Searching for Signals

the eczema stars and anemic moon

suffuse the skies while shadows dance

in my rear view, in my rear view

the echoes from our cosmos slide 

beneath the rubber window stops

like petrol fumes, like petrol fumes

tuning in the radar bleeps

on shortwave radio

tuning in the radar bleeps

but nothing’s coming back 

to you and me

we’re searching for the signals on

the lonely desert highway

past that restaurant, that restaurant

that some old crazy couple run

they’re always going on about

some crazy lights in the desert sky

tuning in to radar bleeps..


27/07/12

Denial (Is a Beautiful Thing)

I met her last september
in the creeping cold, wet, london grey, 
she said her name was tanya
and she spoke of growing old together
by the time it turned november
she was on a one way flight to hamburg
emptied out the bank account
pin code was my date of birth,
date of birth

And I’m still hanging on
for an explanation
reality may sting,
but denial is a beautiful thing

At my empty flat in peckham 
I would drink myself to sleep for days
smoke a dozen packs of gitannes
and i’d disappear lost in the haze
I convinced myself that i could kick my habits
tomorrow or next week
but wastedness is far more fun
and god knows it’s a beautiful thing,
beautiful thing

And I’m still hanging on
for a destination
emptiness is king
but denial is a beautiful thing

24/12/11

Kirlian Photography

I can still feel the traces

Of the darkness that we once felt,

Residing in these walls and curtains,

Like ghosts and energy left behind

At the scene of some god awful tragic crime.

(A Kirlian photograph would betray the radiation.)

And I sense that you are with me,

A deceased ancestor leaning on my shoulder,

Like Death himself with a calcified and bony claw

Scratching at my cheek, breaking skin,

And pleading me to leap in to the soupy river Kelvin

Down outside the room below.

31/10/11

On the (dark) art/s

I looked through the last seven years worth of my writing last night, and realised that there is literally not a single poem/lyric amongst them that one would describe as "positive" in outlook. Blame it on the fact I grew up listening heavily to Nick Cave and mid 80s Cure records, if you will. (Either that, or that I am severely depressed and/or stuck inside a severe rut with my writing!) I have tried happy lyrics but I do not really know where to start, and they always tend to come out seeming forced, so I guess I have given up for now. I like to think of myself as quite a balanced individual in real life, not least for the fact that I am Libran (if you believe in that shit), so I guess the predilection for "dark" lyric writing is some unconscious (and unwitting) form of therapy (I would never conciously go about it for this purpose - that would be equally forced, never mind pretentious).

I recently read both Prince and Bjork (maybe not the best examples, granted) in interviews saying that they did not think artists should be putting negative shit out in to the world. However, I do not see "dark art" as a glorification of the darkness, but rather an acknowledgement of it. If one does not address the darkness, the darkness sure as hell is going to address them, whether they like it or not, - and usually when they least expect it.

Emotional states are circular, not linear. They are spiraling serpents, and we are not always happy or always sad. I guess my work at this stage is still preoccupied with the inverse phase of a sine wave. But, it does not deny that it has an opposite. My hope is that when it does display itself in my work, in contrast to the negative, it is cast in a more idealistic sense - beauty, and the eternal - and is rendered more powerful and less susceptible to damage than its literal counterpart (viz, happiness in a conventional, materialistic and finite sense) because of this.

Beneath it all, in any event, there is a thread of hope and a reaching toward the stars. As a friend of mine used to say to me jokingly, (while wearing corpse paint and playing in a black/death metal band), "in darkness is found the greater enlightenment".

Great poetry and lyrics explore both the dark night of the soul and the breaking of the dawn, or at least allow the suggestion of both. Substance-less bullshit is something else entirely..

Death Warmed Up

The water has a funny taste

And the air it doesn’t smell the same

But all the kids with op shop hair

Just cast a vacant stare.

Trapped in my computer glow

I feel so numb when I come home

There’s a button placed inside my head

That’s trained me not to care.

And we feel like death warmed up

Got the look but that’s not enough.

(I don’t feel like waking up.)

Got the look but that’s not enough.

25/07/11

Give You Up

Slow motion suicide has a certain appeal,

Measured destruction with a delicate feel.

I hear them rattling at my window panes,

Screaming for my blood in the shimmering rain.

Holes in my chest are counting down time,

Aches in my body and the raping of my mind.

Day terrors chastise all my trembling flesh,

Meat on a stick, I’m just a spluttering mess.

(I can give you up at any time but I need you here,

I can't walk this line tonight.

I can give you up at any time, but this is much too fun

And the damage has been done, already.)

25/03/11

Caffeine

Sitting there

and swimmingly dark

you are the light in a mind

that’s made of glass

the ups-and-downs,

the shadows they cast,

the fictions and meanings

that fuck in the park

of swimmingly dark Caffeine.

I consume you at morning

but also at night

and whether or not

I’m really that tired:

a sucking-on-me- kind-of-vice

that covers up the fright,

a waistcoat; entry by the door

and I could want you even more.

Caffeine.

25/10/04