Tuesday, April 8, 2014

Your Writing -9/04/2014

.

"Bad artists always admire each others work." -Oscar Wilde
.

it's a conceit to believe
you're writing just for yourself

it's a monumental cop out
to simply write
what you think
others want to hear

it's a fallacy to think
your writing
is simply too clever
for people to understand

it's a delusion to hope
your writing
ever finds it's audience

it's a mistake to want
your writing somehow
to become important

and it is a gift
of immeasurable value
if someone takes the time
to read
or listen
to you

if anyone of these above
is true, for you
they probably all are true
simultaneously

even what contradicts
all that can be said
with certainy
is that you are writing

that is the only
irrefutably good thing
you can do

...now, you are writing, aren't you?

_____________
.

-Peace.

.

Sunday, April 6, 2014

Join the Dots -7/4/2014

.
no telling where the dirty mattress
left on my driveway had came from
but the way I join the dots... yeah
fucking hate my neighbours

even if it wasn't actually them
and even if it hadn't been pissed on
wanted to piss on it myself
stick it over their fucking door

luckily for both me and them
I have my Dad's ute
to get it away from here
before I can stew on it
figure on my way to pick him up
I'd dump it in wastelands
behind the airport
to hell with paying
City Councils get enough money
out of me as it is
or some other equivocal shit
I don't know

killed a lot of time behind the airport
to avoid paying for parking
it's vast and quiet and dark
and an ex-girlfriend
and I used to fuck near this one fence line
and it was hot and when I got there
I saw a sign saying
'area monitored, no dumping'.

I remember stockinged thighs
steamed windows
rocking suspension
stupid Bloody zips
and the scaly sounds
of barb wire fence shaking,
but not that sign

we never got caught

but the sign doesn't say no fucking
and factory lights over the hill
make me get nervous

the lid of my fathers car
sits pensively up
a crocodiles waiting jaws
or an open fly's zipper,
and I feel exposed

drive further down the road
running late now
throw the filthy fucking mattress
over some filthy fucking paddock fence
it wasn't hard
I didn't feel guilty
not really

Dad talks to me about his trip
to Papau New Guinea
(he installs IT stuff for bankers)
and all the big business over there
mining and cocoa and forestry
how all the locals are dangerous
how he had to stay in a compound
when not working
how one of his co-workers
got a machete to the head by the locals
and had to fly home

I taunt him it that it sounds like Avatar
he doesn't take my meaning
about bad-guys and maybe
these people and places should be left alone
he says the missionaries
did the real damage over there
and we talk about Aztec books
being burnt by good Christians,
and the new exhibition
as I turn onto the freeway ramp
we're now talking safer territory

he's not mad that I'm late
because I told him about
the illegal dumping, he approves
because he hates city councils too

he tells me about barb wire
being a way of life over there
as it probably is in Africa too
(dad's never been to Africa, far as I know)
then he rants about Manus island
not being so bad,
better than the jungle
and I wiggle in this seat
saying nothing
he knows
the work I did with refugee
but not why

I know
the work he does means
Dad pays more in tax each
than I earn
each year
and he joins dots... differently than I

he's in a good mood
glad to be home
out of danger
rubbish we talk
dark and oh so empty out here

wonder if someone
did piss on that mattress
if someone ever saw us fucking
if there are tapes of it
wonder if I'd watch them
given a chance
or if I got busted
dumping out here
or why I ever bother
arguing politics in the abstract

nothing means anything
or holds points together
like a closed mouth

it's dark and late
the only point I have to make
is a home address
the only dots I have to join
are freeway light
these are running
along all the barb wire fences
blurring inky-blue-dark
out the window


alongside us.
.

