3; VARIETY SHOW

•October 30, 2022 • Leave a Comment

VARIETY SHOW

*

I am sitting in a darkened Theatre. The plush red curtains are pulled aside to reveal a 1920’s style ‘Cheeky Chappy’ Entertainer, casually leaning on a cane. Wearing a straw boater, striped Blazer and gleaming white sandshoes, he does a soft shoe shuffle over to the microphone, accompanyed by an unseen Orchestra and starts crooning in a trembling ‘Twenties– style Tenor, in front of a chorus line of high-kicking Cossacks..

*

“Oh Mr Putin!

Won’t you stop Shootin’

and Bombing

dear old Ukraine!!

*

Your Troops are a Lootin’

And some of them are Rootin’

and causing much un-neccessary painnn!!

*

COSSACK CHORUS;

Ooh the Bombs they are falling

all a-round us!

Just like rusty Kisses from-

Dear old Mother Rus!

*

So oh Mr Putin!

Won’t you stop a-shootin’

and lootin’ the Old Ukrainnnne!!

*

Falling to one knee he finishes with a sustained Big Note.

Utter silence in the auditorium. Someone coughs. A cricket starts to chirrup in some far corner. A large hook appears and drags the Crooner into the wings on the right. From the opposite side of the stage, a large Bear on roller skates, wearing a propeller hat and a red satin cape, is pushed onto the stage. The Bear starts going around in slow figures of eight to the accompaniment of squeaky wheels.

This goes on for some time. Someone coughs again.

Eventually the Curtains close.

When they open again, we see ex-President Donald Trump centre-stage, dressed as Captain America in tight fitting Spandex.. Despite considerable supporting Corsetry, his patriotic Leotard still displays a disturbing level of Sag.

Over to the left of the stage, his daughter Ivanka, clad in the Assistants’ traditional lurex & fishnets, has been strapped to a large wheel by Erich & Don Jnr.

With a flourish Donald Trump/ Captain America produces a handful of throwing knives

and waves them around, to hoots & cheers

and the occasional discharge of small-arms fire from an audience composed largely of Oath Keepers & Proud Boys & Wind-Breakers and their like, plus a sprinkling of Beauty Contestants, Porn Stars & Cocktail Waitresses.

To the sound of an ominous drum-roll, Erich & Don Jnr spin the wheel as Mitch McConnell ties a Red, White & Blue Bandana around Donald’s eyes and carefully backs away, making sure to stand well behind the ex President.

Grasping the first knife in his right paw,

and assuming a dramatic stance, Donald flings his arm back

in readiness for the throw,

but loses his grip as he does so,

so the knife goes shooting backwards

and straight through Mitch McConnell’s throat,

who collapses with a bloody gurgle.

Rattled by the sound of Mitch’s death throes,

the former President begins to rapidly throw the rest of the knives in quick succession without aiming or thought.

The knives veer off wildly in many directions.

A struck stagehand screams, falls from the rigging above,

and lies groaning on the stage. One blade flies unerringly over the Audience’s head to the Presidential Box in the Dress Circle above, where it strikes a bearded gentleman in a stove pipe hat, straight through his honest heart. Clutching the blade’s handle, Abe tumbles forward over the balcony and into the Audience below. Screams. A scuffle breaks out.

On stage the ex-President’s blindfold is removed and Ivanka stops spinning. We see that Ivanka is entirely un-harmed, not surprising really, as no knife went anywhere near her. Indeed, no Trump, as usual, was harmed during this Production. Collatoral Damage, for the circumstances, could be considered Moderate.

Holding hands, the First Family takes a final bow as the curtains close and the Proud Penis Boys & Good Ol’ Oath Breakers & Co., break into wild Rebel Yells and a spattering of small arms fire.

THERE WILL NOW BE A SHORT INTERMISSION

a dis-embodied Voice informs us

REMAIN SEATED. YOU MAY NOT LEAVE THE AUDITORIUM AT THIS TIME. MEN
MAY URINATE IN A USED DRINKS CONTAINER.

WE WILL RETURN SHORTLY WITH THE RENOWNED MAGIC ACT OF;

El PRESIDENTE BOLSANARO
&

HIS AMAZING DISAPPEARING RAIN-FOREST!

Silence replaces the Voice

as the lights slowly fade.

I remain sitting in the darkened Theatre.

Somewhere behind me, someone coughs.

***

***

The Reverend Hellfire is a practised Performance Poet

and an Ordained Minister of the Church of Spiritual Humanism.

