... more personal than i remembered...

So. I wrote some poetry. Most of it I'm not finished with (and probably won't be for a good few years, so don't hold your breath), but the worst ones are done, so here they are.


Nidiculous
Young are altricial (nearly naked and helpless) and nidiculous (confined to nest))

Unprepared, he struggles
from the egg, uncertain
unstable
unfeathered scrawn

he stretches moist ligaments
in awe at the chill
and the shaking pain
of his own calls
all blood
and bones
exposed.

He realises, of course, that plummeting
from his nest is no escape,
and he appreciates
that he cannot feed himself –

in fact, the eggshell
(scribbles
spots
blotches
and marblings)
is enough of a distraction

and so he survives –
too conscious to do more
than examine his own,
broken, remains

and he wonders, Nidiculous
as he can only be
whether that makes
him ridiculous.


Pink Soda Dust

Your own gestures are filled with the breaths I give you,
the spiralling dependence of my uncertainties
filling my absence and the utter abandonment you
should feel. Time and space would accommodate me –
leave my mind alone! Or jump through,
splashing the dreams in which you
would threaten, to find the ones where the sky
would fall around us, broken, as our sleeves
fill with pink soda dust and we’d fly away.


Entwined

We clung together under the primroses, breathless
like a Kaufmann movie, his pupils
showing me the ‘you got the love I need to see me’
fall from grace, Butterfly & Co painted arms.
His voice squeaks like Pluto, every day
is a daydream, recycling lilacs in comparisons.
Who do I ‘need to see me through’, who has that?
Whoopee, No I won’t No I won’t ‘ain’t
what it seems.’ My hands twist in sugar
memories click click shut and we’re gone.


Answering anger

In maths class I scowled
through every lesson for fear of the pupils
not daring to look around at the dark eyes
too scared of answering anger. It was only
when I met them on my terms,

with the sure knowledge of music,
that the equations of their friendships
expanded to bracket me, and they remembered

when I rebelled against the teacher
stopping me from listening to music,
the beats reverberating across the classroom,
and solely my ears catching the tune.


Numb

Drunken solstice
and I’m being a princess in your arms
like the one the bull kidnapped
and ran away with through the oceans.

You’re my sea-shook swimmer
trying to keep up with the bronze arches
of my arms echoing waves.

Our water-mediated embracement
is sharp as scratches, like birds
flinging fragile flight to twist in windows.

Later, there’s salt on your skin
as I teach you to breath,
warming your chest with my unshuddered
sighs, our feet broken in green swords
bodies hijacked and numb.




annnnd
finally, I just started following this blog:
http://jwallphoto.blogspot.com/
because of this picture:

24 hours from the word go: 'BY APPOINTMENT'

