Friday 9 June 2023

SHORT: Twat With a Flag [2023]

TWAT WITH A FLAG

There’s a twat with a flag who lives down our road;
he raises his flag every day.
It’s an eyesore, a blemish, a flapping carbuncle
that boils the blood as it waves.

It’s tacky, it’s nonsense, it’s vile, it’s guff –
I tell you, there’s nought to redeem here.
A sad piece of cack with the Union Jack -
put simply, it’s Poundland ephemera.

I s’pose that he thinks we all should applaud him
as a patriot, dyed-in-the-wool
But for some of us punters, it’s zeal by numbers:
a red rag in front of a bull.

In terms of aesthetic, it’s fucking pathetic –
an affront to the casual observer.
Does he think when I see it I’ll start to salute,
whipped into a nationalist fervour…?

It’s twee nostalgie, a thing of the past;
outmoded, like Great British Bake-Off.
It’s not even fit now to use as bog-roll
’cos you’d wipe more shit on than you take off…!

I thought about knocking on to try and get it gone -
but to be honest, it ain’t worth the hassle.
He'll say it’s his right to exhibit that shite,
’cos an Englishman’s home is his castle.

Yes, like Gilbert and Sullivan! ’E is an Englishman! So let’s take a few lines to examine:
a man out of place going red in the face now that Larkin’s been purged from the canon…

A
Telegraph reader who thinks that Farage has got some ideas worth hearing.
A man of the past with a stick up his ass, who thinks his way of life’s disappearing.

He longs for the days when the Empire reigned, and England did roar like a lion;
I bet that his name’s probably Douglas, or Clive, or Kenneth, or Gordon, or Brian.

On BBC News, he detects left-wing views, and leaps up from his seat like a salmon
He’s got half a mind to go on Question Time, and huff, sulk and fume like a gammon.

“It’s a form of sophistry - you can’t rewrite history
with all of these things that you’re banning!
Why can I no longer watch Love Thy Neighbour,
or laugh along with Bernard Manning…?!”

Flipping the channel, he's teeming with rage
and quickly becoming quite stroppy;
There’s a disabled reporter on Channel 4 News,
and Krishnan’s not wearing a poppy…!

There’s kids of all ages renouncing slave traders -
he's claiming now everything’s wrong!
To compound his rut, ‘Rule Britannia’ gets cut
from the very last night of the Proms…

“I’m not being racist, I’m just stating facts –
this diversity drive’s gone too far.”
Sir, why are you like this?! And please stop pipping cyclists
whenever you’re out in your car…!

Then he's off on a bender ‘bout gays and ‘bout gender,
and how all young men have gone soft
Omitting one thing: there’s a shrine to the King
that he wanks over up in his loft.

“All these ‘woke footballers’ aren’t real men,
like Tom Finney and Sir Stanley Matthews.
We need to get back on a well-beaten track,
and reclaim some good old-fashioned values…!”

Zulu, Dam Busters, then afternoon tea,
Then Bake Off - you really can’t beat it.”
But just like those Tories stuck in 1940,
it’s time to have your cake and eat it.

See, why is it - that when you raise a flag in salute to the nation,
it feels suspiciously like a rank provocation?
An act of aggression and intimidation
masquerading as innocent, blithe celebration.

Because quite aside from being a local embarrassment,
it feels to so many like just plain harassment.
An icon which props up a legacy of violence
that finds current form when they demonise migrants…

’Cos it’s an unspoken code with a built-in payload
when you display Jubilee bunting
It says they’ve got your vote if they “stop the small boats”
and show their support for fox-hunting…

It says, “Don’t come round here if you’re black, brown or queer -
Britain’s not meant for people like you.”
A dog-whistle, to reactionary trolls in pubs with golly dolls
who claim whites are now last in the queue.

Complicit in history, ignoring its feats, we return to the scene of the crime
’Cos contained in the hues of that red, white and blue are a tale that’s older than time.

