Suck It Up, Sunshine

Here be poetry. And sometimes scribbles.

[i-know-how-my-story-ends]

Men's gymnastics would be more popular if they wore the same outfits the women do. Why are they wearing sweatpants. I want glitter

[suckitupsunshine]

sandpaper

life is so much sandpaper and urgency

all this grading yet my edges are rough

nothing but gravel rash and bloody knees

and always running, working the machine

give me gentleness, in life and in company

open hands, soft eyes, warm smiles, easy words

tenderness to comfort this bruised body

let me drift to sleep and wake encircled in arms

that only make and never break

I know I am not the only one soft of heart

let us off the wheel to be ourselves

slowly approach a mellowed world, at ease

have earnest smiles returned, feel kinship in a crowd

I want to know my neighbours and give kindness

have none of it turned back upon me, weaponised

by calloused, shuttered hearts

all gravel rash and bitterness and spite

in a gentler world, with time to be

I think I could turn that softness inwards

do some mending, smooth every jagged edge

oh, to lower my shoulders and breathe

if only the world could settle down

if brutal hunger could be quelled

demands withdrawn, engines quieted

if I could reach into this machine

I would turn it down, hush the all-consuming grind

let us talk, have us walk an easy pace

if I could, I’d swap out the sandpaper

for something like cotton wool

[suckitupsunshine]

Migration

Large chunks of my childhood are an endless highway.

All the world a still-life zipping by

one terrain bleeding into the next

all of it reliably underlined with gore:

cadavers in various stages of decay.

We move faster than any animal ought to

carving arterial roads through ancient homes

the bleeding edge of innovation

collateral damage a perpetual roadside buffet.

The best hunters are opportunists:

from circling seemingly effortlessly overhead

they will plummet gladly for an easy meal.

I recall being twelve years old

stopping on a backroad, approaching gingerly

the fragile, broken body of a wedge-tailed eagle.

From tearing strips off a still-warm kangaroo

it failed to heave its magnificent body

up and away from the road train

got clipped by that unstoppable force

and was blown aside like fabric in the wind.

We scooped it up so gently, speaking low

I took off my fleecy jumper and loosely, carefully

wrapped it like a babe.

I was a tall child, it was a small eagle;

weightless in my rail-thin arms

with wings folded, head bowed

still, it was larger than my torso.

I carried it to the car

sat up straight and still as an egret.

A tail partly fanned out on my thigh

hooked beak resting below my chin

breath barely stirring air upon my collarbone

and a small red smudge drawn among my freckles.

Between that backroad and the next town

the red set brown and the air stilled.

As it went, I stroked its soft, brown feathers

soothed it with murmured promises of peace

and surrogate apologies

and watched its keen eyes cloud over.

I heard they used to be hunted by farmers

shot out of the sky on sight and left to rot

all their grace and strength a threat

when large enough to carry off the lambs.

Never in my life could I hope to see such a creature

to stand beside a flighted bird and meet its gaze

and lose my breath.

When I drive, my eyes dart around.

I slow for souls who lean with intent,

chastise local fauna when they dally

and on highways, I live my whole life at once

vibrating with the car, outpacing anxiety;

a meditation on momentum.

I pass the broken bodies, the endless

spectred landscape, and feel at home.

I love the road, between places.

I wonder, if I die there, will I finally have settled?

When you drive, you’re never really sitting still;

when I sit still, I’m always moving.

We hit a galah on that memorable trip

it peeled out from the flock, flew right at my face

left a pink feathery smear on the windshield

shocking me from the sombre quiet of my mood.

My jumper a bloodied shroud in the boot

the phantom of glossy feathers beneath my fingertips

my heart came bubbling up out of me;

I cried and cried.

Bloody galahs.

[suckitupsunshine]

Hunter, Prey

masked as a joke exists a wry proverb

with plot dressed up as steaming bovine turd

enacted by a fox, a cow, a bird

explaining that not all is as observed

upon the study wall just yesterday

appeared an out of sorts salticidae

bold as they always are, she came to me

on outstretched palm landing curiously

I took her for a tour of the surrounds

tempted her with a fly upon the wall

exposed her to the gnats in potted ground

but none of it could shake her from my thrall

so off then to the garden to be free

the basil flowers for guaranteed feast

I tried to set her down where I could see

she chose to go whichever way she pleased

the instant that she landed she was got

a flower spider dove in for the kill

like David felled Goliath with one shot

my spider friend fell to her chosen meal

so like the cow and that poor little bird

unwittingly I dumped her in the turd

and like the cunning fox through happenstance

Ms. flower spider took her gifted chance

[suckitupsunshine]

