TALES TOLD BY AN IDIOT

Sweetalkers February -THIS SUNDAY!

2012-02-07T15:49:00.000-08:00

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In February we’re packing in more talent than you can poke a $10 note at (as blunt a device as that is). This month we have for you four very diverse performers, united under the theme of: people we should hear doing spoken word in Melbourne more often.

1/6 (One Six)

African-Australian Hip Hop Artist 1/6 makes his second-ever foray into a Capella, after his amazing 2009 debut at Wordplay. Born in Australia but raised and schooled in Namibia, 1/6 has emerging as one of Aussie hip hops freshest talents.

Now based in Melbourne, 1/6 boasts regular appearances with respected groups Illzilla, Public Opinion Afro Orchestra, The Mega Horns, Polo Club, Black Jesus and his crew Pang Productions, and was recently the recipient of the Hilltop Hoods initiative, giving him a grant towards his first solo album.

One Six Freestyle Live StrictlyOZ Kiss FM 2011

if you are not seeing a playable video window click here for a direct link

You can also listen to a podcast of his appearance at Wordplay in 2009 by clicking here

LAURA JEAN MCKAY

Another Wordplay veteran (yes, we steal ideas from the best here at Sweetalkers, including Wordplay’s blurb on her: “Her performances are an enchanting and chaotic mix of cabaret, short story reading, song, spoken word, and high-level wrongness”). We’ve wrestled her away from finishing her short story collection to come tell us a thing or two.

Laura has published in Best Australian Stories, Sleepers Almanac and The Big Issue. An Asialink literature residency to Cambodia led to an MA in Creative Writing at the University of Melbourne (see video below) . In 2011 she won the Alan Marshal Short Story award and was shortlisted for the 2011 Whitemore Press Poetry Manuscript prize.

The Cyclo Men of Phnom Penh -(written by Laura Jean McKay)

if you are not seeing a playable video window click here for a direct link

Check out her website at: www.laurajeanmckay.com

ANDY JACKSON

Andy is one of my very favourite Melbourne poets, back fresh from India, where he recently completed an Asialink residency, exploring medical tourism, and performing at poetry events over there. He doesn’t sing, shout or stage dive but speaks simply and beautifully, writing poetry about bodies, identities and the indefinable.

He has performed at the Australian Poetry Festival in Sydney, Queensland Poetry Festival, and the Newcastle Young Writers Festival. His collaborative performance with puppeteer Rachael Guy was awarded the City of Yarra Award for Most Innovative Work at the 2009 Overload Poetry Festival (see video below). His first full-length collection of poems – Among the Regulars - was shortlisted for the Kenneth Slessor Prize in 2010.

Ambiguous Mirrors - collaboration with Rachael Wenona Guy

If you are not seeing a playable window above click here

SOPHIA DACY-COLE

Sophia Dacy-Cole. 20 something, hopeless romantic. Poet, artist and occasional activist. Studying an honours in fine arts as a backup plan while she waits for the anarchist revolution. Has edited for and been published in numerous student publications around Victoria. Sometimes at the same time. Has organised and performed in gigs around Victoria, Canberra and Nimbin. Is looking at starting up a slightly more queer centric gig soon, so look out for that.

Will probably fall in love with anyone who stands still long enough.

Looks much sexier on real life than in this video (of her 8 minute set as a Nimbin finalist)

~and likewise you will also fall in love with her words ~ probably happen as soon as you hear them.

Sophia is at the heart of the reason I started organising Sweetalkers ~she's one of the people I've been lucky enough to see in my travels that most Melbournians haven't. So help me help you fix that and be there Sunday!

We're mixing literature and street, brain food and braggadocio, veteran and beginner, men and women, black and white, good and evil, us and them, young and old, positrons and electrons, and maybe even a few neutrons too if you're good and well behaved.

8pm (starting time, doors open 7.30)

The Bendigo Hotel –Collingwood
125 Johnston Street
(uh, Collingwood)

with your lovable MC Randy Old Man Randall Stephens

more info:

click here for the facebook event page

or: https://www.facebook.com/groups/sweetalkers/

Saying Hello to My Little Friend -05/02/2012

2012-02-04T20:12:00.000-08:00

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a lot of guys
say I have the coolest shirt
it has Scarface
shooting

a lot of guys
come up to me
spark smiling conversation
we swap Tony Montana lines
like old friends

never any girls though
...but a lot of guys
who know the difference
between Stallone
and Pacino

and a lot of times
I wish girls
were more like guys
or guys
could be girls
who know lines
from Scarface

because seriously, it's a lot of guys.

_____________________________

(photo by Silvana Cuni)

-Peace

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Loading Zone -01/02/2012

2012-01-31T23:52:00.000-08:00

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had to hold my tongue
like it was a mop and the laundry was flooding

keep tears out my eyes
like they were a promise not to break

and with airport luggage between us
I had to say goodbye to her
trying not to load those words
with more weight

than she could carry on.

_____________________

-Peace

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'STRYA - January 26th

2012-01-25T17:17:00.000-08:00

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Yes - I am going to think you're a moron if I see you wrapped in an Australian flag

no - that doesn't mean I hate this country
or anyone in it

anyone at all

yes - I think this is a wonderful country
to live in

and no
I don't think it's at all ironic
to use the very freedom given to you
in a free and democratic society
just to point out it's many shortcomings

I think
that is actually the point of having freedom

and you're missing it
when you clothe yourself in symbols

Freedom belongs in this country
but not to this country
it came here
like everything and everyone came here
it is struggling here

Freedom is still trying to assimilate here

you can invade a place
to turn back every other boat
but you cannot own a land
that washes you away at a whim

you can wrap a flag around your flab
carve five stars on your back
but you can't claim sovereignty
over a sky

and - yes
I will think you a moron, if you try

_________________________________

Happy invasion day. I wasn't born here, I don't feel guilty for living here... I'm just a little embarrassed by some of my co-inhabitants, is all.

-Peace

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'A Bullet Between the Eyes of Every Panda That Won't Screw to Save its Species' -20/01/2012

2012-01-19T16:24:00.000-08:00

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chomp at the bit off sentence
swallowing down the urge
to tell you- go fuck yourself
that seems so imperative now
knowing it may not seem so important
tomorrow

know this from experience
inside out a simmering stomach
a flexing jaw
clenched face knuckle dance
on an every-ready keypad
breathing a fire
that might burn me
back draft

once I calm down

so I hold back
from punching you in the opinion
planting my flag in your eye socket
to send you home so sorry
you ever dared fuck with me
stop short
shit eating the grin
of a bigger man

I've one man paraded down
enough years of my own wreckage
to know I couldn't continue
down that path

and you can
call it wisdom
or cowardice
call it patience
prudence
maturity maybe
not to mouth off
give as good as I get
say something I regret

but right now
you deserve big face-fulls of me
I think
and kinda just wish we'd met

when I still lived my rough edges

_____________________________________

-Peace

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Randall Reads Erotic for Little Raven Publishing -19/01/2012

2012-01-18T19:57:00.000-08:00

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Recently I've fallen in with a mob called Little Raven, a Melbourne-based publisher of erotic short stories, novels, poems audio books and comics, who have been doing some great spoken word/storytelling gigs around town.

This week I'm their featured artist, with an audio recording of Except for 'Architecture in Helsinki' (text below) To listen to the recording click here

And check out the rest of their website, including recordings by other great authors here

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Except For "Architecture In Helsinki"

with your cats watching us

with your glasses on
with one of my boots still on
with your shoes staying on
with the doors
remaining unlocked

when the next-press of the snooze button
could not be more than mere seconds away
when you are trying, so hard, to continue talking
(normally)
with your friend on the phone
when you're already half way out the car door
when I really do have so much work to get done tonight
when no other cars have pulled up next to us
at the lights
when we pass that big empty park
near my parents’ place

with
someone wondering where we got to
the belt buckle still getting in the way
my thumb sitting in your mouth
and some annoying indy music on
in the background
anything that is except
"Architecture in Helsinki"
'cause that could really kill
any adequate blood supply
where it may be needed

without any restraints on volume
without having ever made it past the lounge floor
without being sure
your friend in the next room over
is really asleep yet
without walls any more solid or substantial
than the thin excuses used
in getting us back here
far away from the many possibilities
for well-behaved cowardice
without me
failing to notice how suddenly you were looking
in another direction
when I was looking
in your direction
without you
getting away with that, one last time.

and with you now
busily making that obligatorily-offered cup of tea
or coffee
I was ostensibly invited in for
but that neither of us really
(really)

really wanted.

-Peace

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Messages -16/01/2012

2012-01-15T18:14:00.001-08:00

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Language;
the greatest thing we have achieved
in our mammalian two minutes to midnight
the very first
most diverse
yet highly refined technology
we possess
a medium to transform thought
into message

language
also stands us up knife-point
between hope and despair
showing us the best
and worst
of our species

though they speak different languages
when people want to understand
one another
they will, somehow

though also, somehow
should two people
not wish to listen to one another
even when sharing the same language
communication becomes impossible

we talk our ammunition out
at each other
accusations fire
from the barrel
of personal injustice
banners of our outrage
we speak our sides our teams
our rights to our things
talk the debts we are owed
and the damages done to us

I once broke another man's nose
with a balled up fist
but that bloody injury
is pale against the pain
knowing I've caused on others
with sounds out my mouth
for the troubles they took
in how they listened

we can make words hurt

and between us
we've talked barrels of ink
back and forth
said clouds against mountains
monologued on shared orgasm
accused our own deities
described minute to the infinite
we've spoken pointed fingers
into blunt instruments

I've seen the finger-jammed ears
of those mouthing questions
they'd rather not have answered back
and the fumbled friction
of two continents
trying to be an island

I have learned
how to make myself heard
and I have learned
how to say anything

occasionally though
when I can be quiet
I now hear the gaps
between us,

hear them just enough
to know that

I have not yet learned how to listen.

_______________________________

Need to say that the whole 'two languages/understood v not listening/understanding' concept from the third & fourth stanzas is a paraphrase of something James Cameron said on the Avatar blu-ray.

Though it probably beggars mentioning as 'borrowing' ideas is that man's specialty, so not going to lose sleep over that, and I've simply used it as a springboard to coalesce some stuff that's been rattling around my head these past few days, with enough originality to justify it.

Not to dis James Cameron either, huge fan.

-Peace

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Sweetalkers January 2012, THIS SUNDAY!!!

2012-01-12T21:57:00.000-08:00

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We're kicking off 2012 with yet another all star cast of spoken word artists, to make you laugh, break your heart, and raise the bar on their craft. Check it out:

CANDY ROYALLE

The Sydney poet who inspired our gig's very name, on her return to Melbourne we're pleased-as-punch to have Candy Royalle back at Sweetalkers to tell us how it is, and give us all the Royalle treatment. Check out her latest well produced video clip below:

Stories by Starlight

if you are not seeing a playable window above click here

MATTHEW JAMES

Formerly known as Mel Hughes, Matthew is a veteran of poetry tours and workshops in the US, and Matt's style is steeped in the American slam tradition, whilst somehow transcending it's formula with a unique voice, character and beautiful words.

Matthew is not only a survivor of New York City, but more impressively, Adelaide too, and will very soon be launching a book at Collected works.

AMY BODOSSIAN

Another Adelaide survivor, Amy Bodossian fuses music, poetry, props and frizzy hair into... well, something that defies definition in any conventional sense of the word, or unconventional sense either.

I know that doesn't make sense. Amy wouldn't be so sure. The best way I can think to describe her is: someone whose been driven crazy by being the last sane person left on Earth, now trying to explain why back to us. It gets intense, sexy, poignant, and really funny.

She's been on spics and specs and won a tonne of awards and is proabaly going to mad at me for not using more info from the bio I demanded she send me. Meanwhile have a squiz at this clip from her 2011 show Plegm Fatale:

You're the One

if you are not seeing a playable window above click here

EMBER FLAME

Ember Flame is a burlesque dancer and writer who fuses silky words and rhythms in her unique brand of poetry. Telling her tales through different characters, from a whistle-blowing fairytale princess to an office girl who finally gives in to her jungle rhythms, these modern ballads offer hope for transformation with lots of hot, heart-powered seduction. Part commentary, part confession, Ember strips to the soul, often revealing some of society's hidden parts along the way.

I saw her perform her first purely-spoken word set in Sydney on my last trip there and just melted. Like a candle. Seriously, I used to be taller before I met her. Sweetalkers is honoured, humbled and just simply -really fucking excited- to have Ember do the feature for us.

This is one gig you don't want to miss. Because I don't either I'll be on door, so as to just sit back and watch, so finally...

...working his way up through the cutthroat Sweetalkers ranks, starting humbly as feature to co-organiser to flyer-putter-up guy to door-bitch, now finally usurping me as MC for this month, will be poet laureate of planet Earth: STEVE SMART

Yep, January in Melbourne just got a lot hotter folks, we'll see you and you'll see us tomorrow at:

The Bendigo Hotel
125 Johnston Street
Collingwood
7.30pm

$10 entry, $5 burgers, $10 jugs (Collingwood Draught)

_________________________________

-Peace

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Black Book -09/01/2012

2012-01-08T04:02:00.001-08:00

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Thumbs through his black book
for crumbs
though it's not actually black
nor a book
or a list
of options very likely

it's a few too few to name
on speaking terms with
a three ring circus of
badly juggled balls
old tricks unfunny
and antiquated cruelty
that he's already called on
too many times before

it's a shortlisted transcript
of misanthropic entropy
spiraling reductionism
circling around a drain
of hands-in-his-pockets
obstinancy
and notated misogyny

it's hoping to think his way out of
a room with a phone that won't ring
a staring contest with a weekend
that won't blink

his black-book a band aid
covering the scrape of waking up
a daze into weeks
wondering
where did everybody go?

it's end result gestalt of
he doesn't-need-nobody
turning bodily on it's head
to where instead
nobody needs him

so he thumbs for crumbs
through that black book
though it's not actually black
nor a book
really just a blank space
where he got stuck

and now needs to turn a page.

______________________

-Peace

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Got Here as Soon as I Could -2011

2012-01-03T23:15:00.000-08:00

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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

Unwriting Your Resume -14/12/2011

2011-12-13T22:08:00.001-08:00

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you see the fearful

fuck themselves limp
for Friday night
for car starts and spaces to park
to get red light angry
go green light tyred
bottling up their last sunlight
draining it into repayments
of TV reruns

and you
don't want to be one
of them

eating away at a debt
to starve off that fear
seeking supermarket aisle asylum
to hide from opportunity lost
humping the road to keep
from careening off it
even faster

and faster chase happily ever after
fearful down the fairy trail
looking to put a ring on a finger
to hide from a monster under the bed

you see the fearful
and you don't to be one
of them

having your own name
advertised back to you and how
-can-

they really
fight off fear
smoking cigarettes outside the hospital
only reading from a television screen
staying in touch just a text
with the word 'contact'
now simply something numbered
and punched into phone pads

you see the fearful
stalked by time
making them
prey
for a savior

and you...
you are scared too
you don't want them
to be you

with only stomach on your mind
or a wishlist of things
you don't need to buy
people you don't need to do
things not to say
and reminders to yourself
to forget about all this

this fear
stops here

so tomorrow,
wash all their filth away
by getting just a little dirtier
carve into your blunt fear
attack it berserker

don't phone a friend
just in case they have the answer
accidentally
go without words most of the day
to see what it says

then
waste whatever big chunk of time
you got left
just so
you can let that fucking clock know

you're no longer afraid of it

____________________________________

-Peace

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Sweetalkers December -THIS SUNDAY 11/12/2011

2011-12-08T21:08:00.000-08:00

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Four of the finest features to ever feature for us and an MC you'll have to see to believe, believe me we are this Sunday putting on the best spoken word in Melbourne that the best spoken word gig in Melbourne has ever put on, on a Sunday.

Here's what we're talking about:

IZZY ROBERTS-ORR

21 year-old Poet/playwright Izzy Roberts-Orr originally hails from Footscray but has recently moved to the dangerous, botoxed depths of the inner east in order to attend Monash University, where she studies politics, philosophy and law. Izzy was a finalist in the Overload Poetry slam last year and a Muddy River Slam winner and is currently working on a collection of poems entitled "portraits of people on fire."
Earlier this year, her play 'NightMinds,' a fusion of poetry and performance text garnered excellent reviews at the Adelaide Fringe Festival. She is currently working on a new play called 'Twins' which is going on for further development as part of the MKA workshop season at MTC Theater.

Sweetalkers will be Izzy's first full poetry feature, and if that wasn't enough: She'll actually be turning 21 -the day- of this Sweetalkers event. We promise not to do something lame like get her a cake and make everyone in the crowd sing happy birthday.

The Secret Life of Inanimate Objects

The Secret Life of Inanimate Objects from Izzy Roberts-Orr on Vimeo.

(if you are not seeing a playable window above CLICK HERE for a direct link to vimeo)

DOWN TO EARTH

"Down To Earth" is John McKelvie, Brian Walters and Jez P.A. Speelman joining forces to deliver a dynamic and beautiful set of spoken word, lyrical poetry and song expressing their individual connections and collective homage to our home; planet Earth.

Brian Walters is a barrister, co-founder of Wild magazine and the Greens in Victoria, and a keen supporter of spoken word.

Jez P.A. Speelman is a performance artist, poet, sound artist and multi-medium arts enthusiast. He has performed and exhibited all over Melbourne and other parts of Australia and has been described as a "hybrid
fun factory" and a "cartoon character with a microphone".

John McKelvie is a poet and singer songwriter originally from Scotland with a voice matured for forty years in a whiskey barrel. Poets think he’s a good singer and vice versa. Has disgraced the Melbourne poetry scene for a
number of years and would be one of poetry’s older statesmen if there was anything statesmanlike about him.

LEE KOFMAN

Lee Kofman is an Israeli-Australian author of three fiction books. Her poetry, alongside her essays and short stories, has appeared in Australia, USA and UK. She is the recipient of various awards and writing residencies. Lee performs poetry and spoken word widely, including taking a part in Saloni M and Liner Notes, Melbourne's Emerging Writers Festival and Wordplay.

