Seven Haiku

no dream was this
a grain of sand slept in my mouth
and awoke in me a pearl


four days
and for nights
still
the mousetrap waits


church on the hill tonight
totally black totally empty
just like God


first star seen tonight
kissing the seas horizon
and trawling for fish


painting her lips
with that look on her face
that self portrait


a hair in the sink
blonde
and longer than your passing


black trunks
where fire has sexed the gums
making blue mountains grey


Benjamin W Wild © copyright 2003-2008

Olave House

I.

I wasn't expecting to return to London so soon- but that's what happens when you put all your eggs in one basket...

So now I had time to sit around in A City Called the World
And watch Eternity unfolding Infinitely at a progressively faster rate of un-enfoldment until we reach a state of
Pre-Post-Now-ism where yesterday is in fashion again tomorrow
but today is subject to... who fucking cares?

I really don't know London from a brick and so headed for the only name I’d heard thrown up one night in the gutters-
“Earls' Court”.
An apparent stomping ground for Australians and New Zealander's-
though I found none.
I was seeking familiarity again, like in Bangkok-
but a safety in ratio's and probability, not language or conversation.

I found a hostel finally- and I wished inside myself
for any other hoste,l or bungalow, or adobe turd, baked hard in the pacific sun,
over this jaundiced old rot, of swollen, wet towering white brickwork.
Old Eastern European men sat outside on the steps,
they made up half of the lodgers.
Their railway attire and gruff exhalations of smoke-filled language greeted me each time I returned to this concrete anus.

Their native tongue, gravelled and slobberish.
Old Man Czech, Old Man Pole, Old Man Slav- was like someone gargling their grammar.
They chewed their words and spat them on the ground when they couldn't get them out, taking a swing from a bottle of piss.
(I later saw them pouring the dregs of Fosters cans into their canteens, and I shuddered).
I lay on my bunk looking across at them on the first night, and listened to the mastication of language.
They were farmers too once.

I can't remember his name, but he was 67 and waiting for his pension to come through. The employment agency wanted him to work-
"But i am 67" he says, "when can i stop to work?"
He'd dropped "to" in there as many non-native English speakers do, and it changed the context to raise a more sobering point, like
'when can I stop living for you, now that I’ve started to live for myself?'

(Sleep and death aren't taxable!
You can't stop working, the rich need us!
The system need us!
The King and his kingdom needs us!
The future wants us to build it!
And death is just the prophecy of ghosts!)

I watched Old Man 67 on his bed.
His yawning was very theatrical, and almost conversive,
And his body had taken on the strange proportion of a baby.
Intriguing how time and gravity can return to us in age, the barrel-like body,
the small limbs, the toothless mouth, the sounds instead of words, the fragile skin, the delicate bones- but the eyes...
The eyes either sparkle if the soul's at home,
or they sink into black wells where it was left once before,
looking at a girl dancing, or people dying, or life being stolen from the dreaming mind...

Most people came here for the money.
Some to escape the reality of their memories, of poverty.
To have a better life, to work...
It's all about making money to have more want than need.
And maybe it works for some of them.
Maybe they're happy here,
Maybe they're better off-
Even if they're just getting by
as waitresses, and cleaners, and cooks.

I don't know.
'Maybe' is a very big part of our experience,
And if it sounds like uncertainty, then maybe it's actually a truth.
We don't know, we just feel and react.

Silence knows.
Eyes and smiling know.
Beauty without desire knows.
Baby 0.2 and Old Man 67,
they know-
In between is maybe...

II.

That hostel lived in me after a while...
It was another land in itself, like Nod, or Narnia, or Middle Earth.
The management were a queer assortment of Polish trolls,
The stairwells were dangerous pathways through mountainous passageways of filth and stink,
Each alcove emitting a more offensive stench as you ascended closer to Gods arse.

The W.C smelt like someone had been eating ashtrays and shitting cigar butts of smoky brown turds that choked the air like a coal mine.
The whole place moved like it was a rope bridge or on hinge joints,
everything creaked and shifted.

Everyone snored but me.
I talk in my sleep.

The bluish carpet, of indeterminable age, was always damp,
As though somebody had mopped it by mistake,
maybe to remove the indeterminable patches and colours of assorted filth from a decade of decomposition and anxiety.

Alligators and crocodiles were partly submerged beneath the bunk beds, and everything in the room floated like flotsam and wreckage about the room.

The small, vanity basin-cupboard was always on fire.

The television gave birth to a bubble every 12 hours with an overgrown foetus inside,
It would float up to the same top bunk-bed each morning and
*POP*,
Deliver a snoring giant to his cot.
He was gone by nightfall and the television would commence blowing another one to replace him.

Old men smoked and wheezed on the bottom bunks,
Occasionally trying to piss on the vanity basin and put out the fire- to no avail.

