Turbulence and Other Unfinished Business -21/10/2009

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"So do you know how I feel, tonight..."

-Saul Williams, Wine

There’s never been Saul Williams out this far,
I must be the first person to play his CD,
In Narre Warren, down the Princes highway,
Cruising around in a borrowed car,
I’m almost certain,
This is the only time,
That 'wine' will be heard out here.

As my colleagues continue to thumb through,
Their well-thumbed-through thesaurus’,
For more riddles for the same few poets to moo along too,
I see my stage space sooner or later being replaced,
By pokie machines, and I don’t even know if I’ll mourn,
But I won’t… masticate.

I’ll just wine,
In a borrowed car performing petroleum injection in six valves,
Itself on a dwindling supply of borrowed time,
Fueled on old bones from older seas,
Under a sky too big to hold anything as small as this,
In its favour.

And it may not feel like it now,
But these are the good times,
The only ones we have to spare.

Putting my father on a plane again,
After the drop off,
Wondering how many more times I can,
Before one of these car seats will remain empty.

Don’t know when the last time I get to hug my mother,
Is going to happen,
Only that it will happen,
And will only happen once,
So I’ll have to hug her like it is that time,
Each time,
Simultaneously hoping it it's not.

And standing here now hoping it hasn’t happened already.

Because I still need… to need,
Something,
In spite the three hours just gone,
That will stretch out to the rest of tonight ahead,
Without me saying a word to another human being,
I still need tomorrow to emerge from plane turbulence,
For me,
For my father,
For my arms,
Around my and every other person’s mother too.

Last time my plane hit a patch of turbulence,
It was above Brisbane,
The woman sitting next to me,
Grabbed the moan in her throat too late,
And I heard it,
I laughed my arse off,
Feeling utterly alive,
Happy enough with what I have had here,
That I felt immediately ready to die,
Without wishing to.

It was only after I landed,
That I got scared,
And it’s only after these thoughts had become real words,
That I knew I was wrong,
It was only in recalling what I’d previously heard,
That I listened to it.

The sound of the human being next to me,
Who simply did-not-want,
Every single thing she had done,
Today,
This week,
This year,
To be the last one of those.

I hear Saul Williams wine,
And I think about... everything,
Everything I'm yet to put in the face of those other fuckin' poets,
Everything I have not loved enough,
Loathed enough,
Seen enough,
And I have not shit-eaten-fucked-thought-talked-fought-fled and bled,
Enough.

I want what the womans turbulence-induced moan wanted,
And the firm grasp of my father's shaken hand,
Wanted,


I want more.


So if this somehow were to end up,
Being my last poem,
Know,
That I never intended it to be,
That I ate every dish,
Sung every song,
And faced every face,
Savouring and satisfied,
Without staying in a state of satisfaction.

Still saving space for desert after each meal,
Living expectantly,




With room for a little bit more.






___________________________








-Peace







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