WHO THE HELL IS MICHAEL BOTUR? Michael Botur was born in 1984 in Christchurch, New Zealand and now lives in Whangarei with his family. Botur’s heritage includes English, Irish (County Longford), Scottish (Clan Macintosh), Polish and some obscure ancestors from Rawalpindi, Pakistan. Botur is author of four acclaimed indie short story collections and one collection which hardly anybody read. He is author of young adult sci-fi dystopian series Moneyland and literary fiction novel Crimechurch. Botur holds a Masters in Creative Writing from AUT University and a Graduate Diploma in Journalism Studies from Massey University. Botur runs KiwiWords which provides communications, content and copywriting services. Botur has published creative writing in most NZ literary journals and has won numerous prizes for creative writing since beginning writing in 2005. He was in 2017/18 included in collections put together by University of Otago and University of Canterbury and has published journalism in most major NZ newspapers and magazines. In 2019 Botur ran the #100nzstories100days campaign. EMOTIONAL STUFF A shout out to my comrades in art and entertainment: Vivian Thonger, Vincent Nathan, Brett Ruys, Jeremy Roberts, Michelle Elvy, Jenny Purchase, Lauren Roche, Fleur Coleman, Tre Poutama, Oliver Scripps, Steff Green, Antony Killeen. LEGAL STUFF ISBN 9781697236583 Copyright Michael Botur 2019. Published by Wild West Writing, Whangarei New Zealand December 2019. All rights reserved. Cheers for publishing: Gangsta As – published in Manifesto Aotearoa: 101 Political Poems, Otago University Press, 2017 I Am Dunedin - published in Catalyst 2006 Coulda Said – 2nd, takahē poetry competition, 2011 Ways To Die In The South Island - Poetry New Zealand 2012 Somebody To Smoke With - Poetry Shelf 2017 Wet & Forget- Published in 4th Floor, 2013

Good Ol’ Boy I’m a Good Ol Boy! Buy us a pint, ya cunt! From Canterbury to Counties, Wongarei to Wockataine, I’m the prop holdin up the province, backbone of the National Bank, My milk keeps Kiwis plump. I slit the throats and squeeze the teats, I’m a Good Ol Boy, my daughter Crystal wraps your fish ‘n chips never mind the dung in the scabs of her crusty knuckles A Good Ol Boy, and after milking, my freckled biceps hustle a muttering Masport across me perfect lawn, A Good Ol Boy, inflexible, taut as a figure 8 knot I corral brown brats with their sticks and sagging socks out of Mrs Murray’s yarn store and put ’em in the pen I call Pukekohe North. A Good Ol Boy, wobbly as broken kerbside furniture, veteran of a rolling ATV quaddy, no helmet on me. Gimme any Kubota, New Holland, John Deere tractor & I'll mend 'er with nothin but a Port Royal rollie perched like communion in me lips. See, us Good Ol Boys, we’re varnished by a hundred years of self-assurance, solid as a scrum, measured by our calloused crusty handshake crush. A Good Ol Boy, in muddy boots and camo gears, I trail RD1 and Wrightsons aisles, and once a month might even treat the missus to a cuppa from a two KG tin of instant Nescafé. A Good Ol Boy, potato-raiser, ears clotted with RoundUp. A hundred hectare horizon’s as much as I’ll stretch me vision. Good Ol Boy, unsuited to a suit and tie, packin the after-match function, gettin in a punch-up with the Tribesmen in the parking lot outside the Drury Tavern. Our First XV is on the fifty dollar bill. I ain’t hearda no espresso. Can’t pernounce no Te Reo. I'm a Good Ol’ Boy. I’ve drove over more cliffs than you’ve had hot dinners, mate. You got no idea what life’s like southa them Bombays. So you're a local, ya reckon, eh? Then whereabouts ya stay? Mate: Leave ya ute unlocked. Wear ya best Bathurst shirt - show some respect, she's the RSA, and brainy cunts get served only elbows at our bar, so leave ya vocab at the door. I'm a Good Ol Boy, doin' thirty kays on a Case tractor on the motorway. I'm a Good Ol Boy, Protestant, And my name ends in a consonant.

Wet and Forget I’m hosing out my head waterblasting regrets, unpeeling lichen stickers. Here’s one stuck: slithering belts unbuckled methane breath inside the cold damp duvet we scuttled under. Timid nibbles, your moth lips a cavern of nitrogen your mildewed clothes beside a dribblin’ Wellington window. Theories on your flatmates. Illuminati. Conspiracy. Here’s more mucky fungal memory hiding under my hypothalamus: wrestling moves, goose bumps on your belly. Muscles stiff. Biting your chin, pinching your skinny wrists unlocking combination clothes, letting the loot loose. Frigid moon a rare glimpse of street-sweepers. we swapped pink sticky chameleon tongues. You asked advice on your assignments, agonised. Time to give the ol’ frontal lobe a goin’ over (there’s crumbs frozen in the fridge-frost) Botched and aborted baking abandoned beers, broken bras dumpster-diving for expired deli delicacies. Giggling through uppity meetings my hand eating your thigh in the rear of the theatre. You, twitching, shuddering, an eel dying. I undid your watch clasp with teeth and tongue. One last unpeeling patch, stubborn, needs a scrubbin’: you, fumblin for your glasses on the nightstand right-angled, pulling your cardigan armour on brittle, prickly, bristling, dissecting my text - Except this is all a guess I wasn’t even there I gapped without breakfast didn’t sweep the crumbs up. Sorry ‘bout the mess.

Baggage I’m imported from an Old World of atavists and anti-hijab jabs from prescient presidents; continent of all-conquering currency. My plane disclaims its Eurocargo on lava tarmac. We’re ethnic riffraff, scraps scraped off a plate. Wide-eyed, I salivate at all this ripe-to-colonise space– I drool like Conrad when he saw the necklace-lain Congo jewel. Every Mangere mangrove here should move aside so I can stake my Tricoleur til I’m secure I heard the settlers changed their name to New Zealander or Pakeha From European: such insurgency! A slap, a speed hump, but it can’t stump the rules of retrospect which state that history, if sealed, congeals, and cannot be contested or repealed. So, I lug my luggage with me In case I must declare identity. The hotel shuttle is a quarantine. Each passed pub’s a Celtic, Welsh or English embassy, but I’m excluded from the hubris, I’m just noxious ambassador for Ferdinand, Wilhelm, Windsor, Louis. Decamping here, establishing my principality, I seed elms, firs, chestnut trees, appleseeds. I hug the oaks, all damp and England-old; I clutch a pocketful of francs. I long for the Louvre, thirst for the Danube. But, needing residency, I slide my Heineken aside and drink a Steiny, let my tongue absorb the way you talk: accent of parrots, cheese, beaches, wheat, and frosted skis, And islets, quad bikes, estuaries; ANZACs, Allies swathed in Swanndri, Baled hay, udders stuffed with curds and whey Hawke’s Bay Chardonnay, manuka tea. I swallow spiteful eyefuls of the Sky Tower. Downunder Eiffel. I obfuscate my origin, I carry mere inflections on my tongue. My flag, my baggage can be boxed, unlocked upon May Day, Queen’s Birthday, Bastille Day, exhumed when they’ll ask me: Mate, ya Kiwi? And my mouth’ll empty. No rugby fealty or passport can talk for me. I’ll search my carried baggage, check the mirror. Then we’ll see: Croatia, Polynesia, Asia are connected by a common sea Uninterrupted by nationalities. Europe was a squeeze So this refugee begs residency, because you need my exotic biscotti and without the expanses landed in the Treaty, people like me wouldn’t have room to breathe.

The First Time We Made Love After The Baby The first time we made love after the baby In an out-south state house creaking like a ship adrift, our stitches split and ripped, our nervous wince, flinch, teeth agrit. Pleas to God not to wake our tiny bean on his rocking chair. Can’t have interrupted sleep Coz then we couldn’t catch a breakfast bus to WINZ to fill a food grant form and weep was the first time we made love after the baby The first time we made love after the baby, Saltlick, bitten skin, clutch tight as yang and yin Our rhythm gentle as a daddy long legs on a breeze. In the indigo, oiled the springs to stifle squeaks. Afterward we prayed, afraid, and cradled. Listening keen, asthmatic gasp. Dared to breathe. Watching on a cupped phone our peers’ parties in Ponsonby, their laughing teeth, their prancing hoofs, they overlooked our fragile family. Forgot us, in all honesty. The first time we made love after the baby agony and tenderness and tense breath in throes on a tightrope atop his little crib. Like Ötzi the alpine iceman crept across an avalanche breathing on an ember in a box, chasing hope, Baby snoring. Future dawning. Blue horror of a sleepless morning. Starlings screaming, on our own, new home, alone, no midwife-warning.

