the home page of david prater

Well, there have been some big changes in Daveyland since I arrived back home. One of these has been the strange process of becoming reacquainted with friends and family, after a long period overseas. It's weird. Everyone's exactly the same. I'm exactly the same. Australia is exactly the same. Except, different. Perhaps I should have expected this. What's perhaps even weirder is the process of preparing for a spoken word gig, my first in a long time (unless you count the essential battiness that was my reading for the Korean Modern Poets Association ). Yikes! This gig will be held tomorrow night at Babble , Melbourne's (heck, Australasia's) premier spoken word event, and I'm not just saying that coz I owe host Mr Sean M. Whelan aka Dr Feelgood a favour or two. Okay, that's the only reason I'm saying it. For you superfreaks in Melbourne, I urge you to come on down and support this great tradition. Expect the unexplainable. Here's the juice: ...

For all the doubters who cast nasturtiums on my ability to grow a beard , new evidence has emerged in the form of archival photos and painful memories. Please, consider these first impressions of beard, taken whilst freezing my arse off in Sapporo, Japan. Given my albino skin colour, the presence of bed-hair in these shots and the location of the "shoot" inside a dormitory room in a hostel, I think it's fair to say that my beard-modelling career is officially dead in the water.

i got mao's text around eight - i was sitting in some dingy bar watching boxers spar on the tv i'll be late don't wait for me so i ordered some more wasabi peas & massaged my stiff knees dreamily it's always like this i think because mao's the one who's always late (mentioning something about make-up or a facelift in a mausoleum somewhere they're probably touching him up as we speak (friday night in beijing was not quite what i expected it to be despite what the old fortune teller told me about patience being the key to my future life still i can't help wondering what's keeping him - maybe the rain, or a lost taxi? more beer recharge my battery witnessing scuffles by the door more & more peasants turned artists swarm for stools & drink until finally (finally!) there's a buzz by the window & his big moon face floating past i shout mao! mate! & his head swivels & i feel like the devil drinking faust i make way for t...

thunderheads line up across the bay as airbirds wait their turn to taxi pulses of energy enter these bodies coming out the other side breathing prevaricating at the petrol station as the passers-by smoked cigarettes the atmosphere was on orange alert but the radios played old gangajang humidity creeps through the gardens as hummingbirds get the final call jasmine supplies dangerously low - tearing off every printed forecast barometric disasters wait to happen as a circling isobar drinks its fill outside even the planetarium wavers & the marathon runners begin to melt six o'clock shadows on a newsreader as the tickertape parade lingers on the potentially explosive air pocket charged like a yearning peace rocket