DARKWING DUBS (aka Scott Sneddon)

Brisbane based artist Darkwing Dubs has been performing his experimental mix of hip-hop and poetry for almost a decade, with a diverse artistic history involves theater shows, hip-hop crews, poetry collectives, bands, beat-making and DJing.

Four-time state finalist in the Australian Poetry Slam, and twice competing in the national finals (coming runner up in 2010), and also finalist in the Nimbin Performance Poetry World Cup two years in a row. Founding member of Brisbane’s most dynamic poetry collective, Broken Records, for the past two years which has seen them on stages at the Queensland Poetry Festival and the recent Canberra slam summit.

Darkwing Dubs covers an amazing sweep of spoken words styles and subject matter, the energy and crowd connectivity displayed when Darkwing Dubs steps behind the microphone, has to be seen to be believed.

If Jesus Was Born Again

Darkwing Dubs - If Jesus Was Born Again. from thomas on Vimeo.

(if you are not seeing a playable window above CLICK HERE for a direct link to vimeo)

THIS MONTHS MC...

Randall Stephens has had a short and lusterless I mean lustful I mean lustrous career in public speaking beginning humbly with singing in the shower to swearing at his cat and yelling at his (fucken) computer, before moving on to singing along to headphones while cycling in the CDB, scaring people with animal noises out of drainpipes and in more recent years has made a career for himself heckling actual poets at their gigs.

Randall now brings his many years of experience standing upright, dressing himself and opening his mouth to see what comes out, to battle against the English language as our new MC for Sweetalkers this month. Oh dear.

5 Extraordinary minutes with Randall

(if you are not seeing a playable window above CLICK HERE for a direct YouTube link)

It's all THIS SUNDAY, December 11th
at The Bendigo Hotel
125 Johnston Street
Collingwood

7pm
$10 entry

SWEETALKERS DECEMBER

FIND US ON FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/groups/sweetalkers/

___________________________

-Peace

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Glass Half Fool -08/12/2011

2011-12-07T05:36:00.000-08:00

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it's cold out there

the bar
freezes
between your fidgets

digiting out drums on a table top
that's all uncoastered line curves
caught glances
taut smile polite
and small talk
afloat

drowned in three drinks
while practicing the strokes
of your best sharking swim
washing up sure-line
in reflexive retreat
solitary
to the toilet stall mirror

hands aren't dry
facing your eyes
as they demand answers from you
about
just
what the hell are you gonna do

when you go back out there

_____________________________

-Peace

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Blacklisted -21/11/2011

2011-11-20T06:41:00.000-08:00

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BLACKLISTED

our fathers politics the teeth stuck
in our ears

Andrew bolt-action beliefs
loaded
poles piping up
barrels of a rifle
for pepper spraying
pensioner protesters
to de-occupy
and nullify
the vox populi

poles
propping up a cyclone fence
that cannot be stretched
around enough coast line
to cover up the whole truth

poles
melting with a patience
that can't be disproved
sandbagged
or swept under
the lowest common
demonisation
of scientific investigation

poles
polarise us
double negative
repetitive
like how big business
continually wipes it's arse
with our money

an imaginary friend
didactic
pretending underdog
polarised
spectacles
to rose tint
this soldier ant system
the black face white lies
caught red handed
in grey areas of
human rights
human wrongs
and assertions
that any question
could somehow be dangerous

but
if it needs you to fear
if it needs you to hate
if it needs you to find
foreigners to blame

then turn away
from each lie
case by case
because racism
xenophobia
homophobia
hypocrisy
and distortion of science
are in evidence

the truth puts us on trial
the future will be our judge

with history as our hostile witness.

________________________________

Andrew Bolt is a piece of shit stuck to our collective shoe, and I'm wiping my feet tonight, taking a little solace in the realisation that, popular as he is now, ultimately history will catch up to him and all his bullshit.

The future will not look back on racism, xenophobia, homophobia, hypocrisy, and distortion of scientific data kindly. He's destined to be remembered as favourably as Senator Joseph McCarthy. Same goes for Alan Bond, Kenneth Lay, Mel Gibson, Pauline Hanson, Reverend Fred Phelps, Darryl Gates, David Duke and Bill O Reilly, to name a few.

And there is some comfort there my friends. Goodnight.

-Peace

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Irony (the 'Revolution' redux) -10/11/2011

2011-11-15T19:26:00.001-08:00

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"the only license you need to speak is a readiness to listen"

-Daniel Ferri

Is it ironic...?

that Gil Scot Heron said
the revolution will not be televised
because by all accounts, it has been
-uploaded
downloaded
YouTubed
facebooked
and it was exactly
that kind of social media
actually helped recent revolutions
in what we're currently calling
the Arab spring

ironic
like stickers
sporting environmental slogans
stuck on the back of cars
ahh.. you might as well carry a gun
with
'give peace a chance'
written on the barrel

it is ironic
like it's ironic
that many consider the bicycle
more dangerous
to people on roads
than cars are

is it ironic...
how this country full of rich people
whose economy
is inextricably linked
to exploiting natural resources
whose geography
consists mainly
of sun scorched desert
have deemed solar power
too expensive to develop

is it ironical
that this country's people
not only do the most carbon polluting per capita
in the world
but also stand to suffer the worst of its effects
are then
also the least willing to do

--anything--

about
it
-is-
ironic
that
this land
-was-
stolen from a sixty-something thousand year old culture
where invaders claiming no one owned it prior
try to justify keeping others out of it
now

because they want to preserve their way of life

is it ironic that this country's welfare system
won’t help you if you’re homeless
unless you can give them a mailing address

for the cheque to be sent to

and check the irony
in media storms whipped up
around a fourteen year old kid
arrested in Indonesia
for drugs
when childen from them places
just turning up
on our doorstep
uninvited
is considered a crime

irony

like the loneliness
you find
truest only in cities
when you're surrounded by millions

irony like showing people-
touching bodies
having sex on screens
labeled dirty and obscene
but movies showing people-
shooting inflicting violence
on other people's bodies
are considered acceptable, clean

in the quick crucifixed
censorship of violence bible bashing us
with pro-life death penalties
ignorant guardians of information
bigoted diatribe editorial scrawl
speaking out-rage in writing
over what someone else said

while in the meantime
the keep left signs point nowhere
so-called social outcasts moulding themselves
idealist
trying to deny that they're just a different stripe
of ideologue,
they keep hiding behind the Bush's
accusing Obama of being worse than his predecessor
principally because he's had to compromise

I guess the left handed-heavy
have not yet been able to
real-eyes
that if you really want
the type of benevolent dictator
wielding the kind of autocratic sweep
you've described that he should keep
you'll have to do more than elect one

the only conclusion you seem able to reach
is
oh, well, umm, y'know he should just make another speech

forgetting what he said
when he was announced president-elect:
"I promise to always listen to you
especially at times when we disagree the most"

no idle boast
taken to ask
while I ask
is there irony made out of
ideas we claim to embrace
and those we don't
in whom we point our fingers at
and at whom we won't

listening selectively to leaders
who tell us to disregard the science
because it's inconclusive
not understanding that the power science has
over religious dogma
is that it never purports
to have a conclusive answer

I don't have any answers either

just thoughts and ideas
(thank god)
and I can't help but thinking
that revolution also means 'spin'
a political revolution need plenty of spin
to cover for the fact
that they have rarely
if-ever
have changed a fucking thing

irony defines more revolutions
than revolution have defined change

the revolution has been televised

and even if you haven't stayed home brother
you're still couching your concern
global
in a two-sided ideologue shit fight
so instead
of telling me
to choose a side
as if people taking sides
has ever helped anything
in human history
except their own sense of pride

think you need to take a closer look
I see no sides worth taking
on a planet spinning it's own revolutions
day for night

because this turning world truly has no sides.

________________________________

This poem was retooled from a more left-leaning soap boxy affair I'd punched out back in April, revamped for a gig last week paying tribute to the late, great Gil Scot Heron.

It was a great line up of local poets, and most of the work was politically inclined so instinctively, rather than getting high on my own supply, I went for the chance to be a dissenter amongst dissenters to then night, I think it was successful for the most part, if nothing else this statement (or anti-statement) added another texture to the evening.

-Peace

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Sweetalkers November -THIS SUNDAY 13/11/2011

2011-11-10T21:08:00.000-08:00

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This Sunday, Sweetalkers November sees the stage graced by the face of interstate poetry sage ROBIN ARCHBOLD, down from Queensland to show and tell us a thing or two about a thing or two, along with the amazing LINDA BEATTY and her unique blend of harp-paying cabaret stand up comedy, if that doesn't sound funny enough we're also unleashing the full force of BEN POBJIE's vitriol on you, complimenting the pathos and power of emerging poet BRONWYN LOVELL.

BEN POBJIE

Author, comedian, poet, commentator, raconteur - is there no end to the words Ben knows how to spell? Perhaps not, but he also does other things too. With no journalistic qualifications whatsoever, he has a weekly column at Australian news commentary site newmatilda.com, and his writing has appeared in Crikey, The Age and The Punch, among others.

In between regularly harassing Australia's editors with his vaguely satirical ramblings, he blogs at benpobjie.blogspot.com, podcasts at gatheraround.me, and has published two books: Handy Latin Phrases and The Adventures of Guanacoman. A regular on ABC radio, Triple R and 2SER, he has been described as "puerile and bigoted" by Miranda Devine, and is currently engaged in a campaign to become Australia's first Poet Laureate.

Join him in his dangerously obsessive quest for fame, continuing at Sweetalkers

-Don't Give Up

if you are not seeing a playable window above click here for a direct YouTube link

BRONWYN LOVELL

Bronwyn Lovell is an emerging poet and spoken word performer in Melbourne, featuring at many events and festivals as well as on community radio and local television. She has a writing residency at Kinfolk Cafe as part of Australian Poetry Ltd’s Cafe Poets Program, and she is a workshop facilitator for the Centre for Poetics and Justice.

In 2011 she travelled to the US, where she was the first Australian to compete in the Women of the World Poetry Tournament. www.bronwynlovell.com

-Troubled Men

if you are not seeing a playable window above click here for a direct YouTube link

LINDA BEATTY

A classically trained singer and Celtic harpist, Linda offers an original twist to the cabaret and stand-up genres, with heavenly singing and twisted fairy tales she explores the lies adults tell themselves.

She won The Comics Lounge Best New Comic award in 2009, was the Green Faces Comedy finalist and St Kilda Laughs Festival finalist, and in 2010 was the Raw Comedy state finalist for Victoria, was awarded an Outside Eye Mentorship by The Melbourne Fringe Festival. This year her show The UnEnchanted Princess received rave reviews during The Melbourne International Comedy Festival.

Those who love comedy, fairy tales, Disney and their cabaret sweetly dark will adore Linda Beatty, and we are honoured to have her perform for us at Sweetalkers.

-The UnEnchanted Princess

if you are not seeing a playable window above click here for a direct YouTube link

ROBIN ARCHBOLD

Our poster boy for this month, Robin Archbold is the co-founder of the Nimbin Performance Poetry World Cup, winner of the Woodford folk festivals slam and many others, featured at Australian Poetry Slam Final, the Queensland Poetry Festival, Tasmanian Poetry Festival and just about everywhere else really.

Archy attacks the stage with a mixture of charm, humour, rhyme and a occasionally indulged his penchant for ripping of his clothes of during shws. A personal inspiration and friend of mine ever since I saw him close out the last Wordplay gig in 2009, I'm absolutely delighted to present him at Sweetalkers.

if you are not seeing a playable window above click here for a direct YouTube link

The line up is stellar, the bar is open, the burgers are $5, the entry is $10, the stage is set (or will be when y'get there), the start time 7.30, and the MC is OMAR MUSA

That's alotta wow for one gig, come along and soak it up Sunday November 13th.

http://www.facebook.com/groups/sweetalkers

http://www.bendigohotel.com.au/

___________________

-Peace

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I Blame Smarty -3/11/2011

2011-11-02T17:35:00.000-07:00

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walking in two hours late
to find him tabling for two
evening's second jug sitting
with a spare seat thirsty
and conspicuously vacant second glass
with my name on it

while his name
and picture
grace the hoodie I'm wearing
and with all this BFF-BS
yes,
we must look cute between the hugs
if only anyone was watching us
cute
but not gay
'cause us cats done tried out that routine once
to get cheap lap dances -didn't work

bromance doesn't apply to us either
we're already individually far too melodramatic
to have that shit stick
we've got sentiment on wholesale
piled up into smiles
but can't move the stock
off these docks
not with all the... strikes
we work through

nope
chicks see us coming every time
mixed metaphors with in-jokes
last smokes and new hopes
handed enough rope
to hang ourselves, around 'til close
pros at prose
but everybody knows
we're just a mess
joined at the hip-pocket
just as broke as we've gone for
across this country
two-crumpled faces into bus tickets
trench coats and memorised poetry lines
that you forget
that you'll forget
when you get that drunk

and we always get that drunk
and we always stay that late
and we're always getting stuck
but never for something to say
with much between us we don't need to say

like I'm saying (hiccup)
that about the best luck
either of us
cunts
has ever had
is that once
we were lucky enough

just

to have met each other

...and a great hoodie it is too, check out Smarty's home shopping network here. Can't go spelling shameless without me.

__________________________________________

-Peace

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Interview with the Goethe Institute, in Gould's Books, Sydney -29/09/2011

2011-10-31T17:51:00.000-07:00

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Here's a video interview I did recently with Jochen Gutsch for the Goethe Institute in Sydney, at the iconic Gould's books in Newtown. Enjoy

if you are not seeing a playable video window above (click here) for a direct link to the YouTube video

The Goethe Institute is a an organisation operating worldwide as cultural ambassadors for Germany, promoting an exchange of ideas, and Jochen has been interviewing lots of artists around Sydney to this end, and adding clips to their YouTube channel on a regular basis. To check out some of their other videos click here for their YouTube channel.

Or for more info on Goethe in Australia: Goethe Institute Australia

Thanks to Jochen for taking the time to come out on a rainy afternoon and help me kill some time in Newtown, and for editing out parts of the interview where I started awkwardly trying to mount a high horse on a soap box on a slippery slope on a whim. Quite a stunt if one can pull it off, but it turns out some of just aren't that well-balanced.

_______________________________________________

-Peace

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Randall performing Buddy Wakefield's 'Human the Death Dance' + Vipassana meditation -10/10/2011

2011-10-11T06:21:00.000-07:00

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Well no sooner than I got back home than I'm off again. However this new trip will be the first time in 2.5 years I'm leaving Melbourne without it expressly being to perform poetry. The next ten days will be spent in complete and utter silence undertaking Vipassana meditation, something I've long been curious about, but now after spending so much time plugged into everything and everyone over the last 3 months, I feel like I really need.

I'll be offline, off peak, off tap and off the grid for the next fortnight, trying to get comfortable in my own skin, without trying to get into anyone else' for a while.

Inevitably, it'll be an experience I'll end up writing about. Buddy Wakefield wrote his epic poem 'Human The Death Dance' in his head while doing the same course. I did a cover of this last night at Passionate Tongues in Brunswick, and figured it's a good way to leave off the blog for the next little while. Fittingly, the last thing you'll see is me telling cameraman Steve Smart that that's enough, and to shut the bloody thing off. Enjoy

(click here) if you're not seeing the playable YouTube window.

Also, if you'd like to know more about Vipassana and what it's all about, check out the link below.

Vipassana Meditation

To be honest I'm absolutely terrified by this challenge, but it's nice to be once again in that kind of place/space where one is undertaking something that seems beyond them. This is how I believe I can grow. Wish me luck.

___________________________________

Before I leave Melbourne again I was hoping to do a write up letter thanking every individual who helped me on the 99 day tour I've just completed, but it's only four and a bit hours (mark) before I have to get up and get my arse to the airport again, so that will have to wait now until November. Dang.

-Peace

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Randall performing 'Something of Value' at TiNA Festival, Newcastle -29/09/2011

2011-10-06T03:56:00.001-07:00

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if you are not seeing a playable window above click here for a direct link to the YouTube video

Performed at the This is Not Art festival's anti-slam, on September 29th 2011. Camera by the redoubtable Alex Scott.

SOMETHING OF VALUE

If you are going to be lonely

find the biggest sky you can
as far from home as possible
to do it under

lift the weight off old skylines
finding new light looking up
lose old aching gravity
overarching starful
as the pinpricks wink you
across this impossible distance

where a couch can't contain you
let that distance stretch you
-out
so much further
than spread eagle across beds
throw yourself into it
scatter life down highways
like you're a string of wreckage
let hurt
spur you on
paving the lines on your face
with a road map's direction and

own your alone

if lonely hunts you
amongst people
in places already known
then run, sucker, run
hide inside a pocket of velocity
an envelope of anonymity
a blanket of trajectory
jumping the void
left by burnt bridges
across the still waters
running too deep for shallow swimmers
to have followed
you
insist
that loneliness
will work for its prey

if you are going to be lonely
be strange
stubborn as leg cramps
let your skin
carpet your flaws
be so funny
that your punchlines
...can leave black eyes
be so far gone
that your trail
will itself be a tale
bread-crumbed to become
the stuff nourishing a legend

if all your photos of you
are taken arms length
then reach further
than you ever believed you could
and picture yourself

beautiful

and in reaching around
to sunscreen your own back
develop another flexibility
plans remain in your hands
no splitting this difference
where decisions comes from within
that same sunscreen grease
will suddenly smell like freedom
and release

if caught in a conversational drought
then find your minds own inner dialogue
and talk yourself up a storm

get your years covered in mud
get them buckled and blistered
warped from water-log
snow stained with sand grains
stuck in them
'til you stink
of a long-story's old nostalgia

if you are going to be lonely
at all
do it all
out there
where not a single friendly-fire
word-exchange can steal your flame
torch glow
your life's light
far from home

pursue and imbue
illuminate the solitude
with something of value
a suffering brilliance
finding gains hidden in the pain
on nights alone
that need no account
lose count and let go

...of letting go

and hold on
to those nights' silence
feel it congeal around you
so thick and hard
you can actually grab hold of it
climb the silence
use it as a boost-up
to get over the walls
that followed behind you
into every situation

look out on an horizon
as it curves back too far
in either direction
for the straight
and lame
to ever catch you
again

under the biggest sky you can find
as far from home as possible
and up on that silent line
even if standing there
all alone
it remains

one

hell of a view.

