I have a new domain name for the site! (an update by me)

Hello there all!

Well I finally bit the bullet – I shelled out $42 (NZ) for the basic upgrade to my WordPress site. I had delayed this for too long. I think self-sabotage was at least 50% to blame. I think you really need to watch out for the always pervasive “self-sabotage syndrome”. I think as a Kiwi or an Aussie it is too easy to do this – as we are programmed with that stupid “Tall Poppy Syndrome” – the need to keep your head down at all times, never daring to stick it above the pulpit – for fear of recrimination. So at least I did something to combat ‘the syndrome’ as I will perhaps refer to it as.

I have decided to call the site antonmartinsmith.com, this is a recombination of the former site – with Anton Martin Smith I decided to go with this for my ‘writers name’, just to separate the two worlds I live. 1. aspiring writer & two 2. Day jobber slash hopefully also an entrepreneur (Why do I see an old timey teacher scolding me for daring to dream?). I imagine if this separation between ‘dreamworld’ & ‘real life’ works successfully then next week an interaction like this might happen:

“Hey you there digging that ditch there down in the mud – did I see you write poems on the internet? – Your names Mr X Y isn’t it?”

“No Sir you must be mistaken – my name is Mr Y X – I’ve never written a word in me life! I likes dirt ya see! I come from a long line of dirt diggers & I ain’t changin’ for none!”

“Oh sorry – my mistake – I’ll employ you next week again then My Y X – just as well as I can’t have a dreamer digging’ my ditches! They’ll stay clogged!”

“No worries my fine laird”

This is why writers need ‘pen names’ or as the French word – ‘non de plumes’….it pays to separate your day-to-day life with the weird world of creativity.

So I hope the 50 odd subscribers like the change, I’ve already made the site look a little better. I guess now I need to look at deleting the “bad stuff” from the “good stuff”. I must be a hoarder – for I don’t like the idea of doing that. I’m afraid to let go. Perhaps I could just create a “B-side section” & rename every poem “B-side 045”, “B-side 046” etc etc. I’m sure this talk is from childhood trauma.

I’m sure that’s why we are all here (on WordPress sites probably) placking away, telling all of our repressed fears & neurosis, out loud but more subtly in the subtext that lies below our words. Otherwise, we’d just be like everyone else at the 9-5 soul destruction labs called ‘office jobs’.

So anyway, I won’t hang around too much. I’ll just hope you notice that I’ve been writing at a fair clip lately. The stuff I’m most proud of lately is my science-based essay (The one about Jungian Synchronicity) and my proto-Novella called “Trafficlight Dystopia” (have a look they are there in the last twenty odd posts).

Cheers to all, have a great night & week! (perhaps I should do these letters more often).

PS I’m currently reading Journey Into the Night by Celine – it’s good so far but there are a tonne of pages..it’s a marathon. I don’t know why Novel’s ever need to be so long (seems like a child-like thing to say, but my theory is that a Novel is just a Novella with unnecessary padding).

Lets all dig the dirt of words my friends.

But let us stay healthy in the widest sense of the word too (It’s very hard, nigh on impossible to avoid that zombifying blue light these days isn’t it?).

Anton Martin Smith

“Bob Lazar Vs Barb Le Marre” (Prose/Poem)

by Anton Martin Smith antonmartinsmithwrites@gmail.com

Marriage with children?
Or endless Bob Lazar videos?
Sometimes the choice is that stark.

Your dad will sit you down & say to you:
“Hey son – marriage ain’t so great –
& sorry but kids just ain’t my bag –
I highly recommend staying single –
Live a life on the couch with Bob Lazar!
Dedicate your life to Ufology son”

Next day your Mom will sit you down & say:
“Marriage & kids is great! –
Stay away from Ufology! –
It’s Black magic, can’t you see! –
Get Married!
Have Kids!
I like the way you turned out!
Your dad’s an ass but I love him!”

So you (being most likely) a young man have a tough decision:

Is it Bob Lazar & UFO’s or Barb La Marre & ICO’s (Identified Child Objects)

Either It’s time to put the ‘U’ back in Ufology,
Or the ‘Mi’ in Family.

So young man – you have exactly twenty-four hours to report back to your parents & myself as the narrator of this prose with your decision.

You cannot be late!

Unless of course you get abducted by a Bob Lazar designed UFO form Area 51 as part of the US Govt’s disinformation program.

