PROFOUND

AND
DEEP

VOL 2

( 1989 - 1993 )
BY

GARY FRANCES

Profound and Deep #2 (1989)

One for Communication
The World Heavyweight Title Fight
Beverley
Wet Grey Sunday From my Window
An Overall Liberation
A Found Set of Encyclopaedias
A Science Fiction
Minimal Thought
The Author
A Paean to Golden Showers
Short Speech for a Fuck
Content Description of a TV Program
Mark's Testimony
Suburban Terrorist
For People With a Literary Bent
Cutting Edge
Not Talking ?
Long Term Relationship
Blues in the Suburbs
A Plot to Just Another Movie
The Naked Clown #2
Why / Here I Am
A Book on Adolf 90
I Am a Bad Woman
Dancing Not Rapping
Prophecy
Second Marriage Ceremony
Alcoholism #2
Torture of Kind
Meditation in a Time of Marital Stress
Limitations of the Almighty
Like I Don't Believe
Events in Order
The African Elephant
Getting Older With a Groucho Philosophy
Graffiti Doubt
An Attempt At
Last Will & Investment
Detached
Commentary on Commentary
Reader's Indigestion
None Such None
Miscomprehension
A Visiting Literary Germ
Definition by Definition
Nature's Way 91
Love During a War Time
Seduction of a Housewife
Madonna Smith
Divine Commentary
The Holocaust Carnival
Indemnities
Public Telephone Eavesdrop
It Was My Weakness
Self-Deprecation
Private Hotels
Love / Commercial Networks
Product of the Moon
Wishing / Not Wanting
Insulation
Obvious
Gonads
Bad Luck, Bad Stars
Suggestion
An Apple Just Fell From a Tree
Emotional Blackmail
Betrayal
Railway Play
I Spent Most of Yesterday
A Postscript of Extraordinary Behaviour
I Hear the Siren
There are Two Photos
Brian Henderson's Professionalism
If I Describe the Truth
The Latest News
Suicide for a Shopping Centre
The Living Dead
A Sketch of Me by My Daughter
Apparition in a Social Club
A Da Vinci Reproduction 92
Nocturne
Immigrant Sons
New House
A Modern Art
You ( A Death Threat)
Answer To a Pop Cliché
Video Release
Religious Feeling
Justification
Beware of the Falling
Talking Heads Video
Arsehole Returns
A Philosophy
Mila's Right
Just Plain Tired
A Hope Less Parody
The Spirit
Safety Farce
God, The Invisible Rabbit's Foot
Length
Contact
Fascism
Statistics And/or Crime
Forgiveness
Problems
Finished
Video Clip
Spiral
17 November 1993
If

PROFOUND AND DEEP #2

In the rain
there wasn't
a dry eye in the house

but a punchline
to cater for all.

Jan89

ONE FOR COMMUNICATION

Standing here naked

thinking of you

I wonder would
the telephone do.

Feb89

THE WORLD HEAVYWEIGHT TITLE FIGHT

They've come to the t.v. bar to see

the bruising of fame and flesh
the spilling of colourized blood.
( Y'see the cut over his left eye
the pisspot to his girlfriend said ).

It's a waste of airwaves

and electricity I complain
and the loser gets at least
a coupla million dollars.
If that's losing
I would want to win.

If that's losing
we should all be rich
and
fabulously wealthy.

3apr89

BEVERLEY

This afternoon
driving in the wet
I thought of you
a near one of
ten years ago.

I used to curse each bus

that did not bring you
and then curse myself
for cursing buses.

Shit. What a lot of water and

two children under the bridge.

since then.

1apr89

WET GREY SUNDAY FROM MY WINDOW

The raindrops gently hinting

bring the whole leafy frond
closer to the ground with
the weight of a single life
dripping to die from each tip
touching then to the ground
to disappear and live.

3 apr89

AN OVERALL LIBERATION

It's great to be one

of those who don't have
to sit down to pass.

But other times

it's not.

11apr89

A FOUND SET OF ENCYLOPAEDIAS

They say nothing

of one in every house
of autos as economic necessities
( and not yet environmental disasters)
Hitler's only a minor menace
and
there's to be no more world war.

Eight volumes of nostalgia

bound to come undone
in a leathered antiquity.

