Monday, September 18, 2006

Looking Through The Mobius Strip

Where do I begin to describe the effect of Dennis Cooper's works? To explain the subtle nuances of a writer who's work is an illustration of the impossibilty of language, and art, to describe the multifold reality in which we are living. Is it a cop out to fail to write this piece? Am I taking the easy way out by not achieving what I set out to write? Or is this the best way to approach the works of a writer like Dennis Cooper? To affirm your failure and in doing so celebrate and rejoice in this? To embrace this natural and often ignored element of life. How do I explain every subtle emotion and discomfit and anger that Cooper's work brings up in me? How do I explain it all without resorting to saying something as simple and trite as go and pick up one of his books? Go and read the work for yourself. How do I explain? How do I? How do I?

These are but some of the questions that have been floating through my head these past few months as I've started and re-started this piece numerous times. Of course there's been other questions, other pressing reasons for my failure to write this piece, cowardice and paranioa being the two prominent ones amongst a myriad of others. But they're best left to the privacy of my own head than to hang it out in the world for all to see. But then writing is all about an opening into another world and it would be unfair of me not to let those feelings and experience permeate throughout this writing. So what to do then?

Well it only seems natural to begin at the start and work my way from there. Not at the very start when I found Cooper's writing on the shelf of Monash University and devoured the novels Closer, Frisk and the short story collection Wrong with the energy of a sugar ridden kid at a birthday party. No, no, no. It's best to begin with the original idea for this piece and work from there. And that is to start with a reading of Cooper's novel Try. For it is Try that I feel exemplifies the importance of Cooper's writing. It is Try that shows the emotional impact and venacity that Cooper's writing has on the reader. It is Try that is the heart of Cooper's writing. It is Try that in those three letters and one word exemplifies everything about Cooper's work.

The third novel in Cooper's George Miles Cycle Try story focuses on Ziggy, a seventeen year old Husker Du loving punk who lives in one of those sprawling Los Angeles suburbs. (Well at least I imagine the novel is set in one of the sprawling Los Angeles suburbs, Cooper for universality sake never actually locates the novel). Besides being a seventeen year old Husker Du loving punk, Ziggy is the sexual object of his two step-fathers and the writer of a zine 'I Apologise.' To make matters all the more complicated for Ziggy is that he is in love with Calhoun, his straight junkie friend who could write the greatest novel the world has ever seen if there wasn't a needle sticking in his arm.

And it is here that Cooper's prose shines. None of the characters are demonised. There's no division, no black and white (even though the emotion is always with Ziggy). Everything is given it's chance to breathe and work. It's fucked up. It's disturbing. It's fuckin' discomforting in parts. Particularly the letter Bob, one of Ziggy's step fathers, writes to Ziggy in which he describes the process of rimming his son. An act that becomes all the more chilling when Ziggy yells out in the middle of being fucked by Bob: “If you loved me you wouldn't fuck me when I'm crying.” It's challenging and confronting to say the least.

But that is why Cooper's writing is so great. Not just in Try which is the most realistic of his novels but in the other novels of the Cycle To. In Guide and Frisk he blurs the line between fiction and reality so well until the line blurs into nothing and you begin questioning the difference between your own factual experience and your own fantasy life. Until you learn that your real life is a shadow of your fantasy life. In Frisk this is demonstrated in Cooper's 'love' of 'snuff' films. Beginning with a description of five photographs Cooper loved and cherished as a kid, a series of photos presenting themselves as a snuff film, the novel follows Cooper through his fantasies of disembowelling his lovers and sexual objects from his teenage years in LA to his time in Amsterdam where in a drunken, drug induced binge he kills and disembowels a young dutch punk in a windmill. The story unfolds in a manner in which the fanatasies become more and more blurred until you actually believe that Dennis has murdered the boy. It's only at the end of the novel, wherein the five pictures are re-written and the images are shown to be fake that you realise that all of the stories themselves are fictions and fantasies and a way of Dennis himself being able to release himself from himself.

