Pike Bishop is dead

a text message counselor at 5pm
out of fish bowl, thirty centimetres wide.
we're sweating sickness to our forgetting
sun damaging our peak-oil polished hides.

he says she fucks but doesn't come in.
he shouts at mirrors in the bathroom
purging junk from arms and outside.
we're drunk on the bust and boom
advertising jingo lullaby.

but in god's grace or another fairy tale
they're burning people alive.
for abortion, Islam or new-speak
Coca-cola, Baghdad or sex for 1.95?

and even Pike Bishop is dead.
i heard it on the TV.
he laid down his guns and said.

'the animals are better than you or me'.

Book My Face Megatronn

i said book my face megatronn.

i was sick of status updates so i became a gangster rapper.
i went underground in search of velvet sonic youth.

we broke the siege - freed Gazan refugees
and talked of loved one's lost.

to the peter thiel's and the 'new deals'
to that latest capital crazy
i want your stimulus package baby
oh Mr Ruddy please save me!

but now we're a rock star pose, a flying vee
got a lingering for the truth
we wake - sleep - dérive

and there are 86 friends in common
out of 1 4 7 discarded fits
this is a face like an epitaph
syphilis for politics
and primate worship.

and man is paradise
as the walls come tumbling down
and man is paradise
as the walls come tumbling down
and man is paradise

for another struggling poet.

09/02/09

Do not forget

Thirteen hundred awkward ‘I Love You’s’
Once whispered from mouths hopeful in solitude
Now buried forever. Beneath rubble and memory.
Look closer. A child’s hand. Phosphorus eyes.
The soldier’s smile reflecting national pride.

The machine gun screams.
We are the victims. We are the victims.
Manufactured caste leads a people to genocide.
Headline reads: Israel retaliates after rockets fired
Sixty-one years of occupation forgotten.
Simplified. Sensationalised. Legitimised.
We perpetuate the lies through silkscreen eyes.

In workplace conversation we reiterate their racism.
Portray the situation with inane misinformation.
‘Those mad Arabs just need to be civilized’ he says.
While we beat our wives and practice our own apartheid.
Wrapped in the butchers apron behind our white picket fence.
Screaming ‘oi oi oi’ til the bombs come home to roost.

And in an instant soundbite commercial all is lost.
The thousands dead exiled to page 48 in small print.
The death of Dafur, Gaza, Iraq, Zimbabwe, Afghanistan.
See no, hear no, speak no - all is forgotten.

You turn the dial. Close the blinds. Open eyes with no mind.
My every sentence breaking into fractures, soon to lose syllables.
Resonance. Determination. Meaning. But this is not a dream.

From this page to this mouth to the radio to your head – this is still reality.

There are still thirteen hundred dead.

Do not forget.