"The MAG"

ARNE SJOSTEDT

Arne Sjostedt is a post modern writer with a taste for the mad and romantic. He has writen a couple of plays, Shangri-la Toothache and Penelope's Kipling, and has poems and short stories published in Gangway, Beyond the Rainbow, and the New England Review, amongst others.

--------

EXTREMES

walking in through the door that says
get out
before
it gets cold

i'm not flying like a duck
or a swan
over lander
to the get back
and cook me a gander

i'm waiting until
the oven door opens
and the steam
rips up
and frosts up me glasses

extremely pleased
with the loosening
of tightening
baby cake
air

sugar drifting
icicles to drift

sun bathing
bathes
to shift

up and down

I'd rather stay
all around

in through the out
door
it used to be freezing

now its something
a little like

icing
sugar
on my lips

Random Runners

Two kids walking
Across the
shopping village
car park

One tall like
my sex
obsessed
fuck buddy

The other
like
a little bit
nothing

Break into a
random run

First the
tall one,
then the
other

For no
reason
I could see

Except that
perhaps
1st runner's
mother

Who didn't
give birth
to me

Had taught
him to
always
be careful
Whenever
Crossing
the street

Slow behind him
15 year
old jogging gait
Just went
along
cause
Hanging
with mates
Is fun

And waiting
for cars
to pass

That arn't
there

Is a pain
in the arse
when there's
a 1.25
litre
bottle
each
of Vanila
coke

to buy

--------

DON'T TELL ME YOU WERE GAGGING

You shouldn't have to ask someone if they love you

Its not very cool

You should know
feel it
see it around you

Asking just brings on the pain

Asking just makes you want to hear it again

Wouldn't it be nice to remember that
During some kind of spin around
standing on a corner
when your partner
is late
when you're thinking
where are they?
what are they doing?

I don't know if you do that

I don't

Used to

Don't any more

Words are so easy anyway

Oh the pained pangs of my love
dost throw itself on any beating place
you give life to and say
make me beat too
alongside you

So so easy to say

I love my friends

Don't ask them if they love me

Very much

Sometimes
I guess
I do

In the things I say
or look for in their eyes

Better to have fun together
That's what friends do
Not stand around telling each other
how much we love each other

That's not very cool

New people on speed
Or E's
Or dope
Get to talking about that kind of thing

Nice to roll around in at the time
But please
The next day?
I suppose being drunk
Or after a fuck works the same

Oh do you love me?

Are you thinking
that after
you've just moaned like an animal?

After someone has ridden that moaning with you?

No
Sex is a good reminder

Oh do you love me?

Do you ask that when there is a quiver in your base?

Please
So much of this exists

So all the words
I give you
All the sounds…

But do you feel it?

Have I given you a tickle?

Do you love me?

Tell me now
before you show me
So I can know
I can show you

--------

AS DISCUSSED

Last night
After changing her mind
On where to eat

It was fate you see

Going to a pub
Up the road
And not the Trattoria
They always
Went to

A new boy
Shorter than her
Med Student
Nipple ring

They got to talking

He said:

"You look familiar"

She replied with iciles in her eyes:

"You'd like it if I did"

Not realising
This was the grown up kid
She had let
Braid her hair

And old friend
She had not imagined
Seeing again

Who had kept her letters
Who knew her parents.
Who took her number and called

A non desperate number of days later

It came to her in the shower

His name

The face

She did look familiar

It wasn't a game

And this afternoon
Over juice and strawberries
Plastic cups
And memories
Of each other

He and she
She and he

"But what about my boyfriend?"

She asks me.

--------

Badly Drawn Ball
Who wants to play cricket?

I've got a bat
And a badly drawn ball.

Set up the stadium
And bowl the first ball
Down the pitch

I've got a cricket bat

Oh I wonder where the wicket went…

The down trodden wicket

Full of stumps

And itch lines

wicket keeper pads.
Protectors.

A few of us

All decked out

I'd like that

Something to go with the
Rest of the kit

Waste of a cricket set.

Anyone want to play anyway?

A few of us
Have the rest of the week.

That's a test match.

At least.

One long cricket mid wicket weekend

--------

TO SEE YOU AGAIN

Looking at you
Just
Your face
Black scarf round your neck

Elegant

What I felt
On that first night
Hasn't gone
Anywhere

Just needed you to be there

When I arrived at the pub and saw you sitting
Across the table
It was one of those
Heart stopping moments

Remembering to not make
To much
Of infatuation

Returning from the bar
With you
Phone in hand
Sending messages

I thought
Of security blankets

And it wasn't a problem
It wasn't a problem

Are you doing what I'm doing
Keeping track of the day light
With thoughts and questions

Is this going to be….?