In Guide the novel takes the shape of an LSD trip. Starting from a Guided by Voice song the novels morphs and merges through memories as the main character Dennis goes to trendy bars, makes collages, writes an article for Rolling Stone about a squat in LA, takes esctasy, picks up guys in cruising lounges, backstage concerts. There's trendy art galleries, self-obsessed artists, debates over childhood pornography, paranioa over being a writer. It's trendy indie LA sans the simplified commercial Hollywood glamour. It's LA seen through the blearied wide opened eyes of a middle aged anarchist. It's a subversive novel that ends as it begins with a memory fading and fizzing out.

That said Guide is not the most difficult of Cooper's novels. Not by far, that monkier goes to Period the final of Cooper's Georges Miles cycle. The novel is essentially that. A period, a bloody full stop. It is the end of the cycle. The end of fifteen years of his life, of twenty-five years of drug taking, prostitution and experiementation. It is also perhaps most importantly the end of language. The inevitable failure of it to describe anything to do with violence and emotion. The novels plot, if a word like that can be used here, focuses on two Satan loving teens who decide to murder the local deaf/dumb kid in order to bring them closer to Satan. If the violence of earlier Cooper novels is psychotic and paranoid this violence is more terrifying for it's minimalism. In the way in which through short, terse, one/two word sentences he is able to depict the fear and the sounds and sights of this deaf/dumb kid. If reading the early novels left one frenzied for a killing spree this novel leaves one cold like they've seen a ghost.

It is the natural conclusion to a cycle that begun some eighteen years earlier with Closer. In this novel, it's title stolen from the Joy Division album of the same name, Cooper pieces together five loosely related stories around the themes of self-obsession and violent sexual fantasies. Nihilistic in their nature and outcomes, they offer an insight into the self-destructive mindframe of a group of young confused men in late 70's LA. Like all novels in the cylce the focal point of the novel is George Miles. In this novel Georges is a skeleton of a character. A skeleton who his friends are drawn to as the object of their violent sexual fantasies, as a muse for their artwork or just as someone to share. The beauty of this novel is the way in which it shows the self-obsessed nihilistic tendency of that period to be ultimately hollow and quite shallow. Once there fanatasies are reached the characters become nothing themselves. Become quiet empty and hollow. This is evident in the story of David. Obsessed with the idea of being a famous singer David goes through his life fantasy about his own stage performance. So wrapped up he is in his own world he doesn't even hear the car turning the corner and crashing into the garage party he's attending. Doesn't hear the car until it crashes into him and he finds himself dead and buried. His fantasies left like that.

Of course Cooper's writing is not just limited to the cycle and the five novels that make this up. Since finishing Period in 2000 he has published three more novels. In 2002 he published My Loose Thread a novel based around the diaries of Kip Kinkle, the killer who murdered his parents before undertaking killing spree on his school colleagues. In 2004 he publishedThe Sluts- the one novel of his I've yet to read- a novel set in a gay cruising lounge where Johns rate and talk about everything they've done to Brad, the best arse in town. And last year he published God Jnr a novel in which the central character is a father mourning the loss of the son he killed in a car crash. A novel which in spite of the lack of sexual violent themes of Cooper's other work is still a powerful mediatation on grief and loss. Another illustration of the way we handle the inevitable circumstances of failure and the often fucked up ways (for example Jim the father milking a job by pretending to be crippled) in which we live and bring guilt upon others.

More recently Cooper has started blogging his life on www.denniscooper.net. It is the latest attempt in breaking down the barrier between writer and author, artist and audience. Here you can read about past lovers, find info about new artists, get into debates about labeling and privacy, as well as reading the works of other aspiring artists and writers from around the globe. There's been an open mic night, a portrait day, an artist collection day, poetry competitions, giveaways. All circular. It's damn addictive and pretty voyueristic but fits in perfect. It's also something of an odd antidote to his fiction world where the characters ultimately can be seen to be spiralling to their own death - metaphorically and literally – whereas the online community seems to be expanding further and further. Exploding rather than imploding. And that's where we all should be heading. Exploding out in balls of chaos rather than turning inwards in movements of self-doubt. So have I suceeded? I don't know. And somehow I don't think it really matters that much.