City of Women Me and you: smitten in an instant. Pot luck conversation takin-over-the-table invasion. Footsies; squeezed knees; creaking settee; forgotten TV. A yawn. An arched arm. Tiny when unrobed, all ribs and shiver and grin and winces, winked hints. Next: rants, scratched back, excessive texts, inexplicable. Best filed under X. Another you was blown through my winter university. In a stolen Ford Falcon choice with oi oi boys, shearers in bomber jackets, beer-soaked singlets, stinkin armpits. You, the caring clean-up type, someone’s cherubic sis, while the guys packed brick bats you carried toothpaste and Band-Aids and a suitcase A maid made to roll smokes & plate the kitchen fish ‘n chips You were too much delicacy for the china shop bull in me. Led to the wilderness. Released discretely. Try again. Began as friends. You, upstanding, respected, speccy, Ph.D., loved QI, the Booker Prize and Stephen Fry, clean, anti-nicotine anti my leather hide; pro-Greens, reiki, wheatgrass juice, brain food, Omega-3, sushi. Still, you secreted demons, distress, disease your shrink said to wean off the Venlafaxine. Healthier to drop me, cold turkey. You (number 22, or was it 23) shouldn’t have been a manager with MYOB, a pedigree and framed degrees, all heels and meetings we were just old bros thrown in a guest bed accidentally Woozy with booze, ceiling spinning, Tickling, ankles slithering, sandpaper hands sawing pubic mons, nibbled neck, panting panicked as an asthma attack. At dawn your daughter opened the door, saw what could’ve been a father up and vanish through the crack I’d spend library nights scribbling furiously, filling up 1B5 diaries Making notes on a composite chick built of perfect bits, a Frankenstein Bride. In the big city, an air hostess one fly-in night was the last time I consumed human drive-thru I chewed, wiped my lips, biffed it in the tip. Swore no more. Revised diet. Change of tune. Tried to convince you.

The Gym Height of titans, heaven-hewn, Roman columns, beams for arms, wider side than tall, volcanic trapezoids. quads wide enough to eat your dinner off. We're pumped as beachballs, biceps like kamokamo, calves wide as doormats, shoulders steel basketballs Fingers fat glue sticks. No necks. Finished the sesh, our weights are lugged across the rubber floor, back in the racks and after a last flex of the pecs with our doppelganger in the mirror we selfie, sauna, upload to Insta, towel and powder, prick our gluteus max, Sssh, it’s just a little snack. Next, after a calorie count, we shouldercharge reception’s endomorphs promise to return tomorrow at 4, intimidate the sliding doors. Then biff Big Macs, Whoppers, Baconators, Anguses, squashed flat as discuses & tossed into our starved abysses nibble chips, wash ’em into the drain with protein shakes, gasp and blaaarp and, as if there lives a pet pup in the gut, pat our happy abs, and then head back and lug a couple 35ers off the rack cause in the mirror there’s a dwarf with dysmorphia. Can’t face ’im if he’s fat.

Stumbling in Circles Musta been quite a sight, a story for the fam-i-ly Drivin your Welly Combined Taxi round Rongotai in the morning, 2.30 on a roundabout you see this student in the pansies, drunken, skinny, dancing deliriously He got kissed by the girl of his dreams is what was up. See, At the bottom of the steps, where ciggy butts and loners go She squeezed his shoulder, spun him, stopped him cold chapped lip to nervous grin, pinned a kiss the kid didn’t think deserved to come. Lowered her status. A kiss out of the view of everyone See, he’d been at his platonic female friend’s party, poker played on green felt at twin tables. Nibbles and dips, legit chips, cigar snips. Helluva shindig, what with the hostess in a retro floral dress (his platonic friend, mind, no-strings dates, just mates, lingering fingers fumbling on the button for crossing. Prolonged eye-glancing). Anyway, our matron handed round the canapés on Oriental Bay Salvation Army stolen trays. Two dozen Bohemians on couches filched from the op shop. Fat Freddy on the Bluetooth; smoky living room. MDMA, jays. He wasn’t the alpha (that was the flatmate-ogre in the corner) but that was okay. No hope of getting laid so he overdid it on the Jäger bombs and shots, went-all in on a flush and lost. Those ownin the poker merged into a supergroup. A lotta liquor on the lounge lizards, some midnight Barry White, that sorta mood What drove the sensitive kid off was the unevolved Homo Erectus flatmate’s man-hands graspin the arse of our man’s platonic, female friend from Creative Writing 101. She gasped; he checked his phone til the awkwardness had passed. The kid at his meekest (obsequious vegan, bony, stoned, hardly eaten) couldn’t last Luckily, she stopped the evacuee at the bottom of the steps. A pash, a giggle. Lick of lips. World paused, reset. He wobbled home from Miramar to Berhampore or wherever the fuck, found himself lost near the airport, paid way too much for the taxi, drunk, fucked up, dizzy, deranged, bipolar, drugged on glee (that flat up on the left, yeah? That’s me). Anyways, Mister Taxi Man, take it from me: It’s the number one killer in this country. You don’t wanna die lonely.

Twenty Bucks With a hundred unsold books, an overdraft and twenty bucks I’ll buy three 2.99 brewskies to lubricate the stiff day, satiate the geyser-in-wait. Water down my temper. Dilute the magma. That leaves ten for Pinot or merlot to thin the wife’s blood type-O and make her post-natal tension break. I’ll take the change in ten cent bits for my kid to put in his piggy bank. An afternoon evaporates; we tickle and oink. An orange note remains: get Abe a Maccas Coke McFloat, watch the Super 18 for free, score the Herald on Sunday, buy the fam-i-ly free napkins, aircon. Handful of straws for the wee one. It don’t cost a leg and an arm to stalk the toy department of the Big Red Barn and mime like I might buy some overpriced FisherPrice device, then blow my final golden heron on a Thomas the Tank Engine carousel where you get the PakNSave prams from. Abe’s too amazed to get on it. Parking change traded for a 50 buck ticket on my bonnet. A dollar gets you half a scoop of chips –fine dining for a kid. Or get the snips, chop five lollies into twice as many bits, It’s our shoestring economy. There’s no app for that on iPad. I’ve got the park, climbing trees, wife’s grinning running chasing screaming giggling teeth, I’ve got the beach, that’s free. Hot baths, pram runs, endorphins, put the boy on his dad’s back, crawl through the house in motorcycle padded pants, a panda’s what I am for three hours, eat a pot plant, call it bamboo, til church playgroup, free bikkies and tea then we’re off down the library pushing books off the shelves. Security smiles and melts. It’s not five, ten or twenty bucks to jog to the sewage pond and feed the ducks. It doesn’t cost shit to put a grin on top of Abe’s chubby chin. Bags of books. Brushing teeth with toothpaste tested on pets cause it’s a dollar-fifty. So fuck a $50 family deal to see Toy Story 3D: Here’s Abe in 3D. Through the anxiety, I keep the writin comin, and strapped to my abdomen, baby Violet sleeps obliviously.

If I Died Today If I was blown off my bike today Into an oncoming Mack truck And became a smear of gravel and grey and dust I’d sit with God at the pub And ask him to rewind. Back, bro, back, replay I’d travel at 60 kays Snail-slow, but know I was heading To play the hugging game with my baby at the door Lift him up where the light is And accept everything he does as is. I’d tell everyone that I loved them I’d admit I respect critics and cynics who tax and vex I’d shrink to a slug hugging the motorway Inching an entire 80 years To worm up to your door I’d begin my journey at birth and make it home before you died And be with you for a nanosec Wouldn’t waste time critiquing dirty dishes’ grease I’d admire a single increment One micron of your skin. drink your caramel irises in I could move so slow I’d get there at the end of the world And see you just before we disintegrate into space. That having said, I’m dead if I stay out here and you need me to change a nappy, put the kettle on So I nudge the throttle up to a thousand kays And gobble up the Southern Motorway. What I do is squeeze more of you into my day.

