Friday, February 27, 2009

Of My Regret

Dear lover,

Of my regret; it besets me more than you know. I caught up with a friend this evening for coffee and offered up what our end left to show. You wrote me online a query of spending time and whether or not to leave our virtual selves for the other to still see. And my response was vague and cold and shallow and only one word; 'okay'. I let you pick up the pieces of what we had that I shattered and knowingly so did unfairly. It occurred to me, the resolution on new years that I made in jest I've been indirectly perfecting so far. To be less a nice guy than in the past and at last turn away from looking for love. But unfairly enough and almost annoyingly so, for being more cold and more harsh, more hearts have been bared me. In showing our text message words to my friend I knew her response would not be to see my side or to even understand how I feel. And that wasn't the point, or maybe it was I'm not sure. But I did and it instigated my tilt towards this guilt and you to tell.

I'll tell you, as tonight I've been telling myself, I'm just trying to work it all or nothing out. See doubt is the anvil that grounds my falling and all that I do is drag everyone down to my level. I'm consciously more in the pursuit of pleasure and not even that of a sexual nature. More realistically, the pleasure of ego's my tether. The hardest curriculum I'm aware of is myself and where I'm headed and how I end up where and with who and feeling how.

To return to the notion of conveying my regret dear, I'd tell you of a song that I know. It goes, 'I didn't mean to treat you so bad, you shouldn't take it so personal. I didn't mean to make you so sad, you just happened to be there that's all.' I've been there and I've been you on the other side of a cold shoulder and felt the sting of someone older not necessarily in age but in acquired taste of being favoured. Like it's a turn off when someone wants you more than you want them. But how to create or end up with one who instigates the magnetism in a way that's so mutual that playing the game seems to be neglected?

You wondered to me, whether you wanted to continue to talk to me or not. And obviously decided to not when I noticed you were no longer available online. I remember the time we first met and in a bizarre and odd invoking feeling way you concluded our relationship almost the way it was commenced. I suppose for the best. The adding of a mutual friend and the stray instant chat message. Tonight you disappeared not quite completely out the world wide web door of my life, out of plain sight and out of my right to claim.


I apologise for writing you such harsh words. But the girl, that I honestly don't know, gave me impression of this most; that if not cold, to be luke-warm about my severing our ties would have only lead to more lies. But actually lies this time, because I'd know they were not truth with foresight, rather than for being a blizzard and, seeing how I used you and insisted, that we spend time together and be together and be physical in wistful, self-sorrowful hindsight like as now. I'd like to think one day you'll look back and perhaps say there were a few sparks of romance, but that's just a nice thought. More likely, you'll recall to friends and family and other lovers of the asshole that I was and how now my face burned in your memory makes you feel ashamed you spoke my name.

But dear, this again is my regret (for your sake understand) that I let you have some of my inspiration, and admiration and taste for desire and passion. I gave it to you from my heart, now knowing it was only giving to swiftly get back in return. I was yearning for some closeness and I'd even wrote about how hopeless I'd let myself be with a lover just for company. Because, I was certain that sometimes company is just enough. And still, I propose that it may be all necessary, in some instances. But if you are in a relationship, at any particular stage, you two have to think of it the same. But then a question like became our crux beckons from the start, but can't be executed without immediate distrust and no one likes to come across as such.

So, in determining the extent of your movements in haste the direction to forget me I scrolled through your status updates and realised the weeks of suffering you'd been subjected to in one perspective from my doing, but in another from your preluding what I wanted for me and you. I thought some things were obvious, but then if history got me once I should've learnt it well. Tell me this, did you really think that there was a possibility of forever together? Probably not, at least not consciously. And see this is the situation. People seem to live in an attitude where the options are either indefinitely together or not anything at all. With an attitude of why bother if it's not gonna last a little longer you'll end up being the less stronger of a pair that's starting to tear. So many of my words, for being poetic and imagination; contained truths. And I rue that you couldn't, maybe still can't, read or at least see what the words unilaterally mean.

