Romania

GuTs

How does one run out of guts? Does it spill out of him rapidly like sausages unraveling from their pack, or does it ooze out slowly, like thick mouse getting squeezed from its tub. Where does a man’s inside run to when an issue is most present? Does it desert him like water in the dessert? Does it lie purposefully asleep, like a child reading comics under the sheets? We often like to believe we are made of stuff that is ‘stern’ but mostly we are nothing more than fern bush. Too sharp for our own good and eventually shorn down with complete ease. Why then is it hard for one to wake from a bad dream? The climax must be had and the resolution must be afoot. It is no use to dwell on the why’s and what’s of your feelings or emotions, but to take them as they come and find some common ground with them and eventually some sort of agreement- like the sun and the moon. 12 hours on, 12 off. Tick Tock. Eventually you’ll find that, not only do you lose a sense of weight around your lungs, but you also excavate senses deep within you that you had no idea existed. A unity of your body and you mind. Something that doesn’t seem to exist much

Does paralysis come easy to humans or do humans provide the perfect test subject for paralysis. It seems that ideas are the venom of paralysis. They warp the mind and contort logic. They lubricate any senses and allow they to slip and slide in your brain until they are nothing but a mangled pile of nonsense lying limp and stale. But, but! Ideas will then come along and inject amphetamines into the putrid degenerate mush and transform it into a workable machine again. However this time it is so beaten and bruised that it is more submissive and lethargic, and also more decided and emphatic. The false sense of consciousness will happen around the early adult age, when childhood ambition collides with humanistic reality and the thrown out lock and key of modern society. This tectonic big bang occurrence will not be as identifiable as stars colliding but retrospectively you will wonder how you missed it. The wrought up tension will build to such a level so as to trigger a mass exodus of your guts, as aforementioned. How your guts will spill out depends on your resilience and your ability to want. The discerning person will not decide between the two, but will find a unique way to marry both, to make lines into circles or tales into fairytales.

How does it feel to run out of guts? Does it stumble out of your sides or tear out like an alien.

Truth lies in toilet walls

It’s written here right on this wall You go to heaven once you’ve been to hell I guess I shouldn’t take it too seriously After all I’m in a lavatory And there’s a girl waiting outside for me 

Thought I saw a spirit in the street But it was the neon lights blinding me I swoop to pick up my feet Pleading them to lead me Wherever I need Its true whatever they say Echo’s in canyons make you insane And this is a tall one to be And I’m at the pit, in the street Sound vibrations carry me I stalked down one of those streets But I must have had invisible feet For they did not seem to see They didn’t seem keen Even when I pleaded Kicking trash down the high night lane I smashed filth right in a tramps face But he did not budge he did not flinch Worst thing is, he didn’t want a thing No pennies, no dimes, not even a drink Well I went home and left the lights off Good thing too enough is enough If there is such thing as heaven and hell Toilet walls like the bibles tell Of tales of truth, I hope, farewell

Halves

I slipped and fell through sinking stairs And cares washed away But still my desire stayed Lately, I’ve been down Prowling round like a were-flea Burrow deep and eat away At any last mind matter Mad hatter sort through the clatter A chasm of sorts has spores Feeding deep divides Mind to trick the rush Bodies turn to mush Crushed firm to a paste Heat in the malaise Halves in all that’s left Body wanders a deserted head Drinking sand, floating deftly Through and through By and by

Thought you knew

Mum and dad I swear to you We are big apes in disguise! You still scoff that apple tart Still sleep in perfect slumber Still keep on bumbling along Do you not get it? Mum and dad I swear to you We’re all sentient lumps of meat! But you don’t believe me, you don’t! More stars than grains of san On a dying rock of land It’s more than I can handle I, the little boy lost And you, then and there Showing love will take care Realising and not caring Yes we fucking float in space You took me into your arms And brought me back to earth I, the little boy lost You, earth’s sweet answer

The State of Enlightenment

Enlightenment has been cultivated such that we believe that we have been enlightened once we have achieved certain physical boundaries, such as graduating from university or finishing a career. But if we take Kant’s view of enlightenment, that is: enlightenment being the progression from immaturity towards a ‘subject’ possessing the courage and the drive to seek knowledge in an individual way separate of guidance or teaching. It is prescient then, that we believe ‘real’ enlightenment to be one achieved via a narrative. This popular “individual-narrative” is different to the meta narratives adopted from the earlier enlightenment and the “micro-narratives” adopted in the Romantic period. The now “individual- narrative” seeks assurance and truth in its fundamental contradiction, whereby the individual or the ‘subject functions as a consumer-materialist self-expresser and as a reliable economic and ideological conformer. The contradiction lies in what we are told, rather than how we actually act. It rests on the foundation that the way we act as a collective is far more important than the way we act as individuals. This success is often harnessed through achieving enlightenment in the most modern of ways- that is, via mainstream education. 

