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

Phlegmatic

Armed with a mug of hot, eddying miso soup

(the wallowing of heat around the swelling,

persistent glands is warmth/music to my inner ears)

Listening to the words of a song,

An anthem of giving

A song that stirs the soul into action:

I reflect on the many devoid (of writing) days past

And,

The day.

I have a disclaimer:

In my need to perfect.

To reconcile myself  with my ever (un) controlled hand

I fall into a helpless, un-avoidable state of abandonment

Where every juncture of the day

Is a piece of writing in the making

If only I could then pull out my quill

And paper

I may have finished my novel by now.

But no.

It is no to be.

Yet.

Disclaimer duly noted to self.

A wedge of light, solid and raising

Penetrated my cave of solid dark

Sticky tiredness:

Consciousness afloat in denying the light

So aware of its overriding power in my wake.

I am stilled by the dust stranded in the rays

Like all those who are caged by hierarchy, servitude

And their dignity, a long fragmented shadow disenthralled

Into the last breath of hope which is the mere thread

That keeps them alive.

Their lifeline.

What am I doing pitying my disease

And revelling in the life I live

When it poses no challenge to the mind?

To the physical body?

To the soul?

I was stirred

By the negative spaces contrasted by sunlight

And vowed that on my rise from disease

I will condemn my comfort.

I will start with the ego

That is addicted to the red number in my periphery

That assuages any loss or rejection.

I will live by what I say:

Be a soldier of conviction

Upstanding in the face of condemnation.

In the face of such a soul stirring morning

How can I not be humiliated by the

Composure, quiet intelligence and abundant talent

Of a writer that ripples the clouds above Brooklyn hill?

It is the silence that intrigues.

x

Underset

i am listening to eddie vedder's reminisce on society

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lm8oxC24QZc

and can't help but feel the somewhat heart wrenching song

(from a heart wrenching, albeit cliche,  film 'into the wild')

is setting the serious and slightly hopeless overtone of this entry.

the clouds have set in after a gloriously sunny morning,

which has heightened the fecund green leaflets ready to burst forth

with some more warmth.

the deciduous magnolias have laid a magenta cloak city-wide,

as have the tufts of brilliant yellow daffodils.

the botanics are in full bloom

and the hills are a millions different hues of greens and yellows (gorse).

i am tired, and underset.

i end here.

x