Only poets and Old Men had the tenacity to sleep so close to the monsters on the floor.
Giants and horses slept on the top bunks- one lying down, the other standing up.
The walls were made of vanilla ice-cream;
Not the kind you can eat though- it was just for display.

They didn't even hold up the roof.
The roof was just a cloud with planks and boards in the blue gaps.
The curtains were lace,
And somehow they kept out the cold winds.
The windows were stuck open,
But you wouldn't want to close them in fear of the floor rising.

The pillows were pitiful creatures and would tell you sob stories all night.
The mattresses were infected with springs, and small black birds came to pick us for lice.

Every once in a while a Jumbo Aeroplane would pass through the room-
It was completely inaudible, but would violently rearrange the entire place,
Until there was just the sound of a snoring giant,
the limp movement of lace curtains,
And the carpet lapping gently against the ice cream walls...

London
Benjamin W Wild (c) 2008

All the Beautiful Women

I thought about all the beautiful women in aeroplanes across the blue sky,
and i thought about all the waiting and smiling they did.
I thought about all the beautiful waitresses on the ground
and the hot coffee poured from cold and lonely hands.
I thought about all the beautiful women hidden behind veils, burqas and hijab,
and i wondered how much make up they used-
and then i wondered how much make up was used worldwide each year
by all these women-
not to mention all those coat-hangar women who are more make up than woman.

Then i thought about all the farming women with beautifully rough edges.
And i thought about all the beautiful prostitutes and whores who sold desire for money,
and tried to feel nothing.
And i thought about all the beautiful nurses in their white tenderness,
who tend to us and nurture us to heal.
I thought about all the beautiful women i pass in the streets,
and how we never say hello.
I thought about all the lesbians and lady boys and dykes,
and how masculine their beauty is.

I thought about all the beautiful girls who were asleep and having beautiful dreams.
I thought about all the fullness of women,
all these human moons and their cycles.
I thought about my mother and our womb.
I thought about all that beauty, and all the beauty that is youth and age and sex and sexlessness,
And i thought of all the beauty that is so unmentionably beautiful that it defies words.
And i wanted nothing more from beauty, than to embrace her,
and sleep in the arms of love's affection,
and so truly swoon in grace with her.

Gulf Air flight- Bangkok to Paris
26/7/2008 © Benjamin W Wild

Last Night

One of those madly drunken nights
where I am the one consumed,
and the bottom of the glass
is somewhere at the top of the next...

I wake up in a room,
naked and dying,
only to flee back into the darkness of sleep
and it's painless, consoling embrace.
Where I drink a lake of water from the fridge,
and guzzle painkillers between pissing, shitting and retching
in the small Cambodian bathroom.
Where I finally ascend around five p.m
to scrape myself together
and plunge the river of memory
to try and find last night.

Last night,
where I could have almost certainly died,
and am none the wiser.
Where breasts haunted my desire
and my cock was as much a whore
as any of that name.

Last night,
where I ate without chewing,
and drank without swallowing,
Where I held down the night
and made love to life in the street.
Where I exhumed my old ghost
from the wells and barrels of every bar
that bid me enter, and begged me leave.
Where I breathed smoke and stripped flesh
from my cage on each exhalation.
Where my tongue shone silver in the moonlight
and had to be gagged by sleep.
Where the sun hid from me
lest I rip it from the skies breast
and smash it with the edge of my hand;

Until the sun sought me out
behind the curtains of a deathly bliss
and whispered the hour in my ear.
And so naked I rose from the bed,
and naked I shaved and washed,
and then naked I dressed,
until clothed I was fed,
and in the fading light that is left,
I know that I will have to drink to be reborn,
and speak nothing of my regrets.

Siem Reap, Cambodia.
Benjamin W. Wild © copyright 2008

Hanoi

The clouds in Hanoi didn't just fill the sky,
they dragged their water laden bellies across the countryside,
(across landscapes that only my eyes will ever walk across),
so that the rice paddie and the cloud became a grey-green smudge
of afternoon reflection.
Square pools of light advertising the recent memories of hot sun,
and clear skies.
Water fell up from the puddles of our motion,
and ran down the windows of our eyes,
staining us all the same wet colour in the fading light.
And when darkness had again consumed us,
we carried on like beasts of burden,
though our traffic be a burden to all beast.
And in the morning,
as her skirt showed the light of the same distant heart-star,
I supped your broth-
some pure inhalation of thoughtful food
in a bowl of your simplicity.
And though i sweated the chalk of a drunken dream on the dawn,
you kissed my weary feet with a smile,
and i crossed my fingers for an hour,
until the flies blessed our long and final
morning of human demise.
And this was pure,
and this was true,
and only hearts and eyes shall know of this-
and only by chance
the fool.


