Advice

Don’t take relationship advice from those
in fucked up relationships,
They can only tell you to do what they don’t,
What they won’t,
They want to live vicariously through you,
They comment on your life as if it were a
storyline in a soap opera,
They want you to forget about their own dysfunctional relationships,
The miserable life they spend hours telling you about,
Instead they want to give you a pep talk,
To inspire you into action,
To send you off to get the justice they will never obtain,
So you can crash and burn for their entertainment,
The only useful advice they can give is for you to never end up like them.





How do you think it went?

You do it for yourself when you ask how the funeral went,
Do you feel that you’ve offered your condolences when you
rub salt in that wound?
Practice your best sympathetic face,
Get the caring voice right,
Have no concept of how your victim would rather talk about
Something else,
Watching them choking back the tears is worth it,
As long as you feel that you’ve shown that you care.

Silence

I want to let it all out,
To smash it in anger and not clean up the mess,
To tell the truth and not water it down,
To be counted alone and feel better for it,
Why do I hold so much back?
Why am I protecting these predators?
They consider me as their prey,
I could hurt them but I don’t,
Any prick can use violence,
Fear of words is real fear,
The fear of what might be said,
They prod me unaware of the punch they could get
in return,
Who do they think they’re dealing with?
Everything’s so fucking funny,
So fucking clever,
So self righteous,
So unnecessary,
They can’t seem to hold anything back,
So why am I giving them the censored version?
Don’t they realise how much ammunition I have to fire back?
It’s quite an arsenal,
I could really let it fly,
But I’m just waiting for the right provocation,
Often simply knowing how bad I could upset them
Is enough to pacify me,
I keep my mouth shut and wallow in the knowledge of it all,
Wondering how they have the nerve,
The arseholes in the rusty old battleship don’t realise there is a
Nuclear submarine in the vicinity,
One day they might just find themselves blown out of the water.

Have a drink, invite it all

Beware when the alcohol relaxes you,
Watch out when the booze makes you happy,
That’s when public transport will fail you,
That’s when they’ll want an argument,
That’s when they’ll bubble with criticism,
That’s when the computer will crash,
That's when your phone will be dead,
That’s when music devices won’t work,
That’s when you can’t think clearly,
That’s when the chemicals inside stop helping you,
And relaxation turns to rage.

Traffic jam, Station Road

They need their poison at 10 am,
An indoor war memorial,
A park bench the weather can’t spoil,
Toothless laughter,
Incontinence unchecked,
A nasty expletive filled argument is pulled up short by the long suffering bar staff,
Some bicker,
Some stare into space,
The liquid is cold as it slips down,
As they shut down,
Suddenly outside,
Faltering in broad daylight,
A screech of brakes,
An addled glace,
Before the world span and the bones ripped through the skin,
Did you hear about old Charley?

Can they really talk?

People need a distraction from themselves,
They watch T.V,
They see films,
They watch sport,
Play board games,
Go to fancy dress parties,
But do they really talk?
Killing time together,
Revealing nothing but opinions about the game,
About the film,
About that thing,
That isn’t them.

Did she tell you how much her holiday cost?

If the lifestyle is worth the neglect,
If the trappings are worth the abuse,
If the money is worth the violence,
Then you deserve it all.

The girl who downloads viruses

The girl who downloads viruses believes it all,
She is spoon fed her opinions by the tabloids and other
Manipulators of the gullible,
They tell her what to fear,
Who to hate,
And what to do about it,
She hysterically disseminates this misinformation feeling
self righteous,
Like she is providing a valuable public service,
But she’s been tricked again,
Played,
Taken for the fool that she is,
The girl who downloads viruses obediently forwards another
warning to all her friends,
Double click on the link,
Follow the instructions,
And download the virus.

When they are gone

When they are gone she can say she was a good daughter,
Despite the fact that everything they did left her feeling let down,
Despite the fact that they didn’t care about each other,
Despite the fact that they were an embarrassment,
Despite the boring repetition of their co-dependency,
Despite being constantly dragged into their endless self inflicted problems,
Despite the disappointment,
Despite the tears,
When they are gone at least she can say she was a good daughter.

Parameters

He got in his cage at five every night because it
saved an argument,
It had been agreed,
Those two hours in that cage meant that she would be off his back,
He sits on the floor and looks at her through the bars,
He resents being put in here,
He asked once if he could come out before the two hours were up and
She went crazy,
He won’t make that mistake again,
Relationships need parameters.