Now I'm getting sidetracked in a pattern of disregard. And the point of this letter is to, my dear, impart. The side of my heart that for your discourse does feel and though I can't be your comfort I can tell you this and be real. I won't lie or pretend or give you some fairytale Hollywood ending. You've got to understand that I'm sending you this to help you move on. I've enough self-esteem issues and concerns of not ever feeling anything real or of lightness on my heart again. That to try and carry you upon it's breadth will never work and we'd both break and so it's hard but I've to take what I can of what's left of me from this situation.

In draft reply to some of your words, I wrote a little philosophy to myself. Sometimes you get a feeling, like a wave perhaps it washes over you. You go with it, like the tide, where it takes you, you just float. But then, not always, but still often, the feeling goes away with the rip, it leaves and you've no choice but to flee with it because to try and swim against the current or try walking into the breeze is pointless because you will eventually turn around. But for attempting and trying to prove something you'll have longer and farther to go than before. Yes dear, see I'm not sorry for leaving with the feelings' exit, I'm just sorry that from the outset you didn't get it. But somethings for not being able helped must run their course until there're no terms but to be dealt with.

In review and time spent stewing over how to tell you how I feel, I realised this is not concrete and even to myself reads with deceit of what I probably, and if continue to think, believe. See dear, take heed dear, you can't find nothing 'cause there was nothing there all along. It was just some sunsets, some sunrises and a bundle of drugs in between. I'm sure you'll scream and deem me everything insincere, but it's important that we cut now and forever clean from each other. My regret, my once dear, is that we were and both are still gripped by fear for different reasons and things. You; that you're not good enough, not pretty or attractive enough. You; that you're not what I want, and maybe so not what any wants. You; that you did something wrong or said something wrong or looked too long. Me; for fear to greater break your heart, to let you believe only to reason it was all fiction. Me; to be later than sooner a fake. Me; to cross my conscience and settle and resign. Me; to waste both yours and my time. Me; to take a path of a life I know I won't like.

My dear, of my regret, I tell you it's great and large. And it's span, for wanting love, surpasses what of myself I know now not to ask. Yes, I won't ever ask of you again or take from you any of our remains or request to be your friend. I'll only give and share of my regret. Yes, sometimes you only know it was love at the end.


Thursday, February 26, 2009

Let's Get Behind Your Lens

let's meet to get behind your lens to see
my shape with yours from your sharp eyes
and size myself relative to what lies
in your avid lust at my trying disguise
your face takes shape of a regular night
in my relentlessly curious mind
and I find my thoughts often with you
and in wonder of with me what you'd do

tonight your eyes arrived hid behind
those Ray Bans on the Glen Waverley line
at the station I posed for ten minutes before
and eagerly awaited those open carriage doors
then with earphones adorned you stood out
and for your company I had no need to tout
coffee and cigarettes now a pillar of our time
with satisfaction in what less needs be defined

walk the line of the tracks backwards to norm
watching our shadows on the pavement take form
of the dark you exclaimed, why'd I not make a move
I replied, fuck it, light or not kiss me, I'm into you
and with the slow steps back to the end of the line
our arms around each other, last cigarette, goodbye
and then silence but my heightened heart's beat
and inhibitions for experience soon learn defeat


Monday, February 23, 2009

If Only Lips Could Speak

though where the words come out
they're rarely the source
we can't force our feelings to show
though we know what to say
what gets said's scarcely the course
and later our hearts tear to own
if our lips were to as you say speak
I think it'd only be heard as hope
and yes hope's something
but to other lips all often nothing
maybe they just speak to us alone

(and I touched mine as though
feeling them would bring me close
to the words they ached to leak
but in their seething love I overdosed
and wish I hadn't tried to peak
I don't know why I ever chose
to listen to their lips speak)


