Monday 29 December 2014

Skeleton Arrow

(care of hubble funnel)

Warning... highly in-depth metaphysical rant approaching... handle with care and massive doses of stephen hawking, allen ginsberg, grains of sand that may or may not be an entire universe etc... using star signs at each step, this is my attempt at the essence of oneness in skeletal form...



Friday 28 November 2014

To Feel the Wind

(photo from unknown source)


Another psy-beat style poem here, this time a tribute to some of the great cosmic unities of math and music. Using these to open a dialog, I guess it then turns into a type of open letter on the feeling of embodied-living-flight that our masters have left for us to find and renew.  For they are willing us even now, willing us on to dance-fly-swim, whatever you want to call it. This poems about intuition using the currents of life...



Monday 24 November 2014

Question Ex Machina


I.
While lost in question,
 the question of who I was,
                 a dream.
                           I cannot say when it arrived
 or if it was truly even a dream,
 because it had just arrived in my memory
 one grey morning eating corn flakes
 in my kitchen’s neon light. 
That is, it just arrived without the normal tinge
 of randomness or blurry, sleepy, tiredness that dreams
  or day dreams normally have.
In this ‘dream’
 I remember the sharp lines of a walled street,
  its seemingly endless distance converged on 
    my mind-self just standing there,
     standing in the middle of its coal black road.
Strange thing was,
  the road didn’t seem to be made of tarmac.
It was just cold and black and flat, yet
 with an eerie depth and distance like space.
‘Maybe my mind has made this place’ I thought.
And my thought had to be true,
  because one just can’t simply ‘think’ in a dream,
                                          can one??
All other lines and surfaces were similar in
 that they were devoid of anything piquant.
And yet, everything but the road was completely opaque.
It was like being inside a rendered computer simulation
 or some mathematicians equation.
Plato’s street perhaps, the mind of a street that
 demanded ‘straight’ so ‘curvature’ could exist.
Everything apart from
 the road made the very air itself seem
ubiquitously oblique with a grey sort of conquer.
The sky was the same light grey colour as the walls,
a distance over-caste and dull as if
 there was no such thing
as blue or birds or anything anymore.
As if a breezeless ghost crow might squark
and call this reality; ‘exact’ and land on a power pole.
I looked left to one of the walls and somehow knew
  it was exactly 6.47 metres high.
The walls and sidewalk with
 a dividing line were at intervals every 1.61 metres.
 Black, necromancer-yawning gutter drains
were spaced every 12.94 metres.
Somehow I knew that everything in this street
 was ruled by the Euclid’s eyelid,
                           his golden ratio,
 a math that precisely
quantified where day and night make their mark.
“What is this streets purpose?” I questioned.
Suddenly I became aware that
 in some unearthly way,
 it had been here a very, very, long time.
It knew the un-equinoctial divide from its earth path
 and had made its divergence long ago,
  refuting the moons passing chaos with pride.
As I looked to the sidewalk I remembered that
 this street had Banksy’s graffiti once,
  had homeless smashed bottles of rum,
   had wooden crates where lovers met in secret,
   and skips with blood pools and dead foetal
  shapes born from the whore’s of Babylon.
But that was somehow all back ‘then’.
I somehow got the sense that this street
 was so far in our future, so far that
the people who presided over it now
might not be called ‘people’ anymore.




II.

With nothing else to do I started walking.
And that proved really weird.
The whole world seemed to move like it was a treadmill.
Like my feet would take a step yet my torso remained still
  and the whole world moved around me.
Soon I saw three black doors move toward me.
 There was one on the left and two on the right,
  each with classic Elizabethan trimmings.
“Good, at least something here has style” I thought.
 As if listening to my thoughts
   a sudden deep wicked laughter above made me jump.
It sounded as if two large granite boulders
 were trying to win a wrestling competition.
Suddenly anxious to get out of there, I tried each door.
As I approached, I saw that the one
 on the left was labelled; Birth
in tiny silver, swirly, black-adder font.
The closest on the right was the same silver,
 yet labelled; Failure.
The furthest on the right;
Success.
Yet they were three locked doors… I was trapped.
“Well I suppose I could go in either direction”
I reasoned,
and I began to run, turning the world back the way I came.
But there in the distance
I saw something that wasn’t there before.
              It was another wall, a dead end.
Then the same in the other direction.
                                             Truly trapped!
Was there a door hidden there at the end?
I couldn’t see one.
Suddenly a creaking door opened behind me,
  and as the last echoes of it died away, I stopped, frozen.
There was a deathly pause of weight.
  “I can’t die in my mind can I?”
–this question haunted me, yet I thought;
 “I can’t let him stab me in the back,
 I will meet the devil face to face even if he rules
 my acts to the very photon millimetre of my soul!”
I was about 4 metres away from the open door,
                                                the only door on the left.



