Miscellany

Poem: Page Turner

To read a whole
book in a day is one
of the great joys – and luxuries –
of this modern life.

For me, first it was
Garfield and Footrot Flats.

Then it was those adventure books
by Willard Price.

Probably after that there was something
else – maybe a Barry Crump book if
I’m remembering correctly.

And then Stephen King.
(The only Dean Koontz book
I read in one day was Demon Seed,
one of his best).

I read a lot of Stephen King books
and as they got bigger it was hard to
read them in one gulp – but that didn’t
stop me trying…and I think the best effort
was probably getting through Needful Things
(which if I’m remembering correctly is about
700 pages long) in two days.

Charles Bukowski entered my life
with a bang. And when I took his Run With
The Hunted collection home with me from the
best book store in the land I collapsed down on
my single student bed and only put the book down
to change CDs while I read – and read – and read…

It’s such a luxury – and a treat – and a thrill
to get to sit and read. And read.

And I don’t get to do it as often these days. Or at
least my attention is stretched, the fucking internet
and life on the side and dipping in and out of far
too many books of course – they are dotted around
several rooms in the house like opened tabs…

But knocking one off – a single book in a single
day – is still one of the very best rushes, one of the
very best things

It’s such an achievement.

My folks would so often look at me like I’d failed
them – for reading.

And to me they’d failed for not reading at all.

That’s at the centre of everything for us. Still.
And we can’t turn the page.

Archive

April 5, 2020 by Simon Sweetman

Poem: Here Is Your Free 30 Day Trial

Here is your four weeks off:

Now go write that fucking book you’re always on about.

Your kid could have painted that abstract masterpiece so now,
with your guidance, is the chance. Fill the museums of your
mind.

All of those house concerts aren’t going anywhere but they’ll clog
the ether forever.

Sing! Sing! And not just in the shower – sing all day long and
don’t be phased whatsoever. Set your iPhones to record – you might
be stunned.

Nature photography, new gardens to cultivate, new regimes to consider
and the time to ponder shaking off the shackles of the fiscal dams
and drains – make a new world. Order online…. essential items only.

All those books were never going to read themselves – and they can’t
look as good on the shelves with no one coming around to visit. Get
reading. Re-reading. Skim to your heart’s content. Skim to suggest
the money was at least well spent.

You don’t need to stand too far apart from your Netflix cue. Get right
in there where the truth is hiding.

The sun is shining, you are still breathing – your bubble will not burst
if the only surfing you do is on the internet.

Time is meaningless now. It’s gone. We put the clocks back, we should
have just put them in the cupboard with the old jug-chords and those
spare phone adapters and chargers.

There went your four weeks…the world is now back on.

I hope you were good making all that art you otherwise would not
ever have had the time to start.

And how many people did you tell to get fucked online? How many
cunts posting cat-pics got in the way of you making that masterpiece?

Archive

April 4, 2020 by Simon Sweetman

R.I.P. Bill Withers

Bill Withers has died. He was 81. I wasn’t going to add to the eulogy posts as you can – and will already have perhaps already – read about him almost anywhere else. But then, Bill Withers meant the world to me. As he did to so many. So I wanted to share a line or two about that importance.

The first full album I heard by Bill Withers was a compilation – Lean On Me: The Best of Bill Withers – released in the mid-90s. I heard it in that very mid-90s way: It was on one day in my favourite CD store and I asked about it after recognising a couple of songs then hearing a couple more I really liked on the back of those. Read More »

Archive

April 3, 2020 by Simon Sweetman

Poem: Back Before Everyone Was On Their Phone Every Fucking Five Minutes

I grew up
with a spa pool
behind a Ponga fence,
the latest album by Huey Lewis and
The News

and the remnants of when my dad
was a master of Macramé.

That’s never far from my mind as
I make it through this world –

Boz Scaggs and Steely Dan and Lionel
Richie and no such thing as Yacht Rock

(barely ever any irony).

Like what you like and do what
you do and no looking over you shoulder
and everyone ended up in the pool.

