The Water Bottle - A poem

The water bottle came alive.

It wasn't happy.

It had no eyes.

Or limbs.

Or brain.

And people kept drinking it's insides.

Pretty shit for it to come alive. 

Really cruel God.

Hope you're proud of yourself. 

Yummy Sandwiches

Jenny was relieved that her doormat had been stolen.

It had been given to her by a recent ex.

An ex who made sandwiches for a living.

Really, really, freakishly good sandwiches.

The type of sandwiches that made people suspicious.

'I can get all these ingredients, but I can't make them as awesome as this, there must be something else in these sandwiches that you're not telling us about these sandwiches' they'd think.

While stuffing their faces with sandwiches. 

'Is your boyfriend going to be there?' Friends would ask when Jenny invited them over for sandwiches.

She knew they didn't want to come unless the answer was yes, because they wanted HIS sandwiches. 

Sometimes she'd go to visit him at work and her friends would be there eating sandwiches. 

Sometimes her friends would plan picnics and invite her hoping for him to come and bring sandwiches.

Sometimes she'd enter the room and her friends would suddenly go 'Shhhh, shhhhh' and she knew they'd been talking about his sandwiches. 

And by 'sandwiches' she of course 'epic erections'. 

She just couldn't bare to say it out loud any more. 

So yes Jenny was relieved that her doormat had been stolen. 

She was less happy that her TV was missing, a bag of flour was congealing in her fish tank and that the last page of all her books had been removed. 

But that's what you get when you convince your gigalo boyfriend to fire his pimp and go solo. 

Also siphilis. 

The Hawk and Condor Arm of Operations

Here at Fleeting Forever we have many areas of operations and sections of expertise, obviously our entertainment production, poetry, essays and general blogging departments are world famous and brilliantly flawless, but we also have the less well known Giant Kite Division, our Assistant To Office Assistant's In Charge Of Training Assistants For Assistant Assistants Department, our New Types Of Pants Development Wing, the Is That Really Your Ear, What Happened To It? Sector, the Things We Wish Could Exist If Not For Fucking Science Branch, and much, much more.

Well our founder, CEO and captor, David Tieck, has asked some of us to come on here and introduce ourselves and let you all know a bit more about the wonderful operation we have here.

So here goes, my name is Carmichael Sand, and I am the head of our Hawk And Condor Arm Of Operations. I have been in my present role for three years now, ever since the previous head, John Damper, came to work one day wearing a handcrafted mouse imitating shirt sleeve his kid had made from him, which was obviously quickly popped off by LambTail, our alpha Hawk, leading to John being shifted to the I Have One Arm, And That’s Okay Division, which thankfully also led to my promotion. It was a fun day, I even didn't mind when LambTail puked a finger on me.

I also spend one day a week helping out in the Buildings I Wish They'd Built Instead Of That Monstrosity Over There Segment, which is nice, because a diverse work life is a fun work life.

In my spare time I'm a homiletic type of guy.

And this is a statement I am willing to stand behind, proudly. And when you're standing behind a statement itself, that takes guts, because it's merely an idea, or sentiment, rather than a physical organism, so if you're not wearing any pants, as I like to be in statement declaring mode, people will see your bits, which I'm less into, a conundrum that has kept me many a time from strong and impassioned statement making.

I'm sure many of you will have read in the news about the day I boldly declared 'I wish to be pelted with pears' only to suddenly hear a mob of green grocers screaming 'aim for his dick!' Ironically that was the day my 'pair' became a giant single swelled bruised and throbbing monolith, which ironically made pant wearing impossible for six weeks, leading to one of the great statement declaration marathons seen since the ancient Babylonians discovered statement making.

Example of a classic Babylonian statement:

'We don't care how we're remembered, how many know what we were called, or represented, or what we invented physically or ideologically, just please remember where we are located, it's very important to us'.

Yes declarations can be powerful, that one in particular is carved into the wall above reception in Fleeting Forever's Where The Fuck Was Ancient Babylon, How Is This Not Well Known? And How Is It Not A Tourist Mecca Like Mecca? Branch, which itself is a subdivision of the Aztecs, They Sound Cool, What Else Is Cool Like That? Department.

Which all goes to make that above statement, about being homiletic, even bolder. For I have stepped back behind the invisible podium, testicles swinging free, green grocers as far as the eye can see, and I am risking it all and making a declaration once again, all this despite not knowing what the word 'homiletic' even means.

