Monday, June 29, 2009

A song

A very old favourite, so good. Especially now

Smell

I don't smell like myself.
I can't really pin it down.
This smell that seems to be on my skin.
I like it though.
It's like being someone else and identity is such a wonderfully malleable thing.
Maybe this is what I'm supposed to smell like now?
A bit rotten,
slightly sweet,
a little like imperial leather,
a little like a stale beer,
a little like a stranger.

Thursday, June 25, 2009

Morning

Yesterday had sun and cold and fog.
The sun shone on my house and the part of the river near where I live.
The cold hit just as I past through the city.
The fog dropped as I got to St. Lucia.
As I rode over the Green Bridge I lost sight of the end of it.
I looked to the left and lost sight of the river as well.
I was riding through a cloud.
Trees along the river bank punctured the blanket.
My breath was hot from riding and
smoke came from my nose and mouth and for a moment, I was a dragon.
Just like I used to be.
So for a moment I was warm and the morning was cold.
It was a beautiful way to begin the day.
I'm glad I remember.

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

A song

I love this song. It is for me, it is for you

Sleep and morning

I am often surprised who is awake at four in the morning.
Me, the aliens that live with me in my house,
the jerk next door who complains about my music being too loud.
My coffee pot.
It's awake.
They might be real the aliens.
I can't tell.
I'm a lot less scared of them than I used to be.
Maybe it is because they're with me all the time now.
I could never tell if they're real or not.
I can't sleep without the light on and
I'm 31 at the end of July.
You would think that I could sleep in the dark by myself.
Actually I guess its because I never feel alone that I need the light on.
I'm thankful for my dressing gown. It keeps me warm.
It feels like coming home.
My friend Dan lent me a jacket that feels like home too.
So even when I go out I can still be at home.
I'm not even close to being an adult.
Perhaps there is a pill I can take?
Get to work on time pill.
Make sure you wash yourself pill.
Clean your teeth pill.
I want to say goodbye to the lights on at night time.
Goodbye to my grey friends.
I hope I grow up soon.
I'm sick of being a child.

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

I miss all of you

Love can be a burden.
A weight.
When you are faced with it and you are not prepared for it, it can feel like a hand around your neck choking your freedom and sense of self.
It makes you run.
Love can be awful.
It can also liberate you and make simple pleasures like the coming together of fingers and hands, electric.
I've known both.
It can decimate and erase you.
It can fill you with joy and warmth.
Because of this,
I think it is still worth it.

Sunday, June 21, 2009

Rain and my verandah

There is a wonderful rain falling tonight, so
I sat on my verandah just listening and thinking.
Me, my dressing gown, my drink.
I do love it when it rains.
I was in love with summer this year.
No more.
My mind has shifted to winter.
To something colder.
The character of Brisbane winter is moderate.
It is kind.
Never too cold, sometimes a bit dry and this year it is a bit wet.
It has a depth of character that summer never could match.
So tonight on the evening before my dead Grandfather's birthday,
I say goodbye to summer and the memory of it's unfulfilled potential and
welcome in
what remains of this season.

Whats mine is mine

I can't believe how stupid I was.
It was my fault.
I got distracted at a crucial moment.
I knew what I was supposed to do and I didn't do it.
If those things had been real I might be dead right now.
I'll be better.
next time.

Saturday, June 20, 2009

Thursday, June 18, 2009

Needs

I would give anything for a dougnut right now.
A hot cup of coffee.
A bacon and egg sandwich.
A cold beer.
The patience to read a book.
Some desire.
The confidence to eat raw meat.
Fresh bedding.
Clean sheets.

Burning

As much I want peace.
I find it lacking.
Inflammation.
Being enraged.
Lust.
Passion.
Hate.
Fear.
Love.
I can't stand to dilute them.
Give them to me pure.
Molten.
As much as they hurt.
I want them to course through me.
Hurt and fragility be dammed!

Access

The rudimentary ideas of peace and clarity have begun to emerge from what was, only hours ago, a miasma of rampant emotion.
A slow burn paroxysm.
Now, my world has depth again.
Those things that were empty last night, once again, seem to hold some hope.
The people in my my life have meaning again too.
I guess my perception of things, including myself, ebbs and flows.
If only there were a way to keep the flow of things even, consistent.
Quell, expunge.
Do the dodge on the things you feel.
Forget.
These are not the answers I'm looking for.
There is something else,
I just have to find it.

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

A song

This song has all the beauty and sadness that i could ever want from a piece of art. It is a song on the knife edge between hope and nothingness and captures a tenderness and subtlety beyond words and images.