Making sure to kiss you goodbye

If I take off my glasses
I'm not quite so worried…

If you tell yourself often
That these things happen slowly
you can keep the excitement at bay.

For a woman that may not want to love me,
for a girl that might go my way.

So its off to the slaughter house of impatience
The nervous house of delay
I'm bathing in unwillingness to go crazy
Over little touches
with you under the table
24 hours away.

--------

SENSIBLE AND WISE

Didn't start off very wise

That has been a problem

The mistakes I've made have been
Lessons

And my haste
Has not been that
Of one with knowledge

Others are far more sensible

Wise

Eagerness to please
Myself

All other pursuits
Past times

No work important enough
No one important enough

Just past times

Not very sensible
Not very wise.

Too busy seeking pleasure
In the middle of
A self professed
Pilgrimage of life

Thinking this the quickest way

Finding IT
Faster
Than any nine fold path

And keeping a balance
That didn't involve money
Or consequence
Yet spent
And drank, smoked joints shot smack

Got IT all over my head

For the first 2 or 3 times

Slow learner

Go Getter
Go and get it

Do not meditate anymore
Though I could
One time

Found I shouldn't

Meditation is one big
Mixed metaphor
Or a series of them
Signifying nothing
And all things at once
When you're whacked

Got the gift of grog
And insight

Believing so much more
than now in everything
I could think of

Not wise
Not very sensible at all.

--------

SLOW SEX

simple conversation
captivation

a voice that only she has

grooving like
an endorphin shower

better than sex

or so it seems

the best kind of

slow sex

deep sex

better than sex sex

--------

OF GROUNDLESS PERFECTION I KNOW NOUGHT OF

1.
Nine out of ten Australian relationships
End before the nights out.

And what's more,
They arn't even thought about as a reason to get
together for
Afternoon coffee,
And a maybe a Frion.

When fourteen Australian women
Can attest to at least one time
Having
Sand
Somewhere
between her teeth
its a great land to be livinging in
if your one of the fourteen...

Theres a gender neutral relatiomship
In ever second couple.

And theres chat rooms
that compose love letters
to journal articles

sharp replies
to solid paritcles.

Ive got a large family, circle of friends maybe
Where the boys come around
Theres one or two back at my place now
Waiting for the
night to start
getting messy.

Ive got one fifty in my pocket
And a small feeling I should have
spent the other hundred on celery
and tins of sweet whipped cream
useful things like
Fantasitic little nights out,
leather heeled cow boy boots
11 million nights out cold
12 hundred ways to drown.

Containers full of inhabitants
Familiarize these halls.

None other than her naked neck,
Upon such tender shoulders,
Groundless in perfection

Could it be I want you
next to me?

You're an easy one, luckless consulate
Of my thoughts
To grab hold of
And delight in
Groundless perfection
I know nought of -

Captivator.

Familiarisor.

Fantasy of sorts.

I've got a face for you tonight
No other voice has sought.

Its your face
And in you im caught.

I have enough smiles from you
Inside
To stamp on every thought

Of groundless perfection I have nought.

But when I look and see your smile
A nervous sense
Of what my own eyes
Are betraying...

Helpless

Captivated.

A liar

I cant cross you from the friends list
put on the lover pile.

Part of so many families

A circle of friends

Maybe

A hetrosexual guy
in a gay bar
for the first time.

--------

OBLIVIOUS TO HER DESIRES

Hey, write me a play
can you
or poem
just for me
that I can live in
or visit,
whenever I feel
I don't know...

Some place nice,
warm, full of flowers
and happiness
a place where things are
only good things..

Imagining she was saying
she wanted him

And asking
If he could
make magic

He said that he could.

Really? she said

Really.
* * *
There is a gardener
I can see
planting seedlings
patiently,
slowly pondering
how best to
place
the winter roses
and spring time smiles.

In a bed of grass
bending soft
Against her legs,
the palm of a hand,
While the other rests,
She smells the mist
Of salt sea air
And wonders how it was she got there.

The years have proved
To wash away
All but sunlight mornings,
Pink, golden rays,
The weeping green
Of too happy leaves
and all the beauty
that surrounds her.

