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there is no greater high than inspiration
there is no greater person than the artist
the artist must be quiet
the artist mustn’t require attention
recognition must be shunned
the psychedelic arts are the only true arts
the hippies are saints
and the loners are gods
the outsiders smoked and drank
as the big bang
banged
behind their backs
this party requires double-denim
this party grooves on smooth
the girl of your dreams
the man in your nightmares
yeah… i saw them hallucinating in the back room
whose cowboy hat is this?
it’s bin-night every night
there is no daytime
the universe is one eternal night
interrupted by the occasional flash
francis leach gave me a dirty look for drinking a beer as i walked down swan street richmond
heaven was yesterday
heaven was tomorrow
talking our way through the second course
laughing our way past another fatal car accident
the dead have no reason to hide
the dead have no shame
the dead are deeply in love
leave your umbrella at the door
this rain is water
it falls from great heights
splish-splash
his friends gather around him
like empty beer cans
crushed and hollow
he’s drunk - she’s holy
he turns up when he wants
like an empty beer-can
he plays his guitar when he wants
just like god, and she listens
like mother nature
her open ears and open mind
on xmas day i cracked the shits because i found myself in the eastern peninsula traffic, and i should’ve known better - we’re better than this, i said, side glancing out the passengers side window - i drank beer in the passenger seat and sulked in silence as the most resilient and perfect and strong and admirable lady-elle did her best to cheer me up from my needless misery - you am i music played on the car stero, which bought both solace and torment - we’re better than this i stressed to lady-elle, texting my mother to let her know we’d be late - the traffic cleared up within two minutes and we arrived on time - my xmas present to my mother that year was a photo framed picture of the baby in lady-elle’s tummy - “what the fuck is this weird arty photo simon has given me for xmas?” switched “…oh my god” - i knew it was real from then on - she was the first to know and from then on i was on a slow humming buzz, as if i knew something the world didn’t know
when i was a kid i wanted to be a writer - when i was a kid i also wanted to be an astronaut - as a thirty-two year old man, i write and spend my time looking to the skies and listening to space rock music - though deep down i think i want to be a conductor - they dig music - they dig music hard - i think id be good at it - im slim enough, and i have long hair - and i’ve been training since i was nine - music is a serious and hard drug for me - no one takes me seriously when i say that - but it will seriously blow your mind if you knew how much of an affect music has on my body, mind, soul, spirit, life, being, happiness, sadness, love, vision, perceptions, sensations, emotions, relationships, behaviours, thoughts, demeanour, appearance, friends and loved ones - i walk the streets at night, naturally high, holy and dangerous while you sleep - somewhere between a perfect circle
it’s no secret my brother gave me aufheben on vinyl for xmas before i even have a record player - what isn’t known until now is that it was a twelve dollar second/third/fourth hand copy of heyday by the church that made me realise and understand that buying records was no trouble, and fucking rewarding - i looked at the front cover of heyday on a cold sunny morning, still sleepy and it shocked me - the eyes of steve kilbey on that album cover held me for at least an hour - it was an image i recalled from my childhood - yes, somewhere, sometime, my cousin was involved im sure, and it was an album i bought with loose change and didn’t really pay much attention to for a long time - kilbey’s eyes on that record cover, and his mona-steve smile, smoked by childhood memories and a distance between this music and it’s cosmic source, and the song tantalised, swayed my limbs and their instincts into an impossible composition - my mind remained the same as it always was
the best people are record store people
honest, pure, simple, passionate, hairy
they understand a world of peace
love, art, understanding, friendship
ecstasy, smoke and booze
and for record-store people all these things are daily life
non-record store people look at them, at us, and laugh
its just that it takes them so much longer to register
and before too long
when i saw acid mother’s temple at austin psych fest, i experienced the most amazing, the most psychedelic, and the most euphoric moment of my entire life - movements like grand and holy ancient wizards, before you very hazed and lazy eyes - at first we sat - next we moved our heads up and down - a confirmation of a simple, and communal, yes - i gasped, and our movements became deeper - the eternal ‘one’ was rising on the horizon like a perfect dusk in reverse - our movements caused us to stand, and we popped up and opened like sunflowers, yet every one completely unique, a different colour, and facing our own individual sun - hips, shoulders and souls grooving like spiritual-group-sex - the music soared, a relentless kamikaze mission to heaven - i felt the need to scream, and i saw someone by my side doing just that - just facing the stars and simply screaming, giving his soul a universal voice - their drums and screams and guitars were lit on fire - my chest heaved, chanting yes, yes, yes, yes… - i knew all well i was to be the father of a baby girl - i being the only one on earth who knew - i was alone, high and holy, surrounded by a fog of brothers and sisters, who didn’t care, and knew exactly what to do - i’ve never felt like that before, i said to the man next to be after the show finished, staggering as if i’d returned from the most beautiful, pleasurable abductions - i know, i know he said - pink lady lemonade, pink lady lemonade, pink lady lemonade….
