Rifle 8

copyleft 2009 david_merritt

landroverfarmpress po box 243 whanganui new zealand

shoot me from a long distance with a high powered sniper rifle if... winter poems

david merritt

copyleft 2009 david_merritt

landroverfarmpress po box 243 whanganui new zealand

shoot me from a long distance with a high powered sniper rifle if... winter poems

david merritt

If I start to become distant and removed from all my roots, cultural, social and economic and then one night find myself totally pissed in the company of sad-arse strangers with whom I have nothing in common and who secretly despise me or ...

If I start driving around in a big stupid V12 Dodge Viper RAM XLRS car, or any car, modern, worth more than $7000 or ...

If I start to become distant and removed from all my roots, cultural, social and economic and then one night find myself totally pissed in the company of sad-arse strangers with whom I have nothing in common and who secretly despise me or ...

If I start driving around in a big stupid V12 Dodge Viper RAM XLRS car, or any car, modern, worth more than $7000 or ...

If I ever appear on breakfast television promoting anything or ...

If I start to use any anti-bacterial products such as soaps, wipes, sprays, liquid gels, air fresheners, bog cleaners, mouthwashes, deodorants, bin liners, toothpastes, toilet papers or ...

If I ever appear on breakfast television promoting anything or ...

If I start to use any anti-bacterial products such as soaps, wipes, sprays, liquid gels, air fresheners, bog cleaners, mouthwashes, deodorants, bin liners, toothpastes, toilet papers or ...

If I find myself casting a long, dark arid shadow over the NZ poetry world, so blocking of light, so opening and closing of gates that nothing else can and will grow in my proximity or ...

I start to believe in the madness, the unsustainableness of the modern consumerist lifestyle and bombarded by wide screen plasma radiation, become completely desensitised by Hollywood fear and violence DVD and the TV eye of hell forensic crime, cooking, dancing and home rennovation program crap, dumbed down, miserable, alone and suburban.

If I find myself casting a long, dark arid shadow over the NZ poetry world, so blocking of light, so opening and closing of gates that nothing else can and will grow in my proximity or ...

I start to believe in the madness, the unsustainableness of the modern consumerist lifestyle and bombarded by wide screen plasma radiation, become completely desensitised by Hollywood fear and violence DVD and the TV eye of hell forensic crime, cooking, dancing and home rennovation program crap, dumbed down, miserable, alone and suburban.

©

copyleft 2009 david_merritt

landroverfarmpress po box 243 whanganui new zealand

©

copyleft 2009 david_merritt

landroverfarmpress po box 243 whanganui new zealand

12 stages

the

of the

microsoft addict a precautionary tale david merritt

12 stages

the

of the

microsoft addict a precautionary tale david merritt

1. I acknowledge that my addiction is unfortunate but not irreversable. 2. I know that my addiction costs my family and work and the Government billions of dollars in software licences and consultancy fees every year, the modern equivalent of setting fire to money while the kids are starving.

1. I acknowledge that my addiction is unfortunate but not irreversable. 2. I know that my addiction costs my family and work and the Government billions of dollars in software licences and consultancy fees every year, the modern equivalent of setting fire to money while the kids are starving.

3. Microsoft is a dinosour stuck in a tarpit of its own doom voraciously eating everything within its reach. Repeat this every lunchtime. 4. Microsoft is the virus and the sooner I realise this the better.

3. Microsoft is a dinosour stuck in a tarpit of its own doom voraciously eating everything within its reach. Repeat this every lunchtime. 4. Microsoft is the virus and the sooner I realise this the better.

5. There exists a whole other non-Microsoft universe of software in the Apple OSX and open source realm. I cannot blindly ignore this any longer. 6. Almost all common Microsoft software can be easily replaced by better, more robust software that negates the need for antispam, antiviral and antimalignancy.

5. There exists a whole other non-Microsoft universe of software in the Apple OSX and open source realm. I cannot blindly ignore this any longer. 6. Almost all common Microsoft software can be easily replaced by better, more robust software that negates the need for antispam, antiviral and antimalignancy.

7. The network is the key. So is the speed of the network. As the network spreads it is bigger nails in the Microsoft coffin. Repeat twice. 8. I need to be a contributer to digital culture and not just a passive consumer.

7. The network is the key. So is the speed of the network. As the network spreads it is bigger nails in the Microsoft coffin. Repeat twice. 8. I need to be a contributer to digital culture and not just a passive consumer.

9. Digital rights protection and copyright issues are a crock of crap and a whole lot worse than many, many other things. 10. There should be a game called Life Without Oil and I should get used to playing it every hour of every day of every week of every year of the rest of my life.

