I sit, sensitised

I stand, I walk up

the hill and my hand

tingles where the air kisses it

I am always seeking

      something but today

I wait for it to meet me -

  and it does not take long.

The lichen.

   Symbiotic poetic

   cross-collaboration cell

   integration performance

   a way

      for both of us

         to survive 

the body bursting

      from the dirt

      in slow power

      lifting rocks and forcing

      the compacted matter

      aside, away, to display 

the efforts of decay

   Continuum

being nourished by the dead

emerging in the autumn

performing the all-time (long-time)

heavyweight champion

the rush and swirl of

   the unhushed world,

      oceanic traffic distances

      being-becoming

      entangled in birdsong

      softly, gently,

      the aircraft rumble in cloudscape meeting rock and scrape crunch step by step and step 

here

  to stand, here

  to breathe

     the ridge and

the world

   has heard this

        story before

the world has heard this

      story before it is a 

   love story,

                remember?

it is desire

      the desire to exist 

             to feel

                    to be

in cross-collaboration

         in sympoetic elation

    symphonic dégustation

to taste the possible

                     combinations

pair me, love meet me

      here I am

            listening,

                my glands 

                     activating

   my spirit salivating 

I have room

       and room 

           and room

     for you -

this dirt become wood become lichen-carrier 

rock crumbled pigmenting sap infinite drip

star infinite map slipping 

between my organs listen the many-called organism glistens 

ready for the infinite potential of

             dreaming -

I am sensitised.

      slow, slow fast

the pace of

           the living.

I am buffeted, there are waves, there are ways to swim and float and thrash and drown and dive, I walk, I sit, I breathe, I dig, I sing it is all here I

   am

     here

each moment

    rustling gently

         against its companions

I    am          here

Thank you for

      being - becoming - rock -

      ground - root - leaf - 

      sun - fire     here

I     am        a

          lichen 

          fungus

          bird song

          engine

          companion

          collection

               here.

Waves,

   the flux of rush-relax patterning,

   an ebb-flow action and depth

I’ve not known til now.

  What are our realities made of?

microorganism interrelation symbiosis

   symbiogenesis integration

   consumption and procreation

we

  have always been

      lichens.

The birds take wing and

    sing in the golden light

long shadows, settling sun

   play

      and

   desire

         reaching towards the light -

oh, my love

      is all I need

Come close to me, my love

   I will show you how I feel

I am here

  a live

I feel fine

      and absurd

fear and love

    freedom is calling, dear ones, in all its forms.

  just a choice away

     to choose each day, each moment

        to listen

        to return

again, here

            alive

    love

A Prayer, A Chant

A prayer

oh sweet crushing void

hallowed be thy name

hollow and endless

come take me

oh holy fuck

i am devastation

obscured by the shadow of the sun

may the black hole open up

A chant

here i am rumbling empty

here we are rolling down deep

crushing weight of the entire sea

the pressure will build and then break me

soon i am tumbling and free

to be dissolved into the air

a breath a release and a body

light and hollow 

rotten and bare

Patient Soil

Beneath

there are tender tendrils creeping

and tiny life forms

masticating

digesting

excreting out the dead

we feed each other

we eat each other

we scatter and lay

and dampen and decay

and the tiny veins

take us over

take us down

slowly slowly

we cross the ground

until we are broken

and fall

slowly

slowly

we hasten towards death

transform our withering

we eat each other

we are fed

drift down through

the layers and be consumed

mycelial skin

coating

devouring

slowly slowly

the soil is patient

we are patient soil

we carry and are carried

across and down

we filter 

it all

through us

and we are dispersed 

in the quiet dark

of the earth

the mosses and lichens and liverworts

the microbes and tiny bugs

ants and shadows

break down

the

broken

and dead

we are steadily transformed 

we are not waiting

we tend to this every moment

(solve et coagula)

the soil

feeds us

and we

feed it

it is patiently waiting

feeling our weight

as we move

across

and down

into the tender tendrils

the arms

and mouths 

of the earth

like flesh off the scales
slips a sluggish chunk

risking atrophy, ogrish assumptions
tend and see to rend leniency limb
from limbic whim

