Going Down With The Ship - poetry by shaun patrick green.: October 2011

Friday, October 28, 2011

Sucking Blood

Is it me? Am I just not feeling the vibe?
Or are Vampire Weekend the most over-rated band of all time?
I am hearing Paul Simon ripped off wholesale but then
Pop music is an exercise in barely concealed canabalism
I hear The Beatles, The Stones, The Kinks being
Rerecorded, repackaged, with 5.1 remastering
Are we living in an age of infinite musical regress?
I look at bands like Vampire Weekend and think: yes
When you are pandering to an amnesiac generation
Everything is new no matter how old it actually is
So music once the voice of a generation has become
A feedback loop of undifferentiated consumption
Sustaining the vampires at the top of the chain
For whom sucking blood is more than just a game.

© shaun patrick green 2011

Slaves to Keira Knightley Unite!

Gutted and small after too much living

We take shelter in TV and booze

Wishing well the life makers

And dream fakers that keep hearts yearning

All those fecund young minds to infect

With that attractive central defect

That happiness is possible

Now I know you say we are old and jaded

Partly true, partly misguided

Because the opposite is true

We see the future and it should not

Be taken lightly - just like Keira Knightley

Sure she can't act but look at those lips

They promise the world but do they deliver?

No! And yet so perfect in so many ways

I will follow her to the end of my days

Like some slavish lapdog and think: yes

This is happiness... this is as good as it gets

Saturday, October 22, 2011

Troubadour (for P.J.Harvey)

So few troubadours

Shake an Island to its quick

But this slight black-haired

Goddess with angel voice

Cuts to the bone and core

Of her motherland without

Fear or favour or schtick

Almost a wrenching honesty

That battles against politics

And the mercantile fervour

Of our blighted age

In a folk tradition

Believing in the changing

Power of song she belongs

Quite among yet outside

Almost puritanical in her vision

I know no other contemporary voice

Who can say: I sing for Britain

Saturday, October 15, 2011

China.

Mao claps his oversize hands

And shapes move like continents

Every little red book a sepulchre

Every bail of wheat a victory

The triumph is over ourselves

Values are not universal

They need to re-defined and re-learned

So a people is re-fashioned and confirmed

As consuming pets unquestioning

Our work has bought us what we earned

Mao's dream was about production

But consumption is the great leveler

His dragon is swallowing its own tail

And no longer is he master

Clarity

She lay dying in a mess of tubes

Wasted scarecrow thin and bald

Wore a scarfe to hide her lack of hair

But the laugh was still there

Deep and hearty as a tolling bell

Said she didn't mind going

For life had been brief but interesting

I found this flippant and scientific

But maybe she knew better

Counting each day and weighing its gain

With a preciousness not ours

We who have health and live

And take for granted those dear

Perhaps it is in the fading light

That we see unhindered and clear

Complicity.

Did I bring a ring to guide you home

Or spin a web to write a poem?

You look at me with eyes of dread

As if I were your poisoned bed

I fondle you in moments of passion

And you fake pleasure after a fashion

Where exactly did we disconnect?

Was it when I decided to reconnect

With a system I loath and despise?

Probably, no doubt there were spies

Who told you of my fatal change of heart

Fortressed you against me from the start

So we simper into the gloom of domesticity

Blaming each other for own complicity

Monday, October 3, 2011

Sunday.

Sweet smell of her in the morning

Over rumpled sheets white wine and sex

Then an impulse to Yum Cha

On Rathdowne Street a fixture

And an unpleasant reminder of her ex

Still the taste of her on my tongue

Sweetened by soy sauce and ginger

And her smile wide over dumplings

Then to the Museum for Tutankhamun

Standing in the line with parents and kids

For some circus side show

Three thousand years old

But it was so much more then that

The beauty and delicacy of their work

Carved into my mind the brevity of life

And the joy of living it with her

Still Life With Bogan And Slag

They’re on the platform

He in tracksuit

Singlet showing tatts

She in tight jeans

Crop top and plats

Accessorised with

Baby in pram wearing

A Hawthorn beanie

Both smoking

He asking for change

She swearing at the kid

To stop crying

I try not to judge

Got a train to catch

They get on and it starts

I get on ahead

But they move from

Carriage to carriage

Begging change

Or Cigarettes

Or beer

In my carriage

They find someone

They know

Who gives them grief

Some deal gone wrong

Money gone astray

Reputations trashed

But she bites first

Calling the accuser

A farken carnt

And you weeeek carnt

Then he chimes in

With yooor a rat mate

A dirty farken rat

Fark you the accused says

How bout I farken

Stab your arse

Cum on, she says,

Afraid to use your fists

You farken weeeek carnt

Accused says yeah, yeah I am,

Bogan boy says

Cmon, bring it on

You farken dog

You’re a gutless carnt

You farken rat

You weeeek dog

And the train rattles on

Riddled with hate

And impotent rage

Carrying its cargo

To the city.

Toll of the Coral Bell.

A bell rings in the deep

Calling turtles home for the lay

As moon speaks

Where squid sleep

Surfacing to spawn and display

In a harlequin hail

Corals join the orgy

Primed by tide and sun

Popping polyps like candy

The reef well begun

Only waters are changing

Warming too fast for ease

Creatures of the deep

Hear different bells

Tolling evolution

Adapt or die Darwinian style

No carillon to appease

And so species decease

Expendable in our eyes

For we ignore the tolling bell

Exploiting the seas gift

Coral bleached laid waste

It warns us of our greed

Changes must be made with haste

Or vengeance will be swift

No bell to toll for our nations

On a planet made sterile

We’re here by nature’s invitation

Even if only for a short while.

Magpie Day

Swooped down from the suburbs for the game

And settled in at Macca's place

He in a loft inner city with wide screen

Beers in the fridge wife outta town

Grand final in style amongst the faithful

Game underway and many beers sunk

Each goal and point applauded

Each bad referee's decision appalling

By the end of it we were so drunk

We didn't even know who'd won

So we smashed out of the flat

And hit the rain slick streets

Cawing club songs and leering

At locals who looked at us like freaks

For all we knew our team had won

And the streets were ours

Flapping our wings stabbing our beaks

As we scavenged in garbage bins

Invisible in this blackest of black nights

Punching heads of the walking dead

These streets are ours

Gained through bragging and fist fights

Brother, these streets are ours

Air in my bones.

How sweet is she that she does breeze through me

Feeling air in my bones like I am Swiss cheese…

She crashes on me like a tsunami

Destroying everything I had built

As a bulwark to her leaving

Waltzing back in as if by divine rite

To claim things not hers, actions and words

Not said and done, no shining light

Nor defusing by interregnum

She climbs my pulpits as conqueror

Though all thought she had been banished

Still she thrives underground

Her face muddied yet true

A shoal of sea-fed followers

Flocking to her school

Where holding ones breath is important

Not doubting the veracity of this virtue

But of people and their need to be

She has yet to come through

Showing to me that she cares for us

Not as patients but people

The confusion is simple and pure

Doctors agree that alcoholism is

Both the answer to the question and the cure.