Rakuli

Dream, wake, be

Thu, 23 Feb 2012 22:25:18 +1100

Come, dream with me
While I hold your hand
Come, cross the sea
To these distant lands

Come, dream with me
Meet me while sleeping
Come, let us leave
A waking world weeping

Come, dream with me
The weather is warm
Come, let us be
Away from the storm

Come, wake with me
The night is abating
Come, through the trees
The light is instating

Come, wake with me
Blink sleep from your eyes
Come, with the key
To unlock these lies

Come, be with me
Float near from downstream
Come, wake with me
So we need not dream

Infatuation

Wed, 22 Feb 2012 13:53:23 +1100

I think— I think I give up. I resign, retire, deprecate my hope, for you infatuate me. The captivation has triggered a realisation, unveiled a pattern; what I want to happen, never will, and I have never wanted the possible. Infatuation is the love of my life, lifting me up to be dropped from a height perfectly calculated to hurt rather than kill me. And in the moment before I fall, I look up and see exactly where I want to be but my wings cannot take me there, my wings are painted on so that my passages to the top feel a little less artificial. The winch of infatuation never passes my burden onto the genuine love mainline, for that connection lays out of reach over latitudinal lines.

The targets I chase are never unaware of my pursuit and many times what I covet will turn to cut the intervening distance between us as though desiring capture, but if I ever turn my eye toward closer company, the evasions match my persuasion step for step. Perhaps one sees me closer for all I approach from a distant horizon — a friend or an enemy can be learned in detail when their hands, raised non-threateningly, have been in sight since the heat waves they emerged from. A figure appearing from nearby trees may still be a mystery by the time it arrives.

It is not over yet, but still, I think I give up. I have not yet reached the height of my fall from you but you should know I already brace myself. Sometimes I dream that this time I will fly high enough to look into your eyes and that your gaze will be as steadily locked as mine is; maybe you will reach out a hand so that the expected plummet does not come. But I dream when my eyes are closed. My eyes are open now and they look up at you, for you infatuate me. The captivation has triggered a realisation, unveiled a pattern, and my muscles are tense in readiness for the descent. But I still dream when my eyes are closed; each time I blink I dream that my eyes will open gazing into yours and I will have risen past infatuation, past impossible, past distance, and into time, together.

Initiations

Mon, 20 Feb 2012 23:20:34 +1100

.. .-. .-. .-. .-. .. .
Ok, Luke, old boy, put down those toys, as the time -. .-.
time has come for you to be a man. You have to show your stock, and wrestle a
croc, to prove that you are an Australian. It fights like a blizzard, that wretched lizard,
spinning and turning to bite at your face. If you beat that bastard we can
go and get plastered because you would have earned your rightful place. The ladies will
love ‘ya, after we’ve shoved ‘ya into the river to spar the beast. If you don’t
make it then you made the
mistake and died as an Aussie
is ‘spose ’ta at least. So
Luke old boy
put down
your
toys
and
come
to
the river with your bares hands.
Show us your stock and wrestle the croc, and we will see if he or you stands.

Friends in all the wrong places

Mon, 20 Feb 2012 15:52:37 +1100

In lonely bubbles through massing crowds I walk, jostling nobody and smiling at those I pass. Known enough for salutations, too shrouded for broken strides. Aware enough to converse, not passionate enough to bond. Close enough to look at, too far away to visit. Warm enough to hug hello, too cold to kiss goodnight. Hair’s breadth distance between outstretched arms, fingers closing on the idea of a hand.

Invested over oceans, desiring riches in foreign lands. Skies around me rust in the salt water of a mind straddling continents on opposite sides of the horizon. Familiarity bred contempt, nearest neighbours moved away, hearts grew fonder on scents floating in on distant winds. Friends close at heart lay out of reach through time or distance.

Friends in all the wrong places, on all the wrong days. Missing all the right faces yet so far away.