______________________________

-Peace

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Sweetalkers Returns: 9-10-11 (this Sunday)

2011-10-03T18:17:00.000-07:00

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SWEETALKERS IS BACK THIS SUNDAY!

So it's about sweet-time I did some talking about this month's talkers:

TARIRO MAVONDO

Tariro first got a taste of the theatre performing in 2008, already studying Politics and Anthropology and working as an artist with international and nationally established bands at festivals such as the World Music Festival in Adelaide, Big Day out and the World Music Expo (Arts centre).
Tariro has worked as an actor with the VCA Centre of Cultural Partnerships Horn of Africa program that toured a group devised piece to schools and community centres around Victoria in 2010.
Also a founding member and workshop facilitator of Poetics and Justice, as well as a founding member of Still Waters African Women’s Storytelling Collective, an artist for the African Voices of Carlton Project. At the Australian Poetry Slam she was a state finalist in 2009, and again in 2010, going onto be a national finalist (see YouTube below).

Tariro performing at the National Slam Finals last year:

If you're not seeing a playable video above then click here for a direct YouTube link

SANTO CAZZATI

The son of Italian immigrants to Australia, he's emerged as one of Australia's most unique spoken word artists from past lives as a classical concert pianist and avant garde jazz musician to teach at an elite Melbourne private school. He performs in a range of styles, from fast rhythmical delivery to slow atmospheric meditation, often with a strong world music influence and critical ironic distance. A fixture on Melbourne's grass roots poetry scene, his has featured at a long list of reading, events and festivals around Australia.

He is a presenter of 3CR's Spoken Word radio programme and appears on Going Down Swinging and Voiceprints CDs as well as the Melbourne Poetry Map website and television programme Red Lobster on Channel 31. He is a winner of the Overload Shelton Lea Award for Best Solo Performance.

If you're not seeing a playable video above then click here for a direct YouTube link

JESSICA ALICE

Jessica Alice is a bitter and lusty poetess from old, grey Melbourne town. She performed her poetry for Voiceworks, as well as the Emerging Writers and Overload Poetry Festivals – making her debut at the Abottsford Convent in 2008 and winning The Spinning Room’s performers place in 2010. Jessica presents The Powder Room on Triple R’s Aural Text, and performs her confessional, tragic love poems wherever there is a bar and not necessarily a mic.

Jess performing at the Spinning Room, Melbourne (2009)

If you're not seeing a playable video above then click here for a direct YouTube link

LUKA LESSON

Upon his arrival in Melbourne, Luka Lesson rapidly emerged as our ultimate slam champion. One of only two Australians to ever compete in the Individual World Slam Finals in the US. As co-director of the Centre of Poetics and Justice, Luka's passionate commitment to human rights and social justice in Australia has helped many marginalised young people find their own voice through the workshops he has conducted. Luka is both a powerful writer and performer who will have you in turns cheering and sighing with delight as his oratory.

Luka performing- May Your Pen Grace the Page (at the Nuyorican, New York)

If you're not seeing a playable video above then click here for a direct YouTube link

AND OMAR MUSA

We're delighted to have back Omar bin Musa, recently seen telling it like it is on ABC's Q and A, as the night's MC

___________

Okay, so now you know, why you must go to see this show. Sweetalkers is

Sunday October 9th
Bendigo Hotel
125 Johnston Street
Melbourne, Australia

$10 suggested donation entry

8pm (for an 8pm start).
Doors open 7.30

Find us on facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/groups/sweetalkers/

-Peace

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Randall's Back from Borneo tour -is in Sydney, this Wednesday night! (28/09/2011)

2011-09-26T02:34:00.000-07:00

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If you're in Sydney this Wednesday (or knows anyone who knows anyone who is), I'm flying straight into Sydney and featuring for Live Poets at Don Bank this Wednesday night, to mark the end of my international touring for the year with a Back from Borneo gig.

I'll be unleashing a lot of this new material I've been blogging (and quite a few things that aren't up here yet either).

I'll be joined on the night by BILL TIBBEN -Sydney poet, former convener of Poetry, Imagery and Expression, Parramatta; performer at the Sydney Writers Festival – who'll take us on a journey back to Beat Poetry – the high times of Kerouac, Ginsburg, Burroughs, Corso etc when he RE-HEATS the BEATS: their connections and legacy.

Open Section readers are invited to bring along their favourite Beat poems or songs and perform.

Doors Open 7.30 pm $7 entry includes (hot) supper and drinks.

It should be a great night folks, Smarty and I did this reading last year together and we had a ball then, I hope you can make it down!

-Peace

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My Obscurity Not Willful -20/09/2011

2011-09-20T10:02:00.000-07:00

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it stands to reason

but where has reason ever stood

with us

_______________

-Peace

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Randall Stephens performing "Through" @ Global Poetics gig, Sydney -14/09/2011

2011-09-18T23:24:00.000-07:00

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Performing as support act for the Global Poetics tour in Sydney at Outspoken #10 on September 14th 2011. Camera work by Alex Scott.

If you are not seeing a playable video box below then click here for a direct YouTube link.

(the audio's a little shy so I've included a transcript below that more or less matches what I'm saying).

'Through' was my set-opener, with a new staging/performance approach I trialed in Singapore recently in an attempt to rattle people a little, (also I figured basically there was no way I was gonna try to out-slam the slammers)

Have gotten some great feedback from people on the night, and I was proud-as-punch to present local alongside giants Shane Koyczan, Ken Arkind and Jive Poetic. So inspiring to see them, and see them over here in Australia.

So thanks to my friends Jess Cook and Ray Nedziak of Outspoken Poetics, Word Travels and The Global Poetics tour for giving me this fantastic gig.

THROUGH

Lying here

hoping the next man who holds you
has sandpaper hands
eyes as dull as his words are dull
as his mind is dull
like a scuffed floor
sharp as a bowling ball
his tongue a toilet brush
waving windshield wiper wild
in a cactus kiss
with fingertips that prick
like his dick
gentle
as a bullbar embrace

lying here

rejection

bleeding edges over your last letter
loose-leaf crumpled-zone sheet linen
just hoping that
ghosts of the tenderness I showed
will haunt you unheld
through a hugged pile of pillows
hoping
your skin will remember its tingles still
and crawl lunatic
through desperately unsleepable
hours palpable alive
hearing whispered reminders that that whole
touched like you have never been touched before
-thing
will now
never
touch you again
cold in your comfort zone
forsaken warmth substituting safety
for my body
not

lying here
in the space

...the space

you said
you wanted
from me
I'm now lying here
inside of it
and at last
sharing nothing
with you
and lost now
trying to feel my way out
after searching around for something
from being inside you
to hold on to
something I could, from you, get
to get
a grip
on my own insides

lying here

trying to get through
this arched back
in my learning curve
as it graphed itself out
on this mattress
my back bent spiralling fetal
curling through an embryonic crescent
so I could be as infantile
as you say I am

am not
am not
am not I am

lying here

paper-weight on that letter
to hold down whole
everything you tried to take back
before you took off
with your lint brush pluck
at every point of light
found while eyeing
our shared-nights sky
I tried
straightening out
each of our turns
to the letter
every last phrase
I once floated you on
each word magic spelling out
I now sink into these curses
wanting you
to miss me
as much as

I hate
you
do
not
know
how much
I miss
you
fuck
you

saw

the best parts of me
to be
not good enough
or much too much
the more
the tighter
I tried to hold you
the less you had
to give me
back
hacked
parts of my past off
held each up to light
before throwing them away
to show
you were safe
with me
to give you
more reasons to stay

another
yet another
in tears tearing at myself
I got so small
trying to fit in the hole
you made inside

(me)

I've been lying here

lying here
right where you left

lying, to myself
the whole time
piling up all of this scorn
to level out a wall
against having to feel remorse
for each time you tried to warn
me

you did try to warn me
and I wish
now
godless in regret
that
I had not gotten
so angry
when you said

I have a problem

with my anger

_______________________________

-Peace

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The High Ground -17/09/2011

2011-09-17T18:13:00.000-07:00

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The flood arrived here first

and though we came here separately
it looks like we're stuck with each other
in the town of Sukhothai

So like Thai people here do
I just got the fuck on with it
found me a neat little bungalow on stilts
for a place to stay
an island surrounded by knee deep water
though I still have wi-fi
and only one wet shoe.

Now feet up halfway down a long neck
after wading over to reception for dinner
I porch a balmy night
with a licked-clean empty bowl
and watch tiny geckos spasmodically dance-off
with one another
around the walls's fluorescent light
while crickets sing to the long-grass
standing obstinate in brown water
while floating plastic bottles
try infiltrating their ranks

nearby the sloshing and splashing of locals
walking around the problem
while the guesthouse owners son
playing loudly with his ultraman toys
pretends he's not watching me
whenever I glance in his direction

I pretend I'm not smiling
stay remote via this mote
floods shouldn't be funny
as they happen always to someone else

but the light I'm writing by
can hide my grin
out over the face of the waters
where everything is reflected wavy
and upside down

on what used to be the ground

__________________________________________

-Peace

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Like Applying for Grants or Festivals -17/09/2011

2011-09-16T07:47:00.000-07:00

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She admitted to using me just for conversation

three whiskies in Kings Cross too late
into a night
both sets of our friends
had hours ago escaped from

we were at the caught-end
of a suddenly mumbled phone conversation
clearly I was not supposed to hear
too quickly back to the table
bladder evacuated after near five hours
flirtatious blather

her flushed face deflation
sunk me into an eyeless smile
because only then
were her eyes anywhere but mine
and my words
pushed question ahead of the answer

yep
that your boyfriend?

yep
disappointed?

(the giant neon flash of coca cola red shifting directly behind me)

only in myself

because my doubt
only ever seems to benefit
people like her

because I should have sussed it before
when she said her place
was five minutes that way
but we couldn't go back there

because maybe
it is in fact innocent
to hang out all night
with some guy you just met
who was chatting up lonely on a stage
in front of hundreds
buying drinks telling him you're drawn to him
in conversation flowing like physical chemistry
would come
just another ankle-depth length's upstream
where this barge of mine loads expectation-heavy
with hope

because when she joked
that she'd just been using me for conversation
I wanted to reply back
that I felt just as cheapened
but didn't say this
because I wouldn't really be kidding

because irony was bleeding thick
out the look on my face
as if she had now answered her own question
asked earlier
about why don't I apply for an arts grants

because I hate wasting time
on things that don't go anywhere
because when people
live up to my lowest expectations
I end up feeling stupid

and maybe I should have been the more naive
or innocent or understanding
that we were just drinking friendly
because I'd like to think that I don't think like that
the way women think men think
either
but both of us clearly expected too much
from the opposite sex tonight
perhaps from ourselves too

and I'd like us to meet in a place
where people give and take and share
without needing or expecting more
or less
from their hormones and self-esteem
a place where men are big enough not to assume
physical interest is in them
after hours spent out on a school-night
but that place
is not the Cross at three AM

this is a place
where one of us
had someone at home waiting for them
while the other
has only ahead of them
a long walk's cold night old adage
that goes

remember man
the type of girl who comes up
to start talking to you after a show
is only after one thing~

talking

____________________

eh, I'm not unaware I could be getting into some rather dubious sexual politics here, with the potential to set a nasty precedent and alienate fans, with a poem title won't help matters along either, oh well. I'll take it on the chin for the sake of seeing what the reaction is.

-Peace

.

Shane Koyczan and Jive Poetic are kind of a big deal -13/09/2011

2011-09-13T08:28:00.000-07:00

.

I have quietly slipped back into the country to do this gig in Sydney, slipped in a little too quietly actually, and I really should have made more noise about this.

So here I am to BRING THE NOISE.

Yeah tonight I'm performing alongside poetry giants Shane Koyczan and Jive Poetic. Me. The guy whose been turned down by more festivals than you've had hot dinners, whose emails and phone calls are easier to ignore than climate change is in Algeria.

let me show you who these guys are and why I'm so name-droppingly excited about them. Enjoy

SHANE KOYCZAN: This Is My Voice

or click here is you can't see the YouTube window on your screen

JIVE POETIC: clone wars

or click here is you can't see the YouTube window on your screen

Also performing on the night are the amazing Ken Arkind (also from the US), Melbourne's Alia Gabres (see my note on Sweetalkers 22/06/11), Sydney's own Alana Hicks.

Alia Gabres

I am very humbled and excited to be a part of this gig, and I intend to do nothing less than my best performance. Ever.

So if you're in Sydney this Wednesday night... (finish this sentence)

__________________________

-Peace

.

Makes a Hard Man Mumble -10/09/2011

2011-09-09T19:06:00.000-07:00

.

my one night in Bangkok

was literally just a night in Bangkok
I already had the proverbial one,
back in India

had my road to Damascas
in Vietnam
my last tango in Paris
in Kuala Lumpur
my train to Jordan
ended up leaving me in Spain

met the whore of Babylon
when I was in Hong Kong
done the Indian summer thing
in Borneo,
and found the Hotel California
in Kathmandu

it has nice curtains

nope,
this town and I
too jaded already
to enjoy
one another's company

all that was left to do
by the time
I got to Thailand
really

was talk Turkey

______________________________

-Peace

.

BREASTS (live at Donna Butcher Gallery, Singapore) -29/07/2011

2011-09-01T20:14:00.000-07:00

.

Another video from the gig at the Donna Butcher Gallery in Singapore on Friday July 29th 2011, for local writers group Plato's Cave.

(if you are not seeing a playable window above then click here for a direct link to the YouTube page

Long time readers will know I've blogged video performance of this poem before, and while my performance here is probably on par with that previous effort, I'm much happier with the camera work and sound on this one, (credit there goes to my friend Nilofer Ashraff).

Besides: it's breasts you know... no one ever gets tired of breasts. The poem I mean, hang on no I don't, I mean yes I do, I mean no, I mean watching videos of breasts, I mean the poem, I think I mean: enjoy, uh... the poem.

Once again, thanks to the Plato's Cave crew for taking an interest, and being an interesting bunch in turn.

__________________________

You may have noticed things have been quiet on Tales Told in the last week or two, compared to the massive ejaculatory spate of material I was blogging earlier in August. What's up?

Two major projects of mine from back in Melbourne both caught up with me, tag-team style and have pounded the writer out of me temporarily.

One is the re-launch of my spoken word night in Melbourne, Sweetalkers, which will be back on stage in October when I arrive home, and will be running monthly. My aim is nothing less than to make this Melbourne's premiere poetry gig, and I am very excited about the lineups I've been putting together (check it out, I made a logo I did!)

The second project is a monstrosity. A big loud messy, heavy lunging skulking angry mess of an album called "Monstrosity". And yes, after three-going-on-four years of slumming it as a performance poet, I'm preparing to throw my hat into the ring with producer/musician Kim Lajoie and singer Jayne Brailey as the vocalist for PUNCH CARD POET

Both of these are big, collaborative efforts on a scale I've never dealt with before, and I'll be making a lot of noise about these two (ongoing) projects soon. Meanwhile however there are plenty more original poems on the way too, so keep tuning in, reading up and we'll be resuming normal broadcasting services shortly.

-Peace

.

and me and you and everyone else we don't know -29/08/2011

2011-08-28T19:49:00.000-07:00

.

suffering the same symptoms
log onto facebook
read everybody else' status

then bum out
-LIKE-
your life is on ice
tired
with no traction

say tired not tyred
to be clever
say something
that doesn't say anything
in order to have
something to say
to be clever
to the someones who may
or may not
read it
who are also
looking for something

...to say
in the blink
of the cursor

stop believing
in clever
in looking for your shape
in outline and underline
in the red on blue little cues
that flag that we are still

connected
by the faces you know
the length of the lists
this
ain't living

this is addiction

we are connected
in our alienated state
connected by the faces
I know

what it is "like"
waiting for a like

and I am

like

you

-LIKE- the recipe for awesome sauce
that's part eating lemons
part sucking eggs

with a pinch of salt

added to taste
eating your own words
over and over again
waiting for yourself
to somehow write out enough reason
for us

to not have to come back here.

_____________________________

-Peace

.

Passed -24/08/2011

2011-08-23T10:23:00.000-07:00

.

you have not found anyone yet willing to un-break you
and never will

nor will anyone find you
using that map you've made
the one
where you marked the spot

with an X

tonight, your past
presents us an impasse
we can't seem to get passed
on this our first
(soon to be last)
date

because my
romantic advances are lanced off
with an expansive romantic tale to tell
filled with this kinda-well...
well-maybe-sort-of-on-again-off-again-depends-on-she-loves-me-he-loves-me
not
sure-and-still-sore-and-oh-ho-no-it's-complicated
and it's messy and it's recent
and it's confusing
and it

is

so

fucking

boring

listening to this

shit
listless limp wrist audio parade
of the amorous corpses
you still haven't gotten around
to cleaning out of your closet

oh and I got it

you wanted me
to jump
my hand up stuck
to role-play janitor
trying to clean your closet free
for you
in a brand new
but same-lame brain-drained blame-game
...for shame

especially on a first date
'cause if you got to know me
see, I'd be all up for cosplay
and names
and weird games
ones like with stuff that's actually fun
and then some
and intimate feelings
with maybe a touch of healing
and redeeming
and believing in brighter days
but to get there...

you'd have to meet me half way
here across our candle lit table
on the near side of yourself

not in the middle of that minefield
handing me a shovel

nor with the map marked
initially eye-heart
and marking that star-spot
with an X

and yes
stupid as I am, ma'am
I'm still not the one
dumb enough
to go digging
in there
for treasure
waiting for sparks
to fly out of your broken parts

because I'm old enough now
to see this for what it is
and can't be fucked

with a wild goose chase
when all I'd catch

is just a lame duck.

_______________________________

"and X never-ever marks the spot"

-Indiana Jones

-Peace

.