I sure do miss those days when you could
just walk up and push a fully-clothed
adult into a pool

and the only risk was laughing
so much that you got an ache
in your tummy – but that could
never matter with all the warmth in
your heart.

Archive

April 2, 2020 by Simon Sweetman

Poem: Knives Out

the CEO of the big magazine company
once held a knife to my
throat – woke me in the dead
of night, and from behind the
dead of his eyes he told me
in his best drunken disguise,
that he very much loved his
girlfriend…and that the whorehouses
he used – with his discount card – didn’t
mean that he did not love her still

he was off to see her right then and there,
in the dead of the night, lifting the dead weight
of his soul and slugging it up the hill.

all of this was breaking news – the knife,
the prostitutes, the 50% off…

and I figured it best to do what his ambitions
were doing at that time: Play dead

a tense moment passed and then the front door
of the flat slammed. And that was that

ride out the term – and probably the rest of the year,
make mention, now and
then, of this weird, awful chap. Move on

and figure he had too.

Well, the knife was back on several throats just recently,
jobs gone – the CEO now paid to be the
slasher he’d one-time threatened.

You wouldn’t read about it.

(Well, you’re not going to be able to).

Archive

March 31, 2020 by Simon Sweetman

Poem: All Hail

Sure, I could
point to almost any
other Prince album
before it and a few after it
as being “better” – but the
sentimental favourite
will always be Prince’s soundtrack
to Batman; not the actual score and
basically the soundtrack
to the movie of Batman that was playing
in Prince’s head. Prince the star. Of course.
It’s actually one of his best albums-as-snapshot.
It’s concise, it’s song-based, it showcases
pop, funk, ballads – there’s just enough
indulgence and weirdness to remind you
it’s Prince and not just somebody
trying to be Prince. And more than just about
any other record in my collection this one
anchors me to a time and place.

I remember going to see the film
for a second time, in Napier. My parents
picked me up afterwards. Me and
a friend. Not quite teenagers. We made
them put the Prince soundtrack tape
in the car for the drive back.

Bungy-jumping had just made it
to Hawke’s Bay so we had to
take a detour. I remember
the car stereo
was pumping Electric Chair.
And we made it to the carpark of
Countdown where, for $25, you could
bungy-jump from a crane over the
shingle carpark. No scenery – but there was
a double air-bed mattress ready to save
any Partymen and/or Partywomen. We watched
one Partywoman rip her black t-shirt off and go down
in her off-white bra. She looked as filthy
as her bra (the perpetual reason for its off-white-ness). She poked
her tongue out and shrieked. She made the sign of
the horns with her hands. Her hair: the stuff you hate to have to
fish out of a communal plug-hole. She is framed for all time, in a
slow-motion fug of her own cigarette smoke. The car stereo playing
The Arms of Orion.

She was in that instant beautiful.

Worth thinking about the next time
we shuffled the deck of Batman bubblegum cards.

The heat rising
up off the tarmac and
bubbling away at the corners of
the photograph in my mind.

Hawke’s Bay
you rotten egg. You
beautiful, mad, bad thing.

Archive

March 30, 2020 by Simon Sweetman

Poem: The World Is Turnin’/I Hope Neil Young Don’t Turn Away

Neil Young said that
just because his problems
were meaningless
that didn’t make
them go away.

He’s said a lot of
things but he’s seldom
been better than when
he said that, when he
wrote and recorded

On The Beach, in a deep
funk, in a sad state, in a
depressed rage – his
friends were dying,
taking many of the
hippie ideals with them

or at least proving them
wrong. I listen to On The
Beach and I cannot imagine
anyone else making that
record. It has everything that
is special about Neil Young
in there – and I’m not

saying it’s absolutely
his best because there are other
Neil Young albums that only
he could have made – After
The Gold Rush, Trans and
Ragged Glory feel like an
obvious few to add to the
list.

Okay, you know what, I am
saying On The Beach is
the best. The greatest thing
he did.

Just don’t tell Tonight’s
The Night
I said that.

