Punktuation

By Teri Louise Kelly

Reaching out across the bleached white veldt to infect the flickering screen with a moment of insanity, Teri Louise Kelly’s short story/poetry anthology ‘Punktuation’ is a literary oil slick drifting slowly toward the burning shore. Having already deconstructed her “art form” with a veritable glossary of bastardisations, incestuous syntax and gob-spitting grammar, the erstwhile Ms Kelly continually has her execution stayed. There is no way of telling fact from fiction, poetry from toilet door graffiti, she claims, and in ‘Punktuation’ she drifts (seemingly aimlessly) from subject matter to subject matter as casually as a rent boy wandering Piccadilly Circus looking for a buyer. There are many reasons why generations to come will admire and appreciate her decadent candour, today however she still has rent to pay, demons to slay and dependency issues to address. She is, much like her hero Brendan Behan, a drinker with writing problems. Those problems become obvious to even the most deranged reader the moment he, she or it, decides they feel lucky and steps into ‘Punktuation’ class with Fraulein Kelly. So, are you feeling lucky punk?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Robert Cettl
• Release date: May 4, 2011
• ISBN: 9781465930491

Teri Louise Kelly

Even God makes mistakes.True enough. Tiny little screw ups that can occur in utero, or beyond . . . small shit like chromosomes going awry and the magic hormone fairy forgetting to do her damned job after a heavy night on the juice. Sure, no big shit, get over it – grow some balls, maybe some facial hair, and get drinking. Teri Louise Kelly managed all three in her previous human incarnation when as a surly young tearaway in London, England, she served 'his' time at one of Elizabeth Regina's juvenile detention facilities for wilful destruction of public property, resisting arrest, and assaulting a police dog at a football match. Confused? Well, join the damned club. After muddling through as a 'cute' but rather lippy boy, becoming a chef and traveling the globe, he finally became 'she' in Australia. A strange place to do it for sure, but then again, way down there in the big sandy desert, no one can hear you scream, and, even if they do – nobody gives a wombat's ass.After all of this, out of the cocoon, emerged Teri Louise Kelly, who quite suddenly, decided 'she' could write. And why not? There were worse aspirations – so, she did. Her first book – 'Sex, Knives & Bouillabaisse', (March 2008) set in the swanky rat-face infested bowels of luxury hotels, earned her critical acclaim in Australia's mainstream press – not bad for an untrained chick with a uh . . . yeah, you get the picture.Following on in March 2009 with the sleazy reminisces of a low-rent lfe with the novel 'Last Bed On Earth' (six-months in the lice-riddled backpacking industry in Christchurch New Zealand), Teri Louise Kelly started to earn herself a reputation as a fast-talking, even faster-writing, Bukowski-eque with boobs figure. Obviously, she waved away such comparisons, claiming instead in a major interview that she was, in fact, Hunter S. Thompson reincarnated. Whichever she is, or indeed isn't, what remains, is a style that is simultaneously outlandish, candid, and brutal in its literary execution. Stormtrooping into the poetic genre this year (November 2009) with the release of her first poetry anthology 'Girls Like Me', Teri Louise Kelly has delivered a first-up assault on the flowery genre which will either stand, or fall, merely on its content. Never one to shy away from a fight, from speaking her own mind, or doing exactly what she feels is right – Teri Louise Kelly's latest work 'American Blow Job' pretty much extinguishes any mainstream or alternative media fantasy about transgendered writers avoiding their 'pasts'. She currently lives in a holding tank about forty-five clicks of an undisclosed Australian location where she is under heavy sedation and taken out in disguise each day to attend 'happy hour' and gladhand a few numbnuts.

Book preview

Punktuation

(Smashwords Edition)

by Teri-Louise Kelly

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

© 2011 Transgressor

cover image hand in a jar © Timbooth 2770 | Dreamstime

Punktuation

‘The Life & Death of Gutter Art’

by Teri Louise Kelly

The artist is not a man of action but a maker, a fabricator of objects; to believe in the value of art is to believe that it is possible to make an object.