a spectral understory
hum heavy in the wind whipping detritus
form unforming informal storm mourning
something vertiginous,  
it was drowned in bent bubbles as it rose

some oxygenated moron
moreover a sore son of Inertia
she was a daft bitch
and he
a longlunged sycophant


seeking in sciomancy


but a

well-wrapped wraith makes it hard to cast shadow
out into the sea

unseen lines trawling that incipient imitation
for sparrow-tailed bream


below a slow undulation
peristaltic successions clunkily shudderslunk
like flesh off the scales

a slippery sluggish chunk
assumes echarotic past-tense parlance

plankton warble wide as whales

cast down a fathom
sloughingly deep
for ichthyomantic answerings

days slip by like years. i am filled quietly, and with grace. cyclic, rippling, and condensed here. sensation heightened.

there is no love lost;
there is no lost.
it may give in like a sinkhole but
you are on the right side. you are the force -
the push.

movement ;

liminal crystallisation

and here is where the beginning starts to take form.

listen - the spectrum has shifted. there is definition, refraction, complexity. there are the patterns, you see? crystallised.

with each extraction there comes a reaction. mostly gestation. observation and reply. of course the whole thing spirals, as always. it has its own gravitational pull.

and
well, from here it's a re-cognition of communication. some sense these instinctive curves, while others find lateral - us or limbo
disconcerting.

i could try to tell you as plainly as possible. it's an echo of the abject allowing me to re-cycle. it has been entirely subconscious up until now. but if the range is lost, well… you lose information. the definition dissolves, static. hissing. you know. loss of depth. of signal quality.

and so it tends to span some broader sense of self. only a compulsion has brought me to the point of surprising my conscious self with proof of my own process, and while consciously observing that i can react instinctively and re-create with minimal effort - at least in the general sense. surely there is some little-known driving force, an internal level that can only move once the depths are plumbed. the push and the dig.

and the limbo, the gestation, the compression. that may be what lives (and breathes) between the movement. the re-action.
the proof seeps upwards and condenses and falls. it is what i am made of,
mostly.


have you ever seen your self echo?

reminder of vibration. and i could try to tell you

but it's awfully hard to keep up. infinity does not go on forever, it circulates. i get ahead of myself too, sometimes.

liminal crystallisation. it's where mathematics rises, stretching, from its godlike slumber. and observing myself becomes testing myself.

and so i fall in love with the idea, over and over and over again in different ways. incarnations. frequencies. patterns.

it makes sense to me, good, logical sense, that eight eyes could pierce a little more of that veil. noise. so perhaps i am simply trying to turn into a spider.

the imagery, it has a sound. that is how you listen to me.

that is how i breathe.


of course, now my skin is reacting. igniting on contact, but i have long since let it become a background buzz. it is propulsion.
and now the rest,

a pet bird caught in a jet-stream, that's me

you're a big kid. you'll be ok.
without me, i mean,
that's not what i want.
to say
i want you here and ready and barrier-free
i want you to lose yourself in me
i want you

so there it is. i want you, and you need to change.
and when with me it is harder for you to.
but you must.


the nature of the beast is to dig, the earth is soft and ready. the nature of the beast is to fight, not take flight. you are not a bird, now.
your mind twists and turns into itself. long loops locking
until the grave chain cuts into your flesh. your muscle and bone.
only skin
separates
but further and further until even my longest arms aren't long enough
and my eyes grow tired trying to look so far
what with the rift mist

and the lifted fist
don't beckon, i am estranged.

and yet i have this insatiable urge to stay firmly-footed,
ankle-deep and dirt-covered
just dig myself in, the beast is burning up
and from the inside out i still do love you and you have to believe that but you have to
you have to
'cause i can't -
don't let me get stuck here as tree amongst forests.