Rejoice

Until you get that phone call,
Until you recieve those test results,
Until you see that blood,
Until you feel that pain,
Rejoice.

Picking at sores

1000 contestants

1000 contestants in a lifelong bullshit talking competition,
A tidal wave of empty talk comes flushing out of their mouths,
The love of melodrama,
The hard done by stories,
The way they think that bad luck only comes to them,
The pretentious chest puffin trips,
So important for no apparent reason,
Smug with nothing to be smug about,
Trying to impress with nothing impressive,
All handing out the free advice,
With mock conviction in their eyes,
You can find yourself almost believing what they say,
Then you snap out of it,
I know I’m hopelessly outnumbered,
They’re out there waiting to speak to me,
To try and educate me,
To inflict their shit on me,
I try to desensitise myself but they always find new
Ways to creep in the bullshit dialogue,
Turn your brain off and give it to me;
What’s your latest accusation?
What’s your latest denial?
What’s your latest hang up?
What’s your latest paranoia?
What’s your latest neurosis?
What’s your latest excuse?
Don’t worry about logic,
Don’t worry about reality,
Don’t worry about fact,
Don’t worry about the unlikelihood of what
You say actually happening,
Don’t let these things cloud your argument,
100000 contestants in a lifelong bullshit talking competition
all regurgitate their well practiced spiel,
I should be grateful for all the free entertainment.

Real life

Real life is broken glass,
Debt,
Crime,
Disease,
Fuck your stupid emotions,
You could find a way to miserable
In paradise,
Real life has nothing to do with the mess inside your head,
Real life is there regardless,
Torrential rain,
Mechanical failure,
Real life is beyond your control,
When the hurricane blows it’s going to take the roof
Off your house,
No matter what sort of mood you’re in,
There’s something strangely comforting about that.

Human

I’ll laugh at your problems because I’m human,
I’ll think of myself first because I’m human,
I’ll take it all inside because I’m human,
You see an act,
I won’t say what I really mean because I’m human,
So human,
Predator and prey rolled into one,
I go from confidence to insecurity in a flash,
What I can and can’t do confuses me,
I can’t handle it all because I’m human just like you,
Too much to understand,
Too many distractions,
Contradictory information,
Mixed signals,
The horror of life makes me hide inside myself,
I end up just like those I hate,
We all do,
What I was sure of yesterday,
I’m not too sure of today,
What I think now is not what I thought then,
Everything is funny,
Everything can be criticised,
Everything can be destroyed,
I can’t be trusted because I’m human,
We won’t find the answer because there isn’t one,
I’ll change my mind,
I’ll take offence,
I’ll get it all wrong,
I won’t play the game because I’m human.

3 poems

****

Give me something to worry about,
I can’t allow myself to be totally happy,
There must be something to spoil it,
A problem presents itself and I handle it badly,
No possible solution,
The end of the world,
But when I find that the problem is gone I’m
still not satisfied,
Something has to take its place,
I need new worries,
I just can’t enjoy myself all the way,
There always has to be some shit on the ice-cream,
Don’t tell me you are any different.


****
They want to upset,
I wish I could shut them out,
But even the most untrue remarks can pierce the armour
sometimes,
Some days they can get you almost as bad as they want to,
You try to not care but the bastards can be so low that it’s impossible
to ignore them,
You think you are getting better at dealing with them,
But then they really stick the knife in,
They remind you how vulnerable you really are,
That you’re not as emotionally tough as you would like to be,
You eventually harden to certain situations but you can never be
fully prepared,
They can hurt you,
You do care.



****

If only I knew then what I know now,
Hindsight screams out that you have fucked up,
Hindsight turns you on yourself,
Looking back is a bad habit,
The successes get forgotten,
The good times are unclear and poorly
remembered,
The failures are crystal clear,
Every tiny detail intact in the memory,
Hindsight is an enemy,
Treat it as such.

