On Maximalism - 31/10/2013

.

this is my minimalist poem
about maximalism

funny as fuck
first few times
got it now-you all sound
the same (more so) 

and more
is less. 

Enough said. 

________________________

-Peace

.

Telling Smiles - 31/10/2013

.

Man,
don't go around
telling a woman
she should smile

maybe you can try
just

giving her some reason to

instead.

_______________ 

-Peace

.

I'm almost done.

.

been sitting here
little longer
than I care to admit
trying to find
really clever funny ways
to tell the internet
I'm feeling down
today

haven't come up with anything yet

which in itself
also makes me feel down.

_____________

-Peace

.

Exchanges -29/10/2013

.

I lost her ring.

She was a sex worker who came into the needle exchange early one night, three years ago, wanting to leave it and a few of her belongings there in the booth with me before she started that night.  I told her I'm not responsible for her stuff and that she better come back and get it before my shift ends in the morning.

She never came back, ever.

I can't remember much about what she looked like now except her not being pretty, blond hair I think scruffy, some sores on her face maybe and that annoying generic whiny voice all junkies have. I remember being irritated with her for asking. I remember coming back for my next shift and seeing the ring still there.

Then a week. Then another three, and then finally I took it.  It was equal parts not wanting to see it waiting there anymore and... kinda liking it myself. It was real silver with a simple elegant design on it.

I like to think she just simply forgot it. And maybe she also quit heroine and also street work that night too, and that's why I never saw her again. Allota women go missing doing the sort of work she did around St Kilda, without getting media outpourings for it.

We had a information sharing/report system set up for women to warn each other about unsafe clients to go with, 'Ugly Mugs' is what they called it. When I started that job I read the updates on every shift. I stopped doing that pretty quickly though, except if I had to take down one down myself.

Things in there were pretty grizzly.

Usually I took my rings off when I started work to make it easier if I had to type, I'd leave them on the edge of the desk in the booth, same place where I left that women's ring. It was a tough job.

Some people end up doing some pretty hard things to earn money.





________________________






-Peace










.

The broken back of Ben John Smith - 28/10/2013

.

when I found 

his hospital room 

Ben John Smith was surprised 

by my appearance

the first time we've met
outside a poetry night

so he'd assumed
I always walk around
wearing a safari hat

(debunked that)

then told him
I read his book
while on the toilet

also that
I've been biting his style
ever since

highest form of flattery

...and all that shit

________________

Oh and Seriously, do check out Ben's book, it's delicious: buy it here

-Peace

.

Out of Ten - 18/10/2013

.

Poetry doesn't love you

don't think it even particularly likes you
infact it told me you're a bad lay,
pedantic, and that you're stingy
had to get it very drunk
before it would admit it

no wait I'm lying
it was actually over coffee

called you a horrible fake
or was it a complete fraud?
yeah either way
Poetry hates you

sorry to be the one to tell you
actually no okay
lying about that too
I couldn't wait to tell you

oh and Poetry also said
every time you click your fingers
it's thinking about stabbing you
in the throat

I'd stay out of Poetry's way, if I was you.

.
______________
.

-Peace.

.

Get It - 16/10/2013

.

nice guys don't finish last.

creepy dudes with hang ups
with  resentment deep down

of what they don't have
though know they really
desperately righteously
and truly-ruly
deserve from women

men with a jealously inflated

sense of entitlement

all-thumbs clinging to this notion
that they're still
really nice guys?

the beta-male

underdog romantic 

oh yeah them,
they finish last
all the time bro

nice guys
aren't in this race
in the first place
at least, against
or not in the sense

of having to compete with anyone.

______________

-Peace.

.

Reloaded - 12/10/2013

.

Kill your gods.

Then
make it look like an accident.

.
______________

-Peace

.

.

In Sydney -07/10/2013

.

From an old friend I bump into 

outside a vegan ink tattooist 

that I end up chewing over 

poetry's poverty with

here on King Street

for half an hour

to the kid 

missing both legs
and an arm,

in a wheelchair
getting off the train 

unaided
at Redfern station,

to the endless and space-less
parked car streets
detouring you into miles
of hyper-privileged 

unfriendliness,

to my friend's broom closet

cum backyard
and it's procrastinating

work in progress
sitting planks between
modern art and permaculture,

to one way traffic 

that always catches you

looking the wrong way,

that skyline of Christmas jewelry infernal

that smiles at your provincialism
that makes short stories long
that makes you want to stay
that hole you want to fill
that makes less sense than a love letter

to a one night stand
that naive need for a final epic poem

that hugs this impossible place
that can't emerge because this muse
that won't sit still for your story

that is not supposed to end

this strange big-city hospitality
flying in the grumpy face of anyone
who wants to talk about rat races
and urban isolationism

this big-titted town is to me
what yellow-sun is to Superman

feeling recharge in my cells
flat out of Melbourne
rise above the clouds
for less than an hour
and I'm back

in Sydney.

__________________

-Peace.

.

Pussy -6/10/2013

.

gets there and remembers
how anxious/awkward
he is with people

he thinks about cats
who also don't like people
but like being around them

he likes cats
it was in this way
that he learned
how to become

a party animal.

______________

-Peace.

.

Leggy - 5/10/2013

.

want to be that coconut oil
you rub all over your legs
and want to be the-
actually wait no

really I just want to be all over your legs

_______________

-Peace.

.

The Escapist -5/10/2013

.

It's been so long
since the Shadows have asked me
what do you want?

since every city skyline
stopped looking
like a denuded stand-in
for flying saucer
space monsters

since the Borg invaded
sector zero zero one
since the wormhole entrance
was mined to stop
the Dominion

recently online I saw a chart
some crazy fucker had made
with hundreds of starships

from all the many science fiction shows
it was as intricate

as my adolescent mispends
it had everything 

from Red Dwarf to Robotech

I stared at the screen for hours
and again, for light-years
as if back a few years

looming at that giant map of India,
laid out on the table before me vast
the night before I crossed that border

memory of whole worlds
being created and destroyed
by my imagination
came flooding back

my girlfriend asked me why I ever stopped
when I showed her all the tiny figures
I so painstakingly painted
for my Star Wars model collection

joked it was because
I finally gotta girlfriend
but wasn't joking

remember these things
making me happy
also remember these things
as pursuits you do alone
in your room
and don't share
the results
with many

there is a past
that for all its isolation and anger
also involved doing things
that simply made you happy
that took you away
to far flung corners
of the universe

all those hundreds of starships charted
no matter how powerful and fast
couldn't travel far enough
to catch up with a self-conscious me
who wanted to rehabilitated from geek

though
amongst all the worlds
and their fictional lives
only this one I stand on
continues to change

these days
my phone makes a sound
like a communicator from Star Trek

I don't mean it reminds me of that
I mean the actual sound has been downloaded

and it makes that noise
and even though
I reckon it's really cool
I'm still a little sheepish
when telling people
embarrassed

but like, y'know,
maybe not quite
as much

as I once would have been.

___________________

-Peace.

.