The sundial
Is saying
Its time to plant
Rows of contentment
Fresh with the scent
Of morning sand
wet from evening tide
not yet a footprint there upon it.

Now getting up
From his work
The gardener
removes his shirt
Treads slowly into
The water.

And she,
feeling the skin
below her eyes enliven,
Cooled from the crisp
dew wet morning,
follows,
and as the sand
Breaks against
Her feet
realizes
like a new sensation
how garden living
and quiet mornings
hold her.

--------

SUGAR POUNDS

Packing on the sugar pounds
carving off the flesh
of intelligence
with another night
of rounds
another day of
cigarettes.

Chewing on the
cud of love
spitting out the taste
of nasty girls
and dangerous boys
who havn't got
a conscience.

Tripping on a
darkness touch
just behind my eyes
behind the scrambled
pounds of flesh
and macerated
crusts of time

--------

CUNJEVOI TIME

That shaking nervous feeling has me
Packed with maybes
Probably nots and should I's

Gulping down air full of
Hope vibrating

Sitting on cunjevoi time

Warm currents rising
Under freezing water

Loved one, it is time to begin communication.

To begin, I loved you the moment you stepped
from behind the hope hidden within me,
not one thing or person, but everything.

Oceans themselves have spoken to me.

Would you sit beside me?

Do you feel me when I visit in my sleep
or the morning sun rising?

Lover, I have called after you for eons and ages
My soul has fought wars just to
Stand before you and say

A picture, if I could paint It,
of what it's like to feel this way
Would look like a too purple tulip opening

The colours would make your heart melt,
The way they existed
How they could not be eaten
But ended up in your insides anyway.

It would look like heart beats
On a chemical Sunday

And feel like vibrating air.
Sugar and Spices
And all the things of niceness
Baby let me braid your hair.

--------

FELT TIP

Often had my
Felt tipped pen on
One or two or one
And a handful of surroundings
Got a girl for every hour
So only a pleasure game
When you used to touch
With the tips of one hand's fingers
the skin down my checks,
almost scratching there
looking away so you wouldn't stop
because if I noticed
one or two times I groaned
you then would stop
be back to your self
as if nothing had happend.
Id like that kind of felt tipped
Touching to go on

--------

BADLY DRAWN BALL

Who wants to play cricket?

I've got a bat
And a badly drawn ball.

Set up the stadium
And bowl the first ball
Down the pitch

I've got a cricket bat

Oh I wonder where the wicket went…

The down trodden wicket

Full of stumps

And itch lines

wicket keeper pads.
Protectors.

A few of us

All decked out

I'd like that

Something to go with the
Rest of the kit

Waste of a cricket set.

Anyone want to play anyway?

A few of us
Have the rest of the week.

That's a test match.

At least.

One long cricket m,id weekend

Now.

--------

THE WICKED CROCK ROOSTER

Old Crockodile Rooster
didnt have a good time
of it at all.

For ther most past the rooster
was all out of sorts
from the battering it had been given
Or had given itself.

Old crockodile roosters are a tough sort,
and batterings are part of their daily sport.

It was from
None other than her own sourciness,
The crocodile vamptress,
devilish in her crok rooster
attraction

She vamptreress
expected a lot.

And sometimes got more than she bargined for.
For crock rooster bit and chewed,
as he screwed
Her crock heart into pecies
In the swamp ridden floor

Better make sure
I get my lady something nice to eat.

Nice and raw

She likes to pinch
And she likes to touch

But ive got an exoskeleton
And my neck is tough

Some times a bit of flesh gets torn out

Its not that I wasnt being
tender
and soft

Oh,
and she wanted more,

More time
with you
You simpleton
Crock
Roster
Of anyone
but you
crow bastard
Pace around and catch me something
to ease this pain
In my sholder
Without any of your
Crock ramsterous ways

Forgive me
I was amourous
And your
getting into it
set my natural instincs to play

thrashing your head about

Next time ill stop

No.
Just
Have something in your mouth
next time
maybe
And go get me that
Nice bit
Of fish
You just spoke of
Bitch

--------

CRAZY DOG

Tell me, how do you get some

of that crazy juice,

that takes you

over to crazy land?

I want to give some to my dog.

Can you imagine it?

We’d call him Crazy Dog

and he couldn’t come

when you asked him

because he was too crazy

to know what come meant anymore.

