Secondary Catalogue

"A Letter to My Daughter", written and performed by Luka Lesson. You are the sound of a birds wings unfurling the twitching of feathers hovering above the shadows Shimmering light reflecting off the waves in the bay of hope And when you are born and you grow up I will have to bring to you a warning There will be men who bring shotgun tongues into peaceful houses who drink just to float with the empty bottles above their own histories who carry manhood like a dead wolf slain across their shoulders Men who say that the shortest distance between two opinions is a clenched fist Who frequent bars just to speak to each other in voices louder than their own demons no man can shout louder than his demons My daughter there will be men who take maximum credit for making minimum effort My daughter if history teaches us anything Your great-great-grandmother visits me in dreams she is always wearing black she appears to me with the ghosts of women who were stoned in the villages who were burned in the town squares abandoned by their husbands or exiled by their fathers women who had to raise sons who they knew would one day raise their fists against the town’s daughters ? ??? ??? ?????? ??? She tells me every man must face his forefathers sins wilfully unpack the boxes of the false prophets unpick the patterns of power un-ball his fists decorate his own palms in heritage and humility or risk a forced reckoning My daughter I’ve seen my own karma as a man frozen like a tsunami mid-surge above the roof of our house I’ve seen the wounded inheritance the hurt I’ve caused etched beneath my skin my mistakes sit like sediment heavy in my lungs and I’m still learning how to speak them But you you’re the sound of a bell chiming the sound of the universe turning in a spiral Your great great grand-mother visits me in dreams she’s always wearing black but she is always turning soil sowing seeds in the dirt for you helping us cultivate a clean tomorrow Show Less

'Anonymous', a poem written and performed by Luka Lesson. They say “come follow me, follow me" but they've forgotten that their prophecy is probably what's killing us all economies are costing me commodities accosting me constantly stopping the cacophony from calling for autonomy Impossible but possibly they got a free lobotomy the truth is often a collective oddity or anomaly And there's nothing exceptional really stopping me honestly I'm part of your astronomy like Ptolemy Equality has honestly gotten to be abolished and polished off like it's porridge now protestants hate the Pontiff don't bother me 'til we're on it and consciousness is upon us until the prophets are in my college and Anonymous my monarchy Man I get it - forget it don't embellish their letters presently your pestering my presence you're pathetic you're 7/11 in my memory I see your pedigree I see enemies as amphetamines that never enter me I haven't finished not submitting or being diminished I'm committed to admitting everything ever been hidden so you listen to my mission in collision with my spirit I'm admitting all my sinning and I'm giving no apology /// I’ve been to every gritty little village and city I’ve seen milli little kids without a penny in pity they're paying a pittance to the peasants to keep 'em skinny I’m trying to spread the message but it’s killing like Achilles Still spitting on the corner from California to Sydney speaking on the borders of paranormal and really and even if nobody is celebrating my victory my letters are spreading like confetti throughout the city Along all meridians kids by the millions living in the slums skin mostly obsidian family Abbyssinian African or Indian even in Australia Indigenous resilience. I’m waiting on the senate I hope to finally get it I’m waiting on the people to vote and finally vet it I’m waiting on the parliament to grow and develop I think it’s time we stop the whining and finally pay repentance But I’m not holding my breath I mean I’ve got a cold shoulder to stretch I mean I’ve got a boulder on my back and my neck 'cause It feels like holding up the Atlas when rapping my text /// They tell me I - coulda been a rapper but this shoulda woulda coulda isn’t action and actually it’s the rapper in me that keeps preaching in patterns thinking back to when I rapped on the streets for practice That's when I’d freestyle for no change no joke got no gains blew up - no propane no-one knew no names 'cause I didn’t really smoke or blow trees or coke dream so I wasn’t "in with the scene" I just hoped my lyrics would light fires and see if the right guy would hear it the right time and gimme a life-line Now I’m a zeitgeist hitting a typewriter poetry pied piper killing the mic I don’t need to be signed I believe in my sci-fi: a kid with the right mind can rocket it sky high. Half biggie / half hippie with tie-dye - turnin pipe dreams into pipelines Half elegant half Pastor/Reverend paragraph art peddlin fountain pen veteran and to the death of him weathered by every the element and every lesson is a blessing on my pen again Show Less

