poems for august and september

been a rough couple months I hope you understand a lack of posts. I have been working on a zine behind the scenes as well so get hyped. apologies for the incessant political themes.

billionaire

We lock billionaires in their own luxury cars,
We tape a hose up to the exhaust,
We feed it in through the rear window,
We read poetry and stand up drafts to them as they suffocate.
We note if they fall asleep faster with or without performance,
And if laughter fastened their suffocation.

When the billionaire is reclaimed,
We will find out the answer to every question. 

When the billionaire is reclaimed,
We will feast on their roasted flesh,
Cracking back fat, apple filled mouth. 

When the billionaire is reclaimed, 
We will triple smoke their bacon, 
In their own cigar and whiskey collection,
Maple boxes and all. 

When the billionaire is reclaimed, 
We will dismantle their systems so they can never be conceived of,
Their colonisation of our minds undone. 

When the billionaire is reclaimed,
We will sing, party, drink, smoke, snort our lives away into the night. 
Their excess redistributed.

When the billionaire is reclaimed,
We will make stock from their bones,
And drink their livestock in religious ceremonies,
Until the stock is depleted, and the sin digested. 

When the billionaire is reclaimed, 
Nothing will be wasted,
Their fatty flesh is delicious.  

This poem was a fun one. I had the thought of a grey future where a revolution is completed and the people experimented on billionaires in the ways they often end up doing on themselves and others (think of the submarine implosion, the space companies, nuralink, and the weird “age reversal” experiments by Bryan Johnson). Performed and crowed tested at this months Mixed Bag’s Fresh off the Press open mic at Ancient World.

Off season

It's about perspectives right?
Left with the rest of his life. 
Perfect victim; baby born Christ,
Lies within him, I doubt he had foresight. 

Vacant vacation homes, 
Echos of lost dreams, 
In this off season working class holiday town. 

The long lost brown-land dream,
Now just olive trees and real estate signs, 
Forgotten towns of quiet living. 

Now exist:
My quiet mind.

In quietness we rebel.
In quietness we hold our minds.

In quietness my mind rebels, 
A riot is a game of chess, 
Played on a minefield;
Burnt gunpowder smells. 

In the quietness,
After the big loud, 
All will settle, 
Among the crowd. 

The vines will reclaim, 
What's left of our remains. 
We will be left to frolick, 
Amongst the ruins of our forefathers.

Written whilst staying at a holiday home in Milton SA, an almost deserted holiday home even during school holidays. I was staying with a very close friend. She worked on her Warhammer 40K minis and I wrote poems, on the TV was a stream of either Jabroni Mike’s brainrot comedy or Hasan Piker’s commentary on the election and the escalating genocide of Gaza and Lebanon. We smoked, we cooked, we did fuck all.

ouroboros, worshipped

I've felt aware of my awareness for so long,
Alert and alarmed by the ways in which I could be perceived. 
Yet so helplessly unable to do anything about it. 

Spent many long days in fight or flight, 
Many long years. 
And that's how I feel: spent. 

Used up;
Tired;
Empty;
Exhausted. 

Yet I continue on,
Down uncertain paths,
Under uncertain skies,
In-between concrete monuments to certainty. 

Am I the wasp or the fig? 
Or just here to comment on the circle of life and how round it is? 

I cough up muck and spread it on these pages like they were bread and my phlegm is the finest butter. 
But I'm tired,
And I still need pages to rest my head on. 

Ouroboros, worshipped;
Dogs send their prayers by chasing their own tails. 
I wonder how fruitful life will be,
How my tail would taste betwixt my sharpened teeth? 

How many times will I walk these same streets,
In the same mood,
Finding the same meaning, 
In the same songs?

It feels endless,
But the morbid curiosity in me wonders how far the snake can swallow itself before it dies of suffocation? 

I felt myself choking on the words I was swallowing.
I feel myself hoping in the future I was wallowing away.