If then, we can take enlightenment to be one similar to the one described by Kant, that is; when an individual harnesses the ability to break free from this “individual-narrative” and pursue knowledge and truth beyond the shackles of modern modes of expression, dogmas and popular modes of knowledge acquisition, then we can begin to understand where problems lie in the modern state of enlightenment. This will ultimately allow us to understand why we have seen little to no action on deep moral crises, such as climate change.

This awareness rests on the Hegelian idea of truth being found at the center of a contradiction. The modern contradiction being the difference between how we are told to live and how we actually live. This contradiction makes up the fundamental basis for the modern “individual-narrative.” Fuelling this narrative is consumerism, which is the most potent ideology undermining liberal-capitalist societies. Consumerist discourse tells us to go find our true selves behind the social masks, it tells us to challenge authority, and it tells us to act leisurely at work. However in direct contradiction to this is the way we actually act. Despite our ability to laugh at power and its pretenses, we still act like in accordance to the doctrines of liberal-capitalist subjects: consuming, voting, going to work, and ‘tending our own gardens’. This represents a strange water mark in the process of human enlightenment whereby we are told to think, and particularly to think individually, and yet we hardly do, or when we believe we are thinking, it is usually within the confines of normalized education, forums or private dwellings.

Demonstrably, the sphere of public debate is limited to those able to access universities, a handful of biased TV programs or shouting in the street. For a lot of people, rationalism has pre-determined things as being the way they are “because they are.” Even our most accessible form of public opinion and thought (the internet, Facebook etc.) is privately owned, controlled, mediated. It is thus in the private sphere that we are told to express ourselves, mainly in a monetary way. So long as we conform to institutional norms and dogmas, we are free to fully self-express on cluttered Internet forums and in the world of monetarised individuality. This begs an analysis of our current state of enlightenment. If enlightenment is indeed a journey without a destination, a process of truth seeking and knowledge separate of bounded norms then our current situation needs scrutiny beyond microscopes. It is fairly probable on assessment that the current liberal-capitalist ideology succinctly bypasses our consumerist identities as necessary in order to get us “where it hurts”- that being the level of social practices and beliefs that we don’t ever think about and repeat in a “things are because they are” way.

Ants in pants

oh death personified in the morning show wakey wakey to the chimes of woe the wheelchair that your nightmares know the cackling cry of a couch dwelling duo oh please mr. suit and mrs. pantsuit sing your ancient ode astute you know my failings before I do squawk to me the trending tune ride and ride on the wagon of lament make sure to have your coffee break rant oh I adore that segment, where you chant I run round the living room like a watered ant

Our sky is the floor of the ones we adore

Don’t leave me burnt alive With the rest of this world This place stinks now Breaths of fire clouds No sun to speak Without you Even without your weeps They were the sweetest tears Now I just seep thick gunk Eyes spin in a funk I don’t know this town Rainbow to a frown Constant noise Like a mite on the mind Who designed them anyway? Unnatural borderline insane Like a trench hospital Baptized as an alien Hybrid breed in the thick of it On the silver spoon These screeching tires and tired yawns Adorn the filthed sidewalk Hawked as I walk Can’t hear myself talk Meaning no longer works Shadows that stalk Reaching down to the wars Our sky’s the floor Of the ones we adore

Glacier Lakes

Break of Dawn

Break of dawn Minds a thorn Arranged marriage of sorts Broken down as you dream blue Tepid lapping lagoon Armed with your harpoon Killing the disloyalty of organised nature The failure It’ll break there

A divorce of a kind Pushed from the mind Now set with sun And alone with the moon Slip to a liquid dune

Constructed a kind Missed the arrow in the eye The sky, the sun The season’s routine But its easy oh so easy Hard to scrape all batter from the batch The hook from the catch Could we call it an infatuation? Loyal to mission, fissions fused Used and abused Naturally speaking of course Natural’s lost its meaning Oh that’s fucked up I’ll design this trip Last till the ship tips Till then I’ll drift some more Figure shit day by day Till I hit the shore