Glad you could make it out tonight.

***

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4; ENTROPEY

•October 24, 2022 • Leave a Comment

ENTROPEY

*

Don’t you love all those tritely traditional

stereotypical Tropes

that Detective TV Dramas like to deploy, like;

The False Reveal & The Fatal Delay?

You know the sort of thing/ some

Innocent gets to Thinking/or

listening in at Keyholes

and rings their Friend,

“I’ve Worked it Out!” our Innocent cries!

“I know who the Murderer is!”

But they can’t just come right out with it

then and there, oh no!

The Phone call is just a Tease/

the Fatal Delay, the deadly pause!

I”ll tell you in the Morning!“

They say. We know, for them

the Dawn will never come.

One Trope I hate is the way Cops always say;

“One More Thing!“,

as the Suspects’ going out the door/

Interviews over/ they’ve dropped their guard/

so then the Detective deals his Ace card-

/or possibly it’s just the Joker.. but

the point is to get the Suspect to betray

an emotional reaction/ shake

them up a bit.

It’s a subtle form of Bullying really.

But Cops never say that in real Life,

their Bullying is of a far more direct nature.

Yes, I’ve done my fair share of Police interviews,

in the course of my Work and

in my considerable experience,

they’re far more likely just to say

“Piss off Boof-head!“

and kick you out the door.

But you can’t expect too much Reality

from Generic Drama after all,

By this stage in the Process,

Art & Life have got tired

of Imitating each other

and agreed to go their separate ways.

Soon Archetype becomes Cliche,

the Form defines the Action,

and these things basically end up

writing themselves.

Well, they used to,

but these days

they’re probably written

by an Algorithm

instead.

***

***

The Reverend Hellfire is a practised Performance Poet,

Vocalist/Frontman with Iconoclastic/Alt/Popsters The TAPELOOPS

and an Ordained Minister of the Church of Spiritual Humanists.

Yeah.. That guy.

***

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5; AUSTRAYLIA, 2022

•October 16, 2022 • Leave a Comment

AUSTRAYLIA 2022

*

We are not

the Sum of our Parts

We are

Fractured

& Fragmented/ We

are not a Nation State

Indivisible under God,

One People/ We

are merely a series

of overlapping Administrative Units

Governed by Legal Fiction/ and

a Constitution

more Convention

than Conviction/ The

Details are Vague at best/

like any good Mob Boss,

our Founding Fathers knew

never to put Instructions

explicitly in writing.

Nontheless,

the Fingerprints of Empire are all over it

and the rot of it’s DNA has seeped

into the very marrow

of the Body Politic’s bones,

whilst opportunistic Parasites abound,

locked into a State of Lifelong Symbiosis

with it’s Host.

That’s why we still maintained the Charade

that LIZ II was our “Head of State”,

“See”, we could say

to Foreigners,

“There’s Her name..

ELIZABETH II

OWNER & PROPRIETOR

..on the Sign above the Door.”

And then they could pretend to be Impressed.

In Truth though She was just a Front/

a Shill/ a Shell Company with Deposits

on the Isle of Wight

and possibly Jersey.

Once Television brought us together;

there were only Four Stations back then, after all,

and three of them were basically the same

and all shut down at Midnight,

except the ABC, who would stop broadcasting

at a ‘decent hour’, like,

 10.45pm.. after the Lawn Bowls

or a CHESS problem

and then a stirring rendition on Bagpipes

of the National Anthem

while LIZ II sat side-saddle on a horse

looking off into the middle distance

and then it was just the Test Pattern

until Dawn and.. damned Kids Today!

They wouldn’t even know

what a Test Pattern is!

But that’s Austraylia, 2022 for you;

One Nation, Dis-United

Under Netflix.

*

***

***

The Reverend Hellfire is a Practised Performance Poet

and an Ordained Minister of the Church of Spiritual Humanism.

“That’s him Officer! The One on the End!!”

***

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6; SWEET DREAMS MY QUEEN

•October 9, 2022 • Leave a Comment

SWEET DREAMS MY QUEEN

*

It was after Midnight in my Kitchen

and I was watching the Sugar Ants

hard at work.

It was a quiet night. Everyone else had gone to bed

and only the sound of the refrigerator building itself up

for one of it’s periodic epileptic seizures

disturbed the silence.

