Part of the illness is that you don’t know you’re sick
When the squad car calls up you better be quick
Your first instinct is to run, get away
Your looking at an institutional long term stay
Be ready for climbing out windows and scuttling down drainpipes
For in the middle of a bipolar episode you feel like the fucking prototype
Sent here to save the planet
Striking across the night sky like a comet
Crazy ideas and huge mood swings
It’s hard to explain being manic and what each day brings
Spent 2 years in secure mental institutions
Basically for my own protection
Escaped from two high secure wards
Skipped the country and moved abroad
But my illness followed me like the Gardai
Through drug abuse I had voided my sanity warranty
10 years since I was last sectioned
Found myself the right direction
But that fear is always there
The constant reminder day to day
It’s not paranoia when they turn up to take you away
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
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
Poetry, rants and raves. 