Oh & did I mention?

A would-be-half-pie-poet has passed on to me this sage advice for you – they said this:

“Yes – some people marry UFO’s for fun,
And while Marriage can make you numb,
So can dying alone & without any sun”.

I trust you will make a wise decision.

“Sexist But Breaking News” ( A Skit)

by Anton Martin Smith antonmartinsmithwrites@gmail.com

And now we interrupt your streaming service to bring you the latest breaking Sexist But Breaking News, with Earth’s weirdest-faux-alpha-male-yet-still-highly-likable-host…Phil E. Stein….

“Wifewars” (the undeclared WW3) has got so bad that the number of ‘Gnarlies held in purses’ instead of ‘Gnarlies held safe in scrotums’ has skyrocketed to heights not seen since ancient times – namely since 5000BC during ancient Mesopotamia’s pagan human sacrifice rituals.

While it is true that only the weakest of soldiers have been the worst affected (“married & Defacto beta men”) the crisis is now so militaristically acute, that as we speak one in every two men only now has only on average point one of their two allotted testicles still residing safely in their scrotums.

Our military expert Ms Val. E. Hollows could not join us live as she had to do her hair – but we did ask her “how bad this ‘case of the dissapearing gnarlies’ get”? She said & I quote:

If we extrapolate the graph of ‘Gnarlies left safely untouched in mens scotums to ‘Gnarlies held under duress in their or someone elses Wives/Defacto’s purses’, we eventually come to the omega point – where all the men in the world bar one mega alpha male have become eunuchs’

We then pressed our expert on the matter by asking ‘what will happen then’? To which Ms Hollows replied:

“I’m not sure – but I hope to hell that last ever, literally very ballsy, manly manly man asks me out on a hot date, I’ve gone all giddy just thinking about it!”

And with that I’ll sign off till next time, & wish all you married weak-o’s a testicularly safe nights sleep.

This has been Phil E. Stein for Sexist But Breaking News.

Tune into Sexist But Breaking News for the next ball breaking crisis.

Special Post: Bananas Bananas….Jungian Synchronicity …And My Physics Thesis called ‘Synchronicity -Entanglement-Oneness’ (A Thought/Blog Post)

If I ever go into the Supermarket & a staff member from ‘fresh-produce’ comes over to me randomly & says “Yes we have no bananas” ….I will take that as 100% proof we are living in a simulation. Either that or it’s just Jungian synchronicity – for I just wrote some prose mentioning bananas. It’s one or t’other brother!.

On that matter, while I was in Dunedin NZ a few weeks ago I spent some time in the 2nd hand bookstores (‘Hard To Find Books’ in Dowling St), I read the first 30 odd pages of Jungs Synchronicity. It was very interesting & he posited (well this is my take on what he posited) that there is a ‘a-causal field’ psychic related probably to the consciousness/sub-consciousness that emanates outwards & perhaps everywhere in what physicists like to call ‘non local fashion’. I think there is truth to this, as I have experienced this synchronicity myself.

Now Jung did say that co-incidence can be confused with Synchronicity, & you need to be careful. Real Synchronicity is of the kind he mentioned with his “Scarab beetle” example while he mentioned in the book. He had a customer on the couch who was talking of her dream, which involved a Scarab beetle (or some rare Beetle at least). Immediately upon saying this, a Beetle of that exact description flew in the window & landed on Jungs hand – he presented it to her & said “was it like this”. The Beetle in question was not known to be in the area & the season for Beetles was all wrong etc etc – so the chance coincidence was the cause was of such infinitesimal unlikeliness, that Jung believed that the psychic/creative force that he called ‘Synchronicity’ was the reason.

I myself had something similar happen. A couple of weeks ago I went to my usual day job which was doing soem gardening for an older man. unrelated to this around the same time I went on a saturday drive to a town nearby, where I went to a Salvation Army store & bought a secondhand book, a autobioraphy by Hulk Hogan . In the book he talked of going back to his old childhood house, digging in the back yard & findign one of his old ‘dinky’ car toys (in NZ we use the term ‘Dinky’ for the little toy cars kids have). Ok back to my garden job. When I went to my garden job, I had not yet got to the page where Hulk Hogan tells of digging up the little car toy from his childhood. While I was on the Garden job, I myself dug up an old ‘dinky’ car toy. Two days later I got to the part in the book where Hulk Hogan talks about digging up the car toy.

