“London calling to the faraway towns…”*
[The Clash]

God man, trinket man, fake leather wallet man,
Drugs man, drumming man,  dancing on the street man
Antique man, eel man, bus man, trades man
Boots man, bagel man, feed me I am hungry man,
Fit man, gay man, straight man, trans man,
Chinese man, white man, "oi-back-to-where-you came from" man
Business man, rugger man, beautiful wife and kids man
Eco man, hipster man, shouting man, shaking man,
Scowling man, scumbag man, shuffling don’t come near me man
War man, drunk man, cruising near the bushes man
Watching man, medal man, pickpocket poor man
Box man, sleeping man,think he might be dead man,
Lost man, lonely man,
Looking from the ledge man

This fat British fellow.
His much inflated ego, rolls across the grass masked ground.
Eternally on the level, never obese, just jolly rotund.
Always gets given a present, the noble order of the boot.
Out for rough and tumble, very thick skinned always full of hot air.
Jolly good sport, a **** good catch.
Goes up in a volley or down on the beach.
Amend his waist, change his shape, abuse him for rugger.
After the match, can be a right ***** ******.
Anyone for tennis, a game for two on the court.
Snooker or a maybe good game of pool,
Silly poet lady, she talks a load of *****,can't get enough of playing the fool.
(c) LIVVI

He looks at me for the first time in years

And tells me I’ve changed

And I can’t help looking at him

Completely enraged

But I convince myself that it is not his fault

I must have done something to provoke

The appall

The disgust

And though I know that it is my turn to apologize

I stand there in silence

For the first time in years

I stood there in silence

Allowing the thunderous noise of

Nothing being said

Question my intention

Of calling him brother

Defiance

I am in so much trouble now.

I can see the cracks between his skin

Where his beard masks the frown

Of doubt and denial

But he doesn’t tell anyone

He doesn’t ask God to restrain the trials that he must now go through

Knowing that his little sister is not like what she once was

She is sixteen now

And fierce

Outspoken

Frank

Not gentle

Ruthless in her ways

And yet silent when she truly speaks

He tells me he misses me

I tell him that

That makes two of us

He begs for the stories that have radicalized my behavior

But I tell him that I have lost my trust

Not in the way that most poets

Tend to romanticize so that they appear profound

This is what is truly raw and reeling

You won’t understand the feeling

When the sanctuary of your mind is ripped apart

Like a **** victim

And everything you are

And everything hidden away in your heart is taken away from you

Yet you are expected to rise from the ashes

And be strong and courageous

Because the men in your life have taught you how

Your femininity is never glorified only hidden

Never respected only acknowledged

He tells me that he believes in feminism

And I ask him what kind

Because the only sense of feminism in this society

Is the acceptance you get when you are badass

Or Emma Watson

It’s the approval you receive when you are able to compartmentalize

And not bring your emotions to work

The only feminism I see is rights given to women for the sake of equality, and not of justice

He tells me that I am wrong

That the game is changing

But how on earth can the game change when the rules of the game

Are set by those who define the word oppression.

I anticipate his disappointment

A practice I know all too well

A practice of which I have mastered

When people ask me if my older brothers were rugger players

And eventually I have to let them know that I paint

Write poetry and can’t even punch people in the face for dishonesty

Haven’t they taught you anything?

I should be ashamed of myself for not being able to

Control the gut wrenching things that I feel

Cause apparently a male spoken word poet has so much depth

While the rest of us just talk about our feelings

Feelings that we should be ashamed of

Feelings that we should put away

So that we can become so much more

Self-aware and apologize for all our naturally provoked disparities

He asks me to be gentle

And I tell him that I don’t know how

Cause for the years he wasn’t here

They’ve awarded me for insensitivity

And I’ve just grown numb

You see

I was given two options

To be way too pretty to understand things or

To understand things the way someone else did

And not how I perceived it

And now I am an artist in deceiving

For even though I feel things

The way I feel them

They remain dead inside

Until my brother see them.

I seem to have missed the lesson,
or maybe it was a paid seminar,
where being a ******* to folk not like you
is seen as cool

A staggering self-belief, or indoctrination
into a way of thinking that excludes
the workers, powerhouses, batteries,
seems insane in a way
that only limited lineages
seem genetically capable of

But now I’m stooping, so I’ll stop

Let’s all stop
being in thrall to noisy *******,
rugger-buggers who had charmed and broken youths,
who knew no hunger except in minds
and no kindness except paid for

I would feel pity, but these bred monsters
are parasitic,
so to let them survive,
******* and spouting lies,
kills us all in the end.

Britannia rules these waves

Back in 1991 after a few mistakes I wanted to keep quiet, so I tried to be like my friend Patrick
Because I mucked eith the young dudes and got drunk with them, I wanted to change my life, so I put on my screaming jets t-shirt and my blur rugger shorts, which looked like shorty shorts and went to civic to play at happy days, and I spent $15 and I bought a can of coke and chips from chicken gourmet and bought an album from impact records, including a jimmy barnes video then I went home to listen to my brothers music and talk to him when he got played tennis against the kitchen wall and after that I cleaned my house very clean and then I watched the jimmy barnes video and I sang each song as I was imagining pat was jimmy barnes petter was diesel and I was John Farnham and then I worked and air guitared jimmy barnes and guns and roses and John Farnham music to my brother and I also crossed my legs playing a Nintendo game underneath my brother as he was playing music I liked his music, and I am sure he liked my air guitar movements and then I watched the kids game show which was on back in those days and I imagined Patrick as the man who hosted it and then the next day I went to the mall to get my pay out of the bank and I bought a trolley load of groceries where I was pushing them around the mall all day as I wanted something to eat while I partied, that was my best way to party, and Patrick said I need to party more if I want to be like us, kids were running by saying I am cool, you are still like your friend and then I wanted to watch a good movie, so I went into civic and watched mosquito coast, I enjoyed that and I bought popcorn and a cup of coke, I walked very secretly around and on other days I went to glebe park ala carte when it was a food court and had 1 meal and a few cokes at the bar watching the band, as I was tapping my fingers on the table
I can’t explain how I looked Patrick but I did
And I went to *** black pool hall to play video games for a while during the night and I had fun
Doing that, I bought a lot of albums as pat and I spent money at *** black like pat I did everything right like pat, I cleaned my house like pat, but I still fought my family like pat used to argue with his, my brother and dad left and refused to stay down there while mum calmed me down but when I was trying to be like Patrick there were no consequences and when I went to bed early the young people came over to ask me for money or to watch ****** like Patrick and we went to st Matthew’s Catholic school and threw our beer cans on the roof of the school and
Pats friend petter was walking past and looked worried, I was like pat with me but my family were different to his, my friends were more like pats brothers to me, I didn’t like how they mucked around messing my house like Patrick
I was like Patrick
Dad told me to just be myself
And I did