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Product

by Randall Stephens

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  • Streaming + Download

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

    hidden tracks and a couple of nice little extras are included
    Purchasable with gift card

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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.

    Also there's elephants in it. It's pretty good.

    Includes unlimited streaming of Product via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ships out within 3 days
    Purchasable with gift card

      $10 AUD or more 

     

1.
(composite track with improv from Alex Scott)
2.
02 Man Alive 02:41
MAN ALIVE hit I’ve been hit I been hit with more tall sticks than you could poke a stick at I been stuck with the ugly stick but here I stand, still itching to be stickin’ it to the man man alive for all intents and purposes and in all probability representing the best of the worst case scenarios or at least the next-less-best-guess ‘cause I got two feet walking the talk two feet for whom the bell toe jams toeing a line of two night ceiling-staring sightseeing stops you can stick me in a sachet but get me out of the bubble-wrap because I’ve got y’proof of concept a challenge to the precept I got marching orders with stories to tell so fill me up with coffee and fly me to the moon I’ll fill you in on a backpacker’s backlog got sent to the back of the line drawn in the growing desert sands with this pair of chopsticks that used to be the Borneo rainforest and when the Tarkine’s been used to make toothpicks don’t get picky with me because I know what side of that line I’ll be standing on I want to fight the good fight with bad timing, and I wanna be the iron man of irony ... man ‘cause when I hear other poets declare laudably they don’t want to pause to be applauded, me? Well I got some plans to make you clap your hands holler and shout don’t leave me in doubt up here being out there to face inner fears steer you in a direction of some inner circumspection but then~ let it out! because this will die inside in time if you don’t express it so be incessant have the determination not to just live your life in quiet desperation in a homeostasis place just taking up space but take this with a grain of salt take it away, take your time but don’t take it for granted on this planet, Earth take each moment here for all that its worth because take it from me it’s just one life you get man and you have to give it everything you can.
3.
(roar)
4.
04 Behemoth 03:41
BEHEMOTH I rule the world I am ancient and weigh tones I’m the size at which I have no natural predators moving slowly and heavy in a world of pre-history sharing in an age of great beasts giants and monsters we are not yet burdened with a future of small creatures this is our world undivided no men no continents trying to be islands I am your dinosaur Diplodocus, my bones will sometime become artifact 'til then I exist on a scale far larger than an hominid mind can hold I’ll yet defy their classifications too saying I was avian but reptilian but something or other else no, my blood is warm I do not fly away we don't even need to know what is standing in my way only how soon it is getting out of it we Dinosaurs had small brains I’ll tear down trees destroy a whole fucking forest just to have something to eat Diplodocus I produce over a tonne of shit each day it's true I shit a tonne of shit everyday for millions of years when you rule the world this is the manner in which you conduct yourself envy us long dead dinosaurs you wish you could produce that much shit but I'm a behemoth with no regard for what comes out of my arse my feet stomp every step I take I shake the ground around you In fact I could make the Earth for you without even trying so come with me I can shoe away your predators with my tale we can eat up all the forests together stamp the ground before us flat before we fall into tar pits to become… a fossilized curiosity incomplete skeletons closeted in the ground for all time but we will fire imaginations for all time they will marvel at us small people filling their puny frames with awe, envy and defeat just imagining… our mountains of shit we are the Diplodocus a legacy left still yet left living of the very-very large too large in fact for this small world of people to contain any longer.
5.
