Skip to content

Category: Society

I Walk A Lonely Path

I Walk A Lonely Path

From nothing I came
And to nothing will I return
Between these an eternal agony of existing
Bearing me onward
Towards oblivion

A nobody I was
A nobody I will be
Lost in this wilderness of being
Reminding me always
Of my failure

Born nowhere
I will die nowhere
Alone along many paths have I stumbled
Unguided, unknown
Unwanted

16/03/2021

Leave a Comment

We live in a world

We live in a world

We live in a world of narrow minds,
Of bigotry, of hypocrisy and of injustice.
We close our ears to others righteous cries
For justice, for decency and for freedom.
Because it doesn't suit us,
It doesn't fit in with our plans.
And yet when we ourselves are wronged
Is it not we who scream the loudest,
Rage the most about the wrongness of it all?
And then we stand momentarily for what is right,
Like a wave stands upon the shore,
Transitory, for one fleeting moment.
Then we add our loud, indignant voice
To that of the roaring multitude.
Then we do what is right, as it suits us,
When it is in our interests
And then it is gone, eluding even a memory
And we return to our comfortable prejudices,
To our lies and our unreasoning beliefs
Whilst outside the people suffer still.

13/01/1990

Leave a Comment

Ground Zero

Ground Zero

What did they feel I wonder?
As they were swept away on that hideous wave.
That same wave that so terribly burnt the names
Hiroshima and Nagasaki
Into our dull consciousness.

Were they afraid, did they feel terror
In those few seconds?
Did they think on their loved ones,
Did they know they were going to die,
Or were they just living their ordinary lives?

Were the children playing in the streets?
Were the mothers shopping, washing, talking?
Were the fathers working as they had always done?
Did they have brothers I wonder
Fighting at the front?

So many died in that instant, in that twinkling of an eye,
All on the orders of a solitary man so far away.
And so many of the undead
Suffered so terribly.
Was it worth it?

And now so many years later
What lessons have we learnt?
Could it ever happen again?
Will so many people die so needlessly
Or can we learn to live in peace?

13/01/1990

Leave a Comment

A Presence

A Presence

In the still of daylight dawning
I wait
My presence
Unbidden
By those I seek
Here I stand
As the sun slowly rises
From its nocturnal slumbers
Yet shall they feel my presence
Those who have unknowingly called me
To this desolate place
Oh yes, they shall know me
Those fools who meddle in affairs
They cannot understand
Yet have not the wisdom
To draw back from the brink
Of the disaster
They are making
Their pathetic sorcery
Has loosed the long-forged chains
That bound me in slavery
Now will I wreak my destiny
Upon the pathetic creatures
That have recklessly brought me
To this place
In my blazing hand I will carry
My thrice forged blade
Once in pestilence
Once in war
And once in injustice
It will be a symbol
Of the destruction
That I bring
Upon them all

18/09/2000

Leave a Comment

Prophet of a Lesser Age

Prophet of a Lesser Age

He sits square-framed and lies to me
With words of hatred and deceit.
He speaks of honesty and truth
As if they were unwanted foreigners
And talks of war with pride.

He wants me to kill, he says
It is only right,
It is our duty.
We have no need to fear, he says.
Then why am I afraid?

He talks so easily of the hell of war,
Of destruction, of others deaths,
Of the faceless enemy.
He talks of hate, he talks of evil,
He talks of suffering for his cause.

But I want peace
And he will not give it,
But I want love
And he cannot see it,
But I want freedom
And he doesn't understand it.

Am I then an enemy?
Am I then to be imprisoned?
Am I then to be tortured?
Is my cause so wrong?
Then why does it seem so right?

Oh, answer me these questions
You square-framed man.
Answer me with honesty,
Help me understand,
Why I cannot love.
And yet I know you hate me
As you hated all the others
Who came before me.
But as I go to die now,
I do not fear you, I pity you.

You square-framed man...