Pleasure's Like The Weather

in all the
pretty and amazing
ways your face
could look
it doesn't
it stays
the same
and stares
so blank
and I hardly feel
like we're fucking
express yourself
my dear
be clear
and precise
of your any pleasure
for sex
you see
you need
constant updates
more or less
the same
as the weather


Friday, February 20, 2009

So Far So Close My Hostess

you're a hostess so it's hard to tell
if you're genuine or false
but I assure you of this Satako
job or not my hope you indulge
on holiday or otherwise
I never thought I'd fall here in Sapporo
but I assure you of this Satako
I'd move here before Kyoto
just so I could get to know you,
just to get to dance it slow
and then pick it up a tempo
and to as you say feel one from the heart
oh, I love the feeling of the start
and it's my ailment since we must depart
my last night here and such hope's clear
since I don't meet girls like you back home
and this is the first time
I've listened to the music and not felt alone
oh new, but close Satako


Wednesday, February 18, 2009

The Objects Of Lost Memories



We are all gripped at moments, in instances, where we are uncontrollably inclined to a feeling of a time gone by.

I was seated at my regular cafe on a regular afternoon/evening after work when the red, and very specific red, of an automobile caught my peripheral vision. In less than a second, as I glanced up, I knew it was not the car I once loved and owned and took to growing up in. But it was the same make and model and the same fading colour red that mine had been, that showed signs of being taken care of, as mine.

Fixing my eyes to it driving slowly across the intersection, I studied it to just make sure it was not my previous ride fixed with different registration plates. Then, the installation of a towbar to the rear made it clear it was not mine and the wheels, which, though were the factory option alloys in an 'at a distance' nice condition too.

There's a particular amazing feeling, that the word nostalgia doesn't seem fulfilling enough to describe. When you are reminded of a particular time of your life, in relation to your transient position, by an object previously owned. And you have that instant and fleeting inclination of desire for it again, as though feeling it at your finger tips, seeing and inspecting it, will draw you back through the realm of time, to somehow stitch the moment then to the one currently and rapidly transmitting through your brain, with the romanticised and irrational, mostly subconscious determination, that you'll feel compounded in your amazement and high spirits.

And that feeling remains with you a little while but gets shelved further and further away by life's distractions for some time until it's incredibly buried. But oh, those moments of rediscovery and the triumphant feeling of being, when you do happen to again.

The tiniest flutter of hope it was my old Honda City, that I once owned, sparked at such a speed, a wistful feeling inside me. And in that flash-before-your-eyes fashion a whole period of my life became before my mind's eye and I recalled with great taste the feelings that car and the ventures associated with brought upon me.

Of final thought: We are all, most certainly, gripped at surprising moments, in instances, where we are uncontrollably inclined to a feeling of a time when life might not have been good, but there were good feelings to be had and what we all want to continue to return to is those good feelings. Relive a moment over and over and over again. The irony I see is, that we go through life acquiring these patterns and moments and occasions and instances where, we at the time don't entirely realise it, but come out of them having grown or changed or felt something, and we need to mark in our memories the significance and importance of them so as to cling to them vitally as though they are part of our body we cannot live without. And for the increasing acquisition of them, we feel more neediness and increased dependence. We start to live further and further in the past. Until the moment, when closest to death, all we know is the past and there is nothing else.

I was sent a letter with a message contending, frankly, that there is no knowing in life until the post. A person, a decision, an inclination, an answer. That knowing consists only of expectation, potential, wishes and fears until the results of what happens later. So, perhaps that is life; spending one's time collecting memories with the plight of gaining knowledge and it's retention until it consumes us and is all we have left.






