A glass and steel monstrosity is reclad apace
The buzzsaw’s steady drone provides a backing track
to the buzzing of the drones in backyards
Less well-attended black glass mirror windows
have been sullied by the sea.
Inside I fear neighbourly curiosity
has been obscured among smokestained walls
But someone is watching me through polished glass lens
I feel the disrobing glare of an infrared navigation system
assisted by four pivoting blades
and faster than you can say
Alpha-Beta-Gamma-Tango-Hotel-Hellfire-Missile
it is I who has been smoked, a stain,
and the waves, those well-intentioned janitors,
who lap up the resultant alphabet soup.
Takapuna beach, 10 january 2017
On being lonely, sad and, worst of all, irrelevant.
I am lonely, sad and, worst of all,
irrelevant.
I am marooned in a nocturnal world
of precarious employ
and tumbling towards middle age.
But the people I wanted to become
the writers, dilettantes, the “creatives”
they’re still out there, being fulfilled,
impecunious,
counting the beats.
They spend their Monday night in a dusty Newtown flat
which is perhaps not in Newtown
but an equal suburb /
gentrifying and unknowable
At least one booming restaurant critic coined it
“dangerously hip”.
I spend mine exploring the back of the couch
with my too-long fingernails
searching for my son’s toothbrush
accumulating grit.
They drink endless cups of tea
And discuss the idiosyncrasies of their masters supervisors
Maybe get fucked up, brush their teeth with vodka
I finger the alcohol-free beer cans in my fridge
and in this case, my too-long fingernails are of no hindrance
and pour myself a whiskey, neat.
Hours later, marooned in my tumbler
in amber oblivion too far steep’d
At least one phony whiskey critic coined it
“medicinal peat”
I recall how hollow my 20th century
English literature lecturer
Elizabeth Wilson’s
promises seemed.
Then I recall how Mac Jackson
shiny pate and shaggy mullet
spitting, animated, swaying at the lectern
spoke of Waiting for Godot.
And then, it all makes sense:
the amber lectern, the spitting impecunity,
the vodka teacups, the painful fingering
the dangerous medicines,
the broken heart.
I watch the Wookie
I’ve got a train to catch, because
I’ve got to get to work, but first
we need to talk about the Chewbacca mask:
it’s the hottest viral video of the week.
It’s supposed to be so life-affirming
and it allows everyone to get on board
and celebrate joy
but all I see is a contrived, morbidly obese, affect-disordered, narcissistic
attention-seeker.
I watch the Wookie
and I imagine an advertisers’ cheque
from youtube
in the amount of $632 dollars and fifty-two cents,
sharply declining revenues in subsequent months,
free flights to LA to appear on the Ellen DeGeneres show
and put on the fucking mask
on national television,
and a gift basket from Disney
enclosing a three-day golden ticket.
I imagine soaring sales for Disney Corporation’s Star Wars™ Chewbacca Mask
and I miss my train.
I miss my train.
Hot tears of shame
Hot tears of shame.
The verb they use is “trickle”
to describe these rivulets coursing down
faces.
But really it should be “tickle”
because that is what it feels like.
Begging for your laughter,
a sympathetic pet that cocks its head in
confusion as its master sobs,
discounting your grief with that funny, itchy
prickly tickle
of hot tears of shame
running down your face.
21 January 2014
Anzac Day Howl (2015)
As my nation turns to revere the ghosts of its war dead
(remember its somehow OK when we do it at Gallipoli, never, for them, at Yasukuni),
my thoughts move to the perversion of our Prime Minister deploying troops in Iraq
for a centenary edition of chasing phantoms in the wastes.
I remember, too, those who privately questioned the wisdom of attacking the Dardanelles,
but cowered before their colonial masters and surrendered to their fate,
who dreamt themselves heroes, raising flagons in the Kingdom of Valhalla, or else shahid,
and whose bones adorn a dusty ditch,
who stole beads from the tombs of Egypt and mailed them home
in exchange for knitted socks.
who arrived on the beach and charged Hill 60 with great enthusiasm
and found themselves cut down before the high-tide mark,
who made enemies of others
just to be sure of who they were themselves.
who invoked the name of g*d for power, asserting their right to stone gays, adulterers,
and deliver hellfire missiles to wedding banquets,
who lived for little, believed in nothing
and died for even less.
whose salty lips came together in the sea
only to find themselves spluttering in the surf,
who reached with their tongues for their lips once more
and found them searing, bubbling—or entirely missing—smattered with hot lead
in the vast desiccation,
who giggled through footage they had recorded on their phones
of brazenly-observed airstrikes on villag—militant positions—and swelled with pride
in their devastation,
who brought photographers to games of golf in Hawaii to stand, zombie-like in awe at their new colonial master—
look upon his sand-wedge-drive, ye lowly vassals, and despair,
who sat, themselves, in vast expanses of sand
watching the sunset, surrendered to utter powerlessness over their destinies,
who reached out for butterflies in the murk
and got butterfly-shaped holes in their hearts instead,
whose last sound was a strange, distant clicking, overhead or underfoot
and found apotheosis in dismemberment,
who spun biblical narratives about apocalyptic death cults
then stalked the deserts seeking converts,
who told the nation to “get some guts”
and spent the next years spilling them in Iraq,
who studied the lessons of The Past
yet still doomed themselves to repeat them,
who howled in inner, mounting rage and indignation
at the insanity of it all.
25 April 2015
Fire on Self-Loathing (Apologies to Air on G)
Empty vessel
Fill the glass
In the corner
On your arse
Have a kid
Fill the glass
Glass half empty
Glass half full
Empty fool
More’s the kid
Fill him up
With parts of you
Kid keeps bucking
Fill the glass
It’s your wife
You should be fucking
Days alone
Your phone’s ringing
Parents-in-law
Boredom tingling
Fucking parents
Can’t use skype
Days spent thinking
E-mails typed
Kid’s a biter
Kid’s a ram
Won’t you have
Another dram?
Whiskey special
Just a snifter
In a hip flask
Like a drifter
Drift the city
Drift the streets
Can’t go home now
Can’t get sleep
Nocturne’s neon
Cute girls wave
Lovers you
Will never have
When its empty
When you’re done
There’s no household
You could run
Run a mile
Run for life
Meditate
Escape your strife
Or instead
Just fill the glass
You caused this
‘Cause you’re an arse
Whatever done
Don’t fill him up
What he’ll become with
Love envelop.
11 December 2014