Janet & Me

Fuck me up the arse and call me Mary,

I said out loud, I was so surprised.

And Auntie Janet dropped her tea cup,

into the saucer with quite a crash, and splash.

You don't get fucked up the arse, do you, hon, 

said Janet. I'd thought you far to masculine for that?

First of all, hearing my old aunt say fucked up the arse

was really quite a trip and something I had to take in,

but, you know, it's a modern world, and it takes all sorts.

Why? Do you think it is a sin? I asked.

No, said Janet, with a twinkle in her eye,

I just found it hurt, when Simon tried it on me.

Oh, but you get used to it, we both said in unison, Janet and me. 

And we laughed and laughed, sharing a ciggie, or two.

After that, she and I had a conspiracy that we shared, 

and we were really much closer for it. Anal sex?

Who'd have thought? Janet was pushing 70 by then.

Forgive

If someone commits an abominable act

against you, or your family,

you have no choice but to forgive them,

not because they deserve forgiveness,

but because you deserve peace.

The Jesus Bullshit

Jesus, fuck me sideways, that was a surprise to me

Bread and wine in my hands down on my knees

I didn't spill a drop despite the tail wind catching me,

– body & blood, you know – 

even if it was a little difficult finding my mouth rocking to and fro.

Jesus, Maria, Sister, George,

Did you Brides of Christ not know what the guys were up to?

Surely, you must have had a clue?

Were you looking the other way for a reason,

Or did the divine spirit completely desert you?

Oh no, god moves in mysterious ways, 

Letting the priesthood be filled with the gays

When apparently, it’s against what the good book says,

Leaving them only the boys that come into their gaze.

You believe mystical bullshit,

You talk dreamed up mythical bullshit,

You facilitate bullshit happening,

More lives ruined than saved.

Sta Morendo

Those who die young

Die with much fanfare, and whaling, a gnashing of teeth

Those who die at a grand old age,

Die with a whimper and a silent exhale of breath.

21st Century Life

Do you ever wonder what went wrong with life,

when the only, “good morning” you ever get

is from your Apple watch?

That wasn’t quite what I was promised from birth, you can’t help but think.

Grow up, meet your soul mate, have a family.

Buy a house. Get a dog. Get a second car. Perhaps a beach shack.

Grow old together.

So many people are alone in the world, how did I end up as one of them, goes through your mind?

But still, I have Apple watches in an assortment of colours.

Look, this one matches my eyes.

It’s just a shame I have never had someone to tell me that.

Can an Apple watch tell me I am beautiful?

Pat me on the back?

Fly Me To The Moon

We’re flying to the moon,

And we’re celebrating the fact,

New giant step, and all that,

As the earth is practically in ruins,

Or heading there fast.

‘They’ haven’t said as much,

But I suspect going to the moon,

Is a good, financial opportunity,

And I wonder if they want to do to it,

What they have done down here.

So, we could end up with two

Balls of garbage,

Seemingly without a care,

That no one can go and live on Mars,

any time soon.

Christianity

My mother told me that Christianity was 

love thy neighbour, love one another.

That’s it. That’s what it is. That’s what it is about.

It isn’t anything else. It is that simple.

That was what my mother taught me.

And we go to church at Xmas and Easter,

to be together and to sing songs.

Because that’s what we do.

There is a certain joy in being together,

and doing that.

Loving thy neighbour.

Miserable Pig. Miserable Bitch

I am the creature that the dual messengers of Satan created. Arthur Batson, and Olive Joan Gregson.

Arthur Batson was a pig, 

“Why are you sitting next to Josh Grant, Gareth, I thought you had better taste.”

I’ve never met a boy so bedevilled with behavioural problems, as Josh Grant.

Arthur Batson was a pig. 

in his nylon suits and his coiffured hair, all that was missing was the mauve rinse. Were there cravats?

Every day in grade six there was a battle of wits, you know which is fine, but I was a little boy.

Arthur Batson was a pig.

He lived at Maud Street Balwyn. Maud Batson more likely. Did you fancy me as a 10 year old, Maud Batson? Was that the problem?

