Imprinted Inklings

We're just ordinary people.

Thirty, or so, of us, in New Caledonia for three weeks. As an ordinary man, I was scarred by the coral when I dived in to see it and the fish that swam around there. I had never had flippers on my foot nor really worn a mask with a tube. But the ability to see below the surface clearly was a great experience. This was at Ile aux Canards, a boat-taxi ride away from Anse Vata in Nouméa. This was the postcard image I'd seen on the internet. Who would have known that below the surface there would be such a rich world of fish, of many colors, shapes, and sizes. Beautiful. We were told before diving not to step on the coral because we could damage it, and I thought that would have been easy but it was not, because I didn't follow the marked path and I tripped several times over coral and othertimes grazed my knees on it, leaving me with scars. Who knew coral could injure. But they are scars I bear as a thank you, a reminder that I was there and that I did inflict some damage upon nature (and it saw fit to do the same unto me).

We had seven days of straight sunshine that first week. Then a spittle of rain and more sunshine, but later on I recall some of the girls dancing with their iPods in their ears outside the stairs of Bâtiment A (at the Residences) one evening when it did rain well. It was a welcome rain. Soaking, not very cold but just right to cool us off during the final, exam-packed week. One effect of the rain is that it would reduce the amount of dust that was in the air near the construction sites. The University of New Caledonia was having a new office block being built past the cafeteria in the shape of an accordion. Many times when we walked past the site, the men at work would call out to the girls I'd be walking with and say "Bonjour!" or "Je te verrai plus tard!" (paraphrase). And sometimes these men would be up working in the building itself or in one of the vehicles/excavators, one of which we affectionately named T320C after the number on its side. Sif we knew that one. Often, in the sunshine, dust would rise from the area, not enough that you couldn't see, but enough that you would avoid it or hold your breath had you had to pass through.

Nouméa hosts its slew of palm trees. Apparently New Zealand is the furthest south that palm trees actually grow, so I was not surprised to see them here. The whole country is rich in vegetation that is specific to this place, it being a unique reservoir of nickel, and a number of other superlatives. With this much natural resource though, it was strange seeing a planted forest while on the bus on our way south to the Parc de la Rivière Bleue. After getting used to the idea of trees growing in accordance with nature's way, it was a bizarre sight to notice the human touch of a grid of planted trees, for maybe 100m, where there was a space of a metre between each tree.

Back in the capital, which looks pretty run down by comparison to, say, Auckland, buses, also in comparison to Auckland, run smoothly. There is much graffiti in places, yet somehow it seems to be part of the culture here and doesn't look that bad. Apparently some graffiti is done in corrector fluid though. Make do with what you got? The people are generally very nice. They say Bonjour, we say Bonjour. Maybe it is because we are foreigners and pretty visibly so - if not from the way we look, from the way we talk, with our foreign French accents and the fact that we blow air when we pronounce our consonants.

Speaking of demographics, there seems to be a rich-poor gap here as well. There are the rich suburbs, such as Port-de-Plaisance which hosts some beautiful, panoramic villas, then there are the poorer ones, like Nouville, where the university is located. The houses there were much simpler, and I imagine had more people living in them. Near those houses, in the forests or along trails in the bush, it was common to come across rubbish dumps in which washing machines and other appliances were rusting away with other metals and ordures. This added to the character of the place, I feel. The Kanaks here, the indigenous, seem to also have been greatly influenced by Bob Marley and Che Guevara, icons whose faces appear on paraphernalia and miscellaneous knick-knacks. Oppressed peoples. Suggestions of the struggles they have been through, struggles which we, as foreigners, learned through lectures and Wikipedia, though struggles which they have had to live as heirs of. There are paradoxes visible too. For example, there are many 'more expensive' European cars, Dacias or Peugeots, that drive on the roads. Correlation? Qui sait?

It is a fortunate though rare experience to be given access to a world different from my own. Of course, my perception is influenced by that, so I don't know if what I saw and felt was the truth. But it was the truth for me.

Tell you what though, the experience has brought its slew of memories. Some that I cannot even express because they were not transmitted via language. Keepers. Ones to remember, maybe not consciously, but keep regardless, like imprinted inklings on an already-coloured canvas.


Like the pier.
And the moon.
And the air.
And just being there.

A Newer Caledonia

It is the day after I returned from my three week study/holiday in New Caledonia. This morning I got up later than usual because I'd been tired from little sleep the night before, and I went to wash my face, as usual. The water was cold, refreshingly and revitalisingly cold. I had forgotten the feeling of cold water on my face, seeing as the cold water at my residence in Nouméa wasn't that cold by comparison. I'd missed it, and it was a welcome reminder of what I now had again, and now could appreciate more.

The trip to New Caledonia was great. The people were great. The beaches and places were great. The food was great. The city was great. The experience was overall pretty darn great. Saying things like that feels like I am missing a significant part of what happened, trying to gloss over it or level it in some postcard manner. I didn't send any postcards, but I saw a good many and don't feel like the tropical beach images they show are in any way representative of my experience. Yes I did see beautiful beaches, with beautiful sand and beautiful people. But that was a very small part of those three weeks. I feel that to be more authentic would give the trip more justice and give me time to reflect upon what New Caledonia sparked in me. 

This was the first time I'd been to a foreign country since 2002 when I had come to live in New Zealand from Romania. The difference this time was that I was alone, and although I'd been very well prepared by my mum in terms of what to pack and what to do and the dangers and customs and such, it was still an experience of independence. 

There was an educational purpose for going to New Caledonia - a three-week 'intensive' French course at the University in Nouméa - which was what kept us busy for a large proportion of our time there. It was not a very difficult course for my level of French, though the volume of work was considerably larger than I had expected so the 'intensity' I suppose came from that. Others struggled more with the amount because their level of French was lower. I do recall at the end of the trip, some of the other students were wondering if they had learned anything while being there, and I recognise that it was hard to pin down because everything had gone by so fast. With the short amount of time and the large amount of work, I too found it difficult to digest what we were being taught, some of which was really interesting. I have learned expressions and vocabulary, and revised my grammar, which I could say reinforces it in my mind, but that may not be to the same extent with others. I learned some phonetics, though not well enough as it was a subject I struggled in. I acquired much cultural knowledge as well, from the lectures we were given and from the excursions we partook in. I also gained confidence to speak in French, something I had not had before, especially not in a French-speaking context which I had shied away from previously. Academically, it remains to be seen how much of a success it was, depending on how my mental metabolism will sort out what I do remember and what I don't.