W. H. Auden

"The thing is, art always wins. Art will survive and I'm going to die – so I'm not going to give art all the best moments of my life . . . the energy I have left after my art, I save for love."

Patti Smith

Who really gives a damn?

Charles Bukowski

Contents

1. Prologue: Famous Last Words

2. Amalgam / Simulacrum

3. Interlude: For the Anarchivists

4. No-one’s Jesters

5. Felled from Grace

6. I Am, Then and Now

1. Prologue: Famous Last Words

As much as I believe that your work will, eventually, come to be appreciated by a cult audience, my reservations are that firstly, I shall be dead by then, and secondly, that you are far too iconoclastic to be a client.

Australian Literary Agent

We don't handle work such as this.

Australian Literary Agent

If there is currently one author seemingly intent on dragging literature down to street level and then kicking it in the face, might I introduce Teri Louise Kelly.

UK Reviewer

We run a serious arts festival, not a circus.

Australian (Writer's) Festival Organiser Declining an Opportunity to Have Me Participate

Teri Louise Kelly is to literature what the RAF was to Dresden.

UK Blogger

A dick, a doodle, a dawg, what's the diff? She's still cute.

US Blogger

It might help if you could write a sentence.

US Literary Agent Declining First Draft of American Blow Job

We can't publish this, it's obscene.

Australian Publisher Declining First Draft of American Blow Job

Are you a rock star, a poet or a writer, or all three?

Australian Radio Interview Question

I think you're funny, do you tell stories in bed?

Email Fan Query

Even though I detest your work, and you, I'd still like to meet you sometime.

Email Fan Mail?

95% of all submissions publishers receive are garbage. Yours is in the 5% marked interesting, unfortunately however, I have a wife and family to support.

UK Literary Agent

If I see one more book with your name on it, I'm going to kill you.

Anonymous Fan Mail I Suppose

2. Amalgam / Simulacrum

Human Yum Cha

The last two dinosaurs teamed up. A Brontosaurus and a T-Rex: the great vegan debate re-hashed. With no meat left Bronte was always in peril but with no other females left she had T over a barrel, okay, over a hill.

The day they saw fossilized footprints they stood there a long time pondering. Who did these five-toed imprints belong to, what had they been running from and to where? The prints just trailed off at the ravine and it sure looked, to Bronte at least, that whatever had been running had run straight to the edge and then leaped.

She asked T to look over the edge and he told her that she had the longest neck and the best counterweight, given the size of her ass. Sullen, she gingerly peered over while T stood behind licking his lips and getting a boner. His dilemma was always the straight choice between the fuck and the food. Well? He finally asked her. She swung her neck back up and around, making him duck under the swing of her notal arc.

Whoa momma, careful with that thing eh; he chided her.

There wasn't anything down there that she could see, she told him.

But honey, he said, your vision ain't nowhere near 20-20 now is it?

She smiled at him – sarcastically. Why don't we go down there? she asked.

For what? It'll only make me hungrier and there won't be shit down there anyhow.

You’re always so pessimistic, there might be some bushes down there?

I'm already shitting green, more leaves ain't what I need darling.

There isn't any meat T, we've searched everywhere.

I know, he said, thinking about her sumptuous rump.

Well? she asked again.

Well what? You go, I'll stay up here, keep a lookout.

A lookout for what exactly?

Anything running toward the edge of that ravine, I'd rather I caught it up here, on the hoof, than have it brain me down there.

You think I should go then?

It's a long way down, further coming back up.

What else have we got to do all day?

Well, T said, smiling . . .

"Oh hell, not that again!"

Procreation of the species honey, after all, it's down to us now.

"But that thing of yours hurts so much!"

Not if you considered my previous suggestion.

Look, anal doesn't count in the procreation stakes, and besides, that hurts worse.

Uhm, well, off you go dear, find food – on legs.

Screw you buster.

I'm open to it.

Bronte started down, slowly; she was an accident prone woman with an over-sized rear end.