III

 Suddenly,
a suit case and a balding business man entered.
A large beaked nose, a black mole under his left eye,
 a ring of hair and a goatee -the grey oil paint of age.
He was looking straight at the far door to the right.
I could tell he was driven with fast-paced,
                                                 long, even strides.
His phone rang in the middle of the road.
He answered by the time he got to the sidewalk
                                                and there he stopped.
As he talked in hushed whispered tones I decided
to turn the world a little closer and creep forward. 
Immediately I noticed that his black business suit
was seething in a black machinery.
It was made of black gears and springs as if
 a wind up clock had been left open on his fabric.
I was so entranced by his suit as it spun,
 I had not noticed that he had stopped talking.
No business man had ever looked at me before,
 so I guessed I was safe.
But in a flash he had locked his fire-brown eyes on mine.
  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he flared.
As he said this he seemed to brush away my very sight
 from his jacket, as if my staring
     had messed with its gears somehow.
“Hey wait, I recognise you, you were at that protest,
what was it called? O yeah, ha! The Occupy Movement.
How quaint that was…”
As he remembered the time I threw a tomato at him,
 he smirked a great oily smirk.
I had missed and struck one of my own.
            Yet as he was talking and smirking,
something was itching in my jacket pocket,
I reached in, scratched it and then had an idea,
“I won’t miss this time!” I replied.
In my pocket I curled my hand into the shape of a gun
 and pressed it out, pretending to bead a weapon on him.
As I did this, he freaked and stumbled back a little.
Menacingly, like something from Clockwork Orange,
 I stalked forward.
“You… you can’t touch me here,
             the police here can read your mind,
you’ll be shot before you even touch the trigger.”
“Let them, I don’t care, you really think that’ll stop me?
 I know what you did…”
              And this last part was true.
This man was personally responsible for the big crash.
The financial crash that caused the war.
I had to have my fun.
But it was too much for the old man,
 survival instincts kicked way past fun
 and he reached into his own jacket pocket and
 pulled out a gleaming colt .45.
‘O Fuck…’ I thought as we stared at each other.
‘Ok, this is not a literal backfire much…’
But then a cool calm came over me,
 I don’t know why, because I was facing down
 the barrel of one of the deadliest
 hand weapons known to criminal kind,
 but none of it seemed to matter,
 my life or his life or any of it.
“Bang…” I said, just loud enough
 for him to hear.

IV.

He was hit!
 even though it was just a word,
 he dropped his weapon and grabbed his chest
 at the very spot I was pointing to.
He staggered back.
‘Heart attack?’ I thought.
This had to be true, and fitting that such a man
 would be killed by a sudden lack of rhythm.
Yet it was only true until I saw something odd.
Where he had dropped his gun,
  there were cracks appearing in the concrete.
Soon, as if on fast forward,
 little shoots of green were appearing through them.
As I looked up the same thing was happening
 to where he had stumbled,
 cracks in the shape of shoe prints,
 cracks with green spears shooting up.
They were growing so fast by the time
 the man had started to turn and run,
that the green shoots around his gun
had become full flourishing ferns, bushes and grasses.
As he fled in fear they began chasing him,
                                      getting closer and closer,
  he was glancing back and the man’s face was a terror,
                                                           distilled, purified.
Suddenly he clutched at his side
                      and turned to face them,
a stitch from too many steaks perhaps.
He pulled his other gun from his pocket.
He began to shoot at the flowers,
                                Bang!
      Bang!
                    Bang!
But the roses swirled in dervishes and grabbed him,
 twirling around his ankles, twisting in their thorns.
As I turned the world to go and help,
                              I realised it was too late.
His feet and shins had already disappeared,
                                                         this was his fate.
Yet instead of the gore and spilling blood that I expected,
I saw two neat black stones the shape of shoes beneath the bush.
The man was now limping away on stumps and
The avalanche of plant-beast pounced,
 crumbling any concrete in its wake.
It had totally engulfed his legs.
As I peered beneath,
I saw that his leg bones had
 become bare rooted treelings
that dug themselves into the dirt
 and pulled themselves free of his torso
                                   with a sick sort of ‘pop’.
                          Now he was merely half a man,
holding himself up with his arms.

V

The half man stared at me with a vile horror,
                       his only level of understanding;
 “you murderer! You’ve done this!”
And with this he pointed his
  colt .45 death-metal conclusion
                     squarely at my forehead.
This time I was ready, I had seen a miracle
and if my life was the price to pay so be it.
I closed my eyes and waited.
Yet something replaced my martyred glory.
  It was merely a sound, a feint click.
I opened my eyes and saw
 that a rose vine had twirled round his arm and had
 twisted into the gun barrel through the chamber.
It had bloomed in place of the death bullet.
As I was entranced by this
there was the sound of thunder crack
                            and water splashing,
 and immediately I saw his torso had turned
 itself to a deluge of water and dropped,
        falling to form a smallish pond.
Needless to say his arms,
shoulders and head levered back,
                               falling to the ground.
I then watched in wonder as
  his shoulders turned into wombats,
shaking pinkish skin into thick brown fur.
His biceps?
-Standing and stretching into little baby koalas.
His forearms?
-Platypus that turned, wiggled and headed to the pond
 as his fingers turned into finches and willy wag tails.
Finally with another huge crack of thunder,
 his skull cracked in two and up shot
 an enormous gum tree, spiralling
and stretching out limbs as if a hundred years
                               had passed in a minute.