'Antidote', written and performed by Luka Lesson. In Ancient Greece healers used to keep snakes they’d let them live beneath the beds of the sick because they believed that snakes represented change, renewal and healing Now in Greek the word for poison is ‘φαρμάκι’ but the word for medicine is ‘φάρμακο’ like pharmacy because inside the poison is where we find the antidote And they say - "Live by the sword, die by the sword" but the word "sword" has the word "word" in it because our words can be the antidote So much so that we can retell history I retell my past in any way I choose to I even called my last terrible break up 'the best thing that ever happened to me' Sometimes I rewrite proverbs just to prove the point Like, it’s not - "The bigger they are the harder they fall" It’s actually - The smaller they are, the harder they brawl And it’s not - "Behind every great man is an even greater woman" It’s actually - In front of every great woman stands a mediocre man who just gets all the credit And - You can lead a horse to water... but they’re very hard to drown And - You should keep your friends close, and your enemies... as far away as possible Unless you want their poison to teach you how to cure yourself You see this poem is for the snakes because every time they bite they leave a drop of the antidote inside me I extract the medicine hang it around my neck in a vial the shape of survival carved out of the time I broke that red neck kid’s nose in Musgrave Park when I was 15 I broke my pinky knuckle when I did it though I guess that was his antidote to my poison See this life is a snake eating its own tail in a cycle constantly shedding its skin dying and reinventing killing and giving life and unlocking its jaw every now and then to eat something bigger than itself We all need to learn how to eat concepts bigger than ourselves sometimes My friend went into chemotherapy this week her son shaved her head I took her beanie shopping we bought two one was green and the other survival afterwards we had dinner and she asked me all about my problems I spoke so much about myself the cancer almost disappeared Jack she calls it, is a blind date with a parasite who couldn’t finish his own meal it’s not her time the poison the doctors give her will kill her just enough to keep her alive and she’ll live long enough to make it look like it was medicine the whole time And the whole time she’ll keep telling herself I am surviving I will survive this I am surviving I will survive this Because she knows that while they say "Live by the sword, die by the sword" It also means - "Live by the word, die by the word" Which also means - Live by the sword, die by the sword Because your tongue is the Excalibur stuck in the rock of your mouth most of us spend our whole lives trying to pull it out learn how to use it properly try not to swallow it by mistake but still carve a name for ourselves inside of ourselves That’s why we need to keep speaking our truths like - Give a man a fish and he’ll eat for a day, teach a man to fish... and he’ll build a billion-dollar industry that’ll cause thousands of aquatic species to become extinct or To have and to hold in sickness and in health until divorce do us part or even my headstone when it reads: Resting In Peace but Resurrected In Poetry. Show Less

'Bones', written and performed by Luka Lesson. There are 206 bones in our bodies and mine are just like yours but I’ll be white ochre if I want to I’ll bleached by sun and soaked by sand if I want to I’ll be eaten and reclaimed decomposed and desired if I want to There are 22 bones in my feet and I’ve named them after the poets who have walked before me I will burn if I need to be dust if I choose to desire smoke signals of yesterday reminisce in my own future I will be a figment of my own imagination if I choose to I will be rubble .drift wood .dead weight .dead set .dead end dead poet’s society There are 206 bones in my body and each one will be fine bone china tea cup discussions of what could have been use my fibula to mark the chalk outline of what went wrong reform my skeleton into a shape of something you think you can come to terms with like how did he? why did we? why wasn’t there? when was it? why didn’t we? There are 40 litres of water in our bodies but most of us still can’t find a fucking flow I will build a dam if I want to I’ll build a river an estuary a lake I will build a tear duct the width of your mother’s face I will not let her tell me we can’t hear your voice anymore I can’t hear your voice any more than my own sometimes My heart up all day and I know you know what that means I know you miss me but I wish you’d missed And I’m not ready to shoot the breeze with you .not ready to fall with you .not ready to flow .not ready to go .not ready to be that bold with you just yet .not ready to decompose disintegrate or dissolve I’m not ready to feed the dirt just yet as a poet we’re only ever respected once we’re dead so I guess I’m not ready for fame just yet beats me I’d rather be anonymous - but breathing Alive - in secret a “bad poet” but livid average but dealing with it I’d rather be another number than a statistic there is a difference I’m not ready to fall just yet There are one thousand miles of veins in our bodies and I’ve given each vein a name so when I’m gone you still can’t use my name in vain And there are 36 breaths in this poem that I may have never taken and they are the best shit that I ever wrote Show Less