I believe this personal experience was indeed Synchronicity. Coincidence can be discounted, as the chances of me buying a book where someone talks of digging up a toy car, in the same few days where I do the same thing are infinitesimal. It was Synchronicity. I’ve had a few things like that happen. Jungian Synchronicity is real.

I bet you have experienced it to.

This kind of thing is amazing phenomena. Modern science is perhaps not so denouncing of ‘psychic fields’ as it used to be, but I would say only slightly so. Modern science still feels embarrassed about this kind of stuff – even though the Truth of quantum physics, (with all its non local effects & instantaneous fields & entanglements etc) which has been totally accepted, proved & used in our various electrical technologies. Science & Physics shame on you! Be more courageous! It ( that is a-causal Synchronicities like Jung described) is not weirdo stuff!

I have my own ideas about it all. Let me tell you my idea. Physics has its big bang theory. At the start of the big bang, everything that would constitute the later universe of today was all melded in together in something the size of a grapefruit, or perhaps even only a golf ball. Entropy theory tells us that this grapefruit (or golf ball) was almost perfectly ‘ordered’, & then it slowly became less ordered & more chaotic, differentiated – the less order allowed what we have in our daily universe – protons electrons gravity, electromagnetic waves etc etc. My theory is that at the start the universe was basically one amorphous thing, there was no real differentation (other than what was required by the Heisenburg Uncertainty Principle – which incidentily was the seed for the Universe to evolve). So atthis early stage, the Universe acted as one thing – you might call it a “pre-entangled singular state” – (but this is probably neccesarily an imperfect description).

My theory is that the universe could not ever possibly lose this oneness – dispite the appearences of our universe as it is (lots of seemingly different things, obeying different applicable laws of physics – Gravitation, Electrostatics, Nuclear etc etc). Synchronicity must happen, as the universe still has lingering effects of the totalised oneness at the beginning of the Universe. Physicist believe that the information content in the Universe cannot ever be lost – so this would marry up with the idea that Syncronicity is the (very real) informational echoe of that information about the oneness of the Universe that can’t be destroyed.

P.s. I should also state that Synchronicity is also an effect of the eternal oneness of the Universe in the way that we see everything in the universe being entangled with everthing else (Entanglement has been proved by Physics in terms of particles, & perhaps also very basic atoms but not for much larger objects like a Human) . I believe that Entanglement does apply to everything big & small in the Universe – particles, quarks, photons, bosons, Cats, Planets, Black Holes, Rocks, People, Clouds etc).

Synchronicity -Entanglement-Oneness these are all seemingly different phenomena of essentially the same thing.

Anyway that’s my theory – I hope you enjoyed it, & maybe you have an idea or twon on it all.

Now Goodnight from a very cold, very wintery, but beautifully starry night in Central Otago New Zealand

Martin A. Smith 14 Jun 2025

“Yes! We Have No Bananas” ( A thought/Prose)

by Martin Anton Smith martinantonsmith@gmail.com

The only truly good thing about ‘big time sports’ is the crowd hubbub – for crowd hubbub is a human kind of birdsong.

It is beautiful in its brutality.

The athleticism of the athletes is of second order rank, the contest itself an even more distant third rank.

The score of the game is totally irrelevant, but the outcome isn’t. The score is something like 34-12, but the outcome is not at all the score.

The outcome is one man turning to another & saying –

“Hey Joe what a great game!, it made me forget how me, you & all our kind are modern age forever slave-serfs”.

That casual epitet of the everyman is the true outcome of a ‘big time’ sports event.

Centrally planned contrived escapism for the slave serf so to delay a People’s Revolution.

And it’s worked a treat since the coliseum days, which incidentally never actually ended.

Yes, “The Truth About Us” is depressing, but from Truth does enlightenment flow.

All good philosophers intuitively know this.

All bad politician-authoritarians do as well.

And that we know the truth – our pathway to enlightenment – that ain’t a bad thing at all, at all.

The ‘ignorance is bliss thesis’ is just slave-master propaganda.

So let us enjoy the sports match, but also kick the politician-authoritarian up the arse now & then.

Becasue our serf-slavery won’t end anytime soon,

That is self evident to anyone who reads History.

The point of our enlightenment is this:

Our slave-serf conditions have deteriorated far to much lately & we deserve better.

