Fake snow

A warm December

The most

Wonderful time

Of the year

But our senses flash red alert

Over the absence of snowmen

Or people falling on

Their asses left

And right

We feel unease from under

A single layer

No scarf

No gloves

Nose just peachy

There is a sickness in the air

The manufactured disappointment

Of humankind

We do not believe in the fat man

Any longer

And yet they insist on this image

Fake snow falls in every ad

The TV syringing goodwill into

Our veins

It is December

And all is white and glorious and fine

In their world

Buy

Spend

Consume

I turn the channel and

Immediately yearn for the life

Of the Ice Road Trucker

Perpetual winter ahead

Enough snow to bury that damn

Reindeer and his shiny nose

They coast over the white surface

Aware of the deep cracks below

Ready to swallow them at any moment

But their focus is 200 miles away

Over mountain pass and frozen sea

There is bravery

And poetry in their denial of the death just

Metres beneath the black rubber tread

It is too warm in here

And I realise the truck driver’s skill

At navigating that white surface

Preventing the cracks from

Taking him down to the freezing

Darkness

Is exactly what I am doing here

Right now

The sky remains blue

It may as well be July

I yearn for the cold

I keep the wheel straight

And try to keep it on the road.

Scott Weiland 1967-2015

 

Groucho Marks once said; the secret of life is honesty and fair dealing. If you can fake that, you've got it made.

I think often times writers, poets perhaps more so, write in this abstract way that while revealing what they want to say – at the same time hides many things about them. I know I do. And so it is in life, where you allow people into your world, exposing elements of who you are and also why you are who you are. Unless you are lucky enough to meet the right one - most people will never know the whole reason that you are ‘you’.

But every now and then in the reality of the bright day sunlight, you take the risk and release a personal part of yourself out into the world. Hence the year I had red hair exactly like the photo above.

I do however see these moments as extremely relevant to our growth as individuals. Those few times in life when you just throw it out there and admit – I want to be like this guy. I want to do what they do. And so you begin to mirror the details that could have helped start them on their road; the shirt, the hair, the expressions and body language. It’s immature, and probably something we shouldn’t really entertain after age 13, but I guess most people my age, whether they’d admit it or not, are in a perpetual state of childhood, at least to some degree.

So here I am today waking up to the news that one of ‘my guys’ has died. One sewn through the embroidery of my early 20’s. From friendships through relationships, from drunk parties to solitude. All in all a damn big chunk of life while I was becoming ‘me’. And already the headlines are written before the body goes under – that it is no surprise. That the drugs were always going to take him. Well, maybe. Maybe not. But this isn’t a eugoogly for a junkie. (yes eugoogly).

I had to write something. Not to let people know what I think, or share thoughts and feelings. But to say I have the strength now, in the most positive way, to not care what people think. And part of that, a large part, is due to Scott Weiland. There are others - their names would fit on the back of a matchbook – that still contribute. But losing one that meant so much has kind of broken me today. I got a message while writing this, saying ‘be careful of your heart today. The sun’s out and that makes it hard too…’

This is true. The cold blue December sky reminds me of driving, singing Plush full volume.

At least I can still, always do that.

 

Grandmaster

Always think 2 steps ahead

Or more than that

Think to tomorrow

Think to sunset and sunrise

Over and over

Think towards drought and

Bombs dropping

Have every answer ready

To every single question

Every futile and brain-dead

Point

They try to make

That way

When you get into it

You will come out

Victorious

Not as a prize fighter

Standing over your quarry

But simply a man of words

Of streetwalking sense

And universal logic

Guard up

Shield up

Always ready

but

for the sake of your drunken soul

do not succumb

Continue to hustle and slip and

Slide into the gaps and cracks

It is a shameful reality that

We should be forced

To have to live our lives

This way

But there is no other way to

Survive.