VII

As I watched this father tree
                       grow to completion,
I noticed that the pool of water
          was glowing a light bluish colour.
As I stepped over the bushes
and narrowly avoided a pair of Bilbies,
I peered in the pool and saw
     that the pool looked like a sky,
a real blue summer’s sky with a few stray clouds. 
Yet where a sun might be,
there was what looked like a vertebrae.
        Shining great rays of light it was.
Unexpectedly
 I felt something tugging at my shirt sleeve.
                    I looked down and saw that
one of the Bilbys was looking at me,
  pointing into the water and then
curling its little black hand with a grabbing motion.
So I concurred, and reached into the strange pool.
The glowing vertebrae was warm and yet very, very, heavy.
I pulled hard, and as if held by powerful magnets,
 it got heavier the closer it got to the surface.
Finally, as if pulling a plug from a massive dam,
  up it popped and the sky in the pool disappeared.
However, soon enough
 the pool started whirling and swirling,
                                             draining away.
                            As I looked in I could see
that the pools depths had broken through
the ‘glass’ that was the black road and all that
 remained beneath was a massive sucking void.
Pulling back so as not to fall in, I saw that
cloud from the over-caste sky was funnelling down
into the swirling hole to nowhere.
‘Ok now I’m really doomed’ was all I could think.
Above me the sky had darkened
 and flashes of lightning could be seen.
Then, lightning struck the hole, once, twice
                                      and then countless times,
I had to get away but I was being sucked towards it too.
I pushed my legs hard into the dirt and wheeled back grabbing
  a door handle and holding on for dear life.
Then the wind rushed and reached tornado strength,
 I was horizontal to the ground as the entire street
 broke off into huge chunks and disappeared.
I closed my eyes.
I’m not a religious man,
 but I prayed for my life at that moment,  
I wasn’t going to wake from this dream,
                                                I was going to die.
Yet the intense roar of the wind and
 the near constant death-metal music of the thunder
 gradually ambled to a shout and then finally a whisper
 and then I was standing on my feet in a new world.
As I let go of the door handle and brushed myself free
 of the remaining concrete dust,
 I could see rolling hills in the distance,
 a clear sky, a forest, even a farm with cows
 and a tractor working away.
The sun was going down,
 the moon was rising with a noticeable grin.
As looked over to the pool,
 now just an ordinary pool,
 I saw a glint of metal near a rose bush.
It was the gun that might have killed me.
On a whim I decided to pick the rose that
 was blooming out its nozzle.
When I did picked it up and whiffed its beautiful scent,
 I noticed that within its petals was a key, a tiny golden key.
 I grabbed this key and turned to the door.
With one last grin to the moon,
                                          I unlocked the door.
However, before I stepped back into
the neon light that I saw to be my kitchen,
I noticed that the silver words had disappeared.
In their place were the words;
“This is who you are…”

Tuesday 18 November 2014

Jail Breakers

(photo from unknown source)


A psy day glow beat poem that was to be performed live, but due to events beyond, performed from home. It attempts to delve into the world that is inner spiritual preparation, the 'squall' that comes with accelerated consciousness. And not only to personal, but to group-formed enlightenment in the face of adversity. It follows the stories that during and after the times of the Buddha, enlightenment occurred in their community, like a field of flowers in the spring sun or like mushrooms after the winters rain. In what I've experienced of spirit festival culture, I believe that if there is any way through the maze of existence, anyway for this bloom to happen again, these festival gatherings will be where...


Thursday 6 November 2014

Their names were Karma and Soul...

(Picture from unknown source)


And so right there in all dirty ally this girl shot this guy. And yet as she pulled the trigger, it was as if magnets pulled her soul through with the bullets twirling vortex. Every day for 28 days after she was like a ghost. That was of course until hooning through gum tree and rain, she hit at 95 kilometres an hour, another dead man’s grave stump. However, meanwhile she was really flying through that air for 28 days. 28 days in .02 soul milliseconds. As the car collided, the bullet hit the chest and passed, shattering a rib. On it continued, swimming though blood cells that all drooped up animal heads to dull-pupil the sight of the intruder until it entered the palace of the right ventriloqual. This was where the white Emperor stood in pointed shock until he was spear tackled. 

With a fatal last look to his advisor, a look beholden to the empires collapse, all he could whisper was “save yourself” before he was pulled through his throne, through the wall, bleeding out into the smash. Yet there, after realities time-concrete cratered death, she lifted her head to face him and the new heart thumping silence followed for awhile. “Hi… miss me?” was all she said to break it. But that was enough. There on that unholy bed of flat bullet, they made love. Menacing, snarling, holy lightning striking love. And after their pupil’s complete dilation aligned, forming the very construction of light itself in their mind, they knew it was time to pay. So with a sigh at each other’s essence, they rolled over onto their knees.  There upon the metal, inspired by the curves of their love, they drew long shapes, which pulsed red until they shouted; “heart!” “spun!” and then two samurai swords of unmatched quality, star and spiral stamped, were picked up by each. 

