Born in 74 in Craigavon, Portadown

Due to the troubles my family got out of town

Ended up in Tullamore

Nice part of the country to explore

Started rhyming in primary school in 86

12 years old getting that rhyming fix

It’s like there is a voice inside my head

Keep writing until the rhyming hunger is fed

47 this year but still feel in my twenties

Performance wise I’m adaptable

Comedy clubs, poetry readings and festivals, I’m capable

Don’t take myself too seriously, life is just a ride

From time to time I’v let it slide

But I recover quickly, and in some ways have become my own doctor

Though I’ll always wonder what life would have been like

Had my family stayed in Northern Ireland

Brought up near my aunts, uncles and cousins

Have always felt I’m living on the periphery of my family

How different would I be

I might have different opinions

I’d have a northern accent

Possibly 100% content

However this was not to be my destiny

Of which there is no mutiny

And I’ve given this much scrutiny

Only 47, still got plenty of time to go roaming

No time for moaning

The adoptive Midlands are my homeland now

And thanks to the Republic this is allowed

Nothing like a proper DJ set

People embody together

The happiness like fire spreads

It’s like everyone knows

We are starring in a live music show

I have that quickness once again

The ecstasy is now controlling body and brain

A state of overwhelming emotion and rapturous delight

Been to many events and I’ve never seen buzzers fight

Dancing in unison, all as one

The techno has just begun

Gleaming bodies begin to flow

Dancing with strangers and mates I know

The sensual vibration moves

Crowded areas, happy faces and fancy grooves

The body and blood begins to rise

Been here before but it still has the power to surprise

Progressive beats and massive bass drops

Everybody wishing the night doesn’t stop

This isn’t a cheesy discotheque

This is a techno music 150 bpm sound trek

All thanks to the wizard on the decks

20 stone

Addicted to painkillers and cocaine

Relationship controversies

4 marriages ended with divorce

Current wife filing for one

A grotesque caricature of his sleek energetic former self

But the crowds keep turning up

Oblivious that this could be the night he checks out permanently

Fans were becoming increasingly voluble about their disappointment

Unaware of the amounts of pills and powder Vegas Mally was consuming

His face was framed in a helmet of dyed black hair from which sweat sheets down over pale swollen cheeks

One more performance Vegas Mally.

Just one more.

How does it feel when no one understands?

Or life doesn’t meet your demands?

So with simple words I try to knit

Something descriptive that has a soft glow or sheen to it

Just sitting on this rock killing time

Trying to make the lines rhyme

Simple words on a blank page

I find myself calm but also feel the rage

Always original I never steal

Simply writing down how I feel

Arrive at the event

Join the queue

Check out the security and the searches they are making

You hear the beats

Outside it’s cold but inside it’s baking

Check out the chill out area

Then into the main room

You immediately recognize the tune

Nice crowd here

Very few drinking beer

The first pill you took is kicking in

And the beats intensify

A warm glowing sensation as you dance

Your inhibitions are down

You are shaking hands and hugging strangers

And the beats intensify

You want the night to last forever

There is no when, what or why

They just intensify

Only the select few really know

What it was like to party to early 90s Techno

I have lead legions of men to their death

I’ve been there when they took their last breath

I fought with Atilla the Hun

I rode into battle on a horse in every war that we won

I fought against the crusades, against religion and greed

I fought against the church and the poison I read

I fought in the 100 years war and the war of the Roses

I never questioned the question this poses

I fought against the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire

I burned the bodies on pyres ever higher and higher

I fought in the Napoleonic Wars with Bonaparte by my side

As the blood washed up with every tide

I fought in the Cuban War of Independence

And even now it doesn’t make sense

I fought in World War 1, where nearly 40 million died

I took shelter in my trench and I cried and I cried

I stormed the beaches of Normandy to stop the Nazi advance

And wondered does humanity really have a chance

Am I a Walter Mitty character just dreaming in my bed?

Or am I just reimagining the history of mankind’s cruelty instead?

When I look back

Especially at the last ten years since I moved home

At all the time wasted and lost forever

How much more living I could have done

And how much happier I would have been

The problems I thought I had

Have all disappeared

They didn’t even exist

They were all in my head

83 days sober

It’s poison to me now

We are all Time Machines

If you know what I mean

We can look and reflect on the past

Be it good or bad or even rat-arsed

We live in the present making decisions everyday

Which will affect our future in every way

We control this future and make our own destiny

We are the captains of our souls and ships with no chance of mutiny

We can travel through time in our own head

No need to make excuses just careful planning instead

Its wonderful to be alive, you will be a long time dead

You and I can make the future and not worry about things unforeseen

You and I are Time Machines

Of all the mental illnesses, bipolar disorder is the most mysterious

The list of artists that have had it is long and glorious

Many of these artists you may know

Edward Munch, Edgar Allen Poe, Hemingway, Picasso and Van Gogh

People who shift between extreme productivity, creativity and insight

That goes far beyond what would be normally possible day and night

To severe bouts of depression and deep despair

It’s a chronic incurable illness, there is no repair

Even Albert Einstein, the genius of geniuses had all the symptoms

Didn’t stop his theories being awesome

But the cost of being bipolar is high

Make no mistake, you can die

Which puts me in a fix

The average bipolar patient dies between 55 and 66

So here I am with the facts and statistics

I’m just going to have to risk it

There is no cure

Just carry on

What else can I do?

I shall finish with a quote

Something a famous doctor once wrote

“Bipolar is often referred to as the dark side of creativity, it disproportionately affects people otherwise known as uncommonly gifted or even geniuses”

I must address without a guess and not suppress just totally express without duress that I am in someway gifted due to this illness

I wouldn’t change anything I must profess

Waking up on a Saturday morning

No hangover or 5 second getting sick warning

No regrets of things I did or said

Just thoughts of the books that I have read

Not wondering did a I fight with my girlfriend

Or wondering did i fight with a friend

Feeling fit lifting 30 kilos on the bar

Putting 40 kilos on the bar is not that far

Reason has returned and I’m thinking clearly ahead

Thought’s of going back travelling not worrying about the price of 2 bottles of wine instead

Flight tickets and visas and fresh food and bread

Other peoples drinking doesn’t bother me

I’m over the addiction, now totally free

I’m not looking for praise

I’m just out of that drunken haze

The occasional spliff I still blaze

This isn’t a phase

My sobriety has me amazed