BIGGER THAN YOU THINK – by Alex Scott The point is, they are bigger than you think they are. -How can you be sure? I can imagine some pretty big stuff! I imagine elephants are pretty big. African or Indian? -What? Perfect example. Indian elephants may be as big as you think they are, but African elephants… African elephants are almost certainly bigger than you think they are. I mean, they’re really big. -What about tigers? Bigger than you think they are. -Bigger than lions? Mmmm. -See, I would have thought lions would be bigger than tigers. So perhaps only tigers are bigger than I think they are. Lions may indeed be smaller than I think they are. I suspect not. I suspect that both lions and tigers are bigger than you think they are. But whereas lions may be only slightly bigger than you think they are, tigers are really much much bigger than you think they are. Everything is bigger than you think they are. -They’re that big? Bigger! -no shit.
6.
DON’T ASK WHY if the world ever loses its mind it will be in India it will be in that place where westerners come seeking ancient wisdom amongst inadequate sanitation they’re here for a piece of peace and tranquility amongst an amazing harmony of traffic horns if the world ever needs a reality check it will be in India the incredible boasting more billionaires and impoverished peoples both than any other nation on Earth if this one time a Sikh a Muslim, a Hindu and an atheist are all sitting around together and the atheist says… is this some sort of joke? the Sikh will say no but the joke has ever been on you and you’ll be the only one getting it laughing yourself hysterically cynically, fanatically silly what you looking at pal? hey don’t mind me I’m just in India if the world ever needs an enema it will be in India because no shit it’s in India that the shit is goin’ down man and up and around and on the walls and the floors in the fires the shit is in the streets roads, footprints and it is definitely, definitely hitting the fan. if there’s ever a fuse to be blown street poles each wired like whole phone exchanges that in other countries might seem a little strange It just won’t be be-cause you’ll be in India looking for a net connection in the middle of a city’s traffic-jammed intersection taking pedestrian leaps of faith foregoing all fail-safes, but it’s bumper to bumper and you can’t walk through. this… traffic? this unbridled dystopian anarchy that has slumped itself right at the door of the world’s most stifling bureaucracy if you ever had a night angry enough to spontaneously combust if you have ever felt moral outrage to be so futile you might have had to share sidewalks with rows of naked children grabbing for your feet while you walked down the street you will have survived screaming contests between them and your own so-called conscience picking the one you could console saying it’s all right it’s all right it’s all right even though you know it’s not and it’s never going to be -all right if you’re ever feeling as filthy as mud on dust on dirt on mold in piles of shit sweated into garbage covered in mosquitoes, that someone is now burning for some lack-of reason you will be in India and you will be ridiculous enough to have forgotten that if history can’t explain anything and isn’t even trying to anymore if you remember then why you long ago forgot the point the point being there is no point If everything is gonna be fine but whatever y‘do don’t look down now if there was anything that ever really-actually went wrong or could or might or should-have-but-didn’t, or-should-not-have-but-did-anyway, or won’t -but-watch-out-because-it-still-might or it will but you’ll never know until its way, way too late mate, you never know it might be it might just be that you are in India.
7.
07 Last Seen 02:47
LAST SEEN Last seen as a square peg in a round hole laughing politely in good humour at bad jokes that patronise his nationality while muttering under his breath I’ll throw you on the barbeque With another shrimp... motherfucker last seen being given shit about the fosters beer that he wouldn’t touch to save his life from folks actually drinking it themselves last seen blowing it misspent and depleted like uranium shelling out for overpriced cookies wrapped in plastic that taste like air conditioning last seen -in the last scene from the movie -with that guy -who does that thing -that one time -that was cool yeah that movie rocks last seen rocking out to his own rhythm when earphones are bunker windows back into down town mental health states last seen swan-diving into Ani DiFranco lyrics late night at Leicester square living in clip while chewing the fat from those overpriced feeds. last seen leading rebellions against any kind of commonality common decency common sense, or common causes last seen causing problems in Spanish bus stops like yeah you call the fuckin’ cops! last seen on the offensive during an anxiety attack last seen on the floors crunching guts into numbers fit to be seen, sights from emotionally safe distances last seen still sitting there fantasizing from behind his sunshades, thoughts pornographic smirk on his face last seen lying to your face trying to hide in plain sight running for the shadows and cursing his own left footprints like they were a bin full of broken umbrellas in a spring hail storm last seen unrecognized in the mirror last seen saying “are those my feet?” last seen on a computer screen last seen seeing himself on a computer screen last seen looking for himself on a computer screen a rough silhouette to fit your description at poor resolution last seen as smudged fingerprints cameo appearances in second-hand stories ...or at least that’s what I heard last seen never to be heard from again last seen too far gone and still he goes on last seen expecting himself to be sighted in every same-but-different way last seen waiting somewhere to see what he will actually look like next.
