My Other
Between two worlds I’m cast adrift
In poetry and prose
Belong to none accept the rift
Farewell the English rose
I am alone in limbo torn
With nowt to quench my woes
These stones I walk are dark and worn
And guarded by the crows
Until we met I had my own
Arabic jazz guitar
A loyal troop of ethnic kids
Would chase me to my car
“The snoring underground
The whistling in the head
Those gypsy jazz-bass sounds
The corpse beneath the bed.”
Now I have her for my Other
Knowing who we are
But maybe though I lack a brother:
Some sense of male-sized war.
To struggle though in three directions
‘d earn me honour more
Against those infantile erections:
Virgin, Mother, Whore.
I miss my Arab jazz guitar
Barefooted Indian kids;
The way it was before it was
Yet it did not exist
An Other childhood memory
Planted always missed
By long-haired Congo Cannibals
With tattoos on their wrist
“The snoring underground
The thumping underbed
Those deathlike jungle sounds
Always already dead.
L. P. Mackenzie
Moriarty
these Tales of Lives are all the same
Lets forgo the usual shit
I don’t care to know your name
Nor where you’ve been or where you’re from
Or even why you came.
Your story lingers like gunsmoke
Or mist at dewey dawn
It fills my thoughts and
My blood flecked pores,
My moist brow scrunched in scorn.
My dried out coffee-heart
Precedes me in this dream
The sweat and beat like baby’s feet
Slides along my vains
And so I chug a worn refrain:
These tales of lives are all the same.
Like tabloids in the rain
The pages suck and choke
My inky hands will scratch no more
The corner of my brain.
Don’t tell me I’m not born:
These tales of lives are just the same.
Written on a train
Your blurry outstretched arm
Withheld within your palm
That stolen silver coin
You kneeling for more change
Me paying for your time:
These thoughts and lies make nothing plain
I tunnel beneath poetic frames.
Inventions somehow came:
These tales of lives are all the same.
Their endless queue of faces,
Stories in a line
They deserve a non-response
A nod from time to time, a wink
That files along the line
This city is a shrine
A denkmal to a scattered time
A concrete fascination
For flags and neon signs
And still I utter this refrain:
These tales of lives are just the same.
And morning brings the rain
Me kneeling for your change
You empty out your freedom
Until nothing left remains.
The showers sooth my scalp
But still the wretched Filth
Ankle deep in chains, clogging up the drains
And on the window sills
Caked with soil and silt
How I wish it was unbuilt
And once to see it clean
The solid land, of my back minded dream.
L. P. Mackenzie
Moriarty
see also Moriarty/Sonnets