Wednesday, September 13, 2006

here's a couple of poems inspired by camp sovereignty which existed in Melbourne Kings Domain from the 12th March 2006- 11th May 2006. Over the duration of the camp some 20 000 people visited, offering moral support, clothing, food, blankets, and their hearts and minds to show that places can exist outside of the capitalist/monetary sytem in which we live. The top poem is mine. The bottom two poems are written by a friend of mine. The article, in the post below, was written by me and published on www.undergrowth.org.au.



WHY CAMP SOVEREIGNTY?

Because it's about bloody time
Because there's some voices that need to be heard
Because it feels good to cry
Because this is the chance
Because it beats watching Neighbours
Because it's like nothing you'll ever imagine
Because there's a spirit burning
Because it's a chance for your imagination to roam free
Because there's a mystery there that'll never be solved
Because it's time to listen to that beating heart
Because the shadows will protect you
Because it's time to fuck the gubbament
Because your not blind
Because it's now
Because it's nothing you'll ever read about
Because it's cultural not political
Because a thousand photos will never do it justice
Because sometime you need to be broken
Because confusion is needed in this world
Because guilt is not always a bad thing
Because poverty is not offensive
Because it's abjection that makes life interesting
Because it's fun
Because you're giving someone a job
Because it's feels good to be wanted
Because...


HOW COULD YOU by sparx

How could you forgive us if you could not forgive yourself?
Perhaps you loved that fire as we love to breathe or
Perhaps it was a love the spirit not the flesh could understand.
I heard you saying "Keep your mind on that fire."
To see that fire go out,
That is the worst of all.
Therefore most we keep you warm and fed all through the cold nights
And the days as well, so you can burn that old fire on that hill
Open to wind and rain?
I knew, or I thought I knew, that was right.
"You can smoke some of these."
"I brought this for you, you can eat this."
How could you forgive us when you still punish yourself?
How could we expect from you gratitude and reconciliation
When you must burn that fire
To see that fire go out,
That is the worst of all.
How could you forgive that when I cannot?
It is beyond my knowing.
Are we spirits to live like that fire, open to wind and rain?
Many times we saw you struggle
Are you God to forgive and reconcile when it was you not us
Whose pain washed down that hill
Who felt all your birds leave you without a word
When it was you not us who tended that fire, who saw that fire put out
"Stop," you say, "stop gubba, you mustn't. It was all I had."

UNTITLED (or more precisely I've forgotten the title now)again by sparx

The fire is out
You won't breathe that smoke again
Stand on that road and look up at that park
The fire is out
You won't hear that voice again
The land will rewrite itself
Nevermind you won't lose that voice
You won't lose that fire
Sometimes you'll be walking in the noisy city
You'll hear it humming quietly again
You'll be walking home on a warm night
And that smoke will creep into your
Old lungs again
Forty-Five Days...

“What you are a doing is a disgrace!” The shrill voice of a lone dissenter breaks the somber mood of the early afternoon. One, two, three, four police surround the man and drag him off. Throughout the barage of abuse Aunty Beryl continues reading the list of Victorian Indigenous soidiers who fought to defend this country. There's over 200, all forgotten, all ignored in the ceremony which just happened down the road.

In front of Aunty Beryl, three possum skins lie, two painted red one yellow, they are covered in photocopied photos of the soliders and their families. There is also a massacre map of Victoria highlighting all the known places where Victorian Aborigines were killed between 1836-1851. The scariest fact is dot 33 which simply reads: 1842 Skull Creek, Gippsland- unknown number killed. Walking past the photocopies later I overhear Robbie Thorpe angrily musing on the numbers that could mean: tens, twenties, hundreds, a thousand. Annoyed, he walks off stopping at a photo of an Indigenous woman to aks about its origins.