While the education was the official purpose of the trip, I see it as being more inclusive than just learning French at the university. I would expand the sense of education to include harnessing street smarts and co-operation, expanding my mindset, having experiences and gaining awareness of people's tendencies. How can going to a new country with a different culture, a different driving lane and different expectations, not be educational?

What struck me first, as I got out of the plane, was the heat. From the air conditioned space of the Air New Zealand plane to the oven-like quality of the New Caledonian air, this was a state I would become accustomed to. Wearing jeans was not, suffice to say, the most apt attire for walking onto an island simmering in the sun. For the first week of being there, the heat and sun continued. Then a pocket of rain appeared to wet the concrete, dried quickly by more sun. But post-first week, the rain had appeared more, which was very welcome. Normally in New Zealand, rain puts a dampener on things (pun intended), but here it was so nice that three girls walked out one rainy evening and danced in the rain with their iPods in their ears. 

What struck me second as we were driven on the bus to Nouméa from the airport at La Tontouta, which is about 45 mins away (don't quote me), was the 'unfinished' quality of the place. The roads seemed old and used, even the 110km/h motorway. In Nouméa, I thought we were going to be greeted with the things of postcards, but tourism clearly was selling the city in a very different way from how it was as a whole. To me, it looked like half the city was a construction site, whether there were things being built, buildings, pathways, fixtures, or things were going to be built but then the workers went on strike and so the project was left abandoned. I say that with a grain of salt, not knowing really what was going on. But that was my impression. The city centre, which we had the opportunity to visit a few days later, was generally pretty run down and unappealing. The modernité aspect was clear in some of the shops, but hardly on the outside cityscape.

Speaking of modernité, having lived on the peninsula of Nouville just west of the centre of Nouméa, I found the central conflict that faced the country (as we learned in lectures), quite visible. Being a colonised country, New Caledonia has to balance maintaining tradition, in the form of the Kanak culture which exists much more strongly towards the north of the country, and modernity, the French influence which is fast becoming a Euro influence. Nouméa, as the capital and sort of gateway to the country, is much more strongly affected by the French influence, possibly because money is very important to the city's wellbeing and growth. Tourism is big. There is even a tourist train that takes tourists in their Hawaiian shirts with their cameras hanging from their necks around Nouméa. Tacky thing. But I suppose that is one way to see much of the city quickly. Whether you get to experience anything I don't know. I wanted to stay away from doing touristy things because I wanted more of an immersion into the culture, but that was difficult to achieve in the city because it seemed to live for making money off tourists and improving the way it looked so different postcards could be printed so they could attract more tourists. Remember though, this is just an impression. We did not get to experience much out-of-cityness, though we did, on two occasions, go out into the bush. Once was for mountainbiking on a trail of red earth in the south of the country, and then once in the La Foa region nearly halfway up the western coast of the country. Beautiful, the landscapes. And it felt like the further away from Nouméa we got, the further away we were getting from tourism aimed at foreigners (i.e. easy tourism). The towns we passed were small and rundown in their own way, but it felt to me like they were more alive living as strange concrete and wood organisms among forests or hilly vegetation-dense terrain.

I feel like describing my whole experience in terms of what I did is like telling too much plot. Rather, I feel more inclined towards speaking about what in particular interested me or what I found peculiar in this place. So I will continue with that in my next post.

Sunsets

The day wakes up before the dawn,

not having enough sleep

to carry on waiting.

Not even palm trees are enough.

Not even sand dunes and

collections of feral rocks are enough.

The day still feels bracketed,

and though there are worlds of

lyrics and wind-wiping

and birdsongs laying petals

on the almost-sidewalks here,

the pockets of rain have not been enough

to douse the inertia of being

out of sync, out of place.

At its weaning, the day signs

for another dive into the ocean.

Trying to hold on to that moment

of

hankerchief waving

that the horizon still ends.

Oceans Meeting

Francophone? Oui je parle français but not very fluently so that's why I leave tomorrow for New Caledonia. To improve. And to experience. I don't know what it will be like but it will be worth it. Flying 800km away from Auckland across a distance of sea isn't something I do everyday so I think from the perspective that this is a new occurrence, an unusual occurrence, then it has some significance I cannot yet point my finger on. But it will be, as it will be.

I am blessed to leave a place that's rich in what I'd call love, trusting that I will find it so when I return from my séjour. But I think there's no point in thinking about it. I was reminded of a key lesson when a bear and his francophone-from-a-tape keeper came to visit me last night, giving me a parting gift. Very sweet gesture, and unexpected, but appreciated and welcomed with open arms. The card that they wrote made my day. And the message at the end:

"accept love, don't look for it."

The chose parfaite to hear before I leave. It reminds me that I don't need to do anything in New Caledonia, to portray myself in a certain way, to worry how I am seen or what to do, but simply to be. That will be enough. It's an everyday lesson, and everyday rememberance. It pays to be reminded of it.

Thank you J.

I would like to sign off today as what the francophone-from-a-tape called me. Mon Visage Petite Baise. Orthographic errors included. It's only an error if I compare it to the French I have learned, but who says this is not a language of its own. We speak in our own tongues. And somehow, we come across to each other. Like oceans meeting.


Bisous,
Ton Visage Petite Baise

Giddy

I've been anticipating Skyrim since it was announced last year on December 11th. And the past few weeks have rendered me to the state of what I imagine a curly-haired boy of about 5 in a woolen sweater would be feeling, waiting for Christmas to happen, waiting for Santa to come through that familiar black leather-face door with an indeterminately-sized sack of goodies. What would be in it? Oranges, chocolate, a book about insects with Latin names that the boy would be fascinated about for a few weeks, but would never properly read or recall much from, just several pictures. The past week has headed down through this anticipatory-emotional field, where I feel what I'd call "giddy" and would physically describe as feeling my heart in the middle of my chest, beating - and each time it beats, it pushes up slightly towards my throat, then comes back down.

