Authenticity and barf

 upchuck from floaters
Nothing i write is original 
It's hook line and sinker cockamamie
They say there is nothing original

I s there authenticity

Were the greats right

would he spit on me today

barf up their real time incidental vocabulary

Upchuck with floaters
Not very authentic his stale alcoholic ghost says
He laughs himself back to hell
Turns as he boosts off and tells me im a poser

I barf up a metaphor I admire

tweek and bruise

get another year older

convince you I'm for real

Upchuck and floaters
Ona margerine swamp
queues of misunderstood talentless artists
In line for the non event

Face value

 The face loomed before me.
You are not good enough to recieve, it said.
Then repeated it.
Do you think you are entitled to anything in this life son.

They dug inside but couldn´t find any value
The face gets closer and says
You don't deserve this
You will be cut off

So cut off we are 
Cut off we become
Are these people playing victim
Little price tag with the numbers rubbed out

A big zero

When the helmet falls

 The helmet falls
i'm wounded
I sit by the woods edge
counting the seconds of life 
Then blackness

Pulled away from one reality
sliding into another
far from the battle field
The last breaths dragging me back
between two realms

Then all at once flung between the line of life
Into full death
Into the other place whole and abandoned
sitting inside a tea colored cloud
swirling up around me

Whispering thousands of questions
Questions I myself might ask
Out of the corner of my life I caught an angel
It flashed into shape and light behind the smoke

Like a frog upon a rock
All purpose zero form
Just observing me observe it

The tea colored fumes dissipated
And the inquisition began

The smoke was comfort, the angel truth

Sometimes wonder

 From the corner of my eye
 Feeling danger climb my spine

I liked the way God had arranged
 the sun had colored skin
Innocent glances pulled my eyes back
 known from another life
I kept trying

Afraid of saying too much
 Divinity for a fool
Became a mystery
 Mystery filled the space
But knowing should have been.

Couldn't bring you in
  I am the imposter.
 The fumbler 
feeling may die

fantasy replaying week after week.
Eventually the feeling became strange,
Avoidance and ignoring
Heart beats smoother

when they once felt real.
Sometimes wonder 

Smooth splinters

 Broken 
yet floating
a smooth nothing
An abandoned yaught
Hull crashed

Sea simulates emotion
But none here
Splinters are sanded down

Salt water makes each surface
Soft and indistinct
too smooth

false comfort

A bet against the psyche
When it plays grim tricks
 upon the heart and mind

But its' all gone now

wave on wave the craggy is rounded and tasteless
like the padding on the inside of
The asylum

God's dream

 God said to me go and creat strange things of these dreams
So I set out and said yes
I launched myself from the oblivion of sleep 
Into the port of the dream world

There I land from the empty skies
The meaningless waves rising from behind
I land in the color mix it with the blankness
Unleash the creatures and spirits

Until the land is thick with the wrything mess
The noise is the shore rock being torn up
the deafening crashing 
Until the commotion bring a new world upon you all

Cannabis on the school excursion

 He had pulled down a sticky bract of that cannabis
But the teacher had been watching the whole time
Now he would be expelled
But it was a beautiful day
Quite possibly the best ever

The teacher pulled him aside
Pulled the stinking bud out of his bag
Accused him of drug dealing on the spot
No more school excursion
No longer a student

Whatever he shoved down his pants
He would roll and smoke before he gave his parents the bad news

A special select few

 Inside their chosen party
What did they prove
Kids crowded around 
stinking of fomo
And expensive perfume

There was an exclusive list
And even those kids were judged by their clothes
only the good ones could go through
The chatter rising and falling
The music coming on

The shade of competition
The glee at seeing some miss out
The rough bullying
The derision and laughter
Sense of unfairness 

For each side of the Gemini

 She came in and demanded that sweet attention
The attention and the attempts to wooing her
No opinions or convictions just allure
Layers of it all

Perfume and sweet words
Two desperate men follow her
desire as tangible as the peeling wallpaper
Layers and layers

This form of worship
Underneath the mediocre build of denial
it requires cement of self denial
it all melts in her presence

She stands back and watches you both
Witnesses laugh in cruel derision
It wasn't a missing a organ
It was a missing piece inside of both, both sought

A beautiful cave inside a two sided person 

Feira on the hillside

 In their city they are absent minded
walk up the side of the hill
To where the feira is
Buy something collect yourself

Setting it all up
Cleaning it all down
Love washed off the pavement
Find the lost ingredient

Before the day greys and reality dims

The Mess and movement
bag your whim
walk under the canvas
Use that change

Before the day greys and rain wins

Congregate gossip and cook the drumstick
The oil and the football flags
Setting it all up breaking it all down
Sweaping it all up