It's Anzac day 2006. The forty-fifth day since the fire has been burning in Kings Domain. Forty-five days since the Rainbow Serpent first travelled into the sky and began his healing of the land: his healing and awakening of the citizens of Melbourne and with it the World. Forty-five days since I sat around the edges of the fire listening to Aunty Isobel Cobb and Robbie Cowora light the sacred fire with the ashes they bought from the Tent Embassy in Canberra. Forty-five days since a group of us, punks, ferals, students, parents and kids, activists of young and old, indigenous and non-indigenous, walked forward gum leaves in hands and placed them on the fire. Since we sat there and watched the city disappear into a haze of smoke (not for the only time.) Forty five days since the tents went up and twelve days since they were taken down when the Supreme Court demanded that all 'creature comforts' be removed from around the sacred fire.

In that time the camp has been ignored, harrassed, celebrated, admired, cherished and most importantly visited. People have felt ignored, defeated, grumpy, ecstatic, confused, angry, amazed, sad, bemused, delighted, frustrated, lied to, manipulated, proud, honoured. There's been tears around the fire, jokes shared, there's been secret meetings, marches through the city, flags and banners painted, letters written, flyers circulated, stews eaten, kitchens set up and dismantled, stages built, films shown (a fieworks display interfering with one of them!), new friendships have been made, old ones re-invented. Bikers have threatened to put out the fire only to walk through it, Corrobees have taken place (a group of dancers have been formed from people around the state) people have travelled down from Brisbane, Sydney, Torres Straight Island, South Australia, from Nigeria, Poland, America, Jamica, India. Kettles have boiled as helicopters have flown overhead, the media have swarmed hovering around looking for the latest news story, international press meetings have been made whilst up gum trees. The Queens been visited, the Australian flag has been burnt, the aboriginal flag has flown in the city. There's been discussions about 'Genocide, Sovereignty, Treaties' (Gavin Jennings unequivocally stated that there will be no republic in this country until a treaty has been signed). I've heard repeatedly the numerous ways in which Australia has breached the United Nations Convention on the Prevention of Genocide:killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group (Stolen Generation); forcibly transferring children of the group to another group (Stolen Generation). I've heard how Victorian Indigenous Aboriginals own less than 0.001% of this land. I've become angered over the fact that indigenous Victorians are 16 times more likely to go to juvie; that only 34% of them finish year 12; over the fact that the life expectancy of Indigenous Victorians is twenty years less than that of non-Indigenous Victorians.


There've been chants, shouting, marches, the centre of Bourke Street Mall has been occupied briefly. Captain Cooks cottage has been made into a crime scene. Banners have flown outside Bhp Billiton. Barrongs warning song has been sung. Poems have been read, songs have been written. Speeches have been made, politicians, sports stars, musicians (Gavin Jennings, Cathy Freeman, Michael Franti) have visited. We have danced and listened to acoustic songs. Learnt and watched traditional dances (the mating dance of the black cockatoo has been danced outside the exhibition building and at camp.) Salads have been made, barbeques cooked, breakfasts eaten. Food and clothing has been brought and left with campers. The West Papuans have been welcomed on Easter Sunday. Campers have come and gone and come again. And all the time the fire has burnt.

It has rained, people have shivered, have huddled together under the shade of a couple of trees and still the fire hasn't gone out. It's amazing to think that what was an idea in late January when I first attended a black GST meeting has become this. Something so organic, so problematic, so so real. Even the anticipated threat of violence, of police harrassment, has become a reality since Easter. Every little delivery of wood has been meet by a demand to burn it. A gunyah is built, the police demand to take it down otherwise they will smash it. A fire is lit to cook some food, the police come and put it. And so on ad nauseum. The mass media which stayed away whilst the shambles of the games went on have flocked around looking for some little story, little edge, little fact. The bouyancy of the first week has subsided into sleepless nights as the barriers and ropes that were put up have been taken down. As the rain has ruined the comfortable sleep of many.

