efficient listless pushupull

and above every cheekbone raised higher than most i see those dead black eyes. every time i sit here swimming in excess and familiar fondness my gut aches with nervous hunger, my eyes start to droop but i do not know where to lay down. i do not know when to lay down. 

these past 2 days i have consumed cynicism and genius that at least a lifetime ago freshly inked the musty pages i now hold. he speaks of a country that is failing, that has been established in hatred and disease and merciless power thirst. he was glad to have seen what he'd seen, because it showed him exactly what he didn't want. i empathize now - daily the air grows progressively more toxic from daybreak to sunset. by the time i'm ready to sleep my lungs are thickening in a vain attempt to evolve. 

surely by now we have either moved in one direction or another? progress or digress, surely? it has been a good 6 decades. surely these violent revolutions and bloody wars have made some sort of forward step, some impact that isn't just the freedom to other than the freedom to use newer, shinier, more efficient gadgets that in no way promote the growth of the human animal?

the cyborg will prevail. cultural upheaval is commonplace in the post-modernist void, whether or not one questions what one is fighting for.

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

part 2

my soul is spilling out of my eyeballs.

doubt tends to sink in too quickly to comprehend. it digs at your stomach, and you make decisions without consulting the sky first. within a few hours you have thoroughly screwed up 10 months of architecture, painfully rendered. it hits you like nausea, but you don't heave. you just shudder inwardly and pushpushpush on.

so you walk barefoot along the road in the dawning light. three wealthy south africans jog past you, thankfully pretending not to noticed your dishevelled state. the sidewalk is still damp from the night's shower - that's it. you need to wash it off. then sleep. but the waking - there's the difficulty, now.

where to? somewhere else. home, real home, not necessarily a specific bed but specific company. that's what makes it, and will make it better.

but of course. it goes unattended, and festers. with eachandevery day the wound you thought was just a slight nick goes deeper than you could see from where you are. your blood is thick but becoming poisoned. there is no remedy here.


my voice cracks. thesoundsurroundyou. it wells up and overflows, my head tilts back. i am silent, sightless. the crashingjoltingrushingnoise burns the image from my eyelids.


disappointment and disgust mingle like water and oil. they drip down the back of your throat,

where to

part 1 of 2

the thick olfactory ache of half-bloomed jasmine hangs in the air. it reminds me of some point, years and years ago now, back at my mother's house. the beginning of summer. every day i have an odd, unplaceable nostalgia, but by the time i get to the bus stop, it's gone.
i dreamt of you last night. i was handing you jars of plum sauce or wholegrain mustard, about 6 or 7 of them. (you still haven't solidified, your form is still out of my depth of field though you stand beside me, looking down.) my arms twitched involuntarily and a mustard jar slipped out of my hand. i woke up before it smashed.

i'm already up to 3. i have plumbed some of the darkest caves in my memory before 2:40 in the afternoon on a monday. my shoulders are tense, my hearing shuts off as i drift into daydream.

i state independence, for the first time in my life.

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