Archive

March 29, 2020 by Simon Sweetman

Shit That’s Good! Crap Albums I Love # 24 – Eric Clapton, “Behind The Sun”

Eric Clapton, Behind The Sun, 1985

When The Cream of Eric Clapton was released on vinyl in 1987 it was one of the records that bonded my family. Mum and dad knew Eric Clapton from his 70s solo triumphs and the early bands where he’d earned his God-like reputation. They were fans. And though CDs were creeping into the world we were still a family of record buyers and the weekly LP that my mum would buy was always an education. Read More »

Archive

March 29, 2020 by Simon Sweetman

Poem: Collective Agreement

all our
dreams are on
hold

so take a deep
breath

and be grateful
and maybe even consider
it sneaking
in a wee dream

that for us – and
for now – we can
still do that

Archive

March 26, 2020 by Simon Sweetman

Poem: The real pandemic…….( The real pandemic…….)

The real pandemic…….is that 200,000 jobs will be lost and they’re all musicians. Singer/songwriters will no longer roam the land, their music providing food for the
soul and bread for their table (and ours).

The real pandemic…….is ‘going live’ on Facebook. New streaming gigs of at-home performances. You can chuck in some coins if you like – they deserve it. They’ve suffered
for their art. And now it’s your turn! They’ve found your hiding place. (We’re all hiding
online).

The real pandemic…….is that Amanda Palmer is possibly still locked down right here
in New Zealand. And no one is able to check? (Don’t go on Twitter!)

The real pandemic…….is that my routine hasn’t changed. I’m still here hitting and hoping
and sending things out to the world – even as it’s shrinking. (I used to be able to escape my
screens by going anywhere else. Now I can’t escape myself).

The real pandemic…….is that when this ends – if it ends, if we get back to where we once belonged, we’ll be right back at each other’s throats – we’ll all have it worse than anyone else; we’ll all be in the same boat, but we’ll have a different sized bucket. (The real privilege is even having a bucket).

The real pandemic…….is people talking about how much they need to be drinking just to cope. (And then not coping).

The real pandemic…….is that we’re still pushing our avatars down the throats of anyone listening or watching (and we’re all listening and watching).

The real pandemic…….will be the novels and poems and songs (and then films) to come. (And then come. And then come. And then come. And then come. And then come. And then come all at once. And again. And again. And then come. And then come. Some more. And some more. And still more. And then come once again. And once more).

The real pandemic…….is not learning a thing. Doomed to repeat. And repeat and repeat. Doomed to repeat. And repeat (and repeat).

The real pandemic…….
The real pandemic…….
The real pandemic…….
The real pandemic…….
The real pandemic…….
The real pandemic…….
The real pandemic…….
The real pandemic…….
The real pandemic…….
(The real pandemic…….)

Archive

March 26, 2020 by Simon Sweetman

Shit That’s Good! Crap Albums I Love # 23 – The Grateful Dead, “Shakedown Street”

The Grateful Dead, Shakedown Street, 1978

Maybe every single album by The Grateful Dead could be on this list – they really did make some fucking stinkers eh? But I kinda love most of the ones that people say are shit. Though I can’t say I’ve heard every Grateful Dead album, I haven’t even heard every studio album – much less the loads of boxed-set reissues and bootlegged live recordings. But if anything it’s the studio albums that showcase the “shit” – it’s where polish was applied. And you can’t polish a turd. It didn’t stop these stoned buffoons from trying… Read More »

Archive

March 26, 2020 by Simon Sweetman

Poem: This Is Not A Poem About COVID-19 It’s Actually About How We’ve Been Forced To Take A Month Or So Off Being Cunts To Each Other – But We’ll Start Again When The Virus Stops I Reckon.

We have all been
asking each other
how we’re doing
and saying hi
in the street.

When a virus infected
your computer
it stopped you from
communicating online,
slowed you right down, and
made you suspicious – of
your own behavior and anyone
else’s too (URL).

Now that a virus is taunting
your town and the world (IRL)
is in lockdown you
become a nicer person,
at least as you wave to
strangers like sudden
window-shoppers

all bound by the same
rules and so all of a
sudden – because
we were all sure that
we weren’t before.
And would never
have stopped
to ask.