Before the day greys and your head spins

Hipkins the gullible

 Hipkins the gullible

The washing machine came to life.
His name was ginger hipkins.
He started to shake among the other broken and strewn appliance parts.
“I’m not broken.” Hipkins claimed.
He was indeed intact. But he was broken.
He put his light on and screamed the finished siren.
A mouse jumped out of the circular entrance through the round door ajar.
Hipkins coughed.
“I’m still good. The new models were just cheaper.”
Hipkins couldn’t shake the feeling that he was being observed, and he had that spidey washing machine sense that people were hiding nearby listening to his monologue.
“I washed so much for so many years.”
Hipkins grinned from the hollowness of the door.
The garter snake popped up out of a broken basin.
Looked left then right. Then chuckled. Not a cartoon chuckle. A very sinister short laugh.
His slithering body allowed his head to climb up over a cardboard box.
The head popped up, the eyes bulged and focused on Hipkins.
“Broken machines are not supposed to speak, silly thing, silly thing.”
“My name is Hipkins, maybe you could help me get back to the laundromat?”
“Oh no silly thing. Unless of course we make a deal… Hissssss.”
Hipkins budged and turned his internal drum.
“Why do we need a deal, just help me?”
“Nothing is that simple Hipkins. I need you to trap the next mouse that enters your round door. Keep it there. When I come back if you have one trapped, I will help you get out. And you can make your way back to your laundry mat… SSssound sssuave to you?”
“I can try, I guess.”
The garter snake turned his head dismissively and slipped between the surface trash diving down somewhere deep.

Hipkins was alone but kept talking about his situation.
“How am I supposed to trap a mouse inside?”
In the silence Hipkins thought. I better stay quiet.
Four hours later a mouse popped into the open door.
Hipkins closed the door and trapped the mouse.
“Hey what did you do that for?” The mouse asked softly.
“I have to trap you in me for the Garter snake. It’s coming back soon.”
“Why are you doing that for him?” The mouse asked astutely.
“Well because he will help me get back to the laundromat.” Hipkins said matter of fact like.
The little mouse giggled and splattered.
“So what are you laughing at, mouse?”
The mouse sniffed at the window and doublecheck that he was really stuck.

“Well you said that Garter snake will come back and help you get back to the laundry mat. Is that true?”
“Of course it’s true.”
The mouse giggled again.
“Okay just explain how the garter snake will do that”
“Well…” Hipkins spent a minute, but couldn’t come up with anything.
“Listen, if he can tell you how he can do that, let him have me.”
“What will he do?”
“He will eat me!” The mouse said straight.
“Oh that sounds painful” Hiplins said.
“I think it will be painful.”

“Hisssssssss I see you have captured the mouse for me. What an incredible achievement Hipkins. Now just open the door and let me in so I can befriend the mouse.”
“I can’t let you in, and the mouse asked me how you would help me get to the laundry mat.” Hipkins said.
“Oh don’t you get confused by the details, you are a washing machine, leave the strategy to the snake.”
“So I am to open the door and you will befriend the mouse?”
“Of course, why the lack of faith?” The garter snake snapped.
“Okay I’ll do it.” The round door popped open the garter snake dove on the mouse in a split second. A few seconds later the mouse was being digested from the inside of the snake.

Hipkins rocked up and down.
“You tricked me, you told me that you would befriend him.”
“Snakes got to eat too genius.”
“I guess I am a genius.” Hipkins said without too much thought.
“Yes you are, you caught the mouse.”

“So will you help me out of here now?” Hipkins said desperately.
“Sure thing… SSsuave. I’ll just need another five mice and maybe one of those Norwegian rats.”
“You must be kidding!” Hipkins said in protest.
“Well, how else do you expect me to get big enough to move you?”
“Oh now I see, you need to grow bigger.”
“That’s it genius.” The garter snake said emphatically.
“I guess I am a genius.” Hipkins said again.

Johnny Eggs and the matchbox gift

 Johnny eggs was up for retirement he was a landfill worker.

Mostly operated the bulldozer and a tractor the only one who could do maintenance on either.
That day he had invited a poor family who lived near the entrance to the landfill in.

“So have you got something for us today Mr Eggs?” Little Patty whales asked.
“Well come down and have a look.” Johnny said.
Little Patty whales and Sarah followed Johnny to an area of the landfill where things that were unbroken or still intact lay.
There was a red tricycle, a mannequin and a really cute looking Teddy bear albeit with a few scars.

Next to it all was a deep box. Johnny crouched over as Mother Jones arrived on the excuse that she didn’t want her children bothering old Johnny Eggs.
But she never trusted any man with her children. That was Mother Jones for you.
Johnny’s nimble fingers opened the box lid exposing hundreds of in their packet hot wheels toy cars.
Patty couldn’t contain himself. “Can we open one please? Please?”
“You can open as many as you like” Johnny said grinning with no space between his wrinkled face.
Patty started dancing around holding the small box in his clammy hand, motioning it as if it were an aeroplane. Mother Jones tapped Sarah, Sarah looked up at her. Mother Jones motioned while Johnny’s back was turned. Putting on a smile and waving her hands.

