- The Thin White Joke -

A martyr to love you can hear his cries

killing the joke he's always despised

bruised, battered, bloodied, broken

dwelling in the void where hope is woven

here are we; oblivious, transparently caring

blind to the torture at which we're staring

fooling him again, injecting pleasure into his silly brain

you do nothing but smile as he grows insane

what is it I should feel now

loss, anger, sorrow?

Is it normal to feel this uncaring

fixated on starting again tomorrow?

Here am I

eyes flashing in fury but without thunder

hot bathwater rising up my face

ears blind to the world I slip under

nothing but the muffled beats of my heart,

at first she was interested

but in bitterness now we part -

the 12am chimes call shrill and loud

in the pale lover's abyss he can be found

a figment of my ego, he's cold, pallid in state

stealing innocence he twists and pulls and manipulates

dressing in suits and designer attire

luring any woman that takes the time to admire

ignorant to society, forging his own fashion

dangerously devoid of any emotion or passion

sick from the sleep deprivation

sick of waking up with eyes bloodshot red

he collects the souls of his many lovers

sipping at their lives as their bodies lie frozen dead.

- The Pallid Badrock Lover -

It's cold and dark but he no longer cares

probably safe to say he no longer feels

the lights are turned down dim

no sound 'xcept the wheeze of the wind outside

the walls are bare, at emptiness he stares

you only realise what you've lost when it's gone

nothing but half drunk cocktails and cocaine

within his callous pale facade he hides

what's done is done, but never forgiven

he gave it all, all of what could be given

they spat it back, threw it all in his face

now here he rots in isolation suspended in disgrace

conniving vultures they tore him apart

ridicule upon ridicule lashed upon his heart

bought them diamonds, gold, anything a woman could ever need

rather than love they acted out of jealousy and greed

---

once there were birds that sang at the start of every morn

right outside his bedroom window

oh how he regrets their sudden passing

their joyful tweets made this world seem so kind

now he wakes with a head crippled, a face tightly drawn

hunger being that of gnawing addiction

caring for nothing but the *Caviar* and it's forbidden magic

helping him leave all the pain behind

guided like a train to its next station

total self-destruction his only destination

languishing in drugs, screwed-out sex

that it was all his fault I guess

the Pallid Badrock Lover will never accept.

- The Final Station -

There he sat at the Grand Piano smoking a joint

eyes eclectic blue, narrowed to a point

a lover in season, expressing attraction in rays

woman after woman falling under his gaze

[Oh here are we, transparently caring]

shirt casually unbuttoned, chest bare, white

radiating beneath his own spotlight,

thinking he's adorable, pledging their hearts to him

with the grace of an Angel he takes them in

[ignorant to the torture at which we're staring]

a masochistic shark of society devoid of a fin

addled with cocaine and getting under everyone's skin -

cutting with words sharp as razors

thanking the Lord and his many fucking saviours

hammering away at the keys he sings a song of pure devotion

whilst sorely lacking in any physiological emotion

failing to see beyond this act, succumbing to all he may ask

it's only when the drugs ran out did he accidentally drop his mask

only a quick slip but a slip was enough

the smooth facade suddenly becoming corrosive and rough

backing up from the devilish contempt that had flickered through his eyes

the crowd around him exploded in startled cries

a thin white joke he cares for nobody but himself

forever dwindling into the abyss of eternal ill-health

with a crashing bang he threw his glass to the floor

erupting with anger in a blistering roar

reaching

chasing

hands clenched into fists

laughing in the face of death he blows it a kiss

["ARGH!"]

falling to the floor

clutching his chest -

heart suddenly stopping dead and, well,

I suppose you can guess the rest.

RIP

In an inter-galactic ice cream van he arrived

and whizzed me away to countless nether-space lands -

through a universe of broken jigsaw pieces,

where rich diamanté flowers grew in shape-shifting sands.

He took me up the scarlet mountains

of the cotton candy clouds -

we both stood upon the smouldering brink of Hell

and gazed upon the damned souls and tortuous shrouds.

He shown me light

wherein it seemed only eternal darkness prevailed,

he cracked the Astro-Riddler's code, and what

the aliens contempt language entailed,

with blistering fury

he spat in the pitiless face of greed -

with an almighty FLASH! And a rip-roaring DASH!

He travelled back to when God first planted mankind's seed.

He witnessed the future of the human race

fall horrifically out of place as the cunning serpent tempted Eve;

once he even stood before his coming demise

just to witness what the dead perceive.