17/01/1990

Leave a Comment

This Too Crowded Island

This Too Crowded Island

This too crowded island
Drains me
Cold wind, cold rain, cold people
Chill me
Sadden me
Make me
Homeless in my own home
Take me
On dark, dark roads
Going from nowhere
To nowhere
Through brick built jungles
Sterile sanctuary of sterile souls
Grey dank faces watching me
Through dusty windows of dust minds
Unattractive, unappealing, unclean
Living corpses crying
Putrid babbles
Of nothingness
And hate
Yet I remain
Unheard
Unseen
Unwanted
Leave a Comment

Come the day

Come the day

It's ten to six in the morning
A cold, cold morning
Travel through the haze
Of half sleep
Returning to hateful wakefulness
And with it
Another day
Maps itself out
In full bloody detail
Before me

Roll off the bed
Hit the floor
Trying to wake up
Failing
Eyelids glued together
Won't come unstuck
A thousand deserts
In my mouth
Stumble to the bathroom
To shave
If I don't cut my throat first
By mistake

Brush my teeth
Up, down
Up, down
Brush
Not head

That fuzzy thing in the mirror
Is that me?
Hell, I look rabid
Maybe I am
I feel it

Dress
In what?
Something from the heap
On the floor
Something clean
Well
At least something
That doesn't smell too bad

Breakfast
Something floating
In my bowl
Oh, it's cornflakes
I think
It's so full of iron
I could rust

Go to work
Car won't start
Kick the damn thing
Sit behind the wheel
Hitting my head
On its hard rim
Start
For fuck sakes, start!

Sit behind my desk
All day
Papers pass before my eyes
Unread
Unheeded
Unwanted
Oh please let me die!

Glance at the clock
Ten more minutes
Until parole time
A bloated blurry body
Dumps more papers on my desk
'These are important' it bleats
As I try not to kill them

Finally I am finished
It is dark outside
I sit in the car praying
To the gods of starter motors
Cough, cough, whirr, BANG!
Well I guess that counts as starting
Shit! The fuel light is on

Get home, open the door
What should I eat
Whatever is in the fridge
Whatever isn't green and furry
Should I cook it?
No why bother

Sit down
In front of the TV
A talking head is asking
Whether I have had an accident at work
Hell
My whole being is an accident
Can I get compensation?

Turn the taps
Of an arthritic shower
Waiting for the water
To go from freezing
To almost lukewarm
Now where's the soap

It is way past midnight
As I hit the bed
With a sickening thump
Of head on pillow
Crawl under the sheet
And pull it tight
And hope
The nightmares don't come again

Repeat...

18/09/2000

Leave a Comment

A Homecoming

A Homecoming

Suburban walls, suburban gardens,
Suburban bricks
Confront me
A decade on
So much has changed
Behind my suburban exterior
Am I as unrecognisable
As the scene before me?
As cold, as hard, as bleak?
So much changed
Beneath the same shell
Like these houses and shops
Am I, like them,
Decaying,
Rotting from within?
Have these ten long and weary years
So etched their pain
Into the very stones of my soul
That I may never return
To what I was?
But if I could
Would I?
Have I endured the torturing winds
And tormenting rains
For nothing?
Have I watched them erode my hard exterior
And expose my raw and bloody flesh
To the tempestuous elements
Just to say
"It is right,
Right to suffer so"?
No, no I will not
But stand and shout
At my new found strength
Swept clean by those who seek to hurt
And once more return
Return to this suburbia
Unlike those around
In their safe suburban lives
A newcomer
Returning to my fathers' land
To these
Suburban walls, suburban gardens,
Suburban bricks

13/07/1990

Leave a Comment

So many years have I

So many years have I

So many years have I
The littling voices heard
And listened whilst
They lying spoke
And mouthed deriding words
Malignant in my mind
Of how I ungainly, unseemly and unfit
For custom social and for life unsuited was
Of intellect enfeebled and any skills divorced
And so believing siren song
Until now I travelled blind
But now I meekly sit and I ask
The truth of all I knew
If so unskilled am I
Then how have I become
All that I am and that is much
And more there is to come
So now must I
The littling voices still
And onward go
And higher still
To see what lies beyond
Then shall I with perfect peace
Full consummated pass
To darkness then
To seek what lies beyond

29/11/2009

Leave a Comment

I Started Seeing Skeletons

I Started Seeing Skeletons

I started seeing skeletons on the street the other day
Not clean, clinical, comical, classroom ones
But stinking, putrid corpses where rotting corrupted flesh
Hangs in stinking, putrid strips
The puss of a thousand dreadful sins dripping in their wake

I started seeing skeletons on the street the other day
Their hollow vacant eyes hiding hollow vacant lies
Hiding evil done and good undone
Inhaling hypocrisy, exhaling insincerity
As they crawl through painted gilded lives

I started seeing skeletons on the street the other day
Where faces were, bigotry remains
Where hands were now deception lingers
What once was flesh is now duplicity
Arrogance like skin wears them well

I started seeing skeletons on the street the other day
Smelling their lust, their greed, their fear
As I walked among these living rancid dead
One with them, part of them
A fallen soul in a fallen world

I started seeing skeletons on the street the other day

08/02/2017

Leave a Comment