Let us aim to kick politician-authoritarian arse regularly & non violently.

Like John Lennon said “We’ll do it with humour”.

For he’s right – humour is the only thing the Slave Master is really afraid of.

In Closing:

So Bra –

lets Ha Ha Ha…

to the La-de-dah.

to get thrown a better…

Ba-na-na

“London 2038 – The London, The P.M., & The P.A Part 1” (A story – Work in. Prog)

By Anton martin Smith antonmartinsmithwrites@gmail.com

(Episode 1. )

A leopard can’t change its spots & a steaming turd like Mayor Twotimer can’t change his flies either – a line overheard from the banter exchanged by labourers in an inner city London building site.

London England 2038 AD POP 17 Million.

Under the seemingly incompetent yet perversely-still-in-power Mayor of London – Harrison Arnold Harrison Twotimer – London has gone from a metropolis mostly on the go to a definite sad tale of woe. Upon Twotimer taking office, London was the first Western country to descend into a poverty stricken, knife crime infused Third world hellhole. Now eleven years into his Mayoralty things have somehow somewhat improved. Temporarily? Permanently? Who yet could tell?. Yes London was & still is, for the most part still full of mean dispirited losers – but the old litany of weekly crisis have suddenly stopped. The everyday London losers (i.e almost everybody in London in AD 2038) are either in the eye of a storm, or some quasi half-pie would-be-paradise.

The most optimistic Londoners are waxing lyrical about a ‘return to the halcyon days of Empire’ – where London was the centre of the World. These wags of course are the most delusional of the clueless inherited wealthy, rose tinted glasses set. But there has indeed been a marked difference in London over the last three years. People have noticed that all of Mayor Twotimers usual typical blunders are now seemingly being reversed from the typical train wrecks they very well ought to be. It is as if there is now a shadow Mayor of London fixing Twotimers massive fuck-ups in expert, clandestine, last nano-second fashion. It’s like a political Superman is swooping in (from the planet Krapton?). With this sudden about face in London’s fortunes, all Londoner’s tongues are all wagging furiously and all agree that the steaming turd of a leader that is Arthur Harrison Twotimer cannot be he who has revived London from a total abject through-and-through shit-hole to a shit-hole-that-is-maybe-on-the-up. This is indeed the case – for it is not him turning grime into gems, it is another man entirely.

Arthur B. Pertwee was a great man. His service to the pale greater spotted grub was something many Etymologists would have been proud of. The problem was that Arthur B. Perwee wasn’t an Etymologist – he worked in Politics. He was the PA to the Wartime Prime Minister – one Harrison Arnold Twotimer. His nickname was “The Grub”. Grub by name, grub by nature. But Arthur served the bastard with aplomb. For that is the nature of Politics. You serve the ones you hate most, while denouncing the opposition, who you only hate half as much.

Twotimer was one of those fools who somehow get foistered into power, in moments when voters’ minds are an equal mixture of disarray, fear, mistrust, & stupidity. He was indeed a useless man, in all practical senses, but he was also a terrible thinker. His biggest accomplishment was that he knew all of his faults, & he played up to them. He also had one trump card – his shrewdness.

Twotimer decided early in his political life that he would court only the biggest losers in society. Using this strategy, he would gain power in a succession of easy victories & eventually be handed the Mayoralty of London on a plate during the fog-of-war of a foreign crisis. His appeal to all of England’s anti-winners was, and has been a masterful winning strategy given the socio-political conditions of the last few decades.

With the traditional never-ending supply of mean spirited backstabby losers in England, coupled with the fact that over the last thirty years a virulent mind virus had broken out, this has meant the numbers of abject forever losers had been rising exponentially for an entire generation. Over the last three decades Twotimer has had them all hanging on his every word, or more truthfully hanging on every empty platitude. He had the losers (he even called them this in private) in the palm of his hands, & he has had their votes stuffed into his many overfilling ballot boxes.

Twotimers ascent to power, & his perch an the top of the mountain of London Politics, was & has been in equal measures both brilliant & utterly disgusting. Twotimer’s success has been brilliant in the a Machiavellian sense – he gained power by whatever underhand means necessary; it was & has been disgusting, in that he was a leader of London, who had actively & knowingly chosen to bottom trawl the worst of the negative aspects of humanity for his own personal gain, and to their own detriment. To call Harrison Arnold Twotimer a bastard would be like calling a blue steak a well done steak. It would be undercooking it in the extreme. There is excrement on many a shoe that if it became sentient overnight, would refuse to have anything to do with Harrison Arnold Twotimer, long term Mayor of London.