REM

I dream of sensible things

shattered and rearranged

a brain that warps the narrative

in maddeningly nonsensical ways

the feet are slowing, heavy, stuck

the arms are wings but only luck

will get me airborne, for a spell;

souls known only in that realm

look at me with immense love

touch muted nerves as though I’m drunk

kiss me so gently with dry lips

soft and coarse like pillow slips

people, real, whose faces rearrange

into each others’, nebulous in age

homes I have visited a thousand times

only in dreams, with limits ill-defined

doors that lead exactly where

I do not want to go, forced

to the predicted jump-scare

then hurled to some new course

behold, my teeth all puddled in my palm

a man I’ve never met who knows me best

the ocean floor, to deeply breathe the calm

the secret city-scapes down hidden steps

I glide from clifftop, or plummet to my death

my stomach drops, my spine snaps me awake

voices upon voices ‘til I’m deaf

moments when everything’s at stake

with no connection to what I recall

when I am dragged back to reality

I may be still as I was at the fall

or tangled as though sheets had tried to flee

In the end:

I value sleep

I want it deep

if this is how I get it

bring on the dreams

[suckitupsunshine]

the big, yellow moon, the sunset

honey moon, is a night crier for dust

filters sepia yet cool upon the pillow

alighting motes that hang on air, the sheets

sticking in my lungs, my dry eyes, settling

collecting in the corners of the room

the gentled floodlight of that satellite

pulls the tides and plucks at sleep

it lures small wing-ed things, it spills

around the blinds, creating shadow-puppetry

of furniture and clothes, suggesting life

to addled malleable mind, the moon

the big, beige moon, the loudest

lullaby, steadily traversing the sky

it doesn’t care that I am tired

the two-faced moon, gracing

all eyes, with only its best side

and here am I; how could I look away?

[suckitupsunshine]

[suckitupsunshine]

In Memorium

The best things never written

conceived in a glass cubicle of artificial rain

born wet and soapy to a wandering mind

ambient warm patter drowning out all distraction

for pure, blissful focus

cultivated to completion with soft cotton cloth

etched fleetingly into the imprint of a cloud

refined by invigorated mind

words weighed and measured, muffled, amplified.

The life expectancy

of glorious never-gonna-bes

roughly as brief as the time between

drying damp skin and donning decency,

or cruelly tied to the time taken to reach

a formal record:

if you are naked and wet, traipsing

puddles across the carpet (oh damn)

and dripping water onto the book on the bedside table

some words may remain, but haste

and desperation are the Nothing to

bathtime inspiration’s Fantasia.

Mourned by so many, and so often

badly memorialized while still alive

disintegrating and dancing a dying fish-flop

falling from the edge of the mind

witnessed by a blinking cursor

and a nice clean idiot.

[suckitupsunshine]

Railway House

alphabet spaghetti sauce

hurled with glee at kitchen walls

sticky fingers face and toes

loyal kelpie’s wet nose

fifties table metal legs

mustard yellow kitchen bench

laundry down a set of stairs

folding tables stacks of chairs

unkempt garden overgrown

mango tree and patchy lawn

tractor tyre painted green

full of sand and mystery

station master booming voice

pocket full of jingling coins

scotch and cola nightly news

halcyon daze terrific twos

[suckitupsunshine]

Mundane

A kerfuffle, or just conversation

is happening on the next driveway over

(it’s hard to tell in these parts

with these sorts of people).

I peer sideways out the blinds like a caricature

of a nosy neighbour

but there are children and animals

so I must try to know.

The neighbour, voice like a seizing engine

takes a swig from the bottle in her hand.

I can never tell whether she is laughing with mirth

or cruelty, it always sounds so harsh;

full-body slap, staccato barking

bouncing off the walls.

She slides her eyes to my front window and I flinch back—

I think I’m seen.

Nothing comes of it but

the conversation dies down

the screen door rattles and slams.

The bottle could be kombucha.

It’s only ten in the morning

I want to be generous.

In that house there is a quiet, bare-footed child

and a puppy that howls to be loved.

I, too, was a quiet child.

I hope the puppy is just small and dramatic, I hope

it’s just kombucha.

Here, the way to live

is to lie, lie, lie:

your ears and eyes are playing tricks.

When I get a new job the long days will be spent

in air conditioning, and artificial urgency

and on weekends I will play catch up.

On hectic nights I will shut out neighbourly noises

and with limerence lie:

to beckon sleep and pretend

I am not where I am.

[suckitupsunshine]

The Pits

For relief from work, we go home

for relief from home, we go to work;

and when we need to be free of them both

with money scarce and fun expensive

where do we go?

THE PIT!

Come one, come all, to the pit!

Throw in your fears, your doubts

the shoes you bought at k-mart three months ago

that are falling to pieces and never got worn in

despite being worn at work for three solid months.

Throw in the shoes you spent several hundred dollars on also

bought just last year

conveniently made of cardboard and bullshit.

They did wear in, and wear out

despite being worn only on a weekend

every now and then.

Anyway, hurl your broken crockery into the pit as well

it is bottomless, but

the crashing sounds are very satisfying

if a little perplexing.

