Analogy

as i lay amidst
tempered ginko shadows
hyper against that eddying sky
of dis-enthralling,
clouds
of self betrayment

i thought of
lying midst warmed night grass,
legs and heads
skyward;

eyeing the low tempest
that bred in our cores.

i could have
grabbed at that greyed green branch
and handed you a handful
of crimson stamens
to show my simple, homely love.

but that red, tome-like shadow
rested its dead weight of resentment
on this animal body

anchoring it to attachment.

the brotherhood clear,
this dead weight head sank
indulgent in breathing
indulgent in night light.

this fragility analogised
in that juncture pointed
below that civic sliver of entwined humanity;
punctuated by that lone black robot suitcase,
isolated in its un-giving.

i felt that pain, that frustration,
that turmoil of cycles
of mutuality,
of people;
their hidden agendas.

the basked path breathed
its warmth upwards
forcing that russian steppe cold fire
that brewed a foetus' life long
to the wedge on this shoulder,
to the grey haloed hearts
then.

then,
the tome spell was broken;
the resentment sought solace,
the loyal sought company,
and this wild fire sought implosion
in passing on the burden

that was the red tomb of resentment.

x

Samsara

my mind is restless, 

running many a mile with memories of my last few years' worth of india trips. 

i re-visit my photos, 

and even the map i have, 

hoping that i may apparate to this land that you so luckily inhabit 

currently.

i imagine the smell of wood smoke tinged with bidi scents, 

the rising fogs of the early morning, 

the coughing and spluttering of the race course 5am walkers, 

the mosque, the temple, the gurdwara,

the pressure cooker calls.

it calls me.

but so does the seeded, rustic, summer grass of our garden, 

the melting tar nether my feet on my summer walks here, 

the rattling of the mud guard on franki the bike, 

the tui's call at 5am, the morepork at midnight, 

the flax burdened with nectar laden flower beaks

that iridescent fist sized birds flutter about.

i can have both worlds; one with memory, and one sensually.

got my first christmas card today,

from grandparents

enclosed with two photos of us in 1993.

photos i have never seen/don't remember.

just got back from a dinner at a friend's house

a 3 minute cycle ride under a star lit sky,

and cradle moon.

gentle fresh breeze,

weaving through the balmy, muggy night of 20 degrees.

been uploading photos onto facebook

of various social gatherings and events;

 a habit i am getting used to as my laptop breathes its last breaths.

it is 1am,

and the balmy of the weather has got the better of me,

but so has the music.

my fingers have been unconsciously typing for a few hours,

and i no longer am resisting my eyes wide shut.

i envision ragged skeletal hands, with protusions

and deep purple veins

frantically trying to placate lost friends,

in lost times.

i am troubled to hear that your beautiful house

wedgewood hall

needs so much work on it.

which asks so much of you.

it is really never ending.

i suppose one can understand why some people

spend their whole lives flatting

to avoid money and energy spent on maintenance.

it is a vicious cycle.

but in the end it may be to mental priority?

we do prioritise love.

immaterial as it may be,

it imbibes materiality.

you give off so much love and empathy

that needs to be spread and not isolated

(in a chilled vacuum of apathy)

i just hope it is never taking its toll on you.

how i have sought silence,

and how now my thoughts echo

while my fingers search for the words,

in fragmented plastic keys that will

convey who i am to you on this night.

how strange this detachment is.

how strange, too, that claire mary wood

spoke to me as a body with warmth and love,

only to be ash a few days later 

flying with the pollen,

the atmospheric songs,

the meteor showers,

the twinklin' stars

and the sweetness that is death.

this wind strips me bare.

x

Verbal injustices

As I look down,

A half squirmish pile of vermicelli

Smothered in sesame seeds

Complimented with steamed peas

Grows into writhing eels with green hats.

Claustrophobically cling wrapped.

She is on her side again,

The purplish grey rings around her eyes

Tell of more fatigue.

She is no longer Iscariot the traitor,

But Jude the betrayed.