Depression

Depression comes over like a wave. Does there need to be a reason? It all builds up. It creeps up on you. So much to think about that you can think about nothing. One large unmanageable mess. You can’t think about things one at a time. Thoughts get scrambled at times like these. Information overload. Negative, self-defeating thoughts attack you at your weakest moment. When you’re hungry. When you’re too tired. When you’re too hot. When you’re too cold. When you’re too far away. When you’re out of time. No answer to your problems. You feel useless. That all these hard years have been for nothing. You have been tricked, humoured and ignored all the way. You feel ugly. Stupid. Everyone else seems so together. They don’t seem to have problems like you have. They’re always. Having a good time. They are so confident. They just get on with it. Or so it seems. A lot of them are just pretending to be happy. Behind the fronts we choose to project cower very sensitive creatures. Depression is a massive underground cult. A well kept secret. A taboo subject. An admittance of weakness. An emotion that creates a torture chamber in the mind. Especially at night when things blow out of proportion to the point of ridiculousness. You can imagine any conspiracy occurring. It all falls into place. Depression supplies the problem, futility hides the solution and frustration delivers the final blow. If you’re lucky it makes you angry. But if it really gets you bad you just sit there not knowing how to even begin to handle it. It dents your spirit. It shuts you down. This is the most damaging time. There really seems no escape. Somehow you have to find your way back. To return to a normal functioning mode. Most of the time you can keep on top of it. Your emotional self defence system is working properly. But depression and frustration are always waiting to invade and occupy. Things seem to be going well then you start to erode. You start to crack. The good mood turns sour. The humour dies. The saving sense of irony collapses. Self doubt, panic, worry, insecurity and paranoia seem to be the brains favourite operating modes. The human being should be on product recall.

Single

Without a partner,
Without a shoulder to cry on,
Only the cold shoulder,
The hard shoulder,
Convinced that you’re boring,
You’re ugly,
A sad case,
Forgotten how it feels to hold someone,
Forgotten how it feels to be in love,
It’s worse if you never have,
You feel vulnerable,
Insecure,
Kidding yourself that you don’t need to be in a relationship,
That you’re better off alone,
Raging envy,
Hate their happiness,
Ridicule it,
Can’t remember how to impress,
Rusty chat,
Irreparable charm,
They belong to another species,
Untouchable,
Forget your successes,
Dwell on your failures,
The rejections,
Wallow in the pain of unrequited love,
Make it your reason not to bother,
So bitter,
So foolish,
Drown yourself in booze,
Numb yourself with drugs,
Listen to your involved friends complain about their relationships,
But they’re not going to tell you how wonderful love is,
They’re going to bring up frictions and go on about how hard done by they are,
They say they envy your freedom,
But you envy them more than they will ever know,
You have no one to spend your money on,
They are victors in a game you are too scared and hurt to play,
But they are no better than you my friend,
They were just in the right place at the right time,
As you will be,
Love neglects no one.

Weakness

They won’t admit their weaknesses. But that’s where it’s at: being human. Admitting weakness. Admitting fear. Admitting mistakes. The best way to impress someone is to cut through the mock-perfect front and admit to being fallible. This is not to say be totally pathetic but to be big enough to cut through the pretence. It’s easy to think that you’re a fuck up when all those around you are carefully hiding their own errors. We’re all in the same boat and it’s always refreshing to hear someone admit something instead of being full of self-important shit. Perfect is bullshit. Imperfect is truth. We’re all hopelessly flawed. If we all confess our weaknesses we might be able to give each other some genuine help. But pride and pretence will always cover the outward cracks leaving the problems in tact on the inside.

Self awareness

It would be interesting if one day you could watch yourself,
If you could see how you seem to others,
Sit across the office from yourself,
Go to the pub and spy on yourself,
However perhaps this might not be such a good idea,
You might think you were an arsehole.

Better luck next time

Colin

Colin worked for that supermarket for ten years. Ten years of stacking shelves and sweeping up shit. Ten years of being told what to do by that prick Taylor. Ten years of wearing that fucking green uniform. Ten years of taking shit from customers. Ten years of watching younger people moving up the ranks while he stayed where he was. Only to be sacked for dropping a box of light bulbs. It was one of those young arseholes that made the decision too. Probably sucking up to Taylor. The fire brigade said it was definitely arson but the culprit didn’t leave anything that could identify them.

They are not your friends

Bare your soul on social networking sites,
What do you want?
Their sympathy?
Their praise?
Their attention?
Set tongues wagging,
Put on a brave face,
Issue your press statement,
Your public relations announcement,
Not how you really feel,
Once you had a circle of friends,
Now you share your highs and lows with
Every tenuous acquaintance in your life,
Waiting for someone to poke their head out of the
Foxhole and allow themselves to be judged,
Let them instant message behind your back,
How annoying you are,
How ridiculous you are,
You violate your privacy willingly,
In this spiteful little world inside your computer screen.

