Murder Me



You came
You punched a hole in me
Dialectically, as you correctly say
I took the blows
Square on the chin
Let murder now begin
No ambulance
No angry palanquin
Just a golden fist in a rubber glove
A laundry dye
Like Antonin Artaud, scandalo

But murder me
To the shriek of orchestras that saw the air
Make this glory disappear
Oh, oh

As loyal as Krambambuli
You are my star, my lovely bully beef
You left your seconds fighting with your coolies
You throw punches that punctuate the night
So pull back the curtain
So at last it's certain
The golden fist in the rubber glove
(Murder me to the shriek of orchestras that saw the air)
Take me, take me away
As gatherers, gatherers, gatherers can

Murder me
Murder me
Throw me into the night
Rock me up with delight, oh
Murder me
Squeeze me through the keyhole of eternity
To be or not to be, oh



Life After Sixty



Well I'll be damned
Damned if I do, damned if I don't
Dead as a doorknob

Well you fly in like a nightingale
And stagger out like a duck
Too sick to matter, too fat to fuck
And physical disintegration's just the icing on the cake
Someone's left this cake out in the rain

Why do people talk in sentences I cannot understand?
Even if I wanted to, you horrid little man
You're either discussing me or giving me a tiny push
I dress this way because I hate the swoosh

Life after sixty, it's a dismal cabaret
Your friends applaud politely taking backward steps away
The reviews are kind, you dream that night
You're back at school surrounded by pixies
"Go stand in the corner!" says Teacher
Recede into invisibility

Why did I come into this room?
I know there's a reason
Probably to make an exit

I had hot flushes once
But now I'm mostly cold
The kids in art school think I'm cool
But mostly they just think I'm old
The rats don't give a rat's arse
I attained invisibility
The day my hair quite suddenly turned grey

Now this is delicious, they ask me: "Didn't you once date Momus?"
And I say: "Date him? I was him for several years!"
Of course he was queer
They're all queer in the end
All would-be Peggy Lees, on their knees singing "I'm still here!"

Of course you are, darling
We all are!

I am sure there's a reason I came into this room
Was it for the scissors?
But I have the scissors in my hand!

If you ask why don't I end it all
Well nature's doing that particular job rather well
No need to prime the pump
Turn the handle on that crank

What is there to show for it all?
An old X-rated diary
Torn Monopoly money
In a piggy bank from Studio Ghibli

Life after sixty, it's a dismal cabaret
Your friends applaud politely
Taking backward steps away

You're here and then you're not
It's extremely banal
Dot dot dot



Theatre of the Self



I ask you who shall I play today?
(In the theatre of the self)
Cleopatra conversing with her asp
(In the theatre of the self)
Dressed in black with a diamond clasp
Or both ends of a pantomime horse
(In the theatre of the self)
Or model autumn-winter womenswear
For no-one but my pretty self
(In the theatre of the self)

Fragments of cerulean mosaic in a plaster sky
The snake and I entwined
The cobra of the ouroboros
Banqueting on tail
In the theatre of the self

I played this callow, shallow shadow play each day
(In the theatre of the self)
These self-confusions, delusions, illusions
(In the theatre of the self)
In a world of pain an amusing game
(In the theatre of the self)
But then the world began to change
(In the theatre of the self)
I crushed my little stage to dust
I can't compete now everybody does the same
(In the theatre of the self)
Fragments of cerulean mosaic in a plaster sky
The snake and I entwined
The cobra of the ouroboros
Banqueting on tail
In the theatre of the self



Captivate



Possessive
Some missive
You received from someone
Got me all
Repressive
I'm stressing
Instituting measures
Martial law

You're never gonna leave me, are you?
If I pushed things much too far you
Would forgive me, I hope you would
And you know you've always got your freedom
You can't lose it
Hope you never feel the need
To brush it down and use it

Well you can't crack down on a person like a state
And yet I feel the inner need to captivate
Put you in a prison made entirely from desire
Punish you with water
Punish you with fire

You're never gonna leave me, are you?
If I pushed things much too far you
Would forgive me, I hope you would
And you know you've always got your freedom
You can't lose it
Hope you never feel the need
To take it out and use it

If you've squandered
My faith in you
How can we continue?
I can't believe in anything
Can't crack down on a person like a state
And yet I feel the inner need to captivate
Put you in a prison made entirely from desire
Punish you with water
Punish you with fire