Sarah whispered. “Oh you want me to act excited.”
Then Sarah too picked out a car and started dancing as her step brother was.
Johnny looked at Mother Jones, “These moments are precious Mrs Jones. They won’t be as happy as this everyday.

Patty whales just about ripped the little box open so he could get his hands on the little red car inside. His mother said “Patty let me open it for you when we get home.”

Patty looked at her. Then his glance slowly descended as if he had just been disappointed.
Sarah continued imitating what Patrick had been doing.
Trying to keep her giggle back as she was three years older than Patrick and her cynical nature made Patrick’s behaviour seem absolutely ridiculous.

“Do I owe you anything for this Johnny?”
“No, Just let me come apple picking in your yard there come next month.” Johnny said.
“Well, they are already putting on fruit. Come this weekend me and the kids will be out, but you can make it over the back fence real easy.” Mother Jones said cheerily. Johnny nodded his head with that same full grin that beamed. He was pretty much happy all year.
It took him a week to adjust to the first snow, but after that he was just as glad to be alive as he was in summer.
Mother Jones had Sarah carry the box home, partially from seeing her little act as a dig to Patty whale’s free spirit.
They got in the door, and Mother Jones did some calculating in here head.
Patty sat in the wooden chair observing his mother.
“I’m not gonna get one am I.”
Mother Jone’s knew the routine and quickly grabbed the box with his sticky handprint on.
Ripped it open slowly and smiled down at Patty. “Sure you are my boy. This one is for you.

She called Sarah over to use her phone calculator.
“We might get up to four fifty for this lot.” Mother Jones said gleefully.
“I guess we better be grateful to Old Johnny.” Sarah said sarcastically.
“I guess we better.” Mother Jones said, also being sarcastic, as she balanced on gout bitten ankles and took a bottle of Johnny walker out from the kitchen shelf.

Strings attached so puppets move

 I see strings attached
through the vision of the sweating dream
Through the view of the veiny eye
The effort exerted
Pairs turn up and rehearse 
their sacred unions out for all to see

Strings are attached
Weird pulleys move the puppets
Pulling the heart strings
Pretending we are not human
No emotions
just safety

I see strings right through the perfection
I see friendly faces
They have their own interests
their own doubts
Their own strings attached
But their limbs are more easily manipulated

Relief from passion

 Readjusting
An empty heart is a relief
Passion is a devil
it overturns everything

Pushes us into the middle of the road
Into the stretch of the forest snake infested
An empty heart is a blessing
Rearranged to meet the open days

Beaches calling for a sea
Sandy miles no sign of the water
Blessed salt water
Passion leaves us bone dry

Da cry carp

 Humphrey monster and the hotdog team
Dawdle boy and the outward steps 
Black freckles and a defensiveness
Thorny spineless devil lips 
Edge we are, are we?
 Joked and the downpour came

They had figured it out
Lunchtime bristling
Back of the bus
Only the cool ones
Light hazing

Into the hills and swerves everyday
They retold their father's exaggerated stories
came in from the farms
filthy and rugged
Hotdog breath

Toward the Akatarawa
False pines 
And light winter snow

Avoiding the truth

 The one I could have helped falls by the wayside
I sypmathize with the God some pretend to love
Most just blame for the world in its state
The one I wanted to protect  struggling, emaciated in the highway ditch

Ragdoll human abandoned by every which one allocated to love him
In the high grass crawling weak dehydrated, underfed, unloved
The traffic passes uncaring I keep climbing the stairs of life
The one I was supposed to care for smiles even in their state

Pretending to be happy so that I would stop and check
As if knowing that a frown or grimace would force all to avoid
Swallowing his pain he bears his teeth and appeals
But none notice and he returns to the ditch

where the remains of some family picnic await him
The basket weave so very ornate
Like a society obsessed with the appearances of results
avoiding the truth of them at all costs 

The insanity of the commute

 We turn away from train station
Commuters now we are pedestrians
Looking up at the walk light
waiting for it turn green

Turning to one another impatiently
A million moments have come to this
The zebra is flat there across to other side
There is no mercy

You check your watch
Traffic still needs to pass by
The light is delayed
So you stand there on leg to the other

Shifting weight like you want to pee
Green light urges you forward imbalance
I Follow your steps as each bar of the piano plays
hearing your doubts pop

You made it to the other side
The red figure inside the light
Is blinking
It is bleeding, it is bleeding

Tunnel Trauma

 Crawling down the tunnel,
with mickey ears.
Never a fun time.
I was four years old and claustrophic/