Washing My Mouth Out (1 of 2) The Plexiglas Lexicon -14/08/2011

2011-08-16T10:05:00.001-07:00

.

"Well maybe you can keep me
from ever being happy
but you're not gonna stop me
from having fun"

-Ani DiFranco,'Gravel'

THE PLEXIGLAS LEXICON

my right to swear publicly
died of suffocation
inside a Plexiglas lexicon
scarred from billboard de-face-ment
caught in trafficking accidents
with motorised billboards
on underpasses
beneath gambling establishments

didn't watch
which way it was walking
looking out for clocks
a window
or a way out

my right to swear died quietly
behind the walls
they don't even bother
to white wash anymore
just slapping dark-gray paint over
offering you
plainly painted concrete
instead of hedges of living canvas
for the inner city kids
trying to add a little colour
to our lives
along these suburban-trained-lines

my rights were lost to a policy
of privatisation
on late-cancelled-running trains
roamed by goons
picking on the foreign
the disabled the poor
then apologising
for any inconvenience caused

my right to swear died
with a shrug off
of an apathetic electorate
interested more by rates
than human rights

it died starving
trying to win back
community approbation
while all of the rest of you
just looked at me funny
for singing in public, too

not that this
has stopped me
from ever singing in public
either way

so my right to swear in public
may well have died
though,
not least for reasons stated above
my will
to keep doing so

is still very much alive.

_________________________________

"Washing My Mouth Out" was conceived as a response to a challenge from my Father~ write a poem about swearing without swearing. It then became a horribly self-righteous diatribe of a thing, yet another monster from the drafts-folder that gestated way too long, before becoming timely again in the midst of Victoria's ridiculous new anti-swearing legislation, (though I well and truly missed the punch there too, with this already months in effect at the time of this blogging).

It was then dragged up from the dearth once more for an event I featured at in Kuala Lumpur (which I stole the poem title from, in the end), though ultimately I didn't end up using it on the night then either. Regular readers may also detect that I've poached certain parts of this poem for the recent 'Carrying a Tune' poem as well... ah what a fucken mess.

So... gosh, bother and darn it, here it is, blogged finally. I've split it in two to make it more palatable/readable, due to a distinct gear-change that happens half way through. Stay tuned for part two soon.

-Peace

.

Cold Turkey -17/08/2011

2011-08-16T09:38:00.000-07:00

.

get in another fix
of day dream

heavy petting
hot shower sweating
in hand holds
of a hard time

til static noise
fades with shakes
to white out

but beaten bad
with skin-crawl
all over this withdrawl
because still

you got
nothing
that can take the edge

off her curves

____________________________

(yeah well ...you know, this is all poetry is anyway right?)

-Peace

.

Carrying a Tune -15/08/2011

2011-08-15T04:33:00.000-07:00

.

I'm starting a resistance cell
gonna go
jam head phones in my ears
walk down busy streets
singing badly

to myself

off key and not caring who listens
and who doesn't
and see who joins me

we'll march through the city
having tickle fights
we'll make paper planes
out of self help guides

we'll tear up fashion and fitness
magazines
and diet books
and drink fully-full fat milk
and eat big sugar
and carbs and cholesterol
and we'll saturate in fats
like we're in a jaccuzi
and won't let anyone stop us

I'm starting a resistance cell
gonna go
set fire to a burning question
talking madly

by myself

til I've smoldered out an answer
loud and not caring who listens
and who doesn't
and see who else is

because we won't wait to speak
until we're spoken too
we'll go looking at our reflections
if we see them in windows
and not stop when other people notice
pick our noses
and pop pimples in public

we'll be just as comfortably uncomfortable
in our skin
as we want to be
we're gonna stop saying sorry
when someone bumps into us
we're going to burp mid sentence
instead of getting hiccups
fart loud and often
not going to tuck in shirts
trim back our nails
or shave where and when we don't want to

we'll tell our boss they're fired
make doctors wait for us
pull over the police for speeding
ask ticket inspectors
if they have anyone they can call
to verify their identity
kick bouncers out of bars
fine advertisers for public defacement
and tell our counselors

that they're crazy

we'll ride bikes without helmets
or fears
twist bubble wrap
break glass for giggles
without admitting it's fun to smash stuff
stay on the train way past our stop
and won't care what's coming down the line

we'll take the last piece of pizza
and the first slice of cake
spit on a fish
swing on a swing
sit on a roof
climb trees like we used to
roll down green hills
then spin around circles at the bottom
if we're still not dizzy enough
laughing like the idiots
we are

lie around naked in our backyards
and in our hearts
sing the bits of stupid songs
we like
even when we don't know
the words

we'll make something up

and we'll let it out
bouncing in heart springs
and we're going to do it
now
preemptive,

before they make all that illegal too.

_________________

-Peace

.

Something of Value -12/08/2011

2011-08-11T17:57:00.000-07:00

.

If you are going to be lonely

find the biggest sky you can
as far from home as possible
to do it under

lift the weight off old skylines
finding new light looking up
lose old aching gravity
overarching starful
as the pinpricks wink
across this impossible distance

where couches can’t contain you
let that distance stretch you
-out
so much further
than spread eagle across beds
throw yourself into it
scatter life down highways
like a string of wreckage
let the hurt
spur you on
to line your paved face
with a road map's direction

and own your alone

If lonely hunts you
amongst people
in places already known
then run, sucker, run
hide inside pockets of velocity
an envelope of trajectory
blanketed in anonymity
jump burnt bridges
across the still waters
too deep for shallow swimmers
to follow
and insist
that loneliness
work for its prey

if you are going to be lonely
be strange
stubborn as leg cramps
let your skin
carpet your flaws
be so funny
that your punchlines
...can leave black eyes
be so far gone
that your trail
itself becomes a tale
bread-crumbed to become
the stuff nourishing legends

Get your years stuck in mud
get them buckled and blistered
warped from water-log
snow stained with sand grains
stuck in them
'til you stink
of a long-story's old nostalgia

if all your photos are taken arms length
then reach further
than you ever believed you could
and picture yourself

-beautiful

and in reaching around
to sunscreen your own back
develop another flexibility
plans remain in your hands
no splitting this difference
where decisions comes from within
that same sunscreen grease
will suddenly smell like freedom
and release

if conversation starved
then find your own minds
inner dialogue

and talk yourself up a storm

if you are going to be lonely
at all
do it all
out there
walk into every situation
like the wall behind you is following
where not a single friendly-fire
word-exchange can steal your flame
let lack of explanation torch glow
you, so far from a home

pursue and imbue
your life's light
with something of value
find these gains hidden in the pain
a suffering brilliance
and the shine of that light
shall more than sustain you

on nights that need no account
lose count and let go

then let go of letting go

and hold on

feeling the silence
of nights alone
congeal around you
so thick and hard
you can actually grab hold of it
climb the silence
and use it as a boost-up
to get over those walls

under the biggest sky you can find
look out on horizon lines
curving-back too far in either direction
for straight and lame
to ever catch you
again

and even if standing all alone
up on that silent line
it remains

such a magnificent view

_____________________________

This piece has been a long time in the making, at least since April, and has been rewritten and worked over, torn up and made to sit in the corner many times. So much so that I'm actually quite pensive about releasing it out into the wild, most poems with a gestation period of more than a few weeks rarely make the light of day ~ things get turgid there in my draft folder pretty quickly. In this case the statement was too much of myself and my life to not fulfill it.

Anyway, hope you enjoy it, and as always any feedback is greatly appreciated. Cheers

-Peace

.

Knuckle Loved -11/08/2011

2011-08-11T17:45:00.000-07:00

.

I have bled into pages
for strangers

scared the shit out of them
then
had to hand it back
in a stinking-stupid
balancing act

I've had to apologise
to the emotionally comatose
living on life-support
and a bland diet

of early nights

swallowed conquered words
world-view smiled back belief
and fulcrumed my foolhardy
into muscle
and more muscle

done push-ups on the sun up
sweated the lead out
cracked ribs while laughing
and made midnight wince
at seeing me again

I fucked the holes in my story

eaten her out with knuckle loved hunger
glared obnoxious at every
curved part that bodily
separated us from our true stories

I've wanted her so bad
that it was... bad
punched that pain into myself
then tried using the bruise
to feel like maybe somehow
we'd connected

died of embarrassment
just to see if suicide is painless
or just another of life's creative processes
believed in no pain no gain
no matter how often
I was subsequently short-changed

I have paid my dues into black
then demanded some bloody payback
and when it was my shout
took my voice in stereo to eleven
screaming god-fucken-dammit
right up into heaven

read every religious book
back to itself
like a lullaby

I have believed
that I shed myself
of every belief

had spirited arguments
with alcoholic ghosts
got gas in the think tank
a broken light bulb for brains
and beaten my head
against every wall I could find
out there to blame

and girl,
I made it hard on myself
kept it up to die trying
I've tolled the bell
taken the cake
told it straight
screwed the pooch
in a glass house
snapped judgement
rocked the boat
given a toss
and slept it off
fucked it up
blew my chance
cut the crap
shit where I've eaten
to then eat shit
but I have never
ever
done anything

that could stop me thinking

about you

________________________________

-Peace

.

Mister Adventure Hammock Man -11/08/2011

2011-08-10T19:55:00.000-07:00

.

Leave it there just one second longer

I ask her
as she moves
on the empty glass
please,

-just one second longer-

clutching at it like a kids toy
while flashing her a half-embarrassed smile
same one I've often used
to get out of awkward spots

an apologetic explanation
holds biting-point in my half open mouth
but all that comes out is
ahhhh...

because
I know better
than to get into sentimental matters
with bar-staff,
especially bar staff at airports

because
I couldn't really rationalise it
anyway
because not everyone
looks at everything in front of them
as photographically as I do
my mind framing this glass
like the last photo
I didn't get
with the man
who has just drunk this glass
empty
and left.

because I didn't say half
of what I wanted to say to him
because I have lots of words
that don't fit the right way
and would look awkward on us both

because sometimes there are spaces so big
that come with my words
that you could lose whole friends
in the gaps I stick
...
between them

because sometimes you leave places
you won't get to go back to
you lose people
because I spent most of our last day
together
bitching about the last girl
I fell in love with
because he introduced us
because I now feel stupid
realising I should have instead
been talking to him about
how much I love
him

because a good feeling about someone
needs to feel the comfort
of a voice carrying it home

because I shared a home with him this past year
and it won't quite feel like one without him
because that time
when I was walking up to the front door
to find it open, light on inside
and his clarinet music wafting down incense
on the summer time breeze,
that share house became a home.

because he once hugged me that time
coming in from the night-hours worked
that didn't have a hope
and he did it,
because he just knew I needed it.

because beyond a man-hug
we've squeezed so much
shared-joke and photo-face
into our time and thoughts exchanged
and now he's leaving this country
continuing his way round the world
started years before we met
with no plans to return
and I respect that

because when I grow up,
I want to be Christopher Harper

walking like there's never a hurry
because there really won't be one
not worrying about my next or last lay
because there'll always be another on the way
cooking gourmet for myself and house-mates
because it's a joy not a chore

like he tried to teach me
because he was so stone-cold-sick
of seeing me can-eat baked beans
and raw noodles

though I'll never really learn
because unlike him
I'm slow on the uptake
a quarry made hard-cased square peg
tin man built knuckle-loved
mashing key pads
too small for my fat fingers

who runs-backwards to his friends
for help,
friends like Chris
who, not to over-gloss this lot
sometimes would push my buttons too
with complaining his way around the world
or with some of those girls
he brought home
before giggling at the garbage
me and my friends would watch
his snobbery verses our slovenly tastes
scoffing, actually scoffing,
then and there,

but he was there

when demons were summoned-substantial
from the worst of my dreams
to threaten me, he fended them off
playing exorcist cum spirit guide
and we flinched our way through that bat country
together
he kept me safe

because that's what friends are for
that's what Chris is for
friends
because he has been one of the best
I'll ever have
trusted, respected
and I've suspected
that life back in Melbourne
won't be the same without him

because inspite the belly ache
elliptical monologue revision
I kept spitting out our last day
he actually did, still listen
when I spent all that day
bitching,
about that (damn) girl

ahhh...

...so I ask her
as she moves
on the empty glass,
please

-just one second longer-

to leave it there
on the mat
at the bar
at the terminal
at the airport
in the city
where we said goodbye
very likely for the last time

while being exactly the same height
Chris and I
didn't always see eye to eye
not suffering in sentiment
he takes things easy, as they come
then lets them go
I spend most my time desperately sweaty
trying to get a grip

only a few minutes gone
it was easy to imagine
him still there
seeing me grope for that glass
fool sitting there half-empty

he would have laugh-smiled
half-patronisingly
patted me on the back
saying something like

man, in the end~

You gotta just let some things go.

_______________________________

-Peace

.

The Signs to Santubong -08/07/2011

2011-08-10T19:46:00.000-07:00

.

The last sweatless night behind you
left lying in a luggage locker
Borneo,
what you-doing in Borneo?

bunker windows eying out
your backseat taxi ride
making bumpy pidgin observations

Kuching wet to the taste
it's dug up and hot
you're thirsty
like misunderstood maps
like somewhere passed
this foliage you pass
you're going to get it all
growing photographs
out of your mouth gapes

air conditioners blister
every building side
jungles sprawls reclaim urban ones
vines and concrete competing
in an alternating tortoise and hair
racing crawl
a fight for life
stalemating on the edges

cops wear black
bonsai minaret roadblocks
everywhere has a gate in front of it

everything weathered and chipped
and still being built
covered woven then exposed
everywhere pipe works
and construction

faces made out of cracks on the pavement
south east age-ya
sunlight glare caked in the rubble
colours spilled stain
like off a post-banquet tablecloth

sunset casts a phonetic spell
over the skyline
in three languages worth
of roadsigns
treelines ahead
on motorbikes
in silk suits
that the cab ploughs through
mid-aerial roundabout ramshackle
passing roadside gardens of rust

but this place
is quieter with it's chaos
than some you've seen
the prepaid taxi driver
who speaks only when spoken to
making allowances for invaders
without bullshiting you
with friendly single serve chit chat
the dashboard air con hums
comfortable silence
...so be cool with that

your insect repellent packed
you know to stick to the maps
smell out tourist traps
pay for it all in small notes
keep the photo-fire to a minimum

then relax

because
you're in Borneo now
the only place
you've been in years
where a poet
wearing a pith helmet

might finally make sense.

_______________________

-Peace

.

Globe Rotates Like Dice -01/08/2011

2011-08-09T05:18:00.000-07:00

.

we have more than we need

and still want
more than that

so now more
of the world
lives with less
than they need
for the sake
of people
who then waste
what they have

we need
to realise
all this

could be taken away from us

need to wake up
need to share out
gift and give
back
what we have
to spare

and we need
to want
for less

if we want

to survive.

_________________

Inspired (well obviously by recent experiences of where I am), but linguistically by two lines of Denzel's in "The Book of Eli" that were elegantly simple and strikingly direct, as archetypal one-liner hero dialogue should indeed always be, and which I've paraphrased in the opening lines here.

Oh and the title?
It's half a line from a Sage Francis song~ "Agony in Her Body" (from the album A Healthy Distrust), Incidentally/ironically a very darkly introspective song on an otherwise extremely political album.

-Peace

.

Fool's Gold -09/08/2011

2011-08-09T04:43:00.000-07:00

.

I don't often laugh in people's faces
not with strangers anyway
and certainly not in Asia

But then George
from Ghana
in Kuala Lumpur
came up
sat down
and offered me gold

I hadn't even offered him a seat

Had to laugh, really George?
he was actually African
that enviable height
and much-better ability
to retain his handsome with a bald head
would be hard to fake
and I'd heard him speaking French
with his other mate
over in the corner
before.

The thickness of his accent
the force of his smiling story
talked over the book I was reading
the novelty value
of an email scam come to life
something about his father
a war a bank account
a government a return
on an investment
made
and an end of a rainbow.

Gold.

No never been to Ghana
but I'd like to
Yes Australia beautiful country
have you been? oh?
though I wasn't by then listening
mind started wondering
distractedly started wandering
into his real story

I'd like to know it George,
yours
and your friend's too

I'd never get it of course
any more than this gold
he's so sold
on trying to sell me on

so as we talk
I in turn, turn out to be
a chef named Chris
from Bristol, via China
used to be a plumber in America
got a girlfriend back in Australia
where I picked up this accent
and got sent
over here to Malaysia
by my boss
to find a recipe

...for disaster.

George didn't get the joke.

This curtain up between us
now just shows the shadows
of a two-way projected puppet play
handing each other lies
in odd shapes
you couldn't put your finger on
mixed with just enough half-truths
to confuse one another.

He had a better shirt on than me
but still trying on a scam so old
I can't believe it could possibly fit
over the flab
of even this touristy strip
anymore.

How did George get here
where did he think this scam was gonna take him
where had he first heard of it
how many times had he tried it today
and had it ever worked?

I really just wanted to ask him if it had ever worked.

________________________________________

-Peace

.

Warmer (live at Donna Butcher Gallery, Singapore) -29/07/2011

2011-08-09T03:52:00.000-07:00

.

A new edit of my poem "Warmer", performed live at the Donna Butcher Gallery in Singapore on Friday July 29th 2011, for local writers group Plato's Cave.

(if you're not seeing a playable video box above then click here for a direct YouTube link)

Thanks again to Nilofer Ashraff and the whole Plato's Cave gang for making this event happen, was a great night and everybody had fun, there's a few more videos clips worth seeing that I'll be posting up here soon.

