borrowed

She had to type carefully because she'd just painted her nails and didn’t want to ruin them. She had to be especially cautious when pressing the space bar with the side of her thumb so as not to damage the paint. She liked the colour combination, blue with a purple left ring finger and right index finger. She noticed how everything around her was like the keyboard, pressing into the paint of her own brain. She stayed there, being pressed, to feel the weight.

the previous owners

Ghosts haunt my house. Square-shaped marks imprinted in the carpet. Faint patches of food colouring on the kitchen floor. Chips in the skirting board carved out by little boys’ toy trucks. The smell of cigarettes stained into the wallpaper.

They are clogged up drains, the tap which doesn’t turn on, the breaking down of lives before.

Ghosts lie on top of the range hood, flattening themselves into a thin unobtrusive layer. They are able to disintegrate and find themselves again and again. They hide under the floor, groaning when stepped on. They curl into in chandeliers and pull at hair on the heads which come too close – chink chink chink... They play on window hinges, swinging back and forth like children on playgrounds.

They are always there and if you can’t see them, you can hear them. If you can’t hear them you can feel them. Ghosts know we are the intruders, but we think they are.

They were here first.

Ghosts in the shower head pouring out onto me, saturating me. They run into the pores of my skin, sink into my hair folicles. They become me and I become them.

Ghosts are the shit which is stuck to the toilet bowl and won’t be scrubbed off.

songs from '06

and I should be honoured
that such wit clings to me,
even in these hours
amidst my own thoughts and body -
I only sought my own fear
I saw how it all sits in one space.
The problem is this:
I want
I want such simple and complex things
(the sky told me so)
that I am satisfied with neither
for I will always want the other
and twice in demand becomes
mad
(I surely am)
and even in madness I am not satisfied
and even in genius I am not satisfied
and even in people I am not satisfied
and for anything more
I am not satisfied -
It must be the scorpians
(or else the capricorns?)

What would I do if
one day
the scales were to tip
off this body
if I were to change states
if I were to sit instead of
run
if I were to make art
every day
instead of decisions
if I were to listen to the world
and not myself
or find six different routes
or pay attention to none
if I were to see only my own eyeballs
if I were to hear my own speeches every night
if I were to relive the past in
today's realms
if I were to delete all my old voices
as my phone so kindly suggests
instead of counting the
seconds with my fingertips
and hoping to sky dive -
what if I were to live
instead of make art?
Well then I would surely be witless.

What if I were to sleep for once instead of sharing my nights?

assignment

Perhaps it is time to stop, I am beginning to read the same thing over and over and over I am beginning to read the same thing over and over and over I am beginning to read the same thing over and over and over and my eyes are going funny. Staring into space...



















Not so good.
(It looks a little bit like that.)

pins and needles

Sometimes I quite like it.
Usually I don't.
I had a good pins and needles just now.
Left foot and calf muscle.

the confessional

I don’t believe there can be fiction without truth. All truth is wrapped up in fiction, done up in pretty little hardcover parcels. People who are oblivious to realities other than their own unwrap them, praising literature as though it is some big prestigious thing. Books are not scholarly. They are the result of quietly corrupted minds.

I remember in school some years back the quote “all literature seeks to reveal truth”. Actually, all literature seeks to reveal secrets the writer can’t acknowledge. Secrets are disguised in enigmatic words and delicate punctuation. The truth is concealed, edited, fabricated and dressed up before being sent to the publishing office for further exploitation. I don’t condemn these lies, which are somehow truths in themselves. In fact I am a practised liar. In pretending no-one will decipher the truth within the fiction (or hoping that they will) I let go of my secrets and allow any uncertainty, fear or indulgence - it is mostly indulgence - to be flushed out with the ink spilling from the pen.

night out of self, with self

A thousand yellow lights -

I recall this means, "Proceed with caution."

A few red ones: "STOP."

It's always the blessed that get me because

I am so unholy and

Especially in such harsh light

(At least I didn't see all of the colours).

Do you know what I need?

Warning bells.