Somebody To Smoke With I sat the Friday night in a Subaru in a car park with male ape mates in oversized XL white t-shirts suckin on pipes Just for somebody to smoke with. Did three weeks sweaty sunburned work pushin a post hole borer in the dirt with an ex-con who shared his pipe, wet with spit from our lips At knock-off we said Bugger It, wiped ourselves down with a paint-stiffened towel, shared a bucketa crunchy KFC motivated by munchies, washed it down with cans of bourbon cola Cody’s pleased to have a bro to share a cone and a Family Feast. We grown men make out like we be staunch, strong, chill, unafraid like we ain’t at pains to get praised, get laid cause we could get hit by a bus any day Men in their 30s, 40s, 50s. Men in matching patches, hoodies, men in rugby stubbies, men in cycle-lycra Men having mid-life crises, dreams of ephedrine Men ram-raiding Unichem pharmacies at 4.15 on a Thursday morning, squealing tyres and guilty pleas And getting bulldogs and BPs etched on our cheeks Consigning us to a life we can’t come back from, like tryina climb a hydroslide All cause we wanted somebody to be a bloke with To feel less alone, somebody to smoke with.

Big Joe Clarke Big Joe Clarke was born into a crook, shackled in umbilical manacles, birthed behind basinet bars. Big Joe Clarke Inherited a life sentence, got it hot from his parents. His mum knitted him his first ankle bracelet, kitted him with fingertips with nails the size of fifty cent bits Big Joe Clarke, was crippled by his pedigree. His clan’d crack you a can of Bitter cause they ain’t thieve milk for tea. Big Joe Clarke’s feral whanau built walls around their family without posts or putty. Iron bars, steels boots, bricks lino knives, sledgehammers, hacksaws The law couldn’t leap their walls. Golf clubs, hockey sticks, cricket bats – not bought for sport. The Clarke brand alone was a match for any gang patch. Surprise allies of the Harris boys were Clarke’s crew, a taste, a test of the Treaty. They put the hood in neighbourhood. Big Joe Clarke shook hands with his fists, punched way above his weight. Ignored Peer Support, instead taught walking staunch to chewed-up pups. Big Joe Clarke, born notorious had a posse of cuzzies clinging to his hoodies like possum babies, had a brother too badarse to bail, a stab-resistant big sis. Big Joe Clarke kicked a dent in a kaumatua’s head. He clocked cunts with one glance. He showed made men the underside of his chin. Big Joe Clarke parked where he wanted Needed no window tints, brawled at innocent discos, king hit. Fists big as baseball mitts. Big Joe Clarke was the backbone of every First XV, the basketball, the touch team and used a softball bat like a pen to put his name on them who ain’t heard of him. Joe Clarke, built like Samson pushed the pillars til the whole unstable temple toppled. Big Joe Clarke Sprinted to the tryline years ahead of the rest. His dad’s kid, he used a belt on himself. Determined to win, he made the coroner’s inquest a piece o’ piss; he was staunch, stiff, even more so with rigor mortis. Big Joe Clarke was the only G in his whole punching-bag country tough enough to fuck up Big Joe Clarke.

Waiting for the Bell At my school, a freshman would come runnin screamin’ FIGHT every single interval B got baked, tried to throttle the principal Colleges munched our First XV in their mandibles Deano’s divorcee mum bought us all alcohol Eddie Spaghetti got a bathroom beating, bent his spectacles F. was the only Tongan the Aryans gave a pass, unquestionable Giant Island Crips got them whiteboys scared enough to scratch swastikas on the toilet stall walls Handball on black ice, July, soggy socks steam, noses dribble I’d do some acting to get out of maths, unmissed, invisible, while Johnny got smashed by an angry midget in a Hornets singlet during friendly basketball Karl from Cashmere, went the fable, at a party in the hills, kicked a bottle up a goth’s arsehole Lighter burns, tats and scabs and hatin fags kept a man normal My BFF broke a nerd’s nose on the home ec room wall Nigger Whomper writ on the bat skinners swung at Friday night skulls Other schools lent us their infamous kids to sample Parties at the Kingpin’s pad, rootin on a rug to Limp Bizkit, pukin on the lawn, passin round the spottle Quals gave us paper smokable when we ran outta Rizzlas to roll Rusty broke the two years’ difference dating rule, busted dozens of trusting cherries, irreparable Suicidal girls got put on a pedestal if they got horizontal with the chill guy on the student council, first to grow a beard, first to hold up his pussy-soaked finger for the boys to smell. T. got done for home invasion when the rest of us were getting our yearbook autographs filled Under the fort, kneeling in the bark, we swapped sticky bits, ciggies. Learned philosophy from late 80s graffiti. We were free to eXpel ourselves, see, the BOT had no muscle Years 9 to 12, wet jersey wool on overturned soccer goals, five years of acting invincible, waiting for the bell Zazzif school was secondary, everybody couldn’t wait to get king-hit or miss her period so we came out with a story to tell.

Coulda Said Coulda said that he wore the same clothes seven grey weekdays in a row, the 80s polar fleece, pilled, no elbows, flogged from the dollar box outside the Salvo’s. Coulda notified his lust for uppercuts kept trippin him up, that he gave his high school principal a new setta dentals Coulda said he laid tarmac with a chaingang every Friday for his PD. Didn’t even know what them two letters stood for, just something the judge said he had to do with the crust of the dregs. Coulda mentioned he’s on perpetual detention, That every clown speakin English like a queen has gotta be a teacher out to get him, so he throws out right hooks like confetti to keep the future outta his face. And he coulda warned us of his stiff driftwood limbs, His cliff chin, bleached afro his boxer’s posture stiff as a statue. The police scanner in the hatchback rego’d to his nana its chipped bonnet the raw snout of an angry Staffy cross. He just come on the course for some free gumboots, Red Bands, the good ones and a cuppa tea and to bum a couple rollies coz dole day’s always light years away, it’s the sun on overcast Thursdays. Coulda said it all when he enrolled. Instead we let him write himself off, watched a bad day’s dad-dissed stiff bitten fingertips chrysalis into a fist, emerge as a kinghit, sugary instant coffee spilled and a narc knocked on its back, called 111, filed Form 8(a), ticked the right box, got it stamped, signed, and filed and on the same form applied for Post-It notes and white-out and had him in the outbox by knock-off.

Gangsta As Gangsta as Sky City’s high rolling clan lab Chinese Gangsta as Pare Block D. Gangsta as the Sindi. Gangsta as the Blenheim iwi versus biker beef Gangsta as Celtics singlets bandaging bleeding Bloods And Cannon’s Creek craniums cracked on kerbs by thugs Gangsta as a Nelson league team givin’ gooks the bum’s rush Gangsta as sandpaper scalps and swastika-stickered skin Gangsta as the hoodrats Becroft was too soft to discipline, and that nerd’s arm snappin, and the Harris Gang cousin chucklin. Gangsta as the Hudsons, the Duffys, the Browns Gangsta as the Fourth Reich guy with Die Nigger Die tatted on his brow Gangsta as the Police Gang on the prowl. Gangsta as the freedom to associate. Gangsta as Devast8. Gangsta as the Killer Clown Fiends’ prison Ritalin trade Gangsta as solitary Gs catching up on their lost NCEA Gangsta as that black and spewing BOP pollutant: the Filthy Few Gangsta as the Nomads, Horowhenua’s rotten tooth Gangsta as Mossie’s tangi, the thousand-long lunchline queue. Gangsta as a dozen Road Knights beside you at the Timaru traffic lights. Gangsta as the Snitches Get Stitches patches Angels let you buy online Gangsta as the Tribesmen, stubborn on their Jap bikes Gangsta as Junior Warriors getting jumped on the Viaduct Gangsta as the Wairoa Mob’s scrum for top dog Gangsta as shot mobsters refusing to see a doctor. Gangsta as staunching out a teacher. Gangsta as havin a different dad every month And every afternoon, if she wakes up, you get a few crumbs of mum.

