S*&t I've gotta f#$king get done

S*&t I've gotta f#$king get done

Sell my Fender Baja Telecaster
Solve world hunger
Clear my room
Force Abbott out of office
Roast a batch of coffee
Fix global warming/climate change
Write and record folk album of the decade
Call out Bob Dylan to get his folk back on
Find a creative space to record and create
Learn the secrets of the universe
Smash a guitar on stage in anger
Win the Lottery
Smash a guitar on stage in love
Solve World Poverty
Go to the Soccer World Cup
Punch Bob Geldof and/or Bono in the face
Follow the trails of Butch and Sundance
Shake Edward Snowden's hand
Buy less shit
Wrestle a Bear
Live like the poor
Climb Everest Naked
Be more charitable, time and money
Get booked to perform at Byron Blues and Roots 2015
Exercise more
Open for Ryan Adams' next tour of Australia
Leave my house
Write an award winning and critically acclaimed novel
Eat healthier
Ride a push bike all the way around Australia
Finish everything I say I'm going to do
Write an Oscar winning screen play
Grow some plants grow some bamboo
Write an Oscar winning score
Cook more/eat out less
Write an Oscar winning song
Learn another instrument
Record a second even better folk album in a year
Learn another language
Record a third, mediocre country/rock album in the same year
Finally get properly over her
Never get drunk in the next 12 months
Get dancing refreshers and go out dancing socially. Practice.
Meet the Dalai Lama
Fix broken and lapsed relationships
Work out how to fix Myanmar
Commit more
Keep manufacturing in Australia
Build an electric car
Completely rid the world of its dependence on oil
Do random things every now and then
Get approval to build fast rail between all east coast Australian cities.
Say Yes more
Fix asylum seeker issues
Say No more
Invent time travel
Use no plastic.
Write a million dollar riff.
Jump out of a plane
Land in the arms of "the one"
Love more

Adelaide

Dearest little Adelaide

On your first birthday I’m so glad-elaide

That your awesome mum and dad-elaide

Married and then they had-elaide

a beautiful apette so rad-elaide

now as you grow like mad-elaide

your parents may act like cad-elaides

(most likely it’ll be your dad-elaide)

but don’t you get too sad-elaide

when they deny you the latest fad-elaide

while you live inside their pad-elaide

your life will not be so bad-elaide

they just want to see you gradu-laide

into a smart and balanced adu-laide

your life a rich tapestry like plaid-elaide

not held up and bound or clad-elaide

I am so really glad-elaide

That your ape like mum and dad-elaide

had a little girl so rad-elaide

Dearest little Adelaide.

Something, something, something.

Something old,
of a life almost forgotten that I shook, that I pressed, that I squeezed and let move out to the edge then I pushed some more and let it fall down and out of my life

Something new,
a place of my own, striking out as if the young bird leaving the nest for the first time, there needs to be more new, so much more.

Something borrowed,
a borrowed smile a borrowed laugh, some borrowed lines, I don't think they are mine, I think they used to be but now, no more.

Something blue,
a feeling of ending, not belonging, a sadness in that realisation that to move is to leave and that is what needs to happen the end of it are the waves of blue. But not for long I will get out and over the breakers.

Melbourne

The highs and lows I have come to know

Summers chorus, winters blow

all in one day, a change is always in tow

all tolled out in our ebbs and flows

I wish sometimes that Melbourne would let me grow

Bask in the sun, turn from the shade

To break out from the haze of the staid

Your wonders no longer seem to make the grade

When memories of gigs at the corner all fade

of footy fans leaving down wellington parade

of the tattooed underbelly grunge of Fitzroy

of mums in sydney road Spotlight as a boy

kids parties in Collingwood with red saveloys

of Myer on Bourke Street, and choosing just one toy

something a little bigger was always the ploy

balancing the pocket money to get that prize

that would bring envy to a best friends eyes

that far off in the distance, those wanting cries

have you come to the end, time to cut ties

China town dumplings now fill my mind

Back streets and alley ways, trying to find

a bar you think you went to one time

I was tipsy but in control, maybe thats too kind

'its just round this corner', you say, hoping you're right

or when you laughed at Arj Barker into the night

and Paul Kelly sang about the old Nylex sign

I remember, I remember, that was the line

I will, I will, my mind starts to reply

That night I drove from Coffs just to be here

Warm and in Melbourne, even if it was mid year

All of those north beaches for that one grand old pier

Jamming with mates, then to the pub that was near

Nights at the Espy sipping on beer

No smoking now but just as queer

Driving out East to catch up with friends

almost too far but means worth the ends

gigs at the arthouse were a godsend

home before witching, meant sure to attend

followed round australia as well to record

still a little project time could not afford

one day the guys will watch and applaud

cinemas in moonlight the memory returns

gardens and sunlight and the legs that would burn

fruit bats or seagulls, left for others to discern

if your company is squeamish, I'm sure you will learn

The arts centre spire, geometric and grand

one time it burnt and it was my sister at hand

it seems fireworks cannot be meticulously planned

Rialto and Eureka reaches out into the sky

Monuments to wanting to be like the bigger guy

'We're a city where businessmen fly'

