23: sunshine. calm. nostalgia. goodbye.

while i sit here
listening
to futile devices
i become the feeling.

that emanates.

on the crest of my room,
self
purge;
the year purge.

wednesday 13th march 2013

-- garden time
-- dad time
-- harvest moon

rising to my 23rd year
with saggy eyes
but excitement for the day.

the first of my 23rd year;
i had already set a full stop.

i was tired.
but excited.

the autumn sunshine
was sparkling the night's dew
shaking it into the melting reveries of the morning,
when human feet
trample the undergrowth of the night
and stir it into defense.

i often imagine it retaliating
against my chilly cold toes
and growing rapidly over my feet,
fixing my time;
stapling me to ground
and stillness.

but i still seek that.

while caressing the mallow leaves,
the furriness,
the largeness of a wild indian plant,
the silver grey of survival

a lady who watches
talked of the chilean
whose economics phd
turned into a permacultural strong hold
in this garden.

strengthened and nimbler in foot
i tore out the shadowy presences of the garden,
and out of myself.

then watched it wash away down the plug hole
as i scratched those unexplainable rashes of the present.
i was not ready.

not yet.

but neither was dad,
he spent half an hour at a wadestown bus stop
observing the surrounds
basking in morning birds and sunshine

before he was thrusted into the rush of a thriving bus stop
of youth with places to go to.
fast.

we headed waterfront wards
armed with lebanese kebabs and baklava
to stave off the hunger of our relationship.

that seriousness that always burbles threateningly
after all these years of me suppressing my child.

but then one question
changed the river;
the water, the curves;
the embankments were suddenly less oppressive
and the wave of emotion that is our family
washed out
flooded the afternoon
with names, dates; feelings.

loss. and reflection.

i lost him at the same bus stop
to my mother, cousin and then to india
where those mountains that i seek embrace him.

protect him.

mustn't let this wave get to me,
embankments need to be retained;
food must be cooked.

explosion.
of people.
blankets.
food.
evening light.

laughs.
restrain.
awkward love.

melted into
overwhelmed.

then loneliness.
but a warm greenish yellow glowing warmth.

asset sales

checked in.

-- old st paul's
---parliament grounds (part I and II)
--- long walk
--- liquor store
--- home
--- asset

tinged by the cold,
in a brutalist shadow
i play beasts
and dig my hands into
my nervous pockets of time.

and then there is salmon pink.
just a flash.
and it is he.
wandering as he always has.

avoiding the cold of course.
she ambles about behind him,
casual.
no sense of nervous time.

then it is the four woods.
the totara. rimu. kauri. matai.
the four colours, strengths
of this upturned boat they call spirituality.

but, the spirituality aside from woods,
my father pursues
is warmth; a shield from the wellington wind.

the parliament green is sunnier. sheltered.
just for a little while.
a three quarter trick provides the balance.

as does the impassioned voice of 370,000
whose souls are framed
in an orange window of three words.

is that the future
i ask
staring at the milestone in my life;
in this country's life.

i hear this country cough
with its must and phlegm.
and i know i must fight more for her.

lunch was not so easy to hear the answer for.
my house was invalidated.
new world's aisles of plastic and pseudo-food
temporarily voted
as a quick fix.

a quick fix for this country.
even for my parents.

back to the green.
artichokes. olives. sundried tomatos
(are they really sundried?)

then the 5 minutes on,
5 minutes off
lambton quay.

anticipating hard their arrival at my life;
but they never quite got there.

but they got up through the tunnel
to the door of number 10.

the chickens of old friends
whose greatest worth at this end of life
is their asset sales.

it was whiskey. laughs.
and competition.

but they are
after 40 years
still children.

still awkward.

the tale of 3 cities

so. i have made it.
a promise now in hand.
not a shame,
but, a challenge.

        ---------------

monday 11th march 2013

-work.
-film society agm
(now on the committee)
-parental hang out.


work -
winged with post-work non-comittance.

agm -
tiredness
tinged with the act of being busy,
having places to go.

    --------------------

explosion insert -
return from work to hurriedly shower
prior to meeting my mother at the railway station.

time existent: 45 minutes.
delay: 10 minutes
cause: a red explosion

thoughts of the purging of the soul,
the melting of the body
the beauty of no control;

the fear of red puddles forming on the floor,
the drip down the leg;
the punctuation of un-culled forest hairs.

its everywhere.

what do i do?

surely this can't be what that text,
informally sent,
so seriously considered,
has resulted to.

a melting body.

must ask my girlfriends about this.

i got to the railway station in time.
thoughts still delayed in cold, misty air
of that watery red dripping out of me.

never, witnessed. before.