8.
SAHARAN SIREN SONG There was nothing out there to see and I could see that eyes couldn't contain it legs couldn't resist it that feeling you have secretly every time you're on a ledge looking down hearing that voice, saying (Step off) stepped out of the Berber tent and into the furnace (Step off) ahead – the black stubble stretch, and in my hand a bottle of water. ...and it was that falling-off-feeling stretched out flat forever and calling to me from desert mountain mirages where a Bunsen-burner blue flame sky ripples and swirls at first I headed to the north mistaking a cairn for your slumbering form – but collected only blood red rocks and bad omens for my trouble those dunes those dunes taunted me like friends in high-school who egg you on into a fight before I left, I said – I always get my man – nothing left behind to pull me back those feet, once mine pushing forward into nothing like my turn in the queue has come – that I was going to hunt you in the wilderness – and I walked and I knew and I just realised I knew -as I reflected that the night before I had introduced myself as your own conscience I just realised I knew, I could die out here it was as your conscience I set out to chase you a mad man’s mission: find a man in a grey gelaba in the black desert as mad as it was, I knew I would succeed I could die out here not a realisation of the harshness of the Sahara (I would succeed). no that we knew already but I could die out here... in peace. looking from the cairn the silence of the place pounding like a thousand hidden drums peace like all my machinery got switched off (the silence of the place) and I’m not thinking asking talking looking waiting hoping (the silence of the place) not seeing not-even-being a thousand hidden drums… I could walk out here and never come back drown beneath those - black – rocks like there was nothing else to do I wanted to, I still want to I made first for the tree then out keeping the dunes to my right and the mountains to my left scanning the limits of the reliable – where the trees became goats, became men became finally nothing at all shapes twisted by heat horizon infinity at boiling point everything was flecked with uncertainty black marble, suddenly smashed by God a man in a grey gelaba in black desert who does not want to be found will not be found as he threw up his hands and said I knew there was a road but I also knew your hunger for nothing "AH FUCKIT!" and so struck out perpendicular leaving empty scattered everywhere a gamble in the desert a mess not cleaned up but it was together, we walked back turned around yes - and you said you would not go out again but I didn't come back …you said you would not go out again – and you did, and I sit here at camp nothing else to do so much nothing your conscience rests can’t contain it and you are gone not empty enough not empty enough not empty enough yet.
9.
LEFT UNSAID told you so but I’m not gonna say I told you so and a guy walks into a bar and says and it’s just like I always say we got a saying back where I come from and... you don’t say and it’s all he-said she-said anyway and said the spider to the fly say What? and said God to Jesus and Christ said unto them say it like you mean it talk is cheap and a word in anger and a way of wording it and say, this saying goes... and and and... the way, in which I sat, waiting for some, reason or excuse, to approach that girl, sitting there in time, before she got up, and left the table, across the room from me the chance, didn’t present so the words, didn’t form the girl, didn’t stay long enough for me to try so now these words stay here with me not better left (unsaid)
10.
10 Jump 01:55
JUMP I can tread water like there is even a grace to it I can breathe under water …at least, I try to now and then never did learn to dive you know all I can do is jump a feet first drop down crash to resurface salty burning throat and nostrils but I’ll be smiling because I enjoyed falling that leap and grasp for air that rush of empty in the updraft and I seem to just -hang- in space for some moments before the body of water moves on me rushing up impossibly fast then- then my limbs want for feathers and a gliders grace but oh no down I go I’m a projectile launched out to see with all the grace of a fridge trying to fly failing, falling, closing on the water until I crash piercing through with a huge splash my contact here a flat-on-the-back bomb shattering torpedo punch going too deep to stay in control and swim coughing I come up to a bubbly hiss with a huge air pocket in my pants sting of that slap already searing my skin …owww but like I said above before we jumped off into this no matter the belly whacker smack that comes after the jump I still enjoyed falling for you.