I myself was slumped forward in my chair,

quietly resting one side of my face on the table,

and after I hadn’t moved for awhile

the Night Clean-Up Crew decided it was safe

and came out to clear up the crumbs.

Fallen Empires

I like the Sugar ants. They don’t bother me at all. For some reason they feel healthier than cockroaches, cleaner in some indefinable way. They just don’t have that filthy, slimy ambience. They just seem like a bunch of shy little, hard working Insects who mind their own business and keep my kitchen clean.

I like to watch them emerge from their hidden nests when the kitchen quietens down and start tidying up.

We used to have a lot more Ants as a matter of Fact and a lot more variety of Species also. For one thing we used to have a vast Empire of middle sized black ants in the neighbourhood who formed long highways up walls, trees, anything! Tunneling thru the litter and leaves in the gutters, using a log in the back yard for an express lane. Shifting their eggs up to the crawl-space under the roof when the rains are coming and moving them back down to the cool of the mulch insulated ground. I spent many happy hours watching them, a whole Society working together.

Alas Life-Hating Fuckwits moved into the neighbourhood and start poisoning everything in sight. In particular they used one of those vicious poisons that most civilized countries have banned now, that doesn’t only poison one Ant that eats the Poison ! Oh No! Thanks to the Wonders of Modern Science That Ant is now contaminated and when it goes back to the nest every other Ant will die in it’s turn.

So no more Ant Highways, no more furious activity when the rain clouds loom. A whole Species has been wiped from this part of the Earth

Oh whats all the fuss Reverend? They furrow their brows as I try to explain..But it’s only one nest, there’ll always be more ants..Reverend?..won’t there.. Why are you looking at me like that, Reverend?..

Frankly the only people I like these days are the Jains. Now there’s a Religion that takes Respect for All Life-forms seriously!

Nocturne for An Ant

Anyways I am watching the Sugar Ants, apparently tireless,

hard at work cleaning up the human detritus,

and I am starting to wonder;

are They Nocturnal/

or perhaps They just don’t Sleep?

Research reveals;

Yes. They Sleep..but not as we know it!

*

It appears your average Ant does not go to Sleep

in hours-long blocks at certain periods as we do.

Instead in a 24 hour cycle your Worker Ant

will have around 250 x 1 Minute sessions of “Sleep”,

adding up to approximately 4hours & 48 Minutes

worth of “Cat-naps” (or if you will “Ant-naps”)

per day.

Is it truly Sleep you ask? Well, true they don’t have eyelids to close,

but they stop moving around and reputable scientists say

that their brain wave activity decreases significantly

during this time, so there you go. Maybe it’s more of a light doze.

The Soldier Ants have slightly longer Rest/Sleep sessions,

almost twice as long

and even some REM like patterns have been detected

in their tiny Ant brains,

but my Sources tell me that only the Queen Ants

have True Dreams.

Why this is so is not known,

but it has been hypothesized that it is due to their

having longer Sleep sessions.

Taxed perhaps by the arduous task

of laying thousands of eggs,

the Queens seem to need more rest,

and thus on average have

around 90 x 6 minute Sleep sessions per day

adding up to about 9 hours in all..

So deep in their Mounds the Queen Ants are Dreaming,

and perhaps they Dream for the whole Colony.

Or perhaps they Dream alone.

Do the Princess Ants dream also, I wonder?

The Immature Queens

that have yet to take flight and leave the Nest

at the head of a swarm of Admirers

to become Queens of Colonies of their own?

Do they Dream of an Ant Prince Charming, perhaps,

who will come and carry them away?

An Adolescent Ants Dreaming;

Flights of Fantasy & Romance?

***

***

The Reverend Hellfire..

You’ll miss him when he’s gone.

***

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7; How It Works

•October 3, 2022 • Leave a Comment

HOW IT WORKS

*

Here’s how it works; first,

Manufacture a Villain.

The Media will grow Fat,

Harvesting the Hate.

Next; Epitomise the Past,

Reduce the War to Bullet Points

the Cannon-fodder can easily absorb.

Now, Lock & Load,

you’re good to go!

Casualties may mount a bit but

don’t worry, double down!

The “Noble Martyred Dead”

can be put to work Recruiting!

Remember;

DULCE ET DECORUM

PRO PATRA MORI EST

never goes out of style,

and say,

would you like a snappy Uniform

with those Fries?

It’s all Technology these days anyway, innit?

and the Kids are down with that,

operating Drones & Satellites & Stuff,

really it’s no more exciting

than working for Amazon

and not quite as dangerous,

although in real life, unlike Mortal Combat,

you only get

to die once.