i often forget just how precarious these cliffs can be
just sheer stone and the water, crashing and rolling all unfathomable depths and salty shadows
it's not unlikely, and my love that is not what i want

i want you
with your hands open even if broken
i have the splint and you have the twine. we can bind
them back and my skin will crack like bark so what is the point in getting root-footed?
there is more point in getting split open
i have the axe if you have the swing, you can show them
you can show them


i spent a lifetime looking through the year just gone.
and so i hear it only gets faster from this point onwards, so good luck, lady. you're in for it now.
they'll pile up thick and fast, and before you know it you've broken the donkey's back and your books are in the mud. so are your feet. they've been there so long your knees are growing branches. chapter after chapter smothered. words snugly sentence settled under the cover of dirt-night, as if never born.
these things are precious to me. perhaps it is why i hoard.
the thought of losing them is like
is like
when you are diving out of your depth and your chest constricts like your heart is under so much pressure it can't even beat for fear of implosion
or like
just before you wake from a nightmare of falling and falling and you are about to hit the ground and it is so, so very real yet you try to wake yourself and instead you find your physical self has stopped breathing - how long for now? when will it end? will i wake up again?

and you give yourself over with total abandon, just to keep it all between your ears & hands.
i wonder if you know that feeling?




show them.
show me. show yourself.

i can't think of any other way to save this, so please.

Halfway Home

Things have been breaking for a while now. It's not often that losing the leg off a table you don't even own makes you reflect on your life situation.
A haze sits solemnly over the city, turns the air into gold. I go outside, halfway down the chipped steps. The sun is framed halfway between our neighbour's deck and roof. I find myself stuck momentarily, that all-too-familiar red orb dull enough so that I don't look away.
I have things to do, of course. I have to tie up the loose ends and tape up collections of half-read books, fill half-full boxes. At least I still have my optimism, that much is whole. The rest: I have stopped caring. To be completely honest.
It's at this point in the process where every stain begins to surface. Previously smothered by desks, couches, letters addressed to no one you know. Piles of - of what? Nothing, really. I don't spend any time shuffling through it - there's no point. The walls are empty now, apart from half a quote: "...ere the weather is decisive". Apt. Everything was going well until the weather went bipolar on us. And then all that you know as stable becomes a shadow of itself, or so it seems. It's not like things were perfect, I mean, confusion and frustration had been no stranger for a good while before the atmosphere built up enough to bring down a deluge like that. I had been concentrating on a circle so tiny and distorted and seemingly close that, by the time I looked up, we were hurtling into the earth, utterly unprepared.

I'm sure we all like to think of ourselves as balanced people. We have the ability, the opportunity to focus on things like our personalities, the importance (or lack thereof) we place on material possessions, whether or not we get insurance and how long our showers are. When placed into situations that rattle your sense of stability and control, these things get lost. Not in the pejorative sense - it's simply that you find yourself with more important things to think about. And in this process, while dissolved in limbo, you might lose your shit. Your legs might go weak, you might freeze. You might assert control and find yourself stronger. Or weaker. Or with no change, at least initially.

There's a poignant beauty in destruction. Small things nestled peripherally for so long are discarded, stale emotion often discarded with them. Prioritize, organize. File it away. You crystallize your world, your only reference point being yourself.

I find myself reminded that the progression, the process of organic growth & decay, is a constant. It fuels itself and burns simultaneously. I am not separate from it. I am in the middle of it right now, and even if I stare at that sun for a bit too long it won't blind me. I'll remember the colour well, the feeling of watching things split & scatter. Old chairs, clothes, dust and songs and time and thoughts, not just your own, definitely not just your own. And for some reason, even if it's guilt or love or basic human growth, I feel responsible for this house, the people, the life I have known well; in all its half-broken glory.
In the half-light. The halfway home.

shake it up baby, now

it's rushing and rolling out of me and into the air.
sleeping and living and slow moving and losing out
the sound is awake and, although lights are low
i don't need to hear it,
i mean i really, really don't.
it's like somehow the lack of solidity leaked into me
and i am locked away too, i don't want this -
i have what i have, too
maybe i have missed

that desolation is intoxicating.
so i'm wired, hey
all over the shop

warmth is warmth is not here
3 hours, 7 hours, 30 minutes
it's shifting and inconsistent it is a mirror image
it tells you how your mind is moving through the space around it
it breathes you in and you forget and you have it all laid out delicately on a non-existent surface
so it just falls through and lands on nothing
into nothing
and by the time it gets there the order has changed and this will happen again again again
yes i don't understand
yes i am okay
yes i care
no i don't want this
yes i missed

tangles
tangles
twists and shuddering and birth and shadows
that grimace scares me if i am completely honest
and weak
confusion has reached a new peak, i am impressed as the other
i marvel at it, even. but it doesn't quite deserve applause.