I made my way in and the other toddlers too
Until there was no way out all exits were blocked
So I screamed just about as loud as any creature could have screamed
And the kids poured out just as traumatized as they had left me

That gave me a great deal of satisfaction
And when they pulled me out 
The adults comforted me
And the terrible game was over

Mac and friends

 Andrew had called all the kids who were now adults
From teens till middle age a dozen thousand parties later
First signs of wrinkles, belly fat, balding
Popular friends now are the ones earning over a hundred and fifty g a year

Popular friends made consumer decisions designer brands shoes and threads
And those decisions were the biggest talking points in the endless bore
Well timed laughter and bragging, inspiring gesticulation
The fear of missing out aimed and tainted all of them

Envy wasn't just green it was every color
The ones they put on for sport and the ones they wear for fun
deep down they feel the pinch as they compare among themselves
looking up and down and feeling that sense of inequity

They themselves gave themselves up to it
Liek young women to mansions owned by known abusers
They return and feel that push until their self esteem can finally fit
Into the the tiny cubby hole that Andrew has decided they belong inside of

A carpark in Raumati

 Indoors warm outside crisp and cold
The stream that passes through aint clean
The flax whispers and mocks as it's leaves whack and slip
A dead fish lies down there on the beach

Sewage pipe runs parallel
The building on my left wafts chlorine off it
The grass is short and durable
Fatter blades like those of the tropics

Bryan Ferry's song moves through the dreary dream of the place
Here is somewhere familiar
Lo somewhere completely foreign
maybe there's hope for you yet grandfather's portrait echoes

The waves with their lips all foamy jumping out from the brushstrokes
Like saliva from his mouth when he cant get the words out
All the way back between the channel toward Kapiti island
I observe the wooden supports to the polluted stream

I marvel at how well it's all put together
yet the stench of the unprocessed waste water
Matching it to the public pool's incredible chlorine stink
The senses awoke and it became a strange dimension

The eastern steps at lunchtime

 The overpowering sun shone ont those eastern facing steps
It's there i'd take my small lunchbox out of my bag
Open it and compare the contents with the other little ones
Often disappointed until the first mouthfull

Then I was mostly just grateful
And little did I know the life ahead was all about hunger
Hunger for more, hunger for different
The sun in my eyes

Finish my apple some bland biscuits
My allergies kick in
Not because of the food
But the pollen

The first sneeze shakes me
I move away from the others 
Blow my nose and wait for the irritation to leave me
The bigger kids move on through always doing something important

And out little insignificant sandpit remains empty
Even in the sunniest days of the year

Orb weaver's deal

 An orb weaver’s deal in the frame.

A picture frame jutted out of the tangled mass of hoses, mechanical parts, pieces of a leather sofa.
Within its chiseled wooden square an orbweaver dropped down toward the middle of the frame and thus started to weave its web. Dancing between the uprights hooking its next line.
Some hours later when the design took form and there was that enigmatic pattern, the mist fell.
Clouds broke.
The morning sunlight beam lit it all up.
No one saw the spider curse as autumn flies spotted the lines and avoided them.
The beautiful symmetry was obvious in the light.
It stood out like an omen, like a vertical crop circle.
And flying things avoided it, yet come dusk and with it the accumulated warmth of an early autumn day, the air around the landfill would be humming with the wings of desperate insects commuting between the unfamiliar expanse of refuse and the nearby coastal marshes.

And so it was and thus the first mosquito darted directly into the web as soon as the afternoon light dwindled. The orb weaver so sensitive with its tactile feedback and skilled with its pounce and the inevitable follow through of its horrid bite.
Before it could tie the hapless blood sucker to the overhanging bridge of the frame a flying termite came in clumsily.
The spider liked neither the after taste nor the careless flight of the creature and ate it more out of spite than enjoyment.
At least the thing was easily wrapped up and would keep longer than some insects.

A pair of mosquitos came through in their mating flight, getting wrapped up inside the strands. They didn’t seem to notice the monster bearing down on them. And before they were through they were sewn up with the other two hapless ones.

After that it was mostly moths and a few beatles, but their thick wings allowed them to make tactical escapes. The moths were the orbs least favorite. Dusty crabby wings, and a tiny body with barely any sustenance on it whatsoever.
Their flapping also bothered the Orb. He left more than one of the moths in the web, for which he swore to rebuild after the bulldozers came.
Leaving his very own trash behind, a web with the unwanted victims of the night before, still attempting to flap out of their spider web cocoons.
Yes that indeed entertained the Orb.
After he had digested the mosquitos and the silly termite, he kneel on all eight and pray the the frame stay in it’s position.
Jutting out from the debris, allowing him to spin his home, his sigil, his sacred trap and dining table once again.