9. Digital rights protection and copyright issues are a crock of crap and a whole lot worse than many, many other things. 10. There should be a game called Life Without Oil and I should get used to playing it every hour of every day of every week of every year of the rest of my life.

11. Open Source software is green and recycles. It is made collectively by really smart, geeky people, often with very pointy heads, from all over the world. 12. My cellphone is already running a version of Linux.

11. Open Source software is green and recycles. It is made collectively by really smart, geeky people, often with very pointy heads, from all over the world. 12. My cellphone is already running a version of Linux.

also by david merritt in overdraft at the bank of human kindness - gung ho 1987 big on old cars - gung ho 1988 which one is the shark? - gung ho 1989 55x5 minute poems - gung ho 1990 hasty notes - frantic scrawl - gung ho 1990 no cup of tea at the railway station - gung ho 1991 good new friend goes swimming - gung ho 1992 Internet - a NZ users guide - Penguin Books - 1995 big book for fourteen letters - one cent press - 2002 the end of the beginning [selected writings - 1986-2003] - gung ho 2004 a mixture of wishes - exit poems - gung-ho 2009 prayers for geeks - kilmog press 2009

I have said before I am looking forward to the longer spring evenings when I can write about more on things, everything

under wraps the game is always for 3 players, eh? - gung ho 2008 gridlocked in grids - one cent press this is the book of chips

and scratch my chin in wonder and wry smile, wry smile, wry smile, even now.

The joys of little things you know. This has been david merritt, environmental poet, signing off, tonight.

landroverfarm press Creek Road Mangamahu Aotearoa Box 243 Whanganui .

©

A cool wind blowing, a bolognaise to feed ten on upstairs, a spring in my step, a shave to look forward to, a fire, the fun machine console, maybe some washing and a custard dessert.

ISBN 0-9583256-0-X

copyleft david merritt 2009

Authors assertion: Including brief passages quoted in newspaper, magazine, radio and television review, all parts of this work may be re-published, re-produced, re-performed, re-distributed or re-transmitted in any form or media and by any other means electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording or any information data or retreival system now known or yet to be invented, without permission in writing from the author, his authorised agent(s) and his hiers.

the language of the geeks the grep and the cat, the kludge, the grok and the ping of death lets hear it for telnet and gopher and veronica and archie, now not mentioned in everyday conversation and secure ssh, socks layers and protocols and ports and pinholes and broken sockets, pgp and .sig, unix talk and whois and cat pipe more ds pipe more the proxy server, abstraction layer, cache configurations and preferences key command sequences terminal shell commands man pages X86 kernel recompiling development fork beta points and usability testing I/O and bios overlay, boot sector and partition table map talk in html, xml and css talk in W3 compliant code. broadcast those thoughts out to the giant interweb.

On learning to speak fantail, to talk fantail and act fantail eeek eek eek I say as they flutter around me I am learning the language and the mannerisms as well as the sound, the territorial boundaries of each one, the learning to live with each other. Its the same fantail that flies around me in the garden every day. I am no threat just as I view the activities of the early birds as no threat to my gardens but more as some form of greater symbiosis of life. And the language of the horse, Joe, the brrrmmmppphhh and the nose snorting and the little sniffs he makes around my hands looking for apples pears dates and sugar cubes. I know now where to scratch behind his ears in order to make his eyes crossover and how to drape an experimental weight over the back. And the language of the dogs, the sly nips of the hands by the fat labrador and secret custard rendevous and the talk of the hunterway who just wants to make small noises in the back of his throat for all to hear.

also by david merritt in overdraft at the bank of human kindness - gung ho 1987 big on old cars - gung ho 1988 which one is the shark? - gung ho 1989 55x5 minute poems - gung ho 1990 hasty notes - frantic scrawl - gung ho 1990 no cup of tea at the railway station - gung ho 1991 good new friend goes swimming - gung ho 1992 Internet - a NZ users guide - Penguin Books - 1995 big book for fourteen letters - one cent press - 2002 the end of the beginning [selected writings - 1986-2003] - gung ho 2004 a mixture of wishes - exit poems - landroverfarm press 2009 prayers for geeks - kilmog press 2009 under wraps the game is always for 3 players, eh? - gung ho 2010 gridlocked in grids - one cent press 2010 this is the book of chips

ISBN 0-9583256-0-X landroverfarm press Creek Road Mangamahu Aotearoa Box 243 Whanganui . copyleft david merritt 2009

©

Authors assertion: Including brief passages quoted in newspaper, magazine, radio and television review, all parts of this work may be re-published, re-produced, re-performed, re-distributed or re-transmitted in any form or media and by any other means electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording or any information data or retreival system now known or yet to be invented, without permission in writing from the author, his authorised agent(s) and his hiers.