Hanoi City, Vietnam
Benjamin W Wild © 2008

I Like This Place Old

Man next to me lights a cigarette,
a passive way for me to be with the spirits,
at another sight of ruins,

That have more memory than stone,
more tourist than bone,
and not even the jungle knows what happened here.
Perhaps the falling leaves do.

Perhaps the blue sky too,
where vultures roam over their fathers home,
and ten thousand dragonflies circle in droves.

I like this place old, and ruined,
spoilt only by the fat curiosity of modern retirement.

I like this place old,
as the natural world takes it back in pieces,
and spreads us out to the horizon,
to make us it's own.

I like this place old,
that ages as I do,
that decays at a rate of days,

That is just a human spirit in a body of earthen stone.

I like this place old,
and I would like it more if it were lost and untold,
for then soft hands can be known,

And so then the temples within can grow,
and the truth about truth can unfold.


Palenque, Mexico
Benjamin W Wild © copyright 2007

Through the Loft Window

comes the smell of church incense,
-the smell of the gospel in spanish.
through the loft window
comes a 10am breeze
to wash my weary skin.
i wear the gypsy uniform of blue and ragged,
with my long hair or a shirt,
and sore muscles for distraction.

through the loft window
comes the proclamation of Mayan roosters
each announcing a different time
for eggs to boil, and eggs to hatch,
for eggs to break and scramble.

through the loft window
echoes echoes echoes last nights dreams
-of several spirit children all tugging at my sleeve,
and urging me to play with them
-for they are dead.

through the loft window
i see sunbeams bouncing off the leaves,
of green tree giants and palm fronds
and carpets of small ivy.

through the loft window
i stare-
out into the world,
over lake, volcano, Guatemala
to the secrets never told.

'through the loft window'
goes both ways now
like a breath through whales blow hole.
and through the loft window we all wait,
for a future still untold.

San Marcos, Lago Atitlan, Guatemala
Benjamin W Wild © 6/1/2007

The Gauntlet

there are swallows singing that line that I cannot,
outside on the back gate where I used to stand,
poised and ready to run as a six year old,
The Black Chook Gauntlet.

I remember now how I remember then,
that you shouldn't wait for your fears to gather at the gate,
you should dash out before they get there,
and make for the chook house.

when practiced, I would be pursued by a flap of the black Australorp chickens,
heads low to the ground, eyes wide, crests flamed red-
half flapping, half waddling steamers of death.
mum's red scrap bucket knocking into my chubby, white legs.
black chooks can run as fast as a six year old.

I would sometimes get into the chook house before my fears,
and then-
then I would be stuck inside the lions den.
gripped by talons of childish fear.



as time passed and my fears didn't,
I learnt to run out the side gate,
cover alternate routes,
scramble with one arm and two chubby, white legs up the thick mesh that circumvents the old chook house,
and then pour the contents out onto the ground some eight feet below.

the chooks of course were never after me,
they wanted only that which was theirs to begin with.
that which even I agreed was theirs.
and for all I cared they could have it, and did.

but fear is fear.
whether you are eight or twenty eight.
it is to be worked with.
it is external and manifested internally,
as the unknown,
as a fight or flight mechanism.

now, as I wake at night,
I feel other black Australorpian shapes in the dark.
I must walk the house as my gauntlet, to the toilet out back.
there is nothing to fear out here.
not even the snakes on the warm pavers.

yet I have semblances of fear.
sometimes they grow into full blown hallucinations that ripple like a medicine dream,
like a journey induced by the unknown itself,
by the Dreaming.

I am not afraid.
I am only scared, bewildered, tired.
scared that if I stay up, I will wake up.
so I retreat to bed, to my tiredness.

at night,
if I take the alternate route,
through the side door and down the long verandah of my childhood,
I can make the toilet fine.
but on my return,
I am forced to step out onto the warm steps,
or maybe even the grass,
to look up at the Milky Way that hangs like a great udder of stars over my eyes,

and sometimes,
I hear the grinding teeth of the kangaroos in the yard,
the dead ones who return as a totem of family;
who invite me, if I would sit.

but I cannot fight my desire to sleep,
my fear to sit.


back in my bed,
in my parents house,
the place of six generations,
where history happened until the present was a consequence,

I feel roots growing out my of feet,
I feel an iris opening in my head.
I try relaxing,
but a year of travelling,
and a week of Sydney’s bile,
has me tense,
has me wary.

there is nothing to fear out here.
there never was.
I contemplate how I came to be here.
by choice,
or another’s decision?

the former is undoubted,
the latter seems less likely in consideration.
what to do with this knowledge?

action.

'don't let your fears gather at the gate'.

I feel like an eight year old again,
my dreams of horses and ghouls
waking me in the night,
that I may walk the gauntlet of a dream,
to piss in a toilet of drought.

I work with my fears,
I have them teach me,
that they are just chickens,
and I am just a man.