Bloodwork The blood group gene encodes a protein expressed on the surface of the red cell. In 2002, on a winter dawn, orange and blue, the blood group of homeless Shannon McComb was seen expressed on the shoes and baggy jeans of two youths who kicked him to death, so said the crimescene. Let’s take a step back and a gulp, zoom out this microscope. For every 600 red there are 40 platelets and just one solitary white blood cell. For every 600 kids at Aranui High School, deprivation dismissed to the city’s fringe, there are two kids uninspired enough to use their shoes to crush a waif’s skull and call themselves tough, Bored on a flat Canterbury night, frosty crystals of July, listless, itchin for exercise They stomped him dead. Let’s back away from the end. Let’s regress to the cool, clinical lab instead. Carbohydrate markers on the surface of a cell Say A, B, AB, or O, and ohh, when enough blood leaks on the streets it leads to haemorrhaging, and screams, and a grown man weeping and cackling teens, rangy and lean and curious to see If they could prove themselves to be a unit of G’s by stomping a homeless dude who lived in a tent in the bushes, half-nude and skinny. Outta Roman Candles, bored on a chilly crimson dawn Pakanui Morrice and Kevin Green etched a message, left shoeprints on his head back and back again to blood-blister-blacken the bum’s face and back, THWACK, the fence paling snaps A sloppy kiddy two-on-one micro-gang attack. Damn, dawg! Your mugs made the front page of The Press! Only 17 and you stomped a dude to death! Your vague vacated faces in the dock indicate you’d rather watch your condemnation on the box. Surely in the interview room the pigshits drove it in, spittin like your stepdad yellin told what happened with the dead kid’s coffin? How the lid was closed, so busted was his skin, bludgeoned, ruptured. closed casket. Mum couldn’t look at him. I picture yous in Paparua Prison, so so badass, the ultimate detention shivering, giddy with exhilaration. D’you get the bash from famous Bailey Kurariki? Did the infamy give you a stiffy? I had schoolmates who may’ve taken your lunch-line place maybe raised their tray to break your face made you cry and bite your fists like wee 45kg Shannon did. Don’t whimper! Don’t bicker or rat on each other! Chin up, Cuz. Expect a Bloods ambassador to endorse your course soon, boy, some envoy representin Raymond Washington, straight outta Compton with a medal to make your make-believe Bloods brotherhood official, to issue your hoodrat asses red threads, to kiss your behinds, to recognise two astute new recruits, reliable guys. I’m trying to revive Shannon McComb, lost his life at 29 But all the limelight lies with two gunless G’s Whose pocket knife in the victim’s guts broke off, Childish blade, kiddy-safe tiny as a Weetbix prize. You guys ambled home at dawn, chucked Spongebob on, complained about the bloodstains on your jeans. Culprit Green wished he had a dad with Napisan to show him how to put the washing on. and Pakanui agonised what to spend the loot on: Spacemen candy sticks or KaBlooey bubblegum.

The Slut with the Slipknot Tattoo The slut with the Slipknot tattoo from Palmy or Paraparaumu or Waiuku spends Sunday afternoons straightening and bleaching her roots She ain’t immune, (the tramp with the Slipknot stamp) to Facebook feuds or scrapping at netball with that skank who stole her true love, her dude. The bootgirl with the Slipknot tat has a two year-old to a ginge in jail for GBH. He texts from a new number every month. Tenancy agreement’s due for review she begs the landlord for a three bedroom. Baycorp makes her move to Timaru They creep up her neck, the blue letters etched on her neck, FTP, a hundy an hour for tattoos while the Meridian Energy bill went unpaid, overdue. Ramraid vans fat packed with Nu- rofen used to pay for tickets to Devilskin, Crusty Demons. Dropped out of her degree partway through Her cuzzies babysit when she’s caught up in family court. A personal trainer from Tongatapu is tapping that but he’s too Latter Day Saint to play with her kid. She guzzles Vodka Cruiser, watches Dr Phil afternoons. Loves occasions to change out of her hoody, puff perfume. After the baby she changed shape like Betty Boop Every wedding, there’s the same group She’s closed three emails; restraining order renewed. Another overdraft overdrew, stuffs her tooth brush and yearbooks in the boot. Moves to Manawa tu She’s last on the catchup list, same old shit, she’ll be on the DPB or doin admin in a caravan for a Fulton Hogan crew You can’t remember how yous met, she was just always in the back of some ute you spewed on the same rugs growing up, stained the same party buses, played kiss-catch, she cut up the oranges at every Marist match or used to She don’t vote, or watch the news, hard to relate, but with with morning tea Coruba in you and a ciggy on the deck she’s happy to goss about Form 2. She knots your tie, says you look good in a suit She’ll still be here in twenty years, ain’t goin anywhere. Sister, whanau, family to you, and if you didn’t know the soul inside this chickadee she would simply be The slut with the Slipknot tattoo.

One Sticker Kid 6.30 Sunday night we laminate my special little guy’s accolades, his trophy-trove (cosy, close). We get in some pre-bed Daddy and Son, heat pump on low I ask my kid if he’s been good and on his school sticker chart 50 stars glow He tells me (fully immunised, bright eyes, teeth gleaming with fluoride) that the bad kid (the one that fidgets and squints, itchy arse, sharp teeth like pins) has only one star sticker on his chart. Which kid, son? The half halfcaste / half-trash white? Purple bruised eyes? That kid baptised with a name his mum – surely some whore – saw on a tag in Rebel Sport? Don’t you worry bout him. That lil troublemaker exhausted his teacher, got moved to a small room where they keep the teacher aides and brooms Child filed under untameable, wild. Case closed. I shake my head, pull thermal curtains over my double glazed windows, I cheer us up buying a new thousand-thread duvet set for my boy’s bed with my American Express. I position his pillow so my kid’s head Can sink into post-Player of the Day safe sleep. My kid says please, shares, takes turns. I kiss his unstained face, tuck in forearms free of burns. His belly’s ballooned with nutritious food, anus free of worms. While somewhere in the hood the bad kid burns his school shirt on a stove Tryin’a make potatoes on toast while mama’s comatose, baked. He could shout about his sticker til spit wet her face and she wouldn’t wake. Speaking of which: Sleep, son. Let’s let CYFs handle it. The kid’ll grow up unafflicted with all that anxious anorexic safe sensitive pussyarse middleclass bullshit Armoured in a hundred layers of scarred skin, tough, acidic as an onion. We’ll see the kid on Police Ten Seven in no time, chin up Wanted by some media conference cop, second sticker finally under the wee guy’s eye, one teardrop

Questions for Kass Wobbling the scarecrow chair across tortured floorboards Kass, taking down your bandana, rolling your left pant leg up, C’z up, B’z up, KBz, rest in peace Unworried, now, bout budgeting tobacco crumbs, bum- puffing brazenly in a house of weeds up to your waist and ancient tins with tongues of stiffened paint. Kassandra, Kase, KC. 80kgs of wasted meat. I’m not bein mean, but you look like a punching bag, hanging from the creaking ceiling, the chain tinkling. A trickle of piss drops on the white knots of your High Tops laced just-so, a precise bow between your swinging feet. Every kid in school heard the beam break, Heard your mum’s lungs upended in the gutter Kass, man, admit it, suck it up. Own what you done. Don’t run. Shoulda kicked back, chillaxed. Everyone that gets pregnant gets fat. Shoulda let the haters’ cracks roll off your back. And forget about the seven bucks I said your arse owes us, I was jokin, Kass, you didn’t have to react. Oi: change of tac. Q&A, babe: what’s it like in space? Can ghosts guess people’s passwords? I need you to do me a solid: Open your phone. Forensic-test your texts. Tell us how come you done it. I tried to ask your brother at the tangi, oi, First time he been seen without a patch, that boy He used to seem so scary; now he’s soaked in water, head heavy. I tried to grasp his arm, cold and floppy, couldn’t shake his anvil hand.

Defence of Jack Torrance Drinking stinging piss; devouring The Shining in the soundless hour between 3 and 4 in the morning, hour of black gaps, hour adrift and maddening, saltwater, no sign of shore. I’ve renounced sober. I fear the landfall of dawn Shuddering as rum and a found-it-in-the-fridge juice mix burns the throat, each sugarliquor sip is a pinch. Sickened with each slurp, I tip my cup to narcissist Jack Torrance, my idol, my guy, two bros berserk at a.m. 3.49 I drink to his tragic logic in a boozed book binge I listen and forgive his sins ’cause he’s my bro-tagonist, fellow scribe, likeminded, likes to imbibe. My bud instructs how to get fucked-up while he cuts through a writer’s block blizzard. Kids and wife creep past as we typewrite, walking on ice. Some of us can’t handle stress, we bend til we snap, I agree with Jack, we’re so on-edge, so insomniac, we’ll attack interrupters with an axe for a little bliss. We all fall from innocence on the piss. I turn pages, sip and wince, enthralled as Jack hacks through snowdrifts. Miserable, suicidal, crushed by that unfinished novel, we hear the void call And I too, when depressed, when pricked with unrest crave a silent missus and kids. I’d kill for some kip I suck another gut-punch rum-swig And think of demonic inklings followed to extremity, think guilty pleas and degrees of culpability. Jack smashes his antagonists with a mallet. Flip a page. Gotta hear a man out. Somethin musta drove him to it. He’s misunderstood, driven insane, crazed, made awake. Gotta have a little empathy, he could be you or me in the hour after three, Asking only some privacy and sleep. Anxious, fragile. Leave him be, he’s a ship in a bottle you don’t wanna rattle

