I said "I hate Voss, I didn't make it to the end." He said "It twangled on my bone heart" as he pulled a page from Voss out of his wallet. He unfolded the page carefully, read me two lines then showed me a photo of his wife in fancy dress. His wife raised a glass and I noticed their matching wedding rings, modest, flat and gold.
I had no intentions of meeting anybody new or saying anything with meaning. Spencer and I were casually aimless in Newtown giving ourselves caffeine shakes and writing a list of pirate songs for my pirate mixtape. We stopped by a party The Spatula was at, the house was magnificent, the cat average but the people just not our own. We were walking down a laneway when we ran into them, Spencer knows them from round the traps, they asked us in and sat us down. They lit candles on their wooden kitchen table, served food on mismatched plates and somehow conjured Hank Williams sounds from a room nearby. I wasn't planning on meeting anybody new, I was wearing orange shoes.
Spencer crossed his legs and I noticed we were wearing the same socks. Her hair was like an old movie and he buttoned up his cardigan. He told me about cowboys leaning on a fence reciting Wilga Bob to each other but I wonder if he meant Mulga Bill. He said there was nothing but dust and stars and the obviousness of oxygen. They asked him for a poem so he began "The story of man makes me sick, inside, outside, I don't know" while the cowboys lifted elbows in quiet synchronised movements tipping VB cans inside VB holders until he finished. The cowboys said "I don't like that" turned their backs and walked away. He said there was nothing but dust, stars and the obviousness of oxygen. I thought it was something about belonging and the deliberateness of footsteps. I lay awake thinking about their wooden kitchen table, flat gold and Hank Williams.
The next day Spencer was wearing the same socks. Superman and I ran into Spencer and Madam after the movie, after we snuck pies into a movie. Superman managed his with sauce and didn't spill a drop. We crossed the road and walked into a church to look at the ceiling but it wasn't worth the effort. We retreated to the pub where I explained that if I was a man I would wee everywhere, with great accuracy and I tried, very hard, to think of the two kinds of camel.
Superman's going away for a while and now I'm wondering why I'm friends with him in the first place. Superman is a woven thing, he is threaded and cross-threaded. There are tangles, dropped stitches and a great miraculous unfolding. Held to the light his patterns are intricate and stretch clear to the horizon impossibly large yet definite in shape. I think that's why. I remember thinking when I met him that I had no intention of meeting anybody new or saying anything with meaning. I was wearing red shoes.
Spanish vs Mexican tunnels
I have socks. This has been a public service announcement. My new aim is to be the tallest man in the world, I start training on Monday. I am quite certain that I can achieve my new goal.
I was sitting on my bed smoking cigarettes, idly clicking through photographs of Mr X when it occurred to me that I must, with great haste, become someone else.
I was sitting on my bed smoking cigarettes, idly clicking through photographs of Mr X when it occurred to me that I must, with great haste, become someone else.
Do what thou wilt
I got fired by Bukowski today so I started a hellfire club but confused it with a glee and ended up short singing in a doorway. Distended harmony ended. He told me to step away from the words and the pens then he folded up my typewriter and put it in his wallet. I told him I have several plastic combs but he walked away and I was immensely relieved.
All I'm doing is giving meaning to time. Constructing a trailing alphabet self so that I'm sure, so that I'm sure. Its only maps of myself, I could give them to you but I need them for my swords and orange juice.
All I'm doing is giving meaning to time. Constructing a trailing alphabet self so that I'm sure, so that I'm sure. Its only maps of myself, I could give them to you but I need them for my swords and orange juice.
Like a hammer
When apathy knocks its best to answer. Sitting here two square and haunted. I hate you right now and its not cause you caught me in a real bad mood honey, that's not it at all. All personnel are required to leave the premises.
I like that concrete smack of head on floor, four legs are great, two legs are better. I'll take my tea Orwellian with ashes. I was going to carve things on your forehead with my knife but everybody's been sick. Two mulberries are blushed with pink and I have the first piece of advice for an imaginary child. Run.
I like that concrete smack of head on floor, four legs are great, two legs are better. I'll take my tea Orwellian with ashes. I was going to carve things on your forehead with my knife but everybody's been sick. Two mulberries are blushed with pink and I have the first piece of advice for an imaginary child. Run.
