poems oct - may

Moved twice, life's been a lot. here are some poems I've written in the midst.

6/3/2025

I lost my fear of lightning when I learned what cascades of bombs exploding sounded like. 

transmitted over ethernet, WiFi, and television;
The soundtrack to war: 
Rolling bombing campaigns and conversations had with gunshots over city blocks.

No need to engineer this bombed out apartment block,
It's all gonna be paved over anyway. 
Swept underneath the rug of 
“civilisation.”

Like it has been before,
As it will be done again.

The Germans said never again,
Yet they Sieg Heil at Israel. 
Americans do so with no hyperbole,
It's feeling like one big facsimile.

Copies of copies lose all integrity,
But that assumes the original had any.
The 1930s edition has all the familiar imagery,
And grandaddy has given us the knock-off forgery.

 
It's a real… estate, sure, 
The clapped out 1970s home in a suburban wasteland with only service stations in walking distance and air-conditioning in one room (it doesn't work). 

When I was young I was confused by the existence of bottled water, 
It's free at the tap? I thought. 
Turns out both are filled with cancer causing PFAS chemicals and micro-plastics (we don’t know what that causes yet). 

The bottled water they sold us because the tap water was contaminated was just another way of getting people to buy petroleum product plastics. 

Just another way our lives get shafted in the name of profit. 

I keep hearing about the cost of living crisis. 
Its silly because we can afford to house homeless people, 
Hell, in some cities we already have enough empty houses. 

But we keep charging more and more for them,
To a point where no one but the wealthiest landlords and property developers can afford these houses. 
And banks trick people into becoming debt slaves for the “privilege” of owning one's abode. 
It’s a sick farce of the major parties to address the cost of living by making petrol cheaper, while they and their property investor mates run the economy off the cliff of their own making.

god

I found god at the bottom of a 10 gram baggy. 
They had chubby-cheek-fur and cargo pants. 

I found god in a needle exchange changing dressings on chronic tranq wounds. 

I found god working the nights, 
She came out of her cocoon,
Fluttering underneath neon lights. 

I found god at the bottom of my stock pot, 
Swimming among the soggy carrots and vegetables.

I found god in my head,
He said “You’re doing fine, my child.”

I saw god in the little girl amongst the rubble of Gaza,
Her little smile was framed by bandages.

I saw greatness in the underground dive bar,
They were covered in hand poke tattoos and drank the house red. 

I saw godliness in myself,
And the divine in divorce.

I found god caught up in the keef trap,
I dusted him off and set him free.

I saw god in a flower,
Covered in pollen,
Inquisitive and curious. 

I found god lying in my bed. 
She was screaming into a pillow,
I sat next to her and screamed too.

We heard the words of god during an open mic
They speak through us all and, 
Sometimes you can hear it. 
I listened and my neck hairs gave a standing ovation. 

I found god and she said it's her turn on the Xbox.
I told her I don't believe in god, 
But I see godliness in everything. 

life

When does life happen? 
At conception? 
Birth? 
Is it merely a practice of constant experiencing? 

Does life happen before, after, or in-between the experiences? 
Is it happening all at once? 

Is life a process of being and becoming? 
Of subtracting and adding parts to make oneself feel whole? 

When does life stop and decay begin? 
One life fuels another, vegetable, animal or mineral.
So is death a part of life? 

Is death the silent shadow cabinet in this seemingly empty parliament of a universe? 
The experiences strung together into sentences to form ideas and discourse? 

Why must it be this life then? 
Is it valid praxis of life to fantasise of another one? 
A different life with different problems?
Maybe problems that are a little easier than my own. 

How much of one's life should you spend in the Foucault? 
Can you make a Fouchole a Fouchome? 
How much existential dread is it healthy to be immersed in? 

When history repeats itself right before your eyes,
How much time should you spend pondering the patterns before speaking them aloud? 

My poems often sound like unconnected questions,
So I wonder, 
Is this even poetry I'm practising? 

Is life poetry?
In that we circle around the drain of meaning for long enough to forget the premise that brought us here in the first place. 
A form of existential edging, 
Rimming the event horizon as a more literal existential masturbation. 

11/3/2025

don't listen to their lies,
or their sweet lullabies. 

don't capitulate to their framing,
don't let them hurt the people they're blaming. 

reminder that corporate puppet states are called fascist dictatorships when they're unaligned with US interests.

and everyone's got their vice,
but ignorance is the most common. 
and the harms of ignorance as a vice…
are unparalleled to any drug.

but how will the collapse of amerikkkan soft power imperialism affect egg prices? 

but how can the seemingly unavoidable death-sprial of neoliberal democracy into fascism be stopped? 

how should I know what to do with egg hens that are no longer laying, 
I don't like killing them so, 
maybe we could let them live out their lives in hen heaven? 

I don't really like that answer for the fascists though.

maybe the guardians of neoliberal democracy can be moved swiftly out of power. 

maybe we need something new. 
something other than a continuation of now. 

29/3/2025

others see me, 
the wheelchair around me, 
wincing with each bounce on the pavement. 
they stare, glare, tear apart my skin with their eyes.

lighthouse beams of pity locked onto me.
some help.
out of sight,
not wanting thanks or even acknowledgement.

but I feel the slicing stares, 
the hushed conversations points and nods to my direction. 

I fight back by loudly talking leftist politics with my partner on walks. 

prognosis

A shoe for another's foot; 
Past lives pass me by and disappear behind the moving bus.

I always wondered what a lonesome shoe is doing when I find it on the road, 
Abandoned. 

“You want a shoe?” 
I ask her, 
“Only slightly used…”
She lets out a frustrated exhale and smiles at me. 

In another life we're tied-together shoes hanging on the power lines. 

It's that golden shine you have in your eyes when they catch the right angle of light. 

God’s rays outshine any mirror when they land on you. 

(Lucifer was heaven sent once,
I can tell when it's his mischievous light glimmering in you too.)

It's why I do it, 
It's why I keep going, I guess.

We talked about the prognosis last night.

The same prognosis that has my family split between “why don't you try harder” and “I'm so sorry for you.” 
While the chosen few around me don't project their own insecurities onto the lesser evils I have to live with. 

The bones will likely fuse together eventually. 
It's already a bit of bone on bone action, 
Imagine my chest as a bad welding shop, 
There's a lot of grinding going on. 

It's just moving from medication to medication,
When one stops working we try another. 
But yes I'm sure you, with no medical education,
Know better than the 6 best rheumatologists in the state. 

And if you catch yourself thinking,
“It sounds like you're giving up.” 
Empathise, listen, 
Then you can judge.

Just don't think I won't speak my mind too. 

Just don't think I won't treat you like you treat me too. 

Just don't think a relationship was ever guaranteed. 

Just don't think about the consequences when your words and actions mismatch. 

Just don't think about me.

Maybe it's an unhealthy grudge. 
Maybe it's not gaslighting. 
Maybe it won't happen again. 
Maybe they'll love me for who I am this time. 
Maybe the entirety of my medical team are wrong and it's "all in le head."

but maybe I can choose my own family,
Without having to confine myself to any kennels.