Tales of Nothing

Rising tides engulf from all sides Salt stings where there should be sight

Thunder rolls like the sound of drones Waves clatter like a welcome foe Suffocation that tastes so pure An overload of sensual allure Toes and sand coalesce together A feeling meant to last forever Loneliness never felt so good The old beast long misunderstood Specks waiting in the distance Swim further on their insistence The sand remains of what is left Some things are best left unsaid This was how it was meant to be Tales of nothing in an empty sea

All webs lead to spiders

As humans we experience similar emotions- happiness, sadness, joy, sorrow, sympathy, trepidation etc. These emotions, although evoked in different ways, arguably are felt in the same way. As such, is there an artificial way in which these emotions are manifested? If we think about this in terms of the emotion of happiness, are there false ways in which happiness is created and felt within a human? Is happiness itself an artifice?

Undoubtedly society shapes and warps the way in which we believe happiness and other emotions can be realised, understood and strived for. But does this make it necessarily false? People often get hung up on the idea that their knowledge, their choice and their decisions and based on the winding discordant road of their particular society. Demonstrably, in western society, we believe that a persons’ ability to work hard, earn money and then spend that money on certain things will translate into happiness. Whilst, personally I disagree with this rationality of thinking, it doesn’t necessarily mean that the happiness derived from this methodology is a false emotion. At the end of the day humans are rational beings, and this rational and discernible narrative provides a way for humans to navigate the mire and maybe reach some semblance of happiness.

Societal factors have definitively shaped this narrative and people are aware of that. However so long as the emotions are pure does it necessarily matter that they were shaped in a particular way or by a certain force? As far as I can tell, human beings will always strive to organize themselves along societal lines and so societies will forever exist as part of the human species. Societies thus should be looked at, not as an exterior alien entity, but as an extension of ourselves. We look at it in the wrong way- society shouldn’t shape us: we should shape society. In that way then we can begin to see that there is no artificial way to experience something. Even an emotion derived from virtual reality is still an emotion at its core.

Matt is a Small Business Owner

Matt is a big man. You’ll see his poorly goateed grin pasted half-heartedly outside the small supermarket running off Princess Avenue in Nedlands. As well as being poorly, he’s also portly. He’ll often be seen indiscriminately tucking his sizeable dome behind and underneath the cashier to his local and definitely profitable supermarket. If there is one thing that Matt has perfected it is the authentic local business owner look. Adorned with faded jeans, picked up exquisitely from Target (pronounced Targé), Matt will often go home and go to sleep in these practical and pungent jeans. By the end of the day’s hard work, these jeans will stick to Matt’s legs like glad wrap sticking to leg sized perfetta rolls, and he’ll make one lazy attempt to squeeze them off before collapsing indulgently on his bed. He basks daily behind his chicken-fat smeared counter, exuding an air of staleness and self-importance. Comments fly from his horsey mouth like pellets of shrapnel. Barbing jibes will often strike a customers face, causing them to wince, as if sand has just been thrown in their eyes. “Nother’ bloody boatful trying to get to these fine shores again, when will they bloody learn eh?” Matt’s addressing the paper and nobody in particular. Matt, being a Greek immigrant himself, has a favourite and much indulged pastime of throwing popular Newscorp invective in irritated customers faces. Sickly rancid sweat and misinformed political knowledge pore out of his pores at such a rate, that at the end of the day he’s selling more snorkels than fruit and veg. The regal and reverent store owner. The washed up nobody who made it big. The man who had nothing and turned it into something. Matt found his cliché in life, and he wears it more proudly than his self-made nametag, which glistens with the words, “Matt- Owner.” Surrounding his doomed belly behind the cashier, is a giant tin of Chuppa-Chup lollypops, with all the cola flavour’s taken out and consumed, and a rack of cigarettes, reserved mainly for his faithful group of 15 year old regulars who audaciously and nonchalantly come in with their school uniform on. Profit earned is profit justified, Matt’ll say in response to his wife’s logical misgivings on the sale of tobacco to kids.