And throughout all of this people have come in their dozens like we have today. To sit and listen. To learn. To watch the dancers. To witness history in front of them. To listen to the sounds of the digeredoo rumbling through the earth. To sit with coffees, teas, bottles of water in hand and watch a corrobee before their eyes. Watch the Camp Sovereignty dancers dance the dance of the bee. Dance how to hunt down a kangaroo. The patience needed to sneak up on it, to ensure that you are not spotted by the roo before it hops away. Sit and listen as Ringo Terrick talks about how the fire has allowed his spirit to fly high like the eagle, how it has awoken a spirit in all of us that we should let fly free. It is this spirit that is trying to be squashed. It is this spirit, this freedom that is trying to be reigned in. It is this spirit that we are taught to be scared of. The spirit of the fire, of the earth, of the body, of the minds conviction. The spirits that in all of us, the spirit, the spirit, the spirit...

At six I head home. The day is over. The ashes from the fire have been dispensed to the tribes of Victoria where they will burn bright. In two weeks the cutural heritage that has been granted to protect the camps fire will end. It's still not decided what will happen with the fire. There's talk of a permanent stone hut being put here. To commerate the fire, the 38 elders who are buried here. To commerate the site of the first indigenous reserve in Victoria. As I look around the crowd I notice a look of loss on a lot of faces. There's a sense of closure, of ending. I know I feel it and I sense that others feel it too. As I walk off and head back towards Flinders Street I feel priveleged, feel lucky to have known this has existed for 45 days. I hope the fire last for longer, much much longer. If not I'll always be left with the memory of riding a tram my jumper smelling like eculyptus.


POST SCRIPT: Just after midnight on the 11th May the fire was put to rest. A hundred people gathered around the fire to say their goodbyes in one last sacred ceremony. At midnight, with the protection act ending the police moved in, in spite of the agreement that had been reached between the park officers and firekeepers to put the fire out themselves. The men moved to the front where the police were coming from, the women moved to the back. As the fire keepers poured two wheelbarrows of dirt putting the flame to rest, 40 policemen barged through the women pushing and shoving them aside forming a horseshoe around the fire. The council hosed the already dead fire before dumping a truckload of dirt on the ashes. As the council worked and the police stood silent like stunned rabbits a group of protestors sang the tent embassy's prayer. By two everyone had left and gone home. For sixty days the sacred fire burned in the city centre. And although it's no longer burning there's 25 other fires healing the rest of the state. Not to mention the ashes waiting underground for a time in which it can be rekindled and the fire will burn once again.

Tuesday, September 12, 2006

here's a couple of vignettes i wrote about working in a cruising lounge. they're to be published on an online website. i hope you enjoy them.

VIGNETTE 1: CHRIS

I first met Chris in the second or third month of working at Erotica Plus.He was in his early thirties and a gingernut. The first time I met him it
was a Sunday, the quietest day of work. He told me straight out about his troubled life. A gambler and an alcoholic, he had taken a day off work to
spend it at the Casino. Starting with a couple hundred bucks, he’d found
himself five grand to the good and decided he’d head to Thailand. So he rushed off to the airport and spent a couple of days in Bangkok with all the Thai bois he could buy. Arriving back in Australia, he bought himself a
bottle of Jim Beam at the airport. He then went around to his girlfiriend of
ten years and informed her that he was gay, not bi. (She had already
suspected.) As he drove home he came to the realisation that he was an
alcoholic and so once home he poured the bottle of whiskey down the sink.
Now single, he hit the cruising lounges for a bit of promiscuous sex. A little
bored with the sex and the lifestyle, he started taking speed to spice up the
fucking.

It was three or four months before I saw Chris next. This time, it was a Saturday
arvo and reasonably busy. I was at the desk reading and studying, when Chris
rocked up. We got to talking and catching up. About five or ten minutes into our
conversation, a couple of guys walked out of the lounge. They were talking to
each other about grabbing a bite to eat. Chris turned and looked at them for a
couple of minutes. Staring one, then the other, down until one of them asked him
what his problem was. A question to which Chris replied, “Nothing. What’s yours?”
The guy looked him up and down, and then left with his friend, heading down the
stairs. Chris then entered the lounge and stayed for about half an hour or so before
deciding to head off.