Olive Joan Gregson was a first class bitch.

“I worry about you turtle, so slow,” she’d say. “I don’t know what on earth you could ever do, you are just not good at anything, are you turtle.”

Chances are she was borderline insane.

I’ve never been good at anything. There you go. I am the person you created. Are you pleased with yourselves, Maud Batson, and Olive the Witch?

Chances are that Olive Joan Gregson was borderline personality disorder.

I'm standing in a huge, empty theatre and I am yelling that out from the stage. 

"Are you pleased with yourselves? With what you created? Well, are you? Bitch and pig?"

The bitch lived until she was 99, that is usually the death knell for cunts like her. 

Olive Joan Gregson was a first class bitch.

“The Pig was a little younger. Some say he died from AIDS. But I have neither had that denied, or confirmed.”

I am not completely sure that I ever recovered from the dual messengers of Satan. Arthur Maud Batson, of North Balwyn and Olive Joan Gregson of Warracknabeal.

Tell Me Why?

I know I have been loved by many people

thought of as special, as the best, even,

gorgeous, smart, lovely people,

I was very lucky and loved,

but, many of those people are now dead,

so what the fuck does all of that mean now?

Tell me that?

Life Is A Dream

We used to ride our bicycles all weekend, we’d only come home for food

My mum used to take me to help her in the thrift shop in Carlton when she was rostered on by her committee, it was all foreign when I looked out the door, little did I know I would eventually live really close by

I had a big cream Teddy bear named Teddy, I still have him somewhere, I should go find him and give him a hug

Mum made large Apple pies with roughly chopped apple and flaky pastry, she’d always have runny cream

Blue skies shone down on my childhood unabated, I don’t think I ever knew any different

My dad would watch the Sunday TV replay and the only thing I could get into were those little black shorts on the players

I used to go to bed and dream every night

We used to see Peacocks in the gardens when we visited on the weekends

I used to draw houses shut away in my bedroom, whatever happened to those? 

Mum used to go to ladies’ day at the races with her girlfriends in big hats 

My mum used to tell her friends that she had children who behave, when they would do nothing but complain about theirs

Sunday nights were Countdown with tea on our laps, to hear who was on top of the charts

I used to dream about Peter next door shirtless in his back yard chopping wood

I lived in a world where everyone was equal and we never questioned that

I used to visit my great aunt for afternoon tea of cups of tea and cakes on trays

My mum promised to buy me a silver teapot if we found one for 50c, but we never did

Awful Uncle Brian saw men dancing on the TV on one of his rare visits to our house, and I heard the word poofters for the first time when it came out of his ugly mouth

I used to sit on our back steps with our dogs and feel the sunshine on my skin, I was sure it warmed my bloodstream

I used to dream of being an architect designing house conversions when I got big

Aunt Lois would bring boxes of cherry chocolates she got from the seconds shop at Cadbury

My mum would give me soft boiled eggs in egg cups with sliced toast she used to call soldiers

My grandma used to give me caramel lollies to suck on, which would last almost all day

I used to wrap all my Xmas presents in different colour cellophane which would crinkle loudly as I folded it

We used to wear black suits to church but only on Xmas Eve, I guess the rest of the year we sinned

We had big family Xmas’ lunches with all my cousins, now we get together for our parent’s funerals

Now I dream about days gone by and how happy they were.

Silly

Silly Sally climbed the ladder to the window,

because the boys told her to.

Oh Silly Sally, seriously, said he boyfriend Kurt?

those boys just want to look up your skirt.

Oh no, said Silly Sally, how silly do you think I am, she said, with a scoff,

I’m not going to let them see my kickers, because I took them off.

Silly Stevie got cheered and wolf whistled by the woman with chardonnay glasses in their hands,

Some of those women were old enough to be Silly Stevie’s nan.

They whistled and call for him to spin around and “Take it off.”

Those little shorts that fitted tightly to his sculptured arse

He smiled self consciously and did a little dance,

Those drunk women would have grabbed Silly Stevie if they had got half the chance.