“You’re freakin crazy” he laughed. “You know there will be too many this time don’t you?” “Aww come on lover, haven’t we been practicing?” –bemused sarcasm was her favourite way to make uncomfortable facts go away.  And as the horde of demonic giants rose over the lip of the crater -some with blue cracked skin, others with red spikes- she flinched a little yet continued; “numbers don’t mean jack to me, but you know that about me don’t you?” “Humph” was all he returned as he locked onto one of the biggest blue giants, eyes like whirlpools.  The horde, with a howl of unearthly thunderous intent, stopped still on the lip of the crater, encircled them with smirking, continental-grinding, staring death. All the two warriors could do was crouch into a smiling combat stance, spinning their katanna’s. “I hate our bodies.” “Yeah… Me too…”  



Wednesday 5 November 2014

Home Paradox




(Michael Leunig)



This spoken work from my recently re-found poems, with paradox, looks into the expansive power of consciousness when we accept the power of what is now. For when we accept the present moment without craving nor hurting the future or the past, we find our centre, the home of our soul. Thereafter, with a returning practice, this simple happiness of creating this home in our consciousness becomes second nature. No matter what we then face, we will never be vulnerable to illusion and can fly, shine and collaborate with the reality that surrounds us.



Thursday 30 October 2014

Dear DaVinci I have touched a Cloud



Another poem from my lost poetry book of zen like meditations, this one upon the repetition of life, reincarnation and the motivation behind it. It asks such questions of gnosis, about its meaning threaded though life's continued palimpsest, the framework of dejavu and its ability to calm the waters of karma...



Monday 20 October 2014

Soul

photo from unknown source)


After a grumpy, blocked, not-liking-my-new-boring-work attack (editors attack! ahh!). I turned to the joy of finding an older poetry book lost at friends place (gathering kids drawing and such). And so re-inspired, I bring you a new-old poem from it called, "soul". What I remember most is the peace I felt as I wrote this. As if the spirits of Basho, Ryokan and Du Fu and their muse were smiling at me somewhere in a forrest glade. For it is a poetry more akin to the zen art of buddhist quietude and wisdom, a place ever respectful, powerful in brevity grace and it's clear poetic dissemination, where life moments and parataxis fly..  




Monday 15 September 2014

Road Across the Void



By Jason B.R. Maxwell
Curtin University
16072794

 Mixed Vignetted Memoir. Some parts are fiction and names have been changed to protect individuals. Medium length read 5026 words.

I
Why does this have to be a cold spring day? Really, why? Does mother-nature want to mock me? Or is it just the power of those bloody men? Forget about it, my mantra will keep me warm, my mantra will open up the path ahead, my mantra will keep me from screaming; “it had to be this way, there was no choice!” And the truth is so strange. Pulling through the gum arcs onto our local dirt road in Kinglake, once it was like breathing, but this feels so strange. Like a charged electric knife is separating each change of gear or turn of the road. My confidence; I am doing this. I’ve always wanted to do this ever since my holiday to Cairns, Mission Beach, Port Douglas, Atheton table lands. This country beholds a kind of comfort in tension and wonder. How can I keep my wings contained in this box? A prison really, and we’ve been building it with such friction, resentment and torment. The shed was fun, when it started, but now? Like fucking wake up man! The concrete truck is here! But our homes thick earthen walls are behind me and I am resolved now. I will see this country, feel it in my spirit, I will not turn back.  And why should I? My family is with me, my family is my two excited kids taping their legs on my Hiace’s engine wall, tapping to the rhythm of Dead Can Dance blaring from my tape deck.  They are five and eight years old, they can change, adapt. Imagine if I did this when they were seven or ten? How would I explain it to them? Explain that, as I pull out onto Maroondah highway, that their future is now safe, expanding, drug free, free of madness, my madness, their father’s madness. Explain that nights of broken mirrors, tears, broken noses, more tears, will never happen again. We will never feel like that again. And I like to think that they know why I’m doing this. They were there weren’t they?  They just have to know how the pulse of that huge, red, mud slab house we once built and called home, can never be the same again, not for us. Not now. Yes… of course they know why I had just broken our damaged heart like some weird contemporary art piece.  For freedom. For sanctity. For love. No one else was going to do it. How can any love breathe through the smoke of that much dope, the fire of that much cocaine or the poison of that much acid? Change. No choice. I am gypsy, I am the wind, I have not seen this country, my country. The way it once pulsed; my best friend, my lover, my best friend, my lover, I will not turn back.