You can't expect me to stop

With only one sense now, can you?

I have six, you know.

This place is quite beautiful. I suspect that actually the other three million are missing out.

I think I've been sleeping too much, while they've all been sleeping too little. I MUST shower today.

Actually I think my body is my only home. So maybe that's why I never am quite the right shape. You wouldn't build a house inside another house, would you? I have no home but myself, and all the things I know. I can't see much, but I can see my own sight.

I, palimpsest

from last night:

"in my
skin sits the truth -
I am brutal, unattainable,

certain and wretched"

between spaces

Dusk breathes. The air hovers just above head height between two buildings - a vertical majesty. The sky is such a beautiful colour sitting between a darker shade of blue and grey. A sort of brightness to it. It is
energy. It is possibility. It is alive. It is youth - vibrant - it is breathing. Lights begin to emerge, smells permeate the pavement, an aroma of population, consumption, business and capital.

There is an essence beside all this. It settles between the buildings in the gap painted with a white dotted stripe. It moves up and down through the city. A creature who owns and knows. Loves and thrives on the city. It should be my own blood.

And in my lungs. It should be my head weight - always.

self

When I walk down a busy street -
I am amongst many
a statistic
a somebody
but to each somebody
a nobody.


When I read -
I am the words
the pages
absorbed into my mind
the thoughts and reflections of the narrator
a character
I am someone I am not.


When I write -
I am the ink
I am scratched onto the page
permanent but selective
unanswered questions
and only inscrutable shapes for answers
I am myself
but only a part of myself
I am two dimensional like paper.


When I sleep -
I am the pictures of my sub-conscious
the farcical images which appear in my head
I am whoever I want to be
yet without control over my entity
a person invented by myself involuntarily.


When I listen to music -
I am the words and the sounds
the rhythms which pulse through me
I am insides writhing
I am a voice without a voice
I am who the musicians want me to be
a puppet
for a short time
and then I am gone.


When I dance -
I am energy
I am clarity
in the centre of my forehead
my chest
my arms and my veins
I am moulded to the music
hidden in its folds
standing out as vividly as red silk
I am the storyteller
I am the arch of my back
the fall of my shoulders
the twisting and turning of my ribs
I am the weightlessness of levitation
I am raw
human flesh
exposed for anyone who watches
I am the influence of my predecessors
and the beckoning to those whose feet will trace mine.
I am everything.
In a time when everything seems nothing
I am confidence
sophistication
and certainty
I am a rarity where words fail to suffice and
strange kinetics take over
I am not me but
I am as close to me as I know.

certainty

It’s difficult to say how I feel about the past. You’d think I’d know, seeing as I've experienced it. But oddly I feel more certain about the future. I don’t know how I feel about the past because I have the feeling I anticipated before it happened, the feeling I was conscious of at the time and the feelings - the many feelings - I have developed in response to it afterwards. And how can I be sure which of these is correct, if any?

The future has one feeling. And it is ________.

good looking

Some days I want to mark the page -
not because I am inspired
not because of ideas
or genius –

Some days I want to mark the page
simply for the aesthetic of words.

I have an avarice for beauty, for
colours, shapes
and form
and for that which pleases the eye.

short

It really upsets me that when I sit at my desk I can't quite see over the window ledge. Because there are thousands of lights cast from the city, blurred by the rain on the window, and little lights hovering in pairs back and forwards along the motorway. And this is one of the most beautiful sights I know of.

Other beautiful things:
the mug stains all over my wooden table
people looking
sounds of cars moving from behind me to before me
staying up all night
not needing to sleep
marked people
eating eight mini cholocate muffins and four cheese ones
washing my make-up off after feeling floaty all night
seeing someone fall asleep the wrong way in the bed
driving long distances early in the morning
driving at night with friends
driving alone at night with music and knowing something is going to happen
the smell of chai tea when I open the cupboard
notebooks full of someone's handwriting
anything flawed
realizing something I always knew but didn't understand
hearing a song I knew when I was younger and haven't heard since
being indecisive
hands, wrists, hip bones, collar bones, inside elbows
learning a new word
finding old school books
courageous acts (on other peoples' behalves)
vulnerability
a blank page
bedside lamps
walking down the middle of a road when there are no cars
being sure of what you are saying
thinking
someone concentrating on something difficult
dimly-lit photos
seeing faces up close of people you know well
sitting on dangerous window ledges
remembering

Something is missing

artist without a cause

Writing for the sake of writing
Writing to alleviate tension
Writing because I smoked a cigarette last night
Writing because the earth has filled my lungs.