The pit is in the news.

Somebody memed about it on reddit and now?

Now the rich kids know.

Now, the rich kids are pushing lambos into the pit

and taking selfies on the edge

(don’t push us, we’re close

are you trying to lose your heads?)

The fucking rich kids think the pit

is a joke.

It’s not their fucking pit!

They get the inner-city pubs, restaurants

tickets to concerts and overnight accommodation.

They get homes they don’t need a break from

and holidays we have to beg for

scrounge for, read about.

They have so much

so much

they get the world and we get

a fucking hole in the ground and

IT’S OUR PIT!

They’re charging entry.

There are Air BnBs around the pit and chain fast-food joints

and the rich kids are bored now;

the pit isn’t exciting any more it’s just the same

as everywhere else.

There is nobody at the pit now without a phone in hand

the pit sucks.

It’s overpriced anyway.

We go to work to escape home

and we go home to escape work and

where do we go on the weekends?

Not the fucking pit, that’s for sure.

[suckitupsunshine]

Community

Like comedians do crowd work I step out

into the discord call and slip in

to my best self and I am on.

I am too fast and too loud

and I want to know everything about everyone.

Give me your hearts to hold

I will weigh them like a child weighs a rock, a seashell,

the dried carcass of a baby bird

and like a child

always find them to be perfect

for my collection of treasures.

I will laugh and joke and honestly

have trouble shutting up;

perfect distraction from my hands

depositing with reverence the precious things

unconsciously given to me.

I am a simple being

there are a million kinds of love

I know what matters and I think

I have enough

for almost everyone.

[memeuplift]

[amateur-forklift-driver]

@markscherz

[markscherz]

Harold is a Ceratophrys cranwelli.

[ifyouknowmeirlgoaway]

#i appreciate that you have a picture of a chonk frog#you learn the chonk frog is named harold#and then the curator of reptiles at the national history museum of denmark (seriously) weighs in at the bottom#to identify harold's species#you can't get this kind of content anywhere else

[suckitupsunshine]

harold the frog

magnificent blob

with wet webby toes

tucked under just so 

with bumpity skin

and regal of chin

you photo so well

I’m under your spell 

I wish you would stay

forever this way

so perfectly orbed

splendiferous forg

[suckitupsunshine]

This is Just a Short Poem About

the known brightness of the sun

it’s effect on our eyes

how it fuels the whole planet

and how LED headlights on stupidly big US trucks

shine brighter

when the sun dies the earth will be fine

they’ll just jettison jacked-up gas-guzzlers

bigger than kitchens

into the atmosphere

by the thousands

arrange them in a ring around the world

with their high beams on

and it will never be night again

[suckitupsunshine]

I Wish I Didn't Know

About the heat-death of our earth

the sun's increasing heat and girth

stripping away our atmosphere

making whole mountains disappear

how living souls won’t be around

to watch the death-march going down

how in several billion years

there’ll be no sign that we were here

about the wars that rage right now

how people cut each other down

how governments are in cahoots

with corporate fucks who tell us boots

and willpower will see us fly

how on the job is where we die

who schedule from comfortable space

destruction for financial stakes

how randomly luck picks us off

with famines, floods, enraged despots

which signs and symptoms could soon spell

a steep descent to medical hell

why we should all be in a rush

how all we do is not enough

and how the whole big song and dance

is basically up to chance.

Sometimes it is too much to bear

the knowing and the being scared

do cows out grazing in the field

consider their end as a meal?

I wish I were a simple being

with no idea of anything

but what my body needs right now

without considering why and how

I’d live each moment as its own

with all else blissfully unknown.

[suckitupsunshine]

Sand

how is the sand ‘round where you reside?

they’ve got it inland, not just ocean-side

I grew up all over, ruddy earth, sandy loam

feet callous-covered, left outside I’d roam

finest sand crystalline most familiar to me

but I’ve been to coastlines across the deep sea

there are some beaches made only of stone

yet all full of creatures who call it their home

I’ve had my soles graded by sand coarse and sharp

less walked than waded in sand thick and mud-dark

run across sea-shells and corals bleached white

leapt in sand hot as hell’s and painfully bright

I buy it in bags now, to put in the yard

the earth pulls it down, where the clay sets rock-hard

I have yet to day-trip to beaches near by

where I’ll be met with cliffs, and sand new to my eyes

[suckitupsunshine]

Recycling

He said:

they’ve shut up for the day

you just missed them, it’s a shame

it’s open until one, but they

closed ten minutes early - hey

you know, you can call and complain?

My dude, my guy, thank you so much

for the information but

the time it takes to make the call

and whinge about the roller door

that shut me out here with my cans

and no six-fifty in my hands

it isn’t worth the time to make

the call or even formulate

a plan for what I’d want to say

I’ll just swing by another day.