16apr89

A SCIENCE FICTION

In the outer reaches of Proximity

light years away from Belief
there's a breed smarter than us
( it's hard not to believe !)
not only smarter but superior
in every which way but loose
for we are the loosest bowels
in the bowels of the Universe.

But that's not the whole point.

The whole point is something else.
And that means nothing at all.

The intent is obvious.

The result is dubious.

We are all, at one Time or another, inmates

of the Prison for the Criminally Deaf and Dumb.

18apr89

MINIMAL THOUGHT

The more
I think
the less
I have
to say
you see

while

the more
you have
the less
you think
to see
I think.

14may89

THE AUTHOR

One day people will

write stuff
about him - maybe
even true things -
but somehow I have
his doubts he said
self-mockingly.

30may89

A PAEAN TO GOLDEN SHOWERS

1.
The neurones or the moods go and I
could never write those poems again.

2.
I piss on women.
Women piss on me.
Billions piss in oceans
but I do not.

23jun89

SHORT SPEECH FOR A FUCK

Where is the love ?

That's the song.

And the sentiment.
Now, whistle the tune.

24jun89

CONTENT DESCRIPTION OF A TV PROGRAM

GENERAL PRACTICE : Drama/Comedy.

Featuring various actors.
A woman is torn
between the conflicting
demands of her sick
father, fiancee and career.

24jun89

MARK'S TESTIMONY

He was surprised he said

as how well I worked.

I'm as good as the next man

I said to defend myself.
Yes, he said, but usually
the next man's no good.

27jun89

SUBURBAN TERRORIST

I'd like to see this shopping

centre awash with the blood
of hardware men and butchers.

On television,
I mean.

Nothing too personal.

23jul89

FOR PEOPLE WITH A LITERARY BENT

The bedraggled remnants of James Joyce

are a joke to begin with. And so on.
It's a REAL life out there and songs
and poems
rarely compare.

It's like a country and western movie

but the sountrack's something else.

2aug89

CUTTING EDGE

Power, Mao said, came from

the barrel of a gun
but we can still see blood
and know who was wrong.

Give me a simple pair of snips

we'll edit this film and do more
damage than a cannon.

21aug89

NOT TALKING ?

I know you
use the English
language.

Why not
do it
with me ?

21aug89

LONG TERM RELATIONSHIP

Was.
Not
was.
I
still
love
you
Any
way.
Even
though
I
never
have
had
you.
Till
when?
22aug89

BLUES IN THE SUBURBS

I always thought I'd die

putting out the flames.

It's more likely now

I'll not put out
but peg out
putting out the clothes.

25aug89

A PLOT TO JUST ANOTHER MOVIE

This big woman with

great tits turns up
claiming to be The Wife-
that is, the one the audience knows
that has just passed away.

Unlike most movies watched by the herd

where the appearance is protested
the good husband says not a word.
For this the man is quite detested.

2sep89

THE NAKED CLOWN #2

When I stop
to consider
you can
only laugh.

2sep89

WHY/ HERE I AM

Bereft in a world of Robinson Crusoes.

Adrift in a world of mercury.
Barefoot in a world of rhythm and blues.

Genuinely pretending not to be scared

or alone.
 3sep89

A BOOK ON ADOLF

It must
be an intellectual one

it has not pictures and draws

no easy conclusions.

6feb90

I AM A BAD WOMAN

She sat in the main stream

in the main street with
her indifference to the wall
and her back to the Big Town
with a sign about her neck
saying I Am a Bad Woman
( she'd read this in a book )

If she was aware of anything she knew

she was oblivious to the Oblivion.

1apr90

DANCING NOT RAPPING

( a poem pinched from a book title)

Eyeless in Gaza
an Appointment in Samara
poinlessness in modern art
blind drunk in Australia

eyeless and
legless yes
but listen
to the beat.

2apr90

PROPHECY

Like
I
said yesterday
it
wasn't
for
tomorrow
we'd
have
nothing
to speak of
today.

21apr90

SECOND MARRIAGE CEREMONY

It was so beautiful but

knowing what was to come

made me want to laugh.

28apr90

ALCOHOLISM #2

Last night I spent the night

with twelve or so brown mates.
All those elbow ribs and smiles,
those well-constructed lies.

This morning I woke up alone.