O' those star-studded journeys were amazing

infinite wonders and simple love he exhaled,

but the most important thing he ever shown me,

was to never give up no matter how often I failed.

A dying sun descends upon the horizon

and a faint northern breeze prowls,

fields of ever-greens and poppies whisper

as in the distance a rogue wolf howls

a lone ray of golden light fades and rises

as the setting sun gradually goes down

and from within the caverns underneath

a shadowy creature ascends without a sound

humanoid in stature, coal dust and sweat

stained upon its soft grimy skin,

it's heart thumps and shudders erratically

from inside a chest concave and bone-thin

it feasts upon the crying eyes of children

and the breasts of pregnant mothers -

such does it become a mother itself

drawing upon the blood of its many unfortunate lovers

oh but she must find a surrogate

she must find a healthy womb

for the climate is harsh, her body hath perished

waters due to break, the contractions to start soon -

alas all the people flee her horrific presence

too weak to chase in her sorry state;

and as the pain rips open her putrid flesh

the trail of blood down her leg tells her it's too late

so she squats and pushes, pushes, pushes -

intense white lights blinding her eyes

she births her offspring dead

and collapses to her knees in a fit of anguished cries

caught unawares by the first ray of dawn

surrounded by her babies, the end hath finally come -

an earth-shattering scream piercing the diminishing night

as mother and children burn beneath the rising sun.

She hides from her mother

ignores her dad,

she dwells within loss

and all things sad

her stomach's sick in the morning

she doesn't know why,

oh, she locks herself away

to break down and cry

heart jitters -

throat chokes in a lump -

every time her mind strays

to thoughts of her body's little flat bump

knowing what it might be

paranoid about how much it shows,

fooling herself no one will notice

even if it grows -

alas her head swells

sick with clotted disdain

no she can't carry on -

can't carry on with the pain

so up she opens to her parents

tears flowing from both eyes

unmasking the secret

that for months she's disguised

distraught, weeping,

the sordid act now told,

her mother heartbroken

her father disgusted but bold

"There's only one thing to do,"

he muttered with a voice that was hoarse

and down the bloody route of abortion

did they both start to course

her mother weak, pleading,

begging her daughter to think again -

her father furious, saying don't be so stupid

she's only the age of ten

and so Alice had enough

buckled and snapped,

her lust for life

sorrows parasite finally sapped

off the city bridge, into the icy water

did she jump and dive -

now encapsulated within the womb of death,

that keeps both mother and child alive.

I was born with the sun shining upon my skin

I was born into a world saturated with sin

pestilence shone, through his void grinned

for the second I broke from the womb the sky above dimmed

birthed not from a mother but a sick man

my coming heralded an end, the age of apostasy began -

those I loved killed by the evil inside

cursed by a Devils backbone, there was no where to hide

[but inside their minds]

now I live with the beautiful people and their screeching cries

I avoid their clumpy fingers, their black empty eyes,

vying for flesh and choking upon lungs of rubber

floating with a ghastly gracefulness that makes the north wind shudder

[bullet wounds

gunshot holes -]

with the devil inside I know only fear

knowing nothing of love, my soul bedridden and queer -

[maggots and live thriving

between fleshy folds]

in the distance a woman cries, piercing the silence like a bell

surely that can't be -

surely that can't be the scent of sex I smell?

Alas 'twas only wishful thinking, my pretence playing unfair,

the beautiful people finally had prey and were stripping her bones bare -

ruthless, ecstatic, bodies twisted and vile

clutching strips of flesh only then did they laugh and smile.

You're pretty and you know it

using those glassy eyes to tame -

my heart's suckered 'n you know it,

post-sex love purely (surely?) to blame

my mind melts as I grow weak at the knees

your gaze flitting from sultry to predatory -

blood gushes, adrenalin flushes

sweat dripping upon my skin lust-crazy, expectedly

oh I'll burn these nervy butterflies

with this blistering searing fury,

argh, stop this Pretence girl

'cause it's just starting to bore me -

[Mind Control to Inner Soul;

"what's your status?"

Inner Soul to Mind Control;

"help! The guts are dead and the heart is fractured!!!"]

my body slowly dying, polluted sick

with the caustic affection you instil

"WARNING; cytoplasmic deterioration imminent -

extreme psycho-bitch overkill!"

for now I know I must give up the chase

the Neurones have received a final transmission (oh please no, it can't be);

"This is .. Inner Soul to Mind Control..

we're all so tired.. so tired .. so .. sleepy - - -"

CHAPTER 2; TURN THAT FROWN UPSIDE DOWN

He stopped, the knife still in his hand, but now pointing to the floor. He panted, his breath now dry and stale again; the wound in his thigh now severely bleeding.

