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Friday, January 28, 2011
sydney scribblings: somewhere
"
even with stalactites outside
even with the hail of a four day
protest
in which God pledges allegiance with the
earth
against stars -
life stills seems odd
I never knew where
it was
I intended to head
until i stumbled across
2-way arrows
like train tracks I think they are
GOING SOMEWHERE.
"
"
Sunday, January 23, 2011
ohope II
Two poems and a quote from Ohope:
8:18am
there's a froot loops thief in camp
a stealthy hand in the night causing
chaos in his wake
you will hear the drama in the morning
you will be woken up by someone else's empty stomach and
hungry mouth
they will not accept coco pops as a substitute
they demand - deserve - the best
From Eleanor Bailey's Idioglossia
(a novel which I actually didn't like very much):
"People who don't need other people are never alone."
21.01.11
big day out but I am not there
plastic-covered caffeine joy
eyes blurry from cloud-coated sunrise
still red from sea salt songs
a symphony of 6am jandals by the shower
flapping-flap-flap-flup
it's light for about an hour before we see
space feels much vaster when you are between
the moon and the sun
and both are round and huge and
in perfect opposition
ohope
It is quite nice to be sitting in the camp site and observing the surrounding sites as they are vacated and reconstructed. It is not unlike sitting in a restaurant for several hours watching tables be filled and emptied and filled. Or sitting at a bus stop and watching the bench's occupants fluctuate between a lone would-be passenger and several suits clustered awkwardly around the shelter.
The row we are camping in is numbered 54. There are sites in all four directions. I like that the neighbours on our right are assisting the newly arrived neighbours on our left to arrange their six-by-eight patch of grass. I enjoy watching the half-erected tent flap defiantly in the remainder of last night's storm winds and I like the way that the tent sits incongruous to the yellow rectangular stains left by the previous holiday-makers. I take comfort in the illusion of our campsite's permanence in comparison to the seemingly temporary state of the changing sites around us. Our site has pseudo-permanence: a self-defensive state induced by a subjective outlook.
Some of the spaces here are permanent. Really permanent. They are the communal buildings: The reception. The convenience store next to the reception. The toilets and shower blocks and change rooms. The swimming pool and its child-friendly-coloured plastic water slides. Yet even these spaces suffer the ebbing of people from week to week.
The life savers’ watch post is not permanent. It is neither actually permanent nor pseudo-permanent. It is a small white cabin with 0800 CABINS painted on the side. It is really a box building on trailer that has been wheeled up the sand dunes and perched there for the life savers to sit in. I imagine it’s like a sauna of sexual tension in there. Is it an issue that the life-savers are impermanent? My life can only be saved sometimes. Six hours a day, three months a year.
But I think that even the life savers are pseudo-life savers. One of them in there today looks younger than me – maybe sixteen? – and is too small for his red and yellow striped shorts. Looking out at the vicious muddy sea which has ripped jellyfish into pieces and strewn the bits along the sand, and then looking back at the boy whose job it is to save me from a similar peril, I am doubtful of his ability to save my life. He is a pseudo-life saver. But it is ok. Because I am a pseudo-holiday maker and I don’t feel like swimming today.
Today I made myself a holiday rule. The rule is this: I must use the toilets in order beginning with the left cubicle and working to the right cubicle, then rotating back to the left cubicle. There are five in total. So far I have used the three on the left although I suppose the ‘third’ cubicle is really the centre.
I don’t know why I made this rule. It is useless practically. It doesn’t advantage me emotionally or physically or mentally. It doesn’t improve my sanitation or make me less likely to trip over the “wet floor sign”. It won’t help me avoid the cubicle which has run out of toilet paper. It could be a sign of extreme boredom but I don’t think it is that. I think I made the rule to augment my use of one of the few permanent structures here. To reassure myself, when I repeat the circuit, that the cubicle is still there and pretty much – more or less – how I left it.
Saturday, January 15, 2011
room eleven
Mr. John Key is coming tomorrow. He is the Prime Minister. The minister that is prime. The face of our country, Aotearoa, New Zealand.