11.
(based on a true story I made up)
12.
WE'LL ALWAYS HAVE PARIS meet me below Napoleon's star as it fell meet me beyond absinthe becoming poisonous beyond the silences shattered by emergency sirens sounding across the Seine past all these places this is where you'll find me where I'm waiting for you I'm past all these places in Paris meet me past the places where the fires in my eyes have been stomped out or blanket-smothered eyes that have seen enough to scream out your name where nights were over before they began where doors were locked languages butchered in brazen attempts where the frayed ends of sentences I left off unfinished... bit back past all these places there is one more place one meeting space where second chances really do exist and there is still the perfect time still waiting ahead I’m still waiting ahead, to tell you how I feel about you now meet me at times when I didn't tell you why- I wanted you to meet me here meet me there meet me where my intentions match my resolve and the air I breathe and the sky are the same thing just once just one time where this dancing around my feelings really could be a dance not this desperate flight from fears my fears that vulnerability will lead to rejection the way marijuana leads to heroine be my heroin find me meet me or meet me half way give me a key for the front door leave me with a light on inside find me here outside those others' territorial demarcations respective previous we both needed to get away from find me here where I (ahem) am declaring and international law means I get to keep this courage through customs Where my words are less confused confiding instead of this hiding my feeling felt, for you meet me -there- if you can't meet me in Paris
13.
YOU FUCKING POET You have eyes window pained and steaming as your insides gush hot and cold you have a skin covering your insides with outsides so you can cover this contraceptive membrane in scars you want to feel everything you are hurt, everywhere and you squirm a million hands on you and you love it don’t you? a shallow bottomed vessel you are barely... or not at all your pain is a transplanted heart failure the world that ends each day just a little. house wine? you are the house wine! ~ a righteous lefty skimming pages for the right recipe so you can set them on fire trying to find the perfect formula… poor soul you really do want the cake and eat it too or to have it not to eat it, as well just so you can tell them... yes all about... the hunger –oh how I hunger! or about how beautiful the cake is –it was so so... beautiful! or the anticipation -cake I yearn for you! I want to eat it! oh, If only you could! or tell them about the last bad dining experience: I was young and innocent and dining or whatever because like cakes... (meh) you can keep your cake and I hope you two are good together 'cause it’s a cake-walk for the rest while you're off, lost unfed... when you can’t see the forest for the cake …trees trees with leaves like pages for you to read into between lines trying to find the real reason while your stomach stays empty you’re as fragile as the answers found in philosophy classes or the bottom of wine glasses why don’t you drink from a cask of arse you farcical bastard! the species endangered only by itself a Panda bear picking extinction from the wine list sitting at an altitude where bamboo is the only thing that grows and it’s about as nourishing as cardboard so you’re not going anywhere when if you could just keep your hands to yourself for five seconds you could roll down hill …and eat cake you’re a Butterfly caught in the chaos of your own storms but for all that – and perhaps more you can paint with words what no canvas can hold and you alone can photograph what a heart-in-motion looks like and you alone can see majestic ranges in our mole hills and you alone can conquer the whole world cloud-watching so drink deeply from that split milk twist your knickers into a fantastical tale and terror and romance and more no further afield than your kitchen draw hollow yourself out and take us all on this journey hey – we’ll even carry the baggage for you! you poor poor soul you ...fucking ...poet.
14.