Come on then
I anxiously await my rejection letter to confirm that I have not been double rejected. I now know of two people that have received their rejections and I want mine. Surely my piece of writing was not so bad that I have been rejected from receiving a rejection letter, that would indeed be disheartening.
Oh W, X, Y, Z, its just entered my head
Eight days now the world has been gently rocking beneath my feet. That first moment when you stand, two feet on land, and wonder if the ocean has followed you ashore. This afternoon it lifted, for a few hours, and I navigated happily around hearth and home with incautious steps. It descended this evening with regulation fatigue but I am hopeful now that it shall soon be gone.
It was a novelty run of invisible waters and I made myself Captain but minute by minute it became disconcerting until I wondered if I'd fallen out of rhythm. It would have been eminently sensible to consult a doctor at an earlier time but I was so sure each that the sensation would vanish. Superman, in his stern sensible way, convinced me to see a doctor. It was difficult to arrange, no doctors anywhere were available and I was stuck fast in my new rhythm of measuring steps between sturdy walls, the easy existence of rising in time for work then returning to bed before 8pm. It seems ridiculous now, the exhaustion tinged with blind optimism.
One small box of tablets, two days later and I'm beginning to feel myself again. I quite like the modern miracle of medicines.
It was a novelty run of invisible waters and I made myself Captain but minute by minute it became disconcerting until I wondered if I'd fallen out of rhythm. It would have been eminently sensible to consult a doctor at an earlier time but I was so sure each that the sensation would vanish. Superman, in his stern sensible way, convinced me to see a doctor. It was difficult to arrange, no doctors anywhere were available and I was stuck fast in my new rhythm of measuring steps between sturdy walls, the easy existence of rising in time for work then returning to bed before 8pm. It seems ridiculous now, the exhaustion tinged with blind optimism.
One small box of tablets, two days later and I'm beginning to feel myself again. I quite like the modern miracle of medicines.
Painkillers
Long stretch of blue denim, brown cardigan knitted by my mother and a clean t-shirt that says "Adelaide". I've been measuring my legs again and they are the same length they were last week and the week before last. I've tied a small rectangular tag to my left big toe. I will clean my room as though I was dying.
I am the one steady thing today, the world rocks like a boat or perhaps its seismic, continental drift. I'm feeling tectonic again and a little like building a small house for chickens. I want straw and feathers, clucking, eggs and a reason for gumboots. I lay flat on my bed with my toe tag and my imaginary chickens. My mother phoned and asked if I was dead yet. I told her no but that she should keep hens, five hens.
I once knew a chicken called Mrs Hitler, she was mean and would peck at my small fingers. I cannot recall the names of the other chickens, Arthur was the rooster. We ate Henry the younger rooster. I watched as he was held down flat on a tree stump near the back of the garden near the tangelo tree, his head lopped off easily enough then he ran around the garden a little. I don't remember being frightened.
I once named a doll Mrs Gorbachev, inspired by Mrs Hitler the chicken. This memory is closely associated with ballpoint pens. My Grandmother was able, the year I acquired Mrs Gorbachev, to return to Estonia for the first time since arriving in Australia. She told me they did not have ballpoint pens, elastic knickers or stockings in Estonia. She would say "Ete foot, goot sildrens", eat food good children. I told her I didn't have a ballpoint pen or stockings either, my mother gave me a look then barked suddenly "Mama! No vodka for the children".
I am dizzy or rather I am still but the world rocks around me. I am traveling through time and wishing for eggs in the palms of my hands. I have seven ballpoint pens, twelve pairs of knickers with elastic, three pairs of stockings and one electric blanket. This inventory is incomplete.
I am the one steady thing today, the world rocks like a boat or perhaps its seismic, continental drift. I'm feeling tectonic again and a little like building a small house for chickens. I want straw and feathers, clucking, eggs and a reason for gumboots. I lay flat on my bed with my toe tag and my imaginary chickens. My mother phoned and asked if I was dead yet. I told her no but that she should keep hens, five hens.