One effect of this has been the disruption to my sleeping pattern that I have observed several days ago. Normally I would sleep 6 or 7 hours per night, but with the onset of exams and playing League of Legends with friends online has kept me past midnight more than I would've liked - but I tolerated it, it's been fun. Still, with the lessened sleep from those treks into Summoner's Rift, and with the onset of this anticipatory "euphoria", I've begun to sleep less and less. The night before last, I slept from about 12 until 4.30am. Last night, I slept from about 10.30 until 1.30am, and tried to sleep more afterwards but it did not manifest, I don't think. I did instead have an interesting mini-dream in which I was with some childhood classmates from Romania as well as some friends from New Zealand, and we were on top of a hill in Romania, and to one side there was a river, or a large body of water. On top of the hill lay two taps, both of which were white and off. Either me or some teacher was explaining something, then we left that area. I found myself coming back to realise one of the taps had been somehow turned on and in the space of I don't know how long, water had been pouring out of this tap and flooding the body of water so that more land was now covered in water. I remember a sense of surprise. Then I awoke (?) and saw it was around 4am, back in the bed I'd never left except in my mind. And then the excitement crept up in me again, knocking at the door in my chest.

I have an exam today, in which I am to write two essays in French in two hours. I'm not worried about it, but I wonder if having less sleep will affect my cognitive functioning. I feel no headache and am alert, though perhaps as the day goes on I will feel more tired.

Thankfully, Skyrim comes out on Friday, the 11th, which is effectively that boy's Christmas. Hopefully post-Christmas, he'll calm down and go read/look at the pictures in his book and eat his oranges. Until then, I don't think there's much to do but just let him jump up and down inside me.

Différance

You keep, the French-toasted sung guns in your arms,
trigger happy finger-children,
pestled in with la verdad,
(ven, te voy a mostrar)
the back-hand upside-swept confusion
of a distant man writing in a chamber,
not a room, far from a room,
but one where there's no one there but
the remainer of five hundred and eleven evenly
spaced out feathers, torn
from a place no longer as light.

Let us pull the curtains back.

The day finds me new,
waiting still on this chair,
waiting-wondering actually
what they day will bring
now that it's found me.


Therein lies my delay, my fossé,
my lacune,
my différance.


Hm. All I wanted to do was say différance.
It's a buzzword.

Upgrowing

He bore His roots from the sky

and strongstood.

absorbing the warmth of vehicles

as they rushed by at hundredspeeds

at friction with the clouds,

rubbing out oxymorons,

pockets and echelons,

in the airwaves.

proposing, talking with His hands

even to Himself,

wanting to wash them

without water.

collecting from the smoke on the freeways,

mistakes.

mistakes in permanent marker,

journeys lived in parentheses.

leaving knots of conversation

to signal the places where someone

had considered Him.

Lounging,

the hills canter together,
an accordeon squeezes out the tears
over a pint of beer.

I am an infant in understanding,
shedding the unnecessary
filigrees and fragments,
political and social foibles, 
desperately ruptured by murmurs.

My first home, which I shared with
my brother, the modern Icarus, was our mother's womb.
She, our greatest hero - dying endlessly and
endlessly reborn,
so old that I did not think that she
could die, ruptured in God's fingers 
like a Chinese cookie.

The way your glasses stick fast to your face,
tai chi on the top of rusted metal rods,
you are done falling forward and catching yourself.
Better to sit still and push shit uphill,
a little ship cut loose, one lot, two tusks,
beating hard against history.

Lines of linoleum
hanging like fishy leaves,
augmented reality, 
subliminal lullaby,
how it mars the surface of the present.

The universe is insatiable, it has a thirst for you.
Planets are moths circling around a flame,
cigarettes are substitute phalluses,
this is a work in progress and we are projectiles,
we make everything into glass
buildings plunged into shadows.

My name is Thimble and
I am a god of protecting little significant things.
Please don't squeeze me until I'm yours.

Pour out a piano in your hands as soon as silence
moves into the neither here nor there;
dismantle humanity's intricate pathways.
Wave goodbye to question marks, trolleyed wings,
floorless, wished-for moments of existence.
Love yourself; you are the one you're with.

Rubbish and dust fly in the sky,
encounter the line drawn under night time.
If the parking lot is not wet, 
embrace the specific lamp post,
flashing, before rounding the corners.

You have rehearsed this moment.

(This is a pastiche made from lines collected from poets performing at Lounge #23, at the Old Government House Lounge at the University of Auckland on the 19th of October 2011)

Aujourd'hui

The why question,
I believe I pose many times
about the puzzle pieces fitting a certain way,
about the sunmoon binaries in world-weighing ways opposing.

I tried to cage feathers in flight
but time blew out through the bars
as I printed its nocopy centerfold,
its penchant for successful sound travesty,
its hope that it means
to say what it means
is to say that it feels
in some way near the wingbeat of birds.

I yearn to be a lonely girl at this world's
stag sitting by the corn fields of the daily time's penchant, on le juor,
where you touch me like I were a letter to be sent;
you lick the top of what I am yet you pass it around like the menu
I am reading, de jour,
French things and porcupines and other worldly
things becoming grabbable when synchronized with
the cupping of my hands.
What you pour, then,
I catch and heap for that certain impointed time
when you ask to have your cup refilled with wine
and I'll give you whatever I've got
in measured spoons and leveled amounts.
Tell me it's not enough,
I'll ask you why,
you'll ask me about my day
and I'll say it went okay,
because I wouldn't quite be listening to the nuances
reverberating between the corridor walls
where I'm expected to walk and talk,
learn and yearn for answers,
yet finding none.


Keep that a secret, will you?
The why question, has no answer,
because it ultimately asks the same
of what has been given as the same.
What carrot can you make from a carrot?
What layer can you spread from a couche?
What day can you seize from un jour?
Aujourd'hui.
 