A ball of sadness unravels in the stomach pit

And, embodied in the squirm,

Reaches out piercing the cling wrap

Wrapping its seeking tendrils around her neck.

What would it be to put her out of misery?

My eyes are my power.

Walking steadily down the same corridor

I watch the imbalanced liquid in a tea cup

Teasingly swaying from side to side of cup,

I slow down

And then splash out onto the saucer.

This is the life of the resident;

Unsteadily giving and trusting.

‘Don't start yourself too short,
my love
Or someday you might find
your soul endangered
A natural beauty should be preserved
like a monument to nature.’

I quickly place a napkin onto the saucer,

Balancing the breakfast tray on my weak wrist

Weary of one slight millimetre out

My day would be ruined.

Revelation awaited,

The tea seeps across the bleached white napkin

Tainted purity

But all the more beautiful for it.

I live my life as a metaphor,

As an analogy to real life.

But in that I am sated,

Replete

Somnolent with gratification,

Of greedily drinking the sap of life.

-----------------------------------

The cracked outer shell

Is solidifying

But still ink drops

Trapped in water droplets

On the inside.

Seeking anew

Merging

Permeating

With no end.

The wealth of emotions

I learn of late

Are immeasurable in words.

Only Leonard Cohen could do them justice.

As are the relationships built with people,

They are all my lovers

And I revel in my harem of life.

But with a beady, naive eye.

I am the Mexican Hand Tree afterall.

Dull Flame

‘Through the down cast lashes

I see the dull flame of desire’

-Bjork

I stand at the crossroads on the landing.

The evening sun rays penetrate the gerbera petals

Once again

Harshly halo-ing the pastel co-ordinates.

The spider plant has been relegated to its suicidal perch

Above the toilet

In front of the venturi e(a)ffected window

That channels from the southern seas.

The towels hang roughly over the other toilet

Encasing it into a cubicle of wet colours

Each fighting for their space of dehumidified air

To humidify.

It was the cubicle, the humidity;

The sanctum I chose to dwell in

After a day of exposing my self

To the sunshine. To the grass.

To the people whom I surround myself with.

But now I felt lost. Heavy. Dejected.

---------------------------

I stay perpetually occupied.

I am not my best friend.

Not now.

I thought, in my wet cubicle, about the loss

That is about to hit

Of the lost friends this summer.

The ones who have died in the last few weeks

Been delegated to enter the road of perdition

Where pain is the least of their burdens.

The setting sun

Over those mountains,

 Over there.

But not the mountain rivers within

That surge upwards at the slightest loss

And drown any reason,

Or pragmatism.

Deluging my spirit into avarice.

And yet it is apathy I hate.

It is the dull flame of desire for life,

I have.

x

Transcript

Kick in the guts.

1am Panic. Textbook panic.

Smarting eyes

10 reads later.

Eased now.

While sitting in patchy sunshine

(That is Wellington)

I look down at myself;

Reflect on my colours,

Grey, red, white and black:

Russian Constructivism.

(Failed attempt at the Indonesian flag)

This was a metaphor,

And a reminder.

For in my hand lay Tolstoy’s tome

And, in my bag lay the Communist Manifesto:

In my heart lay deconstructed abstractions

Of reality kicking in.

I was as alone as Zhilin in a 12 foot deep well

Gnawing at the dirt in search for reason.

I had preconceived this reality a few eves ago,

In a flush of early childhood Christmas eve excitement.

Suspecting entirely.

Premonition for sure.

A few afternoons prior

I sat, unwound completely, like graced ribbon

In the shadow of my new Muse;

In the company of fine sentinel trees

Fading down, then up, springtime hillsides.

She laughed. Repeated the name

Amused surprise written in her smile.

Aaah. Mutual friends, I thought. Incest.

The quick phased obsessions. That phase out.

The name too that I suspected

(insert another amused smile here)

That spangled the whole dealings

Those 5 months ago.

That night. Baraka. Scrabble.