Benjamin W Wild © copyright 2008

Drought’s Geography

Out here, the drought only produces more drought,
And we still haven’t figured out a way
To sell six years of little or nothing.

From the air, the land still looks like a great big table-top,
With patchwork table cloth.
Trees like balls of lint,
Small cups of coffee coloured dam water.

Ant lines of cattle and sheep,
The ironed crease lines of dirt roads and highways,
And the ripple of mountains at the eastern edges.

The farmers still plough the soil to invite the rain,
but it’s really just to stave off another seasonal suicide or clearance sale.

The towns dry up with the water,
and people go underground to the mines,
Or off to the wasted cities;
That, or the community simply grows old
and ghostly-tired behind the levee banks.


Some kids didn’t even see rain until they were two or three years old,
And some six and seven year olds have never been in flood;

Where the dogs sit on their kennels, and the chooks live in the trees,
And the sheep and cattle stand on small islands without feed,
Or float by with their legs and bellies in the air..

The word ‘hopeless’ gets passed around like a hat.
The night comes and hides the reality from our sight,
And people age from the uncertainty and the stress.

The markets can only reflect the weather,
As each year becomes the harvest of less,
and each year more mouths appear to feed with hunger.

The gum trees don’t seem to mind-
They’ve seen more than most,
And are as resilient as our fathers were when the rains forgot to fall.

Time itself seems to have forgotten how to pass,
the cycle of nature disturbed by the pollution of speculation.

The songlines are blurred or forgotten,

So satellites read the land for us,
And it says only this-

“Ssshh. Listen”.


Home. Warren, NSW, Australia.
Benjamin W Wild © copyright 2008

Passport

Unless you quarantine the birds
for their seeds of shit,
or the flowers for consorting with the wind-
you have no right to waste my time,
for time, does waste the gypsy.

Fort St James, B.C. Canada
Benjamin W Wild (c) copyright 2007

Tree Planting Soldier

Bear tanks on patrol.

The rat-tat-tat-tat of woodpecker rifle.

Bomber geese.

Torsos of trees.

Limbless trunks piled up like tepees,
Some jutting up and out like gun artillery.

Small residual cropping of trees,
Huddled together like prisoners, all civilly.

Half exposed trees lying out of the water.

Dirt stained snow.
Lifeblood in the drains.

Burn piles with charcoaled appendages in mud.

Gully trenches.
Hillsides littered with part tree debris.

A block of children.

Serrated skyline horizon,
Trying to pull the blue sky blind

Over the earth eyes-

All out of sight seeing,
Out of mind being;

As we put babies in the ground.


Fort St James, B.C. Canada.

Benjamin W Wild © copyright 2007

Trans-Canada Tree-Way

I

Driving through Ontario in April
was like passing through a single stark contrast-

itself on itself on itself;

Naked tree on naked rock, on grey-sky hills,

With The Great Grey Tub running up it's incline,
of serpent road by serpent river,
by serpent lines of electric sliver,
by double yellow lines-
a shooting star with headlights.

Cold as a comet as we fly in The Alien
to the other side of the Canadian,
carpet of trees and rocks-

That have set themselves to wed the sky by climbing up together-
all-most out of reach of us.
Only met by each of us -
in our own way, that is shared by night and day-
sky blue, black or grey.

II

Driving through corridors of pine trees,
their evergreen robes turned up at the edge of each tier.

White Birch with leaves exhaled
hold the breath of the pine-
a breath you can see in the cold.

The highway held to the page by double yellow lines
and bordered by a set of power-lines,
that look like an electric fence to keep the trees off the road.

Waves of weeping rock hulk out at the road-side
and spill into Blind River, Cedar Creek,
and the Lakes with their shelves of ice
and garters of melting white snow shores of Spring.

Rain falls with the consistency of the visions repetition-

of pine and birch,
wet grey sky road,
bordered by set of power-line,
and the dancing of windshield wipers.

III

Somewhere in the night,
we ran out of Ontario-

Perhaps while the tyres were being changed,
and the Aborigine slept in their clear-cut reservations.

Tomorrow unfolded by the wind,
was the same highway running up our legs and through our necks
and back out the rear view vision of our eyes.

Manitoba-
Held down by that great blue eyelid
with stoned clouds and three geese per 100 mile eyelashes.

Grain silos stand as studs on a wheat belt,
their bellies filled and emptied according to our hunger for bread alone,
in prairie where no Bison roam- not even Crow-
just a land spread out
for wheat and snow,
wheat and snow,
wheat and snow...

Only a tumbleweed welcomes us in passing
as we fly through Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan...
Medicine Hat, Alberta…

CANADA!

All of it!

We chased the sun across the map,
through spaces of earth so void that they are but Scapes,
cold-scapes,
void-scapes,
and the memory of the pain,
the blood and the old ways,
are melted snow.