We have the big wheel, hmm not quite London Eye

Now here are the parts of Melbourne to which I am split

the times our ideas and ideals really don't fit

where the money tried to buy those complex knits

of culture, of atmosphere, of Melbourne's best bits

the places they built to try and control

they built a Docklands, stadium with a city life goal

Such a tribute to 'modern' but where is the soul

Chadstone and Highpoint massive Cathedrals to behold

but worshipping retail is not something to extol

but being East and in the burbs is the place to be

garden state gone and on the move are we

sometimes forgetting what we came from was free
we built a big square of bricks and no shade
in summer the will of the strong begins to fade
while the unique mix of swanston buskers entertain
Then for every Melbourne central there is always a royal arcade
Then there's that hirsute man in a gown
the casino on the water that is named as the crown
like most thing royal they just keep people down
you go in, its night, and its night, and its night all year round

Now back to the good because that's what mostly I see
Poly woodside sitting majestic and free

then the sport, oh the sport, and that glorious MCG

build it and they will come was Batman's decree
I'm sure I read what he said in the books of history

from footy to soccer and even ice hockey

we turn up and support 'all of the teams'

and then there's the gigs and festival scene

Fleminton or show grounds' the summer place to be

Bands and horses all get their turn

Bust just try get a taxi that the high heeled ladies yearn

now back home into Kensington the place where I grew

the westies, then the families, then the gentrified youth

there is a calm and a familiar space that stays true

But it hasn't been the same since the time that I flew.

The New Year Resolution of 2013

The left over remnants of a New Years Resolution, to not allow myself that luxury, that chance, to block off that part of me as it would not be fair to anyone on the other side.

But now why am I so scared again? Is it that I know this one can break me open, like before, I know she is in that wheel house, I cannot give over to that again, it would be a disaster, but is that all, the turn of her eyes, the wisdom she holds, she seems like the single most beautiful woman in the world and yet I hold back, maybe because of that inflation in and of itself, either way she has me intrigued, she has me fascinated. Something I thought was lost for me, something to which I had given all hope away. That single idea is the most dangerous to me. 

My resolution is stuck though, I want to hold onto it as the breaking of it would mean I cannot hold onto promises made to myself, little whispers made in the dark, little whispers to make sure only I know about them, the ones I let out to the light are too big, too ambitious, too scary, the failure is palpable. I want to hold onto this little one as I need to believe I am strong enough to run on my own steam, to follow through on the little wishes I make myself, It seems silly and self harming in a way but I need to be strong for my own self now and for the future.

I will have to see what the new year brings, a new year is a new dawn.

Creature of Design

We are all creatures of our own design,
worn and torn and beaten down the line
sometimes we get wayside back in time
mostly we just play the broken kind

I pray that I may be

soft and malleable of mind
digesting all that we can find
given or taken or otherwise
trying to not just be hypnotised

darkened just to play the sun
life of shiny reflections
closed to full inspection
keeping a buffer from everyone


sometimes truth is better

Like starting a book, a beautiful cover
a few sentences in, a few questions asked
a brief encounter, too brief
stunning and bright, in so many ways

I cannot then follow that up,
i leave it too long for my memory
for this golden stories patience
it will leave me and go to another

but they will truly be worthy

One Journey Away

I see her, I talk to her and I know

I know that I am one journey from her side

one journey from taking that stride

I wish I had already gone that wide

pushed myself to reflect in tides

waves crashing each time I tried

to think about what I had inside

what i had left and not left behind

time to push,time to cry

do not let those feeling lie

in the hand of lullabies

singing to sleep my brain complies

all those reflections and their size

pushing on regimented lives

dancing and weaving, falling, dives

a routine life is what deprives.

The Things I Start I Need to Finish

The things I start I need to finish,

I need to take a leap of chance, of danger
not just taking a shot in the dark
following it up and getting into the light
seeing what the work of my hand can do

can my hands craft a song with a guitar
will it be a piece of work that I am proud of
more than, will others like it and hold me up
be surprised about where I have been hiding

can my voice craft a melody to accompany
will it be a complimentary voice to a song
will it stand on its own unique example
a song that will bring forth sparks

can my brain come up with the words
ones that are smart and poetic and concise
that make me happy i am doing justice
to the great songwriters of our times

can it do all those things
or am I at least somewhere close
probably not, so better not to finish then
turn over another page, the half written one left behind

The things I start I really need to finish.

Man Without A Plan

There is nothing within a plan, times and circumstance cannot be held in line. I would prefer not to have a plan as this is a converse path to the truth that the world is random, and random at its most planned states. There is string theory at the subatomic level, the most basic building blocks of our universe have a large base in chaos. Time is a level of restrictiveness to flux. Flux is a concept, people look for everything but flux, everything in its right place.

You will be the best without it, but the truly best are better for it, able to adapt and change. To be open to receive ideas and use them, put them in practice, put them in place. Flowing is a space in which these ideas come, they jump out, they fly in mind and in page. Sometimes the flight is scary and some do not understand what it all means, but that is to maintain what they know.

The last thought of these people is of their possessions in this world. See that is wrong even of those not in that mind space. There is an open dialogue in those times, somethings held, somethings finally let go. Put into the air, never to return ad never to be held. The only end is on the lips of the one who spoke them. With 7 million voices there is so much drowning going on.