Pinkfloyd’s Echo, Marvin Gaye’s What’s going on,

When full well, something was going on.

Then those 5 and a half months later

When having furtively avoided eye contact

And embraces

(Having seen her

Exchanged a smile;

But sad to know

That all of this

Resulted in nothing)

I slipped away with the

As furtively slipping away Muse

Into the torrential ice rain

Of Lambton Quay

Into the hills

Up unstable steps,

Across epochs of time

(in my head)

To her life.

I  finally crossed the threshold.

With dragonfly pottery cups in hand

Of ‘restful’ tea

We sat on the floor

Of her deliciously decorated room

That overlooks Matiu Somes island

(in the daytime).

I tread carefully

Around the topic;

Mutual intent. Incest.

But much advice had she

Many stories too

From the depths of her favourite books.

People. Her un-forgiven awkwardness.

He rang me. Twice.

I didn’t understand.

But something like there is cake.

Why hadn’t I come.

(On reflection I want to cry

For having indulgently missed this milestone

Of arresting his case)

I still didn’t understand.

Why now?

In the torrential wind and rain home

My fingers trembled

While fumbling for words

To articulate my confusion.

No awkward. No hurt.

Just bitter cold.

I had no expectations.

No excitement.

And yet, no answer troubles me.

Deconstructed now,

As cold as a Siberian winter

Fumbling through iced confusion

Preserved bitterly.

Custodians

Dear current government of New Zealand,

I am one of your many youths, aspiring to live a life of fecundity, love and happiness. In New Zealand.

While the above is marginally possible now,

I fear, legitimately, that your disregard for long term protection of our resources will turn me, amongst many others, away from New Zealand forever.

The sales of NZ assets is no clever policy.

From childhood we are taught about protection and sharing of resources:

we are also taught that we must entrust adults with sentinel responsibility as they are wise custodians of our future.

That they know better.

However you, the current government of NZ, have easily slipped the entrusted responsibility by unashamedly making short term profits off NZ’s resources.

You are draining the land’s wairua; you are building your future on your peoples’ crushed bodies.

We, the inhabitants of NZ, know that you daily lie to us, so that your pockets are double lined while the rock and land below us, the legacy of  25 million years, is annihilated for short term gain.

A gain that is short lived. That is not even national gain, but simply a mere few’s gain.

This sounds neither like wisdom, nor a clear knowledge of what the population you so calledly lead wants and needs.

This sounds like greed. Stupidity. Lack of appreciation. Lack of respect for this land. For these people.

This sounds like a lack of knowledge that we are all connected. You. Me. The land. The lack of knowledge that the finite gas that fractures the land, will rise to suffocate our waterways and wells. The deep sea oil that smothers sea life. The mining that imbalances this new Zealand we can no longer call home because of your lack of empathy, your big greedy eyes and bellies; your  lack of knowledge.

If you feel nothing for these people and this land, you are not worthy of this legacy we call New Zealand.

From,

A despairing New Zealander

x

Hymnal

i, no doubtedly, think you a repository for my thinking.

i get a real buzz out of the endearing attribute of yours of sometimes answering, sometimes not.

when the formality flag of reciprocity is down, i feel the most comfortable.

i think your silence can become easily confused with my conscience. i have had little chance to write to 'space' and let it echo back so to speak. but that said, naturally i love your profound, human tainted answers equally as much as the echoes.

at first i was ashamed of this perpetual need to message you; but now, i hope with no pain to you, i want to unleash. just be human. to embrace the manifestations of emotion, whatever they may be.

i just wish they could be written on crinkled rice paper, with a flowing ink nib, sealed and stamped and delivered (perhaps by horse and cart) to your door.

but oh, what an ideal. an ideal short lived in moments of past times; and in moments when i am driven enough to write an actual letter.

that said, i want to share with you some fine revelations that have presented themselves to me of late.

i feel i am tired of the realisation of what love, and hope, faith, and charity et al are meant to be upon our conscience. more often than not do they shackle us perhaps than redeem?