Monday, February 16, 2009

Time Machine

I was dreaming I had a time machine to return to just last night
when I kissed you and for your swift requite I couldn't stop the plight
of taking you quickly, as gripped by your intentions, into my arms to hold
and keeping you still naked but close beside me underneath the covers from cold

I was writing some words; creating a feeling and imagining a mood
when you sat right beside me asking why I'd write and not look at you
so I showed you what I'd wrote that far and fulfilled my fictional prophecy
and who'd have thought those words would step off the page into reality so honestly

yes, dreaming of the night I was, from the moment I awoke and had to leave
turn back the hands of time I prayed out loud and for them not a second I grieved
and paced the steps down from your room to be outside and stop to glance up
at your room and the curtains still a little open and think of how one night's never enough

so I pulled out my pen and paper and picked up where last night left off
and wrote the rest of the truth that happened and concluded with the cost
of not being able to know you mostly now or even close to an end as forever
and how though I know of care I'm long-term incapable I'll always remember when we were together


Sunday, February 15, 2009

Curiosity Is Nicotine In My Veins

how did I give to meet you on Valentines Day?
and how did I feel the casual inclination to stay?
strange meetings of people see me dictate my fate
and still for the trying, manage to encounter mistakes
and the kind that take me by surprise but for the best
and put my doubt of fate and thought of coincidence to the test

the rest of the feeling is I know not how to flirt with your kind
and for the other I'm aware of, but you I'm unclear how to mind
and inside your mind, uncharted, I can't imagine to be
and which your particular interest I haven't history to see
but without history there's still not exemption of experience
and my curiosity is nicotine in my veins for it's permeance

my view is mind's eye open to love being learned
I'm not convinced physical limitations solely control who you yearn
I'd insist that a turn of events can set free a lust
of what previously wasn't instinct but now you must trust
my imagination won't switch off what I've always daydreamed
but thoughts of you and me and your body it now deems

what the heart wants I can't express or describe
whether you or clearer view of self I'm not sure what I'm trying to find
but who's to say either is wrong or betrayal of truth
evident however, is both are spurred by a quest for the new
you don't seem to realise I'm talking and looking at you
with eyes sizing you a match for me framing what to do

as a virgin to this dispersion of feelings I'm left
with a repetition of your picture and name in my head
will it end or subside or dissolve for further strive?
or gain speed and by the hand lead to another fork in the road of life?
I'm in the dark and the road's unknown so be my guide
some things I won't ask, I must be shown the left from right


Saturday, February 14, 2009

Blueberry Pie Don't Cry

I was wondering whether the message I sent you made you cry
and it's the time difference between us that makes me so sigh
because I didn't want to have this discussion with this distance
I'd rather to have seen you or conversed via the internet or ring you

to say I guessed you'd eventually have questioned us I'd lie
rather to tell a truth I knew from the start you'd soon inquire
and sweetie, know I held my imagination from any answer
till tonight when you asked and I had to bite the bullet and face the fact

that I can't hide I don't want a relation caged to a long term
I'm like a worm who's blind and forever and of their home in search
I don't want to say or give you prayer of hope that I'm secure
but believe me I didn't intend to lure I just liked you as a truth

and I know you liked me back for your shy requite that I hold to
but for like dear, I can't write a term and it's ease to turn cold to
I know because despise is the charge such magnetic switch finds
it's no one's fault just the time we shared before unlocking reality's vault

though so far apart and even if not my place or heart to lend
I wish I could comfort and make you believe it was all part and pretend
but I can't and you'd never take that bait as your sincerity's not fake
I feel you really did take whatever you could to share me an aim


Monday, February 9, 2009

Plane Disdain Again And Again

And I became possessed by a sudden, panting inclination to be home. Desperation was my perspiration that I could not wipe away. Light drops of rain began, every four or so seconds, to spit and pour and so increased my obsession with the idea to be inside and away from here.

Perhaps it was the sandy Marlborough cigarette pinched between my fingers and my others wrapped around my book or further or exclusively the whisky I was almost finished but couldn't bring myself to sip the last half-inch of.

This place- Singapore- had me gripped by the throat with it's humid, sticky air and it's busy, infested, smelling streets. I tried to escape at every corner, wave a taxi but there was no making it to the street to instigate such a request as the entire street was fenced off from the road and the flow of traffic too thick to negotiate.

