What the world needs now (have a rant)
Harry and Nicola
I wouldn’t say no, to a hearth and a home
But pending a pay rise and then some,
I may be content
In this tenement
Squeezed for two thirds my income
I could use, a break to relax
But having just done my income tax,
I may choose to unwind
By crying at work
In the cupboard next to the thumb tacks
At the Opera House (which I think is grouse) I get lost in a reverie
But our leader says
That pride can cool it
That it’s not even
Fresh in our memory
Cathy Cathy, to my window come
Your Heathcliff waits for you
But if perchance
You don’t exist
A substitute will do
Printed on the back of my notebook in a jaunty colour
Thank tra-la-la
Thank sticker fun!
Thank kids ‘R’ cool
Thank Insta lyfe
Thank price tags thank teens thank youth thank bliss
Thank the infinite monkeys that came up with this
After a walk in nature
Join the escalator rush
Human smells, a fluoro crush
Trolleys filled with plastic shit
Get shitted out near the car park lift
Kids beg ice cream, beg play dates
One parent capitulates
Move on people, move along
Moving on, I move right on
Giant hair and teeth stare down at me, man, colossal, risks collapse
Back lit slender hips and skin, bikini clad wall, shivering
Gold rings gold things, pinstripe man, gold tooth grin, golden hand
Donuts donuts donuts, jam, beef and chicken, cheese and ham
Moving on, I move along
Moving’s good
I move
Slip round a bend
Exhale
Respite
From
SALE SALE SALE
What looks like books
A refuge, I take it
I wander isles of ink on crisp paper
Pencils, pens and tiny staplers
Breathe normally
The stale stationery air
I decide I’ll stay
Resolutely there
I appear to be in a kitchen, lying on the floor.
Down in the world of kitchen cabinet doors, stains running,
Large white tiles.
faintly damp?
Faint fridge humming, can’t quite hear a gurgling slug, recently salted, slowly growing, bubbling.
Amongst dust
Detritus
Little husks
Bits of corn
A human hair
Pencil shavings
Eraser rubbings
Drippings
Sinkings
Fridge grime
Rot
A coin
Faintly winking
Fifty cents?
Fifty cents. I make a curious sound.
I place my forehead on the cold tiles and ponder it. Fifty cents.
Fifty cents.
My diaphram spasms.
Fifty cents. Payment due?
Fifty cents. Coincidence or?
Fifty cents. Extraordinary.
Fifty cents. Not my level reach of blue.
Fifty cents. Left for me.
Fifty cents. But by who?
Fifty cents. Makes no sense.
Fifty cents no fucking sense.
My stomach tightens, air rushes tears fly I curl into a foetus I roll on the floor I clutch my painful laughing sides, can’t breathe, gasp quick gasp fuck what
what
is
happening?
to me?
something new?
So.
That’s how it happened to me,
When I knew I’d be okay.
That happened to me, so I know, heart,
For you it might be any day.
I recall a time long ago
Sunkissed sands and holidays
When we played and napped and smiled
Long time ago
Before we grew up and weren’t allowed to anymore
No time
No cash
Before the marriage and the job and the work-a-day week and the phone calls and the bills and the everything
Before winters, like cold stones, piled up
I think you left your car keys on the table in the hall.
Anyway.
I think we were happy once
1988
Harry and Nicola
Looking down
Clapped out school shoes caked in dirt
Standing on hot clay
The soles of my sweaty feet burn
The sun is everywhere
It bakes the earth under my shoes
It bakes the earth coating my shoes
It bakes my ankles, my legs, my arms, my neck, my brain
I am standing in an oven
I am clay
struggle to inhale, can’t
take a full breath, can’t
stretch, just shallow breaths
don’t fix the craving, can’t
yawn, that reflex, can’t
satisfy, but I force it, can’t
quell the panic
body shouts
BREATHE
i reply
it’s OK
just keep gasping, you’ll survive
Ritual
Harry and Nicola
Tackle bears!
Deliver!
Impress!
Go team
We’ll scream!
Dream big and gamble!
Win!
We’ll laugh
We’ll spend our evenings
Boozing and wheezing
’Round the city and stealing
Time from the clock
We’ll go out on yachts
Drive fast cars
Eat the stars
Flip bills at fast women in bars
Shut up, I think
Take your morning dump
In some other heap
This company’s carpet tiles
Are miles from your
Bikini-clad shores
No-one believes you, you twat
No-one wants that
What’s your damage?
Take your ritual and shove it
Find some other tortured habitual
Pick two vowels and use them prominently
Harry and Nicola
cruel fisted father
used us up then twisted
’til my sister cried.
not missed, you are
not missed.
Pick two vowels and use them prominently
Harry and Nicola
ache me, like you do
take, what you do
make, what you do
from me, your clay
make me, that way
you do
Road
Harry and Nicola
I park the car.
A row of windshields
Reflect the neon stop lights.
I stand and my legs creak and stretch
My head above the row of salt stained car roofs.
I’m met by a breeze carrying
Salt, sand, pollen, clay.
We are near a highway and near the ocean.
The last light fades above a row of dark houses.
One stopover before returning to our lives.