missed

and all of a sudden it is achingly cold again
i know it's the beginning and warmth is warmth is
not something i can provide
it's not my shoulders, it's these feet
now that is a lie.
i don't ever wanna feel
like the only string between the next place and this
but of course.
i couldn't possibly understand, and therein lies the same old headfuck.

yeah, yeah. it's whatever you make it i guess. what else am i supposed to say
i have no say in the matter but i speak like i will not have another chance to and the words and thoughts wind themselves into each other and what else can i say
they'll end up in the same (dis)place
as the destructive urge
as the hollow tone
as the self-forming miraclemachine
whose name is inappropriate
whose name pushes you away as it drags you
whose name is down, down
in the misplaced dawn
in the core that still won't still
in the awkwardly locked fingers dig them in
now
now
2 hours, 5 hours, 30 minutes

you can't take me with you and you can tell yourself whatever it might be
you think and you observe and your loss is not my gain
don't tell me again
don't ask me again
i have nothing for you
as it becomes an offering
i don't know
maybe it's a question
or a challenge and if you take it and win then there you go
nothing
return return to

layers peel off and smothering and breathing shallow and gone
so
so
so
far gone

shake it off, baby
now
it's not for your shoulders or your feet
it's not enough ever and even if it was you still could not
it's not you
it's your self
it's not you
it's your suffocating sadness

what am i supposed to say?
it's more than one facet of guilt
even when even when
you are right
even when
it's nothing
no promises, i mean, meow
but

yeah. i got nothing.

yeah.

worn

a dog barks in the street out the back of this house where the stranger was beaten up last week
his blood rolled thickly between overused flagstones facedown faceless
all i did when i heard him groaning was close the carport roller door
it sounded oddly silent
like the man i did not see used up little to no energy splitting his face open
only the grunts as the hits connected
silence, the roller door closing. it got stuck on the flood-damaged mattress
i took a breath, moved it, did not look in the direction of the sounds i had overheard,
even a physically dysfunctional separation can be symbol enough for one to believe in safety
for the time being.

the dog's bark changed to growl changed back
to bark
i will not miss the terrible stillness of my nerves desensitised

and perhaps it was only because everything had already happened so why not something else, i mean, when it rains it pours it hails it ruins your home it makes strangers bleed it crashes cars it

steals the song from behind your tongue still sitting stagnant deep inside yr throat

the concept of opening your fingers and only static spilling out is something i fear more than
blood or danger or betrayal
i have to believe that this is something powerful and magical because otherwise
baby, otherwise -
shit. i don't know. i suppose i'll lose it all over again.

ten minutes to 2am. if all i am is experience where does my emotional self enter?
i must be nervous. i must be overtired and fed up with this shitty house and electronic music and inability to even hold you close when you are purified nightly
with so little time to take stock
i am still unsure simply because another self is losing out here
someone i thought i was,
waving a little hand around quiet but concerned:
you are changing.

do your friends still know you?

loud sounds, similar to gunshots but not as piercing
the dog is barking again, distressed perhaps

my eyes hurt again
i am not alone and i know this
but i am not who i once was and it is confusing me, love i am so confused
the way you move tends to eddy around me and between the break and the rip i get stuck
my incessant need to share has never been a curse until now
and i hate
disintegration

but i am dissolving in this
if it pushes me away i suppose that's just how it is, you know
yes i care, but i am also accepting enough by now that intensity's uncommon appearances rattle me internally and steel me externally.
stop numbing it all down, baby
you need to and so do i now

but with every esoteric utterance your brain refuses to curve in line
with mine
like there is some soft insanity waiting
just around the river bend

the more i observe myself the more i believe in denial
but subjectively; integration just won't do right now. no sir. she likes a challenge, i mean
it says so in her resume.

give the kid some hallucinogens, for fuck's sake
something to shake it all up nice good
or, more so, to condense it all.

yes. it should be done.
you have logic and love behind you.
it should be all you need.

past here - i hope i'll sleep
and slow
and lie less
and kick contradiction
hey it's a tough one. give me a break, i'll get there eventually.