Somewhat Man

One breath, it carries me
where wavelengths scatter -
water recedes and shores
meet matter, worlds are pieced
together
in the creviced afterthought of
exhalation,


I see,
no me


borders crossed and bridged gaps
and a thousand creeks flowing
in between folding wings
beautiful, beautiful things
of weightlessness

find me on the couch,
brushing shoulders with the giant
whose doves fly towards
the other half of the continent
another half hour downriver
amidst the chorus of pressed piano keys
and telling birds, voices heard
in valleys, they echo,


here I am,
keeping what I can weep for
swimming underneath the strain
that gravitates,
telling lines, watered down edges
weaning edges,
colour-changing shadows
bouncing hollow breezes
in the scattersun,
I am one
somewhat man

fading in the light of burning brighter
reminding and reminded
I don't know what I'm doing
while I flow,
I don't need to know.

La Route, Le Poumon

That which is 
is
franza
buddtra
jensekqwa

Ok. Donc, this boy
stares at this signpost
taking its one cell
for the sea,
expects he to posit
interest in the destination,
from this long-too-shadowed
ground piece,
imprint keeping,
shoe molded - drumul e lung,
drumul e luuuuuuuuung
drumul e luuuuuuung,
drumul e luung.
drumul e luuuung.
drumul    lung.
drumul    lung.
drumul    lung.
drumul    lung.
drumul    lung.
drumul    lung.
drumul    lung.
drumul    lung.
drumul    lung.
drumul    lung
drum        lung      

A Butterfly's Wingbeat

Along the way to when I go,
I capsized, sensitive,
Meaning to where I'd go, go,
And furthering on from ruin,
I see my soul, aback sitting across
the river scouting through my mind.
On a cloud. Effervescent,
I know these things aloud.
I know them back on my trip ascent,
Foreign dent, entreating,
Gauss repellent, sentimental
And catching the glint in the eye of man's representative,
The one with oars,
Who I assume has learned to steer before
on another river he didn't swim.
Some displacement.
Some interaction, recollection,
Then I go on being on my own
terrestrial turn, else-minded,
Far-sighted, scneted
Going on the same spot to where I
haven't been in whiles larger than the moon.
Other elses.
Other perspectives.
More pairs of eyes to be had 
The tenor to travesty,
Sifting earnest at the bad
The forthwith in keeping with
Minimalism and what we keep in our own mindsets
Bless them secrets.
Tenfold misfits.
And growing pains.
For the man who grows
Is the man who drowns.
That's what they told me when
I went downstairs to drink.
Clearly I ought not think.

Where Trains Pass

So I was thinking about words again
as I do upon occasion,
when the tap's running
and the photographs of us
degenerate into crumpled up
faceless flash-banged porridges.

I eat from those stained bowls,
you know - I don't fare well when
there's too much grime on the counters
and too much steam on the windows
but my lens keep focusing in and out
on our visages, somehow battered
by the fact that it's been too long since
we even considered the stuff under
our fingernails -
times have gone, oui,
thumping's a past tense
and movie reels have stretched out
the distance between your digits and
my colon,


too long,
may I miss my mister man?
my mystery monk mauled American?
masculine meat... met
menstrual fuckitall

and the shot glasses still seem to smoke 
when the sunlight catapults through the windows
on days like these,
when I scavenge from the cupboards,
when my recycling bin is full of
cardboard cut-outs and supplement containers.
I think there has to be a point,
where you can press 4 once
2 once
and 9 three times
before you consider that
I'm still here, in your kitchen,
waiting for you to come home.

Don't Take Anything Seriously

"I have heard about one Sufi mystic, Junnaid, who every day in the evening prayer used to thank existence for its compassion, for its love, for its care.

Once it happened that for three days they were traveling and they came across villages where people were very antagonistic against Junnaid, because they thought his teachings were not exactly the teachings of Mohammed. His teaching seemed to be his own, and, “He is corrupting people.”

So from three villages they had not got any food, not even water. On the third day they were really in bad shape. His disciples were thinking, “Now let us see what happens in the prayer. How can he now say to existence, ‘You are compassionate to us; your love is there. You care about us, and we are grateful to you.’ ?”

But when the prayer time came, Junnaid prayed the same way. After the prayer the followers said, “This is too much. For three days we have suffered hunger, thirst. We are tired, we have not slept, and still you are saying to existence, ‘You are compassionate, your love towards us is great, and you take so much care that we are grateful to you.’ ”

Junnaid said, “My prayer does not depend on any condition; those things are ordinary. Whether I get food or not I don’t want to bother existence about it — such a small thing in such a big universe. If I don’t get water...even if I die, it does not matter, my prayer will remain the same. Because this vast universe...it makes no difference whether Junnaid is alive or dead.”

This is what I mean when I say, don’t take anything seriously...not even yourself. And then you will see anger simply has not happened. There is no possibility of anger. And anger is certainly one of the great leakages of your spiritual energy. If you can manage to be playful about your desires, and still be the same whether you succeed or you fail.

Just start thinking about yourself at ease...nothing special; not that you are meant to be victorious, not that you have to succeed always in every situation. This is a big world and we are small people."

~ Osho

Nothing Much Registered

Drive, off the edge of the map behind the horizons that I keep hidden even from my own view. I don't get to see what you may be looking to see; I hide my heart, myself. I speak. I yearn. Organisation is a fantastic method of synthesis. I am learning to drive. But let's draw parallels to what is happening in our existence and let's co- with peers and fashionable returns at greatest facile. Semiotic sensation, grasped like a worm from an eagle's point of view, vanished from gravity's bind, forgotten by the photon mistranslation and coronated well within. Drive me.

Aujourd'hui, c'est un jour de je ne sais. Pas, pas, pas, may je ne sais pas où I go. Ok.

It's a question to ask. I don't feel that drive to make something happen. I have been hiding my heart, trying to run away from answers, by using other answers, by making up my own answers. I don't know the answer? No, I think the fear I have is that I know the answer and I cannot find peace in it. I have to bring peace to it. Because it's not going to provide me with the seeking that I will not do to make it into something it is not. Philosophy.