You're never gonna leave me, are you?
If I pushed things much too far you
Would forgive me, I hope you would
And you know you've always got your freedom
You can't lose it
Hope you never feel the need
To turn it on and use it

You're never gonna leave me, are you?
If I pushed things much too far you
Would forgive me, I hope you would
And you know you've always got your freedom
You can't lose it
Hope you never feel the need
To turn it on and use it

You're never gonna leave me, are you?
If I pushed things much too far you
Would forgive me, I think you would
And you know you've always got your freedom
You can't lose it
Hope you never feel the need
To turn it on and use it



Hotdesking





Nobody seems to think you might be happy
Everybody just assumes you must be sad
Nobody sings a song that might seem sappy
Quisling lingo coined by the misery bard

I've got an intern job that might become a situation
And one day I may even be getting paid
When they've disentangled lust from exploitation
Eventually I plan on getting laid

Nobody seems to think you might be happy
Everybody just assumes you must be sad
Nobody sings a song that might seem sappy
Quisling lingo coined by the misery bard

Sad to say our days may disappoint us
Good news travels slow, good guys run last
Bozos with no taste try to define us
Shrinking down a world that should be vast

Nobody seems to think you might be happy
Everybody just assumes you must be sad
Nobody sings a song that might seem sappy
We all want to blame the misery bard

Who makes solid plans? We're manifesting
Life goes on but got a little hard
We share what the mighty own, we're all hotdesking
Quisling lingo coined by the misery bard



Men Are The Problem



Big men and sad men
Sane men and madmen
Men are the problem, I know
Who would befriend them?
Much better end them
Give them the order to go

Who'd want to be men?
Pumping their semen
Building their buildings so tall
Brandishing power tools
Over the earth
Humping their tallow and coal

We were happy until men
Started to kill men
Since then it's been blood all the way
There's just something about men
They push us about when
They'd much better just go away

Strong men and weak men
Normals and freak men
Men are the problem, I know
How to escape them?
Who's there to make them
Adopt a more reasonable tone

I'd like to kill men
Just live without them
Typical man dream I know
Violence on violence
The conquest of silence
The first and the last things to go



Clearer



If you have a message boy speak after the tone
Leave a final raspberry on an answering machine
Staring into an abyss that's staring into you
Never chase a monster or you might become one too

And children now become the orphan fathers of their sons
Shouting out their counter-revolutionary songs
Stop the boats, they like to say, and let the winners drown
You're the wicked worst of the West, the whitest of the brown

Wegovy and Ozempic, OxyContin, Percocet
Violence foundational, brute aristocrat
When the going gets tough the tough get going
When the sea gets rough the slaves start rowing
Speak after the tone, it's getting clearer

Puncturing your body with those scary great tattoos
Scarification is a form of self-abuse
Kissproof little puff adder, a lunk in combat gear
And every woman is a taxi who already has a fare

Sad to say the murderer's the pop star of today
Staggering ever worstward ho singing "Let's accelerate!"
Roman or Christian, priest or wicked witch
From the lion's point of view it doesn't matter which is which

Wegovy and Ozempic, OxyContin, Percocet
Violence foundational, brute aristocrat
When the going gets tough the tough get going
When the sea gets rough the slaves start rowing
Speak after the tone, it's getting clearer and clearer

Attracted to the zone where the cracks start to appear
Yiddish and Arabic no longer spoken here
Arthur goes to Abyssinia, once a poet
Now an arms dealer

Wegovy and Ozempic, OxyContin, Percocet
Violence foundational, brute aristocrat
When the going gets tough the tough get going
When the sea gets rough the slaves start rowing
Speak after the tone, it's getting clearer



Fanfare



Fanfare from the Age of Bland
Where everything's determined by imperial command
Tiny algorithms forbidding all disturbance
In case the advertisers disapprove
And we're surprised that nothing seems to move
Persecuting everyone who fails
Unbeknownst we vandalise ourselves

Fanfare from the inscrutable ones
Who crawl through shabby undergrowth
To sleep in grubby rooms
Performative unkindness is the only fun we know
Persecuting everyone who fails
While unbeknownst we're speaking of ourselves
We're surprised that nothing seems to bleed
So surprised that nothing seems to bleed

And now we're tickled pink of course
And now we turn to war
Vandalising other places with our denim claw
Persecuting everyone who fails
Unbeknownst we vandalise ourselves

The Beast



I have three arms to hold you
Four hands to touch you there
A horse's phallus to console you
In the stench of country air
I am coarse and hairy
With a cast that hides a claw
And if the tail I wave while making love in the straw
Strikes you as bizarre
O how beautiful you are!