Matt has gorged enough advertisements in his life to know the true value of things. He also knows that bargains are bad business. He has fourteen signs around his store warning shoplifters and 12 signs warning of security cameras, which aren’t actually present. When Matt suffers through another profitless quarter he’ll blame his only other staff member, 14 year-old family-friend, Sally, and deduct 25% off of her meager $8.45/hour. Sidesaddle to Matt’s cashier pedestal, is the giant human sized furtive brow that is Matt’s wife. You’ll often find her tucked away in some hidden aisle, like the off jar of pickles stuffed at the bottom left-hand side of aisle three. There, she’ll be shiftily putting stock away on the shelf, whilst pocketing loose dregs of sleeping pills, to help her doze off over the top of Matt’s barking breath.

One day, when spouting wisdom university students pay for, he realized that he had spent a life shucking priceless jewels of economic information to a herd of consumer sheep for no price except time. So now, in the evenings, when Matt has returned from a 13-hour shift worth $112, he’ll sit, cask wine by his side and write his pre-eminent manifesto, in fits of inspiration. He’ll sit there huddled over his keyboard, tap-tapping away as his index fingers tremble with pre-excitement of his assured fame within the economic community. After hours of erratic writing, he’ll pour and recline and sit smug in the certainty that his seminal text on the role he has played in the success of neoliberal economics, will change the small business community forever. In his text he has chapters dedicated to his heroes, Thatcher and Reagan, as well as a lengthy 145-page chapter dedicated to his life’s work.

In the mornings, Matt’ll finish his personal literary jerk-off, and catch 2 hours of erect sleep before sliding off to open the shop at 5am. Every morning as dawn pierces the sky and slashes the clouds open, Matt opens the unlocked front door and glances round his shop. “Fair dinkum” he’ll say to himself with curling satisfied lips and a professional nod. “Fair bloody dinkum Matt.” Unironically, he’ll say it again, as if once wasn’t enough to sate the amount of absolute pride he feels in himself.

6am and the doors are open. Matt’s potent odour lingers on the checkout bench. Kate, his wife, is somewhere round the back, rat-like, sniffing dust off the top of a 2-month expired can of Roma tomatoes. An indiscriminate customer fatefully walks through the open door. They bring with them the loneliness of a Tuesday 1pm visit and a stench of the dole. Matt, being the profit driven neoliberal expert that he is, demands to see some proof of monetary means. The customer, obviously taken aback, fails to brandish his means of purchasing power quick enough and is duly escorted out of the shop, with Matt’s self righteous doughy fingers prodding his back to hurry his poor pong out of the door.

A cockroach scurries through the open door just as the health inspector dials the number to Matt’s store. “Fuckn’ filthy bastard, come er’ you” Matt stomps around after the roach, like he’s putting on the worst culturally appropriated African tribal dance ever performed. The phone rings. “Kate! Get that will ya?!” “Kate! Kaaa-te!” “Ah ya fuckn’ yoosless woman.” “Gooday, this is Matt here, owner. Proceed.” “Hi Matt, it’s Reg here, the health inspector. I’m just ringing to remind you that I’ll be dropping in this afternoon as part of our annual checkup. You all good to go?” “You bet Reg.” Matts’ voice quavers as he sees the cockroach slip indulgently into a bath of month-old deli coleslaw. “What time will you be round Reg?” “About 3 I’d say.” Matt looks at his watch. 1:15. “Fuck” “What was that?” “Oh nothing Reg, I’ll see you at 3.” Matt hangs up the phone, looks around the store and surveys the battlefield. Matt crunches his teeth together, tenses his buttocks and screams an almighty, “Kaaaaaaatteeeee” “Get er’ right bloody now!” “Where are ya? Right there you are. So. We have Reg coming in at 3, you know, Reg. REG! Yes the health inspector. Yes, I know we already have 2 strikes, yes I know this place will be the death of you. But. But just listen to me here. I have a plan. Oh boy, does old Matt have a plan. Kate. Kate! Does your sister in law still have that high-pressure hose? Right. Oh, you bloody beaut. Right go get it. Now. Now!”

