wind, think-bits, and traffic.
they all mesh up
and dawdle through
the goon-soaked mind.
okay.
this is a fine kind of
semi-quiet.

a motorbike, revving to explode
cuts through the noise and
commands me:
"listen to me groan.
boy
am I ever
alive."

on the bike, I can't help but suppose,
there's a person.
and I  further suppose a rush,
sweet, vicious rush
of adrenaline.
a lurching in the *****.
a landscape of streetlights and gust,
******* screaming
straight through.
out there.

maybe there's two of them?
and the wheels just spinning and spinning and spinning.
and back here my head's just spinning and spinning
and spinning,
while people are out there
tunneling through to
the edge
of death.

****.

now I gotta get up and write all this down
just so I don't feel like a mollusk.

Get, get!
Get yourself some medicine.

Go, go!
Get that tap-a-tap running

Run, run!
Getcha fav-a-rite teddy bear
Yer tick-a-tack toy boat
Yer Grand Ma-Ma's portrait
Yer scenty-smelly bath bomb
Yer dinky-danky diary
Gonna have a bath with them!

Shut, shut!
Close that bath-a-room door and

Chuck, chuck!
The portrait into the tub-a-tub

Jump, jump!
the tub and
let loose the bomb and
take the drugs and
rip the mind and
throw the diary inside
and
take the razor blades
you hide
in the boat your mother
gave you as
a child
and

Rub, rub!
Metal into flesh and sweet wetness.
Let the bath turn thick and red and
Let the colours in your head
Converge and spit into the void
Because
You're already dead.

Yeah!

The brain is a field of minds,
but only one knows how to talk.
(Until you smoke DMT)
Then
You realise that the ability to point at things
with your tiny mouth-sounds
is overrated.

The field of minds knows more
than me. Sees more and feels
more than me.
I know eleven colours,
maybe twelve if I try.
I can hear thirteen notes
(including B double-flat)
And I feel all sorts of tingling
in my skin and blood and belly.

What do they see?
What do they feel?
What do they know?
These extra minds...

I bet they're just screaming at me.
Every trip and tumble and
**** up
that I make,
I bet they know
A way out
of
that mess.
But they don't talk.
They just watch.
"How'd we end up tied to this
*******?"
Omniscient minds. Wasted.
Frustrated. Enlightened.
"Doesn't this ****** know
how easy it is to live?"

When your mind doesn't talk.

I think I know
why poets get so
******* sad
all the time.

they live their
whole lives
in words.

and
suffering
is a word.

All hail Eris.
Sometimes she rolls the dice
and good things happen.
Sometimes she rolls the dice
and bad things happen.

The way I see it
you've got two options:
a) cross your fingers
b) don't cross your fingers

There's no use shouting at dice.
That precious breath would be
better spent
hailing Eris,
or laughing at the whole facade.

Everyone you'll ever meet is just
another roll of the dice.
the sinners, the saints,
the foot fetishists, the celibates
the Muslims and Jainists
are created and destroyed
as they are
by a fickle flick
of Eris' wrist.

The friend who lied
to your face,
the ex who cheated
on you and never
had the guts
to tell it to your face,
the man locked in prison for
child ****:

What separates you from the monsters?

A roll of the dice.

I need a new pick up line.

"Hi, I've got no confidence in myself
but maybe if the two of us
came together
then I wouldn't need any."

"You must be a Flinstone,
because I can lick your *******
with a breath strip on my tongue."

that's *******.
my breath isn't minty
fresh. at all.

I wanted to be a poet,
but I couldn't tell what bad poetry
looked like.
so maybe it's mine.
so maybe I should
stop looking.

it's like:
"I can't do it,
so I won't try."

it's like:
"life's too short,
so let's end it.
baby."

there's your pickup line.