But the past is always present-
and it is presently open to this ending,
that is ever beginning-

That is a 2 lane highway from East to West,
from Bison to Bear.

A 2 lane highway that hits Calgary like a sigh,
and delivers you to the sight of those Rocky Mountains,
those monuments that are monuments to each others majesty.

Their white crests receding in the frost of May sun
to water their pine stubble,
and cold thirst rivers with towns in their teeth,
and clear-cut-cleft-lip mines
that run like scars in an already scarred and rugged face
of the earths jaw line.

IV

Great foreheads of rock over pine tree beards,
gods asleep under snow white hair,
and a blanket of soft grey cloud to melt the snow a little slower.

There is a consciousness beneath those prows and brows-

A love affair with wind and ice
as old as the soul that chose to inhabit this land-
This stage name province of British Columbia-

whose true name is
Wild-Beauty
Snow-Pine-Rugged
Peaks-Rocky
Mountain-Ranges,

whose virtue is the silent carpet of pine,

whose wonder is that far white peak,

whose beauty is the white turned green,

whose splendour is the White-Tail Deer a’flight,

whose unyielding wildness,
is this natural wilderness,

whose truth is truth unseen.

Whose heart is held by the old bears,
and eyes clutched by the eagle,

whose valleys yawn to the glaciers maw,
and the bow of mountain horses.

Here is where Wakan Tanka wiped his brow from east to west-
laying the land to here as wide and flat as the edge of His hand.

Here is where the Pachamama's breast does cease,
Her eyes the leaves of Yellow Birch that watch us passing through Her,
on this grey scarf with white and yellow pin-stripes,
with motorised teardrops that run to the rising sea.

V

So onward Brothers,
through the great parks,
with their mandatory pines and glacial fields,
and citadel mountains that stand in the clouds.

Avalanches of white hair tendril to the roadside
and our necks ache from craning them out the window of our wonder,
the absolute grandeur,
that holds us in a constant awe.

So you are a man here,
when you realise,
you are just a man here.

So you are a woman here,
when you realise,
your beauty is a part of here.

And when you are here you need not fear,
but welcome life,
and welcome death-
for we are free here,
on the flipside of Ontario.

We are here,
in rhythm with the rhythm.

We are here,
to set trees in the soil.

We are here,
to be eaten, to sweat, drink and toil.

We are here,
like smoke on the night,
silent and swollen,
in the absence of light.

We are here-

cold together abundant.

We are here,
the fear of our pasts redundant.

We are here.

We are here!

WE ARE HERE!

VI

So come Sisters,
let us walk from the empty breast-
that dried up drum called Medicine Lake.

Let us walk down frozen streams in gaping gorges
as the sun reinstates to us our fertility.

Let us rise as the water falls,
let us hold counsel as the spring unfurls,
and melts us into summer.

Let us hold congress with the mountains,
those masters of silent motion,
after all,
our motion has not stopped, as we continue...

So finally we come to these hills,
these graveyard nurseries with log truck coffin bearers
and bald patches patched by snow and
Pine tree congregation praying amongst the Ghost Birch naked.

Here we are Prince George-
come for our duty.

Here we are Prince George-
come to your service,

come for our time in your sun and your soil,
under the watch of your cougar and bear.

Here we are-
over the Mountain of Gods,

Here we are,
from the Prairie of Wind,

Here we are,
from the Yawn of Ontario,

Here we are,
to plant trees in your palms-

Yes,
We are here.

27/4 - 3/5/2007. Road trip. Toronto, Ontario to Prince George, British Columbia, Canada.
Benjamin W Wild © copyright 2007

New York York

The reason New York doesn’t sleep,
is because no matter what time it is,
it’s never dark,
there’s always enough light to hold out the stars
and to busy the streets.

The buildings are like brick icebergs turned upside-down,
and we walk across the asphalt sea,
through the brick behemoth
that rise up to create buildings of air between themselves,
that must have their foundations in heaven above
so that below could be held down here.

And to lift up a piece of city block
one would find all sorts of iron ants, bugs and beetles
and great steel snakes and metal centipedes,
All busy through the arteries of our final exhalation.

And there are millions of them-
all square eyed and confused
under a pyramid of egos
that stretches back throughout time,
that follow what they swallow,

That abstain from nature’s nature,
and live utopian lies.

There are billions of them-
like an army of civilians
that march to war with their future,
And surely it will die;
victoriously defeated
by it’s glory and it’s pride.

There are trillions of them now-
like human raindrops from the sky,
rising and falling,
They are risen as fallen,
they plummet from His eye-
And they are caught by the earth into puddles of city,
where they live to work and die.

There are zillions of them now-
like a human Petri-dish,
and no matter if a star falls unseen,
they each still make a wish-
to be delivered from salvation,
like we never had the choice,
to give the beast our natural lives
and the freedom of our voice.

