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Saturday, October 31, 2009

What Lips My Lips Have Kissed, And Where, And Why

from I Eat Poetry

What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why,
I have forgotten, and what arms have lain
Under my head till morning; but the rain
Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh
Upon the glass and listen for reply,
And in my heart there stirs a quiet pain
For unremembered lads that not again
Will turn to me at midnight with a cry.
Thus in winter stands the lonely tree,
Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one,
Yet knows its boughs more silent than before:
I cannot say what loves have come and gone,
I only know that summer sang in me
A little while, that in me sings no more.

(Sonnet XLIII))
-Edna St. Vincent Millay

Friday, October 30, 2009

who will come?

One day I was walking my sister's old dog along this road in Horsham and the wind was fierce and the rain was hard.
Me and the dog were running like idiots while Sadie by Ms Newsom spurred me on.

You know those times when you feel infinite, or close to it? Infinite in the only way we mortals know how.
That was one of those times.

I know that it will never be as good as running along the edge of a country town with drops of rain and a family hound, but She is coming to Melbourne next year. Just after I come back from England.

I will be there. I wish I could take a beanbag to sit on. I want everyone at the Forum to sit down so we can enjoy her in comfort, but I bet it will be hot and awful.

Thursday, October 22, 2009

Today's non-poem poem

Ten Ways to Avoid Lending Your Wheelbarrow to Anybody - Adrian Mitchell

1 PATRIOTIC

May I borrow your wheelbarrow?
I didn't lay down my life in World War II
so that you could borrow my wheelbarrow.

2 SNOBBISH

May I borrow your wheelbarrow?
Unfortunately Lord Goodman is using it.

3 OVERWEENING

May I borrow your wheelbarrow?
It is too mighty a conveyance to be wielded
by any mortal save myself.

4 PIOUS

May I borrow your wheelbarrow?
My wheelbarrow is reserved for religious ceremonies.

5 MELODRAMATIC

May I borrow your wheelbarrow?
I would sooner be broken on its wheel
and buried in its barrow.

6 PATHETIC

May I borrow your wheelbarrow?
I am dying of schizophrenia
and all you can talk about is wheelbarrows.

7 DEFENSIVE

May I borrow your wheelbarrow?
Do you think I'm made of wheelbarrows?

8 SINISTER

May I borrow your wheelbarrow?
It is full of blood.

9 LECHEROUS

May I borrow your wheelbarrow?
Only if I can fuck your wife in it.

10 PHILOSOPHICAL

May I borrow your wheelbarrow?
What is a wheelbarrow?

Sunday, October 18, 2009

devondale alley

this one goes out to all the non-readers.

[you know I only mention non-readers in the vain hope that I actually have readers who will get offended by me calling them non-readers. and then comment. to let me know they are real. you guys suck]
[no! I don't mean that at all! I love you!]

Yesterday I bought a skirt and some massive ghetto hoop earrings from Sportsgirl. Sportsgirl is my fave chain store by far, but I never buy things from there unless they're on sale. So these items cost me a total of $45. I made awkward complimentary conversation with the shopgirl about her awesome fringe and me and my housemate tried on tiny hat fascinators to amuse ourselves.

After a brief drink with work people across the road at the Order - we sat upstairs because it was sunny, but the Order rooftop was poorly positioned that afternoon and it was bloody freezing - I came home and decided I wanted to wear my new things and put on makeup to amuse myself. I want to learn how to put on eyeliner properly. It's one of those things that you think would/should be easy, but if you want it to look good then you really should trial it out a few times. Anyway then my housemate and her boyfriend arrived home and I was unamused by their presence and the prospect of having them talk all the way through Love Actually so when Zoe asked me out I leaped at the opportunity to leave the house. Neither of us had any idea what to do though so we both put ideas onto tiny little bits of paper "bigger than confetti, smaller than a banner". I shoved scissors and looseleaf paper into my bag and did this on the train.

Waiting for Zoe. Watching skanks at Flinders street. Why do they think it's ok to wear the things they do? I can't even sum up the atrocities I saw there. Vile.

Devoid of any hat or similar recepticles to place the pieces of paper into and hence draw out and select an idea, Zoe put all the pieces of paper into her pocket and she drew one out that I had written that suggested we go to places we've never been to before and have always wanted to go to. But I said that we shouldn't do anything we really didn't want to do. We ended up going to Old Bar to see this band called the Butcher Birds. We didn't catch all of their set so we heard from one of the guitarists that they were playing a set at Pony later on that evening we decided to get grotty and head there (after a brief stop at the watering hole pleasantly known as McDonalds).

We saw the band again. Zoe saw people she knows. People she didn't want to see. We went outside to the alley across from Pony and made friends with a tall boy with a moustache, a lipring and a furred-leather that read Canadian Club (Wiliam) and this cute little boy from Wellington (Jeremy). We all spoke about milk and sunglasses and Bono and I smiled at the Wellington boy and he smiled back at me and blushed like a child. I asked the wider group if you could possibly use the gum wrappers from extra to roll cigarettes with and then Zoe made a clever joke about needing the gum from regular papers. We headed back inside briefly then came back outside to our friends who had been joined by this lad in a stripey jumper and this tall, thin fellow with a hat who looked like a beautiful indie boy but when he spoke sounded like he came from a farm near Geelong.

