All big gestures and images
And not real at all

Hopeless as in romantic
Or my eyesight
I need glasses
Thanks for caring
I’m so shallow
I need a deep breath
Not more deep thoughts

Dear PHG,

can you please be on the train today. I’m having a shit day and it would turn it all around. A pretty face to make my day. Yours.

I wish I could somehow, by some divine intervention, have a drink with you. Like the world was folded like a greeting card and we all slid into the middle, and in that middle was a pub, and I had money in my pocket to buy you a drink. And I would have you alone enough to say something sweet, that you might remember when other boys come and talk to you when I go to the bar or the toilet. And that when I came back you would cold shoulder that stupid fucking jock and his rugby shirt. We can go straight past impressing, and go straight to the good part of getting to know eachother. And I can make you feel like the world is just you and me, for my sake more than yours, and I can hear your stories told with sound effects and hand gestures. The haircut you had as a kid, the friends you left up north, every costume you’ve worn in the story of your life. And I can rest my fucked up head on my arm and look at your face from a new angle and wonder how it remains so good. Just get me out of my one for one night. And somehow, maybe the jock returns, or it gets too crowded, and we can go, anywhere. Money for a taxi, or even a train or a plane. And no one knows where the fuck we are. Our mobiles are off. And we remember how great it is to meet a new person, with a new voice, a new smile, new skin, new stories, leaving new footprints on old dirt on King St. We can go get a pie at Shakespeare’s if you’re hungry. And that strange dude who works behind the counter there on the late shift, the only weirdo they could find to do it I imagine, would look at you, and look at me, and not compute why I lucked out. And I’ll just give a loose smile and shrug, the way men and boys do to eachother, to say, who knows what the hell these softer, warmer half of the human race thinks, I’m just going with it, ya know? And then who knows. One night spent right could lasts for years. But it’s not going to happen and I think I’m just gonna crawl into bed and hope when I wake up on a world other than the one I’ve been visiting lately.

I love you
Breaking-down Bill

At best we we’re running in a race
Days are only circles in space
Do we wait for fate to intervene?

The concrete sings with Paul Kelly’s voice

At best we have a hundred years
No one really lives longer than that
Is that enough time for you to know me

Are we really that tough to crack
Like jokes you get when thinking back
But you’ll need to try a little to know me

One day
When we’re rich
We should send
That newsagent in Stocklands
A cheque for like
A thousand dollars
Or something.

But it doesn’t mean we’re sorry.
We are Australian.

Fender acoustic with the electric neck
Seventies tele that’s too heavy
Rickenbacker copy twelve string
Cream coloured thinline with black pick guard
Yellow Japanese Lap Steel, 2001
Full bodied Epiphone acoustic
Aqua and deep red Mustang reissue

What is depression?
And how do you find it?

Is it fear?

Is it crossing the street to avoid people for no reason?
Is it worrying what people may say will upset you?
Is it wondering if you’re doing the wrong thing?
Is it looking back and not being proud?
Is it a close heart and a dishonest mouth?
Is it relief when you get away without giving away?

Is it hate?

Is it wanting to smash a stranger on a steet?
Is it wanting to scream and shout at people in your way?
Is it wanting to crash cars into buildings?
Is it wanting to turn people against others?
Is it wanting the world to spin into the sun?
Is it wanting scorch Earth as you go?

Is it loneliness?

Is it constantlly refreshing your emails?
Is it keeping your phone nearby and in reach?
Is it staying out when you know you shouldn’t?
Is it avoiding going home when you should?
Is it spending money to keep from being bored?
Is it a blank page without colour?

What is depression?
And how do you lose it?

A friend of mine wrote a poem
About his early twenties
And the line that always gets me is
“When I look back on this time
I see myself as being completely out of control”

I feel like it’s slipping out of my fingers too
But it’s not late nights and undiscipline
It’s waking up and going to work
It’s structure with no time
It’s an early adulthood wasted in later adulthood

Could I start again?
With all my possesions
Last count – thousands of CDs
Guitars, pianos and books.
I couldn’t live without my books.
And there’s vinyl
And clothes.

I could lose some but how can I
Throw out that John Reed Club one that Andy gave me
Or that funny one with the Shakespeare quote
“speak low when you speak of love”
That I bought at the Opera House
That I wore when I asked her out in High School
And she said yes

And jackets, the half dozen of them
That people recognise as me more than my face
And the TV, you’ll never find another one
That good for that cheap.
Those DVDs I’ve got from the states.
Couldn’t buy those again
And friends and family.

If it was for something then yes.
For a job, or for a girl.
Or maybe just go
Like that picture of Billy Bragg
at a train station somewhere
With a backpack, guitar
And sitting on a little amp
Because it’s Billy Bragg after all

Maybe I’ve dug myself in and I didn’t notice
My world shrunk but I shrunk with it
I’ve got all my homewares and entertainment
A steady income, a series of actvities
All the mod cons and signs of consumption
I’m young, successful, living well
And I see myself as being completely out of control