Tuesday, April 1, 2014

Dicks - 30/3/2014 (World Naked Bike Ride, Melbourne)

.

sixth time I've derobed
to do Melbourne's
World Naked Bike Ride
why why why

it's as close to tribal as I
get stripped down
painted up
get a sun-kissed
voice booming sacrament
fist-pumping in photograph

public oh so public
a city so glad to see us
back
skin sticks to me
whole city blocks
of broad smiles
and cheers

thousands upon thousands
of Asian tourists
clamoring for pictures
swarm around us
confusion translated
through their camera lenses
as "Welcome to Melbourne"

we were a sight to see
all jiggling
swinging moving parts
slogans on skin
rolls of fat and laughter

be lying if I said I wasn't
looking at some girl's arses
also be lying now if I said
I wasn't liking
being looked at
especially by
some of the same

especially all the while
as those odd few
angry men
in angry cars
rolling down angry
double-chin windows
to yell
poofter faggot bastard
at us

laughing all ways down Lygon
we wonder why the sight
of a few small penises
creates such a BIG problem
for them

how and what and why
the space these things
threaten to take up
inside the minds of these
threatened men

the time we men spend
making our penises
everybody else' problem

we're used to seeing women
com-modified bodily
tits and arse are used
to sell us things
like a lifestyle, to us
and back to themselves

it take balls to...
...make testicles a proverb
for courage
but then the big men
screech hysteria
when the see some

my balls you cannot buy
this ride you cannot pay for
and no one is selling it yet
my body
nobody
our bodies
every-body

guess no one looked
in their bathroom mirror
or had a shower today

when it was over
I didn't want to put
my clothes back on
none of us did
I guess my penis
is still a problem

though
I'd be the first to say
it really shouldn't be
I mean it's not actually
y'know...


all that big of a big deal







______________________________




I resisted the idea of including some of the many great photographs taken on Sunday in this blog, but I know you won'y be satisfied until you get at least one so, fine:


















Hi Mum. Anyway, for a more pictorially-integrated account of the WNBR, check out 'Skinned' my poem on last year's ride HERE








-Peace 








.

Monday, March 31, 2014

Lights Left On - 31/03/2014 (redux)

.

an off-to-work-this-morning
lover's room
you lie alone in the warm
smell of her sheets
before letting yourself out
without the offered shower
and latch behind you

an office un-neatly after
work, less silent than
those quiet desperations
that fueled it's productivity
just twenty minutes back

laundromats on cold nights
grumbling machinery reeks
stale damp of the shit jobs
and a grubby mental illness

or old factories mapped
in a broken glass history
with pigeon shit topography

empty shiny car parks
echo-wet with clacking heels
of someone else'
hedonistic nightlife

these places
you're not supposed
to linger in
are not those lonely ones

from what you've left behind
see you some in trace-shape
imagining I... remember
liking people, like them
like liking that last light left on

imaginary lives fill my head
rush hour slow motions
a spectrum of living both subtle
and grossly different than mine

in my mind
their laughters
their dreams
their fears
and own ideas

in my mind
such places
are made

convenient fictions
of people
who do not need
anything
back from me


it feels welcome here










________________________









-Peace






.

Tuesday, March 25, 2014

Sky’s The Limit -26/03/2014

.


every so often
a light will flash
breaking yellow over grey
hot air balloons
hovering the skyline
each bursting a flame
to keep themselves
up there

every so often
our conversation will spark
into a one word answer
when I ask him
how my sisters are
then will sink back down
under the dashboard

this is our thing
you have to get Dad mad
about something
to get him talking
about anything

don't feel like doing that
this early in the morning
as I drive him to the airport
colour me overcast

oup! - there's another one flash

must be one hell of a view
from up there
...yeah I've been in a hot air balloon
one of a myriad of chitchat things
I’d say to virtually anyone else
I was one-on-one in a car with

think it don’t say it
no longer trying to spark up
a conversation
for the grunts I’ll get back

sometimes I forget this happened
the hot air ballooning, I mean
yeah
I was in Cappadocia, Turkey
on my way to Nemrut Dağı

