magical mangawhai, you were a little too magical (but I still like you)

Here is a weekend of thoughts:



Morning, Saturday

It is nice to be watching the household wake. I feel like a patient parent overseeing my young teenagers. They think they know what’s going on but their eyes are still filled by the sleep-dust of birth.

There’s a slightly uncomfortable disturbance in the morning silence as the womb-tents begin to bulge strange arm shapes and I know a head is going to emerge. Sure enough a long, languid body slithers out. Walks. Falters. A fully formed foetus undergoing speed-evolution.

In the downstairs room, the lower bunk doesn’t appear to be impregnated but you would be deceived; it is only because a much smaller body lies there, quietened by amniotic juices. Occasionally she changes shape too but she is yet to stand evenly on the ground.

The lounge is giving birth to twins. So is the smallest room. These ones are Siamese.

There is a strange child in the garden. Children are not usually made there. He wakes quietly. He will be the next parent after me. In a semi-holy ceremony he approaches me and questions my position. I know to stand; I know to submit. I will find some other place (perhaps under the island bench’s concave?) and return to my child-self. The cycle will perpetuate and we will all be re-created under the observance of the least-fed child.



Midday, Saturday

“Never trust an artist who is always trying to explain their work.”

- Douglas Wright

my eyes just ate words which tried to crawl back behind my tonsils
and suddenly I became aware of the frying heat the day is inflicting


I think our daily ruin is a conflict between our human selves and our artist selves (except our artist selves are our human selves). I don’t know.

The most valuable things I have learned while at this institution have mostly not been taught by the institution, and could not have been learned except for by being at this institution.



Evening, Saturday or Very Early Morning, Sunday

THE BIRTHDAY PARTY (not the Harold Pinter version)

I have ridden on the back of ecstasy
(piggy back, to be precise) and I have
heard different ears of myself tens of times over and I
have wandered up and down lost stairs to a safer place

all our eyes have been eaten by small shards of coloured glass
also know as 'glitter'
our retinas are stained with lack of sight
my eyes are so important to me, they are
and still I don't allow myself to see

(the only one I know who is not blind has three eyes
so surely that’s an unfair advantage anyway –
of course you can see)

you be fucking careful, I told him

fucking was a carefully chosen word

he arabesqued, full of feathers, down the stairs to his death
he insists on the lights being on because
he cannot see either
he tried to give me direction despite this
I took it
directions to a place no-one is able to visit
grasping each other’s hands at irregular intervals, we were
not prepared to be stranded
and I am sitting in a strange forest waiting to pitch my tent
home for a long time and nowhere to go

Dorothy, Dorothy
help us lift off the ground will you?
You be fucking careful in that storm Dorothy, I told her
that storm is bigger than they told you it was gonna be
hello beautiful red shoes

are you lonely?
would you like a visit?
visiting hours are 3:30-5:30am
without appointment only
they know you real good around here
you are addressed by your full name
even if your name is five names
even if it is hyphenated such as
Rose-Marie

look at this:
I have no vision but I still can’t take my eyes off him
he needs looking after
after he has finished looking
but look, I am perfectly inadequate
I am only mum
I have lots of squirming babies in my many rooms
he will have to look after them
that is why he is wandering the house and calling out at them
he is worried about all his sleeping babies
daughter will have to practice* euthanasia if this keeps up
you be fucking careful boy,
they are going to euthanize you.

*Is this the right practice?? I always get confused and have looked up the definitions multiple times but don't remember any better.

Early Morning, Sunday

How can I possibly do anything when everything I do catapults into a whole another series of events beyond my control, affecting people I love and maybe even people I don’t but just other innocent people. Everything is going to do something and this could be good but there is no such thing as a 100% success rate, right? I should just hide in a small safe hole from now on and do nothing and affect no-one.

There is a cancerous growth in the kitchen
I am not talking about the mould on the old bread
The rest of the house is trying to quietly function
He is immune to the rationality of health