--

WARMER

Stop.

it's time to ease yourself
out of that painted corner

without showing off
teeth marks
you made in the air
the wrench
found in your food bowl
or the many carpet stains
made
in your need to blame
someone

don't look back
for anymore victims
to turn up amongst your cynicisms
quit putting forgiveness
on trial
as a hostile witness
take the gristle out those words
give up
on back pocket tears
hip pocket democracy
genitally exercised rights
promises tucked in your wallet
give it up drop it

come out
from hiding behind your time
you're not the only one
with low notes
held aggregate in their dial tone
not the only one
whose ego has been rubbed raw
with rough chunks ripped off your privacy
we all have those
same sweat-stains and scrub marks
badly hidden
and it's okay, here

ease yourself out of that painted corner

easy
with ease
the paintbrush noose
let it go
give it up
put it down
slowly move
close closer
warm warmer
no sizing up for safety

have your hands out
where they can be held

no matter how dirty you think they are

gently
keep your eyes where I can see 'em
hostage-release
each and every breath
out
like a helium balloons unstopped ascent
up through
your floating diaphragm chest
a guilt free gas cloud
clear now

give up that frown
come on,
and the other one

...that glare too

it's time for you
to hang up the hang ups
'cause there's a lot of healing
trying to get into your personal space
more than what you spent
on medicine
to cover the tread marks
made on your tired forehead

there's a healing here
to wipe away their footprints
from your mouth
there's a real smile forming there

so look up
stop
and see that

any corner you paint yourself into
you can draw yourself out
from, and canvas
even with sketchy details
broad strokes

...and a few blank spots

walk out of there
leave the trap
no looking back
and please
don't worry about the mess

this time

___________________________

-Peace

.

Head Room -08/08/2011

2011-08-07T08:23:00.000-07:00

.

The walls of your room
haunt your thoughts thick
and sleepless

walls of your room
stare at you
dare you waking into long hours
reading them bare
-every stain felt
on every shapes every surface
each hidden hair of light
from off the floor
climbs up you
til you climb up the walls

learn the dirt the cracks
been built into these walls
trace them all backwards
in a loop in a loop in a loop
in a smell of yourself too bad
in the tattoo that scabbed
in a fan too loud
in a room too small
with a bed too big
in an idea bouncing off the walls
sonar echoed voices
in languages you never learnt

no one here
except demons brought back
with a tongue you chew
for soul food
and the sensation

of someone else here to hold you.

no way out
tonight
in fact there's no way out of tonight
at all
you try tunneling through to sleep
you're a head torch on fire
but these walls
have been built
on the wrong side
of your eyelids

walls you can't lose
growing thicker than the room itself

if you had a cigarette
you'd be a smoker right now
if you could bench press
the weight of this ceiling
you'd be asleep right now
if you
could stare back the abyss
into backing down
it would have flinched by now

or if you could describe
what this thing is
so lonely in the pit
of your witching hour's wander

frying old hate up
thick enough to make your new skin

if you could describe
this thing,
that throws you distant between intimate
and those walls that won't save you,

then you wouldn't have to keep trying
to write to it

in a letter like this

tonight

_____________________

-Peace

.

Starve, Prey, Loathe -04/08/2011

2011-08-04T10:51:00.000-07:00

.

She stopped reading "The Count Of Monte Cristo"
around the time she dumped me

and started reading "Eat, Pray, Love"
instead

my favourite book
is The Count of Monte Cristo,
is why I gave it to her
an archetypal page-turner of a novel
swashbuckler story of adventure
intrigue
revenge

and the limits of justice and,

it is
by now
a very old story
one you may have heard
or seen
elsewhere before.

I hear
"Eat, Pray, Love"
is a beautiful book

Oprah Winfrey said so

guess it's all just comes down to
personal preference
defining your reading taste

I remember reading
this girl's last letter to me
presumably written before
she started to read "Eat, Pray, Love"

explaining, Dear John, to me
already
the characteristics
of the next relationship
she wants to have

one much more stable
more supportive
more accepting
more genuine
a more less-contradictory
more-better-at-listening
or something
sort of thing

and it is

by now

a

very

old

story,

one

you may have

heard

or seen

elsewhere

before

_______________________________

-Peace

.

The Opposite Of People -29/07/2011

2011-07-29T00:54:00.000-07:00

.

You can hold a crowd of hundreds
with more comfort
than carrying a conversation
with one other

you get asked
how you can seem
so confident up there
by people not noticing
the nerves
off stage
talking back to them
the eyebrow wrestle sweat
the gasping air scratch
hugging yourself for the space it makes

real-life
stage fright

hammered your head so hard
into this art
that it now has it's own corners
to fold needs into
wrists hungry cold for hands to hold
horny breathing fistfuls
unrehearsed
un-prepared words more words

words
covered with words
in a one sided title fight
one hand tied behind the backs
of claps and laughs
they like you
-fuck me-
they really like you

if only you
could be you
in person
or
as a person

you act-modest
badly
your performance
of a normal person
is abnormally mediocre
unusual
at best

casual conversation
feels like being heckled
or an improv
you're unprepared for
living gig-to-gig
until the show boat spills over

and she just bails out

yet again

because you got nothing
to talk about
except... what you got to talk about

because real life
gives you stage-fright
with no audience-not-listening
another quiet night heckles you
from the peanut gallery
jeering life more ordinary

tough crowd
bad venue
wrong material
for that audience

just being yourself
doesn't work so well
for a performer

or maybe
this is just
another stage

another stage, for you to get through

_______________________________________________

"We're actors~ the opposite of people."

Tom Stoppard -Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead

-Peace

.

Like -22/02/2011

2011-07-28T23:37:00.000-07:00

.

My tongue wants the taste
of your skin
like a curl of knifed-up butter
melting

wants to be spread

______________________________

-Peace

.

Twin Tower Tease -24/07/2011

2011-07-24T08:36:00.000-07:00

.

They struck night out of the car air

against our trip back from Bangsar
conversation rocked to a stop
impossible in vertical in person
straight up eye to eye
and I
finally got it...

skyscraper cum temples

hideously wonderful
twin tower money minarets
beacons for eastern petrol barons

The Petronas Towers

may be the most beautiful things
I barely saw
before being swallowed again
by a greedy and eager
underling skyline.

Those two,
they teased emerald
stood obstinate
and like another and next-best irony~
that you can't see Everest
from its first base camp
they disappeared behind lesser peaks,
office blocked.

Went back looking around Kuala Lumpur
tonight
and couldn't find them hiding anywhere
funnier for the fact
that,
from what I remember,

they didn't strike me
vivid-rigid
austere-elegant
compulsive-obnoxious
like European super model
twins
as the sort of sight
that would care

to hide itself away from you.

_______________________________

-Peace

.

Help me help Syahidah Ishak -Mr $ donating $ for a good cause -24/07/2011

2011-07-24T04:55:00.000-07:00

.

Yesterday at the Readings gig, I met a woman named Syahidah Ishak, who spoke to the assembled guests there about the difficulties she has had in getting treatment for a brain tumour (diagnosed almost a year ago), and the need she has to raise funds to have surgery to remove it in the US.

http://www.yvonnefoong.com/2011/07/11/help-syahidah/

I fidgeted through the first few minutes, and I don't really want to expound too many gory details here (the links below can do that for you). Suffice to say: her situation is pretty horrible, getting worse, and she is not receiving much help from people, and worse, is being stigmatised in many ways.

http://mmail.com.my/content/77068-teacher-needs-rm150000-brain-tumour-surgery-us

I guess it comes down to this, summarily: as someone who was messed around pretty badly by a medical/health system myself, my heart went out to Syahidah, and I decided to try helping her in some small way, (other than buying one of her awesome cat badges "REAL MEN LOVE CATS"... c'mon how could I not go for that, fantastic!)

http://www.yvonnefoong.com/2011/07/24/syahidah-raised-rm705-00-at-readings-seksan-gallery/

So, yep, as it indicates in Yvonnes blog there, I'm donating any and all money on the sales of my CD on this tour to Syahidah, in Singapore, Malaysia and Borneo, and back in Sydney. (which will include retroactively those already sold in Singapore and Perth -at the exchange rate they were sold into Malaysian Ringots), it's not much... but it's something I can do, and maybe it'll inspire some people to do more. As I said to the audience yesterday, your applause in nice, but what I need though, is your help.

Besides that/on that note, you'll find a link on her blog, and that of her friend Yvonne Foong (above) on how you can donate directly to her.

http://wwwsyahidahishak.blogspot.com/

So please come along to the show/s, have a funky-good time, laugh in all the right spots, buy my filthy Product and help me help Syahidah.

Thank you

___________________________________

-Peace

.

Lost and Found In Singapore -18/07/2011

2011-07-17T21:03:00.001-07:00

.

FOUND:

-a surprising difficulty finding a hostel in Singapore
-a propensity of Indian food places to run out of Idly just before you get there
-a re-ignition of one's tendency to dislike travelling couples
-one growing hole in travel bag
-six extras kilograms of weight previously discarded (no, not on the bag scales)
-one new cellphone number, again
-a revelation that talking to oneself can actually escalate into outright (and out-loud) arguments with oneself
-a sudden interest in chewing-chewing gum
-that of all the food courtiers, the Chinses ones make the worst vegetarian food (or the least imaginative and most MSG-laden anyway)
-pretentious and smug self-satisfaction at being able to use chopsticks (look! look!)
-a ravenous addiction to canned strawberry tea.

LOST:

-three travel buddies
-one bookmark, and it's spot
-shoulder blades that can carry a bag around all day without complaining
-two litres of sweat
-any high-minded carbon-footprint-in-mouth hypocritical disdain for air-conditioning (was last seen in the area of 35 Celsius -possibly it went right out the window around then...)
-the piece of paper where I wrote down the name of that really cool black fruit my couch-surfing host showed me
-a propensity to hold my tongue and not bitch about Melbourne when prompted,
-an interest in German backpackers whining about their whiny girlfriends,
-ability to resist temptation to take photos of every single warning sign or set of pubic instruction one encounters, including the 'no photography' sign
-some hours sleep
-perspective
-patience
-innocence
-a sense of wonder
-pre-conceptions
-that head torch I never use anyway,

and the plot.

(If any of these found items are yours, please contact management immediately. If left unclaimed they will be thrown out in five working days).

__________________________________

-Peace

.

Struts and Frets His Hour Upon the Stage -28/06/2011

2011-06-27T20:44:00.000-07:00

.

I will no longer read

like a warning away from myself,
the repent of a sinking ship's captain
or a collection of shallow cuts
on white skin.

From now on
where ugliness of mine hides
where a beauty aching inside
sit in-ner tension
I will stand, and deliver
because there,
right there are some stories

for you.

When I walk up onto the stage
I have not come down from any mountains
there are far more questions
I want to ask you
than answers
I think I already have

for you

I'll show you smudges
where clumsy fingerprints blurr on the paper
where mistakes were made
where I lost lips my own mumbles.

I am not a revolution
a rosary bead for the bleeding of the world
nor am I feather weight
ugly duckling
not forgiveness
nor your next best
or worst
thing that ever happened

to you

I am here
because sometimes searching for intimacy
spits you out lonelier than island horizon
light and warmth all leaving
in the descent
of a fleeting sun's own stage direction

Though I am also here
because sometimes my body becomes nothing
but flex
of fire-on-fire in a fight on the finish
reflex
and flight takes this frame
so high
that the grace, of this wondrous view
defies that frame of reference
and all I can do is scream
to get at
just how good it feels.

On this stage
at this stage
I will take, and own
the mercurial-cum-melancholy
the deep jagged scars of history
the personal and political
to make my mark on this art, indelible

Share
in a strut and fret head-long
hour upon
the stage

So until I'm heard from no more,

let's be friends
let's be lovers
let's be neighbours
sisters and brothers
let's be nice
let's be honest,
if we are angry alone or scared
let that be shared,
so that becomes scarce

for you, and I
not knowing answers
the who
why where what or
how to stop

Don't know...
exactly
what I'm doing
up here

I came here hoping to find out
came here to ask
to learn to listen
with questions these answers pursue
but most of all,
my friends
I came here
and keep coming back here

to see you.

________________________

I forget sometimes.

-Peace

.

Punchline Tired -18/06/2011

2011-06-17T08:22:00.000-07:00

.

There's a wall of sleep I keep hitting

punching it again and again
hard overhand left
busting my third metacarpal
over
and over
before remembering-

that I'm a haemophiliac

that this wall isn't one of the ones who let you down

and that the wall?

...well, it doesn't give a shit either way.

________________________________

-Peace

.

I Statements (new poetry kinetic text animation by Alex Scott) -16/06/2011

2011-06-15T09:39:00.000-07:00

.

I'm very pleased to present the first video/poetry collaboration between Alex Scott and Randall $tephens. It won't be the last.

What you're looking at is an independently produced and funded short film translating performance poetry into vivid kinetic text animation. An inordinate amount of work went into this and we couldn't be happier with the result.

If you're not seeing the play button/window above, then click here to watch the video directly through YouTube.

_______________________________

Unlike my other video footage online to date, this piece has been created and uploaded in the mostest-bestest-highest-est of High Defintion, so that you can watch it in full 1080p HD (if that means anything to you) and see how beautiful the extent of the craft is.

If you like what you see, then please share, like, forward and repost at will!

-Peace

Car Door Poetry (aka: Poetry is Ubiquitous) -12/06/2011

2011-06-10T04:41:00.000-07:00

.

With all this state-government sanctioned ridiculousness about swearing in Victoria taking effect, I thought it might be a good time to share a poem written back in March, during a camper-van trip from Sydney back to Melbourne:

(click on image to enlarge/clarify)

___________________________________________

(by request -and here I've been trying to convince my Dad ever since he came down to one gig a few years back that my poetry does consist of more than merely a string of expletives... well I showed him, as usual)

-Peace

.

SWEETALKERS: a new spoken word poetry event -Wednesday June 22nd

2011-06-01T09:12:00.000-07:00

.

So we're finally doing what I've been threatening to do ever since Wordplay closed it's doors at the end of 2009. Start up a new gig for dynamic and captivating performance poetry.

Not to say condescendingly there isn't/ hasn't been any in Melbourne since then, only in the current climate I've finally realised and accepted that if one is unhappy about their lack of opportunity on the scene, ultimately we need to create our own opportunities instead.

Sweetalkers is my way to give back something to Melbourne/Australian poetry.

Initially prompted by a request to find an extra gig for Candy Royalle's upcoming tour of Melbourne, we soon decided to set our ambitions higher, and it's my sincere hope that this evening, with your support, will spark off a new semi-regular event that will celebrate entertaining poetry (yeah folks I used the 'e' word with poetry), without any of the unfortunate trappings of overly-serious competitiveness and lack of respect for a public audience, which means:

No slam, no open mike, and no antiquated mumble ...let me tell you what we do have though:

THE TALKERS:

CANDY ROYALLE has built a reputation for poetic, passionate and often politicised lyrics, with live shows renowned for their crowd connection, dynamism and sexual energy. Her distinctive, highly-charged performances have been storming venues across Australia for the last 10 years.

STEVE SMART is the hair of the dog, the last man standing, and a walking caricature of Melbourne poets while simultaneously being just about the best of them. Founder of the Overload Festival, his work combines fractured humour with a deeply vulnerable humanity.

http://www.stevesmartpoetry.com/

ALIA GABRES has a heart full of words and mind full of prose. She fell into the world of Spoken Word and it has now become her home. She'll be the newest kid on the block at Sweetalkers, but already she's been a state finalist in the national slam last year, a workshop facilitator for the Centre for Poetics and Justice, as well as a Curator of a poetry explorations series entitled ‘Tell it like it is’ at the Footscray Arts Centre." Alia's work balances the highly political and deeply personal.

And our MC for the night is...

OMAR MUSA, a giant of Australian Hip Hop and champion of Poetry Slam, not only here but throughout the world, his meteoric rise to fame has taken him to corners of the Earth few else has seen, in this scene. Omar is taking time out from his insanely busy touring schedule to MC the night for this, and we are honoured to have him as a special guest.

Check out "Nothing is Safe", the first single from his new album MoneyKat~ a collaboration with Californian rapper Might Joe, this track also featuring soulful vocals from Candice Monique (lead singer of The Optics)

Nothing Is Safe feat. Candice Monique (prod. by Lotek) by MoneyKat

So... that's the lineup, you gonna be there? Hell-yeah!

The Bendigo Hotel
125 Johnston Street
Collingwood

Wednesday June 22nd
8pm

$10/$5conc suggested donation entry

http://www.bendigohotel.com.au/

Ok, once last piece of incentive? I'm doing a feature too ~ my last one in Melbourne before my Malaysia/Singapore tour, (until I return in mid-October). As well as a slew of new material, I'll be performing a few tracks from the musical project I've been working on with Kim Lajoie (an industrial/ middle eastern/ electro/ rap thing we're tentatively calling Fist Head First), and some of the soundscaped poems from my next spoken word album "This Is A Heavy Product", as well as a new, very powerful duet with Bronwyn Lovell.

SWEETALKERS... because I got nothing better to do, than give the best back to you.

___________________________________

-Peace

.

Gay -30/05/2011

2011-05-30T07:13:00.000-07:00

.

'gay'

kids, please

can we stop saying things are gay
as a negative thing
so often?

stop saying things are gay
unless they are gay

if you tell me a movie is gay
how am I to know if we’re talking about
Brokeback Mountain
or
Transformers 2
here.

Brokeback was definitely gay
and it was great
while Transformers 2
...well I didn’t know what the hell it was
but it probably wasn’t gay

and definately wasn't great

okay?

look, all I’m saying is
you’re messing with my language

don’t mess with me

or my language

I’m old and confused
and need my language to have its exactitude...
know what I mean?

my language is like an instrument,
can’t have gay-ness undefined hanging around my language,
or my instruments...
instruments maybe kinda, like tools...

and tools can be...

kind of...

(y’know)

"gay?"

what do you mean
gay
everything is gay all of a sudden
your day at work was gay,
that film was gay (not that again!),
that dude was so gay
(okay well maybe he was, shit I dunno)

but I do know that not everything is gay
in fact
I’ve narrowed down the definition
to two things:

one- homosexual people,

and two-to be extremely happy

and think about it,
this may not be casual coincidence~

because men
who do not have to put up with women
and women
who do not have to put up with men

are much more likely

to be extremely happy.

_______________________________________

(sorry Smarty)

-Peace

.

Three Bad Boys and a Microphone #2 -this Thursday 26/05/2011

2011-05-23T21:31:00.000-07:00

.

Thursday... comes before Friday. As does the show "Three Bad Boys and a Microphone #2" ~ insecure masculinity at it's loudest and most puerile.

...or will it be?