Strangers in the night

Fri, 17 Feb 2012 13:47:22 +1100

Strangers in the night

Galactic sorrow

Wed, 15 Feb 2012 11:33:30 +1100

Today, I cried
Each tear held the moon
Lighted by soft rays of morning sunshine
Droplets fell from wetted cheeks
And splashed upon my lap
Forming rains of sorrow from the moons
Weeping for the stars
Lighted by soft rays of morning sunshine
Droplets fell in snowflake arrays
And coalesced on poorly fabric
Forming rivers of sorrow from the stars
Weeping for the void
Lighted by soft rays of morning sunshine

My workflow

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 16:34:13 +1100

Looking for clues, looking for cues
Anything to use as a muse, anything will do
Sometimes something stews in me
Sometimes something cruises right into being
All other thoughts fleeing leaving me seeing
Only words needed for decreeing a description of the thing
It doesn’t have to sing,
It just has to bring …
Has to bring something, anything
That alleviates the bore and prompts the literary whore in me

I have to be careful,
Be aware in full of where I ponder ideas
Some ideas ignite fears and tears in me
The symphony of tragedy, death and mortality
Wells waterworks for all to see.

I have to be mindful
To not be a blind fool with where I create concepts
Sometimes inept, the thoughts that slept crept over my mental door
They put me on the floor rolling and laughing like never before
Watchers get perplexed, vexed
When I chuckle without context

Although my heart has been broken
And Death has spoken token lines in my life,
My creative wife does not hold a knife laden with strife
I write what I see unequivocally
Convey what I hear personally
Describe what I touch sensually
Detail what I smell pleasantly
Orate what I taste mouth-wateringly

Ergo, I thought you should know…
I have no workflow — just a life to show.

Survive the Tumblr Writing Community

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 22:47:00 +1100

Are you humble?
Are you modest?
Are you confident in your ability?
Are you able to handle criticism?
Are you able to sleep?
Are you sober?
Are you productive?
Are you happy with the amount of attention you’re receiving?

Of course you’re bloody not, otherwise you wouldn’t have seen this post! And if you do possess the above traits, what the hell are you doing inside the Tumblr Writing Community? Your kind isn’t much liked around here so take your angelic, wholesome self elsewhere. Somewhere you can do good — No, I don’t know where; maybe become a copy editor for the bible or start proof-reading DNA blueprints or something.

Hell! Maybe you want to actually fit in here and that’s why you’ve ignored my advice and continued reading? Or maybe you want to dull your benevolence and social skills down far enough to become a leader at the bottom of the Tumblr Writing Community pack? How would I know? God, you people expect a lot from me! Just shut up and keep reading to find out how to survive this place — it’s pretty simple.

