I just missed jumping on the bus But I have the wrong trousers on So I let it go passed me really Crossing the tracks so early in the day Never mind it is not due Sad old hag on the line I won’t wait for another bus The embarrassment is too much, I have inkwells in my pockets They are filled with feathers What do I do with them – red faced am I Never mind it is not due, But etching in the sand will never do Because each character is only half seen My ears are full of ice cream And my desk wants to sail away at noon But the sails are not ready Besides I have lost my compass So I will go Sainsbury’s instead I will make a nest in the middle of my bed And invite the pigs in for a party, Did I really have my hair with a middle parting Never mind it is not due But then neither is the glue When it is stuck inside the tube I have given my television A nice set of floral curtains To match my thinning hair Well, that is what I think, I don’t care There are beetroot stains on my underwear Don’t ask me, I don’t know how they arrived there Sitting in the sky avoiding the kites I laughed out loud The trees joined in too My shirt has baked bean sauce all over them I am not amused I take off my clothes and sing the National Anthem Saluting as a I go Never mind it is not due. With pencil gripped in the wrong hand I am poised to spew Out words that are anchored in anger In deepest rancour I spit out the words I drive my car into the buttercup field And I briefly watch the lovers I turn away looking for sanctuary There is an oak with green tassles Beckoning to me “Turn on your smile, ignore the hassles” What? This tree is talking to me, Too many pills that is the cause Songs were seeping from behind my back I really must find my new desk It is somewhere out to sea I need the shipping forecast beneath me In straw hat cane in hand I hear Leon sing Ain’t Misbehavin’ now there’s a thing Ain’t possible because I only want to sing, I have a ladder in my inside pocket I am going to paint the Pope black See how he likes that Never mind it is not due. No new prescription for me It is too much trouble anyway, There are songs attached to my feet I lift each one and a different lyric I can see Meet me on the corner, treat me, There are verses in my hair What the hell are they doing there I will place each one where they belong Each with their own rhythm sublime I am gardening with my teeth But it is taking too long I will nod out On this string of white powder Never mind it is not due, Did I write to myself today, Must be a bad memory, My toes are like bright torches Showing me the way in to the darkness I am whistling, hands in pockets Nonchalantly without a care Touching each bud on the rose tree I praise their effort and they believe me never mind it is not due, this treasure we call air might one day disappear watch out be careful don’t let the bastards take it away. I can’t use plastic daffodils As love tokens for Christ sake What was I thinking of – oh the insult, Maybe they should be plastic red roses My calendar suddenly caught fire I just stared in awe, drooling. Each cigarette was painted in bright pink But when lit they turned green Strangest thing I have ever seen With my calculator in my hand Mobile phone in my mouth I feel I am now ready to take on the world God forbid, are you just talking nonsense? Never mind it is not due
Hey there, I am living in a jar Does that mean we are all far Away in some other cupboard In the dark of the closed door? Try as I might I cannot prise It open not without some aid Try as I might I look for some But I can see help it was not made For me – in abject sadness I put aside all notions of escape I continue to live inside this jar I can’t remember how I came here! try as I might the memory has disappeared It’s been scratched from inside my soul I lean upon the glass looking outwards Is this where I pray for a change Have I been waiting for a cue or what? I am on my knees, hands clasped Wishing I was no longer imprisoned Inside my own head where splinters grow From past smashed glass, why don’t they go? I don’t want them they slow my progress They poison my new life, it is not necessary Nor wanted, nor needed nor desired by me. Living in a jar is no picnic It destroys love before it is born And sucks my life until I am worn. Is this compulsory punishment For something I have not even done? No matter for I have punished myself Roughly about a thousand times over. I am not satisfied unless I inflict pain Upon myself in every possible way I take out my heart and slice it into thin Pieces and feed it to the birds and fishes, I take out my brain and chop it into squares Give them to the local dogs home, I take my eyes and squash them. For I no longer need any of these parts Living in a jar. Living in a jar, I can’t talk to anyone And they can’t hear me anyway, There is no phone nor microphone Anyway what can I say living the way I do Away from everyone and everything If I could speak what would I talk about? How I hate living in a jar, no doubt!
Vintage illustration of from an 18th Century Chapbook. English Folklore, Mother Shipton, Ursula Southeil an English soothsayer and prophetess. Talking with a Witch, Devil and warlock flying brooms
I hear you say - are you a psychopath, am I a psychopath? You have trodden on my heart and scooped it out And taken it in your hands and thrown it all about. The jackboots you used upon me bruised my soul, You left marks upon me: but I wanted to be whole.
Destruction was the name of your game, I can tell You used and abused my soft heart and sent me to hell. You took advantage of my generous caring ways And gave me the blows, the shouts: I was so afraid, Fear is the very core of my being, for certain.
I know deep down your reasons were only trite excuses You used the chains of fear and took advantage You were to be king over my dented half truth life I was putty willingly in your pitiless grasp and fist You sent strange messengers to my brain covered in mist.
At first I could not hear the messages said It was like entering the garden of paradise, dead! You made me ask the question, what is the fucking point, This is no way to live, sure was no way to die, in joint Misunderstanding and mis-directed threats and cajoles.
I was used and abused by those who I thought loved me, I was so badly taken in by charmers in sheep’s clothing I was prey to the wolves, who wanted to eat my brain I bear the inner scars: I am not letting happen to me again I wish only to jump ship and take to the waves of uncertainty.
I want to find a desert island somewhere that would protect me I don’t need or deserve this kinda shit, no way, no how, I am my own person, I want to live well always and now I did not come into this world to be someone else’s plaything Nor do I want to be a punchbag, a skivvy or a slave to your whims.