***

***

The Reverend Hellfire is a practised Performance Poet,

an Ordained Minister of the Church of Spiritual Humanism AND the Church of the Universe,

Acting President of the Kurilpa Institute of Creativity Inc.,

and the Worlds largest Marsupial Carnivore.

Or is He?!

***

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8; UNREAL CITY (Brisbane 2022, Interim Report)

•September 25, 2022 • Leave a Comment

UNREAL CITY

(Brisbane 2022, Interrim Report)

*

Unreal City.

Forever devouring

& disgorging itself/

Keen to bury it’s shady Past

beneath a vast vomit of Concrete

& Bitumen

bubbling under the Sun.

Failing that, they can always fall back

on Old School methods

to cover their crimes/

bury the Mistakes beneath

a mound of mulch & leaves

in the deep shadows beneath the Moreton Bay Figs/

let Time & Forgetfulness take their toll.

Bodies, bones, cloth & wood

all decompose quickly here

in the subtropical humidity & heat.

Back in the Past,

(just like old ladies lifting their skirts

to avoid the filth & Moral Contagion of the streets,)

even the Houses themselves were raised on stilts

to escape the Rot & upwardly mobile Termites.

Now the Termites have taken over

and are subletting gyprock granny flats

to Art Students on the sly.

We started as a Penal Colony

and turned into a Police State,

but now even Boggo Road

has become a high-end Housing Estate.

The criminal class can’t afford

the rents here anymore anyway

and have all had to move

out to Ipswich.

Yes, overt Oppression & Brutality

are out of Fashion now (mostly)

-we’re a Liberal Democracy today, Hooray!-

and Captain Logan’s leg irons

have turned to rust/ except

the ones in the Museum/ but

these days they’re mainly made

of Aluminium anyway

They tried Plastic for awhile

but it went all brittle/

baked and broke

in the sub-tropical sun,

the torrential rains,

soon only micro-plastics remained

seeping into the water, soil & flesh/

one day Archeologists will find us,

a laminated layer,

vacuum sealed &

perfectly preserved,

our Culture in a petri dish.

Just what we deserve.

***

***

The Reverend Hellfire is a practised Performance Poet

and an Ordained Minister of the Church of Spiritualist Humanism.

Still flying under the Radar.

***

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9; ACCUMULATA

•September 18, 2022 • Leave a Comment

ACCUMULATA

*

Drowning in Accumulata;

Games never played

gathering dust on the back of shelves.

Give them to Charity

for the Poor to play,

like all those Jigsaws

with one piece missing.

A Watch that could be fixed

but what for? It’s a Throw-Away World

no-one fixes Watches

anymore, or saves old Rope

& Wire in case it comes in handy

one day. No.. it’s all

“Use once and discard”

Sigh.

I try to strengthen my Resolve.

“‘Clear the Clutter!‘ Must be your Mantra!”

I tell myself sternly,

“or You’ll end up on one of those Shows

that “Intervene” with Lunatic Hoarders

minding their own business

living quietly in mounds of human waste

and trying to ignore the meddling

of their annoying relatives,

neighbours and Council!”

*

“Poor Bastards!” I think sympathetically,

as I throw a pile of old Magazines

into the Bin by way of token gesture.

Looking around for further Expendabilia,

I am suddenly overcome

with an overwhelming sense

of Weariness & Futility,

and decide it’s more than time

for a cup of tea.

*

When I die it will

be somebody else’s problem anyway,

I muse as I sip my Tea. Probably all end up in a Skip

and helpful young Men in Bio-hazard suits

will bring in fire-hoses to hose out the halls.”

It’s a nice afternoon for Lazing after all,

and frankly it’s just too hard to dispose

of the Sediment

of Sentiment.

*

***

***

The Reverend Hellfire is a practised Performance Poet

and an Ordained Minister of the Church of Spiritual Humanism.

Just filling in time till the End of the World

like everybody else.

***

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10; A BIRTHDAY MOON

•September 11, 2022 • Leave a Comment

A BIRTHDAY MOON

*

Like a paper party lantern

swinging in the sky,

a Birthday Moon hangs high/

shines upon my Face,

And causes all Pains’

deep grooved scars

to be erased.

Kind to her servants,

She hides Times harshest trace/

Sends her Halo/

Lends her Glow/

Now we are Silver too.

