Wonderful Horrible Life

It’s been a wild ride.

1/12/2019

My wonderful horrible life

Has been blessed and cursed

All at once

The life less ordinary

Has shown me every kindness

And every possible hardship

Sometimes I wished it would end

And sometimes I wished it would never end

As wild and painful as it’s been

I wouldn’t trade it for the world

I wouldn’t want to be

Anyone else

I confess no regrets as I progress

Because everything has led

To this very moment

Where things are getting better

Each and every day

And I don’t know how high

This soul of mine will soar

In the days, weeks, months and years ahead

Or if I’ll crash and burn

But be thankful for

The wisdom it brings

The hard times

The time of ashes

The rabid dogs from hell

Are over and done with

And I am blessed with a second chance

To make something special

Of this fragile and fleeting time on earth

—

It’s been remarkable the amount and the intensity of the highs and lows I’ve experienced in life. I’ve gone from Paris to prison from punk rock to purgatory and from the psych ward to perfect mental health.

I could have easily died before or during my jail time so I consider myself extremely lucky to have a second chance at life, many never see the end of the hard times.

It’s been a wild ride.

Strange and Significant

A life well lived life is a rare and beautiful thing

31/8/2020

.

Let the sunshine

Burn away my mask

Let the rain

Wash away my past

Let me be what I am

The warrior poet

The wayward son

The Canberran through and through

The finder of fun

In otherwise fruitless days

Laid back in a winters haze

And we all work hard

In our own special way

To do something real

To not waste the day

For me it’s the pen

For some it’s the sounds

The euphonic bliss

Of riffs by the pound

Catharsis is what I seek

Processing the years of pain

When all was bleak

My best years down the drain

And you’ll find in time

That all is both

Profound and meaningless

Everything and nothing

At the same time

And on quiet day

On planet earth

More happens than could fill

A million pages of prose

So we try to catch a little

And bring reason and rhyme

To the tiny part of it

That we can see and touch

And maybe we’ll be lucky

And life might be

Strange and significant

Rich in meaning and light

And something truly beautiful

—

I am perpetually in awe of the scale and complexity of human activity on planet earth. A mind blowing amount of lives all seeking dignity and meaning, living out infinite permutations of behavior. It’s profound and ordinary at the same time. I truly feel that a life well lived life is a rare and beautiful thing and something definitely worth aspiring to.

The world is an amazing place.

Chilli Peppers

Writing helps me process the bad times and find the silver lining.

21/8/2020

4 beers deep

And I feel like Bukowski

And his Hot Water Music

But for its smashing pumpkins

And it amuses me to think

Of the Red Hot Chilli Peppers

And Meatloaf

And all the other food bands

Korn, Emimem’s and Bizkits

We used to laugh about them

The Cranberries and Pearl Jam

At the nightmare chef job

Where we worked 13 hrs no breaks

While I slowly died inside

A little more each day

No one ever told me

Psych meds make you drowsy

Desperately trying

To keep my head above water

It goes with all the other

Little miseries that make up my past

So I bleed onto the page

And feel cleansed

Of some of the hurt

This life has given me

—

Shortly before getting locked up I was working as an apprenticeship in an up market restaurant. I was lucky for the opportunity but trying to do chef work while taking Seroquel was a seriously bad idea. We worked hard and one day started thinking about thinking about Salt’n’Pepa, Hall and Oates and all the food bands. It was a welcome mood of light heartedness in another wise miserable period in my life.

Writing helps me process some of the bad times and find the silver lining.

Humble

Hard work, honesty and perseverance cures a lot of life’s ills.

16/8/2020

Forge on

Through this brave new world

An ocean of time served

An ocean of troubled thoughts

The bliss of freedom

Slowly giving way

To the burden of life

On the outside

New perspectives as I weave my story

Into a kinder type of tapestry

Blessed that my kind heart

Shines through

The weight of my regrets

That could be mistaken for malice

Black heartedness or evil

Every day a challenge to excel

Work hard, spread light, create

Put one foot in front of the other

And move in up

In quality of life

In status

In love

In  life itself

Live every day like your last

Live like eternity will judge your impact

And die knowing

You improved your humble corner of this earth

—

Slowly the bliss of walking free from prison is giving way to the everyday pressures of modern life. I try to excel at work and my art, eat right, exercise, sleep well and find meaning in my existence.

I am slowly telling part of my story to my co-workers and old friends and hope that they believe me when I say I’m not a bad person.

I’m finding that hard work, honesty and perseverance cures a lot of life’s ills for me as I try to move on up in the world.

Bad Motherfucker

I made it back to dry land after 6 years at sea.

19/12/2018

Ahoy there matey

There are villains about

The scoundrel scent

Is ripe in the air

Sharks circle below

So watch your step

On this wretched ship

Hide your bounty

Let nothing cripple your will

Because all things pass

And this flotilla of fools

Is a temporary stop

On the road of the righteous

So let your pride survive

Do what it takes to feel alive

And navigate this storm

Like a bad motherfucker

—

This one is just for fun, I always love the nautical aesthetic and metaphors, I like to think I made it back to dry land after 6 years at sea.

Happy Tears

Someday I’ll be ready to feel again.