No is a complete sentence.

Sometimes saying more, lessens your position.

Hold firm in the face of opposition.

I'm Sorry

I used to say I’d miss you every day,

I used to say I didn’t know how I’d go on,

I didn’t think I would ever breathe again,

the ache was debilitating and real.

But then more life just happened, just like that,

and like a lot of water rushing in to fill empty spaces,

it washed the sadness and grief away, and

even though I never expected it to happen, I lived, 

and even though everything in my life is different,

everything in my life is now different and new,

without you in it, I would never have dreamed that. 

I never dreamed of this happening to me, but

it did, and I’m sorry my life now

doesn’t look like you.

Thoughts on Charlie Kirk

Charlie Kirk

what a jerk,

peddling in myths

rather than truths.

I say he’d look better

in his undies and a shirt,

than a satin lined box

and a cross.

He was a strapping boy,

with not a bad head,

but someone took exception to his words

and shot him dead.

Shit happens,

as has been said.

Poor Charlie,

barely 30,

imagine the damage he could have done,

if someone hadn’t taken to him with a gun.

Not that I am saying that,

it would only cause armed combat,

if one side takes up arms,

the other side would do the same.

And where would that take us,

somewhere whack,

from where we’d probably not come back.

No, I don’t want that.

I wanted Charlie to live to see,

a black, transgender, lesbian president, 

being beloved as widely evident.

And the son he was yet to have,

kissing his husband deeply in love.

Gun Violence USA

There is really only one way 

to fix gun violence in America.

Give everyone a gun!

You get a gun!

And you get a gun!

And you get a gun!

And you get a gun!

And you get a gun!

And you get a gun!

And you get a gun!

And you get a gun…

Dangerous

A person who is comfortable being alone,

is a dangerous person.

If you disrespect them,

they will walk away.

If you overstep their boundaries,

they will cut you off.

If you try to manipulate them, or threaten to leave them,

they will hold the door open for you.

If you betray them,

they will leave you without looking back.

Because they don’t need you in their life,

they choose to let you be in it.

And that makes them,

the most dangerous person you will ever know.

These aren't entirely my own words, but I liked them, so they are my version of what someone else said

America Today

America Today,

what can we say?

Donald Trump is the living embodiment

of the fact that karma has no sway.

Because, when you are a piece of shit,

you’d think it, would have some say,

but he keeps getting away with really awful things,

so, the answer is pretty clearly nay.

Too terrible for words,

the fact that so many people voted for him is absurd,

proving that the master con man can fool some of the people all of the time.

We hold our breath for the time America is cured.

A man who constantly pedals in alternative facts,

and that’s the nicest thing I can say about that.

Who only ever has his own interests in mind?

Never mind the country he has been elected to run.

He imposed tariffs on everyone,

claiming other counties had bought the US undone.

And now he wants to get deals done,

but the American people don’t seem to understand.

That means deals for his own personal funds.

A personal gift of a golf course in Vietnam,

The Nobel Peace Prize as a part of the scam,

If he has to destroy US citizens, he knows he can

My Long Over Due CD and the Meth Head

My dog barked.

He barks when he hears the front gate.

I was waiting for my new CD to arrive.

It was all kinds of overdue.

I opened the front door to see a chick standing there,

reaching up to my electricity metre.

What are you doing? I asked.

Re-setting your metre, she replied.

Why? I asked.

For testing, she said.

I wondered what that meant, testing,

as she turned and left through the front gate.

I caught sight of what she had in her hands,

a package, and old letters.

A red and yellow envelope?

That package looked like what my CD would come in.

Why was the skin on her face so blotchy?

Was she the homeless chick from the squat over Gertrude Street?

I’d watched her smoke her glass pipe, when walking my dogs,

hardly concealing what she was doing from those who could see.

I put on shoes and walked up Gertrude Street,

there she was standing over her dirty bedding.

I watched her like a spy, from across the road.

She headed down the next side street and fiddle with the nun’s electricity metre.