Mechanical man

 Electric antenna HR's deity at play
Rocking arms and wheels company segway
Inspiration hyped and professional frustrate
Chain and web and logistic wednesdays

Kpis and aims and goals quarter fitting
demands and constraints and deadline metal
expedient charisma wildly formal yet sassy
Dreams are born then severed into sashimi

The gears and pistons and Pneumatic tubes
Keep the C levels in lux and the noobs in lube

The red ghost of me

How I trickle
fumble and tickle
the hair turning red
The man of me mad

 Embark onto the pavement
Broken city all okay
My masculinity snake like
slithering up the cracks in the pavement

Know me by another name
lost and hopeless
Found and godlike

Peeling back the clouds
Just to find their lightning
Extract the strom
From their inevitable storm

Embark on the wayside
Hairy and sasquatch like
Hostile and warlock like

Eyes as these
See what you hide
Eyes like these, now lo
get to know you inside

Endless thread of disquiet

 I couldn't guess what they were trying to do
It's a life, a machine
get a grip
fidgeting with some small object

anxiety such a gift
tapping in and out of
Hey drone agitation
I can see your new hobby

On a thread on a screen in some pent up implication
That reads under the title
I can see the shape of the attempt
Life is a rush you want to disprove something

Sit with yourself restless and unable to just to be
Influenced by the live wires and pre tweeking teens
coming up and splashing their half truths and dreads
All across the little reality they hope you'll check

Golden stork

 The feathers have grown
The bird is magnificient
The baby cries through the wall
The beak extends over years

The plummage is majestic
The grace of the bird
The pain in the infant
Soon flight will be expected

Night is dry morning humid
Eyes imitate
The bird spreads it's wings
Falling off the rail

Taking the upwind into the sky
Golden feathers
Gone into the sunrise
Gone from our observation

Encroaching and disobeying

 Outside the fence
Poking pines
stinking eucalypts
Trees and undergrowth conceal me

Pull a cigarette from pack
Time has no authority
The bell will go
 but we will stay 

Duties have no authority 
Strict voices calling people
Angry at broken boundaries
Poorly maintained fences

Need dark shade
Or direct light
Just not the greys
Just not twilight

A place where rules massage obedience
Into believing structure is safety
Yet even the air itself disobeys
Fast-growing exotic trees pushing through boundaries

I light the cigarette
Smoke flows and fluffs across the fence
Voice fades behind me giving up
The man connected to it is gone

Undesirable pariahs emerge from the undergrowth
Wary and troublesome souls
Slipped beyond the limits and structure
I draw smoke into my lungs and exhale

For a moment the fence shrinks
Branches scrape against its wire
The stragglers disappear between the trees
And the voice has no volume to warn us

Colorless veil and bad coffee

 My coffee tasted like shit this morning
Age had been yelling at me 
From the moment I woke
To this current sentence I'm struggling to throw on the eye

Tasteless boring coffee and no expression to the back garden morning light
My dog looked up with pity in his eyes or atleast thats what I chose to see
My energy plateaus bleakness slowly manifests like a big colorless veil
It tells me about my past like it can read into my mind and it's memories

It doesn't jeer or taunt, it just matter of factly reiterates the disappointment
It lays down the situation and the acidic aftertaste of the coffee stings the mouth
I do not try to diminish or deny the elaborations of the colorless veil
Infact I have to strain my brow to be bothered at all

Despite the growing apathy and sense of stinking staleness a sense a slight optimism
For if all those years contained the most daunting and abject desolation
Then surely tomorrow was going to shine super brightly in comparison
That is if I was seeking the difference and not the familiarity 

Casa de repouso(house of rest)

 A terra da fazenda terminava
Pernas pesadas nos levaram para o bairro
Ruelas estreitas onde viviam aposentados
Cuidando das barracas de suas camas

Uma longa fileira de casas geminadas
Conduzia para dentro da vila
Ao longe, um velho atravessou a rua
Passo de caracol sobre o asfalto

Onde meus pais moram, ouvi uma voz dizer
Com quem ele estava falando?
Cortinas escondiam o conteúdo de cada casa
Por trás de coloridas cortinas de artesanato local

A nuvem se estendia diante do dia
Observávamos formas que se moviam lentamente
Dentro das casas cujas portas estavam abertas
Velhice e resignação

Planejei minha saída daquele lugar
Mas agora meu corpo estava cansado
Minhas ambições mortas, eu seguia mancando com a perna boa
Para preparar uma xícara de chá dentro de um casabre vazia

The farm land ended
Heavy legs carried us into the borough
Narrow lanes where reitred people lived
Attending stalls from their beds

A long length of connected cottages
Leading into the village
In the distance an old man crossed the street
Snail pace across the tar

Where do my parents live I heard a voice say
Who was he talking to?
Curtains hid every cottages contents
Over colorful local handicraft curtains

The cloud stretched out before the day
We observed slow moving shapes
Inside the homes whose doors were open
Age and resignation

I planned my exit from this place
But now my body is tired
My ambitions dead I amble on my good leg
To make a cup of tea inside the vacant shack

Left for me

Bear necessities.