Sure I could look it up. But that's not my style! I'm a risk taker, I'm a wild man, I'm a swooner and a ragamuffin, plus having just broken that very sentiment I have discovered that one definition of 'homiletic' is the delivery of sermons, something I would NEVER do!

So I want to thank David Tieck for this opportunity to talk to you all, and tell you about me, and it was nice to meet you all. As for me right now, I'm racing around to the Buildings I Wish They'd Built Instead Of That Monstrosity Over There Segment, it's not my scheduled day there, but I just looked out the window and saw a square building, and I really want the officially submit 'I wish they'd built a round one'.

Wire Face - A Poem

Her belly was full and sore and misshapen. 

Her throat was bleeding. 

Her teeth were chipped and broken. 

Piano wire stuck out from all corners of her face. 

She had really really really misunderstood what the legendary keys man had meant when he said 'if you want to be a great piano player you have to have piano inside of you'

I mean what a moron.

Who eats a piano? 

It's just dumb.

Clearly he meant figuratively. 

This chick was dumber than buying a dog in hope to use it as a housecleaner. 

Her plan was as foolish as saving up trillions of dollars to buy the Great Wall of china to try and stop Shelly in accounting from using your teacup. 

She was stupider than covering your testicles in honey next to a fire ant nest hoping that your screams in pain will attract a crowd that you can now sell encyclopedias to. 

She was more idiotic than covering your front lawn in green plastic army men with the intent of their heroics inspiring you to finally tell your boss that you think we're all made of fairy dust memories and that therefore you should be able to howl at clients if you desire.

She was as doltish as your average chalk eating, glass monkey sculpting, tennis lawyer

, who thinks waxing stations would make good money laundering traps for warmongering toy yacht enthusiasts.

Ok that one's actually genius.

But SHE was just imbecilic.

Although she does now make a killing on the competitive eating circuit. 

I guess the lesson is raw talent matters. 

Tough Times - A Poem

Madeline Richter had a problem.

Her newly invented laser device, the Funger, was so powerful and useful (it could erase memories, it could erase buildings, it could erase governments, it could erase cellulite and it could even erase blame!) that it seemed like she pretty much had to take over the world now. 

Because otherwise her invention wouldn't live up to its potential.

'Ah man, I'll have to pick a second in charge' she thought 'Stephie's my bestie, but Karen is far better at paperwork, typing and unyielding ruthlessness, how do I pick?' She thought.

'If I pick one, the other will get pissed off, and I'll already have the 4.3 billon people who will survive the "great erasing" super angry with me' She thought.

Being a leader sure is hard. 

Plus she wasn't happy with the name she'd given her invention.

Funger? What the hell is that? 

So she had two problems really.

Oh also her friend Tracey had borrowed her Game of Thrones season 2 DVD and neglected to return it within the agreed upon time frame, and she was now going to have to make an awkward phone call.

So three problems. 

Oh, and she was getting her period.

Four problems. 

Although she took offense to a man writing that. 

It's not up to him to declare whether or not her period should be considered a problem.

Sure it's not pleasant, but it's a natural part of her body.

Then again so is snot, that doesn't mean having a lot of it is not a problem. 

Oh so now he's implying there's a LOT of her period?

I know he's not literally saying that.

But implication can be powerful. 

So that's now five problems.

Plus she was having trouble keeping count of all her problems.

So that's eight problems all up. 

She really was having a tough day.

But it wasn't all bad.

Her annoying ex, Greg, had mysteriously disappeared. 

So that's good. 

'And tomorrow it'll be a similar tale for every building north of Arizona' she thought.  

Fly, FLY!

I had an interesting chat today with my good friend Reven, the Bear Headed Raven. 

Well 'chat' is too kind a word, it was really a debate, and by debate I mean vicious argument that had us both bleeding from the ears, and mind you, that's not an entirely awful thing, I wasn't sure if Reven had ears or not. I mean he physically has ears, bear ears, but frankly I'm never sure which parts of him are crow, which parts are bear and which parts are just for show. But that's just part of the parcel in befriending one of these modern hybrid animals. Some mystery, some intrigue, some 'what the hell is THAT oozing from THAT thing'. 

Its fun, it keeps things fresh, but you really hope and try to keep those unique elements to the physical, physiological and phycopathic levels, you don't weird shit oozing from their weird orifices, and other bizarre hybrid animal activity.