I have mixed feelings about pistachios.
I love the taste, but I hate the mess
of it.

the peeling, the flakes under your fingernails,
the pile of shells,
all make you look like a gropey glutton.

but it tastes
so
de-
*******
-licious.

so whenever I eat them, I get a sensation
of half pleasure
and half disgust
in every bite.

it's the most balanced thing i've found in life
so far.

optimists and pessimists
need each other
to diffuse
their respective
perspectives.

pessimists
get too helpless.
they feel
everything is on them.
it starts to feel
like they think they're Atlas,
or Sisyphus.
pushing their boulder up
the mountain, forever
and ever
alone.

some inferiority complexes
border on narcissism.

optimists get too helpful.
they burn so hot
they forget that sometimes
they can be as useless
as the pessimists feel.

most people that want
to be positive, surround
themselves with positive
people. and negativity
vice versa.

this creates delusion.

it makes happy people
seeing all that's happy
and unhappy people
seeing all that's unhappy.
no one group feels
for the other
and neither ends up feeling
anything
completely.
you put yourself in
a position where all your
input contains a consistent
confirmation of your stale,
untested outlook.

if nothing is tested, nothing
is validated.

that's just science.

surround yourself with
people that diffuse you.

you need that
tension.
if nothing else,
you won't get
bored.

I sure hope I never see you again.
Every time I do
it opens that
old can of worms.

I saw you once at a party,
when I was throwing up
on the bathroom walls
and you laughed at me
and I dreamt of you
for days.

One dream
you told me if I brought you
a human skull
you'd add me on Facebook.
All I could find were these
teeth
you knocked out of me.

In another you played
guitar on a staircase.
through a ring
modulator
and asked if I wanted to
play too.
Then you ripped the wires
out of the ring modulator
and jammed them between
my teeth.

I've never seen a can of worms,
but the way that you make me feel
whenever I remember you
is exactly the kind of
condensed slime
that makes up
the can of worms
that you are.

my head is a skin tied
water-****.
wobble minded and
stench ridden.
it bleeds diarrhea.

an ache not of throbbing
but like, pressurized
wet tissue membraned
balloon stuff.

could pop
any time.
will pop.
just a matter of
time.

seven thousand days now
I've been lugging this
bubbling froth-tank.
this neck ornament.
this ***** machine CPU.
and all it does is
complain about
itself.

i'm a pidgeon.
there is some
bread.
I am going
to throw it over
my head.

then I will
toss it down
my throat.
gulp.
I do not need
to chew.

it is good
bread.
there is some
more bread
over there.
I will eat
it.

oh no!
a little boy is
chasing me.

it's okay.
there is more bread
over here.

petty disputes and
untied shoelaces
and
spilt yogurt
can break baby skulls
in your brain,
if you've got no reason
to lean over
and tie it all back up.

man can walk on coals
if  he feels somewhere deep
that he really has to walk on
those coals.
woman can lift a car
to save a child
and she knows why.
I can't brush my teeth sometimes.

there's something I have to do
before I die.
that should be enough to keep
my head above the muck
at least for a little while.
something is coming my way
if I hold on a little longer
I know it in my bones.

still...

I envy above all else
he who has a why to live.

people always ask you
"what do you want to do with your life?"
"what are your goals
and aspirations?"
"what are your plans for the future?"

if all you do is plan for the future
you become a kind of miser of time,
who saves every dollar he gets
and never spends it
as if the dollar were
the real thing.

we're obsessed with this forward thinking ****
to the point we're always waiting.
waiting for our dream to come true.
waiting for our big break.
so when the day finally comes
we miss it.

we were so busy looking out
at the horizon,
we didn't even see
that there's pizza, beer
and that guy you like talking to
who's real funny
right in front of us.
also futurama's on.

imagine you and I,
our tangled flesh.
first arms, than hands,
legs within legs
upon feet.

a collage of
textural comfort.
security and beauty.

now imagine again.
minus your body.
my fingers through
his orange hair,
mouth agape.

let me tell you:
you're missing
out.
when I press my body
into his
I can feel it crushing you.

there's something fundamental about existing
that shudders me.
and even in the moments
that I'm happy
I know I haven't escaped it.
it hovers persistently
in the background
and I can't ignore it forever.

misery is eternally pervasive.
what is there to be done of that
aside from suicide?

"don't be sad ryan, there are people dying in africa."
"you're right. that does make me feel better."

there are people suffering more than me.
what a load off my mind.
I can rest easy knowing that the suffering
that suffocates my every conscious thought
is just a mere droplet in the ocean of
unhappiness.

what a load off my mind.