Sonia walked into the shop with the air of one browsing in their free time. It was only by the quick movements of her feet, encased in ankle boots, that one could tell that she was in a rush and wanted something specific. She glanced slowly at one corner and then seemed to forget what she wanted, her thin lips slightly parted as though she were working out something difficult. She stayed, poised like a supporting column, by the doorway, as though hesitant to break the dusky peace of the room.
Adam appeared almost as casually, from the interior darkness of the shop. Something about the deferential hunch of his shoulders made the glass in his hand seem to proceed him, as though he were Macbeth.
They stood, poised like actors at the wings of a stage, until the woman’s heel, resting against the wall, squealed, and the man started, lime cordial spilling from the glass, which he apologetically offered to her. The distance between them made the action seem hypothetical, as though he expected the glass to leap the intervening space.
Sonia moved, her heals making sharp scuffing sounds. In her outstretched hand, the light made the glass seem to glow, and she tilted it slowly to her mouth, as though gently tasting a flower’s nectar. Her pale lips at the glass’s edge showed a darker colour within her mouth, and, having sipped it, they gathered together again:
‘Thank you,’ and it was as if a curtain had been raised from the rest of her face. Suddenly her long nose seemed to remember its length, and her eyes seemed to deepen, liquid and blue, embedded in slightly smudged kohl.
From nowhere, Adam’s long fingers had produced a string of amber beads. He held them next to her hair, the slight wrinkles which ringed his eyes deepening into something like kindness.
‘They’re your colour.’
Sonia stared at him, the paleness of her eyes protesting such a judgement. Her dark hair made the amber appear almost aggravated, gleaming ferociously. Adam stood, awkwardly upset by his own misjudgement. She raised her hand and pushed the beads firmly away, the gesture half familiar, half that of a customer impatient with the salesperson.
Adam cleared his throat, and smiled apologetically down at her. She felt the smile was addressed at her but was not meant for her. She realised when she’d pushed away the beads his fingers had slid around hers and that they were now holding hands, formal as though surprised by new love. She shrugged and slipped her hand from his, and he looked down regretfully.
‘Why did you come?’
She looked away, knowing that he wanted to ask what she wanted, but aware that that was her role.
‘I promised I’d come if you asked.’
He paused, waiting for accusation, his eyes on hers. Her foot twitched not so much with impatience as with the inability to stay still. He stared at the black shoe, and wondered what her feet looked like.
Absent-mindedly, she picked up a golden coloured thing. He said:
‘I asked because there’s a new Calibetti grandfather clock.’
It came out all in a rush, as though he’d been waiting to say it for a while. She stared at him, blinked, and allowed her face to round into a smile, the lips compressed and amused.
‘Where?’
He took a few steps in retreat, and she watched the way his shoes seemed to follow him, as if accompanying him contrary to the wisdom of experience. He turned and saw her, arms slightly raised from her sides as though her sleeves were weighing them down, and he wondered if without them her arms would rise like wings.
She saw that he wanted her to follow him and she moved quickly forward, until she was beside him, and she allowed him to show her eyes where to alight.
The clock was taller even than him. He did not move to point out the blue iridescence, as if borrowed from butterflies, which to him seemed an echo of her eyes. He knew she’d see the grained swirls of gold in the wood, that she’d understand the way the thickness of the clock-face’s numbers indicated its date. Elegantly lounging between a darkly red writing desk and the wall, the clock gently encompassed them with it soft ticking. They stayed quiet, neither smiling, but both captivated.
When his lips touched hers, she did not move as he drew away to gauge her reaction. Her eyes stayed on the clock, but then her compact body twisted away and, with a fretfully hopeless glance at the clock her little feet in their protective shells moved swiftly over the dark floor, and she left.
He stayed beside the clock, watching the flick of her heel as she turned around the door, leaving him in the dimmed lights.


... well that was kind of strange, but the house we were staying in had all sorts of rooms with wierd things like grandfather clocks and egg collections so there's my inspiration.

just realised i learnt the action potential sequence backwards

...was I talking about completing things? aha i think John Isner and Nicolas Mahut would be interested... this is hilarious, especially from 3:45 onwards:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2010/jun/23/wimbledon-2010-tennis-live

brain dying. away from saturday at 1:45 til tuesday whenever. turn's out I'm not just writing - they want us to bring sketching stuff too. Why do I never read the label of things I organise? Perhaps because I thought I was writing it? Never mind. I'll see if I can scan in the horrors I produce. It'll be great. 4 days with no screens except for my phone - maybe I'll remember how to produce real thoughts with pen and paper...

I'll come back with blisters and blood loss. Can't wait.

Just saw a pigeon with a hunchback and a limp.

When is something finished?
Saw a sign which said ‘a man is not complete until he’s married... then he’s finished’. I then forgot about it. Then I dreamt about it in one of those day dreams which last approximately two seconds and indicate that you haven’t consumed sufficient liquids/ nutrients or that you are too filled with drugs to function properly. The end result of that was the thought that things can’t be finished until they’re complete. And when is something complete? When you’re ‘happy’ with it?

What if it’s something you can never be happy with? Or what if it’s finished when you’re ‘unhappy’ with it?

I’m no philosopher, which could be a problem. I’d rather think of myself as a failed poet, or as someone who is entangled in the idea of adoration of words. Neither of these things being particularly concrete.