1jun90

TORTURE OF KIND

1.When the Pain Is

When the pain is,

nothing else exists.
I can't hear anything
you say.
I can't hear you.

2. And Nothing Else Matters

These serious faced and sexual men

are apt to do what they want to do
and if you allow them they usually
will.
 17jun90

MEDITATION IN A TIME OF MARITAL STRESS

Already this house

is feeling strange
to me.
I look through too
all the cupboards
where my things
do not belong.

29jun90

LIMITATIONS OF THE ALMIGHTY

Yeah, sure.
God is omniscient.
God is omnipotent.
But.

But not even Supeman can

be in two places at once.

Omnipresent, my arse.
If He's not on drugs
he really should be.
Know-all bastard.

13jul90

LIKE I DON'T BELIEVE

Like I don't believe

in the image of God
as an uptight dickhead.
He's probably a good Bloke
who figures if it's human to err
it Godly to earthquake, flood,
create Woman and motor cars.

Yeah, sure.

13jul90

EVENTS IN ORDER
1. Forty Years of Age

I don't feel it
not even in the rain.
I feel like an adolescent
spraying his ignorance
on a passing train.

2. Passing

About the same week

50,000 Iranians died
so did my mother too.
Her own personal earthquake.

One became history.

The other did not.

13jul90

THE AFRICAN ELEPHANT

The ears are bigger

or they are smaller
whichever it is
I can't remember.

I before He
except after She.

You could learn a lot

about the African elephant
by not going to school at all.

Crushed mice under post-Mastodons

have failed to learn their history.

Apart from anything else

these animals are !

Unrelated statements & sweeping facts

are surely signs of the times.

26aug90

GETTING OLDER WITH A GROUCHO PHILOSOPHY

A long time ago there

used to be a person
that I could call me.

That person exists

no longer.
Shorter maybe
but no longer.

You can blame her

and the children.
I usually do.

5oct90

GRAFFITI DOUBT

I
sometimes
think

that God
is
Not.

28oct90

AN ATTEMPT AT

The shortest distance

between now
and when I was born
was not a straight line.

I beg to differ and

plead to be different.

28oct90

LAST WILL & INVESTMENT

So now
both parents
have slipped
the Earth

and still
I've nothing
to show -
maybe
a few old
black and whites
but
definitely none
of the green stuff.
This poem :
it's all I have
claimed not
to be.

2nov90

DETACHED

You can have your career,

he said with a sneer,
I can sit in this bar and
drink in the public air.

8nov90

COMMENTARY ON COMMENTARY

A fine philosopher and

a foul-mouthed bastard.

I seem to suit
this century
all the time.
All the way.
All the same.

11nov90

READER'S INDIGESTION

If If , as some sage would have it

is the middle word in Life
then Eat
is the middle word in Death.

And we all know

what that means.

15nov90

NONE SUCH NONE

None of what I say is meant

to be taken literally but
it has been taken down
and used it against me.

14dec90
MISCOMPREHENSION

I wrote too
once a poem
that was as
misconstrued as
making sense.

14dec90

A VISITING LITERARY GERM

This Chinese guy said

that after Beckett
literature had hit a wall.

I had to agree
but it's really great
punctuation.

14dec90

DEFINITION BY DEFINITION

A lesbian, I said at
some party, is someone
who understands men.

It went straight over

most of their legs.

24dec90

NATURE'S WAY

Like a lovesick schoolboy

I approach this season

Like a seasoned traveller

I approach the schoolboy

blushing like I never have before

blushing like I never might again

It's a constant wonder

how the seasons change.
 6apr91

LOVE DURING A WAR TIME

Let's be sensible
and hold our secret
in a public place.

No one will notice

just how far we went.

6apr91

SEDUCTION OF A HOUSEWIFE

It was easy
because I didn't.

I treated her
like a human being

and I touched her.

20apr91

MADONNA SMITH

Most people
wouldn't think
butter melts
in her mouth
but I'm
glad to say
it does.

22apr91

DIVINE COMMENTARY
( AN INSURANCE CLAUSE)

Struck by lightning
quite by accident.
No one's fault.
So take the blame.

27apr91
THE HOLOCAUST CARNIVAL
( from Dachau to Dili)

History is lies
you tell yourself
but at one time
it was fleshed out
and your bloodiness,
ruled and cancelled,
could never conceal
could never excuse
the genocide of one.

