Oh My Tears of Sorrow, How Soon They Turned to Tears of Rage By John Doyle

I stand on a razor blade that slits the throat of modern time,

The New York Dolls mean little to a Nihilist and the Holy Ghost on days like these;

Johnny Thunders -  who mentioned some good times he had -

was somewhere east a thousand hours before he died. I neglected his soul

in those most sober 

of its hours.

An acid test with bar staff is simple. 

Do they acknowledge you outside of working hours? 

in the street, 

in church, in the local gamblers’ anonymous? 

Lou was a hospital porter, then tried black magick in sales, 

then something he never quite disclosed, 

this was his dislocation from reality. 

He called it his missing years - to be fair

I don't think he'd ever heard of John Prine,

though vis-a-vis, not hearing of John Prine 

is not something you'd put on your CV 

if the urge 

for something more exotic 

came hunting for your talents,

or what was left of your Old Testament killer instinct 

after a breakdown such as his.

Lou fills up my glass, hums something about Jesus

becoming disillusioned - something about missing years.

So who you been talking to then, 

Lou?

Years are things that sit on treetops, years are soap operas sprinkled down glass panes 

with thumb-smudge sounds, 

then - concrete death several stories below.

They slide under doors in the condos and whorehouses - the black mass priests;

they crawl into your brain 

through the electric neon Ouija Boards - Mick and Keith;

They squirm beneath your covers at night

no matter how tight Mrs. Jones tucks her boy in - 

those mannequins 

falling from blacked-out windows.

When I first heard Station to Station

I felt it was Bowie's true masterpiece -

nothing changes 

in the illustrations of black smoke

from voodoo candles, 

except now the mannequins have melted,

the smoke a series of clouds that your death mask

seeks down-payments from; 

Los Angeles - 

lost angels, coming home,

families blinded by their cocaine-white

milk-bottles,

the brigadier-general who seeks a civil war. His shares are climbing higher than the F.T.S.E index,

as is the Whore of Babylon's black-hearted brother today,

love/hate knuckle tattoos 

on supermarket receipts instead of his mountain-top knuckles.

Everything here makes up particles

in petri-dishes syllables made from components

deep within mother earth's chasms

wearing corduroy pants, two holsters, and a belt no-one knew why he wore.

I knew -

that’s why I receive Holy Communion every day,

that wagon from Wyoming’s got blood dripping down its sides

telling me there’s rust flaking on Heaven’s gates

Half  man, half creature of very odd habit, John Doyle dabbles in poetry when other forms of alchemy and whatnot just don't meet his creative needs. From County Kildare in Ireland, he is (let's just politely say) closer to 50 than 21.