[I'm sorry]

The air was still around him, all sound ceased to exist - no wind, no shimmer of any trees, no birds singing. Only his dragging breath and beating heart.

[I'm so sorry]

"Aaaaaaaagh... aaaaaaaaghhh."

His head snapped up, jaw squared, his whole body locking down and freezing.

A few yards ahead of him, shambling along in the diminishing sunlight, was a living corpse. Its breath was also wheezy, but rattled too as the loose fluids inside its rotting body sloshed around. It glared at him with one rheumy eye, the other just a black socket - the skin torn right down to its chin. It wore absolutely no clothes whatsoever - its reproductive organs now gnarled and black. One yellowing femur bone protruded from its right leg, sticking out and bending queerly with every slow step.

"Aaaaaaaagh... aaaaaaaaaghhh."

Jay stood up, and made his way slowly towards it, yet again flicking the carving knife up and down. Blood poured down his leg; the corpse smelt it and starting to lollop towards him, attracted to his bleeding flesh like a ravenous dog.

"Like the smell, eh?" Jay roared, his voice rusty and hoarse. He started to run to it, his steel tipped boots clicking on the tarmac road as he went, the metallic sound reverberating in his ears and echoing around -

-and around-

- in his head, high-pitched and tinny, drilling into his mind in excruciating and relentless pain.

"I said - DO YOU LIKE THE SMELL, YOU SACK OF SHIT?!" He screamed at it, his head pounding, his own voice repeating over and over to itself. Dribble ran down his mouth - which was now pulled into a rictus-like grin, showing his teeth and bleeding gums. "Come here - have a piece of me!"

"Aaaaaaaaagh!" The corpse gnashed its mawed jaws together, the single eye wide in greedy excitement. It stumbled ever-closer to him, its calloused fingers reaching out to grasp his white shirt - to pull him closer.

And that's when he struck, bringing down the blade onto both its wrists; cutting them clean in two with a crunch. Blood sprayed everywhere; over his chest, his shoes, in his grinning face. He swept back his hair, revealing one lucid green eye - dancing with eclectic hysteria, the other eye circled by a scar, its pupil wide and pooled in blood.

Using his whole body weight, he shoved it, where it fell over backwards like a sack of stones, never putting out its hands to break the fall, merely just letting its skull smash right onto the road. It didn't stop though, carried on wriggling, holding up its severed stumps at him. He kicked them away, and dug the heel of his boots into its empty eye socket, pinning its head to the ground.

"There we are, just stay there -" He leant over, whispered right into its gnashing face, holding his knife outstretched behind him. His other free hand twitched.

"I must admit, you done me a favour coming here today." He spoke into its glazed eye, the browning eyeball swivelling round madly in its socket, as if the close proximity of Jay was giving it some sort of sick orgasm.

This didn't phase him, only made him chuckle darkly.

"Sometimes my mind... wanders... just like you do, come to think of it." He flicked the knife , shoving his boot harder into the corpse's socket as it tried to lunge up at his face. "I had a wife once, she didn't like it when I wandered... she didn't really like me... just my money."

A large gob of snot exploded from the zombie's nose, dribbling into its snarling mouth.

He looked at it and smiled, bringing his knife to its face and tracing a long invisible line down its forehead.

"I don't think she'd like you either... can't see why." He continued with his knife, now tracing up from the corners of the zombies mouth to the undersides of its ears. "She would always look at me when I'd returned wandering, looking at my face and frowning - that's the whole reason I would go off for night-time walks, to get away from her; to get away from the smothering bitch with all her pregnancy problems and financial qualms."

He traced a line up from the opposite corner, now completely enthralled in what he was doing, his face creeping closer and closer to the zombie's.

"She would look at my face, and then laugh, with her prissy hands on her hips and her slutty lips pursed, and she would say 'Why Jay, are you carrying the world again?' and I would frown and say 'No' and then she'd laugh and tell me to turn my frown upside down." He cracked his head back, roaring with sudden and hysterical laughter that brought a slaver of bile running out of his mouth.

He laughed and laughed, cackling hysterically, his bloodshot eyes weeping, his mouth pulled right back into a full blown rictus - the trapped zombie beneath him still smacking its jaws together, trying to bite.

He whipped right back again, staring straight into its face - his green eye now cold and calculating. The knife once again traced the corners of the zombies mouth.

"Why," he grinned, "lets turn your frown upside down!"

