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[a phe-nom-en-ology of piles of spare tires]

[a tax-ono-my of bumper cigarettes]

[a ge-nus of old oak bottle bongs]

[a pha-la-nx of insulin syringes on top of a fridge]


[& disrupted speech, of laughing & fucking & snortin; of broken utterence, of dis-fluency & violence 2 English:
of a yeahnahaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy ]








read in any order/play video or sound in any order

(or start at the beginning and put your ear to the ground)







Beneath concrete walls of sprawling, florescent graphite signatures - dirt-bike & car-arias trailing out of council-house backyards...






III TO HAVE PRESENCE
you will fill with resentment in their presence;
clenching sharp pains in your left palm



it drives by on A Current Affair – a white, combi van, with chipped and speckled paint – the driver not-to-be-seen.

cabin and chairs overflowing with newspapers, clothes, and casino slots in torn divorce-bags 

(slamming and screaming flycreen-metals)


the bus flushes and relieves itsself of gassy weights – xylophone bottles bounce around tha place

(met by his friend/lover in a moon boot w/ an old staffy)

  that man w/ serial-killer-hair: a circular saw in one hand and a case of Toohey’s new in the other - at the end of a sinewy plastic frame

(w/ mouth wide opened growling at the back of the bus) 


(hahahaha)


it is the s(t)oothless spectre at the end of the bed in the nightmares of middle-class intellectuals

(& TN-wearing hipsters)  tip-toeing around in ‘gritty’ apartment blocks


(it is the neighbour from fucking hell..
.)






but it is also the discussion of moons and stars and spiritis - and conspiracies of earnest  

of myspace poetry and selfhelp memes – of poltergeists and fishbowls  

of a ‘school of life’ that is its own thing 

of early-2000s songs on old red and blue cd players

of greying carparks and furrowed commutered brows

 wondering if we really were Centrelink pagans at the end of day????













IV TO HAVE FAITH
Faith is the assurance of things hoped for &
the conviction of things felt



(towards the haptic, haptic void)










V To Confess
When I kept silent,
my bones wasted away







it is the stunted reverberation of my father’s guitar jingle-jangling-rusting on that second-hand guitar in a small room – his arched, and jail tattooed hands curving around a bread-tie – and those rubbery, machinic spectral plunges of extractive labour and the spectre of cancer



of life in Parramatta and Queensland – of recovery and hitch-hiking – of sleeping in a park – and of later 3-am commutes



of meditational walks – watching him dissolve w/ a small AM radio – listening to the crunchy Parra Eels - into the purple middle distance




his punctuated breathing as he makes his way around the loungeroom - practicing his own version of Tai Kwon Do after 9am porridge..














repeat:


We know the void/we know the precipice/

strolling around’ you want enough of this?/

the heaviness is weighting/

our hearts and tongues elating/

he had been swimming that day, dad said…/

& the cops got him round the neck/

& the cops got him round the neck/

& for those who aren’t in heaven/

we cry & cry amen



& for those who aren’t in heaven/

we cry & cry amen



(for the dead uncle I never meet)










©MMXXII James Hazel
All scores, texts, works available via request