I'm gay, a little reluctant to hold on to cage bars when I just numbed myself into a fire and blew away smokelling through, to gather in skies, to sail upon a bolta d'étoiles. I'm like a little kid, sprinting to misunderstanding from the freedom of his mother's lap. I'm the steps he's taking, and I look back and watch the footprints recede into the fibres forested in the carpet at the microscopic niveau, where mites live and parasites struggle (no they don't, they are.) Paracetamol won't cure my euphoric feeling of abandonment (that's what I've learned to call it), but I guess I grasp at straws and cancel out my word documents with the markings of the spot. Do me. I don't know. Generally, you'd find me wanting somewhere and trying to fix something up, but pas back, pas back, tendon hold.

Où sommes-nous? Où suis-je?

Who

Knows

Not beaucoup, I cannot describe what I am feeling, because every time I try, my mind incarcerates it and takes over the words and runs with ideas and then I look and I feel that isn't what I really wanted to say. It's only when my mind says nothing but the writing somehow flows from some 'puts' that I don't question it and just simply allow the flow to flow.

Je viens. Come to think of it, chiar este ceva la care nu m-am asteptat.

Vine dimineata. Sunt aici, astept raspuns, ca undeva cumva o sa vine o lumanare si o sa curga ceara in cer, aprinzand zorii. Foc frumos, fac frumusete din beteala de pedeapsa, din impodobirea cenzurata, din privirea oilor, din comertul de oala. Ma uit dupa ghiveci. Je cherche les bras de maintenant, je cherche à être embrassé par la manière de vivre vivement, acum.

Yet I am still walking, banded somewhere with un pansamment de punga de plastic transparenta et je me sent hardly progressive. Strange lump, strangled place. I want to express that I don't know what is happening. I want an answer that is fresh, new, that does not come from the old patterns of thinking, and this I have asked for. So I cannot sit here and sift through the folders of my mind for it, in vain. Puisque, en vain, si je ne trouve rien, rien ne me trouvera. Mais je veux être trouvé. Je veux être descoperit, adus in locul in care pot sa fiu, viu, sans amertume, with whoever. I don't have that drive to part with myself, though I want a divorce from the sentences I say to myself. They matter not, now that I remember that the most important thing about being is awareness, that past is gone and that now is all there is.

Je suis fatigué. Fat n' gay. Latter's a quizzical centipede, is it not? I asked you, before, to drive me to myself, but we seem to be going around in circles so I realise what you meant now by 'the state of consciousness is what matters most' so then it doesn't matter so much what I say here because it can be seen by others and yes, that's fine. My world's a touring globe, one on which I spin, around which I orbit, within which I boil, until I sometimes have to release. My words, they're all over.

Catering For The Heart That Leapt

Amertume,
an elm lodged below my feeling heart, tender
split wood, divorced worlds
crackling away under a blaze of corneas.




See, the bus wheels rolled,
got caught on it, surprise with a paper knife,
a single cut, surgery by my knowing mentality
upon itself;
bled then and there, on the seat,
with the wood jutting out of a corpse,
call it mine,
call it the scene of a suicide
(see the markings en craie, contours).

It's true what they said -
you put something in a circle, it dies.





Imagine ce qui se passe quand on brûle
the remains
would they be able to light another fire
for the warmth of another,
to increase the blood circulation
of another.

Just give them a push,
a prod,
and watch the hemoglobin tip.

Images

I've come to a realisation - another in a series, out now - about who I am 'not'. I wrote this down in a note to myself:

"When I stop thinking, the self I think I am ceases to exist. I am empty. Perhaps that is what is so scary about not thinking - the loss of that link to the world. Without it, I simply am - and that feels lost, but maybe it is the state of surrendering flow."

Having let go of vices and needs to project images onto people, after surrendering the idea that I cannot truly communicate who I am to anyone, I felt liberated. Lost, yes, but a liberating floating away into somewhere. I don't know. And because I haven't known for a while - though I did try - I found that there isn't really anything to know that won't come when it's needed. I wonder who I am. I have thoughts about that, and then somewhere along the track I am reminded that those thoughts matter not and they do not make up who I am. So there you are, sitting in the garden, clutching my coffee. You called me sugar. Pink lyrics. My thoughts can change quickly from one thing to another without much heed for subject matter save for a few conditions such as what I am thinking about has to somehow matter to me in some way, and it must also catch my attention. Otherwise no thoughts hold. So in my attempt to be a river, I also figured out that I am a fish, and a rocky outcrop, and an ice cube drifting, and an arrow penetrating the air. And I am none of those.

You see, I play. I try to figure out who I am. But I will never be able to truly express it. (Need I?) And I will never be able to communicate it to anyone. (Need I?) And no one will ever be able to understand who I am in my depth through an image of myself, because the image will never be good enough, it will always miss the vital part of 'being', since an image, being an illusion, is 'not'. Therefore, what's the point?

Having fun and laughing makes so much more sense now, because there are things that don't necessarily make sense and when the need for sense is taken out of the question, these senseless things somehow gain a certain sense. And there ain't no reason why - that I can decipher, that I need decipher.

The subconscious knows everything. So when I say I know who I am, I mean that it knows who I am and I only have images, parts, that I can present to others. Perhaps that's useful sometimes - but only when I can use the parts to point beyond them. That's the clincher. I've tried projecting myself onto others hoping others would remember the images of me that I hoped to have placed in their minds. Yet, I haven't really gotten anywhere in terms of satisfaction, because what is truly satisfying - being appreciated for who you are - cannot be found in images, since images are always incomplete. And I want the complete package. And to think, I didn't realise before that I was trying to get that complete package with an incomplete tool set/map. It is like trying not to think, with thought.

Maybe there is usefulness in images. I don't think they're worth discarding totally, because I think they can be used, as I said, for pointing beyond themselves. That choice of images, however, I am to understand that it is not mine to make. For I cannot make such choices. I cannot be the distinguishing force - because I don't know everything. The subconscious though, I suppose, can let me know. I suppose. But it knows. It knows it can let me know and it does let me know when it knows I ought to know. And I know.

All's I got to do is listen. And watch. And pay attention to now. Don't need to judge. Don't need to make up stories and piece things together, because the moment I start using thoughts, I block out intuiting. All's I got to do is be. Let others see me as they will.