AJ

CHAPTER 1

The lone figure hobbled painfully down the road, one hand clasped to his bleeding thigh, the other just hanging aimlessly by his side.

He wore a filthy white shirt, the collar now dog eared and embedded with stale sweat. The baking sun bore down on his navy, army-style, jacket - burning its fabric so intensely that the colour pigments had actually started to fade, giving the whole coat a washed out purplish tinge at its fraying edges. Upon the jacket's left arm was a peeling smiley sticker, the actual curl of the paper contorting the smiley's face into a strained grimace.

The other arm was stained with blood.

"Go... go... with the flow -" He whispered quietly to himself, head hung over, cast in thick shadow by his greasy hair. With every jaunty step he took, a spurt of blood escaped from his clutching hand and dripped onto the tarmac road - where it sizzled in the sun.

He wheezed and gasped, as if his throat was lined with dry sandpaper - and yet he still whispered quietly to himself, those same words over and over again.

"Go... go... with the flow."

Fields of daisies surrounded him - their once canary yellow petals, now scorched brown; dead and lifeless. Everything dead in this world, apart from him, the punishing sun in the sky, and Death itself.

He shook his head swiftly once - for no apparent reason.

["You don't have to, babe - we can work it out!"]

"No... we... ca-n't..." He groaned to himself, shaking his head side to side, his free hand starting to twitch.

"Can't... just can't -"

A slight wind suddenly blew from the north, lifting up his mopped fringe, scantly revealing his face. His skin was sickly white, the hair only moving enough to reveal a circular scar gouged all the way around his right eye - the pupil of which, was pooled with blood.

He smiled, a lopsided grin that revealed pristine white teeth.

["No, no please - just put it down, we can sort it all out!"]

"Baby, baby, babyyy..." He spoke clearly, his tone now remarkably smoother and refined. In some eerie way it was as if he was trying not to laugh at something, the same sort of tone a school kid would use when trying not to laugh at a joke as they're getting told off by a teacher.

It was as if... well it was as if he was in his own little world, talking to a person that was only existent in his head.

["I don't care what you've done... I still love you!"]

"No you don't."

His leg continued to bleed, and the sun burned even brighter, but he stood up straight - well almost, one shoulder sloped slightly to the left side. His leg was bent at heavily at the knee, blood running in rivets down his pants.

["Jay... l-listen, j-just put it down - there's no reason for this!"]

With a flick, he shook out a seven inch carving knife straight out of his sleeve - the hand holding deadly still.

The blade glittered in the sun.

["Jay - no!"]

He lurched forwards, holding out the knife to his side and flicking with a menacing flair.

"Baby be still... just go with the flow..."

AJ

I pass bins bloated and stinking

dead pigeons squashed 'n rotting on the floor,

I pass the rich, the greed-infested

sniggering entities dancing on the backs of the poor

I pass dogs nailed high upon billboards

apartments riddled with flies,

out in the distance a stray cat whines

curdled with the sound of a child's cries

I pass drug addicts sneering and leering

arms pock-marked and bruised -

through sex, drugs and addiction

obsessive compulsive dispositions are infused

ecstasy the fuel to the stars beyond

to a world way better than our own;

through poisoned hope and substance abuse, upon our brains

the stye of sickness has grown

[music blaring formulated and fascist

Oh save me ground control! Ashes to ashes]

for is it any wonder I rot from inside

doomed to death by a heart blackened and sore?

Crawling along, the carrions line up on the horizon -

my cuts bleed, my bones ache, pain this body can't take anymore

nineteen years I've waited to be loved

alas nothing but a crass compassion that neglects

oh please -

please tell me

I'm not destined to live like these rejects?

["I'm happy... hope you're happy too"]*

AJ

*this last line is a lyric from David Bowie's Ashes To Ashes, NOT my own.

This world's black, bloated and cold

it seems our God is now cracked

worthless and old

nothing cares, love ceases to exist

yet, within this cess-pit

we continue to persist

for the human race is stubborn

never one to give up -

surviving within the harshest of places

'til death forces our eyes shut

we live on massacre, feast upon woe

at one point we found happiness

but refused to let it grow

we kill our enemies, and ourselves

stock the deadliest weapons

upon supermarket and high-street shelves

we punish the innocent, worship the liars

pretty killers and fascists -

we lend a hand to simultaneously

reduce this civilisation to smouldering ashes

freedom fighters, whores, drugs

this sick infatuation with sex -

thanks, but no thanks

I don't wanna live 'cause no doubt I'll be next.