T stayed up top, plonked down on a hilltop He thought about wanking and then realized again that his fucking wiener arms wouldn't reach that far. It had always bothered him. He had great legs: the chicks always fell for them; an angular jaw, penetrating eyes, a decent sized dick, a six-pack, and then those stupid little arms that made him look like a pleb. He did a few push ups, a few star jumps, then stopped when he realized he might start another earthquake and that was how this whole fucking mess had begun in the first place. Instead he lumbered over to the footprints and strained to peer downwards at them, puny and little below him. By the size of them there wouldn't have been much more than a taster on them, more like a wing feed than a steak.

Still, if you got all of them in one go . . . uhm.

Night came, he liked night, his sight was better. He let off a few roars then waited for Bronte's reciprocation. It came up a few minutes later. There wasn't another sound. What he'd give for a hunk of meat . . . oh brother.

At dawn he heard shit breaking and rocks falling. Must be Bronte on her way back up and maybe she'd have meat? Ooh yeah baby . . . he felt excited, roared, heard Bronte's reciprocal agreement – which sounded a lot nearer. A while later he saw her head appear over the top of the ledge and two hours later her bulbous body came into sight. She wasn't carrying shit, bar that ass of hers.

Well? He demanded angrily.

Well what? Wasn't anything down there but rocks.

God fucking damn!

Nothing ventured nothing gained, I'm fucked, did you hunt last night?

HUNT? HUNT FUCKING WHAT? ELDERBERRIES?

Ooh they'd be soooooooooooo nice for breakfast!

Don't talk to me about breakfast. Look at me – I'm skin and bones!

Me too.

YOU? I see skin lady but bones no, bones I DO NOT SEE. Where are you getting all that extra weight from?

What extra weight?

That stuff there, and there, and there, and there . . .

Please don't stab me with those tiny arms, it freaks me out.

It freaks you out? What about me – eh eh eh eh eh?

Shut the hell up, I'm tired.

Did ya find a river, did ya did ya did ya did ya?

Ain't no river, a riverbed yes, but no river.

FUCKIT!!!!!! I hate this place.

Ain't no other place.

How'd ya know eh eh eh eh eh eh?

You see it anywhere?

Ah . . . women!

That was how it went on: for days, weeks, months. T got thinner and Bronte got bigger. One day, they were sitting there playing checkers with pebbles, when T heard a faint sound – soon growing stronger and nearer.

Fuck up . . . you hear that too? T asked.

Bronte cocked her ear, well, her head, to one side. Her hearing was fucking awful but you don't need to hear nettles you just need to see them: Ain't nothing but the wind playing tricks on ya she thus concluded.

The wind my sweet tush. Listen. He cocked his giant radar toward the noise and put his sonar of a nose to the ground to pick up vibrations. Sure, he couldn't see for shit but you don't need to see meat you just need to hear it or smell it and both of those senses were a startin’ to tingle.

Mother fucking fucker! He growled excitedly.

Your language is awful. Bronte rebuked him.

Go on, get down that ravine a bit, you're way too immense and whatever's coming'll see you fifty miles away.

Charming I'm sure . . .

Go on, git momma, this is a man's work.

Bronte rolled her eyes and then wearily made for the ravine.

And hey, T whispered back, keep that ass of yours tight, ya ain't got all day to get outta sight, now shake it eh.

Pig. Bronte whispered.

Oooh ooh ooh I hopey so . . . bacon, oh shit bacon . . . bring that bacon home to daddy.

He waited, crouched, his head cocked, lips salivating . . . stupid little arms dangling uselessly. The noise grew nearer, not louder just nearer; whatever it was wasn't heavy but there was a lot of it. A lot. Yes. Then he sensed them and he pounced, well not pounced exactly because pouncing wasn't quite his thing: no; he stomped and swept his big angular jaw low across the plain and caught whatever it was in his mouth. He was right, there were a lot of them, but one hardly registered as a meal, not even as a whore's d'oeuvre, but if he ate enough . . . yes, there was a food chain now at least and he was right at its apex. Yum Cha my friend yum cha.