Don’t Look Down Don’t look down, maintain that tightrope traipse Ignore that you’re a blob on a rock in space And a slim Darwinian coinflip let you exist in the first place. These ruthless apes frustrate, so keep the faith. Don’t look down when you can’t keep chill about the daycare and doctor’s bills When all your friends seem to be on Bondi Beach holidays, eating Instagram food truck satay When prices rise like an incoming tide and your income ain’t gone up since two thousand five Born millennial, with fuck-all, everything seems to scream without a loan for property overpriced you won’t survive. But don’t look down and doubt your little miracles. They’ll light your day with rainbow fingerpaint Then go from gleeful squeals to meningococcal in the brain whether or not you pray Yo - don’t conclude the earth’s a black and unforgiving place all earthquakes and fates undeserved. Gets worse if you look down and lose faith. Some days nice guys finish thousandth place while snakes get to golden parachute away Other days you wake and the news is nothing but nooses, another Robin Williams gone, another Bourdain, Cornell or Chester Bennington. Water and air are free but there’s no land left to live on. Survive that tightrope life. Don’t let malice upset your balance. Leave imposter syndrome at home. Pour your heart out on Wednesdays to strangers on a stage. Recycle. Exercise. Admire the skyline. Be grateful for rain. Don’t let WINZ get under your skin. Don’t scream at redneck letters to the editor in vain Balance pride in the left hand, regrets on the right Good times behind, and eyes on the other side.

Saturday Night at the Titirangi RSA Brake lights burn in the black. Turns and bends, reverse, gravel squirt. It begins in a dark carpark. Boots crunch. Ditch bourbon cans in potted plants. Follow booming bass that trembles the ferns. Within: parquet floor, snooker felt, cues in racks. Union Jacks, medals, mortars, Vietnam vets with shrapnel in their backs. Crowns, poppies, silver ferns. Pictures of Elizabeth, ensigns, emblems. Rifles nailed to the ceiling; suspended Spitfire propellers. Silver hair, pink men, golf shirts. Portraits of platoons. Buttoned sleeves. Clean gumboots. Paintings of Messerschmitts and Focke-Wulfs. Wildman Hollands howls down his Sermon on the Mount through the mic, amplified extra-loud, drowns conversation out. Nanas block their ears with their palms; vets from the El Alamein campaign shake their brains at what passes for entertainment these days. Ironic hipster daytrippers tilt their glass. Cuzzies play under the table, squeeze between totemic knees. So long as you slap that membership card on the bar there’s a stool for your arse. Bargirl winks, makes the drinks cheap. Twenties are pushed into grandkids’ palms: Go on, buy us a bag of salt and vinegar chips and some fizz. Bring your old man something from the pie warmer. Ain’t had me dinner. Wildman Hollands’ commands have the hips wiggle and fingertips jitter, makes lips unstiffen, makes feet roll on ankle-balls, makes folks’ toes nudge their insoles, their fingers tap the tabletop. The Titirangi RSA: hive of humans buzzing in the bush bright with fairy lights, biffing ciggy butts in the kauri grove, making the night vibrate. Shrine to a pickled battalion, a room of tombs, a party in a catacomb. Dart boards, horses, motorsport. A champ sinks a shot and tucks his flannel in; his missus brushes dust from his sleeve and he rechalks. There’s a man with one arm in a patched combat jacket, on a scooter, yelling at the barmaid, slopping rum in his basket. He has pink eyes, hair which wilts like daffodils in a week-old vase. He smiles likes he spits, out the corner of his mouth. Leather, denim, bleach, lipstick, gel, nugget, steel toes, shields, badges. A new generation, skinny-jeaned, piously slides into a booth, compare their brand-new club cards. Grandkids of past club presidents, veterans of family nights, crépe paper, disco lights, they grew up here. Learned what expression to wear. Dad’s over there, playing the pokies, and look, there’s Mum yelling BINGO. Hope she won. Better tuck ya voice in. Pour a glass of thin beer. Settle in for fifty years. Watch outsiders come, slum it, and disappear. They’ll put it in a poem or somethin queer.

Come Out of Your House All week you kneel to scrape Play-Doh stains, aching back, in that day’s grey cotton trackpants, picking up spilled blocks, dabbing piss puddles. Come out of your house. Take off the daggy trackies. Daylight and compliments to make you smile will make your irises alive. You’re up at dawn, rubbing eyes, sweeping from the pantry bottom green furry cornflakes gone rotten. Wiping toilet seats. Soaking up screams. At playgroup you stoop to pick up puzzle pieces, nuzzle chubby cheeks, gasbag with hags with the same handbag. It’s no secret you lock the toilet door and weep. Your tight cheeks bit by bit will droop if you keep screaming at prams that won’t collapse, if you survive on Happy Meal scraps. Display your centrepiece. Exercise your thighs. Revive. We worship you, we do, we admirers. Your body’s used and stretched and strained but with a polish you can radiate. We remember how your kids were made. We guarantee your wedding ring slides off when slyly greased. We come from behind, our fingers link, your warm hands wet from the sink Let a stranger come into your chest. Aerate your flesh, your folds, your secret pleats. Retreat from early nights. Stay awake past nine, scull beers with me, and Jäger bombs. Adult treats. Frolic. Stretch lips. Drink tequila shots. Or not. You promise, though we know you won’t. We live & dream, talk measles jabs and daycare fees while tormentors paint the laptop screen with ice cream, spill juice on the settee, crap nappies, reek, bleat. Don’t apologise. Don’t wish you weren’t halfway through your life. We don’t have to be upstanding, we don’t need maturity. Admit this ain’t a playdate. Water your flower. Come out of your house. Knock the castle down. Uncover the princess. Undress.

Stephen King Sundays Overcast, alone The crows crowd at sundown, the sun crushed, phone cables cut The valley drowned Overcast, alone The grass fungused sad black The dead day’s well-lit things, its clean sheets shiver and shadow Alone, unwilling The closed, cold gates, the empty windows, shivering foxgloves The proud town’s cracked cornerstone, its mayor’s claws Unwilling, sighing pines The endless and obstructive hedges, wailing windbreakers, uncaring cows, soggy clouds, the toothless farmer’s chuckling tractor, his rusty Winchester, shouting at his sensitive daughter. Sighing pines, shivering windbreaker. The yawning, hungry highway. Willows rot in cold swamp. The ripped mud, the tadpole puddles, cold cow pat. The empty petrol light. The wrong map. Battery flat. The infant screams. Wife weeps. Shivering windbreaker. Lost lambs bleat. Magpie with bat wings shrieks. Clawed circus freak walks on water. Tak shouts across the dust of Nevada. A fanged toddler in a blizzard. Pink eyes, foaming jowls. A brain dulled by bad beer. Arachnids in the milk. The moving painting. Mrs Todd’s trippy shortcut; Uncle Otto’s burbling truck. Monday is a rescue chopper lost, a turn of the world away, missing it like fish and chips are missed on rainy school days. Maine, exiled to the end of the States, This place, too, sent away. The ashes of the week, the forgotten day.

Nineteen/twentyish Painstakingly tilt that LeBron James cap, let your shirt sag just so, to make it look like you haven’t bothered. Check the party date, Saturday the Third, arrive two hours late, in the guts of the gathering, your gang giggling. You bang the door til the glass bends; the host greets you with a flipped finger, embrace of mates. You shoulder your way in, pop the tops off your lips and spill kisses on chiquitas’ cheeks. You swap secret handshakes with your mates, drop in-jokes, check up on bros in jail, A&E, mates in wrecks, mates munted on their BMX. Cool kids don’t dejacket or decap. The host is magnetic; you’re a metal fragment. You compliment her hair, stroke the host’s threads, bump knuckles, reference the rugby, the league, the quake, the pink stickered Skyline of some mate. New hands are shook; nicknames stick. The first beer’s cracked, the first sculled wine stains your gums. You clock your buds, slap their backs, butt their heads. Veranda opens up, leak on the deck like yolk and hit the boundary-black, regret the cigarettes which slip into your lips. Cigarettes are politics, lighters invite acolytes, you flit and stick to some fresh clique. Someone’s married. Someone’s miscarried. Some with baby born. Some with mortage comin on. Someone hogs the bathroom, getting banged on the handbasin, mashing the soap, knocking toothbrushes into the toilet bowl. The first asphalt smashed bottle. Car keys are tossed, swapped, dropped, lost; cans of Cody's are burned like bullets; peeps lurch in search of a feed, harangue Burger King. Some dude collapses in the flax. You tip your head back, drink the rain. Someone brings a dog. Someone flashes iPad apps. Beer cans rain on the Noise Control gatecrash. The first bulbs are broken, bizarre things stolen – freezer meat, cutlery – and you sword-fight with umbrellas, vault couches, practice parkour against the fence. You lose twenty bucks betting on the Juggalo in the punch-up; the combatants bump bottles, swap sorries, apologies for the sake of Quakechurch. Kids plant their empties in potted palms, puke in upturned hats, promise Facebook friendship adds, hook up in triplets, swear infinite fraternity, then the bonfire fades, passion on some mattress and you wake on the wrong side of the Holy Day, roll over, check your texts and cuss and pray the quake was a drunken dream.