Mr. John Key is going to have a specially organised tour of this camp. He will see lots of wonderful things. Happy faces of smiling children who deserve to have good things in their life. Everyone will be playing and laughing and/or participating in Educational Activities, including eating their vegetables (or at least being instructed to).
After Mr. Key's face -- the face of our country -- has seen these things we will thank him politely in our high-pitched, pre-pubescent voices and most likely emit a round of applause. There will be big applause from big people and lots of little pattering applause from little people hands, like the beginning of rain on concrete-paved court yards. The applause will be steady for a few seconds before gradually fading out. It will be difficult to know who is the last person to stop clapping, although someone obviously will have to be. They will probably not be clapping the longest because they are patriotic or vote National. Actually, they are unlikely to be able to vote at all. It will probably just come down to chance.
If I found myself being the last person left clapping I would almost definitely keep clapping just a teeny tiny bit longer so that people could tell I was the last one clapping.
"Look at me, Mr. John Key!" my little clap-clapping hands would say. "These here hands are no ordinary hands. They are probably -- no, certainly! -- the hands of a trustworthy New Zealander. Hands which deserve to be recognised. They are the hands of a survivor. Here, direct your attention towards these executors of greatness. These hands can do many things."
Upon which note I would demonstrate several examples of the many useful uses of my two higher extremities. Such as... toothbrushing! Hand shaking! Shoe-lace tying, tickling, semi-complicated jugging routines. Origami, pimple-squeezing, hair styling, tactile-texture guessing while blind-folded game. Simple algebra equations. Nose picking! Turning a light switch on... Turning a light switch off! And back on! Off! The list goes on and on and on, I would say to Mr. Key.
Mr. John Key would look at me and say, "Son, you are the most prodigious child I have ever met -- no, ever heard of! We absolutely must without a doubt, no questions asked, harvest your talent! And we must, must buy you a better pair of shoes. And new pants. Possibly a tie."
"You know what boy," Mr. John Key will say to me as he exits stage right, an arm around my shoulder blades, "you're one of those kids people look at and think: that kid is going to be successful. A kid who has naturally or necessarily acquired the exact set of qualities that the observer lacked in young adulthood.
"You, my boy, are a fine example of New Zealand's up-and-coming generation. Don't be afraid. You are our prime subject. You are the face of the future." He continues to guide me towards his car and helps me be seated. "You are the littlest hands making the loudest noise."
John Key shuts the car door. I look though the tinted windows. I can see out but no-one can see me unless they press their face against the glass. There are a lot of children outside and they are full of scars and stitches and artificial body parts. They are the discards of a plastic doll factory. The image leaves holes in my eyes and tyre marks over the sealed road.
Mr. John Key is going to have a specially organised tour of this camp. He will see lots of wonderful things. Happy faces of smiling children who deserve to have good things in their life. Everyone will be playing and laughing and/or participating in Educational Activities, including eating their vegetables (or at least being instructed to).
After Mr. Key's face -- the face of our country -- has seen these things we will thank him politely in our high-pitched, pre-pubescent voices and most likely emit a round of applause. There will be big applause from big people and lots of little pattering applause from little people hands, like the beginning of rain on concrete-paved court yards. The applause will be steady for a few seconds before gradually fading out. It will be difficult to know who is the last person to stop clapping, although someone obviously will have to be. They will probably not be clapping the longest because they are patriotic or vote National. Actually, they are unlikely to be able to vote at all. It will probably just come down to chance.
If I found myself being the last person left clapping I would almost definitely keep clapping just a teeny tiny bit longer so that people could tell I was the last one clapping.
"Look at me, Mr. John Key!" my little clap-clapping hands would say. "These here hands are no ordinary hands. They are probably -- no, certainly! -- the hands of a trustworthy New Zealander. Hands which deserve to be recognised. They are the hands of a survivor. Here, direct your attention towards these executors of greatness. These hands can do many things."