An hour or so later, the phone rang. It was Chris on the end of the line telling me he knew Johnny, and that if those two guys came back, to tell them that. To tell them
he knows Johnny and that he will come and get them. I told Chris that I’d pass on the
message and hung up. I went back to work. A couple of hours later, the two guys
came back to the lounge. On the way through they asked what that guy’s problem is.
I said I don’t know. They entered the lounge and I went back to my reading.

The next, and last, time I saw Chris was the Labour Day weekend in 2005. I was
downstairs, putting stickers on the backs of DVDs and talking films with Rick, when out of the corner of my eye I saw a figure run up the stairs. Rick noticed the figure too and got out from behind his desk and ran to the stairs, to tell the customer to pay for a ticket. There was a muffled reply and then I heard Rick muttering to himself as he ran upstairs. I continued putting stickers on the DVDs when I heard a scream from upstairs. I ran up the stairs and found Chris punching Rick in the face repeatedly. From the blood on the wall, it looked like there’d been quite a few punches. I ran across and tried to grab Chris off Rick. He turned and hit me on the side of the head. I slid down the wall and covered my face with my hands. By now, Rick had pushed the buzzer for the lounge. Chris rushed on into the lounge room.

Rick ran downstairs to call the police and I went to follow. As I reached the top of
the stairs, Chris spotted me. I turned to my left and ran into the toilet. I tried to shut the door on him. I wasn't quick enough. I lay on the ground, my hands covering my face, as he kicked me a couple of times. He then ran down the stairs. As I lay there on the floor
I heard a loud crash and bang and Rick screaming again. I ran downstairs to find the
counter smashed to the ground and Chris punching Rick again as he tried to speak into
the phone. Rick hung up the phone and Chris stepped back, threatening to put a bullet
in him (and me) if he ever called the pig. He then ran down the stairs and walked off
down the alley.

I followed him turning to get the police. He spotted me walking out the door and made to come back to Erotica Plus. I shut the door and from inside I called the police and an ambulance for Rick. As I stood there four colleagues came from the other stores to see what had happened. They were ready to beat the shit out of the guy.

Fifteen minutes later the police arrived. They took photos of the blood stained walls and steps and took our statements in the alley way, using the milkcrates from the Chinese shop next door as stools.

A little more than a month later in early May I got a call from the Sargeant at Flinders Street station to come in for a line up. I stood at the counter of Flinders Street Station looking through a series of photos. It took me little more than a couple of minutes to identify number nine as Chris. I was informed after identifying Chris that there would be a court case later on that year. I left and
had forgotten about the case, thinking that the police weren't doing anything about it, until May this year when the police informed me that Chris was about to go to hearing on twelve charges related to
the incident on Sunday 13th March 2005.

That hearing is now a court case that has been scheduled for the 19th October. I am to make an appearance at that case. I'm a little scared to think what that means.



VIGNETTE 2: DAVE

Dave was a cross dresser. I only saw him at the lounge a couple of times.
The first time would have been early on a Saturday morning. He came up to
the counter with a bag in his hand. He looked a little drunk, but that was
none of my concern. (Guys shot up in the toilets, so there was no
real drug policy to speak of.) He was probably in his mid to late twenties. He
wore a hat, tracksuit pants and a t-shirt. He asked to watch a video. I grabbed
the fifteen dollars from him and directed him to the booth. I went back to reading
the paper and drinking the coffee, glancing up every now and then to ensure that
the video that was playing in the lounge hadn't finished.

About twenty minutes later Dave walked from the booths to the counter. I looked
up at him. He was wearing a black dress and a green blouse. Under his dress,
he wore a pair of tights. His face was made up: lips bright red, eyeliner,
face painted quite thick. His hear was now a shoulder length wig. He asked to
enter the lounge. I grabbed the seven dollars from her. She entered the lounge, I
switched of his TV and went back to work, namely calling up for the lunch rounds.
An hour or so later I saw Dave walking down the stairs. He was back wearing his
trackies and t-shirts. I was climbing the stairs having completed the lunch round.
His face was still made up and he still had the wig on under his cap.

