Randy talking Bike Poetry on 3CR -this Monday 17/12/2012

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Be listening to 3CR (that's 855AM on your dial) next Monday (17/12/12) at 10am, for urban cycling show YarraBUG Radio, as I talk to host Val Nagle about my bicycle poetry, sharing some work on air and discussing the urban commuter experience in Melbourne.

YarraBUG Radio encourages people to ride for the sheer fun of it and also to raise awareness in sustainable transport issues, promoting urban cycling as a viable means of transport, highlighting Yarra’s cycling conditions, demystify cycling technology, and helping reveal the diversity of cyclists around from children, to commuters, to lobbyists... and the odd performance poet.

more info:

http://www.3cr.org.au/yarrabug

http://www.yarrabug.org/radio/

__________________________

-Peace

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Lickety Split Episode 5: a podcast with Little Raven

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Hello readers and sorry for my absence the last few weeks, but to make up with it we have something different today, 40-odd minutes talking with Little Raven on podcast talking about how and why we write erotic, labelling poets, travelling, performance, not-being-able-to walk away from the poetry scene, and of course: sexual frustration. Enjoy


 There's a minute of silence after the intro between 1:30 and 2:38.


Two poems read here

- "My Keys Don't Fit" at 16:52

- "Your Boyfriend" at 40:54





(if you're not seeing a playable Soundcloud-control bar above click (here)

or: http://www.littleravenpublishing.com/#/podcast-archive/4570352436





Tonight we're launching Little Raven's first anthology of erotic fiction with a great lineup of writers and performers. A cheeky night of stories, poems, burlesque and prizes.

Hares and Hyenas
63 Johnston Street
Fitzroy
7.30pm

Free entry.

___________________________












-Peace











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Inventing Hysteria -5/11/2012

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She is crazy
 
she'll call it being rational
but she's crazy
and you know better
  
  
because you're rational, see.
  

____________
   
  

-- Randall Stephens (@RandyPoet)

  
  
-Peace

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but always welcome just the same -30/10/2012

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Love is just a visitor in my life

a doctor continually paying housecall
trying to cure the ailments
(hypochondrial or otherwise)
of a bedridden boy who cried 


forgiveness
  
  
  
  
   
  
________________


-- Randall Stephens (@RandyPoet)
  
  



 
 
-Peace
   




  
 
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Disposed Towards -26/10/2012

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Seeing smokers smoking outside a hospital always makes me feel... ungenerous





___________________________


I'm on Twitter.  (@RandyPoet)
https://twitter.com/RandyPoet

Follow me... I know the way!





-Peace







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Passwords -25/10/2012

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live those shrugged shoulders
and held calls
stay friends til the next exit
or favour paid
and godless til the expiry date

finish what y'start
then start over
skim their titles
speak often
speak hard
speak up
speak highly
talk shit
in secret
speak yourself empty
and exactly

confide to the screen
because y'know
ultimately
it will not tell anyone

anything

_____________

-Peace

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The Procedure -25/10/2012

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night before you hospitalise

the sky holds its breath
the clock bites its lip
the packed bag with hands
fumbling awkward

in its pockets

_________________

-Peace

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Grace -21/10/2012

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having friends

with whom you can laugh at yourself

just as good as forgiving yourself

for being a cunt.

maybe better, by the way it feels

____________________________________

-Peace

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At The Barn -7/10/2012

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rooftop bathtub
podcast hip hop
graffiti and pot plants
rollies over old stories

reconstructing last evening
longneck for a hangover
chopped veggies for the soup
vapours from stove-top chai

and someone tagged the bread loaf

upstairs kitchen opens
on to old pallets gangplanks
and four states worth
of friends you haven't seen for years


      y'dropped your pocket

                  this is what we do

                          mate, get off the gear

                                    bench a hard one


injokes hang in the air
like bike parts over
racks of old costumes
and these scattered mattress'

while wet shoes
dry slow in the sun
and camera-nerds
are making plans


for an illegal evening.