Well, you all know how it goes, I don't need to explain it, your bunny faced Salamander drowns, and suddenly you were supposed to 'know' it couldn't breathe in full cafe sized tub of Nutella with no holes poked in the lid? I'm not a scientist friend. Well I am, but I mostly focus on the social sciences, like sociology of personality judging, chemistry between chemicals dueling over a girl, the physics of hat hair, biology and the mathematics that defined the Beat Generation, so I can't be expected to also understand biology! 

Anyway, Reven and I were watching an action movie, where the hero was using action to defeat the bad guys.

Sample dialogue: 

Bad guy - 'You won't stop me!' 

Hero - 'Yeah I will!' 

Bad guy - 'Oh yeah, how?'

Hero - 'Talking!' 

Bad guy - 'That doesn't work on me, look try it'

Hero - 'Ok, um, give yourself in and you'll get a slightly smaller sentence!' 

Bad guy - 'No'

Hero - 'Ah shit, that was my big move' 

Bad guy - 'I know, that's always the big move, that's why I said you won't catch me!' 

Hero - 'Ah yeah? Well, I'm going to dig deep within, and even though I'm normally just a file clerk, it will turn out that I can run fast without instantly snapping my hamstring, and if I can do that, I can take you down with ACTION!' 

Bad guy - 'Not action?' 

Hero - 'Yep.... Action!!!'

Bad guy - 'I can't handle action, I give  myself in!!!'

It was a kick ass movie. Until the debate began. 

Me - 'You know what'?

Reven - 'What?'

Me - 'If that guy hadn't given himself in, and had instead of gone out on a ledge to get away, but then discovered that the ledge didn't go all around, it would have been kick ass if the hero then yelled "your shit out of ledge", right?'

Reven - 'Um, NOT right, why would that kick ass?'

Me - 'Cause it's like a pun on "shit out of luck"'

Reven - 'But he wasn't even in a building'?

Me - 'Yeah, but if he had have been'

Reven - 'But he wasn't!'

Me - 'THAT's NOT THE POINT, I'm saying IF he was you dick!' 

Reven - 'Well if he was, then he he could just fly off the ledge'

Me - 'Yeah, right. Cause flights a thing that exists in the world'

Reven - 'I can fly!' 

Me - 'No way'.

Reven - 'Of course I can, I'm raven bodied, you don't know me at all!!!'

Me - 'Ok, well what's THAT oozing out of THAT!' 

Reven 'It's goful wax oozing out of my glendlehyde'.

And that's when I shoved him in he Nutella jar. Yep, friendship sure is hard. Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah, who wants chocolate pancakes, I have secret ingredient! Zing.

Monster Castle - A Poem

Wally was starting to feel foolish.

For sixth months now he'd been living in The Gothic House, or 'Monster Caslte' as it was known to locals. 

This was the dog-house sized medieval castle within Tovella Fountains.

Located in Killkenny Park, in Danga Danga, New South Wales Australia.

It was known as 'Monster Castle' not because of the gargoyles that anointed it, but for the fact teenagers used to trick younger kids into climbing inside to 'see a monster' only to often find themselves walking in on a 'circle jerk' session by the local football team. 

All in all the town were largely happy with how they'd spent their entire millienum arts budget.

Tourists did flock by to see it in numbers occasionally reaching double figures a year.

And after the bank of port-a-loos were installed adjacent to it, it now was only urinated in a dozen or so times a day. 

Wally cared not for any of that though.

The football players had stopped coming by to watch each other jerk off after he had discovered the funnel-web spiders nest and trained the babies to be his penis charging army.

And the teenagers had stopped tricking younger kids to go in there after Wally had built a shield made from the peeling testicle skin of dying football players.

And so now all that he needed was for 'Heltro - The Magic Wizard Warlock' to show up.

He'd been promised by his uncle Johnson that if he moved into the castle Heltro would show.

No time frame was given at the time, but Wally had begun to have doubts after four months.

And now six months in those doubts had evaporated and formed into a cloud, that now rained a feeling of foolishness on him.

Wally no longer believed that Heltro would show. 

But leaving without seeing him was a failure he couldn't face quite yet.

How would he explain what he'd been doing all this time with no end result to point towards? 

His attempts to think of a saving face solution were also a failure.

He was instead becoming bitter.

At the town.

At the fountain.

At Heltro.

But mostly at his uncle Johnson who had made this promise.

Wally knew he should never have trusted him.

He didn't have an uncle Johnson for starters.