I had to devote conscious attention
to censoring myself, so as not
to offend you.
now I wonder how I ever could love someone
whose very presence  restrains me
like that.

and my beliefs are not sacred
as yours are sacred and fragile.
it is my responsibility to make room
for your spiritual fragility
for fear that my unfiltered expressions
might shatter you.

and you might realise that I can be
everything in the universe
that has ever, or would ever
make you catch bile in the back of your throat
with intense repulsion.

just play it.
(whatever it is you're doing right now),
take it down further and further.
go as deep as you can with it.

it doesn't matter what it is
or where you are
down will stay down
and you will go deep.

zoom right in
lose all else
don't even think about it
just feel it out.

let it happen.
don't be scared.
let go.
get involved.
love everything deeply,
without reservation.
get attached.

then when it all gets
too much,
pull out for moment.
take a breather.
remind yourself
that it's all just a game.

then you'll find
it isn't so hard anymore,
to live dangerously,
to live madness
and love madly.

i've been in your home
since 1920.
longer than your three daughters,
longer than the wine stain
on the living room carpet,
longer than the photo of
your mother's second
marriage.

i've been living inside your walls
longer than you've been
moving those lungs.
and i've been moving
plaster through these lungs.

when I fill the walls
the walls likewise fill me up.
I haven't screamed since
1932.

I feel for the children
indoctrinated into religion.
I feel for the kids that can't,
won't question faith.

I feel fortunate I wasn't brainwashed
like that.
I feel my thoughts are my own,
I feel the theists have had that
stolen from them.
but I am intact.

only
when I realise I can't love
a catholic girl with
my everything
and my chest seizes up
when I hear them say grace,
I see I'm not better off
than they are.

in the same way that they have
been tricked to believe in a
celestial monarchy,
and see satan in me
so have I been tricked to see
satan in them.

I hate the church.
I thought I could still love the people.
but you can't hate anything
and still love the people.

I
and we all
have been rendered incapable
of fully accepting the implicit, fundamental unity
that does not name.

our parents didn't do it,
their grandparents didn't do it.
it started forever ago and it's
never going away.
we could of all loved each other
but we ****** up the axiom.
it's the greatest sin of all,
and it's nobody's fault.

you just don't get real paid.
you do it for free.
you're part of the problem.
if you don't do it for free
someone else will do it
for free.
you ask why that is.

well:
that's not a real job, you do it
because you love it.

"then a real job must be
something you do
that you hate doing."

we don't want you making a living
doing what you love doing.
the rest of us endure misery for money
every ******* day of our lives
and you want to spend your life playing
and you expect us to support you?
you've got a lot of nerve.
who do you think you are?

"i'm not a *******."

you're a drain.
grab a shovel and
dig.
find a computer
and type out something
worthwhile.

give us another rat.
we're running out of rats,
they keep dying...
we haven't worked out why
yet.

I was thinking about
getting a job in
sales,
but then I remembered
that would make me satan.

I was going to write
a longer poem than
this one,
but that burrito
I ate
has made me sleepy.

there's a girl behind me
wailing, falling to pieces,
and i'm too terrified
to even turn around.
I feel like an *******.

I turned off my music
to hear what she was saying.
she only screamed.

I looked around the bus and saw
that everyone was doing
as I was doing:
listening, but trying to look
as though we weren't listening.

we were all embarrassed
that someone was breaking down
and it was too real
for any of us to accept.

what's wrong?
what can I do to help you?
come for a walk with me.
let me hold you.

these are some of the things that
I was screaming inside my head,
but I
couldn't
even
turn
a-*******-round.

today I read a series
of rules
for writing poetry.
one that caught my eye was:

"If it hasn't been edited, it isn't a poem. It is a draft."

it was stated with such conviction, I was convinced.
I said to myself:

"I've never written a poem... these are all
drafts."

but this guy also said:
never rhyme,
use the word soul
and you should be shot,
if it doesn't sound beautiful
it isn't a poem.

also he was writing rules
on how to write poetry.
who does that?
I resolved that he must be
a pretentious ******.

this is the raw stuff
that we all have to work with.
but no one ever publishes
their first draft.
so we're stuck
living in our own raw
footage,
and comparing it to
everyone else's highlight reel.

if you don't want to call this
poetry, that's fine.
you can **** on
my initial *****.

I wanted to write a letter
for this ******* the bus,
but all i had to write on
was a banana.
so I wrote:

"when i saw you,
just now,
you are the most
spectacularly beautiful thing
i've ever seen
just now,
when I saw you."

she ran away.
she didn't touch
my banana.