Learn to bitch like Lassie in the Hollywood Writer’s Strike and whine like a menopausal mosquito. You don’t have to do it publicly and you don’t have to do it often, but the more public and the more frequent the better. You have to do this. Nobody’s happy with this place, nobody settles down and accepts the way things are. If you do accept it, you’re either a communist or a spambot or a spambot communist. Post to your blog, violate someone’s ask box, grab their Skype details or crash a Tiny Chat. You must complain somewhere. For extra points, send your complaints directly at who irks you and do so anonymously.
Like. Absolutely. Fucking. Everything. Don’t go reading it you fool! You’ll be on Tumblr all day if you did that. Just like things and then go back and read (or not) bits and pieces later. The sooner you like something after it’s posted, the better.
Stay on Tumblr all day. You’re more than welcome to make continual Goodnight you guise! [= posts provided you return to Tumblr soon after and begin bitching, whining or liking everything. The more often you appear on Tumblr, the more often your name appears on Dashboards and the more likely people are to think you’re special. You are special, right? (I don’t care what your answer is to that question. I stopped listening when I stopped talking.)
Deactivate hard, deactivate often. The best thing is to threaten deactivation for a few days (being passive aggressive with this works wonders: see point 5) and then follow through with it . Also, if you send a few anonymous messages to old followers after deactivation, you’ll start building hype. What a ruckus this causes! Whoa! When you make your triumphant return, you will be bigger and better than ever. Points are awarded if you come back within two days. You can achieve a similar effect by changing your URL regularly or simply threatening deactivation and not following it through. Everyone loves this devil-may-care attitude and you’ll find yourself the talk of your Tumblr friends for at least fifteen minutes.
Use tags to contradict everything in your posts. The Tumblr Writing Community loves low self-esteem and passive aggression. Use the tags to say how much you hate a post and how you think it will get popular anyway, or use them to say how proud you are of a post but know it won’t get any notes anyway! It’s genius; you’re basically telling 30,000 people how to react. Let me tell you, 30,000 people are pretty damned predictable.
If you’re ever told you’re being an idiot, say you were drunk. If you weren’t drunk, get drunk and then say you are so drunk right now that you can’t remember if you were drunk then. Make a passive aggressive post about the criticism for extra points.
Never, never, never! For god’s sake, never! Never leave Tumblr to do homework or real work. This is seen as a weakness and not posting for any length of time will send your name back into relative obscurity. Tumblr fame requires commitment to shirking commitments.
Never admit to trying to find recognition but continually complain about your lack of recognition. If your work Ode to the feature and all the editors gets featured, claim it was written ironically, and if it doesn’t get featured, claim that nobody knows what talent even is. Complain about things that everyone finds popular and emulate them so that you can barely tell the difference. If your work Eye-Fucking the young girls I know follow me gets 5,000 notes, you’ve done it, you have reached the pinnacle of the Tumblr Writing Community already! — You may now don your ceremonial hipster-frame eye-wear — if that piece gets 2 notes and you receive tonnes of anonymous hate-mail, you might want to consider jumping back up to step 1.
Never interpret sarcasm, parody, or satire. Never laugh. The best way to build your name in the community is to organise a mob to bring down anybody who tries to make a joke. Smiles are not allowed in the Tumblr Writing Community.
~~Eat lots of fruit and vegetables. They are good for you.~~
~~Adopt a rescue animal.~~
~~Say “hello” to an elderly person.~~
Ignore 10, 11 and 12. Those are for a real community. That could have been awkward.

If I

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 15:46:11 +1100

If I were a bird
And you were a flower
I would use my wings
To protect from showers

If I were a tree
And you were the breeze
I would crave your caress
And sway gently at ease

If I were a cloud
And you were the sky
I would float in your beauty
And join you up high

Were I the horizon
And if you were the sun
I would mourn your passing
When each day is done

If I was the moon
And you were the stars
I would reflect your beauty
From my place afar

Were I a galaxy
And you simply space
I would be happy
To be in that place

Birth

Mon, 06 Feb 2012 22:25:00 +1100

Oh, but the air!
Sweet, nourishing oxygen
Filling lungs that have known nothing but fluid

Oh, but the smells!
The aromatic, consuming scents
Entering nostrils that have known no odours

Oh, but the touch!
The soft, delicate embrace
Cradling bare skin that have known nothing of texture

Oh, but the sounds!
The musical, comforting vibrations
Ringing in ears that have known nothing but heartbeats

Oh, but the light!
The striking, distant visions
Illuminating eyes that have known not where to focus

Oh, but the tastes!
The wonderful, breathtaking flavours
Caressing taste buds that have known not of subtlety

Oh, but the love!
The all-consuming, striking adoration
Love of a soul who has given you everything

Dear Luke. I am actually Luke from the future and I have returned to approximately one minute in your past to send you this message. I guess you can all me Future Past Luke if you want to -- but don't because that's a stupid name. I have acquired a time machine so I could tell you that you receive absolutely no ask-box messages for the next two or three hours of your life, and this makes you sad. Although a message from your future/past self is not quite as good as a real one, I hope this helps.

Mon, 06 Feb 2012 15:17:16 +1100

Thank you, me from the future in the past. Seeing my ask box light up with a message from you is one of the most amazing things to have happened to me today.

I hope that I am still as charming and endearing in the future and you managed to carry that all back to the past and subsequently back into the future.