22/5/2019

When I first got locked up

Facing life no parole

I never cried

My world had ended

And it seemed

That all I would know

For the rest of my life

Was the inside of a cell

When I first got locked up

There was a young man

Who looked tough as nails

A real warrior type

And oh how he cried

It seemed like

He did nothing else

It wasn’t because I was tough

I was just too busy

Fighting a war in my head

With the voices and the pressure

Of believing thousands

Were reading my thoughts

Make no mistake

I was in a bad way

Now five years deep

And still no tears

They say they’ll come

When I walk out that gate

Only they’ll be tears of joy

Relief and rapture

So bring on the happy tears

—

It takes a lot for a grown man to cry, I’m pretty sure I would have felt better if I did but alas no tears.

Now I’m a free man no happy tears either, the reason is…drum roll.. anti-depressants. They cut out the highs and the lows. I dare not stop taking them because who knows what could happen. Maybe someday I’ll be ready to feel again, but it won’t be any time soon. They saved my life.

Stars Above

Next time I’ll do everything perfectly.

24/11/2019

Just imagine

That all that light was illumination

The dance of time, no hesitation

To weave our souls into

A tapestry of life so true

That all the pain is washed away

With a perfect kiss on a perfect day

Golden ribbons on the best surprise

Of no regrets til the day I die

Because I loved one so fair

That nothing could budge my desire

To smell the soft scent of her hair

An endless flame then a wild fire

So our souls float on

Through time and space

Til they collide

An explosion of harmony

The ultimate answer

To the meaning of life

That we shared love

The best thing in this life

As we watch the stars up above

—

I don’t do a lot of rhyming stuff but this one felt right. The girl it was meant for is no longer in my life and I’m at peace with that. In the book 1984 the love of the protagonist is the last thing to fall as the horror of his life unfolds, for me no matter how hard life got I never lost sight of the passion I had for this remarkable woman and it’s easy in some ways knowing that she will be happier without me.

Next time I’ll do everything perfectly and never lose the next great love of my life

.

Black Mystery

I have faith in my intuition to guide me to calm waters.

17/9/2018

As far as the eye can see

All ahead is black mystery and death

I trust intuition to see me through

The survival instinct strong in me

I know at all times what I must do

And a dogged evil haunts me

Will I ever truly be free?

Of the deeds and days

Spent locked away

Fate explodes with each passing moment

With each breath life begins again

And life cascades into the realm of the unexpected

A fog of war hangs over the future

On the other side of the prison gate

One way addiction

One way mediocrity

One way profound meaning

And always the goal

To move towards the stars of love

Only time will tell

So I work on myself

Look for the cure

Of my troubled soul ills

And swim in a sea

Of black mystery and death

—

I like to think that the survival instinct is strong in me; I have narrowly escaped death several times and always seem to pull through whatever hardships life throws my way. The course my life would take post release was a profound mystery to me and is still not certain. I feel like there are traps everywhere leading to mediocrity, misery and even death so I work hard to keep on the right track.

I have faith in my intuition to guide me to calm waters.

Stay Positive

We’ve earned a little respite from the cruel sea.

27/8/2020

An ocean of guilt

Paradise lost

The vessel of our content

Sunk into the merciless sea

Every mistake

Now our own infinite failure

And as quality of life

Comes creeping back in

We protect it with fire

We’ve done the hard yards

We’ve paid our dues

We all deserve this

Our souls to wander unfettered

Let synapses fire like fire works

Let the golden laughter fill our dreams

Let us be the best version of our selves

And be safely anchored

Until we return from the sea

We wear our scars like a suit of armor

We’re a strong clan you see

We are what we need to be

And me the zero son

The sword of our collective wills

So come with us

Heads held high

As our fresh wings

Let us soar ever higher

Live positive

Or die trying

—

When you get locked up you’re not only hurting yourself you hurt all your friends, loved ones and support networks. When I got arrested it was paradise lost for my family, nothing would ever be the same again. But we did the hard yards, my family kept supporting me and I did my time and repaid my debt to society. I feel like we’ve earned a little respite from the cruel sea and who knows what heights of happiness and content we can reach in the future.

Glass

I’ll never again take my sanity state for granted.

22/2/2019

When I first got locked up

 My mind was glass

That had shattered

Under the pressure of insanity

But slowly

Through force of will

I’ve pieced it back together

And sealed it with concrete

So nothing gets to me

Not the violence

The drugs or the bitching

The captivity or the politics

I’ve got a concrete soul

That keeps me safe

In troubled waters

And when the sharks challenge me

I know they couldn’t begin

To comprehend the trauma

And the struggle I faced

Should the demons return

Of madness in the mind

I know this time

I’ll be stronger

And smarter

And less afraid

So that the world

Never gets too much

And I can live free

Of the weight of it all

—

It’s difficult to explain and difficult to comprehend the extent to which I lost my mind around the time I got locked up. Madness is not a pleasant state of being and I thank my lucky stars that as badly as I lost the plot a found my feet again and pulled though to a better state of things.

Doing time I eventually found a resilience in my self that carried me through with my mind in tact and saved my soul from suicide or despondency.

I’ll never again take my positive, sane state of mind for granted.

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