Jackboots on the street as a steady drumbeat sounds out like a dull metronome
The right-wing’s Greatest Hits: it’s “Britain for Brits”
- and if you don’t like it, go home.

A flag should be a monument, an effigy, a totem
So why does it feel like you’re whipping out your scrotum…?
Flaunting your values by waving your cock: the ultimate true virtue-signal.
Oh, Johnny Big-Bollocks, we’re all so impressed – in fact, no, no, no, no, it’s just dismal.

So while your flag’s up there, I think it’s only fair
that we finally establish some ground-rules.
Principally this - you’re taking the piss;
patriotism’s the refuge of scoundrels.

I’ll go one further, son: when all’s said and done,
I submit that it makes you a coward.
As you grovel, belittled, you fucking lickspittle,
let’s consider the few it empowers.

I don’t think it disloyal when I see a “Royal”,
to enter a state of thrombosis.
So let me stand unopposed while I now diagnose
our sad fucking national psychosis.

See, under the banner of country and crown,
their misdeeds are all merely “alleged”:
like Andrew’s been fucking 14-year-old girls
while William was out getting pegged…!

(You won’t read about that in the papers;
to mention it would be ill-mannered.
The tabloids, alas, give him a free pass
as a “sorry” for killing Diana.)

We’re told “they work for us”, and are “here to serve” -
well I should fucking hope so, at those rates;
‘Cos they’ve taken far more than their reasonable share,
like Alan Partridge with his massive plate…!

If these freeloading fucks were all
my employees, then they wouldn’t be getting a reference.
File all Royals next to landlords and bosses as those who we grant undue deference.

They’ll tell you they’re “good for the tourists”,
and that we always must respect tradition.
But to accept that these ghouls are destined to rule
is a doctrine that is nowhere written.

But that’s the system we use here to quantify worth:
inherited privilege from an accident of birth.
And I submit that it should never be thought sedition
to question, critique or tear down tradition.

See, “tradition” is man-made – and thus, can be changed:
it’s a conclusion that’s never foregone.
Like archaic law, we can show it the door -
and we should, when its tenets are wrong.

You wouldn’t hand Darth Vader a second lightsabre
when he’s got you under attack
So kindly stop showing support for the Royals
’cos that’s how the Empire strikes back…!

As for our sick-hearted country – your “pride” and your “joy”
I tell you, there’s something obscene
When we can’t find the money to feed starving kids
but we’ll stand in a line for the Queen.

What is this fixation with bowing and scraping
built into our national character?
I am begging you, please – get up off your knees
’cos the whole sad charade’s an embarrassment.

It’s a mystery to confound Sam Spade and Philip Marlowe -
with a soundtrack that’s provided by Gary fucking Barlow.

And so to our friend who lives just up the roady.
A lackey, a suck-up, a fawner, a toady
Who’ll stand and applaud when two Royals marry;
though not for the offspring of Megan and Harry…

’Cos a flag is an emblem that wears many faces;
to my mind, it serves only to embolden racists.

There aren’t words to convey why that rag you display
is considered now such an affront
But I’ve got some that’ll do, so here’s just a few:
you fuckwit, you braggart, you cunt

You’re a small man, sir - among the tiniest, in fact;
your subservience is a national disgrace.
Do not lick the heel of the boot
that stands upon your face. 

C.C. 8/5/23


Tuesday 6 June 2023

LYRICS: THIS IS NOT AN EXIT. [2022]

 THIS IS NOT AN EXIT.

Voices, dark voices, loud noises
They’re screaming in my ears

Abstractions so flawless, remorseless
I simply am not here

Outward appearances frozen
I have no clear emotion
There’s no barrier left, only carnal aggression
No-one to hear my confession

Godless among us, this bloodlust
It flows into my days

Disgust and revulsion, compulsions
All lie behind my gaze

And there will be no quarter
Be no reprieve at the altar
We’re all lambs astray in a world of disease
And they all will be set free
Who’s going to set them free…?