II
Wow, really? Is she serious? No school!? Holidays! And look what a holiday mum is planning Sharp Tail! Look at all this camping gear she’s even got a fridge in here! We are soo lucky Peter’s going to be soo jealous, looks like we’re off to see the world Sharp Tail! And all Peter’s teddies get to do is sit on his bed. What do you know about Bundagen Sharp Tail? It’s meant to be amazing, a huge forrest to explore, kids that shoot bows and arrows, ooo an festivals too! I soo love festivals. That’s where we can make our music that can lead the world. Me, you, my brother Aiam and his band of teddies, we can make it all a better place. Mum even said my friend Danny’s going to be there, I wonder if he has any Lego? I can’t believe mum wouldn’t let me take my Lego! I mean she did say we were going to live there for a little while didn’t she? Maybe dad can send it in the mail.  Gee it was weird saying good bye to dad. He squeezed me so hard. I think he even cried a little bit. I thought he’d be happy that we’re going on holiday. Means he’ll get to sleep in without all that noise that we make. He gets so grumpy sometimes. I’ll still miss him of course. Even if he does get grumpy and fight with mum, he tells the best bed time stories. I know mum tells some good bedtime stories, but dad is soo the best! He lets me stay up later too.  We get two or three chapters sometimes. It’s not like we’ll stay away for ever is it? And what was all that stuff mum was saying? How I’ve got a choice to stay here with dad or go with her? What did she think I was going to choose? Staying here and going to school? Ha!
III
Aiam knew he was going further away from his dad. Unlike his older brother, who had been to school and been on many holidays, Aiam only knew the tears of the night before, the shouting of the night before that. He wondered why he didn’t cry when they fought, why he didn’t cry like Ben did. He thought that crying might be the key to being happy, because right now his older brother seemed happy. All that Aiam felt now was an empty sadness. Aiam had just started seeing more of his dad, meaning that Vinny was actually beginning to notice him. Vinny lived just down the path in the shed. He would air brush dragons and fairies on Aiams arms with stencils. And he was teaching him how to shoot a bow and arrow. On top of that they were meant to build a cubby house, a huge dome cubby house out the back.  How could they do that living in Bundagen? Would dad come up on holidays? As the Hiace revved by the roundabout in the centre of town, he put his hand on the window and said goodbye. His feet were still.

IV
Homeland festival. What can I say? I am free. I have travelled three days straight, crossing river after river and passing the oyster farms and the salmon farms that were settled amidst some of the lushest forrest I could dream of. Arriving was like descending on a hidden paradise, a Shangri la in a valley. Four square acres of tipi circles, stages, markets, random statues of huge dolphins, and dreaded, smelly, yet beautiful people wondering around talking and loving things everywhere. I could see it all spread out like some moving, transcendental Tibetan mandala. For three days I will let my spirit fly far away from Kinglake, far away from the little two storey boxes and all the box human dramas we made. And after setting up camp and a dip in the river, I felt like I had finally arrived home, my home. The cool, mineral sparkling waters just dissolved the electric buzz of the road away. I was invited to a cup of chai and a tarot reading by a short lady called Ruby. She had the most beautiful long big black dreadlocks and a friendly, earthy rounded face. I was worried about my kids, they were tired and hungry but she said not to worry, that they had some rice and lentils as well. Her tipi was huge, a 20 footer from fire pit to crown. As I pulled the tower card in the reading, a card signifying a rightful collapse of illusion, I just had to smile. As the kids dug into the food like hungry dingos, me and Ruby just talked and talked. Different people came in and out of the beautiful round space, time and the people I knew just grew and grew into this expansive vortex of acceptance and love. Later on as Ruby got the fire going, my tall blond friend Marie dipped her friendly smile beneath the rounded door, and with her dutch-honey-butter accent said “ello…” with just the biggest smile of recognition. It was as if she knew that I had returned to my path, to our path, to the path of the free. It was always as if we both had specially tuned magnets on our feet and in our hearts. She had escaped a homemade Kinglake box herself, a year or so earlier than me, with similar intensity, yet with alcohol instead of drugs.  It was her courage and freedom that I admired. She had been whisked away by this tall older white bearded man named Osho who followed Zen Buddhism and looked like a lanky father Christmas. O that hug Marie gave me, it was enough to shatter any chalice of doubt I held in an instant, leaving my spirit free floating and limitless. She and her boyfriend were silk weavers and she had on this most amazingly beautiful Indian silk dress. As night set in and the music stage began to boom out its mic tests, Marie invited me back to her tipi to try on dresses that she had just made. Of course, I chose this beautiful earthy coloured silk number that just hugged every curve I had.