Cardinal Do Balo, brother of the crippled duke
Has arranged that we should marry
So that I can reproduce
But the legend of Romilda
And her struggles with a beast
Gives you pause and makes you question me
Telling me I'm only fit for the abbatoir
But o how beautiful you are!

Tell me that you love me
Though it cannot be true
I am a beast not a man
But at least I can fascinate you

In the danger of the forest
At the back of the estate
Feel my body coarse and horrid
As we begin to procreate
At the climax of the chase scene
A little lust mixed with your fear
In the legend of Romilda when
You meet the beast you meet my best avatar
But o how beautiful you are

Tell me that you long for me
Though it cannot be true
I am a beast, not a man
But at least I can penetrate you

The beast, the beast



Heliobore



Grippergrumps and fizzyrads
Dinky creepergruffs with metrograds
Whizzycrashing round the clive
Patterclash at mixy troglodrive

Brinky spearing on a collymaloose
Jimpo and his gilder all faloose
Pigasus sprink on a strippy flap pole
Pannyspinning through the caucusole

And now we grim the frump
Stink we all at the buckitypump
Tome to primp the pomp
Endlessly begroaming

Now it's ever up the twice
Haggling at gaberdine fliedermice
Three over nine will not frow
Despite nevernomalous pallatio

Clapped in icky old criminnycore
Clustered in pleats of heliobore

And now we grim the frump
Stink we all at the buckitypump
Tome to primp the pomp
Endlessly begroaming

Now it's ever up the twice
Haggling at gaberdine fliedermice
Three over nine will not frow
Despite nevernomalous pallatio

And now we grim the frump
Stink we all at the buckitypump
Tome to primp the pomp
Endlessly begroaming



Pelikan



The criminals filed in two by two
The murderer tooting on a grim kazoo
He was blind as we all could see
And therefore killed indiscriminately

Liege and lief, thieves and police
Bit players with wonky teeth
I scribble madly, getting it down
Court recorder in a wonky town

A pelican stabbing at an apricot
A polyglot jabbers at a monoglot
Nobody you know, everybody you forgot
In the graveyard they rot and rot
Out by the heliport
In the hinterland

And the ladies wilted in the heat
The judge concealed a social disease
The prosecution reeled in their cups
Too drunk to sum up

And the criminals run a poker game
The winner will shun the brunt of the blame
I scribble madly, getting it down
Court recorder in a wonky town

A pelican stabbing at an apricot
A polyglot jabbers at a monoglot
Nobody you know, everybody you forgot
In the graveyard they rot and rot
Out by the heliport
In the hinterland



Cosmos



Here he comes bearing bouquets
Of self-fertilising flowers to flatter ugly women with
To conquer them with the syphilis he calls civilisation
In a blur of open zippers and blatant contradiction
Self-destructively intense he brooks no opposition
The zenith of dissolution, the Satan of the botanical garden

And none of this should happen to a minimalist
Strutting on the catwalk of isolated days
So I give my foe the slip, from a cowslip's bell I sip
Slumming in my slutty little rockery all day
Trying to evade the great parade
And working on my play

But he's a human, he's a woman
In a sparkly push-me pullover
On a checked pyjama sleepover
He can pull you like a pushover
In a blur of open zippers
Like a sleazy, tawdry opera
Performed in bedroom slippers
My official opposition, self-destructively open
He brooks no contradiction
Strutting on the catwalk of his isolated days
Here he comes again
The Satan of the botanical garden

A hidden basement poltergeist
Drinking gin and peppermint
Scuffling, mincing, bent
Quite magnificent

Life is green, I am puce
Life is mauve, I am orange
Straw in the wind, straw in the wind
Straw in the wind
Fly, fly, fly
Hic, haec, hoc
Straw in the wind
Life is mauve on purple grass
Shafts of light
But we are merely insects
Existing on the tail of a turtle
That grows upwards, downwards, sideways
Into the concrete cosmos

Dunderheads



What if we were intelligent
Not the bungling dunderheads we are
Thunder on a mountainside
But you sit locked inside your car

Munching on your sandwiches
On Day 600 of the war
Maybe we can start again
On another world, another star

If not duffers won't drown
If duffers won't matter at all
If all bungling dunderheads
Then just let Humpty Dumpty fall

What if we were beautiful
Not the bungling dunderheads we are
Thunder on a mountainside
On another world, another star

Index