Got Here as Soon as I Could -2011

.


2011

I got here as soon as I could
high pointed-out of a plane
to jump fifteen thousand feet

then land on mine

this year found me valentine
stealing a cloud-top kiss
Mount Taranaki's weathered face
peaking out just to catch us
grinning 365 days of endorphins
into a road trip turned romance
stopped short

by a year
from any detours
from popping a collar
buying an iPhone
house-sitting a set-top box
or hemorrhaging any money
through holes they'll make in your wallet
to fit a petrol tank

still not buying into any of that
this year

found me staring down
sounds of a talked walk
writing burnmarks
on a hundred-more or more lonely nights
wrote when the blank screen
was a bleeding animal
or the empty stomach
out of an autopsy
when I've been dead-wrong
and fucken knew it

2011 hit me square like a stiff drink
into a dose of cold water
licking ice off the window frames
in my glass house with greener grass
than status updates ever dare say

this year
played me along like a laugh track
following from one joke to the next
and none of them I was in on
the comedy situational
my humour unintentional
the timing...

...predictable
when at last I realised
that you better accept yourself
before expecting anyone else to


so I accept myself


I got here as soon as I could

2011 was a pat on the back
reminder for the facts that
I am me
and I like being me
wouldn't want to be anyone else on Earth
least of all, say my old boss

Paul Bourke of The Salvation Army St Kilda Crisis Centre Health Services

poor Paul, every single day in 2011
you had to wake up being you~
not just the biggest arsehole working welfare
but the worst -thing- two people having sex
ever produced

while I climbed a cliff up in Borneo
you were stuck
an office desk up your arse for a spine
hiding behind tasteless shirts
and a tucked in hair cut
a protracted excuse for incompetence posing
as a position to fill

meanwhile
I got to be me
every day this year
like the ones where I went busking
with a bearded lady in the town I was born
or took a friend to see 2001 on a cinema screen
or took bike-rides down dead of night streets
or meditated silent in the Blue Mountains

I'm grateful for it all
for a year that brought my sister back
safe after the Christchurch quakes
that brought my old cat back to live with me

grateful for the shared bottles of wine
for the shared smiles
shared nights
stories
journeys
amazing people who gave me
some of the best parts
of their year
to mix into mine
we've shared good days
to make one year
amongst seven billion others

2011 was an impossible distances
traversed on a raft of failed attempts
to find a perfect order of words
snaking into a tale
ending up eating my own words
that cyclic
ending as beginning thing
that types up mistakes label-named
from messes you made
out of this year
to find yourself
here

thinking next time you can do better
thinking next time maybe you'll get this right

I got here as soon as I could

with year 2011 sitting flat on the floor
fat like an overstuffed suitcase
with a lid that won't zip close
no matter how much I sit on it
stuffing five countries down
into a shape you can't really sum up
a whole year

except in remembering
good advice given
from a girl who told me
while embracing
to hang in a little longer
when giving someone a hug
so I did,

this year



I hung in there.




_______________________




well I wanted this done for Dec 31st for obvious reasons, but the damn thing kept turning into a braggadocio list for the year gone, replete with photos of the prize money Alex and I got from our video, meeting Shane Koyczan, seeing the World's biggest cave... blah blah blah toss, snore.

Anyway, that's not the intent, and while I'm not honestly convinced I've scrubbed out all the wank, this thing's already endured more editing and rewriting that the Nepalese Constitution, and it's already the 4th, so fuckit, I'm letting it go, as is... got it here as soon as I could.





-Peace