Irony festival

Life is an irony festival,
Problems are not problems,
A fuss about nothing,
A mountain out of a mole hill,
A few things can really stop you in your tracks,
The rest is just petty bullshit
That doesn’t matter,
I watch these fools and cannot suppress my laughter,
They things they say and the way they act
Defies logic,
They don’t get the joke,
They don’t realise how unintentionally
Funny they are,
Life is hard but they make it harder
Because they are too mature,
But they are not mature,
Their cool posing and actions
Deprive them of a lot of fun,
So grown up,
So false,
So pathetic,
They except their miserable lives because
They are stupid,
But life must be enjoyed,
You might not be here long,
These serious conformist nothings
Are great comics in a sad way,
For them,
Their lives are empty,
They pretend but it’s obvious that they’re
not happy,
Their happiness is conditional,
But the conditions are too rigid,
They have missed the point,
You have to be able to laugh at
Yourself as well as at other people,
We are all fools for one reason or
Another,
We all talk a lot of shit,
None of us really knows what the
Fuck we’re doing,
We all end up looking stupid,
Enjoy life in the present,
One moment at a time,
Don’t get so tense,
Don’t get so paranoid,
It’s a waste of time because
No one gives a shit,
See the funny side,
Enjoy life’s irony festival.

Ratrace

Pathetic human ratrace,
Their life consists of a rigid
Set of goals that have to be achieved,
They have to have something to judge your
Progress by,
Your progress in their structure of
Objectives,
Everyone must be accounted for,
Who’s successful?
Who’s a failure?
There’s nothing wrong with ambition
As long as it’s your own,
Not the pressure they put on you,
The pathetic human ratrace expects you to
Conform,
But what are they going to do when the
kids have left home and the mortgage is paid?

What they would have done

Lottery

I’ll get around to adding the text here one of these days, too much to type! Until I can be arsed Watch the video instead.

Love is a fist

Money

How much money do you earn?
Most people are guarded about money,
It’s a very private thing,
Other people brag about their pay packet
As if to say “I’m better than you because
I get paid more than you!”
They may get more money than you but they
Probably have to give more of themselves for it,
More money often means more stress,
Too much stress means you’ve got a problem,
But still they keep asking how much money you earn,
These people piss me off,
There is no link between wealth and decency,
There is no link between having a lot of money and
being a good person,
Quite the opposite,
People who flaunt money tend to be smug arseholes,
You acquire money by circumstance more than you do
By intelligence.


Money poem read on Sydney radio station 2GB
****
You want more money,
Why?
We are conditioned to make money our god,
But greed is ugly,
Greed is weak,
Pathetic rats crawling over each other,
Misers and workaholics fill the grave yards,
Real happiness has no price tag.

Obvious consumer man

Coffin

Here’s a cheerful thought. Think about your coffin. Think about the wood it’s going to be made out of. By the time you get planted they might be using plastic coffins. Recycled from Burger King cartons.

Life

In the post office

The strangler

Self help

She severed his world from its moorings with one look,
With one touch he wanted to throw it all away,
He was desperate to join her on the epic expedition that is her life,
But he feared that one day she would finish one of
those fucking self help books and realise that he just
wasn’t what she needed.

Prepare to be let down

Prepare to be let down,
Expect to be messed around,
Don’t expect anything to be
Particularly beneficial,
Chances are they’re going to try and take something away,
Don’t ever let them,
You shouldn’t have to do a lot of things,
But you fucking better.

Stupid questions

They ask you stupid questions,
Because they’re bored
They try to irritate
Because they’re bored
They want to know why
Because they’re bored
You’re there to amuse
Because they’re bored
When you have nothing to think about
and you give them something
they milk it for all it’s worth
So bored with their lives
The same over and over again
Desperate
Like a disease
Please entertain us
Please relieve our boredom
We would rather feel anything than this.

?

Don’t know what to do,
What to say,
Where to go,
Don’t know who to believe,
Who to trust,
Who’s right?
Who’s wrong?
Don’t know if this is the right road,
The right people,
The right decision,
The right attitude,
Don’t know if they understand,
If they realise,
If they care,
Life is a guessing game,
No one knows the answer.

Whoever she may be

My boss is a prick but the attractive young woman across the hall
Puts her rubbish out wearing only a dressing gown,
The thought of that thing coming undone right in front of me one day
Makes it hard to listen to his latest tantrum,
He is a small man,
Dominated at home by his wife,
He gives me shit to feel more powerful,
But her bare legs silence him from my mind,
It doesn’t take much to do this,
Any pleasant thought will do,
And the best thoughts so often revolve around sex,
His most ridiculous outburst cannot hold my attention
As much as the smell of her perfume lingering in the air,
I do not need to defeat this annoying little man,
She has done it for me,
Whoever she may be.