yeah. give me a break, and when it's broken i'll break you too. but it doesn't hurt, in fact

i'll just

stay awake and look in the window every now and again
it's warmer inside so it tends to fog up
don't breathe too much

no sound now, other than your generic city sounds and the fridge buzz. and my static love.
you don't
and you
will do

it's all gonna break

the last week and a half has been a bit too much.

not just in the usual justine sense of the phrase. it's actually been an overload by anyone's standards.

i was falling apart. i escaped, and tried to get my head/heart straight. i was somewhere else entirely, not just somewhere i hadn't been in a long time, it was more than that. there are curses involved in learning shit about yourself and the world.
i thought i was working it out. and to an extent, it was making sense.

then it rained.
and when it rains, it pours, baby
when it pours it hails
and it floods what you called home and the cracks in the ceiling spread
and the cracks in the walls lengthen, it leaks through
and everything precious has to be shifted and put away
and you can't find anything
and you are confused because surely this sort of situation is not what you deserve.

but it won't stop there
and sleeping becomes a task, an irritable adventure
or if it will only just stay standing
but the ground is changing
it is growing and it is slowly sickening you
until you can't sit and breathe any longer, you are limbo embodied
frantically aching and coughing and pushing at nothing but air
it will not move! somebody, something, make it move;
i can't do it. i have tried. it is wearing me down after only 6 days.

you must. so you take a deep toxic breath and heave
and when it pours it shits down, baby
because growing up is not about taking the easy way out, running or hiding.
you must
set your sights on something and just pull your tangles through
(and i have realized now, you look like her. it's the jawline that sings out to me)
so i do.

and oh there is a cure here, more tangles than i knew here
could possibly be moving unnoticed behind your head
i am already permanently stuck, unless i use my teeth to cut
and i am not ready for that yet.
and when it hails it breaks things, when the sky hath no fury like
a woman mourned -
no. sorrow.

maybe something is moving now?
surely it will take a form, like a real physical form
with mass and texture and light refracted
surely
it will resonate and i will feel whole again i will feel condensed instead of
split and scattered

i don't know
i don't want to, but i can plead
it's not really me, but i can do it if it needs to be done
it will grow and twist into me now
that's okay. i don't mind. i'm gathering my strength
for the sake of stability.
and when the shitstorm buckets on down,
where will yr fingertips be?
stretching up & out
or pointing inwards, and piercing yr palms?

or scratching away at me?

and my skin forgets to breathe
it's all rushing and rolling inside the sea
yr heart's a cloud now
maybe it'll break me

but keep on pushing
keep on keepin' on

this is it, it unfolds.

sometime soon, things are gonna turn around.
it's the only way.
sometime soon, there'll be another downpour and all of this will wash away
fresh and clean, i hope i really truly do
because i don't know i don't know now and i never will know and i know that now
but someday soon the oceans will bend my way
soon

today

i implore you! it's a crucial time, i never expected this - but here it is. help me. whatever you are. give me that little boost, a leg up, a shoulder, a hand, an eye, a fingertip
to balance on and reach that last rickety rung
cause it's a long long long way but i am young
and i am right this time.
finally.
i am right this time.

it's all gonna push me in the direction of home
i haven't been there yet, and i'm nervous
but my hopes are staying above those heavy clouds
every drip drags the dirt down
and the air clears
and yr eyes are bright
autumn is thick with nostalgia and churning with change
i'm feeling so light and so strange
i've never been here
and i'm itching to move on and on and on and on

up and up and up

and i'm still easy either way
but i've lost my listlessness

it doesn't bother me

dirtdustdreamrust

go now, little one, down the road it could only

go somewhere, little one, go

there's many a path near this road, little one you will go
far away from your home, you will go


summer air in the city streets
the years rush backwards, even then
the sun shone stronger, i swear
same time same space but a different when
all the trees looked the same in the backseat

the dirt rises behind my head, i
have stopped looking for it.

the way shadows fall in the morning light
splitting your dreams into fairies into dust
shaking them out of your hair as you move
time will solidify and time will rust and
ripple
upwards and out of the night

the earth forms inside my head, i
am a vessel for it.