What is a writer. Really?!

Fri, 03 Feb 2012 00:42:00 +1100

Writers seem to have been getting a lot of press lately, haven’t they? Most of it good too! Glowing, in fact. If you were to believe everything, you would think that writers excrete cures for cancer and build homeless shelters out of used tissues once the cum on them dries. Writers can immortalise you and bring you to orgasm with little more than a probing preposition and a firm set of parentheses; they just make you comma all over the place.

But have you stopped to think about who might be creating all of these little odes? Did you read it? Well it must have been made of words. And if it was made of words, it must have been written down. And if it was written down, someone wrote it. And bingo! Writers! Writers have been writing about writers. Making themselves look ten foot tall and made of benevolence.

Would you trust a polar bear to sell you the benefits of hugging large, white-furred mammals? No. Why trust a writer to sell you on writers? Don’t you think it’s about time someone actually revealed what a writer is really like? I mean, without a writer writing it? Never fear, I am here, using a speech-to-text program to dictate to you what writers really are.

Writers eat human infants. Regularly. You will often hear a writer refer to “Wednesday Night Baby Roast”, this is not a euphemism. Nobody really knows where they get the children from — many suspect that writers uncovered technology for human cloning quite some time ago but have an unwritten law that forbids writing essays for submission in scientific journals — but a Wednesday night will often see a writer dining in on slow-roasted baby, glazed with giant panda puree served and alongside potatoes prepared in a unicorn milk bêchamel sauce. I can almost see the questions in your mind: “Only one type of vegetable?!” Yes, only potatoes. Writers eat far too much endangered animal meat and not enough greens.

Writers only ever write for one day of every month. You would think that with their output they would be writing twice a month at least, but it’s just one day. Because writing is so easy. They release that one day’s output in little dribbles and appear to be productive far more often than they actually are. Most of the time when you see a writer at their computer they’re probably just trying to organise a writers’ poker night — where they use the souls of orphan puppies as chips — or they’re trolling the comments section on YouTube. And when you see a writer with a notebook and pen in hand, they’re more than likely just doing a sudoku puzzle — stolen from the newspaper in the community library — or the notebook doesn’t belong to them at all and they’re drawing small penises and naked women across the blank pages.

The bread and butter for a writer’s work is the astronomical simile. And they control weather and cosmic events with reckless abandon. Sure, you might have spent a wonderful rainy day inside with a writer reading poetry to you, but the writer made it rain, and in doing so, ruined fifteen little league soccer grand finals, four weddings and countless cum-tissue homeless shelters. When a writer compared you to a shooting star, the writer conjured the meteor. Your breath may have been taken away by the wonderful description, but the meteorite took out a hundred square kilometres of farmland in Siberia. Daylight savings was a concept invented by writers so they could sleep in even later and still catch a sunset. Have a think about what that love poem you found on your pillow may have cost. One thousand, two thousand lives?

According to the spit on the breeze, writers are emotional and sensitive too. Um. Yeah. That doesn’t mean that everyone else in the world possesses the emotional range of a startled penguin. Writers are emotional and sensitive because they are human, they just like to tell you they’re sensitive so you think they’re crying when they over-season their baby roast. If I told you one of my defining features was that I have two eyes and a full head of hair, you’d probably poke one of my eyes out and shave my head while I was sleeping. Writers are doing the same thing to you when it comes to emotions.

There’s many more things about writers but they vary, oddly enough, about as many times as there are writers. Writers are hideous creatures continually using their craft to convince you they’re more than another fleshy sack of same-as-you. Don’t believe a writer is different to anybody else … except for the baby eating and laziness and ability to control the weather and things.

The funk

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 22:31:22 +1100

It is happening again. I do not know why I am even moderately surprised and I do not know why I feel such sadness every time; ambivalence and disappointment come hand and hand with this situation. I am able to acknowledge it though. I can see it for what it is.