Matt looks around. I’m gonna’ high-pressure hose the absolute shit out of this place. Matt scuttles to the back room office, pulls out the closed sign and sticks it roughly on the mouldy front door. Time for action. Matt is so impressed with his problem solving skills that he scribbles a quick reminder on his foresty forearm to start a new chapter on the necessity for good problem solving skills in a neoliberal environment, using himself as a case study. Kate returns, and bustles through the door, with the high pressure hose and her mascara dripping down her face like giant tears etched onto her cheek with permanent markers. Matt snatches the hose off of her. “This is a mans job!” Kate creeps back into the shadows. Matt plugs in the electric generator, hooks up the hose to the tap and tests the power of the beast on his small businessman boots. The 2-week-old crusted dog shit comes off immediately. Matt grins disgustingly, as if he’s just had a stroke. Kate re-appears from the shadows, “um, Matthewww, will not the h-h-health inspecttttor s-s-s-suspect something when he seeeees all the w-w-water?” Matt snorts. Obviously only a man could figure this out. His master plan. A plan for masters. “ya see, Kate, you bloody moron, ya see here. Kate. Kate! Look on over here. Ya see that giant stack of 10litre water bottles. What I want you ta do is take em’ out the back, punch holes in em’, an’ empty the lot of em’ out. Quick smart, woman. Atta’ girl. Then when ya dun all of that, stack em’ right back where ya found em’. Makin’ sure you can see the oles’ nice and good.” “I don’t get it.” “course ya don’t, I wouldn’t expect ya’ to. Just do as I bloody say. And when our dear old friend Reg comes in just play ya part well an’ shove off.”

Matt begins. He fires up the hose and starts with the counter. He blasts and sprays and peels back decades of hardened mould and sweat. Rinds of gunk rip off the countertop like sheets off skin after toasting in the sun. He moves into the aisles and manically waves the hose around like he’s performing an elaborate vanishing magic trick. The green residue boldly clings on but Matt sprays with more venom. Pools of pulpy dirt gather and sit in the natural declines of the store and Matt turns over to the building pond of putrid purée and blasts it towards the open back door. In his mind, Matt is hooked on suppressed anger. The fiery cannon of the destructive force of water and the satisfying feel as clumps of filth flit in the air like snowflakes give Matt shivers of pleasure. He closes his eyes and imagines he’s in a video game. In his hands is an AK47, the ones you use on Call of Duty. He’s walking around an old Western saloon, mowing down everything and everyone he’s ever known, and therefore hated. Moving between thrown over chairs and tables he reloads his gun and cocks it in absolute pleasure. He looks over and sees his miserable parents- two succinct bullets in their crusty lamentable foreheads. Bang, Bang. Won’t be seeing you anytime soon. Brittle flecks of years old pastry cascade over Matt’s face as he imagines the blood and guts of his parents flying and splatting on his manic grin, turning it into a Joker mask. He turns over to the bar. The surly bitch is sitting there, innocuously sipping a can of roma tomatoes. Matt feeds her full of lead, and mushy red goo spews out of her side like the contents of her vegetable drink. Matt laughs hysterically like a cartoon villain, but there’s nothing fictitious about his anger. Purging every living soul he knows, he goes to the back and looks out across the room. Bang Bang Bang, The group of bullies in school. Bang Bang, His first landlord. Bang Bang, He closes his eyes, shutting them tightly, sprays wildly. And then he opens, and sees Reg, he’s behind the bar-the barman. He points the gun in his direction. Then the gun disappears and Matt wakes up. The hose has been switched off and Matt stands panting in aisle three. Kate is by the tap. “Enough!” Matt barely hears her. He just looks out at the repercussions of his superb plan and takes a bow. The store is soaked but devoid of blight. Matt tells Kate to bring in the water bottles just as Reg pulls up.

“Reg! Reg! Thank fuck ya here mate. I canna believe I’ma sayin’ this but we just got robbed. Yeah! Robbed! At gunpoint. At bloody gunpoint! Can ya even believe it? What has this bloody country come ta? Christ mate. Neva ave’ I seen it with me own eyes beefore. I was over ere’ by the checkout and some big ol’ burly fella come rushin’ in with a great big gun in his hands. I’ma lookin’ at im’ and he’s tellin’ me to empty out the till. And ya know what I’m like don’ya Reg. I tell im’ to get stuffed. And so what does this fella’ do? Empties a great big pile a’ lead into those water bottles over there by the door, causin’ this fuckn’ great big mess, right on the day of your visit ere’. I tell ya Reg, if it wasn for this pile o’ warta ova the store, you’d be already tickin’ your list and be getting’ on ya way.”

