blackmail press 37
Bernie Coleman
New Zealand

Mere & Child - Penny Howard
Bernie was born and raised all over the North Shore of Auckland. He changed tracks after skipping Commerce degree lectures to read books in the University library, and graduated with Honours in English Literature at the University of Auckland. For 2014, he's a creative non-fiction writer with the Master's of Creative Writing course at the International Institute of Modern Letters in Wellington. He has previously been published in Blackmail Press issue 34.
all waves & pipedreams

Hot,
the bong is made,
take it easy
and draw the language
out:

“happy new year!”
“this year’s for real!”
“this year I will eradicate universal hatred!”

ahhh, yes, an ominous whiff
of green bending over blackwards
causing me to admit
I’ve been alacritous in the past
not to worry over rednecks & blueblood’d baches


cue: REDEMPTION SONG by Bob Marley
“None but our self can free our mind”


borrowed borrowings & sovereign homes,
so the age expands
and though it’s hot & there are background bushfires
so waistbands pay dearly, so sobriety disbands,
and so, and so, and so,
it’s summer
and if you don’t know then now you know–

our nation’s green hills
always underblazed,
ain’t no other way about it & illegal.
and to prohibit gals & guys like me
we just want to have fun,
I ain’t anything to write home about,
I am an ordinary son.

to be and only to be a professional transient
I must consummate the journey by lightnin’
a real doobie, yes!    great expectations
made better when time slows
to a halt,
like they say about beneficiaries, like they think about me,
just fuck off!

and with minds like a dory’s mouth,
opening wide,
we shall here witness the Doppler effect
made tawdry
for our nation after new year
becomes gaudy
under only
our sun

to think I conquered this crisis pre-eighteenth and eighteen
only to return again, besmirched again, generated
bongs that blast so one can never tell when remembering
what is the end.
and what do we call that again?
a new beginning?

I know, I know,
the dream is the drug is to carve monolithic entertainments from my bone endangered spine,
the dream is about repeating and feeding the place without being a tragic & fat badass
who at least tries – it’s insane
but the only way to say Hosanna is to praise me people for what I am,
just like the high
intonation
when I talk
of the walk to the beach,
you know the beach, man
and the swims and the laughs and the bombs

and why don’t you just try & ride those waves all day yourselves
and just give me a break & a couple of dollars to
have some fun with the sun?

I have said please a thousand times before
I have never had a chance to say thankyou, thankyouverymuch

and for the sake of equanimity
I follow my own tide
getting blown deep under this sun
where there’s a big enough ride for you & I.

and for a couple of hours
let’s get old, let’s never learn,
we can all reminisce with the young of body and mind when it’s their turn
& talk of how wrong our highs were.

So I take and I breathe
and I take and I breathe deep;
it’s not about hurting each other
this one of many wonderful summers,
all the same,
all waves & pipedreams.






index