whats the rub here? ferry observations

1. The ferry provides a microcosm- of the breakdown of the modern relationship, the demise of the nuclear family, the new and modern ways we have of making, changing, amending the ways of our forebears. 2. I watch in slack-jawed amazement at the forced fits of our new non-nuclear family models, children from previous relationships and marriages blending and trying to fit into one amorphous mass. Its a worry seeing this breakdown and rebuilding process up so close despite the fact that I live with these new constraints on a day by day basis and have done so now for the best part of twenty years. 3. Its the return to the south island thats prompted this rash of thoughtful thinking about the whys and wherefores and how comes of the modern family permutation. With the shiftless young, the maritally disposesed on both sides of the gender equation and the craving deep down for the ideal state of nuclear monogamy that our parents seemed on the surface to be so happy with. 4. Whats the rub here? What has happened in the last fifty years to see the nuclear monogamy model reduced to an empty and hollow sham, a shell hollowed out internally by the machinations of the epoc of capitalism, which has both provided for the nurturing for the family and at the same time in the last five decades served to sow the seeds for its present near extinct and endangered status. 5. Its the lack of focus and concentration, a desire for immediate gratification and a lingering feeling as consumers that everything is always greener everywhere else but in our own backyard.

6. There is a continuing sense of dread to watch these breakdowns, the boys spending the bulk of their childhood without the access to almost any masculine role model, with the struggle of the solo parent and in particular the mother in the scenario, the destruction of the networks of bloodlines that have bound us together in the past for better and for worse, but which still gave us an illusion of family, of place and space - a home to call our own. 7. Witness the current property boom as we try and shoehorn into place the principal capitalist construct of family (sic) home ownership. For every three in five marriages nowadays that end in separations, divorce, acrimony and alimony, it ultimately places a demand upon the property market to find a place where these noveau-dispossesed can call their own. 8. Property has to continue to increase in value due to these demands placed upon it. The modern relationship requires us to live in seperate existances, divorced from community that is increasingly unable to keep the delicate fabric of our dysfunctional society together in one patchwork entity. We are now quickly unravelling at the edges. 9. Boys nowadays are not bought up by fathers, they are educated by devices and devices which are particularly unsuitable for teaching the young anything except the gratuitous, the immediate, the violent, the uncaring, the shocking, the bloodthirsty. 10. Our own personal culture for what it is worth is demeaned, cheapened and continuously eroded by a flood of malformed displacement that spills over constantly into our lives from a heady mix of Hollywood, Disney, Microsoft, fast food outlets, MTV, mp3 players, cellphones and many other instances and examples of the steady diet the young and impressionable are now spoonfed from an early age.

also by david merritt in overdraft at the bank of human kindness - gung ho 1987 big on old cars - gung ho 1988 which one is the shark? - gung ho 1989 55x5 minute poems - gung ho 1990 hasty notes - frantic scrawl - gung ho 1990 no cup of tea at the railway station - gung ho 1991 good new friend goes swimming - gung ho 1992 Internet - a NZ users guide - Penguin Books - 1995 big book for fourteen letters - one cent press - 2002 the end of the beginning [selected writings - 1986-2003] - gung ho 2004 a mixture of wishes - exit poems - landroverfarm press 2009 prayers for geeks - kilmog press 2009 under wraps the game is always for 3 players, eh? - gung ho 2010 gridlocked in grids - one cent press - 2010 this is the book of chips

ISBN 0-9583256-0-X landroverfarm press Creek Road Mangamahu Aotearoa Box 243 Whanganui . copyleft david merritt 2009

©

Authors assertion: Including brief passages quoted in newspaper, magazine, radio and television review, all parts of this work may be re-published, re-produced, re-performed, re-distributed or re-transmitted in any form or media and by any other means electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording or any information data or retreival system now known or yet to be invented, without permission in writing from the author, his authorised agent(s) and his hiers.

matt is a 12 year old

geek

3. He was amazed and startled by the sucessive inflamatory statements that I made to him about computing such:

1. Matthew is a typical 12 year old geek, small wiry with a sense of bubbling enthusiasm which he was finding hard to control. As expected he was very shy at first until he realised that despite our huge age differences I could speak his language. He talked in short sharp bursts, often in acrynoms, like a hyperactive two-legged cellphone txt message.

Like he was a 12 year old microsoft addict. that computers could be used to make stuff, music, videos, writing etc. and not just be a platform for the playing of games. that san andreas III was an R18 game and he shouldn’t play it that there was no library in any of the games he was playing. that 12 year old boys drive the computer industry that he was the living, physical embodyment of moores law that microsoft is the virus and the sooner he realised that the better.

