The Angels Are Voyeurs

God is a tender pervert and the angels are voyeurs
Watching us forever, their vision never blurs
They make us then forget us for a hundred million years
And then by chance they glance at us and something in them stirs
They find us so provocative, so weak, so full of pride
Our cleverness, our nakedness, fills them with delight
The way we hold our coffee cups, the way we pick our words
God is a tender pervert and his angels
His angels are voyeurs

And when the tender pervert is too busy to admire us
He sends his angels down to pass amongst us and desire us
He gives them little notebooks where they note each quirk and boast
Our foolish pride and pompousness turn him on the most
When we're throwing temper tantrums
When we're giving up the ghost
The pervert keeps his distance
But his angels, his angels move in close

It intoxicates the Spaceman, watching how we thrill ourselves
Not by sex but by devising new ways to kill ourselves
He sees the way we tamper with the things we most depend on
The danger stands his hair on end and gives him a hard-on
He calls his angels down to watch that slut the world get hers
God is a tender pervert and his angels
His angels are voyeurs

The pervert and his angels hide amongst the stars and watch
And as we blow ourselves to bits the angels pump their cocks
Their semen flows across the sky and forms new milky wheys
And somewhere in some galaxy in less than seven days
They make a planet more curvaceous and much sexier than ours
Full of bigger sinners
More worthy of voyeurs

Love On Ice

We're all cuddles and smiles
At the press photocall
Though you hate to touch me
And I couldn't love you at all
Because I'm not an ordinary guy
And you're not an ordinary girl
But that's how we have to appear now we're
The best in the world

And The Sun is uncharacteristically wise
When it captions the photograph
'Love on ice'

One perfect couple on four perfect blades
We execute two perfect figures of eight
We accept the bouquets but we'd just like to say
Before these flowers wither like all accolades
I'm only doing this for Christopher
And you're only doing it for Jane

In the Radio Times and on breakfast TV
Our faces appear because young healthy faces
Are what the world's dying to see
In an advert promoting a diet
We skate to a halt and say 'Try it!'
But how could a straight have a figure or skate
Without my anxiety?
And the caption they use in the Radio Times
And over their products is 'Love on ice'
Love on ice

One perfect couple on four perfect blades
We execute two perfect figures of eight
We accept the bouquets but we'd just like to say
Before these flowers wither like all accolades
We'd like to come out of the closet
We'd give up the life of the stars
If Christopher wasn't our manager
And Jane didn't do our cocaine and our PR

It began to go wrong
But the press wouldn't leave us alone
We lost to a couple of Soviets who skated like robots
And when we came home
The tabloids said I'd died of AIDS
And you'd lost your heart to the Greenham Brigades
And the serious papers we offered our story said 'Sorry'
And slammed down the phone

But in City Limits they mentioned us twice
In a feature and letter they titled respectively
'Love on ice' and 'Gay love on Ice'

One perfect couple on four perfect blades
We execute two perfect figures of eight
But the ice is a mirror in which people see
Their nation and their sexuality
And now we've come out of the closet
No-one remembers our names
And Christopher isn't our manager
And we need the PR more than Jane needs our cocaine

I Was A Maoist Intellectual

I was a Maoist intellectual in the music industry
I always knew that I could seize the world's imagination
And show the possibilities for transformation
I saw a nation in decay, but also a solution:Permanent cultural revolution
Whenever I played my protest songs the press applauded me
Rolled out the red carpet, parted the Red Sea
But the petit bourgeois philistines stayed away
They preferred their artists to have nothing to say

How did I pass my time on earth? Now it can be revealed:
I was a Maoist intellectual in the entertainment field

I showed the people how they lived and told them it was bad
Showed them the insanity inside the bureaucrat
And the archetypes and stereotypes that were my stock in trade
Toppled all the ivory towers that privilege had made
Though I tried to change your mind I never tried your patience
All I tried to do was to point out your exploitation
But the powers that be took this to be a personal insult
And refused to help me build my personality cult