Sean Bateman ends the year on a high

It is maggots and flies and unfinished digestion.
It is a broken bowel upon waking.
It is your blood in places where it should not be.
It is all the hope and meaning in the world converted into a stinking, fucking dollar sign.
It is the acceptance of doctrine, the laughter of the powerful and beautiful,
in the face of grief and loss.
It is every shallow relationship, every forced smile.
It is everyone who has said yes and then no.
It is all that is pretend and untrue.
It is a lie,
and I have have bought into it.
Invested time in it.
I have bent my mind and my heart around it, spent my whole adult life with it and I have found it to be empty.
And because I have put this empty thing at the center of my life, it would seem that I too have become empty.
I read in a book once that people end up with the face they deserve.
In my experience this idea can be extrapolated,
to be more general.
What is done is done.
No point in crying about it.
You chose poorly.
Deal with it,
rock'n'roll.

Saturday, June 13, 2009

Dancing

I spoke to a man about urinating on my own feet tonight.
It seemed appropriate.
Acid burns away rot I told him.
There is acid in my urine.
I watched a TV show tonight which was also appropriate.
The show was shit. I enjoyed it but it was shit.
I drank a drink tonight which was the colour of urine and ate a meal the consistency of faeces.
There is something essential about focusing on those things which have become refined by my life processes.
Shit and piss covering a functioning body.
The bringing together of these two things which are congruous yet in conflict highlights a primary beauty in things that live and things that rot.
When I shit,
when I eat,
I know I am going to die.
This knowledge of rotting things
makes the things that live and give warmth
to the world more bright.
The stuff of the world shines and has beauty because it will pass.
But.
Some things pass to quickly.
Some people pass through your life, too quickly.
Some things end too soon.

Thursday, June 11, 2009

S'me gibber garn!!!!!!!!

Grandad

My Grandfather died at the end of last year.
I was very close to him.
He was/is one of my role models and I have been thinking about him a lot lately.
Maybe it's because of other things but I miss him at the moment more than I ever have before. I know that if he were around I could go visit him and have a bit of dinner and a glass of wine. Well, we would probably drink more than that :)
It would ground me, as it always did.
He could tell me for the millionth time how over population was at the core of the worlds' problems and how religion was its' greatest evil.
I think my Grandfather was quite influential in developing my healthy distaste for doctrine.
It is probably why I feel that all ideas and philosophies should be questioned.
Especially my own.
I could discuss anything with him.
More than I can with most people. Even more than I can with those who are most close to me. This I think is because I respected him above all others. He was not perfect, but he did have my love and respect.
My Grandfather had strength.
Resolve.
These qualities also made him very stubborn and thus infuriating on occasion.
I am a lot like him; at the moment I wish I was more like him.
I would like to have his strength and clarity, but my emotions are much wilder than his were.
For this I thank my Mum :) Truly I do, because without them I would not be able to read people or love people the way I do.
My Mum gave me my gut.
It was very hard watching him physically degenerate.
For most of his life he was very fit and used to frequent the doctor probably more often than he needed to. I think the attention he paid to his health made him find the degeneration of his body even more insulting.
It saddens me that if I ever have children (the production of which he would disapprove of no doubt :) they will never meet him.
I need to talk to him.
I wish he was here.
But he is not.

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Form and repetition

Tonight I lost myself in form and repetition.
I was shown where to put my feet, hands and how to stand.
I was shown how to strike and how to defend.
I punched a bag until my left hand bruised.
In this activity I lost myself.
The world was no bigger than
the deck I stood on and all I knew was that I was moving.
The peace that this has brought me is similar to
that which I take from making art.
It is different though.
It is unique and something I have never felt and now,
I want more.

Saturday, June 6, 2009

Where the body goes the mind will follow

Ride to Southbank, have a coffee.
Ride to The University of Queensland up Annerly Road.
Ride to the city along Coronation Drive.
Get a massage for half an hour.
Buy some weights for ten dollars.
The sun is shining and the sky is very blue.
It's beautiful and warm.
Ride to QUT at Gardens Point.
Use the pool.
Laps for 45 minutes.
Ride to Southbank.
Talk to old friends.
Run into more friends.
Ride to Paddington.
Run into more old friends.
Organise Kung-Fu on Wednesday after work.
Ride back to Southbank.
Eat lunch.
It is a perfect duck breast and a glass of french Pinot Noir.
Talk to another old friend.
Ride home to New Farm.
Do weights.
Talk to your cousin on the phone.
Have a shower.
Towel off.
Start to watch Boston Legal.
Get dressed.
Wait for family to arrive.
You have begun to find your center again.
Your feet feel the earth.
Your sense of balance stabilises.
You start to walk.
A character in a bad movie (that I love!) once said
that walking the path is different
to knowing the path.
I agree, simply walking is enough.

Proto-Cyberman



Thursday, June 4, 2009

Top five films in no particular order


Blade Runner
Aliens
Wall Street
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
Heat


I grew up with these films and have watched them compulsively all my life.
My taste is not particularly refined but it's honest!