There are squillions of them now,
Each an atom in the eye,
in that pyramid of ego
that stretches to the sky-
and I hold my breath like all the rest,
for I can’t escape my mind.
Yet if we all start breathing,
I wonder what we’d find…

And there is one of us now,
like a single human sound-
Like rain into the ocean,
like rain upon the ground.

There is one of us now,
and She has no need to speak.
There is one of us now,
and He’s found what once did seek.

There is one of us now.
Just one.


New York City, USA
Benjamin W Wild © copyright 2007

En Viñales

We walked through the Cuban countryside-
Through the thighs of Mother Viñales;
Through a cave that led to her belly.

A great, open plain of tobacco fields and maize,
Under a ribcage of mountain and rock.

We walked through the fields with pigs, horses, oxen and goat,
And the clucking of chickens in trees,
Across rich, red soil and through trickling streams-

Until we reached the mouth of another cave
that was filled with bizarre sculptures,
like an art gallery with no lights,
and a troll for a curator.

The cave tried to take things from me-
my brothers necklace, my camera,
a girls glasses;
The cave wanted to take my bones and teeth,
it wanted the minerals from my blood,
the water of my being.

We swam in a large pool of darkness at the end of the cavern.
We followed the path of lifeblood into never.

"C'mon Benjamin- it's beautiful"

And so beauty led me in.

And time led us out.
Back into the fading light,
that fell across fields of tobacco and maize like a bed-sheet,
And slid down the roofs of the drying sheds
that were like paper weights on a table of trees and topsoil.

But beneath this lies the spirit-
The heart of Viñales.

Beneath this veneer,
this earthen bedspread of need,
there lies a past in riddles,
and tatters of a dream.

A revolution ago there was everything,
now there is nothing-
and it means everything.

Freedom is where people can be people,
without the money of hypocrisy, fear or greed .

This country is naked then,
wrapped in part by a flag that is it's people-

Breast bare in the face of the sun,
one people,
one country,
one flag
and one tongue.

The only spirit known here is the defiant and the strong
No Gods walk here,
no man venerates a book,
nor bears a cross not his own.
No woman hides her body here or cries into her hair.
No child kneels before television or eats the fat of lamb.

Across the land though is a spirit,
a strong and untame beast-
the people have forgotten him,
too busy with their lives,
their ambling and remembering,
and forgetting about time...

And we walk now in the darkness-
for the sun has drawn the bedspread of the land over itself,
and left Venus to keep watch.

The moon is late,
and so the homesteads mark the way.
Small huts lit by candle where beans and rice are made,
and pork wafts across the table-
and beneath the table chooks.

And we walk into the town in silence,
Drink rum and smoke cigar-

And I sleep within this silence,
-on a striped flag with one star.


Viñales, Cuba.
Benjamin W Wild © copyright 2007

Valley in the Sky

There are rooftop tile worshippers
In precarious prayer,
With terracotta sutra tiling
Held together by a faith concrete.

There are rooftop puddles
That never get the chance to dry
And mirror the reflection of the rolling hills
And cloudy skies.

There are schoolyard rooftops
With red and white laughing through black hair;
There is barking in the street.

There are clothesline rooftops
With human prayer flag attire
Pegged in drying trepidation
Under heavy, looming skies.

There are corrugated rooftops
Rusting on the equator of wet and dry.
There are windows that look into windows,
Steeples that hold up the holy sky;
There is a virgin bud and
Quarter bloom sunflower,
Standing side by side.

There is an erratic plan for town planning
That Lord Quito has defied,
Where rooftops sprawl the length and breadth,
Of the valley in the sky.

A dusken sky of horse and chariot,
Of pastel dragons and angel skeletons,
Writ in cloud and light
And set on Virgin-Mary-Blue.

An army of condensation soldiers
Is now storming down the hill,
Quenching the fireflies in the windows,
Turning the city to still.

The stars they all hold their breathing,
The moon she holds her fill-
No birds to roost,
Nor flowers to fold,
Just a city of window and roof.

Quito, Ecuador
Benjamin W Wild © copyright 2007

Ode to the Airport Cleaners

In every airport that I pass through,
There is a woman with a broom
Pushing each day of her life across the floor.
Sweeping up the dust
Of other peoples dreams.

In every airport that I pass through,
There is a man with mop and bucket,
Cleaning up the tears of his people
Who do not pass through-
The gates that separate us,
The 'haves' and 'have-no-mores'.

Each city that I pass through
There is a sick and ghostly sky,
Like blue was never painted there,
Like blue has gone and died.

Every city that I pass through,
The eyes they rob me blind.
They call me rich and holy,
And their envy makes me cry.

In every country that I pass through
People talk to me of wealth,
How their country doesn't have it,
And neither does the Self.