'May Your Pen Grace the Page', written and performed by Luka Lesson. May your pen grace the page at the same pace as your brain May your grey matter From now on No longer be grey May you mean every word that you say And may writing your lines Be the way that you pray Get up Step up Never let up Get your setup Set up Get recording Get stories pouring Ignoring your calling and calling you ‘boring’ Is boring You need to be touring What are you doing - you’re basically stewing No space for day dreaming No place for that feeling No place for pacing the building or facing the ceiling There’s no way that it is dealing Your brain it is stealing And there will be no change to you And there’ll never be any change to that ceiling I’m basically feeling that art isn’t hard What's hard is your heart And it starts in the past, but the past’s in the past So love who you are Pass a rush of blood till your arteries blast And let the blood rush to your arm and let your artistry start May your pen express upon the page every feeling you’re in May your white page – Yang Love your black pen – Yin May the ball in your ball point roll ‘cause that’s the point of the ball And if we can’t make our points then what’s the point of it all? May the lead in your lead-pencil lead you astray We spell it L-E-A-D ‘cause we’ve made leaders this way And I know it’s hard but easy to say But I mean what I say When I say: “Mean what you say” Potentially my pencil be the deftest thing you’ve ever seen Adept at expressing everything that you’ve never seen Especially when you question me My pencil, man, she gets to me She comes to me and comforts me and takes me out to lunch You see We have a cup of coffee Before I know it she’s on top of me She rocking and she’s rolling me We’re touching uncontrollably She likes to switch the roles on me I'm writing with her But she is writing with me It's my life as I desire to be It’s only right that she’s my wife 2B She takes me to her bed of white We try it in the dead of night Pages till we get it right We make love between the sheets May your pen grace the page at the same pace as your brain May your grey matter From now on No longer be grey May you mean every word that you say And may writing your lines be the way that you pray Show Less

'Please Resist Me', written and performed by Luka Lesson. Please resist me Colonise me, compromise me, conflict me Please don't risk me If you see me at the airport Please come and frisk me Please resist me Colonise me, compromise me and conflict me Please don't risk me Please call me stupid Because your resistance Brings my evolution Please resist me Call me a wog It’s brought us so close together I could call me a squad Please resist me Lock me in solitary confinement I'll close my eyes and admire the quality of the silence I'll write rhymes in my mind honestly and define them Solidly redefine and memorise them Until like a diamond When I come out I’ll be better than when I arrived in Please resist me, Keep me under the thumb Keep me down-trodden keep me under the gun Keep me working harder under thunder and sun Son - haven't you heard? I'm becoming a gun Please resist me Because resistance brings evolution And you've resisted me consistently I thank you for your contribution I'm a happy man Your stupidity has made me strong I've developed wings A thick skin and this here opposable thumb It holds my pen which loads my explodable tongue So without loading a gun I'm killing high quotas of unemotional... punks Sorry You also taught me to speak French I learnt it when you kept keeping me at arms-length And then I learnt Italian just to expand my head And Greek to learn from where my ancestors had fled And then I learnt some Yanyuwa Just to show the people of this land respect You see It's been your example that has led me to leave you for dead So don't trust me I'm risky Insurmountable unaccountable I'm an undeniable unreliable maniacal liability I fire soliloquies and my liturgies literally leave a literary litany You see When I was little They told me I was: Illegitimate, illiterate and limited Little did they know that in a minute I'd be killing it I'm vivid like in cinemas So my synonym is vividness I stick it like I'm cinnamon And kill it like a militant I live it like a citizen - you live a life like imprisonment Besides Indigenous, immigrant might be the most legitimate of citizen So it’s better to live a life like us... Isn't it? Please resist me Colonise me, compromise me, conflict me Please don't risk me If you see me at the airport Please come and frisk me Please resist me Colonise me, compromise me and conflict me Please don't risk me Please call me stupid Because your resistance Brings my evolution Please resist me Call me a wog It’s brought us so close together I could call me a squad Please resist me Lock me in solitary confinement I'll close my eyes and admire the quality of the silence I'll write rhymes in my mind honestly and define them Solidly redefine and memorise them Until like a diamond When I come out I’ll be better than when I arrived in Please resist me, Keep me under the thumb Keep me down-trodden keep me under the gun Keep me working harder under thunder and sun Son - haven't you heard? I'm becoming a gun Please resist me Because resistance brings evolution And you've resisted me consistently I thank you for your contribution I'm a happy man Your stupidity has made me strong I've developed wings A thick skin and this here opposable thumb It holds my pen which loads my explodable tongue So without loading a gun I'm killing high quotas of unemotional... punks Sorry You also taught me to speak French I learnt it when you kept keeping me at arms-length And then I learnt Italian just to expand my head And Greek to learn from where my ancestors had fled And then I learnt some Yanyuwa Just to show the people of this land respect You see It's been your example that has led me to leave you for dead So don't trust me I'm risky Insurmountable unaccountable I'm an undeniable unreliable maniacal liability I fire soliloquies and my liturgies literally leave a literary litany You see When I was little They told me I was: Illegitimate, illiterate and limited Little did they know that in a minute I'd be killing it I'm vivid like in cinemas So my synonym is vividness I stick it like I'm cinnamon And kill it like a militant I live it like a citizen - you live a life like imprisonment Besides Indigenous, immigrant might be the most legitimate of citizen So it's better to live a life like us... isn't it. Show Less