A Poem for Generation Me A poem for Generation Me who seem to think Earth was created in 2017 A poem for peeps who forget what our tupuna achieved Forgetting what we, the people, sacrificed to topple tyrant French and English kings And install elected regimes and MMP So what a government was formed by the Nats? You’re lucky you got Democracy. Quit whining. Yes the old folks left some Catholic guilt but shot to the colonists for the shelters they built and thanks to the tangata for growing kumara crops across the whenua When 800 years ago, they arrived to find zero fresh off the boat from Hawaiiki, Rapa Nui, each Matariki planting seedlings in soil frozen hard as stone with only feather cloaks for clothes And today you give McDonalds Kamo a Yelp review of Zero cause there was a queue? Cause your fast food wasn’t fast enough for you? Shit, the first peeps had to drag gourds and yams through storms a thousand kays across the Pacific And you bitch cause your quarter pack lacks a drumstick? Pssht. We need to get humble and mumble thanks up the family tree to peeps who bequeathed A world that’s actually pretty sweet. Giordano Bruno had his mouth and tongue nailed shut got staked and burned cause he stood up against the church so we could learn we’re not the centre of the universe. People died of radiation burns so they could show you new elements (nod to the Curies, my Polish peeps) And you blog and sob and weep cause you got no likes on your narcissistic vlog last week? Shot to the Scottish botanist Alexander Fleming – you owe him for your sick kids’ bloomin’ penicillin. Shout out to Sidney Farber. His unpaid, thankless work in a cold Boston hospital basement leukemia research farther. Or the polio breakthrough of Jonas Salk. Without him you wouldn’t walk. Props to my antecedents in Silesian swamps who propagated plots of potatoes and hops so I could have a beer to wash down my Polish vodka shots We owe it all to Neanderthals who stepped aside and gave Homo sapes the stage to take their place as the greatest apes And Charles Darwin was watchin, he staked his reputation to conclude this was evolution, in a book none of us even read, we just type TL;DR ; read Buzzfeed listicle instead. You wanna bitch about sugar in the gluten-free cuisine you put behind your privileged lips bro? Long ago the only diet used to be Paleo, yo Back in the day before flour, delivering a pizza would take a lot longer than half an hour, and there wouldn’t be any flavour except meatlovers, and without peeps in the Middle East domesticating wheat and yeast your pizza wouldn’t even have a base, motherfucker We need to take a step back and extend congrats to the scientists, the radicals, the Renaissance, the heretics, the artists, and recognise their sacrifices. Beethoven went deaf and still composed Ode To Joy. Gandhi got India independence sitting hungry in his lungi Jesus Christ took a spear in the side so he could inspire Martin Luther, and Martin Luther King and Ralph Abernathy, and you want a thumbs up emoji cause you shared an activist meme you stole off Upworthy? Actually, praise is deserved by Gutenberg, who gave us the the printing press to impress these words. How bout we worship the Sanskrit for the English alphabet, and the Hindu-Arabic for our numeral system. Why not thank your father for squirting you up your mother, and thank her ovaries for choosing you, the one sperm chosen from a million other. So, Generation Flake-of-Snow, next time you wanna whinge about Game of Thrones or sports streaming speeds or how there oughta be trigger warnings in everything you read, shut up, don’t whinge, don’t weep, don’t Tweet, cause on the Endeavour, on the Nina, Pinta, Santa Maria, on the Mayflower, on an outrigger from Hawaiiki you wouldn’t last one week-y.

You’re An Animal You are an animal. Hold that head erect – and the rest. You domesticated your dog to show him who’s on top. Cause Jane Goodall woulda put you on a pedestal Punch your dad. Let that diaphragm vibrate with bass. Your taste buds need gristle, grease and meat Seize a tarakihi from the sea. Waste some ducks with a shotty. Skin something cuddly. Be manly. You gots to squat, to heft, to benchpress to impress your musk In the nose of your chosen sex Throw her over your shoulder, take her home, Chain her to your bed Moan like a monkey while she plucks your blackheads. Get out on the prowl. Get out your pheromone cologne and spray Suck your gut, flex them pecs. Grunt and beat your chest You’ll pollinate any ho just so’s your bros can know. In Rhinos, in Morrisseys, on Queen Street, wide sashaying hips and pert tits and perfect skin make your instinct to mate come awake You gots ta strut. Youuuu are a peacock with feathers designed by Hallensteins Looking for the one with chromosomes double-X to protect while she warms your nest Keep that sensitivity hidden so you can fit in, Show your strength with a Holden. Hold doors open for women. Cause you’re an animal, and there is a subtext to every inter-primate handshake you evaluate the other guy’s might, how square’s his jaw, his BMI, his height divided by weight. You picture yous two in a cockfight. Your blood bubbles when some cub, some personal trainer who can’t even grow a mane tries to get a piece of your wife. Bro: kick that lion cub aside. Protect your pride. Cause the species tree gives man an exclusive limb, And Darwin said you are superior to specimens with specs and braces and pacemakers. You’re a man. Over animals and women, you’re sure you have dominion.

Stink Hood Bro, Roskill ain’t the same after Big Wednesday Fresh bomb dribbles down the post box We got post-apocalyptic streets, post-quake, post-Enola Gay McDonalds sacks leave the gutter clogged alongside jerkied dogs. Hedgehog guts evaporate. Picket fences shed their paint like snakes Sewers puke soapy water. Each lawn is strewn with Woodstock cans. Council grades defame the best budget curry shops; the best restaurant is Mobil On The Run: hygiene rating A. Busted bus stop glass, like Kristallnacht was yesterday Central Leaders dumped in the impotent river. Insomniac airport traffic, sooty highway Chinglish bakeries, displaced refugees, lost trolleys Alkies commiserate with their mates: Cody, Jack, Jim & José. Twisted-postured bums, their work shirts greyed, fish in the bins, compete with hovering wasps. Work & Income’s drawn its roller doors, a sign declaims Closed: Saturday. We’re as trapped as a pot full of crays. So, to the TAB, the boys, the race We dawdle on the crossing, huffing spraypaint In the pub haze we slap backs, swap disses, wipe Lion Red from our lips, beeline straight for the urinal, biff extinguished ciggies in the foamy piss. Zipper’s stuck? Fuck it. Go untucked. Horse ain’t won? Delay despair with 20 menthol Holidays. In the Two Buck Shop, we nick a hi-vis vest. See, Hirequip has us shovellin’ shit for minimum wage, Like tweakers scrubbing windscreens for their grams of P. Or the matai getting exercise for his aiga lugging Mad Butcher snarlers in a suitcase. Coz Maungarongo Roskill ain’t no celebrity volcano, no Surtsey, it’s just most of us are stuck here like stone bodies at Pompeii, cast in The same old molds: Māori, Somali, Hindu, Honky, Iraqi, PI, beanie, hardhat, turban, burqa, beret – you are what your Community Services Card says. A burb bent as a boxer’s nose, Roskill wrecked and remade, In alleyways, mobs of Mongrels in jandals walk pigdogs on chains MAGS Boys and Baptist Bloods one-out in the Domain. Our hood’s a fob watch which runs on rusted cogs. Roskill, dawg: impoverished and rich. Where do YOU stay?