21may91

INDEMNITIES

I keep all my secrets

written down in poems.

The wife never reads them.

I'd have to twist her arm.

This woman, this secret woman,

keeps too these poems
where her husband never looks

on her side of the bed.

may91

PUBLIC TELEPHONE EAVESDROP

As I passed the booth

he said he was sorry
about last night.

Whatever that meant to him

meant a thousand things to me
and then something different
to the person on the other end
of the person in the booth.

31may91

IT WAS MY WEAKNESS

It was my weakness
on the telephone
that got us caught.

It's one way

to communicate.

Another to contaminate.

July 91

SELF-DEPRECATION

I said I'd take her

down to the car
and she said she'd be
alright.
If you were alright
I replied
you wouldn't be here
with me.

25aug91

PRIVATE HOTELS

"It's not depressing. It's a simple statement of

fact
which is comical, more often than not."

G. F.

"He had known since the age of nine that

essentially
he was alone, a conclusion more common to the
forties.

" Now, in his forties, he was seized by a fantasy

life
with the brilliance and freshness and immediacy
of
childhood. It took him one step beyond Alone."

Thomas Harris, Red Dragon

1.
It's not depressing.

In these rooms for rent

we all have our problems,
copulate at different times
and sleep spent
when we no longer rage.

Most of us are alone,

lucky not to be dead.
What more can be said ?

2.
There are eleven geniuses
living here, trying to outwit
each other, and succeeding only
in making fools of themselves.
Stupid arseholes.

3.
All this large information
feeds into these tiny rooms.
What to do with it all ?
We'd all like to know.
Or subject it to trivia.

4.
For something to do
I vacuum the floors and
polish the knobs on doors.

No, of course I don't.

I live with the dust
and the detriment.

5.
Those who live alone
and not together are
on strange breeding grounds.
Sometimes they never
ask their friends around.

6.
If your marriage
is lonely anyway,
come to join us.
Become unbruised.
Face the past.
Reply to the future
Live with the worst
person in the world.
You guessed it.
You stuffed it.

7.
I like living
at this roundabout.
It does go round in circles
but it does make sense.

8
In these rooms for rent
we all have our problems.
Without them we'd.....
be someplace else.

It's a simple statement of fact.

9.
A private hotel is something
only you can occupy.
To think you know
how another feels
is a wishful thought.

21aug/sep91

LOVE / COMMERICAL NETWORKS

1. They're comforting facts

but I cannot relax.
I try to rebel.
I cannot buy what
they pretend to sell.

I guess I could never believe

in a life-time guarantee.

2. By the light of this t.v.

all I can grab are the
sins of my foreskin and
some demographic demon.

11sep91

PRODUCT OF THE MOON

Awake now at 1 or 2am

I hope to see things
in a different moonlight
than I do by the day.

A certain brand of lunacy

and a kind of luxury.

16sep91

WISHING / NOT WANTING

Across the road from a convent

I'm sitting almost naked
in a chair with the light on.
I've yet to receive a congratulatory
telegram
or a visit from the other police.

16sep91

INSULATION

Like a motion picture character

to protect himself from devils
to protect himself from himself
he plasters his walls with Bible pages
assorted crucifixes and mumbo jumbo.
Lengths of literature line my room,
there's a Tchaikovsky record cover
and a genuine copy of the Mona Lisa.

I hope it works.

16sep91

OBVIOUS

A dead body
is just that.

An act of mercy
is much the same.

Play dead.
And roll over.

That's a bit radical.

Vote Conservative instead

12sep91

GONADS

The penis is an amazing

piece of technology.
It will stand when
all around it
don't want it to.
In the wrong hands
it can become a cunt.
Dear God.
Or a gun.

22sep91
BAD LUCK, BAD STARS

Somehow, on the way, a

paid pallbearer got lost.
I had to carry my mother
to the grave.
Typical.
Of her life.
Nothing went right.
Or left.
That too.
Like a bad joke.

28sep91

SUGGESTION
( On putting some flowers
under a windscreen wiper )

If you can't
take these flowers
home
it doesn't matter
because you can't
take me there
either.

The backseat of
your car will do.

3oct91

AN APPLE JUST FELL FROM A TREE

As sympathetic as I was
an Arab spokesman
got it right
the other night
( on t.v. of all places!)