there was a time in my life
I could only talk to others
about all the impressive things I've done
like...
cycling through Spain
on a Catholic pilgrimage
or seeing the sunrise behind
then right over mount Everest
and trekking to Annapurna base camp
by myself

or how I beat hepatitis C
and liver cirrhosis
six months pegulated-
-ribavirin and interferon
and how I survive
with severe haemophilia

how me and my mates
have escaped police chases
gotten away with all sort of stories
we tasted the back of the wind
and I would like
to tell my dad
what it was like

my father does not know
what these things are like
and for all the voice I have now
there just isn't enough muscle in my words
to get it across the other side
of that driver’s seat

another flash

I no longer need
to try impressing people
is the hallmark
of having done some impressive things
tell that to yourself

like I tell myself
I know this isn't his fault
the envy and distrust
that characterises us

want to blame generations
and wars
and elections
and politics
and talk back radio
and role models
and you just figure...
fuck

once you've gotten up
in front of hundreds of people
at a time
making them laugh in your own words
once you've been to other countries
giving workshops on making poetry
to street kids via interpreter
once these things, you just figure
you could carry a fucking conversation

or be cool
(not talking)

Dad,
I once did a course of meditation
where I was forbade
to speak to anyone for ten days
it wasn't that hard
you might not believe
that
I
once
pushed my sexual boundaries out
with another man in Madrid
I rather enjoyed it
but yeah
that was a bit harder

okay,
we don't have to go there
exactly
only to say there's a few places
you haven't
know some things you do not
talking points

okay-okay
for us to have something to say
I know there are others
that you know about
~an abseil
down a hundred-ten metre funnel
or the rope-free-climb
up the rock walls at Olympus
the time I scrambled up a cliff face
above a Borneo jungle
or jumped out a plane
above the Southern Alps

talking points for the shortage
of fairly difficult things I've done
but every one of them helped
redefine how far I can push myself
each one done
became a precedent
for something else
crazy
I might have once thought impossible

yet this unlifted limitation
unable to talk-Turkey
with my Dad
bears down on me now
with a bit tongue
so hard

so we
drive this silent fixation
through the minuscule burst
of light
above us

right now
sitting across
from him
it's the only thing



I feel capable of







____________________________












-Peace.












.

Monday, March 24, 2014

Hey kids shut up it's Randall Stephens' poetry. Work. Shop. -(timeless)

.

so want to be a poet
goes like this~

your opening line is
important
apparently
not really
nobody is
listening
kids
hey shut up back there

my advice to young writers
is to rip off lines from other people's lines

fuck everybody
or fuck everybody
make fun of everybody else
then make yourself, a lot of enemies
that's it, and a few more
find out who their enemies are
these
will be your new friends

they will love you
everybody will love you
and that's why you'll hate them
in that order
that's why they'll hate you

before that happens
make fun of yourself mercilessly
it will scare the crap out of them
leave critics with nowhere to go

now, about people
find out what is very important
to them
attack it
attack it like it hurt you once
bad
and you've been waiting

then do it again

Christ will-you hurry up about it
now get drunk
now laugh at it
I said laugh fucker
(laugh)

everything that makes you happy
makes you a shit poet
unless making others unhappy
makes you happy
then you're okay

turn everything into a poem
anything to do with mums or dad
or disabled refugee aboriginal drowning polar bear
holocaust rape victims
is pure fucking gold mate

hey don't fucking smile at me...

if I ever see you getting good
I'll turn on you
if I even think you're saying something
or something I don't agree with
I'll turn on you
ah fuckit I'm going to turn on you anyway
now I'm going to remind you
that I told you to turn back
that you didn't want this for you
that I begged you to go play-write instead
... I forget if I ever said that though
no don't go back and check

anyway,
show your teeth
then try bite off
your own left ear
work out
in a mirror
masturbate
pretend that you're thinking
delete the most important line out of your poem
if your poem is about what it's about
then you're in deep shit

if I have to spell out why subtext
is important in a piece of writing

well...