At the top of the stairs I turned the corner and headed towards the counter. A guy
was waiting for me. The video had finished. He asked me what that guy’s story was.
I said I didn’t know. He said that he would lie there on the couch, legs spread, masturbating. He would sit there, finger up his arse, the other on his hard cock as the video played. He would just sit there. No one would go near him. Everyone just stood there and watched, their eyes moving from the porn stars on the screen and back to the guy on the couch.

I changed the video and the guy at the counter entered the lounge. I went
back to my reading curious and interested at what I'd just saw. The next day at work
I told Rick about it and he said that Dave had been coming to the store for a couple of months. He'd first started watching dvd's downstairs and then one day he started wearing make up and a wig. Rick had always wondered when he'd start wearing drag.

It was a couple of months before I next saw Dave. This time he had
a goatee and his hair was longer, wavy, brown and shoulder length. He told me
which booth he was in. Number seven. He was wearing a backpack. He looked
slightly drunk again. I turned the video screen on and watched him work down
the corridor. It was a Sunday so I went back to reading my book.

About an hour later, he walked out of the booth. He was wearing a white
blouse through which a black bra could be seen. His hair was tied back in
pigtails, his lips painted a shade of pink, his eyes covered in black
eyeliner, his face heavily made up. His legs were covered in tights and
he wore a black dress. He asked for a ticket to the lounge. As he walked
towards the door, I called out to her.
“Do you do this often?” I asked.
“Occasionally,” she answered. “If I’m drunk or something. I usually get the
clothes from the street.”
“And what do you do with the clothes afterwards?”
“I throw them out.”
“Why?” I asked.
“I don’t know. I just do. I don’t need them anymore, really.”

I didn’t bother pressing any further, there was no need to, so I let her walk on through to the lounge and went back to reading my book. All I could think was he should have shaved off his goatee. He would have looked so much more the part.

The last time I saw Dave was later that day. He was still dressed up, although he looked more fashionable and better suited the part. The make up on the face was thinner and the goatee was gone. The blouse was now done up and the hair that had been poking through it before was now no longer visible. I commented that he looked much better without the beard and he thanked me, then entered the lounge.

He was still there when I left.

I wonder whether he still frequents the lounge. Whether he’s still Dave and more importanly whether he’s more comfortable with himself. I'd like to think he is.

Tuesday, September 05, 2006

SOMETIMES I

"You know, sometimes I want to grab you by the neck."
he says this with a tenderness that makes the words sound so sweet.
"Sometimes I want to shove you up against the wall
and rip off all your clothes.
"Sometimes I want to bite you on the lips
until blood runs down your chin.
"Sometimes I want to grab a knife run it all over
your body and watch as you sweat and shiver.
"Sometimes I want to bite your nipples until you scream for
me to stop.
"Sometimes I want to shove my fist so far up your arse
that i can feel the dinner we've just eaten."
He says: "Sometimes I want you to fuck me so hard that
I breakdown in tears just so I can tell you I love you."


POETRY

Potraying
Objects
Emotionally
Turning to
Read
You


TRANQUILITY

a blue green mirror
ripples travelling eastward
a bird flying south

Monday, September 04, 2006

I REMEMBER

I remember:
the silence of pens
and the ruffling of paper
and the echoes of the corridor
and the hugs and plans
and all this because of
one word:
Hometime.



WATCHING

He says he is dead.

He says this matter of factly without any emotion.

He says that I should I know why.

He says this to me without moving his lips.

He says he is dead.

He says this in a voice that is bigger than me and him.

He says that he beginning to forgive me but he’ll never understand.

He says this as I’m walking down the street, as I’m watching a movie, as I’m driving my car.

He says he is dead.

He says this as I’m sitting in the office sipping a cup of tea.

He says all of this to me.

He says all he wants to know is why I refuse to believe him.


GORGEOUS

Billet this:
we are
under the
sun lips
open craving
artificial highs
painted in
red averted
eyes missing
the stare as
arms fold
open again
and again
and again