I have an idea for a film:

A kid, maybe about my age,
is perpetually uncomfortable
with his own existence.
he resolves to
**** himself.

he tries what he assumes
will be the quickest,
most dramatic
and least painful
way.
he takes a toaster
and runs a bath.

the power cord doesn't reach.
he looks for an extension cord.
he cannot find one.

he tries to drown himself
instead.
but his lungs just
won't give.

he tries rat poison.
he only gets so far
before he's throwing up
his guts.
no good either.


maybe he gets so
drastic as to buy
a gun.
but the gun is
a dud:
the firing pin is
busted.


he goes through
several more of these exercises
to no avail.
finally,
despairingly,
he gives up.
upon doing this
the boy becomes
enlightened.
either that or he dies
of cancer.
I haven't made up my mind
on how it should
end yet.

I also wondered
why we call them sunsets,
when the sun is clearly
not the one who is setting.

put yourself in the sun's shoes.
the sun can't set of it's own accord.
the sun doesn't realise it's
making those pinks, purples and oranges
on the horizon.
the sun doesn't know what
a horizon is.

we human beings create all of this.

the human mind makes
the horizon
and then it makes the sun
set on it.
those pinks, purples and oranges
are forged inside your eyes.

next time you see a sunset,
tell yourself:
'it is me who is setting the sun.
the sun is setting
and I am the one who is
doing it.'

feels good, doesn't it?

when taking out a girl
it is important to pick her up from her house,
though it is acceptable to meet
at the agreed location.

at a cafe, you buy her coffee.
at a restaurant, you buy her dinner.
at a bar, you buy her drinks.
buy a lot of them too.
this is only fair as
she gets paid less than you do
more often than not.

you take her hand and
you kiss her.
you hold the door open for her.
she laughs at your jokes.
she dresses up, dolls up and
you tell her she's beautiful.
she can make the move,
but it's better if you do.
but she can, this isn't the dark ages.

this isn't the dark ages.
we can all choose to vote for
kang or kodos.
I do admit, i'd only first heard the word
misandrist a few months ago.
(even spell check doesn't think it's a word).

which reminds me:
you hit her
you **** her
you abuse her
you defile her.
you are the one
who writes this kind of bile.
but it's okay.
we don't blame the bramble
for strangling the forest.
we do blame you for being
the way you are,
but it's okay.
you and I know
your repulsive behaviour is just a
reflection of us.
and we can't rectify a reflection.

surely I can't be the only one
whose poetry is all nonsense.

that's right, i'm not.

kids, next time you're in class and
your english teacher asks you:
"what is the poet trying to tell us?"
you can tell them:
"he's not trying to tell us anything,
it's all nonsense,
we probably shouldn't
even be listening."
the teacher will probably
throw you out.
you should be so lucky.

a poet is someone who tries
to describe the indescribable.
the whole job of the poet is to practice
futility, explore chaos, where's the
sense
in that?

oops.
I may have let the cat out of the bag
there.
that cat and his bag...
get back in that bag

cat.

there is no GOD, and I am his prophet.
don't shove your religion down my
throat.
there is no GOD.
to believe in GOD is wishful thinking.
i don't need a boss man
breathing down my neck,
but you must.
you better harden up.

i believe
that you shouldn't believe
in anything, and I believe you
ought to harden up.

face facts.
get real.
it's a raw, dog eat dog world out there
and it's us against them.
you have to be able to
face the cold truth of it all.
life's just what happens
between the maternity ward
and the crematorium.

hear me brother,
this is my sermon:
there is no GOD
and I am his prophet.

omar loved his guitar.
he took it to pubs, clubs and parks.
he took it on trains, buses, to bathrooms.
he went to bed with it.

omar loved his guitar so much
that he cut a hole in it
so they could make love.
it hurt like hell, but
it was worth it.

three months later, omar
and his guitar, who was called
Vera,
had made love two-hundred and
thirty six times, and a
viscous mess lingered
inside her.

one day the mess
became sentient and it
slid itself out of
Vera's whole and onto
the carpet.
omar came home that day to find it
soaking up the linguine in his pantry.

within days it had doubled in size.
within weeks it had grown soft, wet arms
and legs
and fingernails.
after three weeks its form was fully recognisable:
a guitar, with arms, legs and a head, and
a thin sheet of human skin, stretched over
it.

on it's forehead were the six tuning pegs.
and strings were stretched from its forehead
to its crotch.

one time one of the strings snapped and omar
had to replace it with
one of Vera's.
it had a mouth.
when it was old enough
omar made love to it too.

i'm writing this down
now.
i've never written
before now.
I remember writing
but
even that memory
is what's happening
right now.