I’m so amused, that that would be the mistake you’ve made. It’s hilarious. If only I could let you read my little black book, and if only you could take the lines like ‘just to stop feeling vague’ or ‘I’m vaguely frustrated with myself, but also kind of happy, a little concerned, and in the after-math of the general gist of exhilaration, meaning, the idea of it in teeny bite-sized moments’ seriously.

Is it bad that I don’t care what anyone thinks of me so long as it fits my validations? These are: 1. It has to be strong, 2. If it’s negative it has to have a reason. If it fits into those, then my poor shivering soul can look at it and not draw a blank.

It was lovely to see Tatiana today, and thank you to Mailee for recommending to Tatiana the gardens behind the museum. Sitting in a garden... In a garden... garden of Eden IMAGERY... pastoral study has clearly affected my mind.

Although, announcing facts about oneself, is something I feel I ought to apologise for, it is not how or what I think. Sometimes these lovely words... well sometimes they forget that it’s my mouth they’re using.

Why no grand abstractions?
–Who am I to answer them? What do I know?
Why not the personal details?
–They are too petty, pathetic. Who cares.

I get scared I’m too good at that old principle of abstraction.
Day dream believer, eh?

Just sat here and watched this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szGOlkMC-lI&feature=sub I subscribed to his videos when I used to love Bright Eyes, and he did come pretty good covers, and people said he was trying to be Connor Oberst, and his justifications made me smile. But mainly I like his voice. This is out of sync, sound/ picture wise, so there’s some added amusement.
Then I laughed at this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=05MRbZvzFsw which is a song I used to love (and the reason I have this weird thing about smoking Camels. Of which I like to speak to no one). But the movie... made me cry, eventually, because how muscley the legs are and the colours of the shoes and how sad it is that someone made that and all the effort they put into it and how no one ever really does anything and how the nails were painted in a colour that clashed with the shoes, and the poor person buying those horrific shoes maybe especially to make that movie, and it looks like the person wearing them is quite tall and probably doesn’t suit them at all but thought they did. I don’t know. It seemed very sad.

This is why I am not a philosopher.

Then Ben told me about a girl we know who just got married and in one of the wedding photos the way they’re kissing, just missing each other’s mouths... that made me cry. I think I only cry when I’m alone. And they were holding these big bunches of orangy yellow flowers and there was so much celebration but I couldn’t see the girl I remembered anywhere in there. Not that I knew her that well. And then Ben sent me this:



Because he’s apparently a lion pirate, as he says: ‘grrarr’. I just like the pipe.

If you’ve waded through all this drivel to here, I feel I ought to give you a prize. Have some Nabokov:

‘how I waited, how certain I was that without my having to tell her she would steal to my room, how she did not come, and the din thousands of crickets made in the delirious depth of the rocky garden dripping with moonlight, the mad bubbling brooks, and my struggle between blissful southern fatigue after a long day of hunting on the screes and the wild thirst for her stealthy coming, low laugh, pink ankles above the swan's down trimming of high-heeled slippers; but the night raved on, and she did not come, and when next, in the course of a general ramble in the mountains, I told her of my waiting, she clasped her hands in dismay -- and at once with a rapid glance estimated whether the back of gesticulating Ferd and his friend had sufficiently receded.’

OR,

‘for I did not yet know that had I said a word it would have changed at once into a wonderful sunburst of kindness, a cheerful, compassionate attitude with all possible cooperation, as if woman’s love were spring water containing salubrious salts which at the least notice she ever so willingly gave anyone to drink’.

I can’t look at the word ‘compassionate’ anymore without analysing it. With passion.

turns out

that i do want to know about his decisions
and i do want to know everything
and i don't care about the impossible
and sometimes doing stuff which in itself ought to be made pointless by the very freedom it indicates, because it's conscious of that freedom and so is by its awareness making it obselete - YEAH doing that, sometimes, makes sense anyway. even through the cliched kisses. i'm still lost in your eyes, not looking away. teeth have stopeed chattering.