I packed my shit and my suitcase and left swift the place where I'd spent two sweaty nights. Having checked out I beckoned to the clerk to call a taxi for me and my girl so we could be whirled, finally, away to the airport. No luck. Festivities surrounded us and marched down the streets and people greeted each other and measured us waves of defeat. We changed corners and with many more attempts got a ride, even though the taxi said hired he stopped and we packed the boot and jammed our suitcases where we could.

He drove with a twitch that every time he'd spasm made me flinch and that was about every six seconds. The drive was cheap and easier than the train, which we'd made the mistake, now evidently, of taking to get to our destination originally. Finally, arriving at terminal three we could see our friend waiting at the gate's entrance for check in and greeted her with relief. I think our hunger for home was feeding off each other's.

The plane ride, or rather flight was horrific. At least if you line it next to all our others. Turbulence for about half the way and that meant no dinner trays until at least, say ten-thirty, and by that time I was also very thirsty. I drank a Tiger beer from the choice of that or Fosters, and I remembered when we flew eastwards I'd instead gotten Asahi, which is a far better brew than either.

The chicken on the plane had as much taste as you could expect and so I ate my friend's as well, as she was feeling sickened. When I eventually did try to sleep, and the lights were slightly dimmed, I couldn't reach my feet far enough to shake the cramps. I could feel myself itching to stand and ditch this plane.

And then gradually, the in-flight entertainment screen computer database somehow managed to over and super heat my seat because it was between the seat's base and the floor. I ignored it for awhile, but I finally gave up. I was melting and decided I've only myself to help me here, so I pressed my little signal button and explained the situation to the stewards. To which, they could not largely remedy, mostly just got other staff to see, and advised they'd report it and try and sort it out and cool down the zone.
Somehow.

But no, it did not really work, so I unzipped my boots and slipped off my shoes. But still the heat soaked me from head to feet and I had to stand up and go for a walk. But where to walk to on a plane, well exactly.. just up and down the aisle and disturbing the peace till you start to cool down at least.

God knows how, though I surely don't, I eventually, though poorly got to sleep. But it was broken so I awoke, now and then to almost choke on the fact that I was still in-transit. And then I'm not really sure but it was somehow breakfast time and we all dined on tiny bits of fruit, including four grapes and a couple of slices of tinned pineapple and something that may have been a papaya, though it smelt like fish.

A bread roll and bad jam and I didn't take notice of what else, except to wait for coffee. I downed an orange juice, a bad black brew and a cup of water to help me chew all this mush food. Anyway, a short time after breakfast and the turbulence had now mellowed out, we were advised of landing Melbourne.

Not physically still panting, but subliminally may as well have been, 'cause I would have visibly been edging to get the fuck off the plane. Disdain was on the faces of all the other traveling strangers when the plane would stay in the one place, probably whilst cabin crew set up braces and tunneling. I rummaged through my hand luggage and tried to preoccupy myself with inactivity but it didn't do anything so I climbed over all the seats, somersaulting and catapulting myself to the front.

I soon enough checked through and customs, for my tobacco chewed me and spat me out with a nice hefty taxing. Though I guess, somewhat, gladly I paid 'cause it was still granted, a cheaper alternative to laying out for six hundred sticks in Australia.

I paced, heart racing, through the arrival's large doors and gate and strayed my eyes left first, then right, trying to find her gaze. I'd recognise her anywhere, whether years from now or yesterday. And we locked sights and exclaimed and shouted and sighed and ran and hugged and were publicly excited.

She had me a proper coffee, well as proper as the airport does, and sure enough that was enough to give me a bit of a caffeine/reunion rush. And rush we did to suck down Singaporean cigarettes in her red Suzuki Swift and brisked ourselves completely the long way home but all the same in bliss.

Driving towards the city, and taking a peek in the rear-vision mirror, I caught a glimpse of a plane, much like my so despised one, lifting off the runway with tremendous speed. And suddenly my conscience was split in two; one part of me glad to be home in comforting arms and the all so familiar but the other suffering withdrawals of experiences new.