"Stereo. Type.", written and performed by Luka Lesson. Before they lock you in a stereotype speak words so deep they’re like burial rights write lines that unite every side of the fight so when you speak all they get is your STEREO. TYPE. See I don’t care about your lyrics I mostly care about your spirit our words are just vessels to help our souls grow coherent That’s why plastic conversations just keep people in their places boxes and cages staying locked in a maze These days a raised eyebrow in suspicion can draw a straight line to a conviction A country so conditioned by racism those most judged by skin colour and appearance end up filling up our prisons And you’re pissed off when a shock-jock gets paid just to be a bigot but our taxes have been paying for the same shit since the beginning They pigeon hole us into body types traditional dress sexual preference or exotic sound bytes and they use every media stereotype to amplify their agenda as their political stereo mic So we’re stuck in the battle of the headlines on the war of the magazine shelf they’ve taught us to see each other as caricatures of our real selves From Cronulla to the Herald Channel 7 - the whole cartel the media mafia's making sure News Corp gets the sell But the complexity of our lives doesn’t fit in their headlines so they need bite-sized pieces of our bodies to feed on between dinner and bedtime So when we see each other on the street those headlines in our head sets become headnotes become death stares become death threats become the next steps towards our best friends’ necks becoming breathless To divide and conquer we need a clear set of enemies falsified identities combined with our short term memories They poison our communities to keep us preoccupied so while we’re fighting each other - more land gets occupied More services are cut Adani gets up another open cut mine another refugee gets stuck That’s why we need to take back the narrative speak our own languages keep our identities multifaceted don’t simplify it for their arrogance You are not all savages you are not all parodies to be used as their front page embarrassments So before they lock you in a stereotype speak words so deep they’re like burial rights write lines that unite every side of the fight so when we speak all they get is our STEREO. TYPE. Show Less

'The Future Ancients', written and produced by Luka Lesson. In the future the history books will study us our cities will have been renamed our languages slanged into something new and this moment will one day be ancient The future ancients dig theoretical trenches between settlement and invasion shoot rifles at each other across the plains and place prayers within the screaming bullets they shroud their heads in mourning and afterwards line their soldiers up in cemeteries like voodoo dolls for God The future ancients will be encased behind glass in museums Greek ragtag squadrons with backpacks and shards of Athenian columns for weapons will be installed in exhibitions of either terrorists or freedom fighters depending on who it is that wins this time they will stand side by side with wax dummies of 'good men' in shirts and ties who never leave their suburban blocks but are called to duty through computer screens shooting unmanned cannons in far away places and are called things like husband son sweetheart and Lieutenant The future ancients will have their artefacts locked in storage shards of Molotov cocktails from the Egyptian revolution will be tagged and filed next to Michael Jackson albums smartphones Playboy magazines and the Australian Flag The future ancients will be found by future archaeologists preserved and embalmed in tequila and Chanel Number 5 alongside pop-star prophets who thought they were somehow saying something new this time they will find them praying to gods who believe in Science on a planet of do's and don'ts of factions and fractions of us's and them's and we's and whatever's and maybe never's and never again's the future ancients will be found in thombs of cheap liquor in databases of tradition on screens called culture as relics of broken signals They will hardly be visited as bones but remembered in the symbology of pixel and paranoia The Future Ancients will be remembered or lost depending on what we decide Since democracy has been paraphrased sustainability called primitive refugees criminalised by the first invaders and Indigenous cultures lined up side by suicide in prisons like voodoo dolls for the future the textbooks will study us our cities will have been renamed our languages slanged into something new and our stories will be the only link left between objects and their meanings They will try to twist and turn our histories based on what they find of us so our voices are the only aretfacts worth keeping alive So whose lips will we honour? on whose tomb will we lay our tears? those that risked everything to spreak but spoke anyway those that gave meaning in the darkness those who not only spoke but gifted us a moment of silence in this madness to so that we could lear to jear ourselves Those thoughts are your artefacts your jewellery jade and bronze and your words are your monuments your stone and bone Parthenon and Colosseum everything worth leaving behind In silence is how we surrender speech is the architecture of fate So are we pharaohs of fallacies empresses of nothing? What will they engrave below our statues? In the ancient future. Show Less

