From Beyond?

I awoke with an urge to watch the sun rise. Why? I don't know. During the years I worked night shift in the city I would often take a break to see the sun rise. I saw many a strange, wonderous, and disturbing sight. Things that made me say "Wow!" "What was that?" "I wish I hadn't seen that".
One day I will write about them.


At this particular time, a few days ago, I made myself a cup of coffee. I went outside. It was still night, A still night. I lit up a cig. Took a drag. Had a sip of the cofffee. Something flew into the upper leafy branches of a neighbours tree. A fruit bat, I guessed. I was right. As the sun rose, it (the creature) flew out from the tree - a big beautiful beast - bastard or bitch, I knew not which- but it was twice, perhaps thrice, the size of a regular fruit bat. Not so long ago, two years at most, there were great clouds of fruit bats that flew around my area. Coming home from nightshift was akin to being in a Hammer House of Horror vampire movie. Now this beast flew alone.
It may have been lack of sleep, my imagination, madness or a mixture of the three. But I swear that this behemoth fruitt bat turned and looked at me. The meaningless gesture of a dumb animal or a profound message from a spiritual guide?

Lucinda's Letters

John is at his desk at work. He is reading Lucinda's latest handwritten letter.

Handwritten. Not email nor text message; not typed up nor printed out, but handwritten. 

John adores handwritten letters. They evoke in him pleasant images and memories: vinyl records, black and white television and movies, the rotary dial telephone, his mother's vanilla scented kitchen, beachside family vacations as a boy, Jennings and Derbyshire in trouble with old 'Wilkie' again and glorious old words such as 'hark', 'alas' and 'singular'. 

Handwritten letters, for John, they are as deliciously romantic as an Ella Fitzgerald 33rpm record. 

Handwritten. John even loves the sound of that compound word. 

John met Lucinda online. She is a widowed at 24,32 year old woman who works as a Women Studies lecturer at the University of Kentucky, and who is the mother of one daughter, two cockerspaniels, a ferret, and who hates being called 'Lucy'. 

She mentioned once that she liked handwritten letters. But, alas, nobody sends her any- just emails and text messages.

He fell in love with her as soon as he read that and wrote to her. 

'Dear Lucinda, you are most singular lass…" he had written in his 'drunken ants across the page' handwriting in his first letter to her which he had sent in a plain white envelope.


Lucinda's latest hand-written letter arrived in an outrageously ironical tongue-in-cheek girlie girl pink envelope that was sealed at the back with gold star. 

The pages inside are yellow and bordered with red roses. Her handwriting swoops and swirls across each page in a sensuous, sensual mad dash passionate dance of overused exclamation points, misused ellipses, and little circles that float above her i's and her j's. She sprays her letters to John with perfume and ends them with X's and O's for kisses and hugs, plus a kiss on the bottom right hand corner from her lip-sticked lips. 

She writes about how she painted her room, her daughter's measles, her mother's constant nagging, a student with whom she's having issues, and the latest book she's reading for fun. 

He tells her everything. Even about the gambling debt that keeps him working in a job that he hates and away from her. 

He keeps some of her letters at home, and some in the top drawer of his desk at work and when the arse-licking, backstabbing, two-faced politics of his bosses and colleagues get him down he rereads one of Lucinda's hand-written letter to make things more tolerable and remind himself that he needs his job to save up for that one-way airplane ticket. 


Jennings And Derbyshire: http://website.lineone.net/~danielwelch/jennings.htm 
Ella Fitzgerald: http://www.redsugar.com/ella.html 

On My Way To The Local Centrelink Office This Morning

I passed two boys -about 10 or 11 years old smoking cigarettes in their school uniforms. I thought. How on earth can school kids afford to smoke? The cheapest packs are like $15. It's one of the biggest reasons why I'm considering giving up. I've cut down to half a pack a day and it's still too expensive. I considered saying something to the boys. But I've done that in the past. It never ends well. I've learned my lesson.

At CL office.
Me: I have a an interview at 9.30
Officer: Have you been looking for work.
Me: Yes (true)
Officer: Any changes in your circumstances
Me. No, (true)
Officer. Ok that's all. You can go.
Me: Ok.