V
“So how’s that sexy Italian boy working out for you miss goddess? I thought he’d come with you…” “Ha! Yeah one would think so hey… Nah, turns out I can’t really trust him, he just can’t do the honourable thing for some reason, he’d be trying to get down your pants as soon as look at you. And he’s turning into a hermit, there was a glimmer of hope for us when we went on holiday to Cairns, but things got ugly and even uglier when we got back. To tell you the truth I’ve had it with both of those men in that little box, I just want to be free Marie, I’m sick of living in nowhere land Kinglake, arguing about building regulations and heavy dealers coming round to the house all the time, I mean I know it’s beautiful, the mountain ash, the mist, the fires in winter, but I want to travel, to see this country Marie…  All my quote ‘boyfriend’ wants to do is fuck girls from the local market and sit in his lounge room smoking joints and being paranoid about the world, expecting me to be absolutely fine with it all… And he’s lazy, especially when it comes to building the house. Menzy can’t stand it, although he won’t say it. At times it doesn’t seem like Vinny will even look at Aiam… You know he pissed off for five months just as he was born? Didn’t even want to see his own son, he never really wanted to be a dad…” Half of Marie had been listening, taking in all the truth in its horrid detail, yet half of her already knew all this stuff as their eyes had met … So Marie went up to Kat as she was tensing and flaring out her karma frustrations, put her finger on her lips, and with a look of true fire, led her out the door. Latter on as the music kicked in and their bodies moved to rhythms deeper than doubt and fear could ever be, Marie turned to Kat and said the words Kat had been searching for ever since she left; “so, do you wanna stay at my house, you know, after the festival?”     
Vi
Jeeze it was so good to see Danny again hey Sharp Tail? Him and Tanya there by that massive metal dragonfly, freaked them out big time. They almost jumped up into that things mouth! And then that big water slide into the river, how awesome was that! Like, spaceship quick… And then we even built a jump-ramp on it, we launched soo high! I even winded myself one time, couldn’t breathe for like ages… Danny just laughed and laughed, said I looked like a spastic monkey trying to fly! I guess it was pretty funny. He then got me a job, like, imagine that! I’m only eight and I’ve already had my first job. Working at a corn stall finding and collecting bamboo leaves. We got fed free corn and garlic butter in payment, ooo it was so good. And you’ll never believe it Sharp Tail, we went into the forrest this one time looking for leaves and we saw two people, and they were hugging and naked Sharp Tail, naked! Now I know we’ve seen heaps of people naked, but they were doing things Sharp Tail! Probably trying to make babies I guess. It was pretty far away but jeeze they looked like they were having fun. We didn’t stay long because we thought the guy might get angry if he saw us, bring out a gun or something. But it got me wondering, and you must know Sharp Tail, considering you are the king of like, the entire world, why would anyone wanna make more babies? Isn’t there enough of them around?
VII
Aiam was trying not to be afraid of the dark. But it wasn’t easy. Especially not really knowing where they were all going in the winding paths through the forrest. All because Danny and Ben were swapping scary stories under the mosquito net, and couldn’t leave ‘taddle tales’ behind.  “Ya gotta see this one!” said Danny, “you can see the full moon and we’ll see if we can hunt down a real werewolf!” They had all sharpened sticks and were hitting things as they went. As they walked they also talked about flying spiders and drop bears. And Aiam had seen some pretty big mosquitos and had heard some pretty scary growls out there. Without walls it was way too easy to sneak out in their bamboo bedroom, especially when all the adults were being so loud playing music and smoking their cigarettes. Angel was there with them though, so Aiam held her hand. He liked Angel. Angel was alittle older than Aiam, tall for six years of age, old for six years of age too, brave even. She always made him feel safe, like the world would slow its hectic pace, a pace that he couldn’t stand. When they got to the platform the moon was as so big that he thought, just for a second, that it might be falling to earth. Falling slowly of course, yet still falling. They were alone for a little while and when Aiam told Angel his thought about the moon, she kissed him. It was his first kiss. He had seen his brother do this to a girl behind the water tank at school, but he never thought he would do it one day. It was like a moth that cried on his lips…

VI
“O my god can you believe this Marie?” Kat was reading The Age, the one Kinglake tradition that she never lost. “What Kat?” Marie was slowly sipping a coffee while nursing a hangover, eclipsed by large black sunglasses. “Three dead babies in various states of decay were found in the Bundagel river today after the Police followed reports of poisoned water killing local oysters…”

VII
I can’t stay. Not really. Bundagen is nice, I love the sweat lodges, the drumming circles on the beach, and I absolutely love Marie and her cooking. But ever since I heard that story about the babies, it’s like a massive cloud has come over my energy here. I really can’t stand washing my dishes in the river, or the dampness, or the mozzies that maul me like a pack of wolves every night. Kinda like the eyes of almost every male I seem to come across.  Why can’t they just leave me alone? Might be nice if I actually liked any of them, but they all seem either drug fucked or sleazy as snake oil. They all know IT, ‘man,’ know the ‘real Zen’ or the ‘REAL truth’ of the Kabbalah. Not really the best kinda energy for my kids to be around. Anyway, communes have issues if you stay too long. You have to start working and making commitments to the group and I want to move. I have had my fill of building houses. And I definitely wasn’t going to do it with a bunch of strangers. The empty door of the road is calling me. I dreamed of an aboriginal with a yellow spear and yellow ochre body paint running in front of the car as we travelled on the highway.  He turned around and began floating in front of the car at 120 km’s an hour. His eyes, they looked at me as a lightning bolt hit his hand, and he pointed at me, not with any bone or anything, but as if he was calling me…

VIII
I got worried today Sharp Tail. I dreamed about a cave, there was a dragon in there, a dragon or a dog of some sort, its growl was soo deep. It wanted to kill me Sharp Tail, it wanted me to go there and face it. And I wanted to go there Sharp Tail. I wanted to make it stop. It wants to stop us making our music that can save the world. When I woke up, the car had stopped and on the horizon there was a mountain, THE mountain, the one in my dream. Mum said she wouldn’t stop because it was ‘men’s country’ but she had stopped anyway.  Why did she stop? Mum was standing over there under a tree, Aiam was asleep. She was just so still, swaying in the strong wind… I walked out there and her face, it was so sad Sharp Tail, soo sad, tears and the whole world… I grabbed her hand and brought her back, but what will happen if she goes out there again? You’ll wake me up won’t you Sharp Tail?