and the most attractive people are the wrong way 'round
and the city turns to dirt it turns the brightness down
you keep a-tickin' but the tockin' is what's got you now
when the tension goes, all the cogs will break
and you be left down on the cold ground
you be left down

oh, down to the path on the way to the river on the way to the road to the oceanside
i took a little pity on a dyin' horse in the middle of the one-horse town
and i lied
to the people
to the clocks and the alleys and the broken nights

and the dirtdustdreamrust washes off
once the rain starts a-rainin' down so hard
it'll wear you smooth if you stand out here too long

and the dirtdustdreamrust will dissolve
once the salt starts stingin' in your eyes
it'll take you home if you need to go


now, little one, down the road it could only
go somewhere, little one, go

there's many a path near this road, little one you will go
far away from your home, you will go

i got some dirty boots

babayyyyyyy

(i sank into the sea)
i really wish i was somewhere else right now. on top of a hill. or under a wave. or in a shed.
everything breaks when it meets the water.
i lit fires on the shore, and i forgot about them. they've long since stopped burning but there are bits left, scraps of coal, fine white ash that dissolves when you touch it.
i hear the crackling in your voice like a roar. it rushes into my ears and fills my eyes with the sea.
it's all i can do to mumble an agreement, the ocean is making my throat hoarse and alien, small noises make themselves heard without prior permission or intention, i am at a loss to myself.
thereisnothingthereisnothing that will ever match up to that moment thereisnothing that will ever be as complete we will never be as complete

breathe in.
the air gets colder, the feeling of being observed heightens. you would be happy with the person i am becoming. you are happy with the person i am becoming, inasmuch as you can be. with all of us. we are doing things. we are living. even if even if you never had that choice even if the world was just too much of a struggle and would always be that way in some wordless screaming unending void of a one-way street
we have ways around, we have hardened hearts, we can pick up our dragging feet
and keep walking
and keep our slightly chipped shells intact for another day, week, indecipherable period of time,
press them to our ears and hear the roaring rushing riptide of our blood and your blood and the sea's blood
and not let myself forget the way it felt
the closest i will ever get to being whole
the furthest we ever were from being alone
the closest we ever were to having heartshells for a home

sky blinding, crumbling walls

full moon tonight, there is buzzing around the south-west of my body and i know that is where it sits waiting to rise bloated and fleshy
and the earth's shadow will follow
the sun
is still behind some clouds but brightbright bright enough
musn't let musn't let my intoxication overcome must find must find the equilibrium between inspiration and restriction
i am playing songs today on my guitar and it buzzes more than usual at least to my ears
i am not high, i am not under the influence of anything more than 2 strong coffees and i swear by now they should have worn off
my head
is cocked to the side and i listen for
harmonies quivering in the ether, patient, waiting to resound
i am humming today
it is february but the eclipse is in leo
22
is the age of reason

my body moves free
my bones loosen
but i have not given up

since this morning i have been comfortably unsettled i have been moving either physically or mentally or musically
twigstwigs in my hair freshly refracted
the colour of the ceiling via the couch

she the room
leaves
the fall early this year
it is still a month before autumn
there are ashes in the
cold air

there are ashes in the cold air
south from here, south-east
and now i think, just now i am thinking
why can i not get through to my window? the window
i can't see from here

musn't let musn't let it get out of hand out of sight out of sound
i cannot hear my window the window
i cannot hear

but things can burn even in this cold
loss can turn me to ice even in this heat

and now i can't get the thought out of my head, just now i am thinking
i haven't eaten since i woke 10 hours ago
(my love, i feel unsteady)
i will see what i want to see

and watch my earth's shadow move from the roof, the tree, the earth
i just need to hear
i cannot hear
i am not too sure
when it will rise but i want to be there to see it


i want to be there to sing it

holy and wanting

skin will hang loose
when your heart beats too heavy
when your arms swing swing swing
for lack of control

i want to do nothing productive.
correction: i want to be amazingly productive without having to make any effort whatsoever.
my self-disciplinary skills seem to be waning while
my flesh is waxing. and it seems to melt sometimes.
addictions are dirty things, they inch into your pores and itch back out again, leaving you holy and
wanting to destroy
wanting to destroy

but i didn't think the mice could get up here
is it dried flowers scratching the door frame?
is it my throat delivering a sentimental growl, unnoticed

and the rust buckled my window
i place my head on it and it is warm
i find myself wanting the sympathy of the wrought iron
i bury my head in the glass, but it doesn't even crack.
fuck. all i wanted was some sort of comfort some sort of peelingpaintbluelitmetalcoldcomfort
but i suppose you have seen too much of that already, haven't you?
i suppose you recognized it the moment i threw the line,
the moment it broke the water's surface,
bait shuddering with a self-deprecating ripple.

