I wrote this on the train one day, having spent the better part of an hour playing eye contact games with a fellow commuter. Neither of us ever worked up the nerve to approach the other.

Strangers

You don't know me
And I don't know you
But the feeling's still there.
Je nais se quoi
I think it's called
The undefinable something.
I smile, then you.
We both look away Embarrassed?
We laugh together
Me at her, and you at me.
They all laugh.
She sits between us,
Marking the end Of our little game.

'Dreaming' is about an old school friend of mine who committed suicide when we were seventeen.

Dreaming

Some dream of riches, some of the sun
They dream of the past, of things yet to come.
You dreamt on the dark side of life itself
They say that you're strange but I know that's not true
There's no difference 'tween you and the rest of us.
They all turn away, leaving you to yourself,
Why can't you be happy like everyone else?

I wrote 'Green Eyes' when I was seventeen, and coming to terms with the end of a tumultuous relationship with perhaps the first person I cared deeply about.

Green Eyes

Oxygen.
Water.
Memories.
Climbing Trees.
Summer Rain.
Good Music.
A kiss in the rain.
Long summer nights.
You turn to me - I turn to you.
Undying love professed - I meant every word.

'To Him From Her' was a response to the news that the afore mentioned subject of 'Green Eyes' was seeing someone new. Seventeen and heartbroken - admire my restraint in not calling her a thousand names!

To Him From Her

I love him.
He once loved me too
But that changed.
And no more does he think
Of me, of us,
For he has her now,
And doesn't need me.

But still, my soul screams
For the love he once gave.
My sole wish would take me back
To a happier time when I was loved
By him.

I can only hope she's happy
Knowing she has him and I do not.
She doesn't know me, or I her,
But I hate her with such a passion
For she has what I once possessed
And still desire to reclaim - His love.

In days gone by
He told me so often I was the one he loved
The one he lived for
The only one for him.
We were meant for each other,
Him and I,
None could deny it.

But all that's gone now
And I cry for what used to be,
Knowing that he has her
And doesn't need me.

'Untitled' I wrote about a friend of mine who had cheated on a partner she loved dearly one night while under the influence. She assured us all she was coping. We gathered for her funeral three months after I wrote this. True Story.

Untitled

Images shatter
Everything changes,
The deceit
She copes but
Not for long.
She hides away -
Can't hide forever.
Wonders what comes next.
No way to know.
Impatience will kill her
She knows too well
Her lies will kill him
The thought hurts her so -
She lives for him alone.
Hurting him hurts her too.
She hates what she has become.
He thinks he knows his girl -
If only he knew the truth
Of what lives in her soul.

This piece was in response to a incident in which I fell for an exchange student who was weeks away from going home. We promised to write, but you know how that is.... a few years on and I can't even summon his name!

Untitled

Water under the bridge
Two ships passing in the night,
Never to meet again.
I know I'll miss you,
Stranger though you are.
So briefly you've touched my life
But I know I shan't forget you -
Your influence remains although
Already you are gone.

Funny, talented, clever,
You're everything I am not.
Inexplicably drawn to you,
What I feel terrifies me -
Our lives are not the same,
And you'll soon return to yours,
Leaving me alone with my memories.

Yet another break up piece...

Untitled

Fractured reality -
No longer real.
Centre of my universe
No longer.
Shattered perspective.
Cry till scarlet is all I can see.
Death of a dream
And a soul.

Nothing much I can say about this one. I was hanging out at a cafe called Sahara in Melbourne a lot at the time, drinking a lot of coffee, holding a lot of pretentious conversations and writing a lot of peculiar semi-poetry.

Ode To Sugar Sludge

Sludgy mess in my coffee cup
Once again I was over excited
With the sugar, and there you sit
Like so many before you I play with you,
Stir you around
You hold be transfixed
And I smile to myself.
What is it like, oh sludgy one
Do you feel as I do
Invaded and alone?
Is life as a mess
All you had dreamed
Or did you want more?
I know life is strange
When to sugar I write,
But hey, what the hell,
You will never tell me I'm worthless or
That my words do not work
And my sludgy friend,
I thank you for that.

This was the product of a rather cynical afternoon during my eighteenth year. I sat there, and suddenly felt so very old.

Untitled

The window is cracked
The coffee is cold
But that doesn't explain

How I'm feeling so old.

My thoughts fill this page
They appear all in rhyme
As I think about life
Not of theirs, but of mine.

Only eighteen years old
But so much I have seen
The things I have done
The places I've been.

People have told me
And they've told me true
I've seen more in my life
Than have they, or have you.

I know much about nothing
And some about lots
Try to analyze my mind
Try and join all the dots.

You'll see that you can't
That it just won't make sense
But that's part of the plan
That's my major defense.

There's no one who knows me
As well as they could
There's no one who loves me
As well as they should.

'Transitional' originated as a song lyric. I was living with two guitarists at the time, and one night they challenged me to write something we could mess around with (we didn't have a TV at that point, so this was how we often spent our nights). A friend of ours had recently 'sold out' as we saw it at the time, and joined the 'yuppie brigade'. This piece expresses the hurt we felt at being forsaken by an old friend.