Tearing

The sheet of reason folds between
and fiction crumbles to each side
a folly souring, tumbling,
catching on to the soaring in vain.
Below the sun, within my insistence
lies a man, enfleshed and walled in
corroded
a chord struck from his cerebellum
into the seething feelers, his doormat
feet, his welcoming opportunities for
breaking communication.

He is a careless depiction of truth
looking at itself in a shard of ice,
aware of its forgetting consciousness,
lost in the colder opposition.
Bowed down, he personifies a scrawl,
a tumbleweed fitting sideways into a
pax-deprived corpse.
Tactile
voices squint at his myth,
persuading him to forget his doings
to welcome his waitings on the stool,
going outward into memory's friendship
dawning again after a night of
being awake, faced.

This is how it feels, to be embraced
by the denied self, watered by feeling,
dowsing already ashes,
already stinging because of rifts and
supposings.

I frowned while the souvenirs
were reminisced and corporeally
timorous, before they synchronised
and came together a paradox.
I ask you now to sit with your reflection,
walking in the difficult directions
to the birth of a man of meaningness,
presently absurd
and living lives and life
as skinned synonyms.

Vingt

Aujourd'hui, je me
trouve plus conscient qu'hier,
et je suis le même.

Verbalised

I got some good advice this morning, as I was being driven back home from a party.

"Don't be scared not to think."

It's been a while in the making, now I feel I am ready to accept it.

Man To Man

Freshly ripped wings from my back,
at least I can walk
like a man still bleeding;
I cannot fly
missing wings once attached.
Trail shivers in the air

it follows you walking away
it follows as if I were following you

but I cannot lift my spirit
as you stretch out the horizon
and mark the path in my ink.

I'd follow it to find you
but I feel you are
not to be followed;

Instead, I step into another way
clean of knowing;

maybe walking along
I'll see you in my periphery
an empty sky between us.

The Last Day Before Semester 2 Starts

I've spent the past few weeks examless and a couple of weeks before that semi-examless, yet I don't feel I've gone into the mindset of being on holiday. I say mindset because while I have been aware of there being a lack of needing to go to university and to study, all that energy has just been reallocated into other thinking, and some into non-thinking, which has allowed me to realise some things. In no particular order.

1) I take things far too seriously. Somewhere along the way that I can call my life, I switched, likely unconsciously, a switch that made me take whatever happens in my life with heavier hands and more attentive eyes. I think there's two sides to this. One, the 'serious' things that happen to other people (and myself as well), cannot be avoided, and years of counselling and advice-giving has made me think twice about the way they appear. A smile can be a smile. But a smile can conceal. And often what we conceal is what we want to run away from, perhaps when we ought not to be running away from it. The possibility of there being something seriously wrong in someone's psyche has made me think twice about why people do what they do, why they say what they say. And this is where the other side of the issue is revealed, because this, when applied to the majority of situations, means both misinterpretation but also a tendency to overreact to what others do and say. Simple jokes, meaning drenched in sarcasm, become harbours for hidden agendas. A little paranoia, here. And then, bitterness, when I realise those jokes were jokes and I took them seriously. Disappointment at myself for making myself into a fool, but also anger, whether it be towards the jokers, or the jokes themselves, or myself, the butt. Thus a balance is needed, a balance that I believe now to be struck by trust. The trust that whoever has something serious to focalise on, will be assisted in their way by whoever is in the best position to help them. Consequently, I withdraw my responsibility for the actions and feelings of others. If I am needed, I will be there. If I am not, I will not. Amen.

2) There is a difference between loneliness and aloneness, one discovered and clarified by some quotes from Osho. Loneliness is always in relation to the other, and thereby focuses on a lack of the other that is felt as a lack of self. Aloneness, on the other hand, is not relying on another, and simply being aware of the self. So aloneness is not lonely, because it is with the self. And that self relationship is the well from which all things aligned arise at the right time to be met and acted upon. Loneliness is a reflection of dependency, dependency which I realised I was harbouring towards my friends and acquaintances, as well as towards my brother and parents. I'd grown up expecting things of them, and many times they met them, and many times they did not and so I felt cheated, abandoned, a victim at their feet, unseeing his responsibility, my responsibility, for my own actions. I need them. I need you. That is loneliness, and what I want from it would never be fulfilled. It is not difficult to understand, though I am seeing it is taking some time to cement itself in my consciousness, because I have not been used to thinking that aloneness and loneliness were different, and that the previous is positive while the latter negative. I got used to co-dependency, and it is only recently, through pain and surrender to that pain, that I discovered that my fulfillment and joy does not lie in someone else's hands and therefore does not depend upon anyone else's actions. Instead, it comes from within. And paradoxically, it is true to say I am never alone, but I am always alone, since the self-relationship is the only one which is always there, and the more conscious I become, the more rooted I will be, and thus, nurtured and nurturing.

3) "Be fully invested in an effort, but not attached to the outcome." The words of Marianne Williamson. I've found myself so easily carried away into thinking I must control outcomes because success or failure depended upon my efforts, but I have learned it is not so. What do I know what a success is and what a failure is, because after all, they can both happen at the same time, because they are simply different perspectives on the favorableness of an outcome? I can see that things can be seen both as 'good' and as 'bad', so somewhere along the way I must have decided that everything needs to be seen as 'good' in my eyes, and I thought the 'good' was inherent in the outcome and not in the way it is seen. So I tried to fix the outcome, instead of fixing my lenses. I think this 'control' then comes from a faulty sight, seeing untruth as the truth. Knowing, then, that the outcome is neither 'good' nor 'bad' but just is, I do not have to control it, knowing that life will play its part in using whatever outcome it may be to its best use where it is most appropriate, something I cannot judge, but something that awareness itself can. I am grateful for that. It allows me to focus on what I am doing now, instead of what will come about. This, I want to carry on. Though I may stumble, I will allow that, unconcerned about 'getting there' but simply participating on the journey.

