The Slothful Musings of an Indicted Leech

The Slothful Musings of an Indicted Leech …

… I suck. Simply put, I suck.

Attaching my slimy being,

surreptitiously clingy,
nauseatingly smooth,
ingratiatingly insidious,

onto warm sources of sustenance.

I suck, I leech, I drain,

the elements of good-nature,

turning smiles into profitable ventures,

sucking, leeching, draining,

the beings I encounter,

suctioned cups of guilt,
of predatory precision,
surgical frigidness,
clinical intent,

sucking, leeching, draining,

till fattened,

bulging with burgeoning gains,

flush with siphoned-off goodwill,

bloated by hubris,

slipping away,

slithering into my den,

creeping on borrowed legs,

seeing with donated eyes,

cloaked in spurious fabric,

I leech, I suck.

Self-pity my only refrain,

flushing what is left of a soul,

down,

into the welcoming drain.

Who am I?

Who am I?

Seeking absolution, I wander the alleyways of times gone by,

awash with wasted regrets, I crawl into the yawning crevasse,

clutching at straws as merciless time takes to the sky.

Drenched in the reeking stench of wrongs I cannot undo,

I scurry blindly through the maze,

seeking pain to convince myself that today’s reality is true.

Torn to shreds, my tattered mind bobs, weaves and swerves,

my fingers clawing at the jangled knots of my frayed nerves.

When does the moulting of skin cease,

crumpling dreams floating away with each passing breeze.

Shattered hearts lie mortally wounded, unable to mend,

washed-up and washed-out, cast into a palace of indifference,

no enemies to be found here, swallowed up by pity, my perennially faithfull friend.

Who am I,

this shuffling carcass of flesh and bone,

enclosed in a fortress,

a prisoner by choice,

behind my impregnable walls of stone.

Who I am,

matters little as I count the hours of each frigid night,

as my salvation rests,

in the tomorrows yet to come,

while I refuse to surrender to the darkness,

for as long as I can see,

the faintest glimmer,

of hope’s flickering light

I Don’t Care

I Don’t Care

I don’t care,
if you’re battered black and blue,

I don’t care,
just as long as I can drink and screw.

I don’t care,
if you’ve lost your damn job,

I don’t care,
you’re just a kernel off the cob.

I don’t care,
when I see you begging in the street,

I don’t care,
I get to suckle on capitalism’s raw teat.

I don’t care,
about the elderly, the poor, or the weak,

I don’t care,
if the earth will be inherited by the meek.

I don’t care,
if the climate is warming, I’m so much cooler,

I don’t care,
in my penthouse I’m the boss, the only ruler.

I don’t care,
for those rolling for scraps in the muck,

I don’t care,

I really don’t care, cos’ I don’t give a fuck.

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inspired by Bob Geldof’s “The Great Song of Indifference”

I Want to Walk with You

I want to walk with you with our heads held high

Never cowering, never with heads bowed

With our feet on this blessed soil, and our dreams reaching for the sky

 

Dreams of simple joys and of peace and of mirth

For all our fellow travelers on this delightful earth

 

Dreams not of wealth or of positions of high standing or of mighty power

Simple dreams of a walk in the aftermath of a Johannesburg evening rain-shower

 

Dreams of bread and water and dignity and shelter and clothes for all

Dreams where all fellow travelers may together walk this earth proud and tall

 

I want to walk with you, my fellow traveler, with our heads held high

Never pandering to power, never silent in the face of its abuse

Always firm in our convictions that we can all make peace if we only try

 

If we try to stop and think and sometimes not to look the other way

If we practice what our different creeds really teach, we will surely see that day

 

When we all, fellow travelers may walk with our heads held high

Never cowering, never with our heads bowed

With our feet on this blessed soil, and our collective dreams reaching for the sky

 

Call me silly, call me naive, call me hopeless, and if you must, call me weak

But is this not the common good that our different creeds and cultures all seek?