I once knew a chicken called Mrs Hitler, she was mean and would peck at my small fingers. I cannot recall the names of the other chickens, Arthur was the rooster. We ate Henry the younger rooster. I watched as he was held down flat on a tree stump near the back of the garden near the tangelo tree, his head lopped off easily enough then he ran around the garden a little. I don't remember being frightened.
I once named a doll Mrs Gorbachev, inspired by Mrs Hitler the chicken. This memory is closely associated with ballpoint pens. My Grandmother was able, the year I acquired Mrs Gorbachev, to return to Estonia for the first time since arriving in Australia. She told me they did not have ballpoint pens, elastic knickers or stockings in Estonia. She would say "Ete foot, goot sildrens", eat food good children. I told her I didn't have a ballpoint pen or stockings either, my mother gave me a look then barked suddenly "Mama! No vodka for the children".
I am dizzy or rather I am still but the world rocks around me. I am traveling through time and wishing for eggs in the palms of my hands. I have seven ballpoint pens, twelve pairs of knickers with elastic, three pairs of stockings and one electric blanket. This inventory is incomplete.
Somnambulist
I found the Beaumont children somewhere between blinks staring at my computer screen. My eyes have been screaming and I'm reeling almost enough to clutch at hand rails. I've got a hunch that somebody's punched my emergency exit and I'm escaping into the blue one slow molecule at a time.
Marcus Westbury is not Bob Dylan
But I admire him none the less. He's gone and got another idea into his head and we all know what happens when Marcus Westbury has an idea.
Stranger dreams
Last night I had stranger dreams. I pulled myself off the floor and into sleep by 8:30pm. I had all the blankets and the electric blanket turned up high yet I shivered and slept and shivered. I woke between nations as I travelled in my sleep. I was fixing the world one city at a time by heating things with my electric blanket.
My bed swept across sands and through cities, some shining like a national guitar and some crumbling under my fingers like paper pasted glue. The heat was necessary. I was fixing the world one city at time with my electric blanket until I woke at 8:30am with The Spatula at my bedroom door giving me a wake up call.
There was something elemental in the need for heat. Burning out fevers and riding storms. I'm thinking I'm going to need a white nightgown with a high lace collar.
My bed swept across sands and through cities, some shining like a national guitar and some crumbling under my fingers like paper pasted glue. The heat was necessary. I was fixing the world one city at time with my electric blanket until I woke at 8:30am with The Spatula at my bedroom door giving me a wake up call.
There was something elemental in the need for heat. Burning out fevers and riding storms. I'm thinking I'm going to need a white nightgown with a high lace collar.
I'm ready for my close-up or today was the day I was recorded for an album or holy calamity the new Holy Soul record is going to be amazing
It wasn't your normal mission though I was wearing my ordinary clothes. Superman was late, I filled my time by staring out the window intently, with the cat. I can see why cats do this, it is a calm place to be, still while the world rolls by.
In the end we were the first to arrive, they were still recording the horns so we snuck back out and looked for coffee. I had parked my terrible car opposite a cafe where I had spied a man. I declared "I want to be that man". He was old with a beret and an all white coffee cup. He blew blue smoke rings and sat like he meant it. We walked back to the cafe and Superman let me sit in the seat where the man had sat so I could pretend to be him, he's alright that Superman.
One or two people came and joined us as we waited for the horns to finish. I started to worry that I wouldn't be able to do it correctly and floated the possibility of miming. I practiced miming clapping under the table, I don't think anybody saw me.
We did the hand claps first, Jon Hunter conducting like a possessed Tex Perkins wearing enormous headphones and performing large, precise claps for us to follow. We had a few practice runs but it still took a few takes to get it right. Superman later declared that he clapped until his hands were red and then he clapped some more. There were about fifteen of us, including the band, circled around the microphone concentrating intently on matching our claps precisely to Jon's.
We compared red hands in the courtyard while something technical occurred then regrouped for the first vocal part. The singing was quite lovely, if I do say so myself. The next vocal part was more challenging. Spencer conducted with a chopstick, encouraging dynamic changes with large enthusiastic actions. We were quite terrible and took approximately seven thousand goes to get it right. I was worried that I did not sound enough like a pirate. Someone declared that we were not drunk enough, beer appeared in a neat pile beneath the microphone and drinking mightily encourage so drink I did. Superman later declared, with an enormous grin, that if anyone ever had any doubt about our pirateness that we now had conclusive recorded evidence to set them straight.