2. His mother had no idea that her son was operating on a permanent software and hardware fuelled high consisting of playstations one and two, Xboxes, laptops and XP professional. He wanted World of Warcraft. He played Halo 2 and Runescape. He asked me about shareware and freeware. He said he had a virus on his laptop because it made a funny noise all the time. He was wondering about the Vodaphone broadband offer and if I was using XBox live.

4. I drew some charts and flow diagrams and tossed in some words for him to google or wikipedia later at his leisure. I gave him a 64bit Linux install that I was sure wouldn’t work on his computer and showed him the wall of gaming consoles, dating from over 25 years ago, we keep stored and hidden out the back. I showed him an early transistor the size of my little finger and then a CPU from a later P3 computer that had millions of transistors packed onto razorthin slivers of silica.

5. I watched his jaw go slack as he did the maths and saw a historical overview of the Intel, AMD and Mac G series of processors from the first 286 built by IBM in 1984. His eyes spun when I explained the crucial differences between cathedral copyright and bazaar copyleft software and how historically the unix operating system arched over the entire decades of the seventies, eighties, nineties and now half a decade into the new millenium, spawns forth into OSX and Linux ready and waiting for whatever savvy desktop user may exist.. 6. Matthew must be one of tens of thousands of kids just like him all over the world produced from the same cookie-cutter of video games and high tech hype for the last 25 years that kids have been exposed to such things. I thought that he was just so representative of his type, over active and overly sensitive to the worldwide pulse of technology. 7. I told him that I only play rally-driving car games and intergalactic shoot-em ups and couldn’t say anything good about any other games - especially those which were pitched at a more violent, mature audience.

8. There is no library in San Andreas2 I tell him, nowhere where you can go and learn how to make goats milk cheese and synthesise soy protein into tofu. 9. Now whats the good of spending hours driving around the hood in a stolen car, best Ho by your side, shooting at the various homeboys until a tank or a helicopter or both appeared, forcing you to steal a Hummer and flee to a saved game point. Now you tell me how thats going to help Matthew out in later life when he’s still undergoing trauma counselling bought about by unfettered exposure to video nastiness at such an impressionable age. 10. Matthew might know a lot about computers and technology. In fact he knows more about them than his mother and his teacher at school combined, enough to run rings around the hapless parent on an endless upgrade treadmill of better connectivity, service packs, faster video cards, processors, memory, DVD burners and all the rest of that. More to follow.

copyleft 2009 david_merritt

landroverfarm press po box 243 whanganui new zealand

Up through the gears go the middle classes

no tradesman nazi in a ute ever stops for hitch hikers. the new neavoux, they have the money and the arrogance nowadays to forget their roots. Its one thing not to expect a lift from the scared middle classes or the elderly peering over their steering wheel, but its the climate of fear that gets me, everybody is afraid, afraid of each other, afraid of getting left behind, of having less gadets and widgets than their neighbours. its a funny old world and it takes something as small and grounding as hitchhiking to realiase just how sad and fearful and insular a nation we have become. its the startled look of fear and apprehension that fills their faces - the jew-

ish tourist up the road has the best chance of both of us so I let him go first, visitors first please I say, his preesence vaugely troubling, a zionist on the side of the road in nelson, raphelite curls but one year basic miilitary training under his belt and a desire to flee dodge city and get the fuck as far as possible away from the threat of palestine rockets and mortors and suicide bombers. not all jews are zionists but all zionists are jews. and there is that old trueism that no new car ever picks you up, no prado or pagero or big horn - nothing that the scared middle classes cowering behind their inexerably upwards house

values - its all that life means for them none will make eye contact. some are openly derisive and derrogatory. no ute and no SUV will pick that hitch hiker up - nothing towing a trailor or a boat, nothing with a body kit or a spoiler or a whaletail, nothing with some teenage horror sitting in the passenger seat telling her boyfriend what to do - who grows up into scared and nasty middle class old trout still telling driver husband what to do. nobody has the spark of youth anymore this property boom has been too serious and too life changing, rags to riches stories abound, people fortunate to own at the trough and fortunate to sell at the peak - make a bundle - heard the story a million times now

of chance get rich schemers up through the gears quickly go the middle classes - gotta get to top speed as fast as possible nothing with mags stops either. and there is an inverse proportional ratio that says the bigger and more empty the car the less chance it has of stopping for you, like the higher the decile of the car owners. So the poor arn’t making car journeys any more - only the middle classes and the rich - so what chances have the humble hitchhikers got to be picked up now - up through the gears goes the middle classes. into top speed as fast as possible, always focussed on the destination and not the journey people are scared of each other now

in this country they are scared of the differences between socio economic classes, nobody is talking civil war but many are now thinking that its a historical inevitabliity, sometimes the tradesmen tease - they slow down and look like they are going to pull over - and then honk honk and the fingers and a yell -out the window by the passenger and a bottle tossed at you if you’re unlucky under the cover of darkness. Nothing like throwing bottles at hitchhikers. nothing like being a redneck bastard in a small provincial town where your views go largely untroubled from cradle to grave - nothing to shake your stupid complacency and narrow minded ignorance. the poor people armed with weapons, looting