Plus uncle Johnson was a sheep, and as far as he knew he didn't have sheep in his family tree.

Although his Nanna Gretna had looked a little Marinoesq in her last few years.

He carried around a handkerchief knitted from her chin hairs to remember her. 

Now that he thought about it the first time he'd seen uncle Johnson was when he had that flu, and was pumping himself full of meds and blowing his nose like crazy into Nanna Gretna's handkerchief. 

Maybe this was all Nanna Gretna's fault? 

'Oh screw this' he thought.

'I only wanted Heltro to show so I could ask him to send a message to Nanna Gretna'

'But THIS is how she repays me?'

Right then and there Wally threw his handkerchief out the window, where it flew like a Frisbee, and then lodged itself in a tree like a ninja star. 

A bird came and perched on it.

Then immediately puked.

And Wally finally left 'Monster Castle' cursing under his breath 'fuck you Nanna, you sweet old cunt'.

On his way out he tripped on his twelve inch toenails.

And suffocated in a massive puddle of years old football player splooge.

Knowing things is good

'Alloying of the human torso had become rife. I mean not as bad as the pearling of the human foot, or the humaning of the average monkeys pearl collection, but still significant enough to be mentioned in magizines. Sure they were niche magazines, with tiny readerships, and sure in those ariticles the alloying was treated with disdain 'sure it looks cool, for an hour, and then you realize you're too heavy to ever stand up again, unless you've really been doing your leg exercises, and let's face it, most people attracted to the alloying lifestyle have not' would scream the headlines. Single handily making the alloyers seem dumb, while also making the editors in charge of the magazine's headlines seem unwilling to cut down to managable, and intelligent sizes, while also reinventing the term 'single handedly' to mean multiple handed things, but only if you interpret them strangely' I said to my boss. 

Seconds later my 'personal day' request was honored! It was totally worth the six months research into weird sub-cultures and niche magazine history too. Cause guess what I did with that day off? Yep. I TOTALLY tried on pants. Didn't buy any, cause they looked dumb, but how'd I have known otherwise? 

Revenge

Mal was pissed off at his next door neighbor Glen.

He decided to take matters into his own hands and stole something from Glen's backyard. 

But Glen appeared not to notice. 

So Mal stole another thing.

And then another.

And then yet another. 

And still another.

It turned out that that Glen hadn't actually liked or wanted that tractor tire, dilapidated barbecue pit, old clothes horse collection, Elk boneyard or black widow spider's nest. 

Glen came to the fence to thank Mal.

And as Mal looked back over Glen's yard he couldn't even remember what about it had so pissed him off these past fifteen years.

And they became friends. 

And one year they even took a vacation together. 

Where Mal killed Glen for stealing his toothbrush.

After its theft had reminded him that the real reason he had been pissed off at Glen small that time was that Glen had stolen his wife. 

He'd blocked it out after she had died the day she left him.

From a black widow spider bite. 

The Ghost - A poem

Jake was telling everyone he knew that he'd made love to a ghost. 

His wife was horrified.

He'd cheated on her. 

She left him.

She sued for divorce. 

She found the best lawyer in town.

She was willing to do anything to stop people finding out that was just what her fake tan looked like under a black light. 

So ARE you a cow?

It happens to all of us occasionally, some of us almost regularly, we wake up in the morning with grass between our teeth, with a bell around our neck and a hankering for a fresh glass of milk, and we think 'holy shit, am I a cow?' 

For most of us this panic lasts a few hours, we'll stare in the mirror for while trying to spot human characteristics, we'll jump online and do some research, we'll eat something and see if it feels like four stomachs are working rather than one. But you can never really tell, and you just want someone to give you a definitive list of ways to tell if you are in fact a cow, but it doesn't exist. 

Well that is, until now!

How to tell if you're a cow: 

- Your childhood education went basically like this: 

'Mommy, where do I sleep'?

'You're standing on it'

'Where do I shit?'

'You're standing on it'

'What do I eat?' 

'You're standing on it'

Then your mother got turned into a purse.

- Last time someone was sucking on your tail they exclaimed 'mmmm tastes like cow'.

- All 8 of your dicks are leaking milk. 

- Whenever you are racist people say 'ah I can't be mad, you're black AND white..... Although not brown, you racist'.

- You're named 'Daisy', or 'Driving Miss' or half of any Morgan Freeman movie, 'Shawshank' or 'Almighty' or you have Gwyneth Paltrow's head in a box in your closet. 

