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.