and food rioting will shake them, if the middle classes don’t actively participate anyway.what with the prices of petrol, the number of tourists (who never stop for other tourists - its a reverse kinda snobbery) I also have another theory - the fatter and more obese the drivers and passengers are the more unlikely they are to stop so obese people in new SUV’s means not a show. a solo woman driving by herself, a nuclear family group, a mum and dad or young couple, a boyracer and his girlfriend, no truckie, no tradesman, nobody towing a trailer, no tourists, nothing with ski-racks on or those stupid coffin things on the roof that wreck what little aerodynamic stability your SUV had in the first place.

Morning tea poem #3 When you look up a group of campus Christians, Asians and young people has formed off to your right. When you look up a woman is alone, strong, wiping a tear, being sad, suddenly. When you look up the rope head across the road will jump a bench seat, successfully high-five his friends as his skateboard skids away. It is Friday, early December, a morning cold as an autumn in Dunedin, you are smoking but vigilant, alert and watchful. This is the first poem that you have written in three years and suddenly your own life seems significant once more.

A small list of humble wishes between a man and a woman 1. that we share the same shallow breaths of sleep, warm in the dark 2. if we wake up we are not afraid or annoyed by the snoring of the dog 3. lying between friendship and love, we hear the sound of a gentle rain on the tin roof

this is a time of mess #12

Big band jazz night / home All alone, teens on beach rampage, just me and the detroit dog. She is the hottest property in the corner closest to the fire, a heat hog, the best seat in the house dog, warm sulpherated, resting, sleepy, not like me, haha.

usual male bravado, misplaced tragic consequences we are all alone, alive and cast. I drink more, smoke less, it speaks jukebox to me in a corner the toss of the hair. the cars the cars the cars I guess we are just bad luck allow me the simplest of pleasures to watch unobserved the shape of cheeks, jaws, chin. a sliver of attachment those who stare off in distance they are remote, truncated the dead eye, the glad eye its a saturday night cast about, its a sly hook for now I am shy, rumpled.

this is a time of mess #27 There is nothing like a week inert and hurting, full of wonder and misplaced emotion, where you are fearful to tred, unsure and uncertain. you are afraid of your own life and how it stretches out before you for decades yet. this is a time of mess #15

You take the time to enjoy sunsets and dawns, soft drizzle rain and thunderstorms

When I smile it stretches from me to you to here its a waltz of grief, grizzled, object I want to think that you are under the spell of the smell of my pheramones I listen, I watch, I look to be writing again

you have been living in your car and have spent the day tidying, sorting and sifting the detrius of the life so far which puts you into a mood of mild melancholy bordering on thoughtfulness and introspection.

yep this is under control I forgot the interaction of strangers openly stalking the last cigarette from its case I make eye contact with strangers i smile across the room I notice the swell of breasts the rounding of stomach. I close my eyes and try to think of voices. I open my eyes to watch the toss and curl of your hair on the nape of the neck. I am happy with this careless exhileration. seamless.

days are passing here, the weeks of your life. already you feel a fixture, posited in a time and space you realise that you are writing without predictive text after a while the current sun will set and darkness falls it is early in late march, you are in your forty-eigth year you weigh the cons and plusses, adjust a mental balance sheet to see in which direction it balances towards. You are neither sad nor happy, you are alone as always and draw some small comfort from that seemingly constant fact.

Lonely man / dinner / stood up (i) I was proud of the inventory of our first dinner, penne, parmesan, basil, clean shave/ aftershave/ incense/ citronella candle/ full fruit bowl. milk and sugar / cream and coffee acquired, vacumn cleaner applied toilet bowl clean dishes done, dog bathed, feet soaked, nails trimmed. (ii) by six water on the boil by seven sitting outside in gentle rain, thoughtful, waiting by eight concerned, abject, remorseful, sad by nine over-caffientated and down to last three cigarettes (iii) by ten, thinking through it all, I accept the inescapable thought that I have been stood up and that between saturday and tuesday night the interveening hours have taken their toll, other things have dislodged our date in time and space and our dinner together has become a non-event (iv) by eleven I eat alone, savouring all the special trouble I went to, mentally pricing the ham, the salami, the flash stuffed olives and how I’d have to live on this food for the rest of the week, mixed in with rice and weetbix and porridge.