Upon which note I would demonstrate several examples of the many useful uses of my two higher extremities. Such as... toothbrushing! Hand shaking! Shoe-lace tying, tickling, semi-complicated jugging routines. Origami, pimple-squeezing, hair styling, tactile-texture guessing while blind-folded game. Simple algebra equations. Nose picking! Turning a light switch on... Turning a light switch off! And back on! Off! The list goes on and on and on, I would say to Mr. Key.
Mr. John Key would look at me and say, "Son, you are the most prodigious child I have ever met -- no, ever heard of! We absolutely must without a doubt, no questions asked, harvest your talent! And we must, must buy you a better pair of shoes. And new pants. Possibly a tie."
"You know what boy," Mr. John Key will say to me as he exits stage right, an arm around my shoulder blades, "you're one of those kids people look at and think: that kid is going to be successful. A kid who has naturally or necessarily acquired the exact set of qualities that the observer lacked in young adulthood.
"You, my boy, are a fine example of New Zealand's up-and-coming generation. Don't be afraid. You are our prime subject. You are the face of the future." He continues to guide me towards his car and helps me be seated. "You are the littlest hands making the loudest noise."
John Key shuts the car door. I look though the tinted windows. I can see out but no-one can see me unless they press their face against the glass. There are a lot of children outside and they are full of scars and stitches and artificial body parts. They are the discards of a plastic doll factory. The image leaves holes in my eyes and tyre marks over the sealed road.
poems from camp
all the kids look stoned
but it is just pool chlorine
burning their eyes red
You are ten
"going on fourteen"
pretending you are eleven
look about twelve
You had a 52mmx41mm brain tumour
at age two
Your bedtime is nine thirty
but only on camp --
usually it is seven.
but it is just pool chlorine
burning their eyes red
You are ten
"going on fourteen"
pretending you are eleven
look about twelve
You had a 52mmx41mm brain tumour
at age two
Your bedtime is nine thirty
but only on camp --
usually it is seven.
on a boat
on a boat you are
without mobile phone
without internet
without mirror
without privacy
without shower
without land
without stillness
without flush
without space
without normal-sized facilities
without shelter that still provides a view
without christmas tree
without new book when you finish the one you were reading
without change of clothes if you don't feel like wearing the ones you packed
without convenience store when you realise you forgot the milk
without reception to call your mate and ask him when he will be here tomorrow
or if he has even booked his bus
(which he probably hasn't)
without emergency dried pineapple for when you feel like a fruity sugar fix
without annoying neighbour who tries to make conversation that you
don't want to have when you retrieve your mail
without washing line when you drop your t-shirt into the sea
but it's ok because you can peg it to the safety rails
and let it flap about for an hour or two
until it is dry
on a boat you are without some of the things that you are
with when you are not on a boat
but I could see stars when I was lying in bed
I saw more than fifteen orca whales within less than fifteen metres distance
I played Monopoly for three hours plus
and over-dosed on vitamin D
so being on a boat
is ok with me
without mobile phone
without internet
without mirror
without privacy
without shower
without land
without stillness
without flush
without space
without normal-sized facilities
without shelter that still provides a view
without christmas tree
without new book when you finish the one you were reading
without change of clothes if you don't feel like wearing the ones you packed
without convenience store when you realise you forgot the milk
without reception to call your mate and ask him when he will be here tomorrow
or if he has even booked his bus
(which he probably hasn't)
without emergency dried pineapple for when you feel like a fruity sugar fix
without annoying neighbour who tries to make conversation that you
don't want to have when you retrieve your mail
without washing line when you drop your t-shirt into the sea
but it's ok because you can peg it to the safety rails
and let it flap about for an hour or two
until it is dry
on a boat you are without some of the things that you are
with when you are not on a boat
but I could see stars when I was lying in bed
I saw more than fifteen orca whales within less than fifteen metres distance
I played Monopoly for three hours plus
and over-dosed on vitamin D
so being on a boat
is ok with me
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