NOT WITH YOU AT YOU Laugh latching on to that laughter like it’s a life raft and you can get out that water you were in laughing at those sharks who were trying to bite you in half and if you capsize you can laugh yourself back the right side up laugh as if there really is enough left in that half-empty cup laugh at the half-empty everywhere drinking it up! laugh like the error-mongers with ledgers are sitting right there on your window ledge vampires sucking up your follies and ignoring theirs laugh like you’re on the gas having a gas you’re a laughing ass loving every minute of it but now unable to stop it laugh at the milk gone funny in your fridge and laugh at your own shakes your loneliness-baked brain and all your cans of baked beans which means …ahahahahahahaha! laugh irrationally at that rash an itch you let get way too scratched laugh at that long time since that phone last rang laugh at the cold comforts from the coffee cup laugh at funny looks you get laugh nervous covering nervous laughter man you’re a disaster! not waiting to happen laugh at the pains lining your face laugh in laughter’s place standing in due to sickness laugh your life, your love at losses laugh it off- that you’re a loser laugh as it all comes undone and come on down laugh like that’s a virtue or I will hurt you and then laugh ‘til it hurts you yeah laugh keep laughing I said laugh, fucker, laugh!
15.
I STATEMENTS I am tired of reading your bad grammar ‘cause I’ve read too many times in text persons referring to themselves with a lower case "i" oneself should not put themselves in the lower case there are millions of mediocre men to do that for you. when you write I use the capital I your life, a capital enterprise you should be a capital I and be an eye-full don't sell yourself short with bad grammar, ladies and gentlemen in this life, if nothing else you deserve… Punctuation. You have to be that I that needs a capital! you’re the big letter you need a shift key you need a CAPS LOCK You might even need to be printed in bold! you need to take that much effort over yourself ‘I’ being a word for ‘You’ belongs in the uppercase So don’t talk yourself down and when you speak I want to hear you talk that way too speak of yourself, as if you are talking in capitals, because I DO!
16.
16 BREASTS! 02:52
BREASTS! breasts are the best oh yes I'm talking about breasts and the time has now come to confess how impressed I am with their shape their firmness there's really no contest for where else my eyes could get (stuck) and ah it's just my luck to then get busted staring at her bust then lose her trust oh now she's real suspicious that I only think about what juts out from her chest namely her breasts believe me I have tried my best not to be some vile letch but I am powerless in resisting temptation when in any given situation if an opportunity should occur of being able to ogle over there at her breasts it is for these for which I continue for to quest though it oft-times seems utterly hopeless as most women just think I'm a pest to say nothing about joining me to get undressed where, I could get a better look at yeah, her breasts on the crest of a conquest I want the bequest to please be her guest by all means make... a mess all over her breasts breasts, I do not jest their shapes have become enmeshed upon my very consciousness threatening my equilibrium and wellness my imagination gives me no rest and on exposure to them now my intellectual power plumm-ets spiralling into an infinite regress breasts! damnable breasts I say they're horrible monsters like Loch-Ness! and like Captain Ahab chasing the White Whale I too am obsessed by those compelling and comely breasts now I have the onus of saying to their owners in the tone of this poem I mean no disrespect in my intent but my fellow human beings It is so, so -hard- to ignore what I've seen I mean I really just could spend whole days gazing stunned and open-mouthed 'cause they're amazing pondering those magnificent works of art that are so close to both our hearts your breasts.
17.
DARTH VADER DIED, MY DAD My Dad couldn't tell a poem from a recipe for lentil soup he has exceedingly little use for either that’s just two of the differences between us in fact for the longest time all we had in common was a fondness for Star Trek and loathing for one another back then we interacted only when the school principal contacted him your son is in detention your son is out of control he’s about to get kicked out of this school again those phone calls were my biggest fear he got mad at my behaviour I compared him to Darth Vader likening my Dad to that evil black monster ‘cause how could he be my father? when I was sixteen I scratched off his face from my infant photograph with him he had no right to hold who that baby had became doesn’t know who I am spend time with me -doesn’t try confiscated possessions in punishment things missing from my room and him already at work not there so I could show him how much I hate him didn’t talk to him for days for weeks that would have been for-ever if I could help it living under his roof his rules, in his house his Television his unreasoning bullshit his face scratched out