it's about creating a hungry empty space
to be filled in deep
when they read between the lines

(that is a sex metaphor about sex, very sexy sex)

make the audience a vagina
I mean I mean I mean
make them an imaginative participant
in your story
yes, take your reader on a journey
that involves trying to have sex with them
a wondrous magical spiritual journey that
ends
abruptly
if they don't

use your writing selfishly
if your poems can't get you laid
they're shit
if your poems are getting you laid
you're really in deep shit

don't try and be ironic
people are ape-shit stupid
what, you didn't know that?
how stupid are you my case in point
I'm glad you're paying me to tell you all this
stupid

let's do some stupid writing exercises now
get in a circle, look into the eyes of someone
pretend popularity is stalking you
like a mugger
and you better run
and better memorize
you better sound American
yo better be hip hop
one time like
I thought you knew
up in here
but you don't hear me doe'

clickclickclickclickclick

now forget the name of everybody
now forget their faces
now sell the house
now sell the car
sell the kids
sell the money
sell stop trying
stop them from stopping you
stop me if I'm wrong
or stop asking stupid questions

don't look for answers out this far
don't write anything you fully understand
just let everything you put down ring false
then turn in on it's head
and you're still not going to be interesting yet

when I was your age
I was older than you
I wasn't trying to write poetry
I wasn't having sex, but trying
I wasn't having luck
I wasn't trying to change the world
I was trying not to get caught
and I was really angry

poetry isn't for kids
it isn't for families
or for weddings
isn't for friends
it isn't for fun
for healing
isn't helping
it isn't for anything
...shit I don't think this is for me

any questions?
Oh yeah I said not to ask any
get drunk, I already said that too
so that's enough wisdom for today

so here's my closing thoughts
here's my website
here's my advice
here's my high score
here's my community
here's my slam rhythm
here's my Taylor Mali impression impression

(I haven't met Taylor Mali but I hear he's really nice.
ah who am I kidding. No I don't.)

here's my thing like it's my thing
like every slam poem-
is like that other slam poem
like it was all this one giant big poem
like I wish I still wished I was black
because you and I
belong together
you and I
forever and ever
no matter where you are
you're my shining
press kit...
oh and yes also here's my invoice
yes it's statement of supplier
here's my rider, plus one and guest list

well that's enough out of me
hope you kids have learned something
about learning something poetry about kids
mirroring your lines the way Shane Koyczan does
Shane Koyczan way the lines mirroring
about kids poetry
you know it's me

and if I ever catch any of you little shits
trying to bite my uh, shit...
I'll laugh my arse off at you
'cause it got me nowhere
narrowly
like by point three of a judges
discretion

it took a long time to get here
Melbourne-Bitter but it was
such a fun ride
til it was time
to get off

(sexy sex metaphor is also now running joke. hash tag)

oh and your last line is important.
apparently

ahem... umm





scrotum








______________________________









-Scrotum








.

A Monday Morning Road Moment - 24/03/2014


.

until it thinks
until it goes
until it talks
until it can see
until it stops
believing

until the entrance
the light
in a dark wet place
splitting headache
until you can hear
until it can hear
you
should sing
for it

until you feel it's warm
until you're turned on
until you're hands go down
until you make it weird
until you make it hard
until you feel it's shape
until you feel it's hate
until it all-almost makes
sense

until you can smile at it
until you can laugh with it
until you can empty
out
with it

until
it has a name
you can say
until it knows your face
until you know
where it goes
when you can't see it
and you can't stop
thinking about it

until then
you're still not very good
at this
but if it makes you feel
better
it won't always
get to you

until that is
you go get some gloves
an' another cup of coffee
go deal with this
thing


without me









__________________________




Sequel-itis. Poem 2: the next other one. Returns. 