... and is that a rhetorical question? or not? or is this one? ...and why am I asking you, either way?

I mean you'd think I'd really ought to know by now if I was one of the three features. And I am. Puerile. And loud. And insecure. But only masculine in relief with the weedy poets nancy-boys (and hey, get this, we're going to be at 'Bar Nancy'), that I usually hang out with, like say Steve Smart and Leigh Robertson, my co-features.

Uh, but they're good too, 'spose.

Maybe you're getting the impression I'm trying to offend you... (are getting the vibe of this gig yet? ~you idiot)

Anyway... I'll certainly see you there. Yeah?

Bar Nancy
61 High Street
Westgarth
8pm
$7 door

(you idiot)

-Randall $tephens
"a rock star poet with daddy issues"

_______________________________________________

-Peace

.

"Five Extraordinary Minutes with Randall $tephens" -a film by Bill Juers

2011-05-22T18:52:00.000-07:00

.

A short film that my friend Bill Juers made leading up to the Under The Covers show we did last year. This was a lot of fun to make, Bill did a great job selecting and editing in the clips, and I'm delighted we can finally show people his hard work.

(if you can't see a picture window beneath this, click here to watch the video)

"An in-depth and revealing interview about the harsh realities of life as a performance poet, living in downtown Melbourne. Film-maker Bill Juers was privileged enough to be given nearly 5 minutes of Randall $tephens' time, shortly before one of his poetry performances in August 2010. Seen here for the first time speaking about his art, Mr $tephens holds nothing back in this almost uncomfortably honest expose. The struggles, the heartache, the burdens of vision and genius, the towering intellect, the spell checking, the humanity, oh, the humanity."

_______________________

This was a lot of fun to make, infact the whole "Under The Covers" experience was fantastic, we'll definitely be doing another one in the future, maybe sometime in 2012.

Meanwhile I'd really like to get all of the poems from the night edited into their own full YouTube clips and up here for folks to see, there are 22 in all, but that may have to wait until later in the year when I'm back from touring.

-Peace

.

Warmer (redux)-17/05/2011

2011-05-16T09:20:00.000-07:00

.

Stop.

it's time to ease yourself
out of that painted corner

without showing off
teeth marks
you made in the air
the wrench
found in your food bowl
or the many carpet stains
made
in your need to blame
someone

don't look back
for anymore victims
to turn up amongst your cynicisms
quit putting forgiveness
on trial
as a hostile witness
take the gristle out those words
give up
on back pocket tears
hip pocket democracy
genitally exercised rights
promises tucked in your wallet
give it up drop it

come out
from hiding behind your time
you’re not the only one
with low notes held aggregate in dial tone
not the only one
whose ego has been rubbed raw
with rough chunks ripped off your privacy
we all have those same sweat-stains and scrub marks
badly hidden
and it’s okay, here

so here
let me help untangle that clutch of your claws,
from the bottle,
and the inkblot

please stop.

it's time
to ease yourself out of that painted corner
easy
with ease
the paintbrush noose
let it go
give it up
put it down
slowly move
close closer
warm warmer
no sizing up for safety
arms out
palms up

have your hands out
where they can be held...

no matter how dirty you think they are

gently
keep your eyes where I can see ‘em
look up
no sudden movements
hostage-release
each and every breath
out
up
like unstopped helium balloon ascent through
your floating diaphragm chest
a guilt free gas cloud
clear now

give up that frown
come on,
and the other one
...the glare too

Stop.

time for you
to hang up the hang ups
'cause there’s a lot of healing
trying to get into your personal space
more than the medicine spent

to cover tread marks on your tired forehead

there's a healing here
to wipe away their footprints from your mouth

more than just another slump back slide
mumbled up from under couch cushions
there’s a real smile here
waiting to be seen dug out from your dust
up somewhere
past pen lids
un stuck from crumbs and small change

Stop.

look and see.
that,

any corner you paint yourself into
you can draw yourself out
and canvas
even with sketchy details
broad strokes

...and a few blank spots

slower than the patience of sloths
if you have to
but you do have to,
walk out of there

no looking back
and please
don’t worry about the mess

this time

___________________________

-Peace

.

Through -(redux) 16/05/2011

2011-05-15T08:36:00.000-07:00

.

Lying here

hoping the next man who holds you
has sandpaper hands
eyes as dull as his words are dull
as his mind is dull
like a scuffed floor
sharp as a bowling ball
his tongue a toilet brush
waving windshield wiper wild
in a cactus kiss
with fingertips that prick
like his dick
gentle as a bullbar embrace

lying here

rejection
bleeding edges over your last letter
loose-leaf crumpled-zone sheet linen
hoping
ghosts of the tenderness I showed
will haunt you unheld
through a hugged pile of pillows
hoping
your skin will remember its tingles still
and crawl lunatic
through desperately unsleepable
hours palpable alive
hearing whispered reminders that that whole
'touched like you have never been touched before'
-thing will now
never
touch you again
cold in your comfort zone
forsaken warmth substituting safety
for my body
not

lying here
in the space

...the space

you said
you wanted
from me
I'm now lying here
inside of it
and at last
sharing nothing
with you
and lost now
trying to feel my way out
after searching around for something
from being inside you
to hold on to
something I could, from you, get
to get
a grip
on my own insides

lying here

trying to get through
this arched back
in my learning curve
as it graphed itself out
on this mattress
my back bent spiralling fetal
curling through an embryonic crescent
so I could be as infantile
as you say I am

not
am not
am not
am not
I am
lying here

paper-weight on that letter
to hold down whole
everything you tried to take back
before you took off
with your lint brush pluck
at every point of light
found while eyeing
our shared-nights sky
I tried
straightening out
each of our turns
to the letter
every last phrase
I once floated you on
each word magic spelling out
I now sink into these curses
wanting you
to miss me
as much as

I hate

you

do

not

know
how much
I miss
you

fuck
you

saw

the best parts of me
to be
not good enough
or much too much
the more
the tighter
I tried to hold you
the less you had
to give me
back
hacked
parts of my past off
held each up to light
before throwing them away
to show
you were safe
with me
to give you
more reasons to stay

another
yet another
in tears tearing at myself
I got so small
trying to fit in the hole
you made inside

me

Me, I've been lying here

lying here
right where you left

lying, to myself
the whole time
piling up all of this scorn
to level out a wall
against having to feel remorse
for each time you tried to warn
me

you did try to warn me
and I wish
now
godless in regret
that
I had not gotten
so angry
when you said

I have a problem

with my anger

_________________________

This 167 line monster is intended as a middle poem in a trilogy between 'Hold, Still' and the finale 'Holes'.

--

The gestation period for this was as long and the structuring as difficult as anything I have ever worked on, to date nothing else I've written has endured so much editing. Hopefully that record will stand for a while.

I value any critical feedback you can provide. Cheers

-Peace

.

A Heathen Scripture blogpost that Randall wants you to read -29/04/2011

2011-04-28T08:21:00.001-07:00

.

Now I know you don't tune into this blog to read someone else' blog (and good for you), but today's different. I just read an excellent article/blog by my friend Geoff Lemon that's catching a lot of people's attention today on Twitter, and as much as I think Twitter can go eat itself, this really is worth reading.

Anyway, I'll spare you any more preamble because it's on the long side, just do it, click on the link below.

ANZAC Day not for faggots and towelheads

____________________________________

-Peace

.

Overload 2011 – Calling for Submissions

2011-04-27T03:36:00.000-07:00

.

The good people of Overload have asked me to tell you that (ahem):

"The Melbourne Overload Poetry Festival is the biggest grass roots poetry and spoken word festival in Australia. We are an inclusive and diverse festival that strives to showcase all forms of poetry, on or off the page. Overload has a reputation for pairing the experimental with the traditional, presenting them in an equal light in an accessible way.

From 10 to 19 September, the festival celebrates its 10th anniversary. We have come from being a small collective of regular, mainly pub poetry readings to a 10 day festival with a national and international presence.

In 2011 we want to celebrate this evolution with your help. We are calling for expressions of interest from poets in Melbourne and elsewhere in Australia who have ideas for events, a publication or CD they’d like to launch, or would simply like to read their work at Overload.

Go to http://www.overloadpoetry.org/, download and fill out the submission form and return it to Overload before 13 May 2011. Provide as much information as possible: examples of your work, a bio, a thorough description of the event you’re planning, what kind of resources you have or need (publicity, venue, fees, etc), and if you’re coming from outside Melbourne, which dates you’re available.

Send us your proposals via email to submissions@overloadpoetry.org, or by post to Overload Poetry Inc, 176 Little Lonsdale St, Melbourne VIC 3000. Attach as much support material as you can. If sending via post and you’d like us to return any samples of your work, please provide a SSAE.

Interstate and international poets please note: Overload is unable to offer any financial support for travel or accommodation. However, we will try and make the trip worth your while by offering two gigs at the festival."

The Space Between My Ears Like It's a Lagrange Point with Something Up in the Sky -27/04/2011

2011-04-26T18:37:00.000-07:00

.

In one ear I got Buddy Wakefield's new book saying

"imagine what you would do if you didn't think you could fail"

and

in the other ear I got music producer Kim Lajoie, saying

"you can have your dream come true,
but you'll have to work harder for it than you ever imagined"

and my friends know
I try to be a good listener
but there are days

when I wish everybody

would just SHUT UP for a second.

________________________________

oh and it IS a great book too...

-Peace

.

Irony -19/04/2011

2011-04-19T02:48:00.000-07:00

.

Irony

is a bumper sticker
sporting an environmental slogan

on the back of a car.

it's the bicycle
being considered a greater danger
to people on the road

than a car.

it is people
who cite convenience and time
as their reason
for driving cars
who sit stuck in traffic

for hours.

it is believing
that rising amounts of carbon
in the air
causing damage
to the biosphere
is a political issue,
and the need
to address that change

considered an issue for debate.

irony
is a country
full of people
who do the most per capita polluting
who stand to suffer the most
from its effects
who are then, also
the least willing
to do

anything

about it.

irony
Is a country
constituted mainly
of endless sun scorched deserts
whose economy
is inextricably linked to natural resources

deeming solar power too expensive

irony
is people
who tell other people
to disregard science
without understanding it themselves
while transmitting their message
on digital signals

carried by satellites.

it’s the people
who cause the problem
denying the problem

its rich people
carrying more debt
paying massive interest to watch boring shows
in high definition

it’s a welfare system
that won’t help you if you’re homeless
unless

you have a mailing address.

irony
is a land stolen
from a seventy-thousand year old culture
where the invaders
who claimed that no one prior owned it
now try and justify

keeping others out of it.

irony
Is invading other people’s countries
stealing their stuff
destroying their cities
their families
their culture
then daring to complain
when a few of these people
flee

and turn up on your doorstep.

Irony is people
more ignorant of the past
the present
the world
the neighbours they have
the freedom and opportunities
they possess
ignorant of all this
now

when information access is free and limitless.

Irony
is a lonely all-consuming search
to find another

while surrounded by millions.

it’s portrayals of the sex act
touch, love and physical contact
on film
considered shameful and obscene,
while the portrayal
of people
shooting other people with guns

is somehow clean.

it's the way you use
violence or ignorance
to push people around
get whatever you want

then claim
those not doing the same
are dangerous

irony
is you not listening to me
while saying
I better listen to you
the way you say
the most horrendous things
yet are so easily offended

how you instantly wind up
when anyone tells you to calm down
pro-life death penalty
censorshipped crucifixion
guardian of information
who has no idea

what to do with that information.

that generosity
Is often hardest to find
amongst those of us
who have the most to give

It is ironic
that those of us
who are best equipped
informed and financed
to make changes

to date, have not

irony
is that you stand to gain much
by discarding a little that hurts you.

with the world waiting
patiently
for you,
urgently to

stop making excuses

and

start making changes

______________________

Okay, one last irony?...

I sat down to quickly blog this as a one-liner poem ('bout the bumper sticker), and two-point-something hours later it's become easily the longest thing I've written all year.

-Peace

.

Wealth -17/04/2011

2011-04-17T15:33:00.000-07:00

.

I will never get a chance
to go hungry
my entire life.

Poverty
only touches me
when I forget:

the people I know
are the wealth I own

When counting my fortune
in the friends I have

I am rich

rich beyond the dreams of avarice.

___________________________

I've just been spat out the far side of a weekend catching up with friends, some old, some new. I am stupid enough to forget sometimes how much I like people, and forget to pat myself on the back for the one good habit I ever formed in my life: surrounding myself with good people. Or maybe it's just that good people aren't all that hard to find, I don't know.

Thank you all, just for being who you are, and being a part of my life.

Oh and that last line is actually a quote from Star Trek IV ~ but don't tell anyone.

-Peace

.

RHUM Comedy Festival review: Uma Huma, Bollywood Boulevard -10/04/2011

2011-04-15T02:51:00.000-07:00

.

(click on the link below to read my...)

RHUM review of "Uma Huma, Bollywood Boulevard" @ MICF 2011

________________________________

-Peace

.

The Saharan Siren Song (an online audio recording) -13/04/2011

2011-04-12T17:19:00.000-07:00

.

Got a sound cloud, testing testing. If this works, it may change the way I present my work online from now on. Here goes

The Saharan Siren Song by Randall $tephens

or: click on this if you're not seeing a play-button/widget thing above

The Saharan Siren Song

This is the 'radio edit' of track #7 from Product, that Alex and I made for play on Santo Cazzati's 3CR show last year, with the wind tracks and a few extra echoing and sub-vocals added.

Enjoy!

___________________________________

Slowly getting an online presence sorted. (oh brave new world that has such poets in it).

-Peace

.

Randall Telling Tales: Beer Time Stories @ Edinburgh Castle -24/10/2010

2011-04-10T20:57:00.000-07:00

.

This goes back a few months, a series of afternoons held late last year at the Edinburgh Castle called Beer Time Stories, the theme for the afternoon was:

letters that got you in trouble.

The following is a six minute story about how Randall escaped the white collar world to become... Randall (more so)

or: click on this link if you can't see the video

I've always wanted to do just get up and try doing freestyle story telling. I was a little nervous and probably should have rehearsed-out all those umm and ahhs first, but it was fun, and gets me that one small step closer to being Henry Rollins.

Check out some of the other clips on their beer time stories channel. There are some great ones to be heard, each responding to the given theme differently.

_______________________________

Thanks to Leslie Morris and the crew of Beer Time Stories for inviting me along. Cheers guys!

-Peace

.

Asuka Langley Sohryu -11/04/2011

2011-04-10T17:00:00.000-07:00

.

there was a dead mother in her scream
an absent father in her anger
fear of a touch
like a prickly skin
lunging at scars out her past
pricks jabs and stabs
covered up fierce
in the sharp of her voice
like the need for love

abandoned
and the pain strains
the loss like
the spotlight
on an empty room
fear
like eaten alive
in an eyeless rage blind
when no one her age
could get to her
in time

She attacked
at everything
fighting off angels
as enemies from heaven
til the end
of the world

said she hated everything
hated everyone
never helped herself
by letting others help her

lost

and the more she lost
the more she needed to win
everything to prove
the worse she got
worse she needed
to be better
and better
than anyone else

she was covered in armour
thick red
she was in absolute terror
protected
and

Asuka Sohryu Langley

really

just

needed

a hug

from anyone else around her

but no one else around her
had a way
of giving her one

no one else around her
had a way
of taking the hurt

it takes

to hug such a red hedgehog.

_______________________________

Neon Genesis Evangelion. By prescription only, not to be used in combination with other medications. For external use only, if taken internally contact a health professional for advice.

-Peace

.

RHUM Comedy Festival review: Melissa Crotty, Changes -4/04/2011

2011-04-07T02:18:00.000-07:00

.

(click on the link below to read my...)

RHUM review of Melissa Crotty: Changes @ MICF 2011

The things a man'll do for free tickets. And I guess I'm immediately a fascist and a skeptic 'cause I wasn't buying it. I believe in Global Warming, but I don't believe in most people trying to sell us stuff under that banner.

____________________________

-Peace

.

RHUM Comedy Festival review: The Big Hoo Haa -03/04/2011

2011-04-07T01:35:00.000-07:00

.

click on the link below to read my...

RHUM review: The Big Hoo Haa @ MICF 2011

__________________________________

-Peace

.

RHUM Comedy Festival review: The Hermitude of Angus, Ecstatic -31/03/2011

2011-04-04T00:09:00.001-07:00

.

(click on the link below to read my...)

RHUM Comedy Festival review: The Hermitude of Angus, Ecstatic

Does cross promoting my own work make me a sell out? Fuck me I hope so, I mean $o.

______________________________

-Peace

.

Randall reviewing for RHUM at Melbourne Comedy Festival

2011-04-03T17:25:00.000-07:00

.

Over the next fortnight I'll be doing a few reviews for shows at The Melbourne Comedy Festival, for a media website called RHUM (rabbit hole urban music). I did the same gig last year for these guys, and had a ball.

So between that and my current songwriting project, all poetry activities have been suspended in my constitution until this crisis is over. As the reviews are published I'll post entries here giving you a link to them. Meanwhile have a browse through these previous ones at your leisure, as well as last year's comedy festival, I've done the occasional film, theatre and music review for them too:

Randall's past reviews for RHUM

RHUM are great for giving you license to be as opinionated, biased and ballsy as you like, and writing some of these were a lot of fun.

_______________________________

-Peace

.

Extra Vehicular -29/03/2011

2011-03-28T07:57:00.000-07:00

.

late hour bike ride
through a quietly satisfied mind

quiet as I get
mindful as I am
satisfied as the shrug
that got me going
and that is gentle's going rate
'round here

gently
keep coming back to myself
ride
to keep coming back to this
really
that's why they call us
cyclists

these circles I ride
run rings around
everything I got
there is more of me
here
than any turn
in my room or a mirror
or a mouth
could describe

this D-lock heart
eyes flashing my torchlight
my legwork like the cable stretch
like fenders rattling out my breath
it's high-time watermark of sweat
across my eyeline

two wheels length
into an asphalt carpet ride
atop waves of green light
daydream by night
pedals are turning into earphones
you use to listen in on
those moments

each
too much too fast to share
too near to get a good angle on
too perfect to be held for long

in these awkward handle-barred hands.