(v) Dessert was a nutmeg and cinnamon apple pie with jaffas and bananas coated in coconut threads and that was my first salad dressing in over three years - easy - balsamic, virgin olive oil, lemon juice, salt, pepper and sugar - it was beautiful on the lettuce, capsicum and salami salad. (vi) I cooked no heavy old bastard male stodge of meat/ mince/ gravy beef/ chops/ but kept it light, nutritious, the pasta was el dente, everything mixed and tossed to perfection (vii) Look; an ear infection, a yeast infection, a wrong phone number, a name, a sunday walk in the park, a bad day at work on monday, several good coffees or a couple of spirulina, a violent sneezing fit, a lost wallet, an annoying tailgating wanker in a subaru. (viii) Any or all of these things could have tipped our dinner appointment from being something firm and tangible, life affirming with lots of laughter into yet another night of lonely, bleak introspection.

Mother’s salient info #147 One night a toast is proposed and everyone will click glasses together but moments later you realise that during the whole ritual there was no eye contact which is something that kiwi men hardly ever do even when the make they make the beast with two heads, two backs and eight limbs but lets not call it lovemaking or sex or fornication or fucking or even the horizontal polish folk dance. No. Instead lets call it by the worst, most callous name imaginable, degrade sex of any emotional meaning and call it bonking, for christsake, like immature adolescents tasting the sound of a lewd word spoken out loud for the first time and then, we all laugh nervously together because it makes us both secure and uncomfortable and comfortable and insecure at the same time. Enough. I will not willingly play with this emotional age group ever again. Enough. Enough. Enough.

Brand They put holes through their noses, earlobes, lips, tounges and belly buttons, they are wearing blue, black bands of disfigurement upon their arms and ugly expensive sunglasses. I guess they are young and are asserting their identities in their own hard post-modernist kind of way. Some make loud pronouncements and quickly look around to see who has noticed, one talks all the time but he’s the dork of the group, shunned, he is just another fool holding a smart drink in his hand. But frankly I am not noticing this because my first coffee and morning cigarette are reaching a critical mass where both are needing my immediate attention.

The optimist in me surveys a pile of stuff Packing is this process, the shuffle of things from one space to another, its an enclosure of life, an introspection, as boxes of books and papers and pictures pass before you in a procession of sad and stupid moments from your past bought to the surface pictures, lost sisters, lovers, friends, small random pieces of yourself, the 36 banana box whole that constitutes your life up to and including this exact point, a couple of working computers, a favourite typewriter, finding shit, stuff, gold, flotsam, jetsam, the amazing co-incidences and tantalising fragments, ready for fame and death and obscurity and success and failure and plans and schemes, this and that stuff, it’s all here - whats not been burnt or tossed, lost, taken to dumps in the trailer load by malignant ex-wifes, flat mates and landlords - so what are you doing - taking stock at times as you pack. other times are moments of pure blind panic shoveling as you close your eyes and say to yourself ‘I will deal with this particular bit of past-life heartbreak another time’. You revel in small joys. unearthing the bad also exhumes the good, as some kind of sunlight-driven breath blows life as lovers from ten years ago take shape and ideas, scrawled twenty-five years ago, germinate and feel right again. So into this curious new light I go, fore-warned as always, ready for anything, pencil behind-my-ear-attitude. so there. I have amends to make, things to do, places to be. Stuff to write. Today. Today. Today.

coincidences The newboyfriend arrives in your life about the same time as you take the big Alsatian back to his original owner. It’s a significant swapage. Both weigh about the same, both sit in the same seat in the car and both have the privilege of sharing their evenings and big chunks of their life with you. Both get to go on walks and both can be subject to tender administrations for any small foibles like skin eruptions, bleeding wounds, hair loss. Both can be made to bathe when they become smelly. Both can be told what to do. Both can be trained to do what you want. Both can be kept either on a short leash or can be let off the chain. Both are your companions and now both have the honor, dubious or not, of being your bestfriends. Nice analogy, eh?

ill wishlist #225 I hope he smokes with scant regards for others. I hope his breath smells of beer and ashtray and slime. forgetful poets are their own creative autobiographers. And most importantly, they have the license to make sense of things, to use these feelings for themselves. It’s better than mourning, doing nothing and I do feel better already. Cheers.

I hope he still lies about on a tattered single bed, watching a small black and white telly, perpetually switched to the racing channel, being inspirational. I hope he gets pissed every night. I hope he has a small intellect, a tiny vocabulary and a stupid penis he uses as a battering ram.

the Databug Lord the databug must be the size of a cigarette packet or smaller.

Just a quick burst He must be an intellectual collosus and he must have a phallus like a god fit to worship at your temple. He must possess the strength of a hundred men and the emotional fortitude of Ulysses. He is Homer on the saturday afternoon quest to the pokie parlour or the TAB or to the supermarket to get some greenmilk or tofu or your golden fleece. He must have the patience of Moses and the home making skills of Betty Crocker crossed with a no-expenses spared vegetarian. He must possess a car so that you can be driven around and for you to slowly fill with your rubbish.