And I realised; as the cigarette I was inhaling: I'm failing to give up the feeling of freedom and being alive that travel gives with ease, and so fucking swift to crave and so with it's absence tease. So please, put me back on a plane and let's do it all over again.


Saturday, February 7, 2009

Coming Home To Funny Live

I trained into Sapporo in the morning's
cold crisp upon the Twilight Express

unaware of what adventures to behold
or what this snowy city would confess

and sure enough it let me in and told
of many stories for which I should listen

and of my first evening I followed my nose
and found a place worth my time and sitting


after dinner; walking my way home
I noticed a musician armed with instrument cases

and asked him in the building's lift if to listen
to jazz here there was such a place

he told me he's playing country jams tonight
and I could come to hear him play

and so, nothing to lose I followed him there
to seventh floor bar Funny, where I would stay


Shingo-Ohno strummed out country covers
and I was poured Chivas from a house bottle

Miyuki spoke american accent English
and translated my travel stories up to this throttle

and we drank and talked and dissected music
and Shingo showed me his sole tattoo tear

one life he said that's for and all we've got
and I took it on board since it's importance I hear


Jimmy the bartender he made me laugh
and I can't say in Japan I've felt this at home yet

and I can't forget the heartfelt southern songs strummed
with Tenshin on pianica and sax in two sets

and I bet if I returned here to live I'd put my own
bottle on the shelf and become a regular ghost

having left now I recall my last drink with Jimmy
and how Funny-Live I liked the most


I've been traveling and now set agenda
to return to where my heart's left resting

I'll train again to Sapporo and lend all my sorrows
to drink and smoke and confess

that too long it's been already and too long
to come I know before to Funny I return

but for the feeling of being home and not so
late night alone till then my country soul will yearn


Summer Sting Of Singapore

the sting of summer nights in Singapore
is missing you, suffering in heat like this
here there's no relief and such killing time
is all I can seem to do to bide your love
and with air this thick I'm a serrated knife
just a fading tinge of smoke grey, berating tonight
left melting alone and just but to drink
here with the summer sting in Singapore


Thursday, February 5, 2009

Never The Same Again (Train Song)

well, the room is dark
and any spark we had is gone
long gone with the evening's lampshade
though we prayed never turn it off
I wanted you one time
on this journey late night's train
and it pained me to think how we left
and further, how it'll never be the same
(you and I can never be the same)

you are the ghost that follows me
and for the most I miss don't mistake
I'd kill to repeat our days, but I know only to take
if I said I loved you dear
it was true and will stay clear
for that time and place and each day

it's loss I face and my fear
is to never say it again
and be forever lonesome on this train
(forever lonesome on this train)

you wrote me whilst I's away
and I know'd not how to respond
I took time and read it over again
and tried to say it all but it took too long
your final question to me enquired
do I still think of you
does my heart still wake to ache
and I figured, yeah it does but
dear, it'll never be the same
(you and I can never be the same)

I'm looking out these carriage windows
and feeling on my way home
that these roads are where I'm at now
and that's gonna mean leaving you alone
for the best or maybe worst, when I see the snow fall
just know I'll not help but to
your voice and love-songs with ease recall
and dear, to cut me off from your heart
and stay shy of the train station
would be best because no matter
it'll never be the same
(you and I can never be the same)

(you and I will never be the same)


Wednesday, February 4, 2009

Bluegrass Deep In Your Heart

there's a good hearty laugh
in the band at the Rocky Top bar
there's five Japanese gents strumming
on ukuleles and guitars
and a banjo and a man
on a couple of harmonicas

it's bluegrass fever and costin' me a bit
but oh, to be here in Ginza
by coincidence to hear
these songs and drink whisky
it leaves me in a daze of musical fit
so I've plans of stayin' and to dance rather than sit

they've a sticker, seems a sayin'
"bluegrass deep in your heart"
and me I'm a beginner but sure makin' a start


other people waiting

we're not strangers anymore