Reg is tired. As a man who works as a health inspector, he can be lumped in alongside the taxman- doing a job that people despise, despite his work being to their benefit. He’s known Matt for seven years now. Each year and each inspection has brought new filth and new lies. Reg knows nobody really shops here except for Alzheimer elderlies and people new to the neighbourhood, so each year Reg has turned a bored blind eye to the sewerage supermarket and the swamp rat that owns it. Except this year, Reg vowed to come in and close this place for good. To once and for all purge the dump of its garbage and its hoarder. What spurred Reg to take this action was Kate, Matt’s wife. Reg hadn’t caught a glimpse of Kate till last year when he came in to do his annual inspection. In the seven years since he’s been coming to the store it was the first time he’d seen Matt’s wife, over in the shadows, lingering like a thick piece of dust. That day last year, before departing the store, after Reg had given Matt his second warning, Kate had rushed up to Reg and thrust a piece of paper in his hand. Uncrumpling the paper wet with sweat, it had said one thing; “help.” After that day Reg decided that closing this place down was more than doing the right thing for the public, it was now a matter of saving a poor wife’s sanity. So no, Reg didn’t buy Matt’s sorry story for a second. But he also couldn’t give Matt his third and final warning for some spilt water, however drenched the store was.

As Matt told his story, Reg looked over at Kate and gave her a ‘don’t worry’ look. She responded by looking unsure. “Did you catch any of the robbery on cctv?” Reg says, turning to address Matt. “Mate I bloody wish I coulda’ but see I don’t ave’ enough money ta buy a bloody camera, coz the taxman keeps stealin’ it all from me.” Reg rolls his eyes. “I see. Well guess I’d better take a look around. In the meantime can you take some measures to getting this floor nice and dry?” As soon as Reg said it he regretted doing so. “Kaaattteee? Kaaaaaattteee!? Christ where are ya? Ah. There ya are. Get this floor dry as my granny’s fanny, for Mister Reg over here. Quick smart. Atta’ gurl.” Matt looks smugly at Reg, “what else are woman good fa’ if not fa cleanin’ eh Reg?” Reg suppresses some vomit and moves quickly to the first aisle.

Down and through all six aisles, Reg still hasn’t found what he’s looking for. Dragging his feet through the sodden grey tiles he enters into the deli. It’s his last chance to find something to sink the inflated belly of Matt. He searches under the countertop, inspects the blade of the meat slicer, tests the quality of the homemade quiche and finally decides that this might not be his year. That is, until his ballpoint pen descends on the salad section. Scanning through the assortment of quinoa grains and fruity assortments, Reg’s eyes rest on a bowl that reflects back up at him from the glistening coleslaw sauce. As Reg’s eyes rest, so does his foreboding anxiety as a fat juicy mocha brown roach rolls and frolics in the hardened sugar slaw. Reg sighs, looks up at Matt and doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t need to.

Matt is back in video game mode. Except this time he has no gun. He’s unarmed and vulnerable. Reg is behind the bar now and advancing on him. He holds a James Bond style ballpoint pen, armed viciously with a spy device that could incapacitate him. Matt looks around the saloon and grabs at anything he can in self-defense. He starts throwing things wildly at Reg; old trophies, cowboy hats, holsters, shoes, bottles, cutlery. It’s blind panic. Back in the store Matt is going wild. His head is jerking around side to side like a tassel on a walking pair of shoes. He’s picking up items now and throwing them at Reg. Cans of beans fly past him, as do cans of olives and pickles. A raining shopping list of items descend on Reg but all miss his body. Reg has called the police. He’s also signaled for Kate to get out. Damn it. Damn it. Damn it. Matt knows this is the end. He’s been trapped in his own base. He’s in the corner of the saloon now, just by the ladder to the upstairs attic. As the sheriff enters the saloon, Matt knows there’s only one way out of this mess- up and through the attic and onto the roof. Matt begins to climb. The ladder wobbles. It’s hard to grip. His hands feel like a melting block of ice as his skin excretes more and more sweat. His feet slip and his body contorts as he falls back and down and his body slams hard into the cold floor. He opens his eyes to see the ladder following his lead and flattening his body.

Reg cannot believe what he’s just seen. He stood aghast and witness to the big bulldozing owner getting flattened by the shelf of aisle one. All present hadn’t moved for 30 seconds. Eyes darted around confusingly and blankly. Limbs tensed and forgot how to work. That is, all except Kate, who emerged from the shadows of the dust, to go behind the counter, take her car keys of the hook, and walk out of the front door, never to return.