Actually no, this has nothing at all whatsoever to do with the last blog entry, and was written days before it, I just can't think of a title. Besides, every poem I write is a shitty sequel to the last one.





-Peace.






.

Sunday, March 23, 2014

A Friday Night Bike Moment -24/03/2014

.

my side of the story
is a wet sky by night

it's waving not drowning, at us
this is traffic signal arc-light
lines of water down
as my bike and I roll

this is where my week ends
this is how I get back
this is the way


home.



___________________




A little something I wrote Friday night after cycling home in a light shower. Just read it this morning as an intro to 3CR's  Yarra Bicycle User Group radio show, so figured I should canonise it here on the blog too.






-Peace.







.

Friday, March 21, 2014

Probable Cause -22/03/2014

.

there was a fire here

starting small
some still unknown catalyst
hidden somewhere amongst
his belongings
people came
to put it out

alarms rang
they all ran
it got big
and alive
and dangerous
and it wanted
everything it touched
and the experts
extinguished it
before things
could get worse

if they hadn't
it would've consumed
you and me
and this whole stinking place

but it's okay now
we're cleaning up now
the bins are filling now
no one hurt here
no one got burnt here

who knows what we would be doing now
what might have happened

everything is under control
we're safe and clean and calm
and very much out of danger

still
there was this fire here, man
I missed it
and maybe

it might have been something to see.



____________________






-Peace.







.

Wednesday, March 19, 2014

The Kobayashi Maru -(revised 24/03/2014)

.

"It is easy to be saint in Paradise,
but they,
do not live in Paradise."

-Star Trek: Deep Space Nine



before you say
anything else
let me say that
I want-
to like you

I would really like
to like you
and would love it to be
for the way you are

I want that

to believe what you say
about the things you believe
to see the good
like it's some place
that we can get to
together

with space enough
for our best interests mutual
not to compete

I want there to be a way
for your dogs to run around
the park
without worrying where food is
where the kids are
or what anybody's bite-force
is

sincerely now
I want to trust your sincerity
and I want to trust
you
but
I trust you

like the train timetable
or a boss with reassuring words
or a set of statistics
a Doctor's succinct explanation
a distractingly sexy walk
an arms-length rattle snake
I trust you as if
you are
sincerely,

a hippy's constant assertion
about how spirituality attuned
how positive
and how blissful
they are feeling

so go ahead and tell me
whatever it was
you wanted to tell me


about a person's attitude.






__________________




Yeah so I'm on some dual Star Trek and anti-hippy thing recently. Sue me. No, pray for me. Or just call me a dick.  Call it the diametric between what I see as real hope and fake optimism. Either way. 



-Peace.







.

Tuesday, March 18, 2014

Payload -18/03/2014

.



"we train young men to drop fire on people,
but their commanders won't allow them to write 'FUCK'
on their airplanes because it's obscene."

-Apocalypse Now, by John Milius




I just did this really, really good impersonation
of myself
not crying

at work
on an outreach visit
with one of my mentally impaired clients
who showed me the awards and certificates
from his own disability work
before the community program
he was working for
got defunded in 2007

one was framed
signed by the mayor of Moreland
he points this out to me
in coming out slowly slurred words
how proud he was to be out
helping kids
who couldn't talk to their parents

until someone decided
the few thousand it took
each year
to keep this man working
was better not spent

he used to be a history teacher
it's either that or hording
why his room is stacked
with books about war

those who control our economy
are now spending billions
buying fighter planes
and locking up refugees
while this wonderful
fragile man
sit here rotting away
in an inner city rooming house

I hope he didn't notice
me choking up
though if he had asked me
what was wrong
I would have told him
the truth

that I was distracted
daydreaming about fighter-planes

imagined seeing them soar
over Canberra
dropping a hateful payload
down


on Parliament house.





___________________________



http://www.news.com.au/national/tony-abbott-to-approve-australias-biggest-ever-military-purchase-of-stealth-fighter-jets/story-fncynjr2-1226851684344






















-Peace







.

