Kingdom come, come kingdom go That you may carve upon my grave stone When confined in a six walled box I will no longer hear the clocks Indifferently ticking in cold deserted mansion halls
Kingdom come, come kingdom go Mementos relics crated cargo A million things all left behind Relationships with humankind Conducted as if I was buying slaves at auction Holding court at gross parties Where punch drunk sycophants Came slobbering, to suck my cocktails I escaped up the stairs to my collection
In my collection, facets of ego Gradually eclipsing mass Between the nursery and now Struggling for meaning Walking earth insensible Flowerings of childhood turned to stringy vegetable
Titians, tits and grand Goyas Glower through the high stone traceries Oily smears bequeathed by thirsty souls Studied throughout my long daze Scumbled paint in priceless fossils Many a sad sullen pieta Christ eternal held away from me Behind a brown and ancient glaze
Troubled at night by… Flashbacks… Flashbacks! Flashbacks! Flashbacks! Flashbacks
Whaaa… Mummy I don’t want to train on my potty and I don’t want to share my toys with the other children ‘cos they’re so nasty…
… Child that I was then when was I last young? When did comic wood bricks become trading in con-tricks? When did innocence shudder and die? Adolescent I planned to take total command Draped vision’s guilt edge on the bars of my play-pen Hoped to arrest the swift passage of time As though by some chance I could recreate Eden… Apple pie? Lovely!
So hope became a statue, my words became a gun In the hit parade of self interest, I remained at number one I was Mozart’s old piano, with a special gold inlay I was always a lover of music, but I never did learn to play Thought I’d be saved by my collection, to begin with Thought I’d be saved by my collection Would you believe it? But then
Nanny? Nanny Conscience? Is that you standing at the end of my bed, Nanny? My, you’ve been in cold storage for a long time, my dear You’re looking out of condition, you could do with some exercise I mean look at your skin, my god, the wrinkles! Nanny! Nan-nanny! Had her made into a table lamp for me because Because I need some light to shine but artificially From her prim portals… Nanny! Nan-nanny! Don’t you think you’d better start being nice to me, Nanny? I mean one day soon I’m going to grow up big and strong And an old bag like you won’t get a job in my kingdom Nobody’s going to make me wash behind my ears, or eat my greens Or share my toys with the other children…
I drank myself as dry as a desert Still in the end there was nothing left to call my own The freedom from pain with which I toyed Became a doorway to a void The only values left were relative to power
The trouble with life in ivory towers The seconds stretch until they wear the skins of hours Faithless mates who come and go They run away like melted snow A temple to ego never constitutes a home
And though it seems sad, this jangling junk we are amassed A passing pageant passing fast, there must be something Something that can Last more than the sense of life as just a short and pointless overture to death Fear debilitating fear and death run round in circles Turn!
Kingdom come, come kingdom go Collecting clouds before the Son light On pain of death our presents pass Secreting habit over insight Human soul is fertilised Human span its wombing season Ward of conscience fragile child Aborted by unfettered reason Candle, both ends burning
Collecting trash, collecting gold Vampiric ego drains and clutches When cross examined by the truth It carves the cross up into crutches Sharpened at both ends, some friend… Freedom’s king is donkey borne A cross, the bleeding palms on main-street