I have only recently been able to identify the thoughts, the sensations (or lack thereof) and the feelings associated with these downward inclines. The small part of my mind that is spilling out these observations has learned what to expect and developed a way to logically analyse the processes and changes — even though the small part of my mind spilling out these observations has absolutely no ability to alter or rectify the situation.

I consider it a blessing that this slice of rationality does have the power to control some of my behaviour. When I feel myself wallowing in the marshes of disinterest, feeling that every fibre of the world means me harm and every sentence heard or read contains hidden knives, this minuscule piece of seasoned reasoning catches the paranoid cries before they leave my tongue and erases the pre-emptive declarations of war before they reach the innocent recipients.

However, this moderator to the mouth of madness is not in control of it all. The glowing red button that launches missiles of adrenalin to my bloodstream is under the finger of panicking masses. The key that unlocks the butterfly cage in my stomach is guarded by a narcoleptic gatekeeper allowing the key to be stolen by opportunistic, pessimistic, thoughts in passing. Motivation, enthusiasm, pride and hope are bound and gagged, held prisoner by the armies of nothingness.

A picture is worth a thousand words and while this small sliver of reasoned thought can report the facts like an entrenched journalist, my body language conveys images with as much fanfare as a politically biased news corporation. The corners of my mouth can be raised for a time but it is always strained, forced down by the weight of misguided, misinformed assumptions.

It is happening right now. Never regular, never predictable. The greatest indicator of this situation is a recent successful ascent; but the fall comes as often halfway up as it does at the top. I call it the funk and I know it will pass. But the sliver of thought that spills these words to you does not control my optimism.

5 things I dislike about Z

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 17:48:00 +1100

I’m not a life coach, I’m not smart, I’m not influential, I’m not well read, I don’t hold an answer to propel you to great heights, and I don’t claim any of my opinions are right for anyone but me. I see things as they are and won’t argue with you when you tell me the sky is blue or that a tree is a tree — unless the tree takes a step and starts speaking, then I’ll gently suggest that maybe it should be called a walking, talking tree — but if I see that there is something that you’re doing that could do with an improvement (in my opinion) I won’t hesitate to make a suggestion. I won’t force you to do anything because you are you and your choices are yours, but I can suggest and hope you see some value in the suggestion so that maybe one day, you’ll suggest something of value to me and we can continually improve.

Maybe spending most of my life to date in another century has instilled old-timey values at my core and maybe my views are archaic in today’s society, but there are five things that I see as problems presently and for the future in the world and I would dearly love to see them addressed.

Manners

Such a simple concept, manners. Figurative, ornamental and idealistic they may be, but it is amazing how they can dull the points of potentially sharp situations. Manners, common courtesies, politeness. They all seem to have gone by the wayside in the minds of recent generations.

I’m not talking about dated and futile concepts like ensuring your napkin is laid across your lap or using the cutlery from the outside in — for all of me, you can wear your serviette as a headband and tuck into your main course with a soup spoon if that’s what you desire; but maybe the person you’re dining with would like you to do it in a certain way and because it won’t hurt you, maybe you could give it a try? — I’m talking about the simple things, that have worked so well for so long as lubrication on society’s machinery.
The thing with machinery is that you can take away the lubrication and the cogs continue to turn. It’s not until you turn your back and walk away that things gradually start to degrade. Our machinery is starting to degrade.

“Please”, “Thank you”, “You’re welcome”, “I beg your pardon”, “Do you mind if”, “May I”, “Sorry”. Pull your headphones out of your ears when you’re ordering your coffee, smile at the bus driver even if he’s late, apologise even if you know they bumped into you.

Manners cost nothing but you can use them to pay for unlimited civility.
How to accept a compliment

Believe it or not, some people do give genuine compliments. And even if you can see the lie pasted all over the kindness, accepting it graciously shouldn’t be as hard as it seems today. It’s almost as if accepting a compliment, perhaps letting it instil a little pride, is treated like a personal defeat as one momentarily lets oneself escape the angst in which they were languishing.

