dear john 280810

dear john,

im writing to you today - i sit here on the couch listening to a dream syndicate album that i downloaded yesterday - the football is on and im eating some pizza shapes and drinking vb beer out of a beer mug that has "the beatles" printed on it - these things, and my laptop are on the coffee table which has a carlton draught beer mat on it, along with the local newspapers, some nail polish, the latest edition of your zine, and a spot of sunlight - i am alone and slightly cold, wearing white socks, blue jeans, a church tshirt which has a topless lady on it who has stars for nipples, and a red and black flannel shirt - i haven't shaved in three or four days, and my sideburns are hearty - lauren is out somewhere and just before i walked up to a second hand cd store and bought a robyn hitchcock album, and a screaming trees album just because i love mark lanegan's whiskey voice - on the way home i stopped off at an op-shop and had a look at the shirts, but always knew i wasn;t going to find anything - i then went to the supermarket and bought some soft drink and a sports drink to take the edge of the depleted feeling i felt, and now i feel good - i bought a slab of beer as well and was awarded a free stubbie holder which i appreciated - it as "for me who have had their arm up a cow" printed on it, as a small sillohetted image of a man with his arm up a cow - i look forward to lauren's response when she sees it, and now im thinking about how she is so funny and how many people don't see it - she will be home sometime, and i liked the idea of having nothing to do tonight, but then i got a text message from my friend XXX(you also wrote about your friend XXX) and the text message says "okay, are you up for drinks and strippers in the city?" - i assume he's joking but i know he's probably not - he's such a nice guy, - YYY once spoke to me about her concerns of XXX being depressed - i never saw it and spoke to him about - "XXX, do you feel you're depressed?" i asked out of nowhere at a party once, and he replied "yeah, probably" - i was surprised but i shouldn't have been - i said "you and me both, but we'll alright" - and since then i've always looked out for him and stood up for him - if i didn't have lauren i would be a mess - maybe i will go out with XXX tonight - i don't know - i look forward to my bucks party - XXX's a tits man - i have been to strip clubs before - i remember befriending this guy who could've been my best friend, of life, but we lived in different areas of the planet - this mexican man took us out to a few bars - little did we know they were strip clubs and my shy friend had the mexican treatment that night and i thought it was hilarious - "what would you like sim-on?" - "ah, barcardi i guess" - and slam, and bottle of barcadi is slammed on the table in front of me - that was the night i fell asleep in my boxer shorts on the floor of a hostel in mexico city - i owned that place - i think about my drinking - it's definately a possibility, but i don't really know why - i trust i am intelligent to know what im doing, and to ensure i am living the life i want to live - i remember something i learnt in year twelve psychology, and it was that normal was being able to cope within the society in which you belong - whatever - i never want to hurt anybody, and i like the life i live - it's mine and it's how i want it to be - i can see the world in a way nobody else can, and i can switch it on and off at will - like now, how that strip of sunlight is randomising with the shadows of leaves and wind makes it a priceless work of art on my living room wall - like how i can look at lauren and think about the time we first met, and how neither of us could have ever understood how life-chaning that moment was, and how we must always remember that as at anytime another moment like that could take place - maybe i've just created another one? - it keeps suicide at bay - ive just changed the music and thought it would be funny to play the latest gorillaz album - snoop - i just went to the toilet and find it strange and funny how we have a trainspotting poster in there at that place, a large "photo" of superted, a self portrait of steve kilbey, and a painting of the universe by steve kilbey - being such a small little room, it positioned so that the self portrait is looking at the painting of the universe - you should come over and see it sometime - the universe, not my toilet - i always screw it up, don't i john - smashed and clingy at all tomorrow's parties - loaded and blokey at my birthday - who am i kidding, i am a mess - i do hurt people - it's halftime and the spots of sunlight have gone away - i pat the beat of the gorillaz on my inner thighs and maybe i should drum - i am writing to you today john because i love you and i don't know you and i am in debt to you - i will continue this - do you see me as a writer? - do you see me as a bogan? - do you see me as a bloke and an embarrassment? - do you see me as an artist? - do you see me as depressed? - do you hear me?

