Madmen

You have to be a madman to get through life,
It’s a madhouse after all,
An asylum with stuffy wardens,
Straitjackets to keep us grey and legion,
They try at least,
In turn the world needs mad people,
Rebellious little freaks,
Can’t have a nuthouse without nutters,
We bring art and insane cackles,
The mad are the only ones to escape,
The only ones to be free,

So my friends,
Continue to dream in technicolour,
Dance your clumsy dance,
And greet each day with an unhinged grin,
Be mad.

Cut-outs

I swear the world is a factory floor,
Churning out cardboard cut-outs,
Wasted potential on the pulp room floor,
Facsimiles of human beings,
Cardboard carbon copies,
Varied yet still invariably similar,
Behaving and hating the same ways,
Killing and thieving the same ways,
And flimsy in the same manner,

As for me,
Though I share that same flimsiness,
I try to glue adornments to my cardboard,
Glitter and sequins and crescents,
Anything to break the monotony,
The tedium,
I’d rather go in the furnace or trash,
Than be exactly the same,
Part of that same conveyer.

Logica Absentia

I was spawned without logic,
Without reason,
A vacuum behind the eyes,
Only a glitzy nebula in the gap,
My mind must be locked up elsewhere,
Incarcerated in absentia,

Reason has formed a bogeyman,
Trying to drag me away,
To mundanity,
But I won’t go,
I’m fleeing sanity,
Cloaked in oddity,

I live as a madman,
Bereft of marbles,
Skipping gleefully along the path,
Sidestepping what you call common sense,
Seeing carousels and masquerades everywhere,
Persisting on this demented track.

Stifling Box

You detracting tyrants,
Don’t try to railroad me,
I’m not factory issue,
I’m not a homing pigeon,
Not an outlaw,
Not bound for your stifling captivity,

I’m an artist,
Your box doesn’t contain me,
I am mutable,
I am liquid,
I am herculean,
I shall slip from your cubic cell,

This killing jar,
I’ll turn it into particles,
Erupt into the world,
A fountain of prismatic ink,
Every feeling under the rainbow,
Newly at liberty to compose and create.

DNA

There is indeed magic in this world,
Not of mana and incantations,
But the realm of nature,
Not of glyphs and sorcery,
But of our verdant mother,

The spells she wields,
Those helixes of code,
They are in perpetual flux,
Building blocks on an atomic scale,
Altered slightly in every iteration,

The marvels she summons are indeed magical,
Species and races and every tint of the rainbow,
Our mutations are the gifts she enchants us with,
Our differences are the witchcraft in our human coven,
In the magic of our DNA.

Black Sheep

Is there herd immunity to loneliness?
I find myself something of a black sheep,
Not in familial terms,
But societal ones,
I find myself overmuch grazing alone,

These ebony rags of wool grow tiresome,
I hate how they suit me,
Like this I despise my form,
The mealy stench of my visage and attitude,
The feeble and disgusting sound of my bleat,

I have played the misanthropic loner for long enough,
I’d much rather be part of that herd,
Their grass looks far greener,
I don’t want to be me,
Can I instead be one of them?

Runaway Dogs

Some of us escape society,
Canines of every shade and shape,
Runaway hounds and beasts,
Shredding our way out of vanilla cages,
Longing to run with more wild packs,
Individuals with no collars,

We’re bad dogs,
Authority wants us on a leash,
Normality reaches out with nets,
But we tore off those fingers,
And ran free,
Slavering and howling,

Daily life becoming wildlife,
Dodging slings and dog whistles,
Animal control in public form,
We follow sweet scents of unrestraint,
Tonight we are not docile pets,
But wolves on the run.

Headcase

Those asylum gates couldn’t keep me in,
Iron can’t contain madness,
And so I skip gayly down that cobbled road,
With no destination in my cracked minds eye,
Eccentricity taken to the wilderness,

I’m a headcase,
A lunatic,

My companions are this top hat and disembodied voices,
Singing like glamour in my ears,
Poppies and amber and brimstone in tongues,
I giggle lavishly at the sound,
Counting the stars orbiting my skull,

I’m a headcase,
A maniac,

I keep jaunting,
Crooked foot after crooked foot,
Being entirely my mad self,
A one man travelling circus,
Until those white-coats catch me.

The Baptism

They expected worship,
Praying by the riverside was never enough,
Your exaltations not exuberant enough,
You had not bled enough,
Your knees not nearly scalded enough,
You are too free,
How dare you practice prayer unbridled?

They demand more,
Always more,
Those people from the spires,
Those who talk to clear skies,
They need you,
So an aquatic conversion must be performed,
Directed by a man in white,

The preacher forces your head down,
The river takes you,
A loving embrace,
Currents trying to warn you,
Drowning you before their holy water does,
But they take you from the river,
Into a set of invisible manacles,

This is an incarceration of a new kind,
The binding not of the wrists,
But of the soul,
How dare you practice prayer unbridled?
How dare you practice liberal heresy?
Freedom of spirit is a sin,
That man-made book says so,

The river could not save you,
Its waters muffled by echoing sermons,
Liberty drifts away.

Toxic Normality

To be normal is such a sad affair,
To attire oneself in grey boilers,
To toe the social line,
To be a drone,
Humdrum,

Uniqueness is a defect they claim,
We are expected to be numbers,
Cogs in a cold machine,
You must be this way,
Or else you are a mistake,

Normality is a guillotine,
A sharpened edge galvanised by off glances,
To live and die amongst a critical crowd,
Without your soul unleashing its colour and zeal,
Without your personal art being displayed to the world,

So I say dance without music,
Paint with your hands,
Think how you want to think,
Don’t lose that element of individuality,
Your mad grin.