we meditate between spaces between chords in sweat drenched shirts once bought
a punk rock show, our mantra a riot a storm our message
i hit 120 on the freeway but don't feel free.
the graffiti reads "we live in chaos"
reminded of hitting bitumen as a child, my knees bleed
now a man in two ton of steel, so close to the barrier.
imagine hitting 150, the car in front, that last breath
the same freeway. the same suburbs where we live and die in.
the same stores. the same brands. the same dreams of dying.
memories of Croatia replaced by advertising injected into 80 something veins
i cannot escape the noise, she cannot see the sea. a storm water drain.
the audience is the prison because i don't listen
and all we have to talk about is TV
the audience is the prison because i don't listen
and all we have to talk about is TV
there is no they. only you and me.
Drunken teens sipping on the fruits of slavery
A Blondie remake who never quite got the trip approaches
Curled lip looks at my aboriginal flag broach, she says
"Are you an abo'?"
Conception of genocide, colonial mud-orgy at Botany Bay
Interventions, apartheid segregations, deaths in custody
Alcoholism, imprisoned in prisms of a white phallic Australia
Seventy seven percent straight up racist picnics at Cronulla
"Are you an abo'?" she said
But it's ok we had an apology
Burning your house down, kicking you in the teeth
But it's ok we said sorry
Building a new mansion, letting you sleep on our streets
"Are you an abo'?" she said
Clinging to the coast like molluscs to the pier, dare not venture into country
Ignore cosmology, the omnipresence of history — develop and destroy
And you sip your beer and think —
it's only poetry, doesn't affect me
"Are you an abo'?" she said
And the apathy the apathy the apathy the apathy is so goddamn cool
Your new iPhone compensates for losing 100 thousand years of culture
Alcopops generic pop subservience, a cop inside all of us
Just don't be too political
"Are you an abo'?" she said
A Perth mined blank — BHP Woodside BOOM
This aint ever been a hella of a good town
Move on orders — gentrify — uranium mines
This aint ever been a hella of a good town
White-bread chicken shit mass media manipulation
This aint ever been a hella of a good town
Deforestation — stolen generations — a racist nation
This aint ever been a hella of a good town
"Are you an abo'?" she said
I wish.
heater's on. 1am. simplicity in this.
humming to the sound of the machinery of the never-ending war.
always in the distance.
climax dreamt an end to the material.
engine's on. a gorgeous smile.
my tongue in her. back arched, all the while,
we know the impossible, the inevitable.
we numb to the wasted night.
stumbled conversation by detachment.
a word slurred and she's gone.
the stereo's sonic to an imagined beat in passing.
if free i would of asked you, to have me, forever.
in silence, absent panorama repeating suburbia.
and these are no ships to return.
fading bright neon, nerve lost to converse as vision distorts.
this is an intimate poem.
Raymond Grenfell lives in Perth, Western Australia, whilst maintaining a strict drug and alcohol regimen he attempts to live without dead time and demand the impossible.