All the Jews want to

talk about is History.

They've not renewed their

subscription to Time.

3oct91

EMOTIONAL BLACKMAIL
If you come to me
I'll give up drinking
and I won't commit suicide

whichever comes first

if it's the latter

you'll follow me

so, what good would that do

because I don't believe
we'd be together anyway
but alive.

3oct91

BETRAYAL

Like an exchange of bullets

a smile still seems, suddenly.
to be the safest way to kill.

Yep.

She's staying with her husband

through every fault of her own.

It's a constant wonder

how the seasons change.

6oct91

RAILWAY PLAY

Unlike my life
this artery
into the city
knows it size
by history, fact
and clickety-clack.

6oct91

I SPENT YESTERDAY
( specifically addressed to an ex-wife)

I spent most of yesterday

how I want to be -
bone naked.
If you must know
the truth
(which you don't normally)
I never could have
done it at home.
Or anywhere else
for that matter
to silence
your criticism.

6oct91

A POSTSCRIPT OF EXTRAORDINARY BEHAVIOUR

I know I missed you one night,

my vision impaired, but tonight
so much I needed to see you still
my teeth gripped the window sill
and I could have cried
if I wished enough inside.

11oct91

I HEAR THE SIREN

I hear the siren

and then I think
who gives a fuck ?
If it's the police
if it's the firemen
if it's the ambulance
who gives a fuck ?

It's city muzak.

Unless it's reported

in the Daily Tabloid
we won't be shocked.
Couldn't give a fuck.

13oct91

THERE ARE TWO PHOTOS

There are two photos

in my room of Michael.
One, where he's a baby
and as happy as Larry
and then, another one,
when he four or so
and showing his doubt.

God blessed him.

God bless him.
And the rest of us.

23oct91

BRIAN HENDERSON'S PROFESSIONIALISM

Brian Henderson's professionalism

was so great, great, great
that his Vietnam War tone
was the same one he used
in a street corner accident
that held up Sydney traffic
for two or three hours and
inconvenienced Sydney commuters.

Journalistic subjectivity
has always given me
the news.

And the shits.

31oct91

IF I DESCRIBE THE TRUTH

If I describe the truth

how we were
to a group of women
which is what you do
it's romantic

If I tell
a bunch of blokes
which is what you do
it's pornographic

It was neither and

yet it was both
because it's
what we did.

2nov91

THE LATEST NEWS

All the boys down the stairs
coming in white robes
out of the church
and one carrying
a golden cross
and then the senior
in a green robe
as the pigs go by
their sirens screaming.

It has no meaning.
It just happened.
It was an accident
I caught from my window.

Last Saturday afternoon

and I was half-pissed.
What do you make of that?
It'll never be on t.v.
but it was news to me .

2nov91

SUICIDE FOR A SHOPPING CENTRE

Boom
Bang
Boom
Bang
Boom
Bang
rattattattatt

for I think
I do not have
a gun.

9nov91

THE LIVING DEAD

Outside the Hilton Hotel

where the garbos died
someone will one day
unscrew the plaque for
the price of the brass
and ask will it
make any difference
and be answered with
a rifle shot.
 23nov91

A SKETCH OF ME BY MY DAUGHTER

Somehow she's got me with a smile

but then still looking grim
a bit like the him
I do not want to reconcile.

7dec91

APPARITION IN A SOCIAL CLUB

In walks my mother
the ghost of herself
but no, it's not.
it's somebody else.

On the street
when I left there
I was beside myself,
inside.

19dec91

A DA VINCI REPRODUCTION

Her head on the pillow

her face soft from sex
she looks like the painting
her face is the picture of.

22jan92

NOCTURNE

1. Night Passage

Lying awake
in the dark
there's a monster
taking shape
in the form of
something I fear.

2. Night Mirror
Something I fear
in the form of
taking shape
there's a monster
in the dark
lying awake.

2feb92

IMMIGRANT SONS

Leaving home and screeching

in their cars they leave rubber
like they seen on that video.

They're not poor.

They're not pathetic.

The poor, pathetic bastards.

21feb92

NEW HOUSE

And here
there is
nothing
to remind
you of the
past
but
every
thing.