as always,
simon

Art Intimidating Life: The Ruins of my Mental Empire - Part Twelve

i've seen her highness on the magic carpet ride and it can't be too much longer until she drinks champagne with me in the parklands over yonder - we laugh at the beasts that taunt our night times - they are immuned to the thumping that comes from the parked cars at this place - no lights there at this place - just the moon sometimes and the wind all the times - the beasts lead my way - i know where to take myself, they leave me no option - i walk with my head down, and my eyes up - always up - always somewhere to go, finding the perfect spot for a picnic - some fruit juice, sandwiches, sunglasses and champagne - the air is as cool as the green grass under the worn out picnic rug - children sing and prance and look to their parents asking if it's okay with no words at all and of course its okay and so they go ahead and do it - there are no children permitted on the magic carpet and so i dare not touch her high-highness - i merely feel the peace that clouds their careless playfulness - it makes me feel psychedelic - i feel at once, a piece of beautiful nothing at peace with the rest of the beautiful nothingness, yet also the reason and force behind all things - thy will be done - i eat my salad sandwiches and smile as i chew and think - my mouth is closed as i'm polite but shun etiquette as my toes toy with the skin on her legs - a rainbow hums anticipation as the children look skywards, but it never really forms - the gods must be as high as i am right now - i feel the soil and the earth shift, but don't dare interupt her, her high-highness and the story she is telling me - its one of laughter, silliness and it's universal - she plays with her hair and shows her perfect teeth - and she doesn't even look like she goes to the dentist - and she makes me feel i don't have to - i throw a ball back to the clumsy kids and she lights a smoke, making the purple smoke smell like a minty lavandar, and my mind feel much the same - a plunging mind in a liquid soul, and a body full of life and energy that now needs to run - and so i pick myself up and take off with no words or real reason - i always run fast - i know i should slow down for i know the pain that awaits me - yet i push myself fast, harder - my breathing starts to synch with my heart now beating - i feel the dust and cracks of paint and cobwebs tinker off my moving and pumping legs that pound the dirt ground - i don't recall how long i was sitting so still, i don't recall what i was doing there - it's getting darker, and my arms are caught between the winter air and my pulsating movements through the parklands - my sweat smell belongs here - the beasts tell me so in their movements and the harks and hanks and conks they make as i run my body past them and their tree-homes - the madness of continuous running keeps me running continuously - just up ahead now - just to this tree - just up to this stump - just up to this family of beasts - but it never ends - it's the world as it should be - a naked man running through the trees - ah, and the pain now pangs me - my breathing is stolen and my legs belong to the homeless-man - the automatic movements are no longer my life but my legs - i kick up beautiful little puffs of dust behind me, and like television, it's okay to enjoy them - sadly though and however now, i know the end is just merely hundreds of meters away - and so i push myself to ensure i am empty upon my end - i am completely empty like the dust-puffs - every anger and sadness that energises me is burnt out of me and drifting upwards to the sky-clouds - until, at last, my self inflicted pain and pleasure is over - i keel over and gasp for air - i feel my sides in pain and oxygen is what i need and i feel the nessesities of life return again - my sweat will soon cool, and my breathing will soon return - my pain will swank into endorphins and my post-shower beer will taste so nice after i do the dishes and put my rags way - i sink into the blankets and the couch and see the magic carpet rise...

Art Intimidating Life: The Ruins of my Mental Empire - Part Eleven

i murdered someone, quite soon - i would've told you earlier, but i was feeling too guilty about that prostitute i fucked wrongly, and silence festers in guilt - i did, actually, mean to kill him - it wasn't something i had planned - but given the time, and given the opportunity, i meant death - maybe it had something to do with my playful-suicide early twenties - maybe it was my facination with death and one too many nights listening to johnny cash with dole bludging friends drinking their dole-money beers - maybe it was a cry for help, that im troubled, disturbed and in need of a lock-down - i killed a man and there is a good chance someone will discover his slightly bloodied pale face, and his perfect jeans, early tomorrow morning - a sexy jogger in a tit filled singlet and a rolling firm arse, and her slobbering dog the silence afterwards, and the silence now, is maddening - i scurry for music and radio like a whore for a smack, something to slap that guilt heavy silence - what have i done? - something i used to dream to myself as i worked my office work - what have i done? - something i dont have to wonder now, now that my silence has gone - my old radio cracks on with song i'll never know - am radio annomisity - the old man at the bottle shop didnt even notice my blood stained fingers, or the stolen wallet that thankfully had a twenty in it for my soothe - somehow i always knew it would come to this - myself, in a lifechanging moment that will shock the small world around me - i wonder what its like, finding out the man you've been sleeping with is a snap-flash murderer - a crack back man on the run - a closet alcoholic dream sexy dream - one more beer, i say - sex is everywhere but no one wants it - am i insane, for thinking politeness, and etiquette, are human nature's unnatural way of saying, god exists? - desires are a slippery slope myfriend - though no matter how hard and deseperate and pathetic you work, climb and claw your way to your perfect life, momentum leaves behind a slippery trail of fail after fail - and you find yourself here - in a cold crackling room, alone - waiting for the inevitable - and you think to yourself, as i am now, nothing has changed - what is your inevitable? - what are you trying to avoid? he didn't make a sound, but his drift was beautiful - i now understand why death-row has no fear - they have seen the end, and it is peaceful - life is a bourden and death is a cold beer and a bbq, for those who want it - some people are too good for a cold beer and a seared peice of meat - but i must stop - im sounding like a mad-man i set my alarm clock for ten am - i still have half a bottle of my soothe and - well, it really makes no difference - would you believe me if i told you the body is lying outside my front door? - i can hear my neighbours arguing in their nonsense - maybe something is wrong, maybe my crackle is too loud - im no e.a.poe, but i feel a thumping - mine or hers? - or maybe theirs? - i have never heard them have sex, but i try my best - hell, once i even hung from the ceiling at a mere suspicion, only to be let down by pots and pans - fuck fuck fuc - i stole her panties the next morning, as punishment, and reward oh wait, i think i heard one of them sneeze - how delightful - or was it a smack deserved? - or perhaps a discovery? - you can never really tell - such loud nonsense they all make - but i digress, too much swig-swig and dunk-dunk - sinking into soothing madness, and allowing myself to dunk dunk dry and quickly - did you notice i refered to you as myfriend? - it makes me laugh, as why would someone, like me!, do this to you? - im asking too many questions - the truth is, i know now - murder does that to a man - clariity and a step closer to his own closurer, like a movie endured for the slight chance of running late fast-sex - yeah, it'll do - let me die if it was a sneeze, i'll wait it out - i'd rather be awake when it happens - im going away for a long time, which brings me to my real reason for writing this - if you're waiting for luck, i'll see you in hell - if you're planning on saving money to travel europe, i'll see you from heaven - if you're writing book, one that will stiffen backs, and open eyes, and liquify minds, well then, i'll see you again - if you're going to further educate yourself, i won't see you for a while - if you're going to drink too much and succumb, say hi for me - if you're going to get a job, get some money and get your life together, at least i'll be able to say that we used to be friends - if you're going to have a beer in the afternoon and feel the wind and see the sun set, drop by and say hi im not a bad man

