I tend to mix up do’s and don’ts
Not out of recklessness
Malice or even stupidity
It’s more a second nature
To walk into precarious situations
Ignoring well-meant advice
Setting off alarms
And wreak havoc
And instigate confusion
And set of ***** traps
To see what might happen
And I am well aware
That curiosity killed the cat
But as long as I’m still standing
I’ll do what I shouldn’t
Because life’s for the living
And living is all about mucking about
Without do’s and don’ts
And with enough curiosity
To make a grown man cheer

Sunk into the sink again
With only a bottle to keep me company
Playing a game of poker with my shadow
While my mirror-image is trying to avoid me

I went over to the corner
As if somebody had told me to
But despite my wicked ways
I won’t take two-faced lessons from you

With every other ticking of the clock
Another heartbeat skips away
But I’m not the man to cry for all things gone
People they come and go anyway

It’s been six long days
Since you tried to get my attention
And despite my hand’s habit of giving in
My head is immensely immune to rising tension

So I swapped the happy holiday memories
Forever captured in a motionless scene
For movie heroes and nature’s splendour
I choose what never was over what has been

I do forgive you that you won’t forgive me
That is the natural order of things
But I must admit that I lack the rigour
Of fully clipping this pretty bird’s wings

So I choose the path of cowardice
And put you in a dusty box inside my head
It’s much more easier to forget you there
And clutch unto make-believe instead

It’s been six long days
Since you tried to fight your way back in
But all I need is the comfort of loneliness
The illusion of doing it right, mixed with a sip of gin

A poet and a poet meet in a café
Striking up a conversation
About everything and nothing
About love and lost love
About the dark side of the moon
And the nurturing side of childhood memories
About that one time they were both at a hapless poetry event
And about mirrors and magic and moonlight
And mice and men, terrible men
And about women, gentle, dangerous creatures
Who broke their hearts in many pieces
And how they turn innocent boys
Into almighty, all-knowing poets
They talk about their ego
An ego that has become huge
Despite the fact they are not read
And don’t make any money
They talk and talk and banter
And slander and meander
Verbally that is
Until they’re lost for words
And the secret code of life is cracked

The first time I visited the freak show
I nearly burst into tears
It wasn’t because of the cruelty of it all
It wasn’t because of their cruel deformities
It wasn’t even guilt, not even a bit
It wasn’t about the greed from the stupid ***
Who ran the freak show

I burst into tears because I immediately understood
That the roles were reversed
And that we were the freaks
We, the cowards, who hide our deformities
And denounce our guilt as useless morality
And clutch onto greed and a hunger for entertainment
While every day we ourselves star in the freak’s parade

And the freaks themselves they are not moved
By my dreaded revelations
For them the truth was always pure and simple
Bonded by their deformities
They understand kinship and compassion
As they clutch on to each other
And the parade of freaks moves past them once more

As the sun creeps behind the water
The sea gently caresses my feet
Passionately surrounding me
As if I was a creature of the sea
And although I’d like that to be true
I cannot escape that moment
When the sun is gone, and so is the sea
And there’s only the moon, the sand and me

All things considered
I’m not too unhappy
With this underdog life
Watching from the shadows
How other people
Who consider themselves
To be happier
**** up
Time after time

The saddest man I ever met
Wasn’t that lonely beggar
Who hunts for food in garbage bins
And performs incoherent monologues
Because there’s nobody to listen

The saddest man I ever met
Wasn’t that social media hero
Who tries to gain some self-worth
By creating a superman persona
Because there’s nobody that really knows him

The saddest man I ever met
Wasn’t even that peculiar man
Who keeps on staring through the window
Imaging the people passing by are terrorists
Or at least bloodthirsty aliens

The saddest man I ever met
He’s actually quite happy
And ignorant of his ignorance
Blatantly he rips through lives
As if he’s the Next Big God’s Gift