I wonder if it's in the snakes nature to swallow itself,
As it is in the dog's to chase its own tail?
I wonder,
I wonder, 
I wonder if I'll ever wake up fine. 

And when I do,
I wonder if I'll still be choking on my own words,
Chasing them down my throat.
I wonder how much longer I can go before I suffocate?

Read it again or skip to the next poem instead of reading the description that should be here.

Palestine

Motherfuck your two-state solution. 
Other ducks queue up straight for execution. 
No room between river and sea, 
For genocidal entities. 

An impossibility;
This dual state needs to sublimate. 
One state focused on the elimination of the other;
Occupation forces focused on the incineration;
Smother the others and prevent translation. 

Of the horrors;
Of the struggle;
Of the true name of the stolen land. 

Palestine, don’t question the storyline,
Presented by fascist fucks in decline. 
This Mediterranean coastline is the first world’s faultline. 
Western timeline still holocaust inclined;

Blind to the one happening.

That's a blunt line,
Better spark up again. 
Better keep those ears open, 
And hark up again:

Blind; ignorant; uncaring; uninterested. 
Acting all as designed. 
Because the fact is: 
We’re all Palestine. 

We’re all intertwined, 
Same struggle; same picket line. 

Making use of some cool rhymes in this. The almost sylable for sylable shceme for the first two lines is one of my favourite writing exercises to do. It oftentimes can feel a bit stilted to read, but if you can figure out the delivery its usually fine. However, these first two lines are smooth like the round end of a ball-peen hammer.

anticapitalist

If you wear a suit to work you're probably a cunt;
Decide other people's lives for them and profit off their misfortune. 

If you wear a suit to work, 
You probably smell awful;
Like overpriced Kmart scents;
Whatever the fuck “fresh linen ocean spray” is supposed to smell like. 

You have work lunches hosted at classy restaurants,
Mimosas on the bosses tab,
Drunk afternoon drives in your expensive Italian car. 

Shave with your German engineered razor,
It has 7 blades and three 42 length settings:
To solve the mystery of what you actually do as a real estate agent. 

Diamond encrusted name badge,
Endangered giant squid ink text upon peppermint pearlescent parchment backing.

Gaudy would describe you, 
If anyone believed the illusion you try to sell.
The golden jewellery and sharp suits, 
Look like plastic dress up props. 

It's free from style,
Predictable flow,
Frequent blow user,
Dealer on speed dial. 

I feel sick looking at you, 
Your shiny black shoes,
Overly comfortable in your smugness, 
Overly governable with to whom you show repugnance. 

Capitalist: fascists that place the market above all;
Worshipers of the holiness of value; of price; of worth. 

Markets: the slave houses of art pieces, tools and human rights; 
The holy trinity of supply, demand, and their child, value.

Capitalism: the commodification of world(s); 
The process of making need and want synonyms,
And extorting you for providing access to what were previously defined as needs. 

Blunt end of the ball-peen hammer mentioned previously. My partner semi-ernestly described me as “a brilliant propagandist”. She grew up in Russia which inclines me take to this as a compliment.

exponential oasis

An oasis of exponentiality,
In this desert of finite resources. 
The growth can never stop;
Maybe this oasis is more,
Tumour than paradise. 

But can you imagine a place more than paradise? 
More than excess, 
More than what more previously implied. 
Ever more expansive than you could imagine. 
Ever more expensive; more than you could afford. 

A utopia for those that can hoard it, 
A dystopia for those that subsist on wasted food; 
On half smoked cigarettes;
On couch crumbs of stale weed;
On shared syringes filled with fentanyl and speed. 

Champagne shakers spray the crowd;
Gaped mouths and poked out tongues,
Needy for a drop of water,
“Let them have bubbly.” 
The aristocrat declared over megaphone. 

The absurdity isn't lost,
People are just too thirsty,
To care about cost.

Another entrant into the propaganda line.