IX
Aiam saw it long before it hit the cars window, the rainbow lorikeet. He wanted to yell out to tell mum to swerve, but all he could manage was “Mum!” and it was too late. He was frustrated at how old and slow mum was. He had seen it like slow motion, why hadn’t she? Aiam knew mum cared, she had said that they should care for all things from nature, for we were all apart of mother-nature and we were all brothers and sisters, even with the snakes and owls. She called the wings and snake skins, the skulls and the claws that were strewn all through the car, ‘gifts’ from our brothers and sisters. She said that we should never waste life once it had been given. “So why does it have to die mum?!” Aiam shouted. Aiam was crying, his voice was like a broken piece of glass, and the bird’s chest was breathing like a turbulent sea.  Kat just raised the sledge hammer, as Ben put his hand over Aiam’s eyes…  

X
I made it. Don’t know how, but I made it to Byron. And there I met a woman named Georgie, she said there was a commune called the Snake pit out at Nimbin and it was having a party and we could go and stay there, so why not? Georgie needed a lift and she had money which I needed for my fuel tank. So off we went that day. Driving through that country was like the most natural yet intense roller coaster one could imagine, as we approached Nimbin, huge spires of rock just lifted out of the green sea, they were like giants that seemed to welcome us. I felt like I was somewhere in an Asian postcard with the rough roads to boot. And when I arrived in Nimbin, wow, it was as if rainbows had built themselves into a street, it was so colourful. There were vee dub micro buses with statues of hippies coming out of the wall, there were murals of the rainforest with pixies and elves, there were beautiful wooden buildings, chalk paintings on the footpath and busking aboriginals that played the most powerful didge music I had ever heard, it seemed the energy was just alive with sunshine. We stopped there for some supplies at a health food store that just swam in organic smells, earth, ginger and freshly made peanut butter. Then we headed out to the snake pit. Approaching the gate was like going through a tunnel of tree and plants (mostly lantana which is a prolific bushy weed). The gate was rusty, almost falling off its hinges, but there was a beautiful sign with mountains and a rainbow snake that said “Welcome to the snake pit!” we drove up the winding path to a sky blue weatherboard house on stilts in a clearing.  A huge man was there in the doorway, tanned, bald, big belly and nothing but shorts and a smile. “That’s god” said Georgie. “What?” I asked, not being quite sure if she was really quite serious or not.  “They call him god, he’s the owner of this place, it’s a good omen, looks like he’s here to meet you…” we parked and he approached Georgie with those big arms outstretched and with a big boom said “ahhh and what has Krishna brought to me today? Two beautiful goddesses hey?” And Georgie was just awash with giggles. Me? I felt shy, my eyes down caste but with an infected smile non-the-less. He turned to me and said with a comic bow, the type where a flourishing hand trampolines off his forehead; “hello, and welcome, some people know me as god, this here is my little paradise circle of friends and gypsies, Georgie here tells me you’d like to stay?” I had to laugh, “Yeah, wow, this place is amazing man, I’d love to” I said looking at the massive mountain ridge that just seemed to lift the very forrest into the sky. “I’ve got some little ones too, there back there, don’t know for how long I’ll be staying but hey, maybe a week or two?” “Ha! Beautiful… yes! You know time is an illusion right? Stay as long as you like here, only price is a conversation or two round my table and of course the natural currency; smiles! The gypsies all camp down there, all down there at the tipi circle, a communal kitchen with hot water is here at my house, or there are cold water sinks down there at the sheds where you’ll find drop toilets and a magic river… And it really is magic… Shartan pulled this smoky quartz out of it the other day that was the size of an orange!  There truly is a powerful resonance here and you my friends are welcome…” I didn’t know what to say, I could truly feel what he was talking about, as if a new clarity and power had met the sunshine I felt back at Nimbin… All I could do was smile and look into his eyes which seemed vaguely familiar.  Then he broke my trance; “go on, go, set up, you must be tired, enjoy! Looks like the local radio station is calling for my eminent wisdom at the moment, so I’ll see you round the campfire.” Apparently, the party Georgie had invited me to was a constant one, it was the snake pit party.
 
 XI
So much is here Sharp Tail. The flickering fires, the music, the kids, the crazy adults, there’s things to do every day, just like mum said. Shooting bows and arrows, playing games, I just love the forrest, but the best thing about this place? Floating down the river. This is what I want to do with my life Sharp Tail. Does the river end? No, it just turns into the sea, turns into clouds and then turns into the river again. Does it have to end? I know this river here turns dangerous, that it speeds up and digs into my back at this one spot when the bend straightens out… But I can always go back around the bend and float again… I did that for hours today Sharp Tail. Hours. I think I believe what that man said, it is a magic river. I felt a sort of peace I haven’t felt like, ever. I could just let things float away. Sometimes I think I miss my friends, my dad, even playing Lego and the computer at school. But it’s only a thought. All that drifted away when I was in that river. Surely there’s a river somewhere that just flows and flows forever?