i should teach myself to stop.

with each tongue that is placed in your mouth, my confidence shrinks.

i am almost cowering under the covers with each scritch at the closet door
i am tensing in frustration every time pressure is suggested.
i am mentally and violently retaliating at each sound
wanting to destroy
wanting to destroy
rust will crumble from my ears
let it
go with
it will be
fine let it

and it depresses me
it shits me
that nothing is making more sense
it frustrates me
that
in fact it is going in the opposite direction

i'm all over the place. my sense of judgement is out of town for a bit.
it may have skipped the country before it got charged for fleeing the scene of the crime
i swear the ceiling fan is tapping back at me.
i swear that one of these days i will so viciously bury my face into my guitar that my eyes will become fields of splinters
you and i can skip through them, hand in rustedironhand, me and you, the window and me.

precipitous

the sky grew lighter as the night came,
golden pastel threads and smudges
rich purple-red scattering
to grey. the royal turquoise ran deep layers

below or above, depending on your point of view.
and it reflected off windows that smothered the clifftops
blinding but balancing

the panoramic splendour made me wistful.

and something clicks in my mind
that is enough
it was enough a long while back
a small phoenix is hooking its claws into
something solid
its featherless body shudders in the breeze
but it seems more content with feeling the cold
than not feeling at all.
its blackblack eyes look up at me.
i am dizzy, being drawn into them unwittingly
like when you stumble towards the ocean, the rhythm of the waves dragging you in
and you can't tear your eyes away
and it feels as if you have almost no control over your body for a couple of seconds - then the next wave crashes, and the spell breaks - like that.
they are utterly neutral; as identity-free as the sea
yet something in them calls to me

or i call to them, depending on your point of view.
reflected in pupils that mothered the wind-smoothed rocks
grounding but terrifying.

in this precipitous state i know i would have trouble falling.
yet i am clinging to the sharpest of rocks
as fear washes over me in waves
it belongs to me as much as these calloused hands
and i cannot judge the danger any better than you -
we are as blinded but balanced as each other.

and some days the sky looks so much like the sea
and some days you look so much like me

you are less than one, more than every one

the cloth lung is the only thing that moves in this room.
netted red, the wall across from me deepens when the window
breathes in.
and every morning but one i have returned
and have seen the moon scaling the sky like a lizard on a stone wall

this time it was i who flicked the switch,
i let myself into the house
to the loungeroom
and i turned on the light

it was not you who calmed my heart
(though when i think of you i often will be calmed)
it was not you who reached between my ribs and pushed and pulled until i could breathe
no;
that was me.

and here in the summer i sit in my summer dress. i should be partially submerged in the tide.
and i hear your voice and it makes me smile. i have known it for so long that i can't help but feel comforted,
though it pains me to think you are so far away
and i am so far away
and even this far away we are closer than i thought, or you realize.

but still i wish to carve layer after layer of flesh from my bones
if i could be where you are i would show you
the filmy golden tissue that shelters my nerves
i would fold back the skin and glow
so bright you would have to shield your eyes

i would wish that i had the patience you have.
to let the sound come to you in dreams and in fire
and to wait, to see if she will appear between the door and the box of my old records
and stand resplendent and perfect in the half light of your bedroom/recording studio
and it could take years, decades. but you will wait.



this noun is well known, and indiscriminate - you are less than one, more than every one.
i create you and destroy you at my own whim, and you do the same.
i love you, i am jealous of you, i desire you, and i am afraid of you.
there is more to you than our imaginations combined could comprehend.