"What Will Become of Us?", written and performed by Luka Lesson. We ask ourselves this question in the midst of this mess as our loneliness lowers our standards and we start to search for answers in the cynical speeches of political ventriloquists spewing out their old falsified syllabus blaming anyone but themselves from their own scientists to immigrants ignoring the warnings of Indigenous Nations and their limitless resilience and patience We must ask ourselves this question: what will become of us? And across billions of screens and millions of live streams I have found no answers So I switched off I sat in the dirt I turned to the earth and I asked her: what will become of us? And she answered in a breath of wind in a million new shoots growing from the ashes of the bushfires She answered in the death of a deer soon to become food for the forest floor She answered in the jet white crows lined up in rows guarding the clouds from their eucalyptus branches She answered in a full-bodied and pregnant sunset with her orange lipstick and bright pink cheeks ready to give birth to the stars... I asked her this question and she answered: "What will become of us?" she said "whatever you decide to make of us" And when she said that the people stood up they felt her rumbling within their bones bushfires finally burning within their rib cages hearts in their fists sparks on their tongues their breath hot with the songs of revolution eye sockets luminous and lasered backs straight ancestors hands resting upon their shoulders spirits high and rising high enough to see the links between: Ecocide and genocide herbicide and homicide occupied territories and those most terrorised women’s rights, civil rights Trans Lives, the climate strike Problems being globalised solutions becoming localised marching through the belly of the beast the underbelly of severe oversight so it is time for us to decide What will become of us? Whatever we decide to make of us Through our actions the future will be revealed. Show Less

'Yiayia', written and performed by Luka Lesson. My Grandmother grew up between two wars in Greece lost her brother Xristo to the Germans and named my mother Xristina after him Rare for a Greek woman she had a divorce at 50 has lived for 30 years by herself with his photos still in the spare room She is a green thumb She makes cordial from her own mandarins drinks tea from her own chamomile bush and picks and tomatoes from her garden whenever I say I feel like a salata She hardly went to school But one day when talking of my time at university and admiring all three different types of basil she has growing in her garden she says to me: "Eat two leaves basil everyday good for the blood good for the brain - the don't teach that university" and when my brother Eliah says to her: "You know Yiayia - you know a lot...you're really smart." She always says: "Yes Eliah, I'm a very ...education" So recently I decided to ask my Yiayia what she thought about racism and whether it was ok that Greeks still ahte the Turks for what they did in the past and she said: "Just because some people naughty, doesn't mean you throw the rest in the rubbish!" Her name is Katerina Batounas but her maiden name is Sarandavga Sarandavga literally means 'forty eggs' and as the story goes one of her great-grandfathers was challenged by one of the other villagers to see if he could eat an omelette of forty eggs without getting sick Anyone that knows my appetite will know that I'm proud to say ...he won that bet And so his nickname 'forty-eggs' was then turned into the family name and was passed down every generation to my Yiayia and today it's her birthday so I tell her what we always do 'Na ekatostisis', 'May you live to one hundred' but she is 83 so instead of thanking me she says - "oh god me! a hundred no thank you i have enough maybe couple more years ...then I go to sleep" Where will you go to sleep Yiayia? "in the cemetery I already I buy a little house there... I don't afraid!" Until then she will keep calling me to see if I am too cold living in Melbourne keep stooping me from doing the dishes after she cooks us a meal keep trying to slip a fifty dollar note every time I visit and keep telling me: "Eat two leaves basil everyday good for the blood good for the brain" They don't teach you that at university Show Less