Most people feel a little uncomfortable in the limelight cast by glowing praise, but what many people don’t understand is that it can sometimes be as hard to give a compliment as it is to receive one. It is very, very frustrating when you have worked your way up to giving a compliment, perhaps having to swallow pride and ego along the way, only to have it rejected outright or treated as insincere.

You don’t even have to agree, you can graciously accept a compliment and disagree with the sentiment. “I am so glad you enjoyed it, thank you so much for letting me know.” What have you admitted except that you liked the compliment? You can go back to wallowing in self loathing now without ever having cheered up. Obviously, avoiding the other end of the scale, “Damn right it’s good! Where you been lately?” is recommended.
Acceptance

This isn’t unique to recent generations. Acceptance has always been slow in coming and even harder to hang on to. The problem is that there are now so many forums for people to output their disagreements, that simply accepting something is almost unheard of.

The world isn’t flat, white people aren’t the only intelligent mammals, all nations aren’t bound together under one god, we’re not the only planet in the solar system, we’re not the only solar system in the galaxy, we’re not the only galaxy in the universe. There are allowed to be more than one of each thing. Opinions are like assholes …

Acceptance of race, religion, gender, sexual orientation are the big things but people just refuse to live and let live. On anything. If you like Harry Potter, you may as well not be human for the Twilight fans, and vice versa. God forbid you actually enjoy Justin Bieber’s music because for much of the world you have as good as admitted to slaughtering puppies.

Not liking something does not make it impossible to like and it does not make those who like it worse than you. Just accept that differences abound, take a breath and move on without flaming; maybe it will stop someone ragging your own choices later.
(In)credulity

So much of what is done is self-regulated today, in groups of peers and in places where facts are inferred implicitly rather than read explicitly. Twitter is used to break massive news headlines and the major source of factual information is a community-edited encyclopaedia. People are too willing to believe negative things and almost loathe to believe positives.

It would be nice to actually see a respect for the “older” people who have worked their way up to being experts rather than jumping on the first piece of information heard and believing it/tearing it to shreds.
Meme mentality

Memes were a thing before the internet. Most “memes” aren’t. When they are, they are done to death. When everyone does something at once, it ravages the land. It seems like so much fertile creative ground has been salted by the virus effect and the want of this generation’s desire to perpetuate and overdo what has already been done.

This is a silly post, this is just full of things that I felt like addressing. Please take with a grain of salt and ignore.

Valentine Pantomime - Original Spoken Word Poetry (Sorry about...

Tue, 31 Jan 2012 17:18:00 +1100

Valentine Pantomime - Original Spoken Word Poetry

(Sorry about the slightly out of sync audio, stupid webcam is being troublesome)

For days it’s perfect, I walk the street feeling the heat under my feet, enjoying the comfort of a seat, smiling at strangers I happen to meet. New day and I walk the same line, it should be fine but there is something intruding on, pertruding from this divine; trying to dine on what I once called mine. There’s no—, no perceptible change, something strange, this off note that tends to float out of range.

Stuffed toys, and the girls with boys, posters, TV hosters, commercial boasters bringing me down with their ploys. And there’s the flowers, they’ve been idle for hours but they’re granted new powers because they’re bought on a thought, just as taught. Because they know flowers are granted powers from the non-conforming guilt that they devour.

But … That’s my perspective, so subjective, tainted, it’s painted gray by my mind that is not selective with its directives.

Let’s get objective.

Turn the tables, make true my fables and the above is out, it’s gone with a shout, as I give this new day a new label, as glowing and stable as I am able. I’m not bitter, at least not outside this mind that I litter with the time that I fritter. Right now I’m a sitter but I am not a quitter and I get stronger the longer I don’t dither.

For what it’s worth, I know, from birth there’s nowhere on this Earth you can’t look up and find some mirth. Focus a light and it’s only right that something will fall into the shadows of night. So I’m just going to hang tight, to get that illuminating burst, eliminating thirst, terminating worst, and culminating first into an entry, with no sentry back into the world fully nursed.