After an inordinate amount of time, when I feared for the sisters, 

I saw her go, to the next house, and the next house, and the next house.

I crossed Gertrude Street like a secret agent,

I went through her dirty bedding, duvet, sheets, blankets.

There were letters from all sorts of local addresses,

made me think she had my package, even if I couldn’t see it.

I called the non-emergency police line.

After I explained what she was doing, they patched me through to the emergency line.

The police asked if I thought the person was on drugs?

The police told me not to approach her, and to stay safe.

After much explaining, which the police seemed to find hard to follow,

they said they would send a car.

Curiosity got the better of me, and I put my shoes back on and headed out again.

The first thing I saw was a police car, turning up the wrong street.

I headed off to find her, and there she was,

in the next street, fiddling with electricity metres on the houses there.

Oh, what can you do, I thought?

And I went home and closed the door.

I told myself, that she was probably so juiced up at those electricity metres,

that she thought she was flying The Enterprise, or saving the world from immanent destruction.

I have walked past since, and seen her always comfortably asleep in her dirty bed,

there in front of the closed down aboriginal gym.

I have scoured her squat for the red and yellow tell tale signs,

of postal packaging, each time I have walked past, but none has ever been visible.

Each time I have regretted not doing a more thorough search for my CD,

convinced she had it, and had pawned it for meth.

Today, my long lost CD finally arrived, many days overdue,

My dog barked when the postie rang my door bell.

I was walking up Gertrude Street in the afternoon, and the homeless chick

was awake in her bed, she looked at me and smiled, and I smiled back.

Lest We Forget, Paul Thek

I look at your art work,

Which I love.

I look at your handsome face,

Given from god above.

I look at the years that you lived.

‘33 to ‘88.

I have a little shudder, 

I rub my face.

I don't need to be told why you died in ‘88.

Even though I know your fate.

I just feel the moment,

try to take it all in.

Some say we died for our sins.

Some say so many things.

So many faces race through my mind,

Looking for answers they never did find.

A cacophony of names and souls,

All disappearing from this earth.

How scared you all must have been,

Life for a time there was pretty grim.

So many of you.

So much fear,

One by one they all disappeared.

The end was never clear.

What happened to whoozit?

I haven’t seen him for a while.

And now?

And? Now?

The fear has gone.

The sun did rise again,

Even if it took two decades to shine.

I wonder if you could believe it,

From where you stood?

So much fear gone away,

That much is good.

So much so that we hardly give it a second thought, today.

Could you have imagined that, 

Paul Thek?

Pete Hajar?

Freddie, Anthony, Rock?

(I could fill volumes with everyone who died)

People talk about the good, and the fair,

So many lost about whom ‘they’ didn’t care,

It was a massacre, right there in plain sight,

Nobody helped, so we fought our own fight.

That much I know, that much is true,

We have to look after ourselves, me & you.

Mary

I look at your awful wedding photos, and shake my head,

whomever took them should never be allowed near a camera again,

and there is your smiling face, so young, and so pleased, 

shining as one does on their wedding day. Such a lovely smile.

And those old scanned photos are a real mess, spots and dirt.

I clean them up, so that you have the nicest wedding photos possible,

now, with a little hope for eternity, for the memory of you.

It’s the least I can do, for you. It’s kind of funny that no one will know,

that I tried to give you the nicest wedding photos possible, all these years

after you are gone. I look at your radiant face on that day and think of you,

and the shit life you had, even that wedding failed you, as he was gay,

and he went away, leaving you alone with two kids. Still, he bought you a house. But, he wasn’t the saviour to take you away from your awful family and all that violence and drunkenness, you delt with, when you 

were so young, bringing up your siblings because your parents 

were ‘otherwise’ engaged. Another failed marriage worse than the first, 

sent you down again. A failed business, took you down again. But you got up, again. Your son died. You got up again.  Then just when you got over everything else, cancer took you away, quite young. What kind of life did you have, I think? I look at your smile now, and try to make it as lovely as it can be, just to remember that small moment of joy, you had, 50 years ago on your wedding day.