_______________________

-Peace

.

Morning Period -21/03/2011

2011-03-21T04:13:00.000-07:00

.

wreckage in pyjamas

throned on stubble
and early afternoon funk
clocked unmoving
crumbed dusty skin flakes
lint spills
over a coffee cup ring pattern
echoing a half eaten bowl
music looped over finality

repeated play
of the first unshared morning
into the next
and the next

a closed door
man behind the curtain
unshowered cereal scooping soggy spoonfuls
of wall shadow
into an empty mouth
lump sum swallowing things to say
sunken stares at blinking cursors
facing glare

their photos looking back
ones they both took
but that only he

will bother keeping

_____________________

-Peace

.

This Place (Cape Reinga) -20/03/2011

2011-03-19T18:00:00.000-07:00

.

The End.

Not a final destination
or the last day on your journey
but one of its definitive edges.

Northern most point
of New Zealand
as far as you go
before ocean
collides with sea
Maori believe this is the point
from where souls depart
to their ancestral homeland

Ahead
it’s blue until the Earth turns away
behind you
cliffs are running back in all directions
leaving you
high-quiet
still-standing
calm and alone

Peace is here
in it’s extreme
empty until deadly
like a desert
that makes you want for nothing
except stopping
or mountains that moved
you
moved you so far back into yourself
you had nothing left
for a return
for the outsiders world

Never been here before
but this place knows you too well
not a place you can stay
no welcomes
or unwelcome
coast that simply doesn’t care
about any wound up
mortal coiling
of your learning curves

This place takes from you
wandering lusts
all your inadequate things to say
filling up with silence
like you really want to listen
like the respect you’d show at a funeral

This isn’t about dying
but this monumental place
growing so big inside you
that the departure
strips you down like death
it depths in your distances
you don’t dare ignore

Whatever happens after
will inevitably
have to be fresh

wherever you go
from here on
has to be

A new beginning.

_____________________

-Peace

.

BREASTS (Live video with Freaky Meat at The Tool Room, Auckland) -24/02/2011

2011-03-17T18:12:00.000-07:00

.

The infamous mammoglandular frantic rant of a poem performed as the last piece of my second set at the Tool Room, with Freaky Meat. I'm pretty happy with my performance here and the building response from the crowd as it goes on. Following on from the last video clip, there's a lot of unusual camera work here, some of it quite effective.

After my antics, Shane takes centre-stage with the lads as they go on to perform One Eyed Jackson~ a truly not true story, followed a tale of pub-revolt in Westport, a truly true story. Surely.

check them out more-so at: www.freakymeat.co.nz

If you're having trouble viewing the above clip, click on this direct link to YouTube below:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vo6VLPSPXro

________________________

-Peace

.

Kia Ora Koutou Aotearoa (Thank you New Zealand) -16/03/2011

2011-03-15T20:41:00.000-07:00

.

Ok, I know this is stupidly long. The problem composing letters like this is you will inevitably forget somebody, maybe a few bodies. I’ve tried not to, but assuming I screw up and do forget (you), let me start by backing up a little and say one or two general things about New Zealand and the people there:

The friendliness, hospitality and generosity of New Zealanders is such that for the 59 days of this trip, I only spent 4 nights in paid-for accommodation, many times staying with people who had never even met me before.

One time, I got lost in Wellington and when I asked a man for directions, instead of simply explaining my error, he offered to drive me where I needed to get to. That’s the type of generosity that just leaves you feeling both humbled and kind of ashamed too, in a strange way.

So: Thank you Miriam Barr and Renee Liang for trying to introduce me to other poets around Auckland and the rest of New Zealand. It was you two who really got the ball rolling for me, and I could really see the effort you put into putting me in touch with the right folks, which made everything else possible.

Annora Gallop, thank you for inviting me along to the Opononi reading, and your gracious hospitality such a welcoming and friendly bunch in such an idyllic setting, and incidentally, in going North there you gave me the excuse I needed to go all the way to the top, which I may not have done otherwise.

Christian Jensen, thanks for the Auckland poetry live gig and the pre-show slot at the Fringe Festival, for inviting me into your home and giving me my first chance to actually meet all these facebook-friended New Zealand poets I’d been chatting to for months.

Thanks also to Michael Botur for your great photos from that gig, and your kind words, it was a pleasure to share the same stage as your anthropological self.

Thanks to Mike Rudd for likewise inviting me into your home, and rescuing me from my Metropolitan squalor, for spending time listening to my belly ache and swapping all those war stories with me, but most importantly for bringing me back down to Earth when I lost sight of the common ground we share.

Thanks to Ciaran Fox for putting me up on stage at Catalyst in Christchurch. As I’m writing this it’s early March and still difficult to mention this poetry reading without talking around the subsequent earthquake. Tragedy brings on the tendency in us to romanticise and overlook petty complaints or problems, so it might sound suspiciously insincere to say (now) this was my overall favourite gig, from the enthusiasm in how Catalyst promoted it online, to the turnout on the night, to the quality and variety of the open stage, to the immense and palpable –welcome- I got from Doc, Ciaran, Tril Lion and everyone there.

The vibe of that place just felt lovely, it truly was a privilege to be there. Maybe it’s wrong to say this but –it was definitely on my mind when making the decision to donate to help the people of this city.

A McHuge size thank you to Jane Dixon of the Mussel Inn, for taking the chance of putting a sweaty, dishevelled and unknown interloper up on your nationally-renown stage for a night.

As a result of this gig, something deep has permanently shifted inside me that night as far as confidence and ambition for my work, and the feeling that I can and should take it beyond conventional poetry circles.

Though not to slight those poetry circles, and certainly not ones such as Poetic justice in Wanaka, where Liz Breslin and Laura Williamson put me on for their Rage Against The Valentine, anti-valentine reading.

Of all the readings, this was one where I was given an assignment for, and therefore got very excited about doing. The night was a laugh from start to finish, and probably goes down as my favourite open mike section, to the point I decided to poach a few people’s poems for my next covers gig.

Laurice Glibert, thank you for featuring me at 2011 first NZ Poetry Society meeting, I freely admit I was really floored by the name and expected some arch-conservative literary horror show. Boy was I wrong! Laurice’ own poem about ogling a young waiter steamed the room in a way I won’t soon forget, and the Q&A session afterwards with the other poets was a really nice touch, such a fun night.

Greg Brimblecombe of the Thames Poets Circle was an absolute champ in looking after me, and I had the easiest time in organising a gig with you, yes it was a quiet, but because of that intimate, evening, where barriers between audience and performer truly vanished, which was really cool. Thanks for letting me stay at your place too Greg, and peruse your DVD and amazing book collections. Silly of me not to make more time so I could explore the Coromandel area, but oh well, that’s what next time is for.

Shane Hollands and the other Freaky Meat lads. What a great night we had there in Titarangi, I think our styles married together really well and I have to say of the music-poetry crossover/collaborations I’ve seen (including mine) Freaky Meats has to have been the best, and I’m so glad we’ve got the footage now to prove it. Shane, I feel you and I are really kindred spirits in a lot of ways and thanks so much for not just squeezing me in, but really making me feel welcome and part of the evening.

Now of this stupidly long list there are two individuals I wanted to give special praise to (apropos, one’s a North Islander, the other South) Gus Simonovic and Mary McGill respectively.

These were people who went out of their way (like, Melbourne to NZ via Alaska out of their way) to help make things happen, who not only delivered on what I asked, but did extra, who showed interest in the work and an ability to get it out there in front of enthusiastic crowds, and were just so damn nice about it too, never making me feel like I was imposing. Gus and Mary, simply speaking, you guys rock, and I can’t say enough about how I respect what you each are doing with your art, and admire your energy.

Gus said to me several times that if there were a few people like me in NZ, the whole poetry scene would be revolutionised. Gus, you got it all backwards mate, we need more people like you over there, certainly not me.

At times on stage New Zealand brought out the best in me, and off stage it brought out the worst in me. I had a lot of hopes and expectations of myself on this trip, got high on my own histrionics at times and inadvertently caused offence where none was intended For better and worse, my art comes from places of deep but shifting unrest, dissatisfaction and hunger within myself. For as long as I’ve written and performed, I’ve retained an irreverent attitude to poets, poetry and poetry gigs, and a sensibility for not taking oneself too seriously –and taking less seriously than that, anyone else who does. This is neither apology nor excuse, as I’ve already provided those.

Beyond the koha for Christchurch or however my rants on stage effected people, it’s my wish to leave behind something more. I’m not the first or hopefully the last Australian poet to visit New Zealand (on business), the way was paved for me by many others. However, there certainly was no prescribed way of doing this, no tour circuit as such, and I had to put in a lot of hard work, networking to find poetry, performance gigs and open stages spaces across the country, and now that I have that information I’d really to use it to help others.

So if anyone, either side of the Tasman, would like information or advice about where and how to get around the different parts of New Zealand I’d be happy to share it.

For the few cold shoulders I caught, on the chin, there were plenty others who are open and appreciative of visitors, and in audiences across both islands of the country, overwhelmingly I felt welcome and accepted. Several times I was asked if I’d ever consider moving to New Zealand. My answers each time got less and less clear and required more thought. There was one distinct occasion where I was thrown off completely –temporarily forgetting that I live somewhere else, not this country with a population smaller than that of Melbourne.

I’ve gotten better at travelling light, it’s necessary with all that movement you do touring, packing and unpacking and sooner or later you’ll end up leaving something behind. I wanted to take home the burnt coal air smell of the west coast town I was born in, the taste of L&P, Bluebird Chips, or Speights (though I have found a bottle-o that has Macs beer here!)

What I left behind deliberately was 40 odd copies of my CD, hundreds of lot of smiling faces, and dozens of invitations to come visit me in Melbourne, what I’ve brought back with me is lots of good will from the places I’ve visited and shared my creativity with others.

My experience of New Zealand was broad, rich, exciting, challenging and ultimately fulfilling. There are many more poems I have to finish/edit about my experiences there and still other yet that only exist as seeds in my mind. I look forward to growing them out and sharing them with you, as New Zealand has shared itself with me, and helped me grow.

Thank you poets, artists and friends in New Zealand. See you again some day!

Peace.

-Randall $tephens
March 16th 2011

.

Hold, still -14/03/2011

2011-03-13T16:59:00.000-07:00

.

I will hold you outside your comfort zone

against all that squirming struggle
your fearful convulsing
protest cum panic
bad because the brightness of the light
big here above the undergrowth
scared for length of the shadows
weirded-out by the loud noises
the wind howling
at our lack of balance

drag you there
against volition
because listen
I need you
need you to see with me
over this edge
where there’s a ledge
where life is living itself
outside it's own skin
more abundant

I will hold you outside your comfort zone
being your un-safety harness
and your trust
will have to come rough
I have to keep forcing you
to stand on
and look down over
edging across exposed jagged face
of the wall
dangling triumphantly high
way up high in these stakes
from which we might fall

outside the marginal safety
colours here smack of discomfort zone
blood noses
gotten to get deep red into the roses
and mornings in hues of blue
spent with heads that ache
of heart slices
pink scars across starting lines
chalked out false in sweat-rash acts
black outs acted out
wrong turn words of hurt

I will hold you outside your comfort zone
where we can’t retrace ways
going back to our worst days
selfish or self-less messes
we got through
came good
and I left messages
correct in white out fluid
running right down your mirror
so I could reflect on the risk
when saying
out beyond bodily strain

I love you

leave those words stained
across my many names
altering the rules of our silly games
playing at hearts untamed
knowing now
there's no going back to the same-same

I've had to push you
now I have to hold you
outside of your comfort zone

but here I'll hold you
and will hold you
hold you safe

and I won’t let you go.

__________________________

-Peace

.

Holes -13/03/2011

2011-03-12T14:34:00.000-08:00

.

I came through you
whole

ten fingers but under-towed
came back to sure
shaking out my back arch
chewing on my own jaw
sweating out my tear track
into the groove of a scar

came through
with that crooked line
tried burning you out my blood
for the leech you've been
angry mouthing out your holes into me
where I'd never had them
before sucking out excuses
and spitting out my inside

like mad

I had

to pull at these wounds
while you still covered my skin
had to salt the bloated feeds
off me
bleed myself free
from you

in a grimace
like a four year old's scraped bloody knees
on concrete
lips trembling back tears to give
they're mine and you can't have 'em
posturing like I'm straight-tall
enough
to get over you

rage

must remain

behind
move on now

just sad

find

myself

emptier
than all my best threats spent
and only dark spaces left
as I look up to the night sky

your holes
I fell into
but I have come through

you
and got back here

whole.

_____________________________

-Peace

.

Live at The Tool Room, Auckland (Video) -24/02/2011

2011-03-02T15:19:00.000-08:00

.

Above is a video of my first set supporting Shane Hollands' band Freaky Meat at a gig in Auckland on Thursday 24th February, at a groovy little bar called the Tool Room.

I'm still getting the hang of video-embedding, so if you're having trouble seeing the video full frame, here's a link to the original on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VuwGQZ3ju9Q

Performing:
1) Man Alive
2) Buddy Wakefield's "Convenience Stores"
3) Except For Architecture in Helsinki

The camera here is really dynamic, I just love it, though it was really distracting at the time (watch me actually shoo him away at one point and tell him off), the results are unlike anything I've seen before.

Thanks again Shane!

There's a big long-winded thank you letter in the works for the NZ tour which I will blog here shortly, I wanna get that just right first. Meanwhile, I'm off with a friend to go hide in the Blue Mountains for a week.

Anyway, hope you enjoy watching the video as much as I enjoyed performing alongside the band. Cheers

___________________________

-Peace

.

Randall $tephens puts mouth where his money is -24/02/2011

2011-02-23T18:25:00.000-08:00

.

Mr Dollars is going to donate any payments or sales he has received while in New Zealand, dollar-for-dollar (i.e for every 1.00 NZ$ I will donate 1.00 AU$) to help the people of Christchurch recover/rebuild from this awful disaster. It's currently around the $500 mark.

I will also be donating my cut and CD sales from the 2 Sydney gigs I'm doing early next week (Text Styles #5 -Monday 28/2 and Word in Hand Tuesday 1/3). As both these gigs have door charge -please tell your Sydney friends to come along.

I'm also thinking about organising reading a selection of my NZ-written poetry as a benefit gig when I get back to Melbourne, if you'd like to be involved (know a venue that could help us?), please get in touch with me ASAP.

My love, condolences and best wishes for the people of Canterbury.

-Peace

.

A Lazy re-post from my facebook NZ group -16/02/2011

2011-02-15T17:01:00.000-08:00

.
(well look, at least I'm not mis-labelling anything, ay)

(from the Bayhouse gig, Taraunga Bay, Westport gig -04/02/2011)

DISPATCHES FROM THE FRONT LINES:

...in our last installment I was cliffhanging myself off the deep end in the waters of lake Wanaka.

As always, it went well, and as always it was a small-ish crowd, which was threatening to be a really smallish crowd, before I went and started spruking (all the more confusing for the local tourists because they don't use the word 'spruking' here) Yes I said local-tourists, I know what I mean, even if you don't, and hey stop interrupting me! Because yeah it would have been an entirely female audience otherwise and considering I was about to launch several volleys of severed head black-plague ridden and on fire attacks over the castle walls in this pitch battle of the sexes called 'romance' I needed some equalisers.

As it is, we got a few more coming up stairs and up-stares and I delivered a fairly well modulated selection of valentine and anti-valentine pieces, and kinda toned down the misogynistic rant-stuff, for the most part I played nice with the opposite. No, the tone of the night was irreverant enough, my Obsession song I think just strayed a little too far into... wherever that thing goes, while 'Breasts' was the single strongest performer by far, and one I never get tired of doing.

(ah the sentences you can end up typing sometimes...)

So where am I now?

Well, despite best laid plans it's no place that's called Dunedin, I'm afraid. I'm am this morning hiding in my uncle's study in Christchurch. Truth is, I just kind of hit a wall last night. No, not like in the way I fused my left metacarpal bone in the lobby of a Bourke Street nightclub three-and-a-bit years back, I hit a proverbial, metaphysical wall, struck that unfortunate up rush of reality, where blowing your savings on a trip to perform poetry in an odd country on the odd night to the odd group of sometimes-smiling faces for free starts to feel oddly all too much like chalking sidewalks in a language no one speaks in the pitch dark of a cold night... and doing so badly.

So meh, I decided it's a day or two out, catching up on writing and admin, and save my wallet some heavy lifting. I'm sticking around here like so many dried shit flakes on the treaded soul of Christchurch now until the 18th. Dunedin was just gonna be a basically a day getting there, a day back and a short set of open mike stuff for a bunch of mildly complimentary students and backpackers whom I'd then scribble down the contact details of on back or receipts then later forget to add on facebook or couchsurfing while promising they can all come stay at my house especially the cute ones 'cause I live right near the city centre and blah-blah-blah.

Nope, given another day or two (and incidentally a place to stay) I would have loved to get down to Dunedin, but I'm afraid that will have to wait for the next trip. Annoying mainly for the fact that Emilie Zoe Baker told me to go down there, and if EZB gives you advice, you take it, if you know what's good for you.

Meanwhile, the weather sunny, I'm saving money, rhyming badly and typing mad... uh, furiously.

Where to next you ask me? Again you interrupt me while neglecting to look at my tour dates entry, which is buried back in weeks of entries and now hopelessly out of date and lacking any details anyway, (shame on you nonetheless), well if you'd just let me finish... jeez... I can, yes I will, tell you I'm off to Auckland on Friday. To do a gig?

No.

Wait a second though Randall (again, these interruptions are getting intolerable), but didn't you say you were doing a support gig that night, Friday 18th? Oh yes, but that was before the person who offered it to me over a bowl of non-alcoholic punch a few weeks back, whom I was yeah, ironically, at the time bitching to about kiwis and poets generally being quaintly unreliable, who has now himself decided to go incommunicado on me, after I booked the flight up. So yay, another night off in Auckland. Oh but this time, I'm ready for it... I can see Auckland coming like that bull on the streets of Varanasi that starting charging at me (albeit after I spent to long posing for a photo pretending to face off with it). Dodge. I'm gonna dodge my down time in Auckland and come out of looking every bit as silly as I did on the streets of India. With so much bull.