How did I pass my time an earth, what on earth got into me?
I was a Maoist intellectual in the music industry

I left the normal world behind and started living in
A hinterland between dissolution and self discipline
I burned the midnight oil to build my way of seeing
A miner at the coal face of meaning
The rich despised the songs I wrote which told the poor their worth
Told the shy to speak and told the meek to take the earth
But my downfall came from being three things the working classes hated:
Agitated, organised and over-educated

How did I pass my time on earth, how did I bear witness?
As a Maoist intellectual in the entertainment business
And how was I treated in this world and in this industry7
As a Maoist intellectual in a business would be

I became a hotel doorman, I stood there on the doormat
Clutching my forgotten discs in their forgotten format
Trying to hand them out to all the stars who sauntered in
The ones who hadn't been like me, who hadn't lived in vain
I gave up ideology the day I lost my looks
I never found a publisher for my little red books
When I died the energy released by my frustration
Was nearly enough for re-incarnation

But if I could live my life again the last thing that I'd be
Is a Maoist intellectual in the music industry
No if I could live my life again I think I'd like to be
The man whose job is to stop the men who think like me
Yeah if l could live my life again that'd be the thing to be
The man who plots the stumbling blocks
In the lives of the likes of me!

The Homosexual

I love women but I'm thinking of giving in
I love women but what's the point of arguing
With the men from boarding schools and building sites
Who've told me I'm a homosexual all my life

One stop past Embankment and the coughs begin
Hell hath no fury like an insecure Englishman
You don't need psychoanalysts to translate this
'There is an open homosexual in our midst'

The homosexual they call me it's all the same to me
That spectre they projected I will now pretend to be
Since their neurosis is what passes for normality
It's okay with me if I'm queer
Since their tone-deafness is called the love of music
I won't disabuse them
I'll make love with their women
I'll make them sing notes of pleasure
Their husbands will never hear

I love women but I take them by surprise
Pretending absolute indifference to their breasts and thighs
Like their hairdressers and dressmakers I hear confessionals
Reserved for homosexual professionals

As I put their feet in stirrups with my limp wrist
(A trick I learned from a homosexual gynaecologist)
I recall the words my first girlfriend ended our first date with
'I feel privileged you chose me to go straight with'

You who called me shirt-lifter in Chemistry class
You who sniggered 'Look out for your arse'
Now your women wash your shirts, now your kids are born, baby Look out for your horns

You who called me teapot, who plagued me with your bile
Guess who I've got coming to the boil
Why not grab the nettle I'll settle for being the kettle if you're the pot
I take my tea like my revenge: sweet and hot

'The Homosexual' they call me
It's all the same to me
That spectre you projected I will now pretend to be
Since your neurosis is what passes for normality
It's okay with me if I'm queer
Since your tone-deafness is called the love of music
I won't disabuse you
I'll make love with your woman
I'll make her sing notes of pleasure
That you will never hear
Never in a million years
No fucking fear

Bishonen

I was born in the town of Paisley in early 1960
And placed in the care of an old eternal bachelor
A strict disciplinarian, a passionate antiquarian
His collection of myths and legends was spectacular

As a younger man he'd been to see Japan
Where a master in a white kimono taught him
In a shining moment the myth of the bishonen
The youthful hero doomed to fall like blossom

And how could I forgive the ugly fugitive
Who brought me up according to a fantasy?
For when the old man stared at me
He drowned in evil beauty
Thinking of the early death in store for me

He taught me to be good with words, he bought me ceremonial swords
And in this way came grace and expertise
The words were to cut down and to kill the muscle-bound
The swords to fell my intellectual enemies

And women should be hated but first impersonated
Charm, he said, is essential to misogyny
He taught me how to woo the girls in order to outdo the girls
And the fun would come when I'd got them to love me

And how could I resist the old misogynist
Who brought me up according to a fantasy?
My softness and fragility
My feminine grace and delicacy
Made death himself afraid for me

