A Version of Me

Sometimes I wake up in the morning half alive half dead and wonder whether there’s any reason to get up at all.
Sometimes I realize I don’t like me a whole lot but that’s okay I’ll just create a new me starting now.
Yesterday I realized my narrative voice is terribly unnaturally inauthentically me.
Yes, yes there are a lot of things to correct.

Most days I spend at least 15 minutes wondering just what the hell it is I’m doing.
In summer I usually seize up in terror once a day wondering if this is the day my hair melts into the top of my head like some greasy cake decoration.
(Black things conduct heat)!

Sometimes I think my love of sci-f has taught me to be good at sex.
No seriously because I can suspend my disbelief and focus and not get hung up wondering how on earth I got myself into this situation in the first place.
Otherwise how would anything get done?

In certain specific conditions I will lose my appetite entirely for three days and not really know why.
Then my hunger will return at 3.22am in a rush like copulating teenagers.
And then what do you do?
Somebody tell me seriously I don’t know. Can you justify getting something to eat at that time?

Some part of me still wants to be used and abused by awful sorts because let’s face it doing the wrong thing can be fun sometimes.
Even if it ends up feeling like tearing the muscle clean off the bone.
No no wait no it’s more like that disappointment feeling.
Like that moment of quiet ‘oh.’ when the house lights go up at the end of night/start of day.

Sometimes I like to go swimming in the mornings even though I’m half a chance to drown myself.
Me in the water is like a fish trying to swim through chocolate syrup.
But that won’t stop me I’m stubborn like that plus I love that aquamarine colour of water in a synthetic body.

Somewhere I read that the smell / look of violets evokes memories of the dead and dead romance.
This interested me enough to write it down in my notes but how can I use it?
I don’t know anything about flowers.

Passenger

Today I’m not the driver
someone else is in control
but from him or her I’m totally
divorced.

I’m not sure that I trust the
person sitting at the wheel
because they’re always trying to make
a stop.

I hope they know the way to
go I’d help them if I could
but it’s difficult because I’m
half-asleep.

Little Tree

Here I have a little tree. It wants so much to grow.
It needs a lot to nurture it, but what I do not know.

I don’t know how to care for it, to get the balance right.
Frequently that keeps me up with worry through the night.

There is no other like it though that you won’t believe.
Secretly I’m worried that it’s losing all its leaves.

The little tree is stunted, sickly, colour drained to mauve.
It has no place to plant its roots, no sanctuary grove.

But still the tree it struggles on, it knows no other way.
Apparently it’s meant to keep on living day by day.

Sometimes I even prune the tree, to keep it safe and small.
I wish I could protect it, hide it, block it with a wall.

A person tried to strangle it, to wring its life away.
I didn’t get his license plate. It ended in a K.

It seems there’s always someone trying to hurt my little tree.
But half the time I tend to think the hurtful one is me.

Of late I have been wondering how long my tree can last.
Any way you look at it, 8 months won’t go by fast.

But if my tree can last that long it all might be okay.
Apparently I have to keep on living day to day.

Emma's Eyes and the Seaside

Looking through the windows
of fragile, gemstone blue
a looking glass, a portal,
a song begins on cue.

It feels as if a raft is
riding rapids in my chest.
It feels as if I’m coming home
to calm after the quest.

How can a simple pair
of eyes speak vividly to me?
“We will cross the borderline,
the gap across the sea.”

And though the dreams might haunt me
sending shadows in the night,
a beacon helps me find the way
from eyes of blue too bright.

And in that beacon’s shining gaze
I know I’ll find the shore,
and I can dock there safely
and be with my love once more.

Aileron Song

That tarot smile has got me aching
Honey drip eyes upturned to heaven
“Somewhere out there
the story of our lives is written”

[Chorus]
Did you really know we were ready to go?
Torn up, ripped up, metal debris
Little bits of fire falling into the sea

She’s locked me in with words of reason
Can’t seem to breathe, the air’s recycled
Fixed on this path, I’m acting like
My aileron is broken

[Bridge]
What’s the answer from above?
What truth pulled from the ether?
God looks at us and shrugs and smiles,
says “I don’t get it either”

The turbines cough, the engine splutters
We can’t compete with such resistance
Luck takes no sides, it isn’t fair
But what were we expecting?

I Don’t Belong Here (Positively Grant Street)

What am I doing here in this place?
Cigar smoke blown into my face
Made to feel like a fucking disgrace
My so-called friends leave me displaced
Among the phony's and their lines
Imported beer, designer wines
And do I like the new design?
It’s driving me out of my mind
The expression on my face is
Cold and stony

Invited for the sake of form
The people watch with looks of scorn
Some of ‘em wish I was never born
And even the drunk that mopes and mourns
Is about a million times more
Welcome than I am through that door
It’s about image and nothing more
And not even my sweet Lenore
Could convince me it was anything
Else but phony

The chain-linked circles lock me out
The social scene, the verbal joust
You’ll get your way, you’ll moan and pout
It all leaves me without a doubt
The glittered sparkled make-up eyes
Of deepest blue they can’t disguise
the thinly veiled threats and lies
the hostility behind your eyes
The unspoken warning that the
Cat’s got claws

And “he said”, “she said” let’s take sides
The petty squabbles and the cries
And though their brain cells might be fried
Even the junkies have their pride
And I’m not here to get involved
I don’t even think Sherlock Holmes could solve
The mysteries of those who are so devolved
And yeah I got a lot of resolve
But don’t ask for my opinion if all you really want
Is to hear yours

How did I get mixed up in this?
The brightly coloured curb-side mist
and broken glass and flowing piss
The lovers locked in deadly tryst
The blood red tint across the moon
The endless loop, the same old tunes
The fiery ashen scream comes soon
I wanna retreat to my cocoon
And act just like nothing
Even happened.

But what’s the use in trying to run?
They got me trapped they’ve already won,
There ain’t no knife, no sword, nor gun
No shield to save me from the sun
Of painful glaring bright white eyes
That pierce the soul and condemn the mind
And leave you stripped naked and blind
A coiled spring you can’t unwind
So stay on your toes and don’t let ‘em
Catch you nappin’

How am I gonna get outta this rut?
Surrounded by these hungry sluts
And this one looks like Jabba the Hutt,
And the scar on my hand from the cigarette butt
That you stabbed me with in your drunken haze
And the fevered sweat in the dancer’s cage
And the boys are going along with the craze
In the desperate hope they might get laid
And the mother’s all sit at home and pray
That their kids have been taught well enough to stay
Out of trouble and wear coats ‘case it rains
But if only they knew that there is no way
That the kids are ever gonna do anything else but act stupid
They’re barely lucid

Agent in Japan

Remy was a man
he was living in Japan
he said “In the neon city
I can forget who I am”
He drinks his cup of joe
in the morning ‘fore he goes
and then he disappears
into the streets of Tokyo

[Chorus]
You can run
you can run
but you can’t forget
you’re walking on a tightrope,
you haven’t fallen yet
You can hide
you can hide
from the things that they said
but they’re still scratching chalkboards
inside your head

He finds it hard to sleep,
dreams he’s drowning in the deep
he’s locked away a secret
that nobody should keep
The images replay
like the helicopter blades
and pretty soon his mind could blow
just like that grenade

The sky’s overcast,
the people pressing past
he’ll never be alone again
he’ll never be the last
He’s never truly free,
he drinks too much sake
and all that gets him through the nights
is karaoke