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In hell’s green room
two worlds collide
two viewpoints merge
and sparks will surely fly.
In the red corner:
the reigning king
teetering on his chrome throne
holding court for the dregs of the decadent 80s.
In the blue:
the rag-clad serf
who scaled the gates
of the fortified compound screaming songs of revolt.
The king’s court
contains jesters and handmaidens
there to serve their benevolent master
to hang on every cracked prophesy
The serf meanwhile
is a reluctant leader of men
the peasant who dared to put his head
above the parapet, only to be welcomed in.
Tactical of mind,
the king first extends an olive branch
only to have it returned bent all
our of shape.
The serf see through
the political moves of the king,
laughing, he stays in his seat,
knows that never the twain can meet.
Yet today their paths conjoin
in the arena of entertainment
with TV cameras positioned
on every corner, a rapt audience waiting.
The serf’s maiden mocks the king
suggests he should bless their new baby
so the king responds as only the king knows how:
with a gauntlet thrown down,
but the challenge of a fight
is met with derision and laughter;
and now the king fears for the future
of his career hereafter.
The king wishes to take a scythe
to the arms of the serf with the people on his side
but the people have the power
so the king lets it slide.
Even so, he can’t forget -
even when their envoys interject,
this slight upon his character
this silent generational threat.
While the bile will rise inside
so too the serf will ascend the tower
while the king watches, devoid of direction
devoid of all power.
Yet the serf is ill-prepared for what awaits him
he’s installed on a new throne
only to find he hate it
he wants to return to his people
but his people have turned away.
He can never return to his humble state
now he’s trapped in a tower
in a castle by a lake.
Now as his new Rome burns
he fiddles with a gun
turns on the radio and
the music of the old king is on…
A constant:
the same words
returning to
describe the empty
feelings of removal
that consume me
when faced with a
wailing walls of faces.
The vortex
the void
what I call
‘the big empty’
or sometimes
‘the death camp’
or maybe on a
good day
‘the devil’s
sports hall’,
where the sound is
a hollow echo
like the wind
whipping at a turret
of an abandoned
castle in a remote
and desolate place
or else the strangulated
cries of desperation
that must surely
soundtrack what we
commonly perceive
to be ‘hell’;
or maybe just that dividing line
between pain and pleasure
between life and death
between protest and celebration
state repression and
total abandonment
and/or emancipation.
Either way:
the sound is ice cold
like a nail in the spine
that instant feeling like
everything you’ve ever
known has slipped away
and left you stranded.
Like every regret you
have ever harboured
comes home to roost at once
like every wasted second
like every girl you ever loved
like every single salted tear
re-appears, to remind you
that this life – any life -
is a lonely life, and that
in the end, when the scores
are counted, and the tallies
noted we live and we exist
and we die alone.
Afterwards: as expected
- as is now customary -
the shrill layers
of human voices
in exultation and the
screams of expectation
and unadultered adoration
(or is it adulation?)
peel away like an onion
to reveal nothing at its core.
It is this nothingness
that consumes me each
night; the silence of
fifty thousand echoes,
deafening even when
they’re long gone;
it’s like the building
is haunted by the night,
like all those screams
are eternally trapped
inside to rebound off the walls
bouncing and colliding
like a phalanx of lost souls
caught between life
and that great celestial
otherness known as infinity,
resigned to a life sentence
in a chaotic, deafening limbo;
it is this that I fear
the most - the very real
possibility that nothing
- and I mean nothing –
means anything; love,
money, fame, success;
nothing: zip, zilch, nada
the big goose egg; all
for what? For nothing.
It is thoughts like these
that, out on tour, in the
spotlight, exposed, naked,
scrutinized and dissected
I have to deal with each day
in my own little way.
Lord only knows
where I will find
the strength to
keep on giving.
Axl’s therapist.
Yeah. That’s was another turning point.
I mean, the guy
has a lot of issues to work through.
Crazy shit
from his childhood. Violence, religion…
though it quickly
seemed like he had the monopoly on pain.
I don’t know
what his therapist said, but he got righteous
all of a sudden.
It was like we had to tread twice as carefully.
I thought
a therapist was meant to make things better?
But no.
that definitely wasn’t the case here.
It didn’t really matter
so much when we off the road because
back home
we were all doing our own things,
back home
we were living individual lives.
But when Axl
brought this therapist out on tour
questions were asked.
Like: who is this guy and why
does he want
us to go into these ridiculous group hugs?
If he knew
anything he’d know that Guns isn’t that band.
We’re not
touchy-feely, love-sharing type of guys.
We each
have our roles, we each cover our backs
That was
always the way, right from day one:
Play the show
and everything else beyond it is your call.
But no.
Axl’s therapy session increased.
Out there
We wouldn’t see him except for stage time
And we’d play
these shows with this therapist in the wings,
giving Axl
the thumbs up every time he looked his way.
Many jokes
were cracked about that, I tell you.
It was like
he substituted drugs with therapy
and sure enough
he got himself addicted to ‘sharing’.
We could hire
a thousand therapists and they’d still
be unravelling that
dude’s personality on his death-bed.
Axl talked
a lot about being ‘healed’ round that time.
Suddenly he was
talking about feelings and ‘bad energy’.
He talked
about getting to the core of his ‘id’,
he talked
about ego, childhood, sexuality and recovery.
None of which
we would have minded if it hadn’t
turned him
into an even bigger a-hole than he was before.
