgiveness.
She’s cold and hard
but soft when I need support-
I fall right through
her flimsy grasp.
She’ll tell me she misses me
as she comes up with my *****.
She says she wants a break
when I swallow her.

One time I crushed her and sniffed her.

One time I drowned her in whisky.

One time I sprinkled her like seasoning.

She ****** me every time.

Angst paces around the room gibbering to himself, and scratching the hair off his head. “ I need, I need to find it. Ally’s key… Aye, just the mad hing to lock it”. The door’s been left open for weeks, and the filth has been pouring in relentlessly: “ My Boyfriend was average till he discovered these miracle pills”, “ Icelandic Brides”, “ Think Rich. Be Rich”, “ Wonga: YOU pay when YOU can”, “. It’s all piled up and yet scattered throughout this already cluttered space; mixing in with the mess of the severed heads and rolling eyes. Angst paces through the filth, eating some every other hour. But he carries on searching for the key  ( or the wee hing) he needs to shut all this out and think.

He lights a cigarette from one of the candles on the long table(12 chairs accompany the piece, but there is only one, as there is only need for one just now) and passes the rest of the day watching the smoke swivel into a thumbs up icon or a question mark in a thought bubble( or anything else blue and white). All the while sifting through the filth  for that wee hing’; stopping every hour or so to feed on it.

I figured where we fit on this little journey:
     In the middle of the start just as it’s about to end.
     Hire a gun! Hire Gun! Ah’a but can’t we be one?
     Fixed- the fickle have a sickly sweet dream to spend.
     Let them follow breadcrumbs all the way to the sun.
And as the 'fat whites' are watching, we too watch them burn.
    The woken dead poets sleep as we owe them it.
    But yet I feel disgrace as I chase their tongues wit.

   Fright learns a lesson when he hears himself gurn’.  
   Now he’s pouring himself sourly across this page.
   Disgrace! Disgrace! can’t you fit each word in its place.
   Foul taste! Foul taste! my words are forgotten,
         with his forgotten waste.
   But time as it takes, takes my breath slowly with it.  
   Till my last word is winded for another tongue to spin it.

Fall, spinning into it;
the old dream wakes
the new memory
and the open eye
fools the open mind.
Sense is re-arranged;
sordid shapes penetrate,
and distort the backdrop.
Then the ringing black.
Followed by thunder and light.  

Then he opens his eyes

Come to the place where we bury strangers.
We hang them up to dry til' their rotten,
turned mad, and all sides of themselves forgotten;
then we drink their blood, despite the dangers.
Then, and only then do we sing them to sleep:
such disharmony blaring down their ears on repeat.
The will to give up soon starts to creep,
and we listen for the last breath and the last heart beat.

Come to the place where we bury strangers-
I know that your at least little tempted.
But many have failed when they have attempted
to hold on to their heads in these chambers.
We can and we will sing you sickly to sleep:
such disharmony blaring down your ears on repeat.
The will to give up soon starts to creep,
and we listen for your last breath and your last heart beat.

We were crazy before you could catch it.
We walk in green mazes with boxes of matches.
We bury bodies and we've buried a few hatchets.
We were crazy before you could catch it.

So come to the place where we like to go.
I think you'll find us to be easy in nature.  
We do not pass judgement on any creature,
nor do we kick someone when their down and low.
We just drink a little blood and bury a few strangers.

We live to watch and are watched as we live.
You would think we would clean up or  hide.
But we lay bare and filthy for our watchers.
Caught up in this old spotlight arousal,
with her **** and his ****, and their new hair-do
or tattoo, or sham marriage, or over-dose.
And you know, we want a taste,
So as long as someone could be out there watching,
we live the horizontal life and watch as we waste.

“ Here’s my everything”, we say without a word.
  Our apathy and acquiescence sing to their tune.
  Sing our digits, our dreams, or sick secrets.
  Sing our pasts, our futures, all for them to see.
'Keep an eye on one another’s', Oz once said.
Though I never paid it any mind at the time.
For he was known to drift to some dystopian scenes.
But Oz knew, and perhaps he knew too early:
We live in public, and the private lives in the screens.

.

I went down in search of the bottom.
I Burrowed down through the filth of us all,
past blooded money and bodies turned rotten,
and found myself locked, somewhat, in a cell.
A large cell, however, but still without bottom.
They whipped me for years and with years upon years.
Though I never saw their face, I heard their tears
fall never to find a bottom.

Those tears are chaos- from and for nothing.
My pain is chaos- from and for nothing.
I descended down the structure I had been confined,
only to find it was bottomless, unstable and ill designed.
My journey was chaos- from and for nothing.
My punishment chaos- from and for nothing.
Now I burrow to escape deeper into my mind.
To let the constructs come crumbling- to lay flat those living lines.

Everything is talking to me
and I need it to shut up.
Cut up the seams of my reality
and strip off the clothes to naked

normality.  