It must employ the latest autosensing chameleon cloaking technology to render it virtually invisible as it climbs up the sides of skyscrapers or hovers just outside. It must be able to scan all frequencies of sound siluntaneously, It must be able to capture all forms and formats of data, suck it from all digital devices within its 500 metre range such as; cellphones, computers, printers, fax machines, photocopiers, microwaves, TV’s, CD, MP3 and DVD players,cameras, routers and firewalls. It must be able to store all data to memory or seamlessly stream it to your waiting laptop up to 8kms away at terrabyte transmission rates, where sophisticated software will create a real-time data map of digital information awaiting further investigation. Cheers Lord.

the smell of the well-off outside the cafe downwind I take advantage of the southerly to appreciatively smell the perfumes of middle class woman walking past on their way from the hairdresser and beauty saloon

Sweet dreams Your car leaves during pre-dawn darkness. It must be a cold drive home at that time, frosty, crescent moon hanging low in the sky. Maybe you’re tired after all that cunnilingus and just want to crawl, liquid and languid into your own cold bed. Post-coital sleep comes to you easily. You have sweet dreams. Nice.

the scent is cloying and familiar I once lived within its olfactory reach on a 24 hour basis, not vicarious from a distance like this but in deep, up to my neck with high maintence issues like winelists mains and dessert menus, shoe selections, accessories, jewelry and car leasing agreements and dinner parties. glad to be out of that, finally and with no sign of a resurgance in any shape or form.

prayers for geeks number nine or lord please make the digial swiss army knife with a; 2 terrabyte usb flash memory and a wiki tarball of everything an lcd video projector and gigabyte wireless ethernet cb and sw and fm and am radio cellular phone and paging mp3 player, digistll and video camera microscope and a telescope with a connection to the hubble, and a microwave for cooking food. a dictaphone and a microphone and an answerphone, swipecard and magnetic strip and barcode reader, g.p.s. and emergency locator beacon, universal t.v. slash car alarm slash door opener remote, torch and mirror and cigarette lighter and can and bottle operner, a toothpick a laser pointer and a plasma cutter. and lord this device is no bigger than an iphone, there are no cables on this device and lord may its black gunmetal titanium case be both solar powered and leech its electricity out of the static charged cosmos fog

and lord may it seek its own video device nearly or use a h.u.d. to a cool pair of geek glasses which gives me as much or as little digiglitch info as i need. and lord may i type and play a keyboard on a pressure sensitive hologram as well as speak to tell it what to do, and lord this device should be an electronic encrypted wallet, emulate every sytnthesiser, game console and computer and o.s. ever, be an interweb and realtime streaming metadata server, an alarm clock and barometer, a kickarse drum machine and 64 track recording and playback studio. and lord it must suck data from everywhere around it like a vaccum cleaner and it should open every filetype known to computing, ever and lord this device must last at least 35 years, always be updated for free and working always as perfectly as the day it was first made. cheers lord.

I just have to laugh... because of the little things that make you realise that you are not dead and rotting but alive and kicking and typing as you watch your breath condense in the cold night air. Cool.

romance / wet blade shave Shaving is like an extra three hours of sleep, applied by cold water, foam and razor blade, looking in the mirror, you take stock of the fact that your eyes, bloodshot from no rest still resemble road maps of europe.

I’ve been watching mass produced pullets, caged reared, learning HOW TO BE HENS and not battery chooks, spooked its as if sunlight is a powerful force never before experienced, it makes them stop all activity and they spread eagle wings and stretch and fan and prostrate all in one kind of graceful movement first experience of rain, cold wind. eating grass, scratching, pecking. sleeping on roosts instead of the sloping wire cages. silence, space, room to stretch wings room to run and room to try and fly or glide. room to be spooked by the dog, friendly labradouring and slobber room to nestle, fluff about. room to drink their fill, room to meet pine needles and get to know them. room for roads and gravel and earth banks, thistles, weeds, clay, clumps, insects, bugs, snails and worms

also by david merritt in overdraft at the bank of human kindness - gung ho 1987 big on old cars - gung ho 1988 which one is the shark? - gung ho 1989 55x5 minute poems - gung ho 1990 hasty notes - frantic scrawl - gung ho 1990 no cup of tea at the railway station - gung ho 1991 good new friend goes swimming - gung ho 1992 Internet - a NZ users guide - Penguin Books - 1995 big book for fourteen letters - one cent press - 2002 the end of the beginning [selected writings - 1986-2003] - gung ho 2004 a mixture of wishes - exit poems - landroverfarm press 2009 prayers for geeks - kilmog press 2009 gridlocked in grids - one cent press 2010 this is the book of chips