The five of us had a session. I loaned Jeremy my scissors to cut the weed and he asked me if I always carried scissors and paper around and then I said paper mostly and that we'd been making notes earlier in the evening. It began to rain and we sought refuge near some ventilation bits of a building. Hat-indie-boy sat on a bin, while William rescued a milkcrate from inside this cage of air conditioners and stood on it like a soapbox. He was so outrageous and just announced the strangest things. I liked his openness and how he was just so inclusive and welcoming. But I have a strange feeling like if we had needed him in a crisis he would run away and flake. Zoe and stripey jumper boy, later named Vaguey Vaguerson, were drawing on the walls of this place with my pens while I stood with Jeremy, William and Hat-indie-boy. Some other people walked into the shelter and Jeremy goes to me "were those people with us the whole time? I don't really know what's going on now. I'm so stoned".



Zoe and I went back inside at some point due to coldness and we were accosted upstairs by a guy who looked like Ozzy & Snape & Morticia & Iggy & Noel Fielding. Not enough like Noel unfortunately. He had a nose piercing as well, but I didn't trust him. We were kind to him and were friendly. So then he found us downstairs later and asked us to mind his drink while he went outside for a smoke. But he took ages and we wanted to see if our alley friends were still there. They weren't. But Spooky Spookerson was out there and he got shitty with us because we left his drink unattended. He ran back inside. We dodged a bullet.

The rest of the morning was spent writing those stories that you write a few lines of, fold over and give it to the next person. It's like a joint, but with words. We also watched stripey jumper guy from before macking on with some babe. It was intense. We wrote a story with this guy with a massive fro and a massive voice.

Story time was over by 6am and we got our respective trams home, stomachs rumbling from Pony-exertion.

---

Just before, I was thinking about whether it is worthwhile posting entries about nights out. Whether I should offer opinions rather than anecdotes. Because maybe nobody cares and nothing I say is worthwhile (this is quite possible). It's too late now I guess. Also, these people who I met once and will never meet again - people who would never remember me anyway - what would they think about having a blog post essentially written about them? They will never read it. Has this happened to me before? I guess that's the majesty of blogging. There's the romance. And I just fucked it up for ya'll.

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

phat disclaimer

(This is the kind of blog entry I write when I pretend that I have readers)

Today I realised that my philosophy classmates have probably been googling transpersonal solipsism (because it's not commonly written about apparently?) and this blog has probably been coming up. It'd be nice if some people actually decided to read the blog for real from this accidental stumbleupon but I doubt it somehow. Anyway it would be really embarrassing if my teacher himself googled it and saw how reverently I regarded that email. I've come through my "philosophical breakdown" now so I don't really feel as mushily about it as I did then but I'll keep it up just for kicks. Plus I really think it's a good bit of philosophical propaganda.

Also today I was walking down Burwood Rd and I realised how much I really like grooving away while I'm walking. I love singing while I walk and I just do it all the time lately. I was returning home from our favourite Indian restaurant on Glenferrie rd, Sahni's. It has $15 buffets on Wednesday evenings. And they taste so good! Tonight there was this eggplant and potato thing and it was utterly fabulous. Usually we eat and eat until we are sickeningly full but tonight we restrained ourselves. By we I mean my sister and my dear wife Jacqueline. And then I wanted to scope out this place where my dear friend/boss/general awesome person is going to be MC-ing a poetry reading. These events are created by Laura Smith who is Melissa's friend and who I hung out with at TiNA. I rather admire Laura because she seems to be part of this really awesome poet crew. And after TiNA I decided that I want to be a bit more into poetry and writing in general. Of course, it's a rather unfortunate time for me to realise this seeing how university happens to be really alarmingly busy at the moment.

Whilst at TiNA, this little story I wrote was totes put into the Voiceworks zine. And that made me feel cool. So I just want to write something fierce lately. You can't stop me. I'm like a words machine.

Stacey's Seasonal Haiku

spring
i put my hood on
walk through the wet streets
warm spring rain

autumn
people in scarves
jump on
crunchy leaves


summer
the sun on my skin
this infinite heat
this summer's day


winter
tangled in blankets
the glow of my computer
keeping me warm

seasons haiku

autumn

everyone on this train has
red eyes &
a matching red nose.

winter

everyone in Melbourne is sick
& tired. trying to be
cold & romantic.

spring

hours spent choosing clothes
Melboune's wrath is fierce:
weather changes. Wrong again.

summer

my back & shoulders ache
and I'm sure
my lettuce is sweating.

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

material things

I've posted like ninety thousand videos on facebook tonight so I'll just post this one here instead.



I heard it on RRR yesterday while I was waiting to panel for our Room with a View show. I was like "oh that lyric about adobe slabs sounds familiar" then I'm looking up that lyric and it's that Animal Collective song.. but then I watch the video for that song and I go.. that's not right.. it was a girl singing. And then I found this. And it is amazing. So watch the hell out of it. Oh! Just researched Taken by Trees and it's that girl from the Concretes! No wonder this cover is so awesome

I am going to use this blog for real blogging soon AND I also have been collecting haiku for the haiku task below.