This little patch of carpark, growing dim
Is just like the one I sulked in as a child,
Waiting for adults while they shopped,
As children do.
So many moments to absorb.
Car parks. Highways.
Salt, sand, pollen, clay.
Wind blasted holiday motels with names like Pacific Oasis.
Birds mourning the day with their last plaintive cries.
My country is highway,
A stretch of beaches,
A stopover.
The land of my dreams
Stinks like the back of a fish shop.
You found me once
Cooing like a koel
You gave me
Would you like a cup of teas
And
Thought of you todays
You gave me
Do you want to come overs
And
Chin up smiles
You gave me
Bark and red seeds
And
Waking up the neighbours
You gave me
Somebody worth loving dearly
And
To give my time and trouble
I’m so happy now
No coo
Rises from me mornings
No plaintive cry escapes me
I’ve exactly what I want
Dearest
Thank you thank you
You knew just what to give
Your quieted koel
Tuesday roll out of bed and run
Haul jackets on
And fucking run
Hit the side of the bus
Climb in
Face plant the isle
Head butt the window
Hurdle unconscious enamelled
Speed up bus train turnstile get there
Plow keyboards madly
Little plastic letters
Shit it to production
Slam it
The clock says run
Fucking better
A blur beside me shouts HEY
A mess of blond hair shouts HEY
Lips and legs she grabs me HEY
I LIKE YOU
Painful yank and the weight of her drags
I drag her behind
HEY SLOW DOWN
I jab at my watch
HEY LOOK
I toss my head and look daggers
Her hand is outstretched
Thumb and index finger, touching
Between them, a red seed
I stare at it
I stand with rasping breath
Her hand is outstretched
Thumb and index finger, touching
Between them, a red seed
I stare
She grins at me
My door creaks
When you go away
It moans as you leave
It closes on laughter and light
My eyes close
When you go away
They helplessly hold
The arch of your eyebrow and your reposed form
Your face fades
When you go away
It disintegrates
Into the midnight expanse of my inner eye
My lips smile
When you go away
Each time on that clear cold sky
I find a new star you left behind just for me
Ticking clocks
Pensive stares
Soft furnishings
Stale airs
Kind dead eyes
Enquiring flatly,
How would you define love exactly?
Latin roots
Desire and care
(He strokes his whitening beard and stares)
Proto-Indo-European
Germanic high and old affection
He wrinkles his grey etymology,
Assails my senses with dusty tweed
And bookish curiosity
Well fuck,
I say nervously
Quite a lot of things let’s see
Far away right now I can see
A girl’s fingers busy fumbling and numbing
With a boy’s belt buckle
Their hearts are drumming
Simpatico lust curated by longing
Lust is love, or love is something
Elsewhere presently I see
A drunken shape slowly stumbling
Down a midnight garden path
To a lonely light bulb out the back
And a note bearing a biro heart
In love, stationary plays a part
Somewhere out there I envision
A couple in a sunbeam fools
For an hour
In a tower of pillows
Doing nothing much
But killing a deadline
And repelling an invading to do list
Although nobody expressly said it
Love is procrastination, a bit
Oh, now my mind is resplendent
With a child’s delight
Jumping and jiving in bedtime twilight
Waving sparklers and coloured lights
Objects the extemporaneous girl might receive
From some fatherly figure in on the ploy
To elicit in her this bursting-with-joy
Love is his face weathered and kind
Love is her dazzling, smazzling smile
You asked me to define what I meant by love
And I had a faltering go
But fellow, old man, dear therapist,
There are more definitions than you or I know
Does the General of Liberty Street have PTSD?
Did you think of that, Araboolies?
With your kitschy junk and your animal funk
You’re disturbing the General’s sleep!
Sure he’s a mean old guy
And the kids on the street have to hide
But you drove him out of his very own house
Not a chance of a compromise!
I don’t believe in baddies, do you?
Just folks who are singing the blues
So next time you encounter a face that is sour,
Stop and think about what he’s gone through.
You take verbage for granite
It’s from a whole nother planet
Let my pronounciation orientate
Let it perculate your state
Let my rhymes sooth ya
Do a Heineken remover
Your ordinance is ostensively miniture
I’m gonna take ostraya nucular
You went to the libary supposably?
Your lyrics prespire, depose of them please
Your point is mute the parlament voted
To be pacific what you got’s a tradgedy
Your granma and speling expecially
With my volumptuous rhyme
This triathlon bitch
I wan it
Rounding out the curve of a hip
It takes over it wins for an hour
It steals from you until you come back to waking
This taking
I’m scared of it slipping and making
Me old like my mum charcoal and paper
Clutched in a spotty hand shaking
Tannins tungs acrylics and sponges
Big wool rugs and coffee from plungers
Beans slow cooked in a swamp of sauce
Haloumi grilling, jasmine on the porch
Gee three, kerpow, my friends never call me
Forgot their birthdays, took it personally
Kay four, kerblewy, I don’t eat anymore
Reg-u-lar-lee, like my gee pee told me
Kay two, slammo, I wake up impromtu
And perform an act while I lie on my back
In the dark being sunk by lucky attacks
My rag tag fleet’s now a lonely blip
Oh go on life
Sink my battleship