Waxing

Painting with Words

I don't know what kind of messed up writer I am. A poet, a novelist, a lyricist, a script writer, or a scribe? Not sure but I do know that I am a part of the sum of my work, and I have many stories to tell. It's just that the medium in which it is conveyed can and will take a myriad of different forms. I have reached the point where the quality of my works has caught up to the quantity and I get all introspective. Am I getting high on my own supply or is it OK. I think its brilliant and am very happy with what I have produced since 89. Sure there are shockers and cringe shots but that could be a literary winnowing process as the rough husk is blown away. Because what we want, what we are after and what we truly need is always deep inside. Not easy to get to on purpose, that would only lessen its value.

The Rhyme

There was a time when I abhorred the rhyme but now I hunt them like trophies. I did have some quantity. I was able to fill two a4 exercise books with the most random ramblings. They have since gone the way of the warrior and lost to the past. Again for the most part it was complete cringe but a couple of lines may have made it over an editor’s desk. I had the same English teacher for years eight and nine (South Australian High School starts at year 8 for some idiotic reason - We moved from another state where I had already done half of year 7 so they decided it would be in my best interest to keep me with my age level and not my academic level! That was a pivotal moment for me - I was sent back to primary school and made to sit through half of year seven again. I don't know why I acted up... not at all - to this day this brings my silent rage to the boil!). Looking back I can honestly say I hated fuckin school - but I realise what I truly hated was the way they turned my schooling into a clusterfuck.....cunts!

It's All Shit!

Am I the GG Allin of the literary world? Come to take what you've got snort it, punch it, lick it and then stuff it up my ass, shit it out wipe some on me and throw the rest at you! Did I come here came here to make writing dangerous again? Our words once had the power to instil dread fear into people but nowadays they fall upon deaf and most likely budded ears. Now... they have to be muzzled and/or neutered depending on how badly they hurt your feelings. There was a time when a single word could go on to crumble a house, a village, a town, a city...whole civilizations. Ill words, sick words, bad words, words been twisted up pimped sold both; up AND down the river - oh no its a boogie monster! Like Dale Bozio said, "what are words for if no one listens anymore?" Or more poignantly "Do you hear me, do you care?"! I care and then I don't, I share and then I won't. I’m hip but I’m not cool I have issues, but I’m not a fool.

Confrontation and Comfort Zones

I’m on the sixth joint and second beer after 5 coffees and a rough night that brought only broken sleep and a number of leg cramps (it’s after twelve somewhere). Tired is hanging back beyond the shadows behind my eyes, yet there is a clarity, a stillness that is allowing me to tap this precious well. This well...this ride, this eclectic bilge...; yet I draw from it willingly and regularly. The more I relax my mind the easier it is for me to transform the visions and internal musings into thoughts and then into words. The words, I then roughly shape around a vague theme or else I let them get right up its face all shirt fronty and mighty man like. Like an angry little man - all impotent rage and cheap shots! I don't know what I’m trying to say but its being laid out word by word. Each keystroke lightens my burden, the only thing missing is the zzzzzzzzztttttt DING of the carriage return of a typewriter. I’m sure there is an app that could make this noise for me but I’m not sure I need to complicate this any further.

Cheap Shots and Old Knots

Poetry has been a stable go to for me since I was about 19; (been writing for nearly forty years and what I have had published here accounts for nearly thirty years of that. So many exercise books or foolscap pages filled with long hand lost to time.) I think. Ofttimes my only comfort I could find was in the company of my own thoughts and a copy of those thoughts laid out in words on a page. I can't for the life of me remember any to quote but I’m positive it was angry, antisocial hate diatribe or my latest oh you're so beautiful why don't you love me? I have sat and nursed that many flat whites at more cafes than I care to think about. I have watched a lot of the clocks from ALL the angles. I found I was able to write fluently around people but not with them. An outdoor café table was the perfect venue for me to spew my immature venom onto the pages of my choosing. It even came down to using the correct pen - it had to be a black medium point Staedtler ball point or I wasn't able to conjure the demons that would whisper the thoughts that become words into my ear.

Going For Distance

I’m ambling and rambling I know but I've never strung out so many words like this EVER! It's a little awe inspiring and a smidge humbling to have this trail of worded thoughts splayed out behind me like a belletristic peacock’s tail. I tread carefully into this unknown territory; wondering and all Talking Heads "And you may ask yourself, well, how did I get here?"! The need to say my piece compels me to continue with my woven tales of my own making. My Inner Dialog (ID) just informed me that a big line of speed would get the words on the page quick like. Yes; true but they would be the words of the amphetamine and not mine. My Inner Dialog is now sulking like a petulant child - my ID likes the fast! My thoughts wander aimlessly and I smear their leavings on many pages, back and forth, all over the shop. Sometimes just a single word will prompt my latest piece, a song, a news headline, a funny look in the traffic or on a train. Every single facet of our lives our deaths, our futures and our pasts are the stuff that will fill novels, poems songs and verse. Ours is to comment, document and record in our preferred medium. This is our lot.

In Closing

I’m unsure what classification this collection of hastily arranged words falls under but I’m sure to find one that is apt and fitting. Again, this is the first time I have ever written anything of this length and being able to express and explain in this medium is almost therapeutic.

Thank you for coming this far with me!