Thankfully for England, by some cosmic force – or perhaps it was God – had arranged that Arthur B. Pertwee would be his long-term PA, his personal assistant. This would be the man who was initially invisible everyone, but in the future would be known humorously as, but also reverently as, The saviour of England, the Pertwee we all needed.

This is not just the story of how the brits were led up the garden path by a useless power crazed snob, & then along came a smarter guy who saved us all. That is a gross over-simplification. This is the story of how Harrison Arnold Twotimer led all of England down the garden path to within a hair’s breadth of its totalised destruction, and how Arthur B. Pertwee had predicted the actual time-bomb at the end of Twotimer’s garden path, quietly defused it with ease, & then as if that wasn’t enough – he then planted an actual King’s garden where the void was – all while the embattled but very loser-fied Englanders were all totally unawares of Pertwee’s back of office angelic touch. It is quite the story. Let me begin………(End of Episode one)……

“Caviar At The Work Table” (Prose/A Poem)

by Martin Anton Smith martinantonsmith@gmail.com

The World Waiter will serve you shit sandwiches.

Then tell you it’s caviar.

When you scream:

“Can’t you see that’s shit between bread???”

The World Waiter will say:

“How dare you insult our glorious chef – he cooks for you..you...Workers….

He bends over backwards for you…you.. ungratefuls……

Now eat your effing caviar you…you…WORKER YOU!”

And then if you say:

“And what will you do if I refuse to eat this shit sandwich World Waiter sir?”

They will say:

“We will make sure you cannot work yourself to death…er I mean are employed in our work camps….er I mean Work tables…

..We will conspire amongst ourselves to ban you from slavery..er Work.. & you will die in a ditch!…

You’ll get no shit sandwhiches…I mean you’ll get no delicious caviar… you..you…Worker swine! – you’ll starve fool!!!”.

You think for a minute – soaking it all in.

You know those workers who refused to toe the line.

Those ones under the bridges.

Those starving ones.

Those ones wearing threadbare rags.

Those ones all The Workers like you are afraid to one day become.

Those ones who couldn’t play anymore or were kicked off the sick game on offer .

Those ones who saw the shit sandwhiches as shit sandwhiches.

You make a decision & bite down hard on the shit sandwhich, its contents oozing down you chin.

You look up merrily & say to the impatient & now fuming World Waiter:

“My word this caviar is delightful!.. This is the best shit sandwhich.. er I mean caviar, I’ve ever tasted…so juicy! Give my regards to the glorious & bent over chef”.

The World Waiter now placated half smiles & slowly dissapears to the next Worker Table.

You think to yourself.

“I swear this shit sandwhich is starting to taste like caviar”.

You suddenly feel ashamed, for you think you know what’s happening.

Your cowardly thoughts somehow soothe your confortably re-battered soul.

The thought goes on:

“Oh well, at least I’ll be retiring from this Work Table in fifteen years.

It’s not that long – I’ve been here twice that time anyway!…

…and then I’ll be able to have all this shit tasting caviar without even having to sit at a Work Table”.

As you feel less fearful that you’ll end up like “The Others”, you hear the The World Waiter from accross the room.

“How dare you insult our glorious chef – he cooks for you..you..Workers….”.

As you finish your last bite, you feel a twinge on cameraderie wash over you.

“Ah..so this is what it feels like to be truly alive, among colleagues, well fed, with a roof over my head…and sitting at this highly polished Worker Table….Long life the glorious World Waiter & The bent-over Chef!….I am so lucky! Lucky-Lucky-Lucky!”

But then you find yourself in the midst of a sudden involuntary “GULP”.

You know somethings up – but for the life of you,

You can’t quite figure out what it is.

“Are All My Fave Writers Just Chumps?( An Idea/Article/Prose)

by Martin Anton Smith martinantonsmith@gmail.com

The best art that is thrown up by the system itself,

And described as the best art by the system itself,

Must be of the kind of art that lets out safely the pent up steam in the most discontented heads,

Strongly so but also safely so out of all the true latent Revolutionarys’ minds,

So as to the deflate the risk of a actual Revolution ever happening.