Future Fashion Back in 1965, right after corporations first commodified The poor man’s San Fran gold mining 49er blue denim Levi’s Then whacked a $40 price tag on the trucker cap then put a patent on the lumberjack shirt, well the Milan catwalk crowd – with their ears to the ground – put hi-vis vests on supermodels’ outthrust chests Then the Aotearo’ Bro was in vogue and those in the know Were spotted at the Oscars wearing $9.99 thick black 3-pack PakNSave nylon socks with a yellow strip and pull-up gumboots with steel tips Suddenly the streets were neon yellow and orange chic wraparound sunnies and accessories like earmuffs, and Stop/Go signs available at Hallensteins were a sign of the times The middle class cannibalised the fashion of the trash ‘n said Kathmandu jackets were to be worn inside, they pushed their skinny jeans and bushy beards aside and tripled the price of sticky dreadlocks, topknots and a Swanndri made Moerewa polyprop camouflage duck hunting gear ten times as dear, The fashion machine took the average man’s black Saturday track pants and Calvin Klein refined it Everyone put on Ralph Lauren builder’s toolbelts, coveted courier drivers’ budgie smugglers, they put mince and cheese pie stains on work shirts sayin Mainfreight. Increased the price outta sight. Paint-spattered white overalls were all the rage one spring in 2019 Then grey cotton prison jerseys were endorsed by Armani and trendsetters stole ta moko and tatau and put Mangu Kaha tats on hipsters’ throats Then you were impressive if you dressed in a Warehouse red top, black pants, socks mismatched then Subway wage slave shirts sold out, and – this was the year 2025 – you became highly stylised if you were identifying with the 15 dollar an hour life By sticking a Burger King namebadge on your breast The list went on, redone by Donna Karan, the trendsetters stole all lower class clothes Stuck them in Red Rat and Glassons and Jay Jays windows Still the fashionistas didn’t slow their roll The upper echelons fed upon the dwellers at the bottom not just in fashion but in every aspect Said it was cool to have fifty grand student loan debt, Ponsonby peeps were the height of style if they couldn’t afford an Auckland mortgage, You were beyond hipster if your Lexus was a rattling Raumanga bus And they turned Paris, New York, London, Dunedin and Wellington Into A&E waiting rooms, where tomorrow’s styles could be viewed, the tramp stamps, the polar fleece pants, the skater shoes, Eventually it was edgy for the cognoscenti to pretend to be on a WINZ sickness benny, ironically dejected and depressed, it became outré to visit a Salvation Army foodbank when dole day was a Save My Bacon Little Loan away Soon North Shore kids were faux-slitting their wrists with two inches of lipstick, wishing it was Weymouth where they lived, wannabes wanting empty lunchbox poverty.

Knockoff Drops Nothing feels better than enduring a day at a hard job and knocking off. Knockoff: it’s how you feel at half past five. I want that feeling synthesised. All other drugs I will stop so long as I’ve got knockoff drops. Chapped knuckles, sunburn on your neck, nostrils clogged, aching arches, hamstrings hamstrung cause all day you’ve been on your feet for peeps who half the time forget to say their Qs and Ps The feeling when you’ve been on your knees eating sandpaper dust from dawn til dusk for fifteen fifty minus five ‘cause your radiator’s bust and you had to pay to take the bus, after tax you gap it with just fifty bucks Yeah the knockoff sensation at the end of the day is your only compensation, knockoff: the right to drop the paintbrush or switch that Macbook off They oughta sell knockoff in a box, knockoff droplets, smokeable knockoff, refine and crystallise it, People would pay for the sensation of five o’clock liberation from enslavement, I’m telling you knockoff would make a meeeean methamphetamine The feeling of changing into white sneakers and tight clean jeans after you’ve been in dungarees from eight til eight You walk away from rich cunts’ estates after gardening in the heat all day with just a fistful, just a snifter of pay, minimum wage, inhumane Shit, when you come off an eight hour shift at Countdown, Caltex, K-Fry, Subway or the Northern Advocate the way knock off drops elates some days… does it compensate? Take away the cost of what you spend on V and nicotine to get you through then take petrol away and there’s a hundy left, but don’t hold your breath, those triple digits will be sand-in-the-hand washed away By credit card or childcare fees that decrease take-home pay (plus another 13 dollars lost on a feed of BK cause on the way home the smell of the grill got up your nose into your brain.) Maybe you caved when it was sposda be an Eftpos-free day and bought an overpriced Coke to lubricate your throat You coulda had 75 but for the Red Bull and the pie, minus off the cost of hot showers in your personal hours to wash off your back your boss, subtract the hour lost cause you’re too tired to drive and you have to pull into a layby. Knockoff, yo: it’s when I’m drivin into a bright horizon and I get home and my son went to bed an hour ago but I kiss his face and my little guy’s eyes are open even though it’s past his bedtime How you stand being working poor? Aren’t you mad you’re always hungry, you got no money for luxuries? Nah, I’m off my rocker on knockoff drops, I’m high, feelin fine The boss can’t touch me when I clock off. This is MY time.

Better Than Enduring a job on Queen Street’s CBD being permanently rushed and busy and paying twelve bucks for half a glass of after-work pinot gris with your team of geeks is better than havin no job, travelling, hit up Studylink for Durex & LSD in India or Kho Samui, party on the Ganges, full moon beach on your OE. Coming home to student loan poverty, that’s better than having no job, slouched on the couch, watching daytime TV, scrolling Insta aimlessly, which sucks but it’s better than being on home D anonymously, which is better than Being boxed in a concrete barn on remand, reclining on a slab-pad bed, hands under your head, eating pies and sipping boxes of milk, no stimuli, blue light so you can’t slit your veins, bleed the shame away, shoelaces that they confiscate, family cryin at home. This is all better than having whanau zero, foster homes smoking cones and burgs with bros at 13 Well that, bro, that lowest of the low, that is reality for 10,000 Kiwis from Ngawha to Paparua to Pare Block D So spare a thought next time you bleat about inequality through your screen in a home of your own, completely free.

Joke Told To King Carlos So, the Holy Roman Emperor, King Carlos, gathers Hernán Cortés, Gonzalo and Fernando Pizarro in the pub and orders that they regale him with their exploits in the New World. Whoever makes him laugh the hardest will be gentrified, beatified, lionised. Cortés kicks the contest off: “In Mexico I assumed the guise of God, ascended to Tenochtitlan, a Venice 7000 feet up in the clouds, dogged by 300 illiterate homesick Spanish whose ships I scuttled. In a continent of a hundred million, I ask about the fate of just two white castaways. Duplicitous Malinche is indentured as my translator, my mistress while I carve a path through Aztecs across the Yucatan, twisting the Tlaxcalan; Tludili comes to the border armed with only diplomacy He licks his finger and sucks the dirt he hands round straws to us in our peaked helmets, carrying sharpened crucifixes, he slits his wrist and sprinkles blood on the canapés And to please us, chalks a million squirming slaves, offers to have their hearts cut out with obsidian blades. Still we are not appeased. The slaves run screaming into the lake, wash the pigment off their copper skin, fetch their shields and feathered spears. Emperor Moctezuma believes I’m a robotic steel God Blessed with a blunderbuss gifted from above. I order Malinche to tell him in Nahuatl that my people suffer from an illness, it’s terminal, We’ll die without a certain luscious yellow metal. Ashamed we begged, we fetch pliers to wrench our medicine from Moctezuma’s very skin. The funniest part, Boss Carlos, is we forced the Aztecs to forgive us in our trespass. We cast the first stone. We were without sin. We had the book in which it was written * Gonzalo Pizarro scoffs, tells Juan Carlos “Ignore Cortés, for my joke is the side-splittingest. It is I who must receive the prize. “I arrived in Peru, marched up into the Amazon, trampling Macchu Picchu 6000 kays trudged through tropical slush with 6000 sows in a platoon, and slaves we worked to death. God met us in the forest and commenced the test: Starving, desperate, we stole the local folks’ cassava, gorged on it til our stomachs bloated with gas. Every forest feature inhospitable to Spaniards, poisonous. my pockets were stuffed with cinnamon and gold dust –inedible, useless. Mutiny bisected us – Orellana, my best lieutenant Forged a life raft with nails made from horseshoes, Promised he’d be back to save us with a dugout canoe full of food, But Orellana sailed 5000 kays down the Amazon the wrong way. We despaired, descended into the primitive, barbaric, we would eat stakes sliced from the horses’ backs and patch their abscesses with mud to keep the beasts’ hearts beating. When God was done mocking us, we backtracked blister-sores to Ecuador, eating stick insects, and we were not scorned for failing to find El Dorado and strip the golden skin from him, in fact we became famed for forging the first economy, see, raping our way back through the country we bartered our festering syphilitic cocks for potatoes and smallpox, whether the Amazonians wanted it or not. They couldn’t resist, King Carlos. That bit’s the funniest.” * Then Francisco Pizarro interrupts, Wait’ll you hear this: “So we clambered up the Andes Sweating in cotton armour, our abscessed scabs leaking burning melting cheese. We oozed pus into the alpaca blankets Atahualpa, the Sapa Inca, was good enough to offer us. I declared the arrival of Superior Spanish Renaissance Man by garrotting, in public, his father Huayna Capac. I charged my slavering warhorse into Atahualpa’s face This king of ten million who sat on top of a continent shat his pants, aghast at our parades of alien stallions unseen beasts from the east, bells chiming in their manes. The Tiwantinsuyu couldn’t withstand as we sicced our man-eating mastiffs. We raged enough to shake emeralds from the people’s pockets, to fill a ransom room with golden goblets. My friar biffed a bible so hard at Atahualpa He was thrown from his throne; One ego and 60 crossbows pinned ten million men at Cuzco Mummies were stuffed inside the throats of saints; we melted temples, chutnified their culture into a boiling Mestizo gazpacho. But drop into San Salvador, Santiago or Quito and laugh your arse off, Carlos, ’cause the best bit is, they’ve come to idolise us, thanks to the guy you got to sponsor us: The punchline is ours was a holocaust endorsed by Jesus.”