WHAT

I want to know the crazy lines
echoes of horizon
glowing through the differentiates
colours freaking out in hedgehog dances
don't tell me
make me know
you didn't have second thoughts about cigaretttes
ettes
etes
etty
et
et al

lost lost lost lost
forgotten remembered dreams
geography padding through my unconscious
geology underlying all movements

swimming in the sea was amazing. remind me to simply strip and jump in - it works. I'm glad I thought to take off my dress first though
even if my bra decided that it had sponge like qualities and could hold vast amounts of water
even if I left you in there
even if I left the tenner in the bottle in there
even if when swimming I became conscious that my arm's curved echo of the sun, brown against the sky and the pinks and the blues and the sea and the seaweed, all of it, even ifI was aware of that
it doesn't matter
because I cared more about being in there, and ducking under the waves, and floating like driftwood, or like cupped leaves of thoughts on the surface
I cared about that more
so it was fine
and even if the only fire I have comes out of a green lighter
thank god it's yellow fire, eh?
yellow. we all know that symbolism. entwine that with life, dammit.
leather or denim?
i wonder why it is i don't want to become something new, i just do it
tomorrow, i'll make sock puppets

let me borrow your wooden smile

LONGEST DAY OF THE YEAR AND I HAD THE LONGEST FUCKING EXAM OF THE YEAR AND NOW I HAVE NOTHING TO DO EXCEPT WANDER AROUND READING POETRY. THAT OR REVISE.

Restoring fevers to the blueberry-bright pupils -
It's wonderful, you see, how multitudes meet.
Under squished-fly eyelids, my reflection floats
like tadpoles, within the double visionary
longing, falling away in echoes down scree slopes
of looks, sleeplessness, illness, love, eyes' own pain
with tongues as touchstones in my plot-driven hunt

horizons are set like gumshields around us
gloriously entangled in the painful rounded
cup-creamy calves, heavy with walking,
but under my fingertips, bumpy and absurd,
treetops heave between terracotta rooftops
chipping away in flung flakes, heath
ringing stunned spirals... don't tell me
that lips sticking dry to teeth is emotion.


RIGHT NOW
i know
...
that wasn't about what it sounds like it was about.

see the exact colour of my blood

treasure hunt party. Cake: treasure chest. Made of: chocolate cake and icing and sweets and digestives all crumbled up to look like sand. Treasure hunt: taking 15 small and sugar-filled kids on a trek around school. The clues are hilariously complicated.

I'm being haunted by the name Dalrymple. Possibly because it's one of the few names I can remember for any amount of time.

Last night: terror and amusement. Walking down a road in the dark getting accosted by professionals. My umpa bumpa jumpa is all full of holes.

Battling with ideas again.

I’m assuming that no one is referring to me unless my names mentioned. Because why would anyone want to talk about me?

I wish my phones would work properly. But now they really don't.

1. Lots of questions about you.
2. Why do I care what anyone thinks?
3. If I don’t care, why am I here?
4. I’m going to cut this out.
5. Maybe somebody’s right
6. I’min the wrong
7. I’m not going to lie.
8. I don’t know that it would matter if I did
9. I won’t be dependent.
10. I need to stop dramatising things
11. I need to prioritise (bit late now. I’m screwed for exams. But we’ve heard enough of that.)
12. I need to organise myself (I always do.)
13. I do care.
14. Do I wish I didn’t?
15. I don’t know very much
16. I need to get better at recognising when I’ve been proven wrong in an argument.
17. I wonder why I don’t have so many personality crisis-es any more
18. I need to concentrate
19. It makes me laugh how frustrated other people get when they explore themselves. They say, ‘hey, you’ve made me sound like a sap now’. All I did was channel your thoughts. What they’ve landed on is your business. And anyway I’m not sure if I did anything anyway. I’m always vaguely surprised when I’m accused of helping people in their journey towards self knowledge.
20. If you don’t like who you are, or what you’ve found yourself thinking about who you are, change it. You can be who your actions make you. Don’t ignore it.
21. Speaking of ignoring, I’ve got all of that history out in the open and now it’s sitting there like a black lump and I’m going to have to work out if I need to do anything about it. Which I don’t.
22. I don’t like how much I like you. *

*Yes I’m using the typical switching ‘you’ thing. It’s a pretty amusing technique. Today, I’m miserable and slightly angry at myself. So don’t even start.