Far away in British Columbia

Ambulances for Stubbed Woes

I passed out from taking too many pills in my sleep I feel thrilled by finally getting the privilege to dial 000 But I dial 911 coz my minds playing like a movie The ambo gets to me and asks who’s pres of the USA to wake me up She answers for me, “Trump” and I tell her to give me a lethal drug She looks at me and says, “you already have you dickhead” I ask the paramedic if the hospital does good catering She said I’d be on a drip for a week. Cool I said. Make it a good flavour. I then fall into a deep happy sleep, it’s been my first in a week. I play the conversation with the ambo in my head on repeat. Did I make a fool of myself? I wake and find a number left for me. Nice. But it’s the business card of a psychologist I must see. 

Fuck. This reclined chair is awkward. Stiflingly uncomfortable. My sweaty palms stains the leather arms and a leaking balm drips off my chaffed lips. How are you? I say. No that’s my job, How are you? But I insist. How are you? This goes on for an hour. Then I leave and go to McDonalds. The only safe place in the city. Where horrid, putrid glaring clouds bark down Their alien laser eyes deep fry the town. So I reach for a chip.  Munch down to forget the drip. Slurp, drool to help me slip,  into a fat ferocious food coma.  I pick up a chip with a burnt melanoma. Scoff it down with a pickled burp. Leaving I stub my toe on the curb.

It’s fine for 2 seconds then it beats and beads with a hot pulsating plea. My toe has a heartbeat of its own. It’s sown its future on the curb. My pathetic black blood dries quickly on the filthy road. Shoots of tingling vines spread through my foot with the ferociousness of a fully accelerated engine. It feels good. I try to stub my other toe to make it last. But I miss and kick a strangers dog. Right, square in the shaft. It wrenches its head back to release a yelp, but stops to realize that its squeals for help are rendered useless by the snippity snip he was dealt. Poor thing. How old is he? I enquire. But the retched crusty, cruzzly old bat that now holds the dog in her lap, is already tut-tutting her way back to her coffee appointment with her daughters seven cats. My chest is compressed in this drumming heat. My ears are ringing to a wailing weep, as I drag my feet along behind my body In search of my bloody room. Oh what a fucking drudgery. Hug me. My only companion. hello again, friend. Help me sleep, take a seat and burrow into my brain Dig deep into this bane.

Streets of Venice

The Northern Sky

In my turbulence shaken paper house A tale spins around the foyer And back around, the earth is round Like a pinball machine, it’s bashed till it’s brown But slower than you’d think Mine is a tale of an odyssey With no homer-heroic spin It’s a one-way plane, with a boomerang for wings Spinning out of control In a tornado of rapidity It lands above, forces me to fold As the mutated alarm clock calendar And a hanging garden of knives Threatens to reveal iconicity When I tell of the northern sky

Green glowing grass critics Want perfection or not But it’s grey out there in the northern sky And I rode the metal elevator all the way up high In the blink of an eye I’m real suddenly. As sterile coffee, And cockroach catch-ups Form my new reality. Here I am, a simple man, With a big fucking dream Lodged between any real I say sweet to their words But I mean 2 things I’m a prompter, A man in a suit A flat soda fizz to a bi-carbonated Typewritten toot Pleasing those who run rivers Of wordy whoops Swooping down like the cawing Caterwauling, cackling crow cries That droop in the air In the sullen backyard, Like your dads hanging baskets of utopia You know that ya fucked. As breakfast is served up And the dog is here too But he sits there like a wolf His smile turns to laughter Dripping piles of bile pools As a snake turns into a serpent Far away in the northern sky

The cameras arrive Call back the castaways The local paper’s here To hear what you have to say And a small prayer is told To the tales of the sails of your youth When sirens went smiling And nymphs caught a glimpse Of the words of your walking Your foreboding Your dichotomising Of the new sense of self But that’s not what you said The cameras have a run a red light You’re sat still in strife Your past life means nothing To a mind constructed, Not created. Distant from the northern sky

You say again As sweat causes words To drip with playback foreboding. You’re talking to the dishwasher now Loud and proud You proclaim how You made it all the way to the northern sky In a smoking chassis That blew fumes like a seasoned Beard branded Leather handed Candid Guy “Hi” It’s you lover Who can only answer why The missing number In the equation To make matter of your mind You went together To the top of the northern sky

Now it’s time For the smoked flats of heaven To be hit and razed You need not praise For where or what you did It exists in the grey zone of matter And what matters is only that You and I were there together Cast high, smiling while We were there In the northern sky