Not used to hunting, he soon tired and sat on his hill. Where had all these tiny stupid things suddenly come from? They were stupider than his arms. He called Bronte back. She stuck her head up over the ravine as T heard another few dozen of the small things head back in his direction. He belched, and then took a few more as dessert.

Well? She said to him.

Ain't got much meat on them, but they're sure stupid.

What are they?

Fucked if I know.

We have to be careful T, in case they seize control.

That made him laugh, a huge belly laugh. Not likely momma. For one they're too pissant and for another they're too dumb, I mean, they jump over ravines.

They must have been here before sometime, look at their tiny feet; they match those fossils almost exactly.

Uhm, interesting theory, but who cares, no one's taking over shit on my watch. Now, how about some after lunch fooling around hot stuff?

Afraid not, I'm uh, in the family way.

What? That can't be . . .

That's evolution, think about it, the first baby . . .

Ah shit, sleepless nights, hunter gathering, and just when I've got food too, I mean . . . no sex for how long?

Three years, give or take.

You sure we can't . . .?

Certainly not, you'll just have to grow those arms.

Later, as they rested, side-by-side, they felt something strange. Not a boner, not love, not food, something altogether . . . foreign.

T can you see that?

What, you know my sight's shit, what is it, where, is it food?

No look, up there in the sky, it's kind of big and blue and white and getting bigger and closer and I'm scared T.

Ain't nothing to be scared about baby, probably just a . . .

BANG!

And Now For Something Completely Different . . . It’s Kinda Like Poetry . . Remember That Kids?

No One Gets Outta Here Alive

the sign reads

exit only

wrong way

go back

bi-pass ahead

coronial inquest

rue morgue

last gas

free lobotomy

you are there

Spray Gun Squalor

it was our own queen sized love boat

only wetter; a horny C-sponge -

we pissed on that thing for weeks on end

& when we weren’t pissin on it,

we were screwin on it & sometimes doin

both, conjugally unified

sodden in the monsoon season

& it stank worse than the penthouse suite

at a hotel for the criminally insane,

so when we decided to up & go to

pastures new & springs afresh,

we couldn’t dump it for senti-mentalist reasoning/

ended up selling it to two

finest ladies of oriental extraction;

they u-hauled it away & its odour

hung a while in the still humid air,

& it was the best of times & the worst

All (Woo) Men aren’t Created Equal

I havta go perform 2nite

make like panda eyes

practice repeating all those lies

strap it down, or back,

show some cheek

fall off tables, climb up poles

sell what remains of my uncensored soul

in words & bumps & grinds & circadian rhythms

flexing wasted muscles, pouting, provoking

all moods to all kinds of fucked-up people & nothing at all to nothing people

pippin verse-vitality for the price of a tab

already devoured by the rider stipulation

& I wonder why they sit there, staring,

considering what’s in my pants

head, bed, or who does my eyes,

& do i swallow or spit &

are my jugs like for real?

i spin it all, against a backcloth of

no flash photography

without prior permission / the look / but don’t

fuckn touch house rule & cosmetic self-aggrandizing

i cast out lines to deadbeats

who touch themselves between.

Slip Knot Love Shot/s

piss yellow water raft down my urinary sewer tract

override my rapids with your skitzo-frenetik DNA

call me collect STD

give me that swine of a virus,

your saliva running in rivulets

trout fish me,

your juices in shot glasses

your desire the chaser

to the codeine hit

you slug one, i slug one,

until the subconscious wanes

& the conscience growls gutted

& i see your retinas

shot & bloodlined & mainlined

in the chasm of fragility we bind

to receptors & raptors of our kind

copulated in mammaldom

you shoot me full of spores

i shoot you full of mindless vagrancy

your innards & my innards

mosh pitting to a secular tune.

Jayzus est Mort Si

the ivory tower of bleached human bones mocks the dying genocidal son

a gaunt bearded man squats in a cave reading don Quixote in Arabic

the gleaming shield covering the slick black desert

keeps the intruders out . . .

the jewlysses wall encircling jc's old hood