It’s easy to disperse and curse the Valentine pantomime but given time, you can climb back to your prime and you might find your hands dirty with the grime of what you labelled a crime.

So. Happy Valentines.

Some days

Tue, 31 Jan 2012 11:50:00 +1100

Some days. Some. Fucking. Days.

You wake up dripping with sweat, staring directly into the blades of a fan that worked unsuccessfully through the night to keep you cool, and the wind hitting your face seems to carry boulders of dust that lodge themselves in your already grainy eyes. As you blink away the debris and your eyes start to water, you wonder how many of the tears are for lubrication and how many of them are welling up from grief at having awoken.

When the world stops swimming in saline solution and glaring at the clock does not magically turn it backwards, you are forced to admit that there is no more time for sleep, no more opportunity to wake in a happier place. The coffee you make tastes like untreated sewage and your first cigarette of the morning does little except make you hack and wheeze, forcing you to take another swig of the devilish brew to prevent death from choking — although, consideration is given to letting asphyxiation run its course. You refuse to eat because even the freshest ingredients, eaten from the bare stomach of a divine virgin will taste sour and nothing will cleanse your pallet of bitter coffee mixed with the stale smoke of a cigarette you did not need.

Routine and habit power your feet as you walk into the office; the cheery folk who offer you greeting get a glassy-eyed sneer or non-committal grunt in return; and the air inside is stifling, but you refuse to open a window just in a case a faint breeze enters to blow away whatever motivation you find hiding in your to-do box — if “motivation” can be used to describe the lingering thread of moral integrity driving you to complete the bare minimum of your day’s responsibilities. Within moments you start reflecting on how far you have not come and how far you still have to go. You see plans destined for failure, failed ideas recycled and put forward as new, pseudo optimism from your superiors and sheer walls on every side that prevent you from climbing out of the chasm you unknowingly entered a long time ago. The coffee is even worse here.

Some fucking days, man. You have no idea how long this one will last; weeks, months, years, or maybe just today.

Some days. Some. Fucking. Days.

Like Everything Week

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 13:11:00 +1100

Wednesday 1st of February to Wednesday 7th of February

Let me ask you a few questions:

What do you think about your local member of parliament?
What do you think of Justin Bieber?
What do you think of Valentines day?
What do you think about getting up for work in the morning?
What do you think about puppies that look like they’re running in their sleep?
What do you think about the cleanliness of an average public toilet?

Take a moment to reflect on your answers. Were any of them negative, perhaps to one of them you answered “I totes dislike that!” or “sux lewz!”? If you did encounter one of these negative reactions, then you have every reason to participate in Like Everything Week.

I should take this opportunity to point out that if you answered in a negative way to the one about puppies running in their sleep, you may want to stop reading and have a fist fight with a kitten; it’s a pretty big leap from casting hate on adorable running slumber puppies to liking everything.

I get this impression that people feel there is so much to dislike in the world at the moment. The vibe emanates from society like the odours from the bottom of a bin bag, full of the remnants of an alcohol fuelled bender and left for three days in direct sunlight.

Negativity spreads like a disease, an icky one. But there is a lighter, brighter side. Positivity also spreads like a disease — just a more happy, smiley sort of disease; the kind of disease you’d happily tell people you’ve caught.

Like Everything Week aims to textually transmit this disease of positivity as far and wide as possible. We all casually peruse our dashboard each time we procrastinate away on Teh Interwebz and Tumblr, we read or at least skim all that resides there. Sometimes we even lament the fact that Tumblr and Facebook have neglected the vehement requests of an offended populace, and remain Dislike button free … but what do we do a majority of the time? We scroll down, refresh, close the tab and continue looking at funny cat pictures (or if you disliked running slumber puppies and continued reading anyway, maybe you continue looking at pictures of rabbits being beaten).

Not during Like Everything Week!

This week will see you Like or reply/comment upon everything in your feed. Be it a new friendship, a poem (yes, even limericks), a quippy observation, a heartbroken soul’s outcries or an inappropriate photo of a work colleague.