I see you
and I
saw you
now.
I love you
and I
loved you
right now.

can you hear the
rain?
can you know
it
without needing to
tell yourself?

we are all
always experiencing
the same everlasting
moment.

"have you ever ****** on the roof of
a moving train?"

"no."

"would you like to?"

I loved a girl once, she had long dark hair.
She could draw, I watched her draw wrinkled faces.
She kept her mattress on the ground, her tongue in the air,
And with the mattress, and the tongue, we went to new places.
It was weird, which I liked, romance was boring.
She'd chew on my jaw and I'd spit in her eye.
No request for sensation was worth ignoring,
We were all *** for tat, we were high for high.
Then she left, as she would, and I felt fine.
I mean, I felt like ****, but I kept this in mind:
I still have those days, and those days are mine,
And I have other dark haired girls to find.
       Now that she's gone, my drink's all that's near,
       But that's okay too, I can spit in my beer.

i used to look out
the car window
and sonic the hedgehog
would jump from car to car
and swing from streetlights
to keep up with us
on long car trips.

later, i played i spy,
i'd pick a cow
or something.
cows are not as interesting
as sonic the hedgehog.

these days i'll read a book
or listen to a lecture
or sleep the whole thing
through.
it's still not as interesting as
sonic the hedgehog,
but i'm 19 years
old.

it's like watching a elegant array
of dancing barbie dolls.
there's some beauty in it,
but it's plastic beauty.
there's no rawness, no guts,
no emotion.
cheer is not an emotion.

cheer is not happiness,
or elation,
or bliss.
cheer is the exhibitionist,
mechanical representation
of real joy.

one girl was really good
at cheering,
but her partner kept
messing up.
I could see she was angry
that her partner was ruining
everything.
but she was grinning bigger
than the rest of them, because
that was part of
the routine.
part of the
cheer.

he messed up because his body
was wrought with tension.
he couldn't relax and live it
because he was too ****
stressed.
too **** worried he might
ruin the cheer for
everyone.

how to fix your tortured organs:
writhe in bed first,
for 2-3 hours, then
eat and drink until you
throw up everything.

that's the best part.
the body ceases shaking violently
and you can sleep without
writhing.
when you wake, you can eat again.
finn and jake will take care of the rest.

there's a rather attractive mother
breastfeeding beside me.
I only looked once
or twice.

it's a fascinating thing.
he's 3 months, she said,
and when he latched on she
threw a blanket over
his head.

he's done after a minute,
I feel that's very quick.
now she's tapping his back
her bracelet
is rattling.

I feel like the baby.
I want the breast too.
but I sip on my
coffee and coke instead:
it's got more kick,
but it won't give me
an *******.

I looked over at this guy
on the bus next to me
crying into his backpack.

you learn pretty early on
in life, that it's wrong
to tell someone you
really dig, and would like
to ****, that you love them.
especially if they are more
attractive than you are.
more especially if they
know it.

I looked over again and
he's trying so hard
to smile now.
'good on him for
trying,' we should say.
'good, **** it all
straight back up.'

I don't want to
look at that
and you sure as
hell don't want to
be seen.

**** stitch mitch
had six stitches in his ****.
he tried to choke the carrot
but it tore his **** to shreds.
he tried to stitch it up
but the dog got to it,
and buried his **** in the yard
with all the other bones.

**** stitch mitch
kicked his dog to death
and then he drove to the hospital.

now he does talks at catholic high schools.
preaching the danger
of monkey spanking,
chain yanking,
meat beating.

I love how we always seem to finish
each other's
                           iambic pentameter.

I do an awful job
of pretending you aren't
beautiful.

you creep in with alarming
frequency, and I don't know
why I try so hard to
stop you.

I would like to
be the world with
you, but i'm still
frightened, and I don't
know why I try so
hard to calm
myself.

it's easy to be,
i'm told.

we **** those people.
we tell them
'oh charlie...'
'this is awful.'
'so lame.'
'so cheesy.'

we patronise them.
we embarrass them.
we **** them.
unless
their poetry is rounded
at the edges.

smoothed over
thought over
edited
workshopped
touched up.

"we want to see
your best self"

**** that.

give me your first draft.
give me the spontaneous.
initial *****.
show me your edges.
show me your
******* guts.

the real artists
hide.
even they can see
we **** those people.

write the book you
want to read
but don't read it
once it's done
because you'd be
quite sick of it
by then.