PAIN
LETTER TO JOHN
Dear John
Thank you
For being born
I’m just sorry the world
Cannot offer you more
More peace, more love
More happiness
Just sorry it can’t
Promise power
Or hand out
Gifts of glory
Just sorry it won’t
Let you be yourself
You will have to hide
Behind a mask to survive
Have to strive hard
To earn money or fame
So that you may keep
Your health and sanity
Sorry this world won’t
Bless you without pain
You will have to suffer
Like all the rest
Because this world belongs
To a God who keeps it
Just the way it is
So that all his people
May one day be forced
To turn to Him
Usually on bended knees
And furthermore
You’re not really my son
You belong to this God
Who does not make life easy
Especially for his sons
Audio Version
Ode to a Masochist
In bed she said, - I know it sounds unkind
You’re a slave to your body, not to your mind
A mind so fine, it feeds like fire
Twisting, turning, all desire
With features fair, that blazing pain
Betray you like a blind mans cane
Those eyes like rain, their heady dance
A-prance upon my window-pane
Yet still you will your body strong
To screaming silent, screaming long
And so I lost the power of love
As her pregnant silence hung above
The bed wherein my head was laid
All promise now of the dream gone dead
As we listened long to my oozing breath
Gather in strength for my coming death
Audio Version
Depression
Silence sparkles open my eyes
From the stable of the night
From its cradle come the cries
Breeding rhapsodies of fright
Now this nakedness I loathe
As the memories of the night
Make her progenies explode
As the light of dawn takes flight
Into vessels of my guilt
That drown my deep resolve
As the reapers of the night
Scythe my reason to dissolve
My senses like the hammer
Of a wild thing in the room
That seeks a craven peace
But must wallow in its doom
Audio Version
Failure
Failure feeds like condensation
With the clinging damp of hesitation
When life itself seeks out revenge
Like loss of trust in faithful friends
And the bravest of men must fade in its gaze
Where wisdom alone can kindle the blaze
Of a God on high who makes men think
As failures, we all in His image shrink
Then faith and hope must surely shake
The thought that God might make mistake
We should then, with despair driven
Fall to our knees, to be forgiven
Audio Version
LONELINESS
Loneliness struck me last night in my sleep
I awoke as it struck like a shark from the deep
To sever and seize and slice in surprise
Like a low bridge will catch a bus on the rise
It then filled the void with memories and places
Now those that I loved were simply blank faces
And I was able no longer to look at the sky
So I stared at the floor and just wondered why
I felt guilt in the tick and the tock of a clock
As it swallowed my mind causing a headache
That grew like the wail of a late Paramedic
But watching this world drink long and deep
Made me thirst even more for some sense of sleep
For I just couldn’t see, taste, touch or smell
Now I was alone in my own private Hell
Watching waters lie dormant
Deep down in the well
Audio Version
Dark For Me
It was dark when I awoke
To the smell of Ether – and
When I opened my eyes
It was still dark – and
When the dawn filtered
Through the curtains
Of my mind
It was still dark – and
When at noon, the sun
Lit my life with fear
It was still dark –and
When it slowly faded
Like my hopes – and
All that I could see
Were dark explosions
Of mystery
It was still dark – and
Now reflecting back
I think somehow
It had always been
In some way,
Dark for me
ST. GEORGES EYE HOSPITAL. TOOTING BEC. LONDON
Audio Version
In the Silence of the Sleeping Screws
Right, Rooney, you’re next- pickup at the Prison
For the hospital wing, at Wormwood Scrubs
So as the sun comes up, I watch like a vision
As wooden gates hanging, on giant metal lugs
Open and close in this concrete canal
Sifting debris, not ships, just lives cut in bits
And our day-release lag, cuffed and banal
And suited and fed, is tethered and led
To sit in the back, next to Bill, while Fat Phil
Sits up front and free, riding shotgun with me
As he loosens his tie, to relax, I can see
‘Double-Three-One-Two’ is a really nice guy
Simply strangled his wife, and got life, so I sigh
And sit back and think, will he ever be free
And ‘But for the Grace of God’ go we three
So we head up the by-pass, an unrelenting view
From the hospital wing, for ‘double-three-one-two’