In every country that I pass through,
The meek have got no name,
In every country that I pass through,
I know it is the same.

Lima, Peru
Benjamin W Wild © copyright 2007

Santiago

Santiago has the hot breath
Of 8 million people
Melting the snow off the peaks
Of the Andes Mountains.

Santiago has the drone of dross.
The bore of too much traffic.
No congestion.
Just the incessant roar and groan
Of pollution dinosaurs.

Santiago has a skin
Dusted with the history of traffic.
Her buildings caked in cancer
And crumbling like sweet teeth.

Santiago has an ancient people
Slumped in slums
And keeping up with the Jones’.
Those first world Jones’
In over-developed countries
Who can’t keep up with themselves.

Santiago has the same shit
As everywhere else,
Just that it is more tired here,
More fatigued by it’s chosen path
That was chosen for it.

In those darkest of brown eyes,
Insets in a cultures hair-
Tiredness reaches out.


Santiago, Chile
Benjamin W Wild © copyright 2007

Valparaiso

From Vina del Mar,
I race the sun to Valparaiso,
on a bus of my solo anxiety-
The adrenalin of overwhelming,
Foreign experience.

I am a stranger to myself here,
and myself my only friend.
I am more foreign than language,
More exotic than spice.
I am ambassador to poetry
in the war of expression.
I am sound…

…I awake in Valparaiso
To an undefeated sun,
our victory shared in coloured delights-

Of a hill on a hill;
Each window a letter,
Each building a word,
Each street a colourful sentence.

A book of life,
lived, loved and published by Chile.
A book of stray dogs.
A book of pisco and cerveza.
A book of poets and artists and children.

A book of every colour,
That holds each page together.
A book called Valparaiso.
Valparaiso, Chile.

(Pisco- a spirit wine made from unripe grapes.
Cerveza- beer).

Benjamin W Wild © copyright 2007

Ode to Steve Irwin

It was just another day
Where people live and people die,
Until a young boy in his school uniform attire
Walked up to me and said-
‘Hey Mister, Steve Irwin’s dead’.

It was not the fact that he was dead that initially struck me,
For he was ready all the time,
But that a young boy had told me as a passer by.

It was school talk.
The biggest thing to happen since Steve Irwin himself.
It would have interjected Little Lunch, Big Lunch,
Afternoon nap woken by How? And Where? And Why?

It was like the death of Tarzan.
The murder of the Phantom.
The very end of Superman.

‘Steve Irwin’s dead,’
Said the boy to another man.
‘Steve Irwin’s not dead!’…

He was wrong.
And right.

For Steve’s alive in khaki shorts and re-runs, and Australia Zoo;
In Myth and Legend,
Family;
Me, and you.

Steve Irwin’s not dead;
He’s taming Ungud the Dreamtime Serpent,
Wrestling Incan Crocodile Gods,
And surfing like brand new.

‘Steve Irwin’s not dead’,
Said the man.
And a lump of denial,
rose in his throat.

Benjamin W Wild © copyright 2006

Poem for Ginsberg

The world on the telephone,
The world on the T.V.

The world in another car,
The world will never feel free.

The world smoking cigarettes,
Shooting speed barbiturates.

The world drinking battery acid,
Eating chicken phosphorescent.

The world starving infant stomach,
So to fatten epidemic.

World of cities,
Void of stars;
A war in name of motor cars.

A war in name of bitumen,
And hypocrites and greedy men.

A war in name of planes revenge,
For media to vote again.

A world at war in name of peace,
Yet war for peace will never cease.

'Cos wars for war and rich tycoons,
And peace is peace as sea is moon.

The world of Multi-corporations,
Made up of United Nations.

This world of television papers
Internet and petrol stations.

This world of nature-
Part of me.

So sings nature when we're free.
"Free of man. Free of man.

Thank God Almighty,
We are free of man.”

Benjamin W Wild © copyright 2004
(First published in Australian Institute of Poetry Anthology ‘Reflections’ 2004)

What I’d Give

What I’d give to take my aching feet off.
Hang up my legs.

Put my bum in a drawer.
Fold up my arms and stow them away.

Plant my shoulders in the ground.
Wrap up my head,
And soak it in warm water.

Leave my torso on the floor for the dog to play with,
And sleep with a smile etched on my face.

Listen to the light humming of the stars,
And the moon’s sweet voice,
Over the lull of happiness.

Oh what I’d give.


Benjamin W Wild © copyright 2003

May

I want love to hit me like a train,
Sudden and immense like a heart attack.

I want to be pistol-whipped with happiness,
And the joy to flow like claret across my features.

I want contentment to fall on me like the night,
Slow and purposeful like the change of seasons.

I want to sit with you
And dream of places that exist in thought-

Think of the imminent.
Ponder the present.
And doubt the past.

I want to drink like a tree
And swim like the ocean,
I want to fly like a cloud
And sleep like a mountain.