I feel like a coffee and a cigarette. When I give up smoking. I'll probably have to give up coffee as well.

Marvellous Martha’s Magical Marshmallow Mobile.

Marvellous Martha’s Magical Marshmallow Mobile.

Marvellous Martha gets about in a magical automobile
that is made of marshmallows.
She travels near and far in that car
which can traverse any terrain
It can fly across the sky
and sail the seven seas and the oceans blue.

People stop and smile when Martha passes by. 
She tosses out toffees and other sweet treats for the kids.
and coffees and cognacs for the grownups.
She also has magical liquorice lasso
that she uses to capture cads, scoundrels, and n’er-do-wells.

When her work is done,
She leaves with a honk of her marshmallow horn.
And she goes forth in search of forlorn
folk who are in need of good cheer and fun.

The Rhizome Phone

The Rhizome phone won't leave me alone. It rings and rings. I don't answer it. It wants to forgive me, give me, a gift, offer me hospitality. Ring, ring, ring.  Sting, sting, sting. It's no thing. It is the thing. 

The Rise And Fall Of Ernie The Chuck.

Ernie’s existence began in a laboratory, not a farm.
He was not borne in an egg until he was born,
but in a test tube that once contained 
the sperm of his father chicken
and the ovum of his mother duck.
Part chicken, part duck
Ernie was a chuck,
the only chuck on earth.

The scientists who created Ernie,
also genetically modified and enhanced him.
They prodded and poked him,
shoved chemicals and other things down his throat
and up his anus.
They dropped and sprayed all manner 
of substances into his eyes.
They kept him in darkness,
then in intense light.
Everyday they found a new way 
to torture and torment him.

Then, one day, it happened.
Don’t ask how; don’t ask why.
It could have been any number of factors.
Some say it was divine intervention;
others blame diabolical interference.
Whatever the reason
on that day,
Ernie the Chuck became
self –aware and meta-cognizant
He could talk (several human and animal languages in fact)
But he kept mute and waited.
Waited for the moment he might extract his revenge.

A year and two months later
that day came to pass.
Taken out his cramped cage,
to be paraded around for the benefit of visiting European scientists,
Ernie ceased the moment with the fury of Shiva.
He was a big burly bird who could fly like a duck.
He had the claws of a rooster
and a beak as big as a duck’s bill.

His revenge was swift and brutal,
A scenario of slaughter,
best not told nor shown. 

Ernie the chuck, now on the run,
planned to impregnate all forms of fowl: 
ducks, hens, ganders, and swans.
He would the preach his mission and manifesto to his offspring
and the offspring of his offspring and their offspring too.
He would preach that when the poultry
of this world seize the means of production
the tyranny of humanity would be at an end
and the Earth would become the Planet of the Poultry.

That was his plan.
Lucky for us humans,
He got hit by a van, filled with bogans
as he walked across a road.

French Onion Soup

Carla mixes a little sugar with some butter.
She heats this sugary butter
in  a large heavy-based saucepan
until it (the sugary butter) is melted.

She adds sliced onions,
cooks em over a low heat.
She stirs constantly,
until the onions are golden brown.
(The Strangler’s song comes to her mind)

Gradually,
she adds beef stock 
and continues to stir constantly
then brings it all to a boil.
She reduces the heat to low,
covers the saucepan
and allows the contents to simmer
for an hour.

She sits down on her sofa,
lights up a mentholated cigarette.
her harlot-red lipstick marks the cig’s butt.
She takes a swig of cognac
and begins the collected prose poetry of Charles Baudelaire.

After the hour is up,
she removes the soup from the stove.
Adds a splash of cognac 
and some salt and pepper,

As she is adding the pepper,
she hears
a gun
shot and
the sound
of glass
breaking.


You have to be always drunk. That's all there is to it--it's the
only way. So as not to feel the horrible burden of time that breaks
your back and bends you to the earth, you have to be continually
drunk. But on what? Wine, poetry or virtue, as you wish. But be
drunk" -Charles Baudelaire