I'll check in with you before then, but my next actual gig is Saturday 19th for the good folks of IN VOICE AND MUSIC,
check out the link below:

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/CU1102/S00084/in-voice-and-music-at-wallace-art-centre.htm

________________________

-Peace

.

Golden Bay Boy -7/2/2011

2011-02-07T18:54:00.000-08:00

.

Hello, is thing on?

Ok. Where are we?

If my calculations are correct by the time you read this I will have typed it sometime in the past, in a year before broadband was invented.

I've travelled back in time to tell you and warn myself where it all went wrong,

though I'm not actually sure,

because in the process of trying to warn I've killed myself before I could invent time travel.

Or my grandfather did.

Or before I could invent my grandfather.

But either way, I got here here late and so is he.

Damn it.

Anyway from temoral paradox to temperate paradise... I'm in Golden Bay, up to my neck in it, joined to it at the hip and stuck to it like adhesive Randall (that's brand-randall) or those weird hook things on cat's tongues.

Sleeping in a rental car by the beach and trying to convince Anne to give me a gig at the Mussell Inn, only problem is her name's not Anne but Jane ans while she was too polite to remind me of that, she wasn't too polite to point out that I am not actually a trio of good looking scandanavian girls who play killer strings.

I forgot that.

But my memory problems aside, she is gonna try and squeeze me in, I just have to stick around her a while. Tough break.

Never just turned up somewhere and asked for a gig before.

But there's nothing to it really, I just had to spend an hour having coffee with her to talk enough distance between myself and every other poet she'd ever met by ragging on most every poet I've ever met (nono y'see, I wasn't responsible for the entertainment massgraves left in poetry's wake, I was one of the good Nazis who never saw anything or asked questions, your honour)

Meanwhile, internet steals my time and money.

If I don't make it back, you call in the airstrike.

My name is Randall $tephens and I got here as soon as I could.

Out.

________________________________________

Ok, in other news, yeah yeah I have gigs coming up, Wanaka 14th, Lyttleton 15th, and maybe Dunedin 16/17th. Before my extended-revenge bout with Auckland begins. Will advise when I'm not paying by the nostril for net time.

___________________________

What? Oh you still want a poem eh? Ok, you want a poem~

There. There's a poem. My favourite poem.

-Peace

.

The Droids You're Looking For (aka Backpacker) -01/02/2011

2011-01-31T17:52:00.000-08:00

.

You can get a lift there
but the ride back’s not too certain

you can sleep on it
but it’s not your couch

you can let yourself out
but it’s not your house to return to

you’re free all day
but on someone else’ schedule

minutes flat
make yourself not at home

get ready to go
find the next floor or corner
to fit yourself into

space you try not to waste
you’re contained for a day
maybe two

you’re as welcome as a short pause
a breather sighed in relief
without a spare key

forget your home
forget your hang ups
you get to hang out
and hang your hat
there

put your feet up
but tread light
footsteps soft
in explorer socks
as doors lock
behind you

scratch out a thank you note
like that’s all she wrote
wasting time
wondering where’s the best place to leave it

…before you leave this place

marching to the beat
of another drum
and a song you sing to yourself

you’re your own shade of grey
horse of different colour
green horning
blue balling
early morning
white lying your silvers linings

this is an ego trip
without destination

just a sense of direction
you're trying to get somewhere
trying to get at something

trying to hold up
the bargain on your end
and if your friends
have friends
you’ll have someone else
to talk to
someone
who knows someone
who knows what you need
and you know
you’re one of them
the luckiest people

lucky enough
to know
you don't
take life for granted
here on this planet

your mind is week to week

these aren't the droids you're looking for

...but that's not the language they speak
and maybe no one will know
what you're talking about
but that’s not your place to say
just yours to stay, today

not your round
and that’s not your problem
not your wife to please
or kids to feed
or boss to appease
not your job to pressure
your only line to toe

is knowing when to go

this is your life in its entirety
just two bags
kept right under your eyes
not much

but you own it, entirely

and wouldn’t trade it for anything.

____________________________________________

Well, given the journalistic nature of the blog while I'm travelling, I'm putting this up now in case the earlier poem sounded too whiny. Believe me when I say I am having an intensely enjoyable experience over here. But we'll get to talking 'bout that later...

Hey but while I'm at it, couple of things you (yes you) and I need to talk about:

~relax you're not in trouble.

Something you should know though. The amount of people checking this blog out has increased over the last couple of months, and I believe my writing is benefitting from this. I think when you know people are going to read your work, you naturally lift your game. I don't want to waste your time, I want to share what I have and give you something of myself thats both deeply personal yet accessible and entertaining. Anyone who says that art(-istic endeavours) can't be both can just go carry bags for me.

So I'm trying, and you're helping.

Despite the time and energy involved in keeping up this blog, I am committed to shun the publishing world and will always produce work that will be freely available over the net, never asking anything in return (not even comments or feedback, as maddening as it is not to get more of them!)... except one request for you.

Share this.

If you like what you read here, tell people about it, send one to a friend, read it someone, post it up somewhere, anything. Simply put, when it comes to producing this: the more interest I get in what I do, the more interested I get in doing it.

All pretense of modesty aside, there aren't many poets out there of my profile who match my output. When I could just as soon get some of this published, there are honestly times when blogging feels like a wasteful exercise, like I'm just chalking sidewalks in the dark, in a language nobody reads anymore.

The reason I do it is, here I know it's possible to get through to real people, not just academic snobs or other poets, that's the difference. All you need to get all my work is a URL. That's a wonderful thing. So please, whatever it is you get from this ~pass it on to someone else too.

Good things grow. People like us, we grow.

-Peace

.

Taurangan Armpit -31/01/2011

2011-01-31T15:54:00.000-08:00

.

foreigner

hostile
late arrived
hostel
dingy as anything in Brooklyn
shot through with a Paris vacuousness
filled to its limited pretensions with Ibiza runoff
Russian sounds aggression loud
in competition with Argentinian in-crowds
closely-quartered like Hong Kong’s unfriendliness

you’ve been foreign there too
in lower case

when your mumbled name
came out sounding a little too much like
excuse me
or can I borrow this for a second
or is that seat taken
or…

ah never mind

you found a corner
to conspicuously hide in
and strategically withdraw from

on the outside

where drunken locals unbottle the ugliness of a Newcastle skyline
and pour grey weather the envy of only London
over nightlife Canberra yawned at
and sightseeing opportunities the rival only of Adelaide.

on nights
when places just remind you of other places
memories head rubbing closer together
than how tightly together they pack in these beds
tune out
humming to your sheets cover songs
age showing in the amount of weight you carried in
the place
will sweat hotel California’s into your sleep
before it’s interrupted with Guns N Roses blaring
from the rooms you’ve already retreated from
soccer ball kicking
topless tan weak chin
sexual-metro
caterpillar moustache
joint smelling bunk-shakes

It’s late
for it to be this early

unpacking heat
mattress stained with get me outta here
flecked with wrong turn
and bad day
and a patch of poor decision
you cover over with pack strips
and sulky stares
up at the ceiling

it doesn't blink
splitting the indifference
your eyelids aren't heavy
but your chest is

tonight
you found another country’s armpit

ain’t you just tickled by it

_____________________________________

-Peace

.

A Mount Maunganui Summer -27/01/2011

2011-01-26T20:07:00.000-08:00

.

This beach is our living room

canvas for our passions
we paint the days
in water colour
and tanned ceramic
skin tones

we are summer
strumming away at guitars
names bench carved with pictures
in waves we attack
white horizon to catch
hold it
crash it

then get back on board
and paddle back for more.

we stride crests of constant collapse
liquid landscape skids
we worship the sun
the water
the air
the moonless nights
shooting stars
off roof racked van driveways
skateboarding down streets
mi-goreng meals
hat straw hair
beached-blonde
odd jobless
firing water bomb slingshots
in a beach bum snapshot

we watch a building tide
from a nearby mountain top
see chevrons in the water
feel the current flow
through ocean
to island to coast
to wave to surf to sand
to board to feet
to the air we breathe
out

the heirs of endless energy
hopeless
fearless
ageless
needless
heedless
and when we leave this

we
will still be summer
not set with the sun
the short season itself
gone with us

and will remain with us

______________________________________

-Peace

.

Four Walls Away -23/01/2011

2011-01-23T12:52:00.000-08:00

.

As I write this
a couple
just walls away
are
uh

otherwise occupied

oh no
it’s not like they’re not being sneaky
but one can only be so sneaky
…yet alone two

see
the most sensitive part of a man’s body
while masturbating
is
his

ears

now relax
rest assured
I am typing this with both hands

but poems like this
are why I won’t ever
get to do workshops with kids
I’m not knocking that
any more than I’m knocking what’s happening
in the other room
guess I’m just jealous

…of people doing workshops with kids

kids are great
don’tchya reckon?

yeah
kids

who knows
I might even be leaping to false conclusions
you know
like
they could just be moving furniture around
back and forth
all around the room
trying to get it in just the right spot
again and again
and…you know,
she could just be groaning
‘cause she’s feeling sick
quite sick
in fact

yeah

and hey

as I’m sitting here
let’s not pretend I don’t enjoy writing
for you
my readers
you know I love you
I get a lot of satisfaction from writing, actually
heaps of satisfaction
heaps and heaps

I’m quite satisfied to be typing away
for your benefit
all my many readers
we all benefit
everyone here is benefitting
while I’m t-t
t
Y
P
I
N
gggggggggggggGGGGGGGGG hjklqwertyuiopzxcvbnm,.

just satisfied with the sound
of my own fingers
clacking this keyboard
in this room
very satisfied

here

typing
yep
the thing to do
so that's why I'm doing it
right now
in this room
this room I’m in
by myself

doing it

writing
right now

got four walls
this room does
yep, all four

no problems there

I mean you know...

not like some kind of stupid three-walls-room now
or something

is it?

nuh

has all the walls I need, this room does

four

ha

How awesome is that!

______________________________

-Peace

.

Auckland -11/01/2011

2011-01-23T12:07:00.000-08:00

.

Auckland,
you’re a hypodermic skyline
and diagonally hung streets signs

as I try square off with intersections

you are
this operations lynch pin
my raft down this river
flowing from a trip
to get my face on the flyer

a tree I have to keep shaking
til I catch a coconut
or a thump on the head

you're someone I haven’t been introduced to
formally
you’re all dressed up and no place to go
you’re a cat with white fur
rubbing against my black clothes
you’re a conversation that starts easily enough
but takes more and more effort
to keep going

a weather man’s awkward pauses
in little patches of rain

you’re a masseuse
who’s cute and laughs
when I said
I’d write her a poem
in exchange for a massage
and I was serious, for the most part

you’re a few jokes about rape
that I didn’t make
in a car with a couple of cute girls
that were funny
incidentally

if not taken out of context

and you are a contextual mess
New Zealand's biggest city
when size does matter
a gift for the boy who has everything
you’re in a guide book’s summations
saying in plea:

"don’t hate me,
because I’m beautiful"

I don’t hate you
Auckland

~you’re not beautiful

you’re a place to stay
while the owners are away
you’re a change of plans
a late breaking update
you’re the good news
first.

free wi fi
when the laptop stops working
an apple mac I can use
with the password I wasn’t given

you’re nothing much happening
on this end
you’re that pen
that I leant out
knowing full well I wouldn’t get it back

you’re a yes no maybe
loves me and loves me not
a pat on the back
after a punch in the face
a check in the mail
sent via doubled-up coastlines
who couldn’t decide on what side
the harbour should be
so you went and grabbed two of them

a hangover
from drinking Coronas
after a Saturday night
I didn’t want out
with a girl
sitting down in a nightclub
with music
too shitty to dance to

and you’re a bad dancer

besides
when I turn around you’d left
Auckland went home with someone else
when I was staying with her

and had paid for the cab ride in

you’re one surly bus driver
and not enough coins
a purported volcano crater
that turns out to be a ditch
with some stupid stones in it
and lots of tourists around it

but Auckland
I'll admit
you were a great view while I was up there
and a few hours on my back
with my head in the clouds

you’re beaches
and eye candy
and picnics
on beaches
with eye candy

you’re a bus that runs til late
and never runs late
never more than a minute away

you’re six dollar fish n chips
meals
in low income areas
that I really like

a yum cha
where the food is so agreeable
you nod along while eating it

good coffee under a friendly face
and enough time to enjoy it
a glass half full
cheap beer’s thirsty words

you’re one last gulp left
surprise out of a bottle
when I thought I’d finished

and was thirsty for more

you’re lets be friends
and I’m…Randy
as hell
but that’s nothing new
and neither are you

you’re all right
If I’m all right

like all my love hate relationships
that I love
Auckland,
you remind me
of what Sydney was like

before I liked Sydney.

______________________________

-Peace

.

Targeted abs -17/01/2011

2011-01-17T22:12:00.000-08:00

.

hospital waiting room

rib-caged
can’t sit
can’t stand
sharp pains
in my chest
and at best
can breathe
hardly
clutching my side

stuck watching infomercials
for ab exercisers
to target
and tighten
and define
gut muscles

clutching my side
become conscious
during all this
that I do have
yeah…

almost a full handful
down around there

stupid infomercials
stupid hospital waiting rooms

also hard to talk
what more can I say…

It’s a little hard to stomach

go ahead and groan at that
save me the effort today.

infomercials

I hate infomercials.

_____________________________

-Peace

.

After The Flood -18/01/2010

2011-01-17T22:08:00.000-08:00

.

We have glued ourselves to news
living this out in a living room
that looks like any other
and many others
now somewhere under water
a Tasman Sea away from me.

The others struggle
to find something to say
to this room's token Australian.

We all walk on eggshells.

Recognise some placenames
but not their waterlines
worry about some friends
swear disbelief at this footage
scoff and laugh and fail to realise
I’ve bitten fingernails all the way back.

The changing information
the satellite photos
colour enhanced
the stories
of the survivors
the loss
the death toll
The media release.

The stupid helpless
screen vicarious guilt I get
can’t drain out these states
in the updates.

I watched the bushfires this way too.

All I can do
is think about
eggshells we walk on

For a few decades of life
we are not safe here
we live out lives on eggshell
thin cracked and shifting-pieces
cover a spinning ball of fire
six thousands degrees alive
twelve thousand kilometres wide
we reside inside an envelope of pressure
thin as brave face smile
sustained by a mixture of corrosive gases
and that,
in turn
the only thing protecting us
from the utterly freezing hard
empty cold dark
of the universe.

We are not safe here
walking on egg shell.

Watching the floods
all I can do
is think ~
we own nothing
not our borrowed bodies
used to sit watching this television
in this house on this land
that we own no true lease over
the planet really can
take it all back
at any time.

So
live here
love here
with me be here
because we are not safe here

When the floods
or the fires
the earthquakes
or the cancers
come for you~

You hold your loved ones tight
And hold your head up high
hold on to the idea
that you can hold on
that you held on
and held out.

You did your very best
Planet Earth did the rest
leaving us to clean up the mess
win some and lose some
and all that
in all that’s left

struggle to maintain balance
a challenge

While we walked on eggshells.

__________________________

-Peace

.

Knowing Your Own Coda -17/01/2011

2011-01-16T20:51:00.000-08:00

.

“Everybody’s got voices,

Some they can’t contain”

-Buddy Wakefield, A Stretch of Presence

You are living for the next time you get to open your mouth.

The off chance,
something you’ve said fifty times before
might next time
strike an open-door chord
it will mean everything to you
if it means anything
to anyone else.

You want other people to hear
your every breath a heartbreak
joie de vivre each heartbeat
share these sensations
hold their attention in tension
make them laugh
make them happy
make ‘em horny
make them angry
make them mournful
make the words make the sound
of whole
wrenched open
world.

You want this badly
it happened to you before
some wordsmith
found words beyond words
set you on fire
chasing after that inflammable phrase
yourself
reaching for what you believe best
within yourself
a voice to speak out to the void.

You heard it
but never heard it enough
you take in so much
more than you’ll ever return
finding rooms filled with the socially exhumed
attuned to sounds of theirs, alone
you believe yourself far more intense
than these others
you can feel their fish bowl
scared you might grow their mould.

So you will breathe in roads
turn life into a long trip
eat up beliefs in the romanticism
they will suppose you to know
about whisky and women,
and shit
and you

you,

actually don’t know very much.

Only a bit about loneliness
one so big it’s going to break you
and it did
has and still does
there will be sleepless nights on dusty floors
ceiling painted by your eyelids unfamiliar
that smell from others stale cigarette smoke
after-tasting bottles not-drunk you will pay for
mouthing your shout
screaming silent desperately oh so desperately stay quiet
down to the sound of your skin being scratched
daylight will break
you
wanting your own bed back.

Your bag will daily get heavier
a story smelling more stale each telling
you will retreat into silent dark space to masturbate
in desperately private moments carved out of

anything

you can’t have.

You’ve wait for orgasm so hard it’ll shatter your metabolism
it has not came
you wanted crazy cathartic romantic revolution
it is not here
you wanted revelation-naked God calling your name beautifully profound
and you have never heard a thing.

You just want them to listen
fucking listen
you
want your turn
to take it further
you’re taking this all personally
so much inside you
though no way to prove it
to the rest of the room.

You will get tired and want to stop
bring it all to an end
want to taunt someone
to give you one reason
one fucking reason
not to just quit.

You will never find one beyond yourself.

So you’ll sit back down
get to work, again
wait for another day
to liquidate this silence.

And there a spark
there you find your fire
again inflammable
bear the burns to your bones
known.

You
will never
extinguish
this
even if you're reduced
to a smoulder.

Others older
will tell you
enjoy it now while you’re young
before life catches up
you will not reply to them
that friends younger already act much older
than you,

Weathered
as the seasons
you will not be scared of getting old
you will be scared you won’t get old
when everyone else does
still living for the next time
you get to open your mouth.

Not scared that this will end
you’re scared you won’t know when

to

___________________________________

-Peace

.