But cruising at the ‘Ton’ does his heart no good
So I slow right down, but we can’t stop for food
But there is some cheese, so we all have a slice
And at the Scrubs buy their pie, at a prison price
Then slowly drive on, through more metal gates
To the Cardiac clinic, where we all look like mates
When Phil and Bill shed their coats, to show off tattoos
And chat up the nurses, while the doctors share views
But cruising home in the dark, on a black shiny road
I seize on the chance to lighten my load
Phil and Bill were asleep, as only we knew
And so we shared some secret views
In the silence of the sleeping screws
COURTESY. BECKS TRANSPORT. LEWES
Audio Version
The Saga of Serita
We need to tell when you get well
So take these pills and stay in bed
But I don’t believe in pills, I said
What will I gain if I kill all this pain
For pain is an old acquaintance of mine
Who frequently visits to just pass the time
With no announcement, he’ll just flounce in
But now I am used to his evil old ways
And simply ignore him, except on damp days
For I knew a few whose friendship he grew
But friendship with him leads only to fear
And when he gets near, you cannot think clear
But I once knew a girl, and her life was a whirl
For she gave him gifts, like needles and knives
Which he often would use to take peoples lives
But left on her own she was never alone
For he gave her badges of loss and despair
That she stuck in her arms until they lay bare
With a clench of her fist, they’d appear on her wrist
Then spread up her arms ‘til they both looked the same
But her friend pain was loyal, more than me, to my shame
When she wasn’t well, I would have to break down
With panic and yell, the old bathroom door
To find her poor shell, stuck flat on the floor
I’d slide and I’d slip, where her blood would drip
Just wrapping loo-rolls all round her gashes
As her life-blood pumped out, through scarlet slashes
As I would stumble the roll would fumble
Onto the floor where it’s virginal white
Soaked up her life ‘neath the bright naked light
She’d wake up next day, feeling ever so gay
But never sought help with a suicide bid
For fear she’d be wired to the National Grid
They took her kids in the end, for she just couldn’t fend
But they never got her, for her friend Mister Pain
Paid a visit one night, in the dark and the rain
She felt so alone that she followed him home.
She now slips my mind, ‘til I see poppies wilt
Then my vision blurs up, with shame and with guilt
TO SERITA, WHEREVER SHE RESTS
Audio Version
Animal Slights
We are special, we are free
We are blest, but you can see
How we treat the beasts that be
We feed cows meat, not only grass
We keep pet fish ‘tween sheets of glass
We gas badgers, we eat frogs
We experiment and torture dogs
We feed our chickens mum and dad
They eat themselves, which can’t be bad
We pour acid into rabbits’ eyes
But if you ask, we’ll tell you lies
We shoot rhinos for horn and bears just for skin
And take elephant tusks that even look thin
We eat monkey’s brains while they’re still alive
Its no miracle none of them ever survive
But when our lengthy race is run
God will remember what we’ve done
So do not worry, do not fuss
He’ll have some special plans for us
Audio Version
Courtroom Number Three
In Courtroom Number Three I wondered why I sensed
The echoed shout of a lonely seagull scream
As the wind hurled it about, to become part of my dream
In the corridors outside, where hidden in my hand
Lay the bail-form, as the band, of freedom fighters fought
An exit from this court, where I had faced a fine
And aluminium doors, polished with their shine
In Courtroom Number Three I wondered why I sensed
The image and the glitter of the living world outside
So free of debts and litter, where health and wealth decide
As reflections of our pride, from a dim and distant past
So silently were cast, to shimmer ‘neath the scene
Of leaden skies above, a long lost meadow green
Like a womans love, within a virgins scream
In Courtroom Number Three I wondered why I sensed
This place where justice flourished and poverty was nourished
Where I saw myself in others, stalking corridors in stealth
My future brothers and their wealth, all locked in some fools hand
With the laws of this fair land, back in Courtroom Number Three
Where we lusted to be free, like that seagull in the sky
And I wondered, and I wondered why
HOVE MAGISTRATES COURT