This is a good definition of what is called controlled opposition.

It is the most natural thing to see the following occur:

A Revolutionary Writer or Artist agrees to castrate their ideas & themselves,

Because this is how they can become noticed by the money payers – The Publishers, The Galleries – Society Folk.

The former potential True Revolutionary sighs in giant relief as they grab the long awaited fat cheque.

With cheque -in-hand the former potential Revolutionary knows they have been kept off the street – maybe for life.

No question – It is indeed a big personal payoff.

Of course the creative will keep deluding themselves or lying to others that they are still a potential Revolutionary.

But this has been made impossible by the publishing deal now done & dusted.

For to become known, to become lauded, to become finacially secure –

At some key level the Revolutionary part has to be nixed, neutralised, nullified – signed away with.

And with the artist’s signature now captured in bloody ink, the future Revolution is indefinitely delayed.

The system has won, at least for now.

For the old biblical quote is true:

How can a house stand if it is divided against itself?

The system cannot ever intentianlly promote True Revolutionaries.

This is why by definition all our so called favourite Revolutionary Writers

Orwell, Huxley, Bukowski, P.K. Dick etc etc

Have all been co-opted by the system,

& so used as a Societal-Anti Revolution-Pressure-Release-Device.

These kinds of authers are all true geniuses & will have known this fact to be true.

For them it’s a hard intellectual fact to swallow –

But they wanted to be successful writers not True Revolutionaries.

It’s not an easy fact for us fans to swallow either –

We like to delude ourselves romantically that they were/are True Bona-fide Revoltionaries.

It’s a kind of shared fantasy that us fans self-police amongst ourselves.

Our mainstream success anti heroes are real dammit, if only more people read them the system would change! Let’s drink to the True Revolutionaries!

I’m not telling anyone to stop reading Orwell, Huxley, Bukowski, P.K. Dick et al,

I’m just busting the myth we all happily go along with –

That they are indeed True Revolutionary Writers.

In summary I contend that the adage The pen is mightier than the sword,

Is actually there so the existing power structure stays in power, & is not overthrown.

The True Revolutionary says the sword is mightier than the pen & would never say the reverse.

And incidentily, all the worst (best?) Dictators all had an intuitive knowledge of this.

Despite all their talent for storytelling & warnings Orwell, Huxley, Bukowski, P.K. Dick et al,

Will first & foremost be Anti-Revolution pressure valves – & so also controlled opposition.

Don’t worry – as a massive fan of them – I don’t want to believe it either!

But this doesn’t stop it from being true.

I’ll also keep reading them all with glee –

despite the fact they are all Societal-Anti Revolution – Pressure-Release-Devices or controlled opposition.

All this is why it’s so hard for anyone to be a True Revolutionary.

You can’t just reach for the cheque.

This article is owned by Martin Smith Creations ltd (NZ). If you are a person or a small non-profit please read or reproduce freely. Commercial Users or NGO’s: If you want to purchase for reprint of this work for a commercial project to reach a wider audience – then contact me via martinantonsmith@gmail.com to gain written legal permission.

“Leaves falling in a bored mans head” ( Prose/A Thought)

By Martin Anton Smith martinantonsmith@gmail.com

Right now it is Autumn – or as the yanks say – “fall”.

The other day I looked at a giant pile of wind curated leaves on my front yard.

The thought appeared –

Each leaf has come from a particular tree, from a particular branch, & from a certain sub-branch,

But as I look at the big seemingly homogenous leaf pile – that information is not available to me personally.

The Physics man tells us in that theory you could somehow still “ID” any one of those leaves.

For the total information content of the universe is always preserved.

I thought that it’s pretty cool that there are trillions of seemingly indistinguishable leaves out there but the universe still knows exactly where they came from.

I also was kinda miffed that I’d never be able to find that info – or so I thought.

A couple of days later, most the leaves had fallen – so there were only a couple of hundred of leaves on each tree.

I watched one of them waggle on the tree, & I could even watch it waggle off from its precise location.

That meant when that leaf hit the big pile of its friends below,

I could know exactly where it used to live – which tree which branch which sub-branch it fell from.

A lot of artists say that science ruins the ‘magic’ of the world – I disagree –

I think both of these ‘where did the leaf live’ situations were interesting in their own right.