Art Intimidating Life: The Ruins of my Mental Empire - Part Ten

how now?
lay down, my body needs me to lay down - and i fall asleep as though im agent cooper in the red room passing through the curtain - though this time laura is dancing for me and sharing all her secrets with me - i feel the need to apologise to her, as though i had something to do with bob - perhaps i did, perhaps i didn't - i was too far gone and mentally, living on another planet to really know what was going on, and what i was doing within it - i have photographs - old tattered photographs that fall apart a little more everytime you pick them up or look at them - they only have five or six looks left - one is of the sillohette of a leaveless tree and there is an image of an old man walking away - it's black and white - well, at least it is now - i keep it in my book, for the people i meet to look and see - i met a man who was fired from his job because he was too old, and his hands didn't work like they used-to-could - he had this look on his face of disbelief, shock in the fact that something like this had happend to him, after all these years - he shook his face with small tremors, and pursed his lips like the sad-boy - i moved to put my hand on his shoulder to show that i felt so sorry for him, but he moved away and never noticed - he picked up his old lunch box and umbrella and turned his crooked back to walk home in midday the rain - the children sang and laughed as they managed to play under the monsterous gum that has stood tall his whole life - i puzzled with the pieces he left behind - little pieces that lay forgotten just out of frame - nailed to the wall like slabbed-meat - soft and deadly, i waited for her to come home to me - my fingers in my dry mouth noodeling anxiously - i hear cars circling my birthplace - i hear helicopters thundering my lighthouse - i hear footsteps behind me, dragging their limp as best as they can, trying not to lose too much blood while at the same time trying to muffle their sobs - i feel a hand on my shoulder - neither pushing or pulling, but i sign to remind me that i'm on the right path - the continuing whisper of - thy will be done - i have no recolection of my actions last night, and i begin to get concerned why she isn't answering my calls, and why my routine expectations aren't being met this afternoon - and my head aches as my fatigue endoures my body yet the madness continues to whirpool my mind and thinking - how can this be? - i am merely a person - how now? - im using bubble-bath as a cleaning product, hoping no-one will notice how poorly bubble-bath works as a cleaning product - these old rooms with their walls - a life time of second-guessing the best of me and before i know it i'm out of view, deep and alone in the thick knowledge that no matter what, i will always be alone - no matter who i am with, who i am friends with, who i treat nicely, what i say or what i do, i will always be alone in this world - i am alone now - i will die alone - this lonely life of mine, how can i explain? - and to whom? - i dwell in myself like rain at night - i shadow myself like moon-clouds - the wind pushes last night's rain off the leaves and onto my head - i am in the parklands wondering alone, hoping no-one will bother me in a jacket like this one - bats and possoms pester the night and break the silence from time to time, and i allow them - i keep still, finding shelter in the soaking cold black grass and wood - my breathing irritates me and i wish it would stop so i could be alone - somewhere in the distance a car slices the wet road and i think of the endless battle of my love of all things and breakdown again - another breakdown closer to the truth - another breakdown closer to my demise - what more can i do for the pure souls and the mindless ways they break my pathetic little heart? - what more than stand in the middle of the rain, in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of the night, killing myself ever so slowly - dragging my melting soul as best as i can, hiding my disbelief