There will be times when you cannot apply the workings of Like Everything Week and that is perfectly fine. It’s not right to Like something that obviously is of detriment or anguish to the poster, however, a well worded comment may suffice.

There also might be such posts as as:

“If anyone likes or comments this post, I will come around to your house and give you a severe beating with a plastic ruler.”

In those sort of cases, you can skip it, guilt free, and continue liking or commenting on the rest of your stream.

What is in Like Everything Week for you?

It’s simple really:

You get to deliver a disease and not be arrested for crimes of chemical warfare.
You no doubt have people that you have fallen out of touch with, Like Everything Week gives you a pain free ticket to reopen discussions.
Perhaps a few of your friends will participate in the week as well and you’ll find yourself involved in positive discussions surrounding your own posts that on a normal day may never have happened.

Participate in “Like Everything Week” and get an STD (Smile Textually Delivered), maybe even hand out a few STDs yourself!

When I ruled the world

Fri, 27 Jan 2012 12:29:08 +1100

When I ruled the world with an iron fist
No issue arose I simply dismissed
Yes I was feared but also respected
Trusted to guide through paths unexpected

I remember the day, I remember the hour
I started to focus on personal power
Passing on duties to those down below
I thought to ignore what I did not know

The problem with delegating the reign
Is subordinates also want personal gain
So I tried to be a master executive
While my name was attached to errors consecutive

‘Fore I knew of the faults I was pulled down by riots
And try as I might, I could not deny it
I had neglected those for whom I had charge
I was seeing the results of mistakes loom large

When those in authority work themselves harder
People are happy with you as their martyr
Abusing that power for personal wealth
Will lead to results not good for your health

So when you rule the world with an iron fist
Remember me and the disaster I kissed
Keep focus on duties and watch those below
If errors are made you will want to know

I would love to be him but ...

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 15:58:45 +1100

Let me be the guy that makes you forget about the man you want. That man, who you write about and dream of, he may exist, but at the moment I am not convinced. Let me be the guy that stops you focussing on an impossible prototype and teaches you that a human can earn your love too. Your list of must-have traits could use chapters and I am yet to reach the end of your “desirables”, but I can say that all of the men I have ever met combined would not fulfil three quarters of what you cannot live without.

I am not one for tattoos and radical activism is not my style, but I will pet a puppy and write how much I love you all over my arms. I am unlikely to be famous and rarely cry my way through movies, but I will hug you when you are upset and write you a lullaby if you are lacking music. I will not assume you are lying when you tell me you are fine and I will resent it if you expect me to decipher a code beneath your words. And sometimes my lust will rage and I will think of little else but there will be plenty of days where I will simply hold you close in bed.

I do not complete your perfect list, in fact, I do not even come close. Has anyone? Ever? Let me be the guy that does a few things you love very well and a few things you hate, rarely. If you continue looking for the man who does everything you love and nothing that you hate, you will find bitterness and despair when people keep falling short; the closest you will come is accepting false promises and realising too late that they are lies.

I am not the man of your dreams and never will be, but neither is the next guy. There was a time when you forgot I was human for long enough to love me. Let me be the guy who reminds you that humans can earn your love too.

Tidbits (You are a writer)

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 12:08:03 +1100

Fleeting moments, fierce opponents, form components of our lives
Still reflections, chased affection, small inflections cut like knives. We
Hoard possessions, build obsessions, flow through sessions, strive to strive. To
Leave the station, leave the nation, beat inflation, build a hive

Raw emotion, calming oceans, your devotion to another
Efforts wasted, sorrow tasted, photos pasted to try smother
Body glowing, nothing showing, you are owing to your brother
Your potential, your credentials, consequential to your mother

Have you ever, you may never, love forever, be a fighter
Life is scary, oh contrary, we could nary hold on tighter
Be appeasing, always pleasing, slowly easing your light brighter
Are you possessed, have you confessed, you are depressed, you are a writer