- When people do a Christopher Walken impression near you, you can't help but be all like 'more cowbell? I don't gotta have more cow bell, do you know farmers use those so they can keep a track on us at all times? And also that they're uncomfortable and sometimes smell like rust?' 

- When they inevitably switch to Walken's watch monologue from Pulp Fiction, you're now all like 'oh a watch in your ass? You know how I get artificially inseminated? Farmer sticks his whole arm in my ass, I've got like ten watches back there!'

- Whenever you're eating steak part of you is thinking 'why does this taste like that one time I vomited so hard flesh came out'?

So there you go, finally a definitive way of finding out if you are, or are not a cow.

So how'd you go? Are you a cow? If so can you stop texting me, I don't swing that way, anymore, plus your hoofy typing leaves you WAY over punctuating, oh also, your vomiting flesh? That's not right, go see a doctor, or a vet, or just a barbecue, let's face it, that vomit you did tasted awesome!! 

Mix This

Confession time - I've never been to a goat herding themed croissant mixer.

Now I know what you're thinking - 'you Dave? You've NEVER been. That's madness. That seems right up your alley, WAY up your alley. Nice alley by the way, you keep it nice and tidy, I'm into that'. 

And first off, thank you, I have long kept a nice clean alley, but I wasn't aware anyone had really noticed, which can be frustrating at times, because it certainly doesn't clean itself, there are always fast food wrappers, and sometimes old tires, I don't know how they get there, if you're going to dump your tires why bring them to MY alley you animals! 

And secondly, you're RIGHT! It is up my alley, WAY UP my alley. And I'll tell you it's difficult living a life that's devoid of the memory of going to goat herding themed croissant mixer, there's like a shadowy area in my memory where that should be, and frankly that area is scaring the crap out of my memories of being a child. 

Oh sure, I could glue together memories of the many goat herding themed bars, restaurants, hatariums, and reptile zoos I've been too, and memories of the dozens of croissant mixers I've been to, hosted by everyone from everyone's favorite fence mender Harold Deesh to my local rock merchant Norm Stone, a man who just does NOT stop loving people saying 'well you're certainly in the right line of work' despite stones and rocks being vastly different things.

But why should I glue memories? I'm down there every day cleaning my alley, with goat herding loving croissant mixing people right up my alley, sure it's WAY up my alley, but I make it up that far occasionally when the weather is nice. And I want in.

Here's what you can do to help:

- Are you throwing a croissant mixer this weekend? 

- Probably. 

- So consider adding in a goat herding theme.

- I mean really consider it. 

- It's starting to sound pretty good isn't it?

- Well done for thinking in sound.

- But also think of the visuals.

- Goat herding shirts!

- Goat herding shoes!  

- Goat herding HATS! 

- Goat shit everywhere.

- Goat shit on goat herding hats! 

- Alright, so it's settled, yay, you're throwing a goat herding themed croissant mixer!

- Congrats!  

- Now invite me PLEEEEEAAAASSSEE!

- Wait I forgot, goat shit on goat herding hats! 

- Oh I'd said that already. 

- Don't let that take away my invite. 

- It was just a mistake.

- Am I still getting an invite? 

- Well you know what, fuck you!

- And also if you're currently thinking the old tire you wear as a necklace is going out of style, then stay the fuck away from my alley!!! 

Compliance - a poem

David, a semi-regular writer of poems.

Challenged himself to write a whole poem in the time it took to get from Sydney's Town Hall station to Central station.

On the train.

And that's only one stop.

And he was already on the train.

So he did not want to dilly-daddle.

Wait is that the right term? 

Yeah I think so. 

His random word offering app gave him the word - compliance - as inspiration.

I guess this poem fits that definition.

And the train has only just started moving.

'Damn'

He thought. 

Sure it technically complied. 

But its nothing super special, probably only regularly special. 

'Hmmm' he thought. 

'Hmmm' he added. 

'Um' he pondered.

'Fuck it, I've got a minute or so' he declared out loud, making fellow passengers fear he was about to do something rash. 

And we was. 

He wrote this.

Michael, a lawyer who specializes in arbitration between tenant and landlord disputes. 

Took a shit on his neighbors porch.

He had absolutely no beef with them.

So he was confident of getting away with it. 

He was happier with this one.

Cause it combined two of his loves.

Shitting in strange places. 

And the law. 

Yep this one really was super special.