I just wanted to punch it in but couldn’t… because he was much bigger than me with the end of high school our tension eased without principals calling we had a kind of agreement in principal don’t bother me and I won’t be bothered by you I began working up that HECS debt we might sometimes sit together watching some Star Trek for years it was left at that until I saw another photograph with the same face that had I scratched away from me as a baby my father’s face in a photograph of me different hair colour smaller stature sure but there his features were written all over my face as I left for overseas I heard him call me his Frankenstein’s monster let loose in the world recognising now that I’m assembled from different components of him more than facial features I have found his strengths and frailties similar to mine at family gatherings delving into every topic polite company prefers not to discuss my poor sisters and mother duck for cover they will never understand these globally-warmed heated discussions, pleading with us for no more of the exchanges we fire like proxies for Andrew Bolt and Michael Moore failing to see the animation twinned in our faces we both –know- an opinion isn’t worth itself unless y’can beat someone else over the head with it it’s not live at let live live to not suffer fools, who are foolish in their foolishness we’re both convinced we have the monopoly of truth, then call a truce, agreeing to disagree having dueled a worthy adversary we’ve found our unique way to communicate in years between scratching out his face and finding it the same one atop my own head I re-watched Return of the Jedi with more analytical eyes where Darth Vader the begotten dark father dies unmasked, and redeemed reborn in the arms of his son I understand now those vast spaces between our words those years lost opposing worlds generation gaps between cats in cradles and discs in the DVD player watching Star Trek together I know now why I like a good argument or even a bad one my father laughs like me, from the belly he laughs at what I laugh at in a world that all too often needs laughing at he enjoys his books and his bikes a quiet drink and time alone to think what makes my dad, my Dad makes me, Me. an apple, not falling far from his tree his Frankenstein is my Darth Vader I love him, simply stated or better articulated how David said it to Captain Kirk at the end of Star Trek 2 today Dad the time has come to say, “I’m proud… very proud, to be your son.”
18.
THE FUTURE OF ENTERTAINMENT I am a tricked out sitcom, A dramatized dominatrix documentary bio-pic Of a cross-genre, cross promoting, Cross-dressing exploitation game show. Simulcast Podcast Middle Class Middle-caste untouchable Every channel is the Envy channel I’m going to be a pop star Learning to dance For an audience Of millions I’m a new sport! Japanese salarymen are placed into sacks And rolled down steep, steep hills While trying to guess at numbers Locked in briefcases Carried by an army of repentant fat people Yelling fitness messages from the sidelines. And they swap wives While living in the same house, Under guard And with everything on camera, And I mean everything: First use of endoscopes in a prime time Non-medical context. My liver Will have it’s own website. This will be my diary-cam And it’s all going to be online baby So post your comments in my inbox, And blog me! Blog me now! God damn it! I’m going to be a forum! Moderated by a spastic nun on a bicycle. I am screensavers! I am a Hungarian would-be starlet singing Mariah Carey in engrish You can’t miss this! Cos I’m your catchy ringtone So swing low In to my late nights Timeslots. And I’ve got numbers and breasts And numbers and breasts And numbers and breasts And a universe of text messages And asian massages That are HOT, HOT, HOT So hot it’ll melt your mobile And you’ll have to get a new one, What a drag… Because I’m living in the outback, In the 1800’s, In the future. And it’s all a re-enactment Of something that never happened. And I can see where you will stand on every issue Because I can see you From where I’m standing. Because I’m in your back yard, Blitzing all over your shrubs And giving you a water feature, Soon to be a major motion picture. I was a chef once! No! A culinary contender Before I went on that bender And slept with a bunch of footballers’ wives. That’s why they split me, Like a transporter Into two and now I battle myself In a culinary cook-off Merging styles and culinary inspirations On a budget, to beat the clock, And I can’t stop. Till I put dinner on the table of Working families everywhere. Yes! I am the utterly unnecessary part Of this otherwise complete meal. A serving suggestion, Suggesting ingestion, And digestion Or failing that - injection Of perfection. You won’t recognize yourself, At the unveiling of your extreme makeover Because I’ve covered you with 752 Pairs of lips