--------

TOO LONG TO WAIT

Too long to wait
Seeing you again
Is running late against
constellations

--------

ROMANTIC FEET

For a girl with feet too big
For the place she rested them
Before she met me
I want to offer up
A pedestal,
And say to her
Stand there
Rest your cloppers
And be admired,
Be held in high esteem

--------

IMOGEN LIGHTS

1.
Your eyes
In the morning
Clouds and tree tops
Regret reflecting
From the concrete
City
Onto you
I recall
Catching me
Light brown green eyes
Of you

Ah, then I saw who I'd been talking to.

Ffelt like a salt water swim
Full of kissing

A welcome start to the day

Waking up

Walking to the bathroom
Finding myself singing
Without realizing at first
What was so very trippy
Tripp oh trip trippy
Last night

I wanted the neighbours to hear

Wonder
What it was
That bought on this singing

I know alright

As the shower went down
On my face
On my back

I t does not have to mean a thing< B R>I thought

But what a story

I did not mean to infiltrate
Your life

I see you have a light

On your phone

Yellow

And names like

Dan

And

Damo

Am I a different man tonight
With only a few

New memories?

Sugar its all I can say

Don't need to stay

Cant tell

No need to rush

Like hell

Can I kiss you?

Don't even want to

Can I get your number?

So that you don't just have mine.

Can I get you alone for a while?

Don't need to

Just now

Packing up my things,

I've got something to do up stairs

Beer, cigarettes

Walking away

Like I was leaving

Like I had only come to

The Forest Club that evening

Only to talk to you.

To sit some tables away

And wonder

Do you know I'm h er e

Every

Si ngle

Move

Measured

Just in case

Geez I've got the shakes

With your back to me,

Watching the greyhounds

Or something

Next to some guy friend

It would have been easier
To approach you

Not likely to shake anyones hand

But still

Don't want them listening

While I stumble into

An introduction

A hi, how are you

Or how on earth

did i bump into you here

When you could be thinking

Whos buying the next beer,

Not knowing

Or even remembering

That

Guy from last weekend

Biting the bulltet

Glad no one can see in side me

I made the trip

to your seat
telephone
phone
in your hand
i held my keys

surprised

To see

Your face start to glow

Your eyes again

Your voice

Id stoped shak ing by the time I said hello

Did you know I was there ?

When I walked in

Did you noitce me

The same time

I noticed you?

Im sorry

But its all I can do

To not make you

A dream come true.

Having got used to living

Like there is no new decision

Or surprise ideas

Content to let life be

Along comes this morning shuffle

Thinking

A world with these events

Must surely lead to

Forgettfullness

Surprised

Unfaithful

Talking to other girls

Going to the movies

My life is not meant to be any more

Like a sexual liasion

Than it already is

Never more than

"Granted, lets live this"

Im contented with all kinds of bliss

To dance again

Un spoil t

To take m y ti me and

Not go for the throat

That's more like it

Grab that bell for a toke

And like it

Can I tell you I have nothing to give

Can I say

Lets get together

Anyway

--------

CONNECTED

Welcome fritters, frittering to juice
my co-stable jelly like brain.
Emotion manipulates co-
stable uncertain vibrates.
Sinking slow to a good feeling.
Membranous, clear like
globulous pulsating
moving. It holds me now
as I understand just feeling
sensation, co-estabulation,
harmonious.

Your body is filled with
body like matter
that feels. Liquid us.
Bite of thing like stuff
made of current ionic.
Inward co-established
your brain body feels.
Connected.

--------

EARLY DAYS

I cant love you yet
but let me tell you
its a pretty sure bet
on your part
to think
there might be a big
place for you in my heart
there sugar plumb.

"For me, in your heart,
why, thats an endearing fault
you have sweet foolish boy.
Its not a heart
I want, I want your soul
inside me."

How about a heart
for the price of a soul?

"A captive soul?"

A captive heart for the price of a soul.

I can't say for sure
if there will be anything in this
for either of us.

But you know
last night
before falling asleep

I dreamt
not of making love to you
but having your
head on my chest.

Not of you lying naked
but fully clothed,
and content

because you'd found the one
to give your love to.

--------

SUPERMAN TO A DISCO BEAT

Sure, I'm crazy
I'm either depressed
Or crazy

But what of it?

Yep. There's plenty of voices
In my head

But they're not going away

Sure

Its one big confusion system

Just to make a decision

But what are the rest of the people doing?

I like to dance

To feel normal

With a cigarette

Smoking out

The side of my mouth

Last night

With my collar up

I was superman to a disco beat

m.a.g.