Circumstances has been my keenest low companion, String me along, locked in chains, like carrion Lying in a field helpless with no way to ward off beaks and claws I was left lying in tears bewildered, but what is the cause? I cried a thousand rivers that flooded my perceptions.
I called out loud to God to relieve me, he was not listening! I battled the devils that railed horribly against me Through the tears I saw distorted faces I didn’t want to see. Through it all I hung in there determined to win, Against outrageous misfortune, at least I am still breathing.
These sad rooms are sitting with me The seeds are scraps of paper For me the writing is nearly over Long tall shapeless the words be.
The skeleton rooms are growing dim I sit through the calm Whilst raging within My sweaty palms Are guiding me in I’m wanting the eyes forever
For long is the night dim is the day Like forgetting the only rhyme I had For you are the smile I’m not so gay You have a wooden life – not sad.
These rooms are sitting in calmness now My empty eyes are not glowing But please give me one last chance. As I sit within my knowing.
I can’t sit I have to move For the world is crazy without I need the anchor I need the wind But don’t ever let me out I see your skirts I am your blouse I want to get into your mind Don’t let me drift don’t let me dream Because I don’t want to be a friend.
The sun it drifts and the sky is mixed My mind expands with a whim You are in the midday of life And I can’t seem to ever win
Don’t smile, don’t cry, don’t even breathe For I am driving into the wind The hills are steep and I won’t keep Because the light is keeping me still Don’t cry, don’t speak For God’s sake don’t keep My ears are bursting again.
The sky is mean but the sun is clear I shan’t drift into you with a cloud I am the river the rain the speed So why don’t we write a rhythm I am so slow, slither I am on the go So please give a – come now! Go now! Please listen to me Come in come thither Please listen in Tune in to me is my hearing that keen The moon is dancing with us now.
Your voice your eyes Are in my device I want to keep them forever Please let me skate Please be my mate We shall sing the song together We shall sing the song together
(For all those people who know there is something missing.)
What in our lives is missing, what are we missing? This feeling uses great effort in the many at listing The missing facets that allow us to feel unreal, Like some punishment for no crimes – I did not steal I did not kill – nor did I trample upon anyone’s dignity. But something has been taken away even though not guilty.
What did we do to feel this way or was it someone else? This heavy burden of taking away common sense And leaving us in a sea of irrationality – a horrible dance In the fires of someone else’s condemnation and insults. What did we do to deserve to be on the receiving end, Was it a personal slight, was it trickery by a close friend?
Whatever it was we continue to waste time on speculation There’s a way out of here when we entertain a realisation, A discovery that sits well in the heart says what is missing It’s a warmth in our lives that feels like a cocoon encompassing Our whole body and mind reminding us we deserve to be loved But the tears won’t stop because we know we live in a cloud,
Where sunlight has been banished from our sight and hearing All we have is the reminders of the absent wanted healing, When we cried as a child the missing was the comforting When we lost a loved one missing was the understanding When we were bullied by life missing were words of comfort When bedded with a partner the missing was the arms about.
The missing element that can pull us out of dark despond That can lift the heaviest of hearts now aching far beyond This place filled with missing, can be replaced on this Earth With loving, being loved, feeling that we are of real worth. We yearn to be a real person for another and to ourselves too, The missing is the absence of self-love, needed by me and you.
Does it matter if I stop breathing and smiling inanely With thoughts that can cut veins ever so insanely? I don’t know how deep is the grand Canyon I have never been there, nor have I carried on Any desire to meet Stanley Livingstone alone In an African jungle worrying about his pension What are we doing wading through streams Of information that have no meaning but seems To occupy even the smallest minds inside heads, I’m steeped in memory but then that is my age Where memory takes the place of reality, on my page Anything goes and it usually does, and it returns But that is hardly my fault I was only looking to relearn A lesson no one had taught me so the laughing begins My head on the arms whilst sleeping in class wins My praise because the lessons are full of horse manure And teachers need to be culled for the biggest cure that humans have ever known, then we start again swimming every ocean climbing every mountain. There are dots all over my page where a universe sits And I can see the people inside, they want a real fix I smoked weed, spoke to the caterpillar on a mushroom he was half way to coming back again, so very soon but had missed every bus put out by Transport of London. I left my heart in an English Gardener said Christian Barnard I gave him the wrong blue pills and he swore revenge. Did I drive a Triumph Toledo in the raging cold snow I think about it but honestly I don’t really know, In café bars, sleazy saloons I feel the cheap perfume With smudged lipstick red faces and failing mascara The ladies of the night settled for the usual routine Even on days when they wanted to be never seen Walking that street devoid of humanity and so mean wrenched out their hearts, now it’s like a money machine. Does it matter that Mickey Mouse may have been a girl, Some say so, but then they have the tolerance of Goering, His sandwiches were wet because his wife liked tomatoes, His face looked like he’d eaten a ton of lemons though. Then I met this guy standing at a bus stop and he told me Buses I want are going in the opposite direction you see, He knew he was standing at the wrong bus stop and boasted about it, I thought he’d been watching the BBC that fucks up the brain rearranges logic and vomits garbage into my lap so that I stank of corrupted news, I could not listen to the smiling faces nor their biased views, I knew they suffered from withered cocks without juices But you try interviewing one of them, you need a banana Each time you try, for they ape reality without knowing. Allen Ginsberg was going to move in next door so I was told I said but he died years ago – I was trashed for being bold Never a Howl was heard so I knew he hadn’t moved near, It doesn't matter, really?
DISSENTERS VOICE 