Cloned from Angelina Jolie And grown on the backs Of an army of mice And all your mouths are trying to scream at once And you are hideous and wonderful And we’ll dip you in molten gold to make A new Australian Idol! You and me – we could rule this galaxy together! Just think about it! No, don’t think, ACT NOW! Or forever hold To your piecemeal solution To a reality gone off the rails But not off the air. Because it’s everywhere! Reality. Everywhere you’re not looking. So you need something to believe in! Believe in me! I am the truth, and the light! And a designer brand of eyewear. I am the board game, You can play along at home! I am ten year old Born again, again Christians Strapped into wheelchairs And flung into one another Using high velocity rocket sleds. I am a veterinary emergency. I encourage the kind of brand loyalty That nightly wets the sheets Of advertising execs. I am myself, on Ice. I’ve got more online friends and connections than GOD! And I’ve never felt more real!
19.
BEHOLDEN THE GIANT Just got my bicycle serviced and now I’m nervous picked her up this evening this demon cleaned and parts replaced components upgraded scores to settle heavy metal that shines like jewellery grumbles like an elephant purrs like a kitten cost me like a couple of weeks pay she don't play nice with the other vehicles been feeling that winter neglect holding a grudge can smell a car door opening a mile away and doesn't like it rides up gutters like they aren't there they don't exist neither does fatigue or dark or up-hills downhill’s exist though she squeals with glee whenever we see one laughs at the wind and keeps taunting it at my expense she doesn't care about her rider just uses me to get herself from A to B She never gets tired but makes me that way demands respect seldom returns it powered by sweat by doesn't recognise that herself as hard as I breathe standing on the peddles there's no end to her greed it's the insatiability of simple mechanics she runs off no battery needs no petrol isn't affected by dehydration cold or heat my calories alone keep her going and that is all she costs to run the world's oil could disappear oceans die the air could become unbreathable she wouldn't care she can’t be stopped -all she needs is ground keeps eating it up while barely making a sound she just keeps humming along knowing it all belongs behind her she’s stubborn and unforgiving and unstoppbale and... I love her! but don't tell her I said any of this ‘cause she'll hurt me a mean old horse with a vicious temperament she'll never exactly be a traffic stopper but then again she won’t ever be stopped by traffic either.
20.
PISSING IN A STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS George Lucas tried to fight the Vietnam War with Ewoks university students used sayings and slogans figured they could fight a war against the war if they wore badges placards with platitudes like no blood for oil, only bush I trust only I don't know what that's supposed to mean because I sure-as-fuck don’t trust the other type of Bush much either don’t get me wrong I'm on your side in the sidelines it's just that I like to play hard to get with my allegiances yet am real slutty and sleep around with my cynicisms I’m an equal opportunist because if justice is blind then injustice is looking right at you and down your open collar leering at the goods in jovial jocular vernacular I’ll redistribute the world's mirth while westerners' waistlines increase in girth all that waist and the belt buckle breaks and I could use a break in the chains of poverty turn them into fashion accessories goes well with your hir shirt break the cycle of carrying your crosses and getting cross with your parents these are issues of impoverished metaphors that I over-produce flooding world markets with over-priced unnecessary poetry and verse that I never make enough time to (uh what was it)… rehearse inbuilt redundancy that I've built into this redundant sentence slavishly labouring away below the propriety line third world, third class, third bass fourth time lucky advertisers Got me fooled into thinking thinking they're hip and that I can be but my black jeans aren't tight enough wait a minute I haven't got any, patience is a virtue like other virtues I can't remember remember there were about seven of them though kinda like the deadly sins I got a handle on the deadly sins and is it just a coincidence that there are 7 of each? maybe they should get together and duke it out the winner takes all and you can take it from me battle of the sins and virtues, that’s a true spectator sport and you can leave us out of it they could have a showdown down at the battleground like at the end of that movie the wanderers only less… only less, less like it's a relatively obscure early 80s cult film classic directed Phil Kaufman but I don’t got time to explain about that now we’re out of its stock