The real problem these artists who say science ruins ‘the magic of the world’ is they don’t know any science at all.

If they knew just a little about it, they’d see some of the magic in science too.

But I won’t labour the point –

I mean it’s not my place to once again throw the second law of infodynamics into another artists face.

I’ve been doing that far too much lately & I really must cut down on it.

And in closing If you ask someone be they a leaf, an artist, or a man of science

They will all agree that…

….I’ve got to fucking get out more….

But then again….

Is there really anything wrong with leaves falling in a bored man’s head?...

“She, The Red Shed, & Me” (Spoken Word/A Poem)

by Martin Anton Smith martinantonsmith@gmail.com

I had been ignoring things.

As my non-fitted sheet was falling off the bed far too easily,

& as it had been doing so for six months –

It was time to go to the Red Shed to get a ‘fitted sheet’.

But I was hungry , so I stopped to get a pie & a coffee for lunch first.

Outside the shop a beautiful young-ish woman walked by.

Of course I noticed her.

Fifteen years ago, I would have been actively plotting to meet her perhaps.

When I was younger, slimmer & could still be temporarily confused for a ‘success’.

On dating matters I was more courageous back then –

I had the raw instinct that hormones allow, & smartphones hadn’t had enough time-on-earth to ruin yet.

Now I’m a jaded 47-year-old, although I probably hide it well –

Due to physical work, having all my hair, & not being too fat or wrinkly.

But like all those who have been around the block – I am of course battle-scarred.

So she flittered past & I finished my pie & coffee.

I went to the Red Shed for a fitted sheet.

I’m looking through the packs, deciding on what pattern looks ok.

Then, there she is – the beautiful pie & coffee girl, doing the same thing as me.

I say ‘girl’ because I’d say she’s under thirty-two.

It was then a few emotions took over.

I felt scared.

Like I had to run away.

It was then I realised,

Just how much a big deal even the thought of dating is,

Let alone a relationship,

For a battle-scarred 47-year-old.

With those pangs of emotions hitting hard, I realised acutely & viscerally,

I was still nursing very old wounds from more than a decade ago.

I snatched the fitted sheet pack & disappeared off.

As I was walking to the checkout, I thought:

This is a very sad state of affairs

I hadn’t until then realised quite how twice shy I really was.

Sometimes reality hits you square right between in the eyes,

And tells you your exact emotional status on the spot.

As I walked to my car, I felt partly ashamed, somewhat enlightened, and tinged with anger.

For I knew that to contibue to indulge those emotions would not bode well for my future heart.

For surely there must be some nasty ephemeral force that wants many of us to stay lonely for life.

It wants us to hunker down in fear & embrace it as a prime motivator, & worship as a guru.

It wants us to fall in love with it in true Stockholm Syndrome fashion.

At least I’ve been around the block enough to know that giving in to such evil is a waste.

Intellectually I know that – don’t we all?

I wonder if I’ll run into that beautiful woman again?

After all – I did forget to buy a pillow….

Perhaps she did too?

Oh there’s one thing I forgot to say.

Between high tailing it away from the fitted sheet rack to the cash register,

I looked at some bogan black jeans on a rack – for nowadays they are not just for bogans.

She walked past & we made eye contact.

I played it cool, & that prior emotion at the fitted sheet rack had dissipated nicely.

And now that I have long left the store & sit here writing in my messy studio,

I am thinking this:

Will I have the balls to say hello If I see her again?

Or will I succumb to being like all the others –

Like every jaded long term single forty plus-er? –

And so say not a peep & desperately avoid eye contact?

That is to allow myself to be typically Mid-Mid-21 Century Socially & Romantically Risk Adverse?

I’d like to think I can next time show some testicular fortitude at the, shall we say red shed pillow aisle.

One thing I do know is this: It can feel nice but It’s never wise to follow the crowd.

Fifteen years ago, I would have felt more confidant this situation.

But then again – I was also a total fool fifteen years ago.

This dear audience, was my ode to being single at 40 plus.

And so, of it all – I dare not talk of solutions.

I’m mostly just happy to just know what’s going on –

For I didn’t have a clue back then, fifteen years ago, when I was thirty-two.

As a battle hardened (or perhaps battle defeated) youngish-old-coot,

I know that to be true.

I guess I better go back to the Red Shed to buy that pillow I forgot about.

After all, I’ll need it anyway.