4) Having said what I have said about dependency and its affecting my mentality by giving me expectations of others that they need not be burdened with, I am learning to become more independent. Aloneness is sheer independence, according to Osho. I am not saying I do not need to depend on anyone ever again - I need not wall myself in and just meditate for the rest of my existence as this form. What I mean, instead, is that I can relate to others without being attached to them, or what they might do (the outcome). This way, I am not possessive. When I am alone, conscious of myself as myself, independent and thus aware that I do not need anyone else for fulfillment, I can fully invest myself in an activity, whether it is solitary or whether it involves another person. And what will come of that is then of its own accord, perhaps using me as a vessel, but not of me as a form. Amazing things can happen when life flows through. It performs miracles, it permits everything, and guides what needs to be guided back towards itself. Being a vessel for that, is, I believe, the point of this all. It is peace, it is joy. And it does not rely on the serious, unstable, inconsistent, uncertain, me. I am grateful to be.

Open My Eyes

Pinpoints in this relationship
are corneas for the indulgent,
those thoughts I harbored
as I stole from my own coffers,
believing them yours,
believing them rightfully mine.
I carried on, bending to a rule
that distance should be pinned
only by tempting opportunity;
thus I sewed dependent roots
and a tethered foundation,
wanting our minds tethered,
first believing my mind severed.

And I see my mistake,
in believing in my version of events
sediments of loneliness,
ere treasured sorrows.
It is evolution that has lit up
the hallways of my mind
to the reflections of shame.
I owe myself the attention I'd paid
to the wounded you I'd made.
I'm thankful it is as it is,
though it hurt, it was because
I'd kept my eyelids shut to
the world within without.

The Happy Ending Pretending To Continue

How it was meant to be,
in my web of mind,
I've traveled searching
for the way to make it,
into something of value,
the fourth place being,
the fifteen selves really
there, standing side by side,
living lies holiness-wide.

Not all temples have doors.
Not all people rest on ships
and not all saviors dream
about their sentences.

People kill, people die.
Worship ends,
mornings lie,
mornings cry,
spirits bounce
and elves pronounce
incorrectly
the beginning of winter.

My name is
unimportant
because in your ear,
you cannot hear
but what you're
saying,
and you aren't reciting
the truth.

There's no reason for this,
but everyman's punishable
for the hell he opened
when he stopped talking
to himself, turned away
towards the bars of other prisons,
self-made men, self-saved men,
bitten man, hidden man.
Woe, man, woah.

I wanted to know if you were going to look for me
if I'd asked, I kept wondering.
And amidst this wondering, the light suddenly turned inwards.
I wondered whether I'd really wanted you to care.
Because I couldn't see whether you did, so
it left me but with wanting
and with questioning what I'd asked for.
And with enough wanting, I chose the other door.
Why do I want you to care? What would it add to my life?
Everyman wonders and wants to be taken care of, nurtured, paid attention to.
I grant you this, but why does it matter to me? I am either everyman or one.
Who cares? I'd wanted you to.
But what will it mean ultimately, because my wanting is what would've called it firstly,
so it'd be me that cares, through you, about me.

It just feels strange. Dependency calls for reassurance. It is futile, I realise now, to depend on you for the satisfaction and fulfillment of love. Grave expectation. Yet, unreceiving of this, I feel the capacity to move on, to not depend, to be joyful with what I receive from whomsoever but to continue to grow spiritually without clinging to another. You. I still want you in my life, but only because you want to be in it. Only because your spiritual growth matters to me and if I can help with your evolution as an individual then I am willing to be there for you, to love you. If you don't, then, I will not hold on. So I don't hold on to something I made up. So the puzzle pieces can fit together without being forced together.

Release.

The Watchful Self

Arrowhead sipping the colour from my eyes.
He she may not recognise me in my disguise
as a river, with my knees bent into a rush
and my arms dispersed to hide in the gush.
I'm nowhere to be found, having never been lost,
having not been taken apart and further tossed
into the oceans of other minds. Where I belong,
I drink from the wavelengths of a conscious song.
What I would call a hush, a murmur, I hear,
and see without vessels that worlds can tear
into estuaries. Listening, I am blind and deaf,
but a fingerprint on the window to the self.
I stream through, as he she wanders about
through the mistakes of believing in doubt.

Going Where I Don't Know

My feelings aren't hurt,
no, they aren't even alive
to feel what I think they weigh
be dispensed on the sidewalk,
like something worthless,
not worth a second glance,
heck, just a nothing, made up
to excuse my thought-like trance.

Honestly, these expectations
are just too much noise;
I think I'm more, I'm not,
and then the echo deploys.
The world's caught up in it
and my friends all sign up
to what I don't understand,
and I feel it within me erupt.

There isn't much left for words,
forgiveness has already come,
and yet for it to stay with me,
control has to be left alone
so here I go, walking towards
what I don't know, unplanned
and a world's path dodged to find
the one that by it isn't manned.

I'm Listening

I feel alien.
I feel different.
and I feel apart.
because I don't seem to be like everyone else.
because differences are maximised in my mind.
because few, too few, offer to build bridges
and so I have to, cross my heart,
cross these worlds apart and render distance inexistent.

I have to be,
philosophy,
yet have to live,
lie, to fit.
how is this a viable option?
when there are no words,
but those that don't hook onto others.
what language can I speak
so you can understand?
that I feel alone.
that I feel lost.
that I feel like I am a battle without its fighters.
that I know there is no war, but I feel it's worth fighting for.

Teach me to change my habits.
I'm listening.

Care

I found out about a month ago that, personality-wise, I am an INFJ. Apparently it's the rarest of all 16 personality types. This is psychology, and it's not entirely accurate or as intensely applicable for everyone, and I suspect there are blurs between personalities, but the description for INFJ sums up my behavior and mental patters quite well. INFJ stands for Introverted/Introspective Intuitive Feeling Judging.

One trait found in INFJs and me alike, is caring for others. I have said, several times to friends, that I find it difficult not to care about people. I care too much. Whether it manifests in a positive way, such as trying to help someone with a problem, or whether it is more negative, such as caring about what someone somewhere says about me that may be negative. It's a twisted, paradoxical approach to the world and what we call 'life'. Delve, I go.