Transitional

It's a working class neighbourhood
A working class street
It's my working class shoes
On my working class feet
You bastards up there in yuppieland
Spare a thought for How we live.

My working class hero
Watch him, now he falls
Trying to compete with yuppieland
A victim of the time-worn call.

He prances with the best of them
Cruises Chapel Street by day
Turning into a yuppie asshole
He forgets from where he came.

He's my working class hero
Watch him, now he falls
Trying to compete with yuppieland
A victim of the time-worn call.

Now he lives up on the hill
Forgets his slumming days
I cry as I remember
And mourn for my lost friend.

He was my working class hero
Watch him, now he's fallen
He's now part of yuppieland
Fell victim to the time-worn call.

This piece speaks pretty much for itself...

Warm Day on the Frankston Line

Damn these people Who can sleep here.
Fucking narcoleptics.
I, awake, solitary, bored, a little shitty.
Frankston Line holds No interest for me.
(For an insomniac she Sleeps a lot).

This one I wrote on Batman train station on the Upfield Line in Melbourne. I had just watched two groups of teenagers, one group Italian, the other Lebanese, abuse each other because of their respective racial backgrounds. I hadn't been living out there very long, and was astounded by the hatred these two groups felt for each other.

Untitled

One solitary voice Cries in the suburbs
The hated, the tension.
One sees, different to them
This urban warfare
Fought with words
Insult trading
Them versus us Versus you.
We all live, breath, shit, bleed.
We're all one and The Same.

This was also originally going to be a song lyric, but it never quite worked. The bulk of it came to me in a meditation, and I simply could not get it out of my head. It was desperate to be written.

All The World's A Stage

Dancing across the stage of my memory
The images of an innocence lost, the tears I shed for the dysfunction
The love I could never quite give freely enough.
Still no day goes by when I don't pause and blink
The lights here are so bright
Blocking the view I thought was
My god-given right.
Shed my tears and smile my smiles
Laugh and scream and
Remember.

Not sure I really want to talk about this one...

Amitryptaline

Constant revelations, ever changing situations.
Two worlds, effortlessly colliding, becoming one.
A single smile, an idol thought, a half-forgotten dream.
The secret knowledge that this is comprehended by only me
Guarding my secret with my entire being, my soul sings softly to itself, sweet, barely remembered lullabies,
And laughs while remembering The Way Things Were -
Hateful and cold, so unforgiving, like nothing you could ever hope to comprehend. A single solitary tear slides
Along my face, as I struggle not to remember those wasted, terrible days, and the contrast between them and the life I know now, almost Utopian in it's sheer happiness.
It's all a state of mind, they tell me.
Great.
Who's mind? I wonder briefly.
But today I have my happy thoughts on, refusing to dwell on what has become, concentrating
Rather on what is still to come, on my new life, my fragile,
Beautiful happiness.
My chemically enhanced, blister packaged happiness.
Clinging to the futility I know so well, like an old pair of shoes I simply cannot throw away.
For the best is what they say to me, and deep inside I know they're right, but can't bring myself to
Agree.

This was written to be the main theme from a screenplay I've been writing for about three years. This is the majority of the finished material from said screenplay.

Vagrant Entertainer

Singing the songs
Playing for laughs
Travelling round
From place to place
Today we're here
Tomorrow - who knows where?

A life on the road
Who would've thought it
A life on the road

Across this land we go
One horse towns
A few without even a horse
We play the outback
We play the cities tall
Coast to coat - we play them all.

A life on the road
Who would've thought it
A life on the road

The touring life is not for all
But me, it's the life I love
Three states in three days
Three thousand k's
Can't drink the water here
Got three bucks for a shower?

A life on the road
Who would've thought it
A life on the road.

'Betrayal' was another of those pieces that just cried out to be written. An old friend and I had been drifting apart for some time. Despite the fact that we lived under the same roof, we hardly saw one another, and I had just come to terms with the loss of this friendship when a series of horrible things happened to her. Suddenly she needed me again. I was torn between the fact that she needed my help, and the fact that she'd forsaken me as a friend so easily.

Betrayal

My friend, now you've fallen on hard times
Nothing's the same as before.
Suddenly you seem to need me again
Well I'm sorry to say I'm not here anymore.

How many times have I counted
Promises you've made, promptly broken
Forsaken in favour of fly-by-night lovers
Time spent with me a mere token
Attempt at pretence of the friendship of old
When nothing better appears before you
The only advice I can give you, my friend -
Treat them as you treat me
And they'll soon leave you too.

'Dragon Glow'. What can I say. I wrote this about a person I'd met a couple of times who had me transfixed from the time I laid eyes on him. We've been together nearly three years now. (See, some of these stories do have a happy ending!)

Dragon Glow

By night the silent dragon flies
Across the frontier of the mind
Dreamlike, just a touch surreal
Barely there, though I can feel.
Noticed just by those who know
And understand the spooky glow.