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22 Turbulence and Other Unfinished Business

from Product by Randall Stephens

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  • My first printed book of poetry "One For The Road" is all about travel and journey, a collection representing work written over a 6 year period.

    Featuring Hopeless crushes in strange places, communications breakdowns, heartbreak, isolation, floods in Thailand, scams in Malaysia, wankers in Auckland, disillusionment in India, freaking out in the Sahara, and a stolen pith helmet in Nepal. We go from exotic adventure to facing up the economic disparities in the world.

    It's 22 individual stories on 60 pages, staple stitched with illustrations, all created and composed by the author.

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lyrics

TURBULENCE AND OTHER UNFINISHED BUSINESS


tonight I cruise around in a borrowed car
fueled on a dwindling supply of borrowed time
fossil from old bones from older seas
under a sky too big to hold anything as small as this
in its favour
tonight is a sky full of turbulence

it may not feel like it
but these are the good times
the only ones we have to spare

tonight
after putting my father on a plane again
wishing him a good trip
and driving away in his car
wonder how many more times I can
before one of these car seats
will remain empty

don’t know when the last time I get to hug my mother
is going to happen
only that it will happen
and will only happen once
so I’ll have to hug her like it is that time
each time

simultaneously hoping it hasn’t happened already

because I still need… to need
something
still need tomorrow to emerge from plane turbulence
for me, for my father, for my arms
around my and every other person’s mother too

last time my plane hit a patch of turbulence
it was above Brisbane
the woman sitting next to me
grabbed the moan in her throat too late
and I heard it
I laughed my arse off
feeling utterly alive
happy enough with what I have had here
that I felt immediately ready to die
without wishing to

it was only after I landed
that I got scared
and it’s only after these thoughts
had become real words
that I knew I was wrong
it was only in recalling
what I’d previously heard
that I listened to it

the sound of the human being
next to me who simply did-not-want
every single thing she had done
today
this week
this year
to be the last one of those

tonight, I think about... everything
everything I'm yet to put in the face of those fuckin' poets
everything not yet read, visited or photographed
everything I have not loved enough
loathed enough
seen enough
and I have not shit-eaten-fucked-thought-talked-fought-fled and bled
enough

for all that could be said in praise of contentment
and counting one’s blessings
tonight
I want what that woman’s turbulence-induced moan wanted
and the firm grasp of my father's shaken hand
wanted

I want more

tonight I want more
so if this somehow were to end up
being my last poem
know
that I never intended it to be
know that I ate every dish
I sung every song
and faced every face
savouring but still saving space

after each helping
living expectantly
loving that living


and saving room for a little bit more

credits

from Product, released September 1, 2013

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Randall Stephens Melbourne, Australia

Randall Stephens writes poetry about other poetry, cycling, sexuality, masculinity, dinosaurs and your boyfriend. People have called Randall controversial. Randall has called people losers.

Randall has toured extensively in Australia, as well as in New Zealand, Singapore, Malaysia and Borneo.

Also competed in London and New York, but didn’t do very well so don’t tell him I mentioned that. ... more

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