I want to fall in love in May.

Benjamin W Wild copyright © 2002

'ALUC(i)NA'- book now available.

This post is about how you can purchase my debut selection of poetry, prose, haiku and notes entiltled 'ALUC(i)NA' - finally, yours to own or rent out.

I investigated Paypal and other online payment methods to find that circumstances and distribution would be different for buyers according to their location and number of copies purchased.

In order to save you money on postage and handling i decided that we would do it the old fashioned way, by human.

The options for payment are as follows:
-paypal
-direct bank deposit
-money cheque

All books are $25.00 AUD each.

To make the postage cost as low as possible please email me for a postage quote and further details regarding payment;

1. Please email me at benwwild@hotmail.com
- how many books you would like (for example 3)
- your full mailing address; especially POSTCODE and COUNTRY
(for example 13 Rabbit Hole, Warren, NSW Australia. 2824)
- and preferred method of payment;
paypal, direct bank deposit, money cheque.

2. I will reply with a total cost (including postage in AUD) and the details for your method of payment (paypal email, or bank details, or postal address for money cheque).

3. Once payment for the book/s is received it will be posted with love.
There is no refund for books missing page 13...

4. Please allow half a moon for transactions and postage/handling for regional/national;
and one moon phase for international locations.

Of course stocks are limited.


Alternatively 'ALUC(i)NA' is available from the following Melbourne book stores;

'Readings'
309 Lygon Street, Carlton. Melbourne.
www.readings.com.au/carlton

'Collected Works'
Level 1, Nicholas Building. 37 Swanston Street, Melbourne.
http://www.collectedworks-poetryideas.blogspot.com/

'The Brunswick Street Bookstore'
305 Brunswick Street, Fitzroy. Melbourne.
http://www.brunswickstreetbookstore.com.au/

'Brunswick Bound'
361 Sydney Road, Brunswick. Melbourne.
mailto:minfo@brunswickbound.com.au

'Polyester Books'
330 Brunswick Street, Fitzroy. Melbourne.
http://www.polyester.com.au/

'Shop 31'
31 Sydney Road, Coburg. Melbourne.
shop31sydneyrd@gmail.com

Two copies of 'ALUC(i)NA' have also been tagged and released via http://www.bookcrossing.com/
The book's I.D numbers are-
BCID #969-7446601 and BCID #795-7446610.


The book's ISBN is 978-0-9758071-3-2.

I trust all is well, and I thank you very much for your time and support.

Book two is in the oven, and will be available in due time.

much love and respect.

x

Benjamin Wild.

www.undergrowth.com/alucina

www.myspace.com/benwwild

www.facebook.com/benwwild

'ALUC(i)NA'- the Launch

http://www.myspace.com/benwwild


Well, i set this blogspot up about two years ago i think,
with grand ideas of blogging, and escaping the Ego Petting Zoo that is Myspace,
and the Social Fellatio of Facebook,
but something akin to 'life' kept getting in the way.
and really-
as a poet it is better to stick to poetry and the poetic license that it affords.

and then there are my notebooks, and other peoples books
(mostly dead people- but you wouldn't know it the way they carry on),
and sleep-
oh god how i love sleep.
like Muchukunda did.

So why bother now you ask?


Well.
I suppose i went and took the effort to publish 7 years of my
poetry, prose, haiku and notes on life,
entitled 'ALUC(i)NA' (it means hallucinate in spanish).
mind you it's only about 2% of all the postulation and contemplation of 7 years in my skin,
but you've got to start ending somewhere.

It's also a bit of an experiment-
just to see if i don't decide to blog myself to death;
to entertain myself if anyone.
the same intentions were spawned when i fit the Myspace shoe-
but already i see that network expiring.
(it should be reserved for artists to showcase-
i don't care how many friends you have in brackets,
no one has more friends than fingers,
it's just not practical in the scheme of truth).

Maybe we grow old quicker now that our techo-industrial world complex with it's manicured lawns is outdating itself so damn quickly.
we can already say "oh remember gen 1? or gen 2?" of a fucking phone or talking microwave.
the Gods of a plastic world growing old in the company of their own devices,
their demise just a pull-cord away...
trees must feel like this-
watching generations of humans live and die under their boughs,
while they grow and breathe so slowly.
we have numerous generations of devices and gadgets bought and sold and landfilled;
hell, even television shows are starting to outlive us.
fuck being reincarnated to reruns of MASH and the Simpsons-
fuck television for that matter....

oh.
did i digress?
of course i did.
i can think, spell and type,
and ...elucidate?
of course i will always digress-
sometimes that is the point.

Maybe i will write here on a more regular basis,

maybe not.

i prefer my notebooks.

there is nothing mysterious about a man who writes for all to read,

but just enough to make them think and feel...

bjm