it was soon before i moved out of northcote that i was taking a piss in the northcote social club - it was a weekend or something, and i was alone, and i was down there having a beer for the sake of it and you never know who you’re going to remind someone of - i was there at the bar alone, and by this time im trying to look hard done by and dark and mysterious and troubled, and by this time i start to wonder if i am no longer pretending, and if i am now actually all of those things - it’s late and i was getting into died pretty around this stage and man, they powered my little unit in northcote in those days - so i get up to take a piss, leaving my jacket on my seat, in more of a mess than i was - in the mens i straddle up to the urinal alone and start to piss - at every urinal i go to i read the graffiti and piss-wall-scribblings and everytime i see some hand-writing that i swear must be my brother’s - i scan the gig guide and before too long im not alone - i hear the laughter of the happy groups of friends outside - and they’re too perfect, even for this - he is in tight jeans and making a mockery of sneakers i was forced to wear against my will as a kid - the same goes for his jumper - a wildly colourful and ill-fitting woollen number that looks ridiculous - his beard looked stranger and more unkept than mine, despite the fact i hadn't shaved in weeks due to laziness and beer and a learned addiction to relaxation - his glasses were black and bold and made nerds cool without being nerds at all - his beanie robbed the soul the last remaining true football fans allowed in the ground these days - everything came to this point and i turned to him and said…
…hows that working out for you?
what do you mean? he said
that bullshit-look your going for, i replied
he kept his silence, in that way people do when they’re getting sledged unnecessarily by a drunken dickhead
it ended there, and i walked back to my seat at the bar, skulled (sic) the rest of my pint, picked up my jacket, made sure my ipod and notebook were still in the interior pocket, and headed up high street back to my unit, after saying a “thanks mate” to the dude at the door only because i want to be one of the good guys, despite realising i was behaving completely against any sense of coolness i think i possess - i wish i could’ve let him be - i wish i hadn’t let it bother me - i wish we pissed in silence, reading the gig guide or the anal jokes scribbled on the men’s room wall while a beautiful autumnal acoustic song sung in my head amongst the tantalised stars and mellow foggy willow trees - but we didn’t, thanks to me - i gave him a hard time and i hated myself for it - it wasn’t me, and it was unnecessary - i felt like i was battling tourists in a place i loved to live, and i knew i was a fighter, and i knew i fought hard and kept it creative, but i knew i was losing, and a loser amongst the hip
echoes from the empty milk bottles
she failed to run tonight
but her lungs scream hollow
the dirty dishes, the overflowing bins
and the recycling bin is nothing but beer bottles
he sips on another - his team is losing
how he is going to balance another one
on that pile of bottles?
how will his team get up,
from twenty-six down,
three-quarters into the forth?
it doesn't matter -
the hunter falls sleepy
too much to eat
waking up hungry
too much to eat
hamilton island was lady-elle’s idea, and before i knew it i was in shorts and members of staff were treating me like middle-class royalty - i found a pool-side bar to get drunk at, as rugby-guys splished and splashed, flirting with the last fifteen minutes of the bar-girls shift - the dudes worked during happy-hour - i watched the storms move in - i was able to find some bush tracks and took lady-elle to a secluded beach that was ours and the kookaburras - she rationed out her muffins, i made sure we had enough water to walk home safely
my trip to new zealand, the farm outside of mangonui, was beautiful and ridiculous - i can’t even recall how or why or how i managed that one - so simple - so beautiful - my god - books and the sun and the shade it creates, and the cool breezes and having absolutely nothing to do - i spent so much time inside my head - day after day after day in silence - in thought - it amazes me, looking back on it now, how given the right circumstances and situation, the simple passing of time can be intensely pleasurable - so much so, it erases everything else, and nothing matters
at first sight
you’re safe and warm
life stripped down
before your eyes
a lazy lap dance
a cheeky kiss on your lips
your feet, cold
your head, burning
it’s raining outside
and it couldn’t possibly get any darker
and you couldn’t possibly get any more drunk
so you head in for a drink
someplace quiet
it sounds like the angels are tired
your head, it’s thoughts, and tex perkins
you scan the bar
only saints, sinners and drunks
nice, lonely people
succumbing to their lives
the hard way
it’s a clear day - the horizon still fades with fog, with each step - trees fall and make a sound - trees fall and make the sound of one hand clapping - a young girl walks amongst them - eyes like leaves, the highest green leaves - feet moving like mud - the soup of soggy twigs and water-logged strips of bark path no direction underfoot - in her pocket is a small note-book - the first twenty pages are scribbled with impromptu poetry - the last few pages tagged with a phone number and a receipt reference number - she is unemployed and very attractive - her jeans, simple - her jacket, old - she breaths morning air, smelling the earth, remaining intoxicated - from time to time she sits - a large rock - a patch of grass - a fallen branch - and she ponders the thought of mother nature losing her virginity to an act of violent rape