And so in time I grew to be blond and beautiful
Pale and frail, with many male admirers
I was promised by my father a retainer for a partner
So loyal that nothing could divide us

Shocked by my suggestion that I'd rather have a woman
My stepfather replied I had no choice
This man would cut his entrails open protecting his bishonen
He informed me in a solemn, trembling voice

How could I disobey that surreptitious gay
Who brought me up according to a fantasy?
For when the old man stared at me
He drowned in evil beauty
Thinking of the early death in store for me

So me and my retainer encountered many dangers
On travels through the North and through the South
We ripped open the bellies of many famous bullies
And our reputation spread by word of mouth

In the mountains of Morocco we stopped and shared a bottle
With a blind old man with a bearded, bandaged face
And though the sun had sunk and the man was very drunk
He seemed to speak with my stepfather's voice

Saying 'How could you forget the ageing martinet
Who brought you up according to a fantasy?
Your softness and fragility
Your feminine grace and delicacy
Will be the death of me'

Surprised at 28 to find myself so late
Changing from a boy into a man
I'm starting to feel guilty that nobody has killed me
Early as my stepfather had planned

I've found myself a girl and stopped roaming the world
My retainer's gone to be a mercenary
Now I work in a merchant bank, well-liked by the senior ranks Though behind my back the Juniors can me fairy

And how can I placate the ugly reprobate
Who brought me up according to a fantasy?
For when the old man stared at me
He drowned in evil beauty
Thinking of the early death in store for me

I stay awake some nights when my wife turns off the lights
And starts breathing regularly next to me
And I think of fallen petals and bodies pierced by metal
And how I'll never now fulfil my destiny

Father spare my shame, let me pass my name
To a boy with greater beauty and more bravery
For if I have a son I'm going to raise him to die young
And lay him in the grave that you prepared for me

A Complete History of Sexual Jealousy Parts 17 - 24

I'm jealous of the people the people I fall in love with
Fall in love with
I'm jealous of the people the people I try to be more like
Try to be more like
I'm even jealous of the people the people who hate me
Hate more
A Complete History of Sexual Jealousy Parts 17 - 24

I'm jealous of the man the man you broke the heart of
Broke the heart of
I'm jealous of the men you knew before
In a life that I can never be a part of
There's more than meets the eye
In the way a stranger meets your eye, I know there's more
A Complete History of Sexual Jealousy Parts 17 - 24

If looks could kill I'd kill the men
Whose looks would kill you if looks could kill
And the men who say 'No competition'
Know the competition love instils
I'm jealous of the people who ask me to ask you 'Who's keeping score?'
A Complete History of Sexual Jealousy Parts 17 - 24

Hey hey hey, hi hi hi
Do you know this guy?
Hey hey hey, hi hi hi
Am I in your way?
Can't you feel how you're killing my pride?
I die every day

I'm jealous of the dangling men
You know you'll never go to bed with
I've felt the fire that fires them
I've known the unrequited love it's fed with
And I don't believe in Platonic love
But I'm still jealous of Plato
What a bore!
A Complete History of Sexual Jealousy Parts 17 - 24

Come into my arms my lover, let me be your sanctuary
Come into my arms my lover, where you no longer have to look at me
You've been stupid enough to love someone who's hurt you a lot
I'll hurt you more
A Complete History of Sexual Jealousy
A Complete History of Complete Promiscuity
I'm writing the book on Fury and Infidelity, Parts 17 - 24

If you really love me you must love my insecurity
If you really love me, take lovers
If you really love me you must really love my jealousy
If you really love me, love the others . . .