Wednesday, March 12, 2014

Stupid Fucking Ducks -12/03/2014

.

watching a young couple
taking wedding photos
eating my lunch
with ducks in Carlton Gardens
it's sunny but not warm
perfect day for photos

he's skinny
barely fills the cut of his suit
she's quite fat
her dress was ambitious
for how unflattering
it's ended up being

they look young
they look too young
but minus out
fussing over light and shade
under that giant oak tree
they look happy
like they got what they want
and their families want.

I don't understand why people want
the things that they do,
why they believe I should also
and this makes me afraid of them
afraid of you

last night late
I looked at my facebook news feed
three friends in a row all traveling
my stomach started to hurt bad
pulse jumped I started sweating
couldn't sleep
couldn't read
or do push-ups enough
to knock myself out
you could call it panic

or call it FOMO
or jealousy
or... like whatever

I have a very vague grasp
of what I want in life
therefore a pretty loose chance
of ever getting it

never mind I'm right now
working away, saving and planning
for a cross continent cycling trip
which will be the biggest adventure
of my life
sleepless, all I wanted last night
was to be someone else

I will feel stuck
til I get gone travelling
again out there

and by the time I write this
the couple have moved on
I'm still here
with the ducks and pigeons

funny
they'll eat the egg crumbs
out of my focaccia
but not the tomato

I guess
everybody wants
what they want
and a little
of what others have too


at least
they think they do




_________________________________










-Peace






.

Thursday, February 27, 2014

Ham -28/02/2014

.

for the longest time
if someone would ask
what it is I write about
I'd struggle to come up
with an answer

not anymore

I have
some of the worst people
I've ever met
to thank
for that

I am not thankful though
I am a pig.

A pig
who knows what a pig is
and find
all the entrails
you can pull out of that
just
so interesting
to look at

and once
you've ripped
your own guts out
to get it in writing
there's really not much more
anyone else can squeal at you
that could compel y'


to pull it back in




_____________________






-Peace








.

Agency -27/02/2014

.

I've been told
what my own words means

I'm just glad
they were here
to stop me
before I came to the wrong conclusion
about myself

the silliest nonsense
all of a sudden became biblical literalist
as they were bagging me out

I've been told today I've violated people
I've been told today I'm no better than Andrew Bolt
I've been told that people are too scared to tell me
that they're scared of me
I've been told everything I'm writing is being recorded
to be used against me
I've been told I must apologise, repent
retract and desist
or suffer the consequences
and I've just been told that if I write another reply

I'll be guilty of harassment

I've been threatened... more better
I've been sobererer rrr
I've been scratching my head
having the time of lives
with friends laughing our arses off
tonight

I've been around
oh baby I've been around
too long to let some cyber-bully
get me standing down

my name is Randall Stephens
I got here as soon as I could
and I won't be going anywhere


where these people can follow me.





__________________________________________










-Peace





.

Saturday, January 25, 2014

Hopes for Survival Day -January 26th, 2014

.

I hope to some day live in a country
where the wealth of it's people,
their material abundance and prosperity
make them compassionate and generous
not callous and greedy

I hope to some day live in a country
that does not define the people
desperately in need of help
as our enemy

I hope to live in country
that celebrates survival
of it's original peoples
a country that can acknowledge
that civilizations destruction,
acknowledge the genocide,
ongoing suffering and misery
this is causing

and I hope to some day live in a country
less fundamentalist in it's economic drives
and less self-destructive
in it's treatment of ecology

it is my hope, some day
that this will be my country
that day,
(and it won't be January 26th),
that will be the day


I will celebrate Australia








___________________________________



















-Peace






_______________________________________

(Oh and just to be clear, an upside down flag is an internationally recognised sign of a country in distress, popularised as symbol of protest by US Vietnam veterans protesting the war in the 1970s)
.