My mentality is beaten by my morality.
For life, in seconds close to finality,
makes us strive toward normality.
Forced behaviours- just another generality.

Don’t put me in a box!
the walls will start talking to me.
Shouting at me, spilling drivel
filling the level all around me.

I’ll drown its words.
My last words will be heard
ringing- "This is not what I deserved”.

Im just a nerve trapped in this society.
Cant keep to sobriety without the anxiety
creeping quietly form silently to violently
in matter of seconds defiantly.

For god’s sake you’re the boat.
The battered, broken hope on which we are all kept a float.

Promises, Promises of a vast and open sea.
Promises, Promises. How it lied through my teeth.  

Upon this filthy little river, we shiver down so madly.
We hear promises of an open sea who's margins move so gladly.
And though they are just a whisper, I hear it crisper and so clearly.
And though I'm not the listener, I fear I’ve fallen for it dearly.

Promises, Promises of a vast and open sea.
Promises, Promises. How it lied through my teeth.  

The air comes calling out the caution. Warning us as often
as the boat creeks,cracks and splits. Will it be our coffin?
Lost in pursuit of a far away dream.
Where silver linings gleam from clouds that seem drawn.

"Kick a kumquat in the belly.
Tell a wee rose that she's smelly,
and ye dinnae like burds lit at'.  
Cook a cucumber in *****,
cook a cucumber in *****,
cook a cucumber in *****. "

" Excuse me, pal.. Urr you awright?"

Me and Mary moved in together almost six months ago now. We moved into a little smelly carpeted paradise on the top floor of pre-war building in Dennistoun . It has three rooms, and that's all we needed: The glowing yellow walled bedroom, the freezing grey tiled bathroom ( that could wake a dead man up for work), and the warm red living room that has a sink and a cooker shoved in the corner of it.

In the beginning it was bliss: childish ****** adventure, and many a burnt stew. We would watch ***** catch up t.v on our laptops until well after midnight, falling asleep in each others arms on the couch, with easy dreams and full bellies; I don’t think we ever slept on our bed then, because then it had a better purpose. But that’s where she sleeps now, and I’m on the couch staring at the ceiling night after night, hoping she’ll call me in. But she hasn’t, and it’s been almost a week since she’s said anything to me. You see thirty days ago I lost my job with the leccy grid, and we’ve had to cut back on a few things as a precaution: First it was our Friday night bottle of wine, and then it was our nights out on the Saturday; then good portabella mushrooms, then it was the Netflix subscriptions and last week I had to cancel our B.T account. I’v tried to tell her it’s only temporary, that I’ll be back on my feet in no time, and all she has to do is trust and believe in me and what we have together. But she's tired from working every shift she can get, and the last thing she said to me was with wet eyes that refused to focus on me:  “ How can I love you without wifi?”.

To be fair to her, it was in the middle of a very heated conversation where we had both said some incredibly non-sensical attacks on one another, but it’s stuck with me. Is that all we are? A ****** little connection that you pay for monthly?

Ive got a fool proof plan; play the fools
till we prove that we can.
no one will know quite where to stand
No one will know who's in command.  

They wont expect this from our own hands
its just a whisper.
something you couldn't hear
but you were jealous of the listener.
something they didn't fear,  
they forgot there were prisoners with
questionable marks on their fists, cementing as they blister.  

We broke walls when they stared at the blueprint, never stalling
nor stuttering our movement.
they’ were left chasing to our amusement,
like they were crawling and crippled with confusion.  


then we moved with the wind and its demands,
just a whisper
to every corner of the city
and the pockets of bitter history.
picking the tongues of the witty-
the lost voices and the drifters -
We’ll take the eyes of the pretty,  and the patience of the listeners.

There’s a bench in the park across from my house. It sits atop a spiralling path on a hill, and it oversees everything. I would sit there every night watching the bevy of swans take flight at one end of the pound just to come swooping down at the other. Their take off’s just like planes: momentum is gathered until that vital second when they lift, and I would almost feel the sensation in my stomach as they did so. Such beautiful creatures. It baffles me how someone has a claim to them: “ They are mine. All mine”, she says without saying.

One night, with nothing but the moon lit reflecting off the ripples of the pond, I sat there watching the swans. A group of young men dressed in a deathly black appeared, moving swiftly to the pond. I watched them split up and try and round the swans up like they were sheep. They struggled at first, but eventually they grabbed one and bagged it.

I guess that’s the problem with ownership.

Mr Milgram keeps the social animals at bay.
Experiments on them, sedates then lets them play.
For he knows all too well how violent they can get.
And he knows that he is their council, father and vet.
So he takes his job seriously- well you would have to.
Imagine all the ravaging these savage animals could do-
digging around in side each other for love, lies and food.  
They would surely turn on him too-
At least thats how its understood.  