___________________________________




More photos (here)











-Peace







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My Keys Don't Fit -5/10/2012

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I am at my best itinerant
sexually frustrated
chip on shoulder hidden
with bag on back

at my clearest
not knowing
what's going on
what I'm walking into
or why
long coat over a stride
jingling a ring full of keys
that never fit

at my humblest
stubbled threadbare
night before's performance
having hosed out my head
fresh sweat now collecting
morning sun
under my hat

at my most gracious
having domesticated distance itself
made home in the misplaced
shaded in unfamiliar ceiling
against surrogate skyline

quiet enough
by far
for alone to take hold
magic misspells
and unspoken volumes

I am ideally a short answer
shot back at
some long winded question



I'm fine, this way





____________________________






The 'ring full of keys that never fit' is a riff on a Henry Rollins line from "Get in The Van", which I figured could just as soon be the title for this, um, so now it is.  True story.

-Peace







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Your Boyfriend -24/09/2012

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Assumptions -15/09/2012

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her boyfriend
who disappeared
into the lounge room

who'd rather try figure people out
by their bookshelves


than by talking to them




________________







-Peace






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Earthed -12/09/2012

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and each time I return to Earth my thoughts are filled with you

looking down orbital
on where our divide went continental

we once touched at the gloves
the pressure of whole atmospheres
inside us
breathing background radiation
pressing the faceplates together
feet floating
without helmets over our hearts

sunrise in space is so shocking
a line splitting hundreds of degrees
stark night and day
life and the void

we met so far apart
the two of us so tiny
 inhospitable in hard vacuum
so solid-scared of falling out here
where there was nowhere
to land
nowhere to hide
yet so hard to find

nothing lives in space between worlds
a vacuum except for memory
and junk on trajectory

this is so much more
than the space we’re suited for
so I retrace an escape velocity
rocketing off again
to try catch you



 my lonely planet guide to the stars

_____________________________________

Originally written for an astronomy-inspired gig we did on Earth hour back in May (but heavily drafted this evening) for Stephen Luntz. 

The phrase 'solid-scared' some Buddy Wakefield fans may recognise from his poem Pretend (hey, it's a homage, right)

Meanwhile, the opening line is also pretty lifted from a Star Trek episode ~but before you make that face I should tell you that alotta-allota other poems feature similar riffs on trek dialogue, this one's just a little more overt about it. The name of that episode?  "We'll Always Have Paris" (case in point ~ the title I used for one of the finest poems I've written)

Anyway, some gigs are coming up, things are being published and it looks like, yes, I've made it out of this Melbourne winter alive. Happy days.

-Peace

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Hardcore Like Pilates -08/09/2012

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she was writing about men like you
before you were born and isn't fooled
by your under construction sad story

y'want her to believe
you can be one of the club~
that your personality
runs on diesel
burning tyres
and butchered dolphins

y'inner child
is that fucken devil kid
from The Omen

y'feminine side
is Grendel's mother
bloody

that y'sensitive side
is an Echidna's arse
and your only vulnerability
a box of porn
y'don't bother to hide
all that well
in your room

that you've seen some shit
that you've been through shit
an' that y'hate women
'cause they're shit

y'want her to believe that
so that you can believe
that
y'look more like a cage fighter
than a poet

someone said this to you once
and you've held onto it
like a security blanket statement

but just being sad and bitter
missing sex an'
getting upset when people
don't reply to your texts
doesn't make you a hard cunt

she knows you are not a hard cunt

can see the un-hugged mass
y'try cleaving back
when shaving your scalp
sees the softness tense
in the way you sit and says:
you're just a visitor here
mate
one who will not stay long
you will go back
to the good soul
will re-find your smile
and save the children
or whatever it is y'do for a livin'

y'wanna argue back
show and tell
y'scars and fuck'n teethmarks

but you also
wanna believe her
so hard
when she says


you will be alright 


flicks her cigarette
like punctuation
to clear the air
after that pronouncement

yeah you'd love
to flick one away one
too
but can't

don't have one

y'don't smoke

never have

I mean, why would ya

y'know...




that shit's bad for you







________________________________










-Peace









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(the sure)

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loneliness is nothing to do with other people

























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