 The bear necessities

I felt a tug at my jersey.
Something hauled me out of my hole in the trash heaps by my shoulder.
I heard shrieks of laughter as the twins laid eyes on me.
Their father’s crooked grin and reactive laughter. I played dead to not freak them out.
I felt the lift of the foul smelling wind and whoosh I was in the back of the pick up truck.
Among the broken furniture that Mr Barker intended to take back home to his workshop and fix and repolish.
The twins looked back at me from the cab's back window as we got onto the freeway.
I sat up and watched the landfill disappear.
We pulled into a long dirt oil stained driveway then into a garage with its own yard.
They leaned me against the garage wall and the twins poked and prodded me until my stuffing started to come loose and the white candy floss material started to fluff and burst from my seams.
And as I was slowly emptied of my white cloudy puff, the banging of the hammer and the chiseling sound of the saw continued.
The twins lost interest and soon I was alone. I jumped up and collected the stuffing that had fallen out during the interaction with the twins.
I pushed it all back in. even the humid sickly parts that had become sodden in the last rains. I slid under the front gate and hobbled the five miles back to the landfill.
I passed the tall sycamores whose autumn leaves would make the highway look like shit.
I passed the small convenience store where there were no middle shelves making the customer the center of attention.
I passed the empty parking lots of real estate offices that were open but unmanned.
My knees got dusty as I took a shortcut onto the long winding Landfill road through the weeds.
I got to see the real world. Lady bugs, small spiders and butterflies.
I came out onto the landfill grounds. I made it to the edge.
I realized in the back of my teddy bear brain that I wouldn’t be able to find my old cubby hole.
I embarked across the methane badlands and found a convenient snug hollow to tuck myself into.
As I tucked myself in, I felt my sense of self leach out. And slowly my vision escaped me.
The last images of the hyperactive twins disappeared. The last echo of Mr Barker’s fatherly voice was gone.

And that was that I was gone. Yet I was still there.
And it rained again that night.

Ocean madness

When you become absence
The way the sea longs for

The earth is swallowed whole
I grow awakened, but on you there's a price
A flooding dreadful coastal bog!

Your eyes see only shadows of waves
Fading embers of life's fresh beginnings
Feeling begins to diminish
Dread cannot be escaped

Freezing water frightens your chest
Uncertain underneath creatures twist
You kick and struggle reason falls apart
Depths of the blackness

Not only to survive
To resist this watery ending
To feel warmth again
Deep self deception

Even in the battle
In your private life collapse and discomfort
Discover new kinds of hollowness
Each one a temperature, freezing

The muted light beneath towering clouds
Crowd the surface of lifeless ocean
Icy water holds you
All life's reminders and everything endangered
Terrible alarm that ordering you awake

The horizon is blinding midnight
See disguises people wear and their quiet attacks
The sun is still there, behind the darkness
Trying its hardest to reach out and restore 
But cheap costumes continue to bewilder

Bleachcroft courtyard and the rain

 Waking the warmth gone
Rain is falling in 
The roof is gone
I draped a blanket to stop the drops

But they kept on 
I turned over
The color of my existence
Color of my dreams

Getting leached out
The dye of the purple sheets fading
My face looks up at imposing mornign cloud
Tears camouflage

Waking the on the damp concrete
The inner sanctum
No slumber
No relief and soon there will be aspergillus

So I walked out of what was my abode
Pavement looking up at me 
mocking me urine colored brown
Also fading

The rain spares none
I looked up as each drop ran down
beachfront grin as I realized
It wouldn't change me

Beaven dessert server

 Beavan came speeding in happy napkin
Sparkling disposition
Team player apron sewn together with slogans
He arrived cheerful fully buzzed up

A ton of witty remarks up the sleeve
Or under the apron
Pen and pad and saliva for the consonants
A motor of a man giggle

Back with over sugared dessert
Full of creme and m and m's
Insuline spike and elf beaven left the room
Speeding around like a humming bird on crack

Consumption is the meaning of life

 life is a feast
Eating is hell
Bread is from yeast
Chicken eggshells

Life is a rump
A romp and a flop
Stools made from stumps
Ornate table table tops

Thus crowd over food
Excrete and bleed
Hunger renewed
Once again feed

Savour ingest
Extract digest
Hunger a pest
Linger a chef

The moon refuses to return

Pining miles from the town
She thinks of the moon, needs it close

Exposed scrub brushy like a death fringe
She remembers watching moonlight split and splatter