the eternal expectation of how human beings must act in given situations. what is this? is this living? where are the grandparents of the soul; where is intuition? why must people feel guilt over for breaking new ground?

why is love not seen as a spectrum, but a sole point of attachment and acquirement? of territory? of egos colliding.

aaah.

this world is infinite.

i want to share it

by passing it into the cusp of your palm

while the galaxies gaze down at us,

its children;

i want to do this

with no strings attached.

i am addicted to two songs right now by 'hot chip'.

certainly not the melancholic tone of my last few messages, but instead laced with childlike wonder (possibly on a trip of acid!), joy, flamboyance and indulgence in life.

if anything, they are a tribute to the 90's children that we are, who danced around empowered by childlike rapture.

'motion sickness'

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4f_olfZTbMo

'flutes'

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oo2lCREilQw&feature=related

and in the context of summer, there is a 'white winter hymnal' by the 'fleet foxes' which explodes spring from its frosty belly.

its coldness warms me, if you know what i mean!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DrQRS40OKNE

does my constant messaging overwhelm you?

you may ask why i don't talk to you of these things in person. well, i find too oft we are surrounded by spontaneous words that are glorious and generous to incredible conversations and that these thoughts never present themselves until i am alone.

alone to wonder what the world may mean to me, to you, to all of us.

love.

Mediocrity

As the three tabs of chrome spin anti-clockwise

I notice my pinched lips

Resolute against this unholy action of my laptop:

Siphoning my lifeline post-laziness.

First I noticed the paralysed scroll bars,

Unlit and stone cold. Frozen.

Then it was those tantalising red flags of my periphery

That just would not present themselves

They still don’t.

And it must suffice lest I lose my mind.

While private universes battle out their kettle drums

And Natraj his one dhum of the cosmic drum of dance,

 I am still watching time go anti-clockwise.

A part of me just says it is simply not fair.

I am disgusted by my superficiality.

Guyamas Sonora rings in my waxed ears

Fairly returning the livid memory of this evening,

This reality since May of stranded love.

The electric violin is pitiful, I want to cry for it,

But the trumpet cradles us both into redemption.

I talked to B this evening about it,

Am I really attached I protested.

Having just given my insights on pure love,

And the lack of expectation I have in it.

The music share, the intermittent messaging is enough,

But I am attached to sharing my world with him.

I pity how I have become this stringed afterthought.

It is pure mediocrity where I live

Stranded in this world

Strapped in May, this September.

Unlit and stone cold. Frozen.

Argh-Jesus-Rolly

Its 11.32pm. I am in bed, awash with yellow lamplight,

Wind (enveloping this perching palace I call home)

Traffic: the indelible mark of their gemstone

‘Low spark of high heeled boys’

And, the assuaging ease of step one completed of my mission

(*more action on ANSFW facebook page).

Earlier this evening I played hopscotch along the motorway

Strung to Hot Chip’s ‘Motion Sickness’

Which, if anything, joyfully quickened my step

To side step the sliding shells in the lamplight.

Oh what a burden would lie on my conscience

If the crashing crush nether my shoe

Bristled every neck hair in eulogy to that raised soul.

I had just dined. Nachos. And chocolate mousse.

With my three sisters who live in a doll’s house

With their three cats:

Married but Spinsters to be.

With the melancholy of late

I welcome this joy that has deluged my body this afternoon

Washing away doubt, self deprecation and self pity.

In the library this afternoon,

While the waterfront got wetter

I combated my fears on a few pieces of paper:

A moratorium on facebook

More sleep:

Nothing new really

But sometimes these things must be written down to be realised.

The theme of the day, I felt, so properly summarised in my friend’s text

(In light of knowing I was still coughing)

Argh-Jesus-Rolly.

My life encapsulated!

(Aside from my friend, Hot Chip writes theme songs for my life:

Look up 'Motion Sickness'. Now.)

x

*image courtesy: online