   ---------------

chapter I

parental --
nervousness hung in the air,
she hasn't arrived,
and he was yet to arrive.

if only they had cellular machines.

she arrives.
the warm, soft bony kiss
and i melt.

i say harsh words against this woman,
but that warmth.
that softness.
even the peaked cheeks
are my net of comfort.

chapter II

standing at courtenay place.
cold. moist cold air.

no more nervousness.

but he got off at the wrong bus stop.

embassy. orange bus. $9

message received
somewhere between
embassy and reading.

then its the three people
who co-existed 18 years together
now fragmented by three cities.

this is the tale of it.

istanbul dried falafel
the tail.

Lonely

The grit. Between the toes, and on that scaly, peeling heel of mine.

The moist earth breathes, and my feet feel summer.

On the first day of autumn.

Watched an abundance of romcoms lately,

To placate my yearning side.

500 days of summer.

Then autumn.

No end.

But the garden is breathing a little more easily now,

Freed from the wandering willy, and convolvulus

That power hungrily creeps across the sanity of upright plants.

The hot terracotta pots absorbed the water

Removing 10 years of my life,

In one split second of sensuality.

I am on the verandah of my grandfather’s house,

Eyeing the decreasing amount of pot plants;

Succulents, verigated somethings and somethingelse

My memory will not lend me.

The mosquitoes bite me,

The flying ants fly en masse

Dying too soon

In puddles of pot plant overflow,

Or in wicked reflexive smacks.

I am as day dreamy then

As I was at 5 when drawing the abstract pillar;

As I am now

With low concentration

Low self esteem

And the dread of my grandfather being almost,

Maybe

Dead.

That was downstairs.

The dark, damp downstairs.

Upstairs three juvenile males

Make a meal of an evening

Throwing around musical jargon,

Entertainment elitism

And good looks in general.

The female, of my name,

Has left

With her art historical,

Anthropological sister

And her mother of a mother.

Tonight I shared with them,

Spontaneously

Food and thought.

And, dissent on the education system.

And, they may have just empathised?

Whatever it may be,

It may be just delusional heart break?

I am alone.

And I feel it.

Font.

Back to the corner of memories,

Silently slipping away into a shadow

Of feelings, and rubbed out blurs

No longer etched into my mind.

So, I must now sit down,

And sling the corner shadow

Over my shoulder

To my periphery

Lest it be lost forever

In that unforgiving haze

Of non-formed nostalgia.

In the pit of my stomach lies

A slowly dissolving knot

Of withered jute fibre

That my hunger has been eating away at

All of this day.

I have, once again, given myself to a situation.

Given up to the situation.

When I breathe on this shadow

Fragments return to me.

They are sunshine,

Glints of quartz,

Wailing,

Shaking,

Vomit,

Fire.

Luminate.

They are people.

Tiredness.

Emotional exhaustion.

Ice cold river water.

Nudity.

They are sought after moments of intimacy

With people of Europe and the Americas,

People whose hands can move in the right direction

And very quickly too.

There is rain,

Sodden ground,

Slippery fish imaginations,

Lackadaisical  laughing

And more nudity.

There is wailing atop a mountain

In ice cold rain at 2am

After a connection with a Massachusetts gentleman

Of very few words

And very wide thoughts.

A man that would take only a few minutes to fall for

He elusively played I am sure,

He knew I was easy

And desired some emotional healing.

Then there was the three people,

Their romances,

Their confusion,

The many words spent

The many moments of arched, primal wailing

Face down to the earth

That gave birth to this complexity.

There is the lagoon.

The stagnant

Pollen haloed water

The now ominous trees of beech

Harbouring the tortures of the day

And now a pair of pants

Thrown in after a baptism;

A prenuptial rite of Autumn.

The fires.

The heat. The burns.

The bare bodied, sweaty hugs

With people who breathed you in

And they were at once you.

They were overwhelmed.

I was.

The letting go

Aside a pile of ash

And seeded grass

Head between my hairy knees

Covered loosely by a floral dress

The new age flower power talk of romance.

(The conversation never ended,

But I suspect it will.)

And then it was all downhill,

The hitchhiking

The embracing of the

Privilege

Of being an intelligent only child

With another intelligent only child.

We held hands.

And I felt it was contrived,

But I enjoyed the repossession.

The bread eating

By the side of this new civilisation of the mind

The embrace and ritual

Of not surrendering to our changed selves

Times two.

The karma.

The generosity of parents

Who see many girls tread

Through their son’s room

And only offer a bit of confusion

To the situation.

But, not so judgementally.

The lying on the bed,

The first in 8 nights

And the warmth

security of solitude in blankets

not entirely alone.

I was the third silent person in an argument

That I may have initiated

With thoughts of autonomy,

Emotional independce,

And seeking self-help un-guiltily.

But as usual,

The calm arose

And veiled my hard core emotion

Into rationality I offered them

Telepathically.

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