The Legend of Buster Douglas It was billed as Tyson Is Back, Mike Tyson vs. Buster Douglas was an historic boxing match at the Tokyo Dome, 1990. Undefeated Iron Mikey Tyson – Baddest Man on the Planet, heavyweight champ – said yep to a scrap with some upcomer, name o’ Buster Douglas: unheard-of, unlucky. Downtrod. Underdog. Mike Tyson was, back then, at the height of his might. WBC, WBA, and IBF titles amongst the many he held In 1990 Tyse was lethal in the ring, He’d done a 90-second knockout on Carl Williams, left on the mat struggling The Buster Douglas fight, for Tyse, was just a contract-filler, a warm-up bout Before he knocked contender Evander THE FUCK OUT With 40 victories and a psychopathic psyche, Iron Mikey was likely to knock Buster down in the first round. It was only because of six unlikely wins Buster’s manager managed to get his boy a shot at greatness on a Japanese stage. Still, he was a journeyman, a filler. Buster was bound to go down. Shit, even sports reporters were already bored. They filed their write-up before the first bell of the fight, predictable title, Tokyo KO by Iron Mike. They expected nothing less than Tyson’s 41st knockout What they didn’t guess was Buster’s mother would die just before the fight, so Buster arrived in Tokyo head down, frowning brow, nothing to lose, all dedicated, feet on the ground, jumping rope, saying no to dope, injecting only hope He’d use the inspirit-i-on, him like the hit hurt when he lost his mum Tyson prepped for the fight far from any gymnasium, in his hotel fucking geishas and nosing coke all night Bathing in champagne, smoking crack cocaine, Next night: Ding ding! On with his 41st fight. Tyse expended maybe 25 per cent energy on the chump he’d been signed up to fight, gave the guy a token of his prowess, a slice, nothin like his best When Buster didn’t go down in the first round, people still didn’t second guess or regret their bets Tyson was top. He’d never lost. He would fuck Buster up yet But Buster musta mustered somethin He danced and paced and got all up in Iron Mike’s face A jab quick and accurate, combos immaculate, feet skipping light When Tyson tried to get inside, Douglas had him tied against the ropes, tiring Tyse, draining and enraging Iron Mike Buster Douglas hooked Tyson’s ugly mug from side to side. 1-2 combos, uppercuts. Agile, alive. Tyse whacked him back but the bro wouldn’t go down in one round, let alone three, four, five. Tyson struggled in the breaks between rounds to revive Unable to get prepared by going back in time. Couldn’t undo the missed training from last night with rags and water and ice Tyson never this surprised, Tyson’s trainer praying, in the 30 second breaks, Tyse with sweat in his eyes. Tyson not so iron. “...don't just sit there and look at him, Mike! Fight!” Buster slapped the rubber outta Tyson’s mouth And Iron Mike – confused, childlike – scrambled for it on the ground. Still, Buster Douglas wouldn’t throw a dirty sucker punch. He let the champ get his mouthguard in, clear his head, get responsive so no one could say it wasn’t honest when he knocked that monster unconscious. Commentators watched in shock. Tyson was sat on the world’s top til – with five hooks in the right spot– Buster Douglas knocked him off. It was The biggest upset in heavyweight history. The killing of a king. Post-fight, interviewed live, face full of mikes, James ‘Buster’ Douglas was told no one thought he could win the fight You actually bothered, Buster – why? “Because of my mother, God bless her heart” –that’s the new champ’s actual reply. And we all know the rest of Tyson’s life So it’s one to nothing (a unanimous decision) for the good guy.

Shame Those wearing rags and gourds, National Geographic photogenic, we gave them pants and hats and shame. Those that pack a dozen cuzzies and aunties into their homes, we blame them for spreading meningitis, for being a fire risk. Those who make lunch the main meal then sleep the best bit of the trading day away, we gave them shame. Those who place tribal value over individual – Those who boil bones and suck shellfish – Those afraid of gas and oil and coal, and squander gold Those whose flags have a gap where there should be a Union Jack, we gave them shame. Those who eat snakes, bugs and dog, we gave them shame. Those whose church takes place on Saturdays, shame. Those who marry at puberty Those who believe Jesus came in 1855 Those still stuck in the Stone Age Those who don’t match a flesh-coloured Band-Aid, shame. Those who shovel food in their lips with palm leaves, fingertips or chopsticks, shame. Those whose names are only clicks and vowels, the wrong diphthongs and out-of-alphabetic sounds, shame. Types that arrive from islands without winter, Christmas holly on a wreath or falling leaves, shame. Those who believe there are souls in trees & beasts, shame Those who exhume and get festive with the dead, shame People without MBAs, particle accelerator rays, metallurgy. Heathens who carve deities from bones, and those who believe you can own a beach are stopped from cutting down native trees, and now they gotta pay ten bucks for a bag of kindling from Caltex or BP like ordinary normal peeps.

Ways to Die in the South Island The Alps scrape Cessna bellies, bite like kea Pitting skin like hailstones do orchard fruit Avalanches lunch on unsuspecting skiers Like lahars, like speeding utes, ruthless, resolute. Mt Cook jabs like a Temuka boot boy’s salute, Unbridled by National Parks’ precious boundaries. Moraine may rain on climbers, stun them mute And silence them like pellets do to flapping geese. Shingle stripping skin, shearers shedding fleece Barry Crump, too late, warned us of the Southpaw Which, phossy-jawed, gorged on moa bellies An Alp-toothed mainland maw, yawning scofflaw Hauled hamstrung panhandlers into boozy gullies Communities crippled like Cave Creek amputees, Collapsed like the faces of glaciers, graves defaced. Inland, men fled, stampeding sheep, fleeing fleas Drowning in Speights, dropping towns in their wake Highlanders, Crusaders rucking plains into place. Still, Aucklanders’ll underestimate The sting of coal seams sealing; Workman’s comp can’t compensate what methane takes. In Mosgiel, Marists scrum against the Mongrel Mob To scrape off the stigma-stain of lost jobs They turn the earth with sprigs, scabs, blood of mates – These are ways to work the anger off. Torn can tabs, Meat pack raffles, cigarettes, greyhound bets, mates’ rates After Affco clock off, they lick lactatin’ swappa-crates. Blacktop blurry at one-forty; hedgehog hamburger patties Idle hands make men manufacture meth. Their ancestors were promised plots of plenty Ultimately only given them in death. Tornadoes now bequeath their wrath; Greymouth holds her breath Pressed to confess she once stoned Chinamen, Whose ghosts now accost Scots, Poms, whoever’s left. Dairy-sharing rednecks forget granddad’s barren sporran, Can’t recall an age when everyone was foreign. Greenstone greed meant muskets ended arguments; Jaundice, tuberculosis certain as the Southerly. Warning shots pepper rival whitebaiters’ tents Deadly as a brothel’s toxic pox, its STDs So vaccinate – don’t vex like possums testing headlights Or rabbits foaming at the mouth for RCD Redbacks, sandflies, whitetail bites: Stay on the safe side of the Main Divide. Summer highs liquefy the highway; winter lows turn lakes to stone, The Norwester leathers flesh, Washdyke’s scoured clean. If Graham and Grey make man fair game in hunting season If we’re culled by Red Devils, Fourth Reich, Lone Legion, if we die and leave the isle idle Stags will stand up to buckshot, wapiti, wallabies, moose too And topsoil will fill the cattle grids in Otago-Southland one enormous unmanned zoo With epitaphs carved in coal and headstones of pounamu.