’Cos even after all this, there is no catharsis
Even after all this, the pain has a sharpness
Even after all this, there is no catharsis
Even after all this, no relief from the darkness
MY CONFESSION MEANS NOTHING

No wider truth I’m dispelling
No lesson learned in the telling
There is an ideal, but no real me
Only a veil of greed
Something illusory
Something illusory…

C.C. November 2022

LYRICS: Narcoleptic [2018]

 NARCOLEPTIC

Sleep awake
Adrift for days

The firmament’s dying on lone frontiers
A hundred-step mile away from here

She’s seen this place
A dream repaid

And then her eyes reveal the endless lure of sinking sands
They’re shifting tides, and I no longer try to understand

I’m tired of you not wanting me
I’m tired of no guarantees
I’m tired of what life could be

And we will cry no more in sorrow now for what might have been
I’ll relinquish all our promises and float out to sea
I watch the light fade at your window where the angels sleep…

C.C. Nov 2018

LYRICS: The Illusion [2018]

 THE ILLUSION

A man stands alone onstage with a box
He invites the audience up to engage
The curious onlookers examine the box
The fastenings, the locks, the walls and the base

Eyes on the box
Eyes on the stage
Eyes on the box
For what will be erased…

The assistant steps forward and opens the box
The man helps her inside, and wraps her in chains
The audience smiles as he closes the box
Looking for the trapdoor hidden under the stage

Eyes on the box
Eyes on the stage
Eyes on the box
He’s hiding his face

Eyes on the box
Eyes on the stage
The light hits the box
And she’s gone without trace…

But she was never in the box
And she was not beneath the stage
While every known witness was buying the lie
No-one was watching the lake…

Drag every inch of the lake
Drag every inch of the lake
Drag every inch of the lake

If there’s no body, then there’s no crime
No body, then there’s no crime
No body, then there’s no crime
No body - nobody…

Drag through the lake and you’ll find
No body, so there’s no crime
No body, so there’s no crime
No body - nobody…

C.C. Nov 2018

LYRICS: Sam the Lion [2018]

 SAM THE LION

Things haven’t been the same since Sam the Lion died
For now we see our world through sad eyes
She turns the other way so that I won’t see her cry
And though our time is done, she’s saying: “Never you mind;
Never you mind…”

As Wagon Master’s playing through the flickering light
This ageing bag of bones is dog-tired
We finally got us a team now here at Anarene High
An elegy of days when we were still young and wild

Oceans in your eyes
All our wasted lives
Oceans in your eyes
Fireworks split the sky
4th of July

The leaves blow long against a monochrome sky
As the gap between what we want
and who we are
grows ever wide…

C.C. Nov 2018

LYRICS: Take It to the Coast [2018]

 TAKE IT TO THE COAST

When we no longer fight a conflict of attrition
When we are crippled by the weight of malediction
We’ll find a way to put our cancer in remission
Mediate and aggregate the cause of our affliction

We’ll pen entire theories from a single notion
Take all that’s volatile and save it from implosion
We’ll take inertia and we’ll turn it into motion
We’ll find an island in the vastness of the ocean

We will mend this heartbreak
We will take it to the coast

Free from contagion now and everything it seizes
We’ll lay the stricken down and cure them of diseases
Culture a pathogen and watch as it increases
We’ll take paralysis and turn it to kinesis

We’ll settle rivalries and turn them to agreement
We’ll find the languishing and save them from bereavement
We’ll take insanity and turn it into reason
Agony and ecstasy and joy in every season

We’ll take a reservoir and turn it into wine
An elixir pulled from resin on the vine
We’ll take imprisonment and turn it into flight
We’ll wish our wasted days away, and we will make eternity of time