We listened back to what we had done and were amazed. The parts we recorded were the finishing parts to songs. We stood in a line in the hall while the music played. Its understood that I could be biased but I think this album is going to be spectacular. Madam Squeeze turned slightly pink as she picked out not only her accordion part but her voice in a song.
I'm trying to think calmly about the day but I'm grinning from ear to ear. I thought it might have something to do with being lucky enough to be a small part of something spectacular or that I'll have my name on the back of an album but I'm pretty sure its something else. It was a small room in Chippendale, there were bottles of beer on the floor and drums shoved into every corner but I was one voice among many. I found myself lost in simple rhythmic synchronized sound, I'm fairly certain there's no better place to be.
In the end we were the first to arrive, they were still recording the horns so we snuck back out and looked for coffee. I had parked my terrible car opposite a cafe where I had spied a man. I declared "I want to be that man". He was old with a beret and an all white coffee cup. He blew blue smoke rings and sat like he meant it. We walked back to the cafe and Superman let me sit in the seat where the man had sat so I could pretend to be him, he's alright that Superman.
One or two people came and joined us as we waited for the horns to finish. I started to worry that I wouldn't be able to do it correctly and floated the possibility of miming. I practiced miming clapping under the table, I don't think anybody saw me.
We did the hand claps first, Jon Hunter conducting like a possessed Tex Perkins wearing enormous headphones and performing large, precise claps for us to follow. We had a few practice runs but it still took a few takes to get it right. Superman later declared that he clapped until his hands were red and then he clapped some more. There were about fifteen of us, including the band, circled around the microphone concentrating intently on matching our claps precisely to Jon's.
We compared red hands in the courtyard while something technical occurred then regrouped for the first vocal part. The singing was quite lovely, if I do say so myself. The next vocal part was more challenging. Spencer conducted with a chopstick, encouraging dynamic changes with large enthusiastic actions. We were quite terrible and took approximately seven thousand goes to get it right. I was worried that I did not sound enough like a pirate. Someone declared that we were not drunk enough, beer appeared in a neat pile beneath the microphone and drinking mightily encourage so drink I did. Superman later declared, with an enormous grin, that if anyone ever had any doubt about our pirateness that we now had conclusive recorded evidence to set them straight.
We listened back to what we had done and were amazed. The parts we recorded were the finishing parts to songs. We stood in a line in the hall while the music played. Its understood that I could be biased but I think this album is going to be spectacular. Madam Squeeze turned slightly pink as she picked out not only her accordion part but her voice in a song.
I'm trying to think calmly about the day but I'm grinning from ear to ear. I thought it might have something to do with being lucky enough to be a small part of something spectacular or that I'll have my name on the back of an album but I'm pretty sure its something else. It was a small room in Chippendale, there were bottles of beer on the floor and drums shoved into every corner but I was one voice among many. I found myself lost in simple rhythmic synchronized sound, I'm fairly certain there's no better place to be.
Double the fist
Double The Fist is about as good as my imaginary show "Shit What Will Burn but it has the distinct advantage of actually being on television. I'll continue to watch it for as long as it may live, a team of psychologists is working round the clock to work out why. I suspect it may have something to do with The Riff (now with correct link). Recently the one good shop from The Riff moved to Newtown, not even shops are immune to that eastern tidal pull.
Last summer every time Grizelda and I walked up the street Grizelda would yell at a car. It was a small shitbox matt black with house paint, ill formed flames decorating the back end. She'd yell "Its so ugly!" but I kind of liked it. Its the sort of thing I might like, something ugly on purpose but it turns out the car is the Double The Fist car so now I am famous.
Last summer every time Grizelda and I walked up the street Grizelda would yell at a car. It was a small shitbox matt black with house paint, ill formed flames decorating the back end. She'd yell "Its so ugly!" but I kind of liked it. Its the sort of thing I might like, something ugly on purpose but it turns out the car is the Double The Fist car so now I am famous.
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