Interview
With A Random Rhymester
Just tell me what happened in your own
words.
He poured some vin
ordinaire
all over the can over there.
What happened next?
He spit on a stick
and shit on a brick,
then said, ‘Go suck a wet
one,’
but the schmuck wouldn’t
bet none,
as the peccadillo’s
housing a yellow pillow
and an armadillo with a
cigarillo,
so he strode straight to
the loo
for his load to stay tickety-boo.
So, did he give her anything?
Some dog eye gunk, gooey
and gritty,
plus a thigh hunk of
cold, chewy schnitty
and duplicated blistering
detestable boils
lubricated by glistening intestinal oils.
Well, did she thank him?
She told him she preferred
lasagne,
which bowled him clean;
he winked, ‘Good onya,’
but flustered by a
feather duster
Mr Bluster didn’t trust
her.
One Big Lie
Goebbels called the technique
the Big Lie,
noting that if someone tells a lie often
enough
people will assume that it’s true.
Probably the most prominent Big Lie
propping up the mythology
of the United States of America
is that it’s a Free Country.
It’s not
and never has been,
having always been for sale
to anyone who has enough money.
If you’re reading this
the odds are overwhelming
that you don’t have enough dosh
to buy even a tiny bit of it.
Not
even a small-town
city
councillor.
Ignorance
I walked my dog
past the Claudelands Events
Centre
that morning
against a flow of people
sauntering, mostly in pairs and
groups,
in their special caps and
capes,
some with their families in
tow,
on their way to the ceremony
to get their ornamental
certificates
(their real degree documents
being
in the uni’s digital records).
They seemed like the
assembly-line roll-out
from an ignorance factory.
At best.
Universities should be ignorance factories.
The most important thing a person can learn
from a university education,
except perhaps in engineering,
is that they don’t know everything
and never will.
If they don’t acquire the humility
to admit freely what they don’t know,
and the curiosity to want to find out more
and the ability to look for it honestly,
their bachelor’s degrees signify only
that they’ve been minimally trained
for jobs that are going to disappear soon.
Only acquiring knowledge of their own ignorance
makes the whole university thing worthwhile.
Just Is, That’s All
The universe, obviously,
doesn’t give a shit
about your needs or desires
or joys or suffering
or philosophies or beliefs
or reasons or motivations
for having the ideas about it
that you do.
You may indeed
most sincerely believe,
with elegant reasoning
to support your assertion
that it has to have
a reason to exist
that makes sense to you,
but that means nothing
to its overpoweringly
impersonal indifference,
you insignificant little
biological specimen.
Gentleman of Fashion
One of the heaps of reasons
that fashion,
as a vehicle
of corporate marketing,
sucks so badly
is its conscious creation
of rapid obsolescence.
Whenever I find
a type of clothing –
or anything else –
that works for me,
and it wears out,
I can’t replace it
with another just like it
(or at least highly similar)
because fashion has dictated
that I have to buy
something that costs more
and delivers less –
or else I can
just do without.
If You Can’t Say Anything Nice
I do my best
to say nothing at all
about some people I know,
for to say anything
about these individuals
I’d have to be either
untruthful or unkind,
and I prefer
to be neither.
Refuse Man
I work at the transfer station,
baby
I find heaps of funky stuff
I’m your refuse man, baby
I get to nick some funky stuff
If it’s bric-a-brac you want
baby
I’ll bring you more than just enough
I work at the transfer station,
baby
I drive a big ole forklift
truck
I work at the transfer station,
baby
I drive a big ole forklift
truck
I can move big heaps of rubbish
and keep my shoes out of the muck
I found this hangi sack full of
dildos
It’s yours if that’s how you
like to play
I found this hangi sack full of
dildos baby
All yours if that’s how you
wanna play
I’ll even return my old used
sex doll
I never loved her, anyway
I found a wedding ring for you
baby
It’s only been used once or
twice
I found a wedding ring for you
baby
It’s only been used once or
twice
And a chipped-glass tiara for
your head
So we can get married looking nice
If you’re gonna dump me, baby
please don’t throw my heart
away
If you’re gonna dump me, baby
please don’t throw my heart
away
Just give it back; I’ll take it
with me
when I go back to the tip the
next day
No one proves he’s a man when he tries,
no matter how much he impresses The Guys,
who don’t even notice he’s there in the
gym
unless he relapses into just being him –
and not some category that does exercise.
No one proves he’s a man when he tries.
He’s hungry, but his belly’s full;
what is he hungry for?
Hun-gree! Hung-ree!
What are you hungry for?
He doesn’t have to prove it that he’s tall
(elevator shoes fool nobody, after all)
and how tall is tall, anyhow?
Pontificating doesn’t prove that he’s wise
And no one proves he’s a man when he tries.
Take
a walk, take a walk through the riverside shade
Climb
twisted tree roots
exposed
by a beautiful-day drought
The
sand’s gone dry beneath the shifting willow leaves
that used to be
close by where the river played.
No one proves he’s a man when he tries
By the willow tree sand’s where he cries.
He’s hungry, but his belly’s full;
what is he hungry for?
Hun-gree! Hung-ree!
What are you hungry for?
It Went
It went
from
wonderful-wonderful-wonderful
to
better-than-nothing-I-suppose
to
actually-not-better-than-nothing-after-all
and then
it went.