We will mend this heartbreak
We will take it to the coast

She sighed: “The beauty that I could bring to you…”
Out on the horizon now, her signal’s coming through
All this blood from a thousand cuts will be washed away

We’ll turn the hollowness of hunger into plenty
We’ll find the vacant and we’ll fill them when they’re empty
We’ll stand in triumph as the few become the many
We’ll find deliverance where once there wasn’t any

When all these elements combine into a lotion
We’ll take intelligence, divorce it from emotion
Take infidelity and turn it to devotion
Then finally we’ll have made it to the ocean

We’ll take a reservoir and turn it into wine
An elixir pulled from resin on the vine
We’ll find serenity where animus resides...

She carried the siren’s song
(Forever, sweetheart; my bittersweetheart; forever, sweetheart)
That’s been in the dark there for so long
(Forever, sweetheart; my bittersweetheart; forever, sweetheart)
She carried the siren’s song
(Forever, sweetheart; my bittersweetheart; forever, sweetheart)
A glimmer of hope to call upon

Now hear the voice of God...

C.C. Nov 2018

LYRICS: Through the Lights of the City [2018]

 THROUGH THE LIGHTS OF THE CITY

 She sees her name in the lights of the city
They call her name in the lights of the city
And oh, she is searching, searching for a home

She said: “I’ve seen too many ghosts in the city;
I’ll never be another ghost in the city…”
And oh, all this wanting, a longing to be whole

They will lay her body down
But will they ever know her mind?

As they claim her body now
She is radiating light.

She writes her name on the walls of the city
Inscribes her name on the walls of the city
And oh, she is burning, the one eternal light

She is aflame and in flight through the city
She leaves a trail in the sky of the city
And oh, she is pulsing and strobing through the night

They will lay her body down
But will they ever know her mind?
They defame her body now
But they will never still her fight.

They will lay her body down
But will they ever know her mind?

They will lay her body down
But will they ever know her…?

She is everywhere
She is in the air
She’s suspended there
Everywhere, everywhere

We could start a new religion
We could end the Third World War
Take up arms above this city
Cross their hands and heal them all

Lay on the floor now
With all the lights out
They’ll break the door down

Lay on the floor now
With all the lights out
She’s not fucking breathing…

Violins swell on the deck of the liner
And as the ship went down, you never looked finer…

C.C. Nov 2018

LYRICS: The Middle [2018]

THE MIDDLE

Bring me the head of the finest whore
Turn the lights way down on the getaway car
I tell her, “Stop” and she says: “One more…”
She cannot hold back and we’re going too far
It’s ornamental, my paramour
Like black blood pools on a ceramic floor
She is the one true thing I adore
A divine nymphet here to even the score

Three crows in a row means death
We’ll never see land again
Out of the confines
Into the tight-wind
Bounding the tripwires
Out on the frontlines
Over the trenches, out into No Man’s Land

We’re raiders of a stolen ark
Survivors of Jurassic Park
Take him out…

As chaos theory made its mark
The payoff couldn’t be more stark
At every mass extinction’s heart:
A kill mechanism – design by definition.

No saint ever hid in church
So don’t tell her it could be worse
Out of the confines
Into the tight-wind
Bounding the tripwires
Out on the frontlines
Over the trenches, out into No Man’s Land

She’s in the water
The serpent’s daughter
And only blood can quench her thirst

She’s in the water
Their sons and daughters
They always should be drowned at birth

We’ve had our share of -
She’s taken care of -
One more - worthless – individual
Worthless… they’re worthless… worthless… and BURIED ALIVE!

With no regrets now, we’re on the run
(Buried alive) She is a wildcat, a hellion
(Buried alive) It won’t let up ’til we’ve had our fun
(Buried alive) The day of reckoning has begun

(Buried alive) She consecrated His only son
(Buried alive) Then held him up with a nailgun
(Buried alive) Emptied the chamber of all but one
(Buried alive) And all that’s sacred’ll be undone…

You change your life, I’ll change mine, and we’ll meet somewhere in the middle.