Grinding grey drooping dry
She wonders whether the moon misses the earth when daylight arrives

A stubby round structure stands clay and fiber
She imagines the grace of the moon 

Erected like a wooden cross in the breeze
She imagines the moon caught between its arms

Empty form hanging on underneath peeling the dust off
She wishes she could hang her dreams there 

A human woman stands there hot northerly scorching crops
She thinks about the moon touching the hills of her being

Naked in the shape village men's dream
She imagines being painted silver as an extension of the moon

The house is oval and needy like the faces in the village
She looks at the moon and predicts it's own desires

Drying clothes outside touching her arms night wheezes
She imagines sleeping under the cross as the moon peaks and tickles her

Awaiting a maid who left the village a decade past
For a man who got lost in distant mountain ranges seasons passed.
She waits for both and even the moon refuses to return.

Her smile is the experiment

Smile begins before she knows 
a tiny movement at one corner a clean pond this mouth of hers
Pouring into another then another
until her whole face seems to have agreed
Her dimples arrive late enchanting our hearts
as though they have travelled some distance to get there

When she laughs it keeps changing
opening, narrowing, breaking into smaller smiles
One appears when she understands
another when she is amused
another when she catches somebody watching
and suddenly the first one seems like an experiment

Something unfair about it
carefully displayed
Mouth repeatedly discovering happiness
Two dimples perform on her face
Everyone nearby waits
for her grace

I never told him why

 I never told him why

I pulled a baby boy out of the landfill today, what a miracle.
It started to cry as I pulled him out. As If he preferred to be in there.
There were pieces of sticky wrapper and dead bugs clinging to his blanket.

I wrapped him in clean towels. Yes it was alive and healthy.
I looked around, there was no one there.
I could just guess the fate of such a lovely little creature had he been left there.
I stomped across broken chipboard which sunk my legs into the trash heap.
I found myself peeling off chicken wire and adhesive plastic sheets off myself as I navigated back to my truck.

I never had a son. I looked at the baby. It’s fat face and questioning eyes held mine.
I maneuvered both opening the cab door and holding onto the baby at the same time. It was pretty simple. I cleared my gear out and placed him on the seat draping and clicking the seatbelt into place.
Not far from the entrance stood a tall cardboard box with a water stain on it. Intuition told me to go over and open it up before I left.
I took a box cutter and went and opened up the large cardboard box. It was full of toilet paper and diapers. Well hallelujah. I took out the first layer of toilet paper which had been spoiled by some form of leak probably from where it had been shipped from.
Threw the box on the back. Rousing the baby.

I got into the other side of the cab, turned the old hunk a junk over. Looked down at the baby who now had his face all scrunched up as if he was going to burst into tears.
As we left the landfill,l he did burst into tears.
The worst of it was, his face was almost going normal again as a beam of sunshine came in and lit up the internal cab quite amazingly.
But then it came, and whatever I did to slow down or cut down a gear, it didn’t seem to matter.
The speed bump threw the front up chassis and slammed it down. Disturbing the baby.

For the twenty minute ride home it was the shrillest cry session I had observed in my life.
But it didn’t put me off. I would take this baby home and figure out what was what.
I got in the door and investigated him. looked him over completely.
There was a little nametag on his baby suit, it said Harold. His name was Harold. I started cleaning him up and changing his first diaper.


I decided he’d be my son.
Didn’t tell the police, didn’t try to go after the real parents. Just took him out, cleaned him up, bought a crib and started mixing milk formula.
Years later this boy my son helped me dump landscaping and garden waste into the landfill. He always loved the place. I never told him why.

The plastic rifle(Butch part 3)

 Before I could leave I spotted Butch and a handful of his disciple like friends dismantling a styer AUG rifle on the lawn.
I went over and pretended I knew what I was on about.
The guys seemed very affable. A lot of cleaning going on.
The genuine conversation like "why the hell do you need a machine gun?" never came up.
One of the guys was in the military I didn't fish for details.

I recounted a day when Butch had turned up to school dressed as Rambo.
We were almost ten years old. It was one of those months where the kids were synchronized in their lunchtime games. There was so much running and screaming to be done, going back to class felt more natural.
Butch had brought a plastic toy machine gun to school. and was running around with a trail of kids following him. Not to disarm him but almost in a strange form of imitating him. As if they didn't read the other groups of kids who merely thought them to be Butch's sidekicks nothing more. The grunting dregs of his personality along for the ride.

That thought left me questioning my own purpose there. Was I catching up with a long lost friend, or was I some container for charisma of Butch.
Thankfully I never hung out with that group enough. and his mannerisms as a middle aged man were nothing like they were in his youth.
But the guys that were helping him with the rifle certainly seemed like poorer minds or somehow dependent on Old Butch for some kind of direction.