but this time, i put you aside (in an utterly neutral sense).
i unlocked the door, i opened the window.
i flicked on the switch, i lit the fire.
i shuffled the cards, i counted the numbers.
i stretched and shrunk, i expanded and contracted.
i made the incision, i stemmed the flow.
i grew the cells, i pulled out the hair.
not you.
i breathe.
i beat.
i breathe.
i beat.
i breathe.
i shudder.
i breathe.
i twitch.
i breathe.
i beat.
i breathe.
i flow.
i breathe.
not you,
this time.

i am no bug

rip into me, my hate
i am losing myself again.
don't let the time get sucked into my black black eyes
these darkened teeth disgust me

just the thought just the thought send waves of nausea
i fought i lost i fought i chose but never
(you mind, death professor)

in the mirror my neck looked like it was broken
(but my eyes were open)
in the mirror my neck looked like it was broken
(but my eyes were open)

tear it down, painfully crafted architect
tear it down and i will sink into a
black hiraedd
and the wound appears to fester, despite my clumsy ignorance poultice
it's one of those blind spots,
my arms do not stretch far enough -
so i made a call from the halfway house

you didn't pick up
you didn't pick up
you didn't pick up
you didn't pick up
i was surprised that you didn't pick up

then you picked up
and i am human again and my voice cracked but now is healing
and i am human again after i was made into less than animal
i am human again and i was bug

even now the fleshmemory makes me shudder
not just in disgust, in disappointment
but i am no bug



and the fresh blood will cleanse the wound
and the fresh blood will cleanse the wound

oh, distance has a way of making love understandable

for some reason, i always feel like starting blogs or letters or text messages or e-mails with the words, 'i don't really know'. i don't understand. maybe i just have a subconscious need to tell people that i have no clue of what's going on. and no matter how knowledgable or intellectual or fascinating people might be, no one actually does know. and maybe i don't admit it enough - that i am one of those people. i don't really know. i don't understand. i don't get it. i'm confused.
not in the pejorative sense even. it's a neutral statement.


so tonight i met up with alex and bianca and lucy in newtown. they had come over for less than 24 hours, to see conor oberst and the mystic valley band at the enmore theatre and then leave again. back to perth. i wished a little bit that i was going back with them.
anyway, the gig was fucking incredible. conor oberst is - and i don't care what anyone says - the spokesperson for this generation. the gig was exciting, sorrowful, beautiful, angry, destructive, rich, fulfilling... not just the music (which was fucking top notch), but the whole atmosphere the band created. i felt like i could have been sitting under the same mexican stars where they wrote & recorded their album, listening to this group of like-minded(&hearted) friends jamming away. i walked away from it feeling blissful. even now, some of that warmth is still buzzing through me.
so we came back to my dad's empty house (dad, kath & the boys went down south for a night or two and i happened to have a key), and smoked and talked and listened to music. it was so lovely and comfortable to see them again. but of course, daylight savings decides to kick in this morning, so a whole fucking potential hour got stolen. i just returned from putting them in a taxi back to the airport. i am now in a big, empty house, listening to diane cluck or wilco or queens of the stone age or deftones or autechre. i'm not sure. i don't really know.
it might be just lack of sleep, but i feel deflated and misplaced. things are good here, i have made a couple of friends and melissa and i are getting on better than ever, but about 3/4 of my limbs are missing.


my brain is mush. i miss


i let it flood my ears and soak into my skin.
3/4 of a million miles from home
a tenuous thread shimmers from flesh to land to flesh
i stretch it back like an archer
i strum it like i echo the howl
i sew it into my fingertip callouses
i pull it so tight i can't breathe

the thunderstorm brushes past me
it claws at the air just beyond here
i dream its tentative growl would swell into a howl and
drown out muttering insecurity.

notes rebound on the long ivory walls
it would be too much to ask
them to keep it down

and above me;
i crumble
the thread twines and nets itself just in time to catch the last tiny bits
but the supports creak
the edges fray
my fingertipskin begins to drift outwards, ever-expanding reflective ripples
two correlating waves
of dust

for
each fingertip

falls away
10(2)co
sinew
ave



just don't let go of your side of the thread









and i'll learn how to knit with my fingerbones
and you will have a silvery scarf by the winter
it will keep you warm when the waves come