21mar92

A MODERN ART
( after seeing a doco on John Cage)

If you've
made sense
of this
century
you've
been lucky

and
WRONG!!!

and

if you've
made sense
of any
other
century
you've
been
unlucky
enough

to have lived

that long.

22mar92

YOU ( A DEATH THREAT )

You trivialise everything

by putting it on video
and then repeating it

over and over again

and then again
in slo mo and reverse

one day I'd like to get

my repeater and trvialize
you.

17apr92

ANSWER TO A POP CLICHE

Why be
alone
when we
can be
apart ?

18apr92
VIDEO RELEASE

There is humour
somewhere
in the uni

verse
But God
doesn't think
It's funny

19apr92

RELIGIOUS FEELINGS
( a service at St.Mary's)

As the man swung the

gold cup filled with smoke
the room filled with architecture
of the past and then the next

and tells again a story

that he's told before
every easterpunchline
remains ever the same

in the middle of smoke,

though, a feeling of gold.

3may92

JUSTIFICATION

It's not that

I need you
physically.
It's just that
I need you

for fuck's sake!

11oct92

BEWARE OF THE FALLING

It's near the end
of a precipice,
a long/short weekend.

To catch me you'll
have to use up
your whole three hands,

2nov92

TALKING HEADS VIDEO

Beneath that kimono

black and white she
just isn't naked she
simply isn't there.

7nov92

ARSEHOLE RETURNS

In answer to anyone
who asks me how
I stuffed my relation
ships I just reply

totally rectum.

8nov92

A PHILOSOPHY

Nothing ever just happens.

Nor is anything related.

8nov92

MILA'S RIGHT

Mila's right.
Sex, death and god
are easy questions.
Who's turn to wash up
and where the spoons go
are the difficult ones.
 8nov92

JUST PLAIN TIRED

If video
could replace
real life
who would
notice the difference ?

Who would care ?

8nov92

A HOPE LESS PARODY

I am an old man, still.

I have no other fantasy.

Why can't I
breast feed
children in the park ?

5dec92

THE SPIRIT

Christmas comes

but once a year

is not enough.

19dec92

SAFETY FARCE

In a sterile world of
contraceptives & condoms of condoms & seat belts
seat belts & restraints
we still ( have to )
impregnate windscreens
now and then.

7feb93
GOD, THE INVISIBLE RABBIT'S FOOT

So Thus so far
have we believed
in him.

End of sentence.

13feb93

LENGTH
( for Rex)

Is something
only pricks
worry about

and thyme
for people
with time,
and
nothing
else.

6mar93

CONTACT

Somewhere in the darkness

in the middle of the brightness
of the gaudy Royal Easter Show
I put my one sensitive finger
on the softest part
in the whole hard place
and you respond, get moist
somewhere in the darkness.

9mar93

FASCISM

Appeals.

It's not the

timetable to end chaos
the gun, the haircut or
evolution into holocaust -

it's the bloody uniform.

Of course.
 21mar93

STATISTICS AND/OR CRIME

A dangerous event
is something that occurs after
a very brief storm
or a quiet thunder
taken down by a newsman,
multiplied by an algebra-in.

21mar93

FORGIVENESS

We all forgive
the drunks among us
but not the ones
who kill our sons or
wound our daughters

we love movie drunks

those video villains
who drink neat scotch
and never botch
the job of killing

and the slapstick pisspots

whose pratfalls and blues
make us laugh about booze
as they fall to the ground just
as we're conveniently walking past.

17apr93

PROBLEMS

I wish there was someone

you could talk to
to tell them
your secrets
because no one will
ever know ( no one )
not until you die
and even then
not even then

who you love

who you can't.

18apr93
FINISHED
( for the umpteenth time)

I put our two years

into a photo album.

One photo only

says it all.

8may93

VIDEO CLIP

A little girl is running

with a flower in her hand
in a pop song to save the world
but, in reality, she has a bomb
strapped to her waist.

Some third world people

will do anything to get
their precious seconds of death
and Fame, and video re-runs-
their piece of permanent fame.

30may93

SPIRAL

I worry about things

that no one else does
because someone has to
do what no one else does.

19aug93

17 NOVEMBER 1993

I woke this morning

and drank some wine

I can only hope

the rumour is benign

I can only hope

the humour is mine.

17nov93

IF

If you could educate the masses

there's be no need for government.

17nov93