Lines & furrows are lost

in Shadows & Mystery

as we ourselves become

Celestial Journiers/ small,

grey, smooth-skin Beings

with dark, liquid eyes,

Alien & Remote.

***

*

***

What?! You haven’t heard it yet!?

Available Here & Now!

https://gyro.to/Fly

***

The Reverend Hellfire is a practised Performance Poet

& an Ordained Minister of the Church of Spiritual Humanism

and some other stuff as well I can’t be bothered listing.

Now he belongs to the Ages.

***

***

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11. FLY, Lyrics & Song

•September 4, 2022 • Leave a Comment

FLY

Fly!

You will not Fall!

This is the promise of your Dreams!

That you were born to soar, after all.

*

Awake, we again

find ourselves disappointed,

Groaning in Gravity’s grim grip yet

and yearning always like the Moon

to escape the Tyranny of the Tides.

*

So Fly!

You will not Fall!

This is the promise of your Dreams!

That you were born to soar, after all.

*

And the looming Earth seems like some

vast, titanic Turtle,

moving with a Giant’s grace

as it goes gravely to devour

with it’s slowly snapping jaws

all escaping Dreamers

and the dark Pearl it desires!

Swallowed whole,

all of them,

in it’s ever-yawning maw.

*

But Fly you will not Fall!

This is the promise of your Dreams!

That you were born to soar, after all.

***

FLY- An invitation to Dreamers…

https://gyro.to/Fly

Dreamers take flight! Come waltzing through a deserted Ballroom with the Reverend Hellfire & Linda Loop

as garrulous ghosts whisper from the mirrors and a silver Moon

floods in through the cobwebbed windows.

Illuminated in a single spotlight on the Stage, a lone John Treason stands plucking at a dead-pan Bass, surrounded by the shadowy forms of mannequins.

Disembodied trumpets, newly escaped from a Seance at some nearby Asylum, echo & flutter like bats throughout, as the fleeing Moon is swallowed whole and we dance on

to the accompaniment of a skeleton xylophone.

To the sound of sinister scissors,

the Dreamer awakes.

*

Historical note on the Cover;

The Cover Photo taken at Dawn on the Winter Solstice, just as the tide was turning, hence the utter stillness of the water as I skated it’s surface between Shifting Realities. Big thanks to that delightful chanteuse Wendy Seary for allowing me to lurk in her backyard on Cabbage Tree Creek whilst awaiting the turn o’ the Tides! It was a fun occasion and the lawn was covered in dew-bedecked spiderwebs that looked like jewelled goblets. –Rev

***

***

The Reverend Hellfire is a practised Performance Poet,

Vocalist with Primative/Perverse Songsters “The Tapeloops“

and an Ordained Minister of the Church of Spiritual Humanism.

And one more thing…

***

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12; Hating the Rose

•August 28, 2022 • Leave a Comment

HATING THE ROSE

*

An Experiment;

Lets teach Children

to hate the Rose.

Tell them that it’s called,

“Poison Stink-Weed”

and complain of it’s malodorous stench.

Warn them solemnly

about the spiteful & poisonous spines,

that viciously puncture & stab

the unsuspecting skin/ cause

inflamed & festering wounds

that leave

the Victim forever scarred.

At night we’ll make up terrible

Grimm Brothers style Fairy Tales

to tell them;

Cautionary fables concerning

lost children trapped

in never ending rose-hedge labyrinths,

and only their whitened bones

are ever found.

Or perhaps an Ogre Gardener

who uses the ground-up bones of Orphans

as fertilizer to feed

his favourite flower, the ravenous Rose.

Will they learn to hate the Rose,

I wonder, learn then to loathe

it’s cloying odour,

fear it’s deadly spines?

Will a Rose still be a “Rose”

and smell so sweet

by any other name?

Yes, when a Rose becomes

merely “Poison Stink-Weed”

surely the nomenclature

will taint their expectations?

Or, seething under Society’s surface,

will there be clandestine Conclaves

of maladjusted Perverts

who secretly desire the forbidden Rose,

it’s trembling Beauty..

it’s seductive Scent?

*

***

SQUAREY!

***

Presenting the New Spring Single!

*

Available August 30th, 2022

from all good streaming platforms!

***

The Reverend Hellfire is a practised Performance Poet,

Vox with THE TAPELOOPS Musical Collective

& an Ordained Minister of the Church of Spiritual Humanism.

Please don’t sprinkle his ashes on the Rose-beds.

***

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