Ice King

If ever emotional defences open wide
If ever you see me cry
If ever you notice how you make me feel inside
This thing will blow sky high

How could you know
I wanted you so
I acted cool so you couldn't see
For here deep inside
I so easily hide
Exactly what you mean to me

But it was so strange
When everything changed
Your answer took me by surprise
And now that we're lovers
You think you've discovered
How to make a cold man cry

You think you're kissing the ice king, dark thing
But I was always warm
I was yours for the asking, dark thing
I was hot for you all along

If ever emotional defences open wide
If ever you see me cry
If ever you notice how you make me feel inside
I think I just might die

I know you can't stand
An emotional man
And so I play for time
Keeping it light
In the hope that you might
One day maybe change your mind

Sometimes in bed
It enters my head
To tell you that my love is strong
But I don't say a word
When I notice how hard
You work to turn a cold man on

You think you're kissing the ice king, dark thing
How wrong can a woman be ?
But if you knew the intensity of my feelings
How long would you stay with me?

In The Sanatorium

In the sanatorium
I've booked a private room
Where you can feel at home
Where we can be alone
Just you, the nurse and me
In mountain scenery

All the time that you've been ill
Your face has looked so pale
Drained by the force of will
Drained by the wait until
My treatment makes you well
Or weaker still

Half in love with easeful death
I cloud the mirror with your breath
Half in love with this disease
That keeps you close to me
Your eyes grow heavy as I read
'The Immoralist' by André Gide
Fall asleep my sickly darling
Rest in peace

Men you used to know declare
Their most sincere desire
To travel here and share
The treatment you require
Their letters saying they care
Are on the fire

As I interrupt the muslin
Hanging round the bed
I wake you with the rustling
And you raise your head
And ask again, your voice uncertain
If you're not a burden

I wonder, as I watch you sleep
If this possessive streak
Will make me force my love
Or if the trick is cheap
And if you took your drug
And if you're deep enough asleep

(For love will endure or not endure regardless of where we are)

The Charm of Innocence

It began at a school that turned boys into gentlemen
Then turned them on to debauchery
I was forced to my knees in front of these gentlemen
If I refused they would torture me
On Sundays I'd stalk the Botanical Garden
And under my uniform something would harden
Whenever I passed a girl of my own age

Or did it begin with au pair girls from Germany
Paid by the hour to look after us?
Did it begin with that first opportunity
To corner a stranger with nakedness?
Maybe the clinical way they undressed me
Stayed with me and deeply distressed me
I think, at heart, I'm something of a prude

I was born with the charm of innocence
On my back like a cross
Thorns upon my forehead
Round my neck I wore it
Sometimes a rabbit's claw
Sometimes an albatross

Then at 18 I decided I wanted
To be a commercial photographer
I rented a studio down by the docks
Which I shared with a friendly pornographer
I photographed models in fluorescent light
Whose veins were so blue and whose breasts were so white
I assumed, like the moon, women were blue cheese

When I left home I already had five years
Of self abuse under my belt
I found certain women who'd let me try anything
Just to find out how it felt
In some garish hotel room with vile decoration
The wallpaper witnessed my first pollination
The paisley patterns witnessed an abortion

In the army they taught me to share the abuse
That I'd kept up till then to myself
There's nothing like killing
For coaxing a shy boy of twenty-one out of his shell
In the dark continent with a peace-keeping force
I fell in with a bunch of Algerian whores
And promised them I'd try and keep in touch

We met up again in the 18th arrondisement
I remember them well
Their lank stringy hair and their big bulbous noses
Their unmistakable smell
I'd approach all the ugliest, seediest jerks
And ask them to keep a young model in work
Some men, thank Christ, don't discriminate at all

I was born with the charm of innocence
On my back like a cross
Thorns upon my forehead
Round my neck I wore it
Sometimes a rabbit's claw
Sometimes an albatross

I will pass my old age by a pale two-bar fire
Patiently waiting to die
Twitching the lace as the schoolgirls go past
Tracing a page of Bataille
And if you catch sight of my secondhand coat
Leaving behind it a faint whiff of goat
Remember both of us are naked underneath

I thought it would end with the first obscene phone call
The second professional kill
But somehow detached from my actual behaviour
This innocence burdens me still
Up in the attic I pick up the brush
Paint in the crow's feet, paint out the blush
The face this portrait is of is still capable of
The face this portrait is supposed to be of is still capable of . . .

Paint out the blush of shame




Index