Writing without vision
Writing without reason
To understand what I'm saying
For past time’s sake
Writing in and out of consistency

Right

I said it to her perfectly:
The words come out of my hands much better than they come out of my mouth
Or my ears, for that matter.

Writing to a photograph who
looks better than
another in
real life.
Writing my
life over to a story I’d prefer.
Writing my invention,
Writing to fairy god-mother. Imagine the chaos if all our wishes came true.

Writing because in the end it’s the
only familiar thing
I know how to do this
I am amateur talent
distract from the adrenaline


Words cloud my head completely
How insane, that I might generate more to declutter the load


I think we’re both dancers
(he has feet too) -
This is me looking in every place -
I never shut my eyes
and just as well.
Maybe the problem is that he did.
Or maybe I never quite looked properly.
Maybe I didn't pack my bags write
Or should have packed after I saw his shoulder blades
He makes me sound different to what I would like
For better or for worse
I really don’t know.

Perhaps in closing his eyes
He found the peace
to slow his pulse...
I have tried but I’m not so strong.
I’m not so strong that I could discard two red hundred dollar notes.


I could talk shit all night
I could catch a million other flights
But as I said, I’m not that talented.
Not that talented at all.

insomnia

Google is against me.

thoughts concerning umbrellas

The city is inhabited by all colours of umbrellas. They are dancing around the streets, some gracefully bobbing up and down with haste, others stretching themselves out of their own skins. Some pirouette like spinning tops. Some stand awkwardly in badly-formed lines.

An unwanted umbrella lies discarded against the parking meter. He is broken and desolate. His life has ended here, in the gutter. His world has been flooded with clouds. What a terrible way to see the end of the world: Sideways. Saturated. And blocked with leaves.

Umbrellas are embracing the entourage of white dresses and grey suits. Grey suits for a grey-coloured day. They lovingly sheltering us with nothing in return: We are wary of the sniper who crouches in the heavens. Perched, bursting, ready. He has his eye on the target.

Man. Under tree. Without Umbrella. Reading. He looks up at me as our eyelines rotate around each other. As my stare peels away from his, I hear the deep racket of swift gunshots. I don’t look back, but I know he has been riddled with bullets. The blood soaks his hair and drips off the end of his nose. The pages become soggy and illegible. A soft grey grenade hovers several hundred feet above his head.

Did you know umbrellas are claustrophobic? Three are arguing under the narrow alcove of a boutique shop. Stabbings occur frequently here. Their limbs entangle each other in confined spaces. They haven’t learned to live peacefully alongside each other yet.

Some umbrellas are unsure of their direction in life. They are fickle minded. They thrust themselves this way one minute and that way the next. They tear themselves inside out with their indecision. If they’re not careful they too will end up in the gutter. There will be no headstone to mark their place after they are swept away with the storm waters.

Umbrellas are Hollywood stars! They appear in numerous films. They receive solos on stage. They are flattered with aerial shots. Lights, camera, action! Umbrellas know glitz and glam. Until they end up in the gutter.

We’re not that different from umbrellas, actually, which is why for the most part we get along and why sometimes we have conflicts as siblings and best friends do. We too are disposable. We don’t last forever. And someday we also will end up in the gutter, cold and mutilated, our bodies misshapen from when we first existed and battered by the weather. Like umbrellas we are only useful for so long.

The difference between umbrellas and us? We get looked at funny if we dance in the streets and we’re less likely to make it on Hollywood sets.