Friday, March 26, 2010

Friday, March 19, 2010

Awake dot Text -20/03/2010

.
Night shifts
holding me as an over-sized pause
long enough to see the sunrise
with now-cloudy vision.

Desk sleeps
up straight
head pillowed
on the inside of the elbow
which scratches
with the right side
of my stubble.

Skin tastes
all over like paper towel lint
from the last few bathroom visits
everything else inside
crunches like gravel under feet
and sits waiting like coiled wire
for the next instant
coffee cup.

Stomach feels
emptier than all these locked offices
and my body is
just a hard answer now
an unequivocal and terse 'yes'
a recoiling mass made up
from otherwise easy
and foul language,
that rolled off
this tired old tongue.

I swear.

Eyeballs grind
around inside their sockets
scowling out fatigue
facial features carved
out of these behind-enemy-lines
flaring nostril accompaniment
for a flatulence
no lover could forgive.

Ears absorb
all of St Kilda's night
the raspy whine
of a door's needy hinges
the breathing traffic bottlenecks
the pathetically-drunk
hopelessly-English backpacker
girls
click clack clump
slump.

From here
I can hear
everything right down to
each
and every individual
fluorescent lights vibration
as they
all-together have tried
to sponge up the sound of
each
and every individual
scream
from down these back streets.

Fuck-this
this-late
I want to fuck
anything that moves
until
suddenly those sounds burst my bubble
every explanation crumbles
and I'll suddenly stumble
even when sitting
the-fuck-down.

One night
I swear
I'm gonna get up
on two fucking legs
and out
into that unquiet night
follow and find
one of those horrendous
and individual
screams.

They
never get to me
like
some of the silences after
do.

And they do.

They do
sometimes
and pretty bad too
when
tonight
I have fought off sleep
to let the hours through
as each has then reached
in to me,


just too damn deep.





___________________


Sorry, I had to write something.




-Peace





.

We're Just Friends -19/03/2010

.
I got this friend
who has a friend
whom he'd like to be
his girlfriend
though she already has
a boyfriend

~as it turns out.

So now
they're going to be
just friends
and now
my friend
could really use
a friend
to talk to.

This
is where I come in
and that,


is what friends are for.


_________________________




-Peace



.

Friday, March 12, 2010

VIDEO BLOG #1: Alex Scott's "The Future of Entertainment" -live at Roarhouse




Randall Stephens & Alex Scot - The Future of Entertainment
Camera Work & Editing: mitch@lasophiste.com



(click the hyperlink above if you're not seeing the playable-video window)


____________________________




Here is the first of what I hope will be many more blogs with video of actual performance. This is from a gig we did on February 11th at Bar 303 in Northcote, for Roarhouse, a community volunteer organisation promoting mental health awareness.

My friend Mitch, a travelling filmmaker from France visiting Melbourne, was kind enough to come along and film my set, then cut together this clip. He did a fantastic job. Thanks Mitch.

If you'd like to get a hold of Mitch for something you'd like filmed or edited, talk to him at:
http://www.lasophiste.com/
or email him at mitch@lasophiste.com



As for the poem itself:
Blog-readers here might be unfamiliar with it, but Alex wrote it for us to perform at his going-away gig in Melbourne just over 2 years ago now, we performed a very jet-lagged version on the Nuyorican open mike in New York shortly thereafter.


Since then, we've done it way-too-many times since we've both returned to Melbourne. The best-performed version to date appears as track #17 on the Product CD. No, seriously I'm not just saying that in a vain effort to entice you to buy my (fucking) CD.

We've agreed to retire it and all our other duets together, indefinitely. So this blog seems like a good way to send it off.

Thanks again Mitch for your work in making this happen.






-Peace





PS -oh what the hell... (ahem) Oi! Buy my fucking CD already!


.

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Have It Your Way -09/03/2010

.


She wore
lingerie
on the outside
I guess it was
to save time.

Coming and going
she tried
to high-five me
afterwards.

Fucking
like she
was eating
a fucking Big Mac.

She'll have
what she's having,
so I asked her:

is this eat-in
or
take away?

And
she took that,


to go.





_______________________






-Peace






.

Thursday, March 4, 2010

Beholden the Giant -19/02/2010 (Spokenhagen version)

.

Just got my bicycle serviced
And now I’m nervous
picked up this Demon
this evening, cleaned
and parts replaced
components upgraded
…with scores to settle.

Heavy metal
shining like jewellery
she’s been feeling the winter neglect
holding a grudge
won't play nice with other vehicles
can smell a car door opening a mile away
rides up gutters like they aren't there
they don't exist!
neither does fatigue
or dark
or up-hills
downhill’s exist though
she squeals with glee whenever we see one.

Laughs at the wind
she keeps taunting it at my expense
she doesn't care about her rider
just uses me to get herself from A to B
She never gets tired
but makes me that way
demands respect
but seldom returns it
powered by sweat
by doesn't recognise it herself.

As hard as I breathe standing on the peddles
there's no end to her greed
the insatiability of simple mechanics
she runs off no battery
needs no petrol
isn't affected by dehydration
cold
or heat
my calories alone
keep her going
And that is all she costs to run.

The world's oil could disappear
oceans die
the air could become unbreathable
she wouldn't care
she can’t be stopped
-all she needs is ground
keeps eating it up
while barely making a sound
she just keeps humming along
knowing it all belongs behind her.

She’s stubborn and unforgiving
unstoppbale
I love her!
but
don't tell her I said any of this
‘cause she'll hurt me.

A mean old horse
with a vicious temperament
never exactly be a traffic stopper,


But she won’t be stopped by traffic either.




_________________________________


'Spokenhagen' was a poetry slam presented as part of a Sustainability festival run in Melbourne recently. Above was my entry, a re-tooled version of one of my oldest poems.




-Peace





.

Tuesday, March 2, 2010

The Monolith -03/03/2010

.
She banned me
from talking about,
or reciting,
poetry
for at least an hour.

Then,
she said to me
Doesn't the Moon look wonderful tonight?

...

I was good
I didn't grit my teeth,



or anything.




_______________________




-Peace.




.