C.C. Nov 2018

LYRICS: Sorry For Your Loss [2004]

 SORRY FOR YOUR LOSS

With deep regret, I apologise
For coming here to waste your time
You tell me to get back in line
And say this don’t come easy

I don’t expect you to empathise
With the burning heart beneath my lies
But the vision you don’t recognise
Is one that don’t come easy

I don’t need you to tell me
How you can’t live without me
If there’s just one thing about me
It’s that which makes me stronger

As throne and crown were sold for parts
You cut me down and broke my heart
And threw me back right to the start
And say this don’t come easy

The scaling-down was oh-so kind
But I’ve been here, I’ve read your mind
Do you think I could be so blind?
Believing that is easy

I don’t need you to tell me
How you can’t live without me
If there’s just one thing about me
It’s that which makes me stronger

All I have to do is tell myself
I don’t need you and then I’ll be fine
All you have to do is write it down
And sprint onward while I get left behind

So you sit there and prioritise
A set of answers analysed
The process here was rationalised
To say this comes so easy

So if all is gone and I’m denied
Then I won’t sit here mesmerised
You pulled me down beneath the tide
And reversing that ain’t easy

I don’t need you to tell me
How you can’t live without me
If there’s just one thing about me
It’s that which makes me stronger

Can’t you hear me? ’Cos I’m screaming.
I’m screaming your name. I’m screaming your name.

Reside here
Abide here
I’m right here…

C.C. Sept 2004

LYRICS: Inversions [2018]

INVERSIONS

This is the last song that I’ll ever write about another savior that I threw aside. The last oath that I’ll ever sign about how circumstance and fate will soon collide. The last anthem to reaffirm a bunch of sad fucking people in a sad fucking world. ’Cos I don’t want to be an idiot, no sir. I don’t want to be wanting anymore...

Cover your eyes, beg a reprieve. Everything turns to ashes round me...

Now she is numb, a void. Our lives, destroyed. She’s done with joy; she will never love another. Still, her voice, inside the noise. The knife is poised...

I’ve done nothing wrong. I’ve done nothing wrong. I’ve done nothing wrong. She’s my obsession. She’s my invention. I’ve done nothing wrong. Been so jaded and frustrated. Spent too long on a life that I’ve hated. There’s one room in this house where no-one dares go. It won’t close, son. It’s burst open. It’s soaked down in the flooring like poison. There’s no kind of escape route here that I know...

The last words that I’ll ever write will now no longer be a verse of suicide. No more occasion to run and hide; she lit a spark, and her soul is purified. The last sound that I hear at night is now my best defence, and I hold her spirit high. I will always be an idiot, for sure; but I am never left wanting anymore...

A body’s been found under the leaves; now I have your disease inside me, yeah...

I never told a lie. I’m not afraid to die. This broken doll and I are falling over one another. There’s nothing cauterised. Three times, you’ll be denied. Now ravens take her eyes...

I’ve done nothing wrong. I’ve done nothing wrong. I’ve done nothing wrong. Wars of succession. Wars of prevention. I’ve done nothing wrong. See, I’m married to divorces: a wired study in opposite forces. There’s one room in this house where no-one dares go. It won’t close, son. It’s burst open. It’s soaked down in the flooring like poison. There’s no kind of escape route here that I know...

I can’t stop it, there’s no way. It gets closer every day. As these thoughts control my brain, the silence will take you away. In these ruins ruled by spite, we’ll survey the wreckage site. And how life will be divined, she says is no concern of mine.

There’s no proof to cling to when I’m through with you. There’s no truth I can use 
when I’m through with you. There’s no proof to cling to when I’m through with you. There’s no truth I can use when I’m through with you. There’s no proof to cling to when I’m through with you. There’s no truth I can use when I’m through with you...

C.C. Nov 2018