I care about people. Very much. Even those who tended not to be very nice to me in high school. I fantasised about standing up to them and bringing justice with my witty vocabulary and words of literary steel, but none of that came out really, because I never saw the need for vengeance past the illusion of a thought. I thought the bullies off my bus during my high school years weren't being nice to me when they called me 'gay' or 'big-nose', but I did not think they were bad people, just choosing conflict or preying upon the weak because they felt they had to, somehow, in their minds. I didn't know about egos at the time, but that's effectively what was operating in their minds, I reckon now, retrospectively. They were, still are, human beings, who I felt ought to have been punished, so they would learn from their mistakes. But at the same time, I also felt they needed to be treated with compassion, somewhere behind my peek-a-booing veil of revenge-thoughts. I cared about them even when they hurt me. I couldn't bring myself to harm them, to retaliate. I just went back into my shell, accepting the damage they were dealing me as pain, overthinking about it the next day. Funny times, those were. But I grew past that.

I care about people, even before I meet them. I recognise that you are a human being, and if I meet you, I assume you have a need to be cared for. This care manifests if I can get out from behind the introverted wall that is placed up like a panel against the wind, when we first meet. It comes down the more trust I can build in you. And it isn't very hard to build trust, it just requires you to pay me attention, even just being interested in what I have to say, or asking me questions. But even with that windbreaker, I care about you. I want to hear about your problems and perhaps I could offer you some help with them. Even if they are minor, I enjoy listening and then solving. I am not always right, I do not promise I am. But I feel I can be of service by simply listening, being there. I cherish that position of someone that is 'always there'. If not in body, in spirit. I truly value that because I feel it's a way of interacting and connecting with people, by jumping on their ship and showing them perhaps, if I know, how to steer out of the muddy waters they may find themselves in. I feel useful when I do that, when I help. And afterwards, when they are in calmer seas, I feel good, and still care about them.

The windbreaker I put up is more for my own protection, as a way of preventing hurt from you by not sharing so much with you until I feel it is safe to share that. The way to make me feel safe is by showing me you care enough to listen to what I say without judging me. Judgment is terrifying for me. Well, I have learned to not dwell upon it, but in the moment that it is given, I still am affected by judgments. I haven't yet found the strength to just discard them and move on. But I reckon that will come.

I care. I would like others to care as much as I do, about others, about me. Alas, that does not happen, nor I believe is it meant to. I want to be cared for, yes, while still offering care to others. I believe people who do care for me could communicate that to me. It feels good. It validates my existence, to know that I am not alienated. I don't have to be made to feel special, because that is an illusion and I accept that. But the more selfless I am, without having some of that care returned, the more drained I feel. But expecting... I am expecting... I need to stop that. Because expectations aren't going to be fulfilled.

"A Course In Miracles" says that one should not have any cares, and just trust. So, I trust. I think it refers to cares more of the material type, but, what if it also means the emotional type. Like emotional validation. No 'what ifs'. I remember now. A close friend told me not to do those 'what ifs'. Just go with it. So I leave this question open, and trust in the Answer.

I wonder also whether it is a question of others not being able to express that they care. Or perhaps they don't feel the care at all, and it's just in my head because I want them to care for me as much as I care for them. I realise that people don't do that - they don't show it. And I accept that, I don't need to be overwhelmed by it, as I imagine I would be if the same level of care that I project into the world would be returned on to me. Yet, I want more. And I have been told that I ought to be more selfish. I do want to be cared for. A good friend says to me that that's just being human. Before, I thought thinking something like that was terribly arrogant and demanding. Now, perhaps it isn't quite as horrific, but it still doesn't sit well with me. It feels like I'm asking something of the world that it cannot give. Love, say. Maybe I'm just not seeing it. Maybe I choose not to see it because I want to feel like a victim? That's no winning formula.

But people can give love. I cannot expect it, or I will be disappointed. But I hope, somehow, someday, I will receive love, unhinged, unencumbered, unconditional. And I give because I am given.

Somebody's Anchor

You caught me dreaming again,
held down by the weight of my mind
and I asked for your help up.
but you gave it to me,
so easily, hand from your heart,
I took it with my fingers,
dripping chains, doubtful daze,
dragging mud in my wade.

I have a fear, that
I'm not where I'm supposed to be,
that
I'm weighing you down,
someone's anchor, on one knee
I'm begging for mercy,
and you're still smiling.
It's one more burden I have to carry
to see you happy
though you didn't ask me that,
you didn't ask me for that.

I'm hoping that I'm not dragging you
while I'm trying to float
at the bottom of the ocean
I call lies, you call life,
pieces of harmony
carved together in the sand,
planks of wood reminding me
that I'd wished for irony.

I have a fear, that
I'm standing in the way
of you just understanding that
I cannot be who I say I am,
and you,
you stand there smiling, still,
like I can't feature grim
or make a fool of myself,
someone's anchor,
someone's pillow in the depths.

Finally, cast ashore,
I want to be free
but I cling to you rope
that you tied round your calf
when you pulled out of the sand,
my sanity,
and me with it.

I am scared, still,
drowning in a new air
of responsibility, guilt still heaving
down my breathing.
And you want to float, away,
spirited display, affection.
I just want you to stay.
Don't ever leave me, alone.
You saved from certain death
but I can't live by myself.
I'm somebody's anchor,
and I want to be yours.

Growing Up, In

When we were outside, we'd find ourselves face to face with a gravity-defiant sea of space, pushing us down into the surface of the earth. We'd call that lying down, ears touching the blades of grass that still managed to tickle us while their neighbours were flattened by the weight of our burgeoning craniums. That was our affectionate relationship with nature, our childish imprint upon the ground, it allowing us to be like children. And now, we seem to have grown into something different, older, aware of what we've done by how we see that our surroundings have bent to our wills.

They have allowed our whimsies to shape them, without strife. At times we were hurt, yes, when we pushed too far. Nature would be on its way, though, regardless of what we thought our fortress-building or sculptural selves could achieve. And I think, close to the ground, then, we were being reminded that we, too, are on that same course. We call it life. Nature doesn't call anything anything. And in the realisation is a joining of wills.

We learn to allow, ourselves. That's growth. Then the sea is our yonder. Miracles glow from its depths, our depths.