Totoro sunset

A still from the movie Tonari no Totoro by Hayao Miyazaki.
For Cat.

In the Places Where We Stood

In the places where we stood,

buildings fell down and grew again.

Cars collided and buses were occasionally late.

Flowers stood up to say something, some changed their minds and became trees instead.

In the places where we stood intersections intersected with organized religion.

Nuns peppered the pedestarian crossings like devout ducklings.

Traffic lights stood quietly, and witnessed our failings on a daily basis, turning red with shame only occasionally.

How could I not notice you that day? Wearing your choose death t-shirt and glitter purple nail polish, fingers and toes.

The beach emptied its thoughts upon us because the ocean was seeing a counsellor.

Afterwards I combed the neuroses out of your hair, while you licked the salt of my shoulder.

We didn’t know what shape we were, when all our boundaries left.

So we filled our pockets with sitcoms until even the lint had to laugh.

In the gully between the back fence and the football oval, you showed me your Alan Alda and funny grew a thick skin of sarcasm.

Your parents chose beta, mine chose VHS. Clearly fate was against us from the start.

The potential for true love lay at the bottom of every empty Cinzano Bottle.

Oh my sweet jitterbug, this was not what George Michael had in mind.

Our heroes never made sense together.

The Human League vs the Victorian Football League.

Boy George vs Bernie Quinlan.

When Martin Scorsese directed a Michael Jackson video you proclaimed cinema is dead.

A relationship seemed impossible but so did Steve Guttenberg being famous.

One kiss under Echo & the Bunnymen’s killing moon and pop music became prophecy.

Your eyes were as blue as the smurfs we stole from BP petrol stations.

We caught trains to city nightclubs, I pretended to fall asleep on your shoulder on the long rides home.

I love you was whispered only once, under the cover of dry ice, eyeliner and a dodgy Dire Straits DJ . We pretended it never happened.

In the places where we once stood are velvet ropes now.

Our DNA is a tourist attraction.

Archeologists want to date us.

Scientists want to take us out for dinner.

Anthropologists pose as pizza delivery drivers, just to get a quick glimpse through the door.

In a luck filled future, loss is highly collectible and a valuable jewel in any trophy cabinet.

And in the places where once we stood,

nobody knew how to lose,

like we did.

My True Teen Confessions

I have a gig this Sunday, Aug 14th as part of The Age Melbourne Writer's festival Umbrella events program. True Teen Confessions is the name of the gig and is the theme for the event. Each of the writers have been asked to supply a teenage photo of themselves to be displayed on the evening. So if you'd like to see a pretty daggy photo of myself as a teenager then please come along. Joining me will be the great talents of Adam Ford, Richard Watts, Amy Rhodes and more! See flyer for more details. Hope to see you there. 5-7pm. 303 High St, Northcote.

Trophy Wives Defeated!

Well, sad to say but The Trophy Wives went down at the Word Wrestling Victorian Heat by a heartbreaking margin of just 0.2 of a point! The winners of the evening were the Legends of the Overfiends (Steve Smart, Meg Dunn, Paul and Lish Skec.) It was a tight competition and fear not, I don't think this is the last you'll hear of The Trophy Wives. Here's a pic of me and my beloved team mates in action on the night. Left to right: Paul Mitchell, Sean Whelan, alicia sometimes and Emilie Zoey Baker.