XII
Aiam really believed they were going to cook him. They were in that big man’s smoky house, there were feral people everywhere, laying around, standing on their heads, sitting on kitchen benches. This one man who was bald apart from two dreads that were spiralled up into horns, had picked him up and they were all yelling “eat him, yes, eat him!” as a group. Aiam was really scared, he began shouting “no, no, put me down!” and banging on the man’s back as hard as he could. Aiam was crying underneath his voice, tears were streaming out the sides of his eyes. But he wanted to be tough, so he wouldn’t break. Ben was trying to save him, he had a stick and was beating the man with it as the strange devil opened the oven and bent down laughing hysterically. Ben then put one foot right on the oven door, looked him in the eye and commanded with his finger pointed straight at his forehead; “put my brother down NOW devil!”

XIII
 Jeeze god is such a wanker. I have to laugh, but o my god! Every woman who comes across his table and his joints, he is just all over. Maybe it’s just the marijuana that gives him that ego, but what do all those women see in him? They ALL play along. It’s just weird, sure he has some interesting things to say about Rajneesh and the Hindu philosophy on sex, and I mean I love the community vibe at the tipi circle, things are great down there. But after Lucy had been with God and freaked out on blue moony mushrooms, I mean really freaked out, not coming back freaked out, talking to goblins in the wall for days, talking to herself about certain trees that have branches in other dimensions, coming up right up close by staring you down and then stealing food right of your mouth, I suddenly realised.  And it was like some illusionary veil was ripped from my eyes. All that I can see now is this strong rancid patriarchy that exists in that house. It’s just, just, well, vomit. I mean I KNOW the guru Rajneesh, I’ve been to India, seen hundreds of temples and spoken to heaps of people about Krishna and the purity of mind in that sexual philosophy, and so when I venture an opinion, I know what I’m on about. But he just always sharply states that I am wrong, or changes the subject, no matter what I say. I thought he said he wanted conversation. Only from the men it seems. With any man he would go on and on, but when he was challenged by any woman… gone, dismissed. So when I heard about another commune called Om Shalom I made the decision; I’m gunna jump. And driving back into town now is like one huge reality check, especially coming back to the main street of Nimbin. And so I decide that it’s time; Ben has to go back to school and back to his father. His holidays have ended a week ago and it is just not right for him to be around so many unstable people without learning anything. So I go and do that, with a tinge of sadness, because somehow it seems like reality has now taken hold and is dragging me back to the men of Kinglake. But I also have this mission now in Om Shalom. Tipis. I want a Tipi. Almost all these amazing people have one thing in common. They all own a Tipi. And in every one I always feel at home. I have learned their lore, I have seen how they spiral community within them and how the rocks of the fire, they place a family in the harmonic sequence of the seasons, with mother-natures circle of life. I love that. I have heard that there are iron bark poles, the perfect tipi poles, there for the harvest at Om Shalom. So after I make this journey south to the nearest airport, I will return to the snake pit to get Carrol. Carrol said she would be happy to make another shared-fuel journey out there.  So, yeah that’s what I’ll do. Jeeze reality ain’t that bad after all.

XIV
Mums taking me home Sharp Tail! “Yeah, so?” Hang on buddy, what do you mean ‘so’? Isn’t that exciting? “You always say your excited, but how do we really feel about that?” Ahhh… yeah I’m not really sure now that I think about it. I mean, I know it’s exciting that I’ll get to go home and see my dad. But I know I’ll have to go back to school and, and I’ll miss my mum, and my brother won’t be there, he’s not coming. I have no idea why he isn’t coming. I mean I know Vinny is Aiam’s dad and Menzy is my dad, but can’t Menzy be Aiam’s dad too? –Look, Sharp Tail, don’t be angry, we’ll see them again. I know I will, mums got the white belly black snake under control with that magic car of hers. Yeah, I’ll see them again.

XV
In the forrest behind the town hall Aiam and Ben had jumped in this strange metal cart that was connected, firefoxed to a metal cable that stretched off through the trees. It looked safe, it looked solid. It was abit bigger than a shopping cart, room enough for both of them. Kat was dancing. All her emotions that she had felt over the last few months were pouring out in sweat and smiling, closed eyes. She wasn’t there to stop them. She trusted in Ben. The music in the hall was amazing. So the cart crept along with Aiam and Ben inside. This was fun. Awesome in fact. It was this feeling that they had no idea where they were going, that it was cheeky and naughty and their own little adventure that no one else in the world knew about. Surely it would lead to somewhere amazing, a new playground, or a cubby house perhaps. But they weren’t ready for what happened next. The ground beneath them began dropping away. As the trees ended their blindness, Aiam and Ben both jumped in surprise and by jumping the cart bounced and shook from side to side. They were about fifty metres in the air above a raging river. Aiam was truly panicking and he rocked when he panicked, and that made things even worse. “We’re gunna fall Ben, we’re gunna fall!” “Just breathe Aiam… We’ll make it to the other side of this, you just have to be calm, just breathe…” 



Works Cited
White, Kat. Interview with Kat White. Int. Jason B.R. Maxwell. 25th Aug.         2014. Recording.