ISBN 978-0-9582952-0-8 landroverfarm press Creek Road Mangamahu Aotearoa Box 243 Whanganui .

copyleft david merritt 2009

©

Authors assertion: Including brief passages quoted in newspaper, magazine, radio and television review, all parts of this work may be re-published, re-produced, re-performed, re-distributed or re-transmitted in any form or media and by any other means electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording or any information data or retreival system now known or yet to be invented, without permission in writing from the author, his authorised agent(s) and his hiers.

the game is always for three players david merritt

Fiveminutesofpeace it’s been a good game but... it’s a game which ends when a player can’t take it any more. And the game always ends in sorrow for one player and relief for the other or maybe a combination of both feelings. Cha!

I like the way it’s going for me. Mozart. Solitude. Fire. Poems flowing. Sun warm. Waterproof. I am at peace for five minutes. Until I close my eyes and I see you and him, walking an imaginary dog down an imaginary beach into an imaginary endless sunset, over and over and over again everyday at dusk for the rest of your jolly, happy, satisfied lives, eh?

Content in a tent, haha Tonight I’ve decided that I have no time to waste. I’m waiting for the sound of the rain to provide soothing static to fall asleep by. And not close your eyes and know you are fiftymetres away and I am in a tent, alone and no worse off for it.

Fleeting shadows Did you know that I stand outside my place late at night, thoughtful and smoking. I am watching the fluro patch of light just across the road there for your fleeting shadow. Did you know that’s when I can’t sleep? I just have to close my eyes and there you are, fleeting, moniochromatic in the shadows. Nice.

it’s over, again and again and again... The game is over when one of the parties refuses to play and the game is over when one of the parties declines coffee three times and the game is over when one of the players is injured emotionally and has to be carried off by his former lover for rest and recreation. The game is over when one of the players realises that the opposition plays dirty. The game is over when you move your carpark across the road. And the game is not yet over obviously. It’s just that the oranges have run out after our many half-time breaks.

Enough, game over #44 The game for two players ends when one player calls out foul play and clearly says the words ‘enough’ five times.

Team talk At half-time you have have a huddle with yourself. Currently it is the closest thing to intimacy in your life. I’ve got to get on top of the other player, you tell yourself. I have to gain parity in the tight and then swing it out wide. After the game your old friend never joins you in the showers. Instead she has parked her car just across the road in her own half of the playing field, where it will park night after night after night. You slowly realise that she is fiftymetres away, driving you mad with love and sorrow and sadness and hope all rolled into one.

Send in the clowns The game ends when one player acknowledges that he or she has a broken heart. No medical assistance is present at the game and you are stretchered off in the 18th month, your playing career with this person looks to be over for this season at least.

Time up on the clock The game ends when one player runs out of puff, steam and space out wide. The game ends with a blind side move that leaves you gasping at its sheer cruelty. You wear sprig marks on your heart for years. (sameasiteverwas sameasiteverwas)

relationship round table The game ends when one player realises that the goal posts keep shifting and the game ends when one player realises the playing field is uneven, tilted, lumpy and the game ends when the playing field becomes a quagmire, a bog, treacherous conditions, slippery underfoot

you played a good game but... injury time The game ends when one player is nursing an old heartache, it flares up early in the first half and you are constantly troubled by it eventually the game ends and the heart heals, leaving a permanent scar in the places where trust, cherish and care once resided. Nice.

the game ends when one player signals exhaustion or player burnout or despair or madness or sadness or all of these things. The game ends when one player realises that the game is no longer pleasant or fun. The game ends when one or more player realises that playing the game is the equivalent of a full-time eight hour dayshift of agonising ambiguity. Cha!

Working title #15 The game ends when the laughter ceases to exist and the game ends when there is no joy or love left for the game. the game ends when you loose heart to continue for another minute the game ends when the game ends. Full stop.

Collateral damage The game ends when innocent spectators are hurt. The game ends when the pitch gets invaded by your new friends substituted off the bench. They are impact players,

the game is starting to end... Game over #34 The game is over when you realise that the rules are constantly changing and the game ends when one person refuses to play any more, even in a friendly match.

when you run out of ideas, new game plans and set moves from the base of the scrum. The game ends with a broken heart, just fiftymetres across the road, typing sixteen exhilerating hours a day.

More game analogy #443 Game over when one of the players realises that the game hurts, that it has brutal forward movements, a shut down back line and a lack of gameplan as the game wears on. You try another gameplan but the rules have changed, your old gameplan didn’t work and now the new one won’t and all future gameplans forever will be useless.

Game over #63 The game for three players ends when one player realises that they have been paying for the game all the time and have now permanently run out of twenties.