I finally told him,
sitting in
inevitable bar,
noisome with the
ever-present stinks
of spilled beer
and cigarettes,
the stale musky scent
of listless dancing women
thick upon the air.

He sneered at me,
eyes vacant,
mind stained black
by decades
of drink and hate
and said
“You can use her,
you can fuck her,
hell, you can
even love her,
but don’t you ever
bring that nigger
to my home.”

Our land is plague by violence
Insensitive to sanctity of human life
We grieve and suffer in silence

From bloody coups to civil war
Robbery movies enacted in real life
Road carnage tripled by broken tar

Political and religious riots take turns
Bomb blasts by Boko Haram exact fear
Senseless bangs, the nation helplessly burns

It was out in Venezuela when I ran into this sailor
He was sitting at the bar, right next to me
He was rugged he was mean and he wasn’t very clean
But I listened when he spoke about the sea

There were stories there were tales, of the hunt for killer whales
When his leg was bitten off below the knee
How en route to Senegal they were shipwrecked in squall
He survived for sixteen weeks, tied to a tree

We are the peoples' nation of Zrcheckslovanounious.
No one is able to pronounce us.
Our citizens therefore denounce us.
We're a proud population of three.

Our emperor he is a llama.
Who has his very own song-a.
He wrote it whilst hitting a bong-a.
He'll 'maaaaah' at you for free.

So welcome to the Republic.
Don't drink our water - you'll get sick.
Our Emperor Mo Mao Mick
says: 'mahh mahh mahh merr meer meee'

"Shadows Creep"
4th January 2012

Night,
shadows creep,
clocks watching,
still,
breath its strange dance,
currents moving
slow,
window cracks open,
frost dried leaf,
twig,
breezes a lullaby
sleeping head;

when all falls, falling,
deep,
black,
great heaps of earth, mountains,
silent,
speechless,
dead,

no movement
seeming set,
such weight
not sinking, rising up
wedges,
ice on lakes, disturbed;

Let me in that outside "box", of yours
it's a place I think sounds quaint,
with my devil-may-care attitude
I'll soon prove that you're no saint;
and that it's your own life you wish to taint.

Mother Goose looks grim through shadows,
Who's your daddy? What's his name?
Why do you waste time trying to prove
everyone else is who's to blame?
Being a mere loudmouth will be your claim to fame!

There I go again
Running like a maniac
Sweating as if
There is real danger

I want to call 911
And beg them
To restrain me

When the cops do arrive
Ill ask them for a Xanax
So I can bury these panics

Shut up already
Now, I start breathing heavy
Great, my date thinks it's her
She screams, check sir

I asked can we talk later
She said no with no excuse
There goes another girl I lose
To my mind the prophylactic

filled with pillowcloud delicious
the candy smiles are canine fresh
you restless beast in your wander
slaughter
wear your haughty draught plowing
ice like the breaker
of hearts that wound with words
of wire Your quite the taker
and how our Brule treason
will show its season
this brokebone reason
and we fuck away our lives
banging ghosts in the lark
standing by our frozen
souls like statue puppets
to the dark
we are thin skinned
like dark tree bones
standing at the park

We've all had these moments.

when from somewhere deep inside you
it hurts like hell to breathe
and you're broken from the inside out,
with hurt in your blood
and in the marrow of your shaking bones.

when your fingertips sting from guitar,
your hands are bent from piano
and ache from the pen you gripped so tightly
just a few seconds before.

I hope it's not today when the angels come home
where would these faces hide among the streets bent truth
no walk away monuments are waiting for us to stare
and where was I when you sang the rivers red
in the morning and evenings when I dropped the brightest star