and I’m on the clock on the dial, on the edge on the phone, on the mend on a bender, on a quest on a soap box on a roll on facebook under a fake name underneath the radar and beneath your contempt beneath my dignity? now that's getting pretty fuckin' low especially by today’s standards because these days kids can even get bullied over the internet threatening emails and cyber space so it all starts to seem as appealing as Siberia like there ain't nothing’ out there but a vast electronic wasteland fields of frozen forest frost bitten bitches bitchin' about emo emo ain’t your thing bro? well to tell you the truth I think you’re just mad about your lost youth you criticise the kids now as if you were never young determined to prove you too were different no? Like you never wore strange clothes or felt like dying, maybe I'm lying or assuming too much I'm not, after all, basing this on any evidence only this feeling in the air… or maybe it’s a smell… smells like teens drinking spirits maybe that's just me and my liquid breakfast 90 proof and I got nothing to prove except that I can get drunk drunker than you, much drunker that you! so I can start yelling a Marlowe line or two at you at midnight mid city before doing a round of one-arm push ups I’m pushing 30 better grow up sober up? shut the fuck up! sobriety is a fine thing in moderation but overrated and its effects wear off quickly I’m a godamn poet don’tchya know it and I'm fielding questions like "haven't you got anything better to do?" I scratch my head for scratching my balls and turn back to the computer screen looking for the answers to come careening out of a keyboard with the clocks pendulum threatening to dismember me at every stroke death wears a smile time wears down my defences and my jokes wear themselves thin I might be becoming unbearable but I’m still smarter than your average bear if only just barely stayed back late at work and mucked around photocopying my soul got caught by the cleaners who took me to the cleaners to keep my dirty little secret although I secretly desire to tell everyone my dirty little secrets which I guess is why I write and perform this stuff I want to find catharsis meaning, pathos, mojo new depths of self expression and poignancy I really want to get laid but this payoff has been much delayed. ain’t kidding ain’t funny you think I’m in this for the money or the fame well think again stranger it’s all just a set of stages and I’m gonna take ‘em one at a time I'm so afraid of what's next afraid of what I might say and what's left unsaid where the devil fears to tread angels on my shoulder whisper dirty limericks that I don't have the balls to recite here. the balls in your court I am shit at sport far too short, besides that's the best excuse I'm gonna give you for making excuses so if you’ll excuse me I’m off to get my rocks off I'm late, and I'm not even dressed the part all I got is what I'm wearing I've traded my dignity with the emperor for some new clothes and I don’t know much about fashion so please, can you take a look and tell me… what do you think?
21.
21 Remember 03:45
REMEMBER you’d forgotten you much she smokes a lot and maybe too much and maybe she knows this and maybe you want to tell her -but you don’t need to tell her wouldn’t do either of you any good you want to cough to make a point could dig yourself into trouble again if you push this not in a talkative mood barely says two words to you blowing cigarette smoke out her mouth like it’s pushing away every lame excuse you could make expels it with a slight whistle not sure if that’s sounded to bother you but it does hair golden-brown like tarnished jewellery nice if she looked after it better which she doesn’t told her that before saying there isn’t ever enough time lines on her face that aren’t enough sleep showing hours in the day she slept through alone not necessarily by herself just… alone sunburn turned straight into freckles her skin remains pale shirt of yours she’s wearing doesn’t fit well but you still think she looks good in it eyes out the window locked on something in a blue sky away from you… can’t remember what colour her eyes are and that’s sad because you know it might help if you could remember
22.
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

about

The first album by Australian spoken word artist Randall Stephens, newly recorded performance versions of 19 classic poems, featuring duets with poet Steve Smart and music by hip hop artist Jacky T.

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released September 1, 2013

Poetry performed by Randall Stephens, Alex Scott, Steve Smart, and Meaghan Bell
Music by Jacky T, Kim Lajoie, and Andrew Hone
Album mastering by Kim Lajoie - Obsessive Music

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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.
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