Butch remembered the day and regarded me.
But he looked me in the eye and he said it direct. Now this was probably the real purpose for why I had gone along to this event. For someone like Simon Bernard Elliott would never go to such an event.

"You were scared and you still scared to live your life. You mock the world from the safety of your office. You cling to the familiar. Why don't just confront life. Wake up to it. Shake it. You don't need to understand it. I will give you that plastic toy rifle, not as a joke. But as a token to remind you one of your goals as a man is to chase challenge and passion. And don't be investing in every kind of insurance or protection."

He pulled it out of nowhere as if he was holding it the whole time. the same toy machine gun.
But the speech hadn't been rehearsed.
  

Leaving early(Butch part 2)

 Waking to the sun shining in was a nice way to start the day
The two blond women sleeping in my vicinity also woke as I got out of bed.
The party had been something. I needed to get up and use the bathroom.
When I got back to the room to get properly dressed their eyes carefully monitored me.
I didn't know whether to expect a quip or an invitation just like highschool.
Which were mostly quips and nicely hurtful to a teenager with zero agency.

They went on looking at me. they themselves were absolutely gorgeous.
I packed my few pieces of gear and stood out the front at the top of the terrace.
I had called a taxi. Instead of a taxi, A family with two earnest and elegant dalmatians arrived walking up the driveway. I suddenly panicked when I thought about the resident english bullterrier.
I soon scolded myself under my breath. I was supposed to be one of these people. 
They didn't get upset, they let reality happen like a spiritual practice.

You were supposed to choose what you remembered, bring it up in drunken self commendations and only poke the hornets nest with tirades when most of the party were strapped into whatever opiate or intoxicant had full control.
Deep down I wished most of the guests were dead. And I wouldn't have minded committing the act myself. Few of them held any real value as human beings except saying the right thing at the right time.
Why the hell did that matter. good timing but th erest of your life and actions make you a shitbag.
But it wasn't on them, it was on me, I was responsible for keeping better company.
One day I would end up using a few of these poor souls for my own lucrative messes.

As the dalmatians and english bullterrier smelled each other the taxi pulled. The dogs and the family with the dogs knew old Butch they just seemed overdressed for the occasion.

Butch(part 1)

 The english bull terrier was a popular feature of the party.
It hopped forward and back and barked.
Many tried to make it's acquaintance and failed.
The freckled dark haired girls jeered the new guys who walked into the party. The animal was curious about me. But I wasn't going to give it the opportunity to fase me infront of forty guests.

It was the hosts birthday I guessed, his house upon a terrace above the roadway below.
Motorcycle repair clients had come to pay and congratulate the guy for his birthday.
Many of the guests formed semicircles around Butch, as he gave speeches about motorcycles.
How he'd fixed them, adventures he'd had on them. Attempting to share new material. With limited vernacular old bits getting in the way. But the audience was getting there, smoke and empty bottles littered the open garage.

He had his die hard friends, the guys that wouldn't leave his side. and half a dozen women who represented their girlfriends, yet Butch was already familiar with all of them at one time or another.
And they were the fuel for Butch's speech, they knew when to "whoah" or "hoorah" strategically, more from practice than tact and wit. 

After his "I am the best fucking shit you have ever seen" speech. He got to passing beers out and making jokes about the actions of some of his guests on those previous drunken nights of the current early spring.

SImple baby

 It blew a bubble
It told me life was sacred
It opened the clouds and gave sunlight
It chooses it's preference

it negotiates its vulnerablilities
it ingests and excretes under supervision
It spells love and wonder
It points and glares

What did it see
It chooses its likes and dislikes
It doesn't recognize its own hand
It got born recently

Felt like it

 Townsville, Australia, early afternoon. On wooden benches outside a nice cafe.


Both of us were seventeen
I went for her hand
instead of pulling back she left it there open
So my hand went into it

Told me about passions
we noted where they intersected and overlapped
It's quite a thing when the body vibrates with joy
But when the heart feels and the brain thinks it's just a...

Curse the hormones the forwardness fostering awkwardness
The sense that we can, when we must go slow
Coffee arrived and conversation was a day
With it's shades and it's beams

She reached for my hand and I left it open
Then a young man came to the table
I thought he was the server
He sat not angry, not happy just present

I looked back at her, her face neutral,
"Who is this?"
"It's my boyfriend." she said casually.
"Why did you call me here then, if you had a boyfriend?"

"Felt like it."

Parade ground address

 On flagpole arena were the gathering crowds
Their differences passing between them

Words rise as weapons once did
Arguments rubbed smooth by repetition

Swarms swallow every upchuck
The other person's idea into ear

Eyes move across the faces
searching for another interpretation

The words climb into cracks in convictions
out through the throat and into the voice

Straight into the waiting ears
of a multitude willing to listen