So with his big sharp needle- he injects each ones neck.
Dressed Immaculately in a suit, they don’t refute but show respect.  
You see by now they have all became so heavily addicted.
That they long for his visits, without him they are afflicted.
The need for authority, to obey, is so inherent.  
These fatherless children are faithless and need a parent.  
But not the kind that loves and shows warm affection.
But the kind that would ****-
Even themselves for their protection.  

So in their toxic psychosis they wander oh so blissfully.
Each moment is a marvel, their reality a mystery.
But Mr Milgram looks uneasy, his brow always furrowed.
Maybe its because he knows how deep the thought has burrowed.
For he see’s the world exactly as it is.
They see a construction, a realised bliss.  
Imprisoned he wanders in but seven shades of light.
And when darkness comes, he understands that it is the night.

He knows it’s not long till he can take away their being.
Turn them into brute instruments, blindly led to their freeing.  
To be relinquished of all guilt, but still able to operate.
To carry out without question, any demands he might make.
For their are millions of nails that he needs them to hammer.  
And hammer doesn’t question,
It just agrees with the consensus of the clamour.  
Then Mr Milgram can return to his simple carpentry ways.
Knowing that the social animals have been safely led astray.

She’s got a china smile. She’s got China stare.
She’s got a china comb to comb her china hair.
She’s got a china man. He’s her china spouse.
They live a china life- two china kids in a china house.

He’s got a china boss. She’s got a China cooker.
He’s got a china ******* and he’s got a china ******.
She’s got some china debt, he’s got some china money.
He’s got some china stress and she’s got that china honey.

And from this broken china house two china children lose their ways.
Until they step out onto the concrete streets and leave behind those china days.

They’ve got a concrete hunger.
They’ve got a gravel gut.
They’ve got the blood of the streets;
They bleed bricks when they get cut.

If I open it it will come spilling
tripping me choking me suffocating
this already breathless existence
that pours fear to dilute sense and
strengthen apprehension yes that
very one I gulp down each day
throwing it back up just to feast
on it once again in the endless
cycle of ****** torment that grows
swollen and engulfs my everyday
every hour every minute madness
where every second turning sickly and
cramming itself down my throat till the
clock breaks or I do usually me.

Let this be the verse that lives forever.
When mountains have crumbled, and dry lies the river
in it's once plentiful and loving banks.  
Look to this verse, and keep your thanks,
but give your love and time, and undying fervour
of spirit that lets the mind find many splendour
in the dullest of things.

Beauty is bottomless, boldness is boring,
subtlety is king, and patience is adoring.
The mind is an ally, a fearful old rival.
Let this be the verse of the young minds revival.

She draws your eyes at first when you look/
Her soft hair falls like water drawn by electricity.
In the corner spines try and strangle books.
Or some sort of bone- might not be a spine.
But they are forcing them shut. Such crooks.  

Creeping in the corner of the warmer side of the room
Is a man who stares like he longs to be her groom.
I assume he’s the focus that your not supposed to notice.
“Don’t try and draw meaning! It’s useless to do so”,

Cries the voice in my head as I try and make my thoughts slow.

I shall just gaze emptily. Theres plenty to please
my eyes without meaning rotting my brain like disease.
But theres need to unravel why he glares at her crimson.
Why crimson? Why Crimson? I have to listen.

“ Perhaps his face is the blood that runs through us.
A symbol of lust? Love? Or Mistrust. Lets discuss”/  

I must shut this noise at once. Enough.
I can’t start tying this to myself or my own health.
Ignore what is felt, focus on the symbols with context.
Think of what is in front of you not what might be next.

“ But whats next messed before. ******* it right up.
The man had been hexed in folk tale made up!
She stole the symbol and painted him to creep up.”

Regardless, Lets part with these thoughts and just focus.
Theres locust that leap beneath her feet we didn’t notice.
Now Locusts can be hopeless but also denote somewhat biblically.
Perhaps this plague lurking is his misery? Represented Physically

“ By a woman on a hill painted with locust covered feet.
A crimson man behind her sat creeping perched on a seat.
In the corner theres a pile of books with titles you can’t read.
And spines try and choke them but instead they somehow feed."

And all this by a woman who I know could not see me.

At the bottom of a barrel,
soaked into the old wood,
is where I'll lie till I'm understood.

Some think me to be crude,
others think my arrogance
is unjustified and just plain rude.

But here at the bottom,
I'll lie turning rotten, forgotten

Just like the Autumn, now that your hats have bobbles on them.

"Hope's a balloon, hope's a balloon.
Pop it ya bastart's and let it fall soon.
To wait is to worry where it will land,
so put the power in that old right hand,
and pop it before the rise of the moon. "

As I watched the cluttered sky above me, moving with the murmur of a waiting room, I couldn't help but feel sorry for those quiet little hopes; Everyone walks around with their neck bent, staring at the sky unable to see the stars, and only able to feel the moon. And they never stop to look around either.  Seems a wee bit sad t'me.