I'm crying
It seemed, for a moment, that I was to reach out and touch, assembled, all the joys the world had ever known. To feel your sweet and tender breath skimming my lips, to hear your blessed words nourish and sustain me; but as the pain grew worse through listening, I realised that I was deaf.
I'm dallying
Having flirted with so many; not having had a dream for a long time; having slumped off and left you for what seemed the riches, haut and affectations of the demimonde, I return in sweet humility.
I'm stumbling
I stumbled into flummeryblog; a day or two ago, a week ago, a month ago. I thought it was a lonely place. The pretty type all set in pink and grey, the entries unfolding, with vigour for a time, had concluded in an uncertain concoction of reflexive verse.
prick
When you returned from Prick, the tattooist
With that massive carp inked across your soft bicep
Wrapped in damp clingfilm like sweaty hung meat,
I could smell a whiff of your BO.
During four hours of pain
You'd dripped sweat half grimace half grin
As you gained a new emblem,
And when I touched you—a sexy wince.
With that massive carp inked across your soft bicep
Wrapped in damp clingfilm like sweaty hung meat,
I could smell a whiff of your BO.
During four hours of pain
You'd dripped sweat half grimace half grin
As you gained a new emblem,
And when I touched you—a sexy wince.
come prima
Was it possible to guess
The carnival of calls
And many reciprocated texts
Who’s subjects ranged through
Memory, love, sentiment, remorse, regret
(the common themes articulating affection)
Was it possible to guess
The above would soon dissolve quite literally into thin air
With all the visual distortion associated with convection,
Or the wiggly TV dissolve utilised to denote a mystery,
That I'd I willingly melt in your embrace
Whilst rewriting history?
The carnival of calls
And many reciprocated texts
Who’s subjects ranged through
Memory, love, sentiment, remorse, regret
(the common themes articulating affection)
Was it possible to guess
The above would soon dissolve quite literally into thin air
With all the visual distortion associated with convection,
Or the wiggly TV dissolve utilised to denote a mystery,
That I'd I willingly melt in your embrace
Whilst rewriting history?
dolcissimo
Whatever tranquility you craved
Stumbling through April days
Whatever it was you couldn’t find here
I’ll not hinder you with unkind dear
But seal in a lover’s kiss
All the innocence and bliss.
Stumbling through April days
Whatever it was you couldn’t find here
I’ll not hinder you with unkind dear
But seal in a lover’s kiss
All the innocence and bliss.
treasure
When you called me out of the blue
I had no idea that crammed into the months
And years since we last met
Something akin to a kaleidoscope of memories
Had crept and that it would only take
One or two childish shakes to rearrange again
The pretty broken shards into revolving shapes
Funny how these exquisite images of symmetry
Suspended in the little mirror growing
Like precipitated crystals with each rotation
Map with iridescence the excitement,
The agitation of rediscovering a rare treasure
And the knowledge that blinking would erase the magic
And consequently all the joy and pleasure.
I had no idea that crammed into the months
And years since we last met
Something akin to a kaleidoscope of memories
Had crept and that it would only take
One or two childish shakes to rearrange again
The pretty broken shards into revolving shapes
Funny how these exquisite images of symmetry
Suspended in the little mirror growing
Like precipitated crystals with each rotation
Map with iridescence the excitement,
The agitation of rediscovering a rare treasure
And the knowledge that blinking would erase the magic
And consequently all the joy and pleasure.
sospirando
When somebody loves you
Its no good unless he loves you - all the way
I recently asked myself how I got here, how I came to start this blog (I can hardly bring myself to press the keys and form the word without cringing). It all unfolded one evening in front of a tv show about, well, bloggers, some two or three in particular—you’ll know the ones I mean—and there I was, surveying their sites, sampling with head cocked to one side, like a robin listening for worms... then, peck, peck, looking for clues. What were they writing and why had they written?
Happy to be near you,
When you need someone to cheer you, all the way
And I realised that whilst they were pretending to write a diary (the usual stuff packed and pricked with plots) something else was intervening, something that the lonely diarist, wracked with neurosis, scratching at the fibres of his page smudged both by ink and tears, only hints at. In theses texts the writers voice was not stitched behind the charming narrator; here the writers voice did not form the deftly woven tableaux through which the interplay of character and plot were teased and tricked. Here we were asked to be interested in… ah… the writer himself. And it was thus I realised—like a bird looking up, listening to what we do not hear, hearing what we do not understand—that stabled before me were some of the hungriest egos of our time, and this is why I was cringing… earlier on, remember?
Taller than the tallest tree is
That’s how its got to feel
Deeper than the deep blue see is
That’s how deep it goes - if its real
Funny… that night, I drifted off quickly from those first blogs… there were links of course, and comments and all the trappings, the stepping-stones if you will, that nimbly guided me from one site to another. I got a little splashed along the way of course, but I found myself, well, found some stuff that maneuvered my spirits, kind of fucked me over in a way… the way the curve of your lips could rewrite history.
I pretended I had found a community of people with blood and emotions, a society condemned to live by their confessions alone, a clan of neurotic individuals for whom the publishing of these coughings-up was a massage to their egos as the analyst massages the id.
When somebody needs you
Its no good unless he needs you - all the way
Through the good or lean years
And for all the in between years - come what may
I was astonished by the naked hunger demonstrated by these texts. So disenchanted was I by their rapacious and unquenchable thirst for glory that I ran for cover more quickly than I had arrived. Yet cowering—like mole, in his snowy tree-stump in the wild wood, longing for his dear friend ratty-—I heard a sigh, the sound that comes from a body expressing the emotion of absence. It was me… as if each of my breaths, being incomplete, sought to mingle with the other. I was, sadly, unglued, drying, yellowing, shrivelling. It had only been fifteen hours and seventeen days since I took my blog away, I’d been out all night and slept all day, since I took my blog away. And unlike the seventeen-year periodic cicada, it had taken me only seventeen days to dissolve into amorous absence.
Who knows where the road will lead us
Only a fool would say
But if you’ll let me love you
Its for sure I’m gonna love you - all the way, all the way
Bring your lips to mine, so that out of my mouth my soul may pass into yours.
Its no good unless he loves you - all the way
I recently asked myself how I got here, how I came to start this blog (I can hardly bring myself to press the keys and form the word without cringing). It all unfolded one evening in front of a tv show about, well, bloggers, some two or three in particular—you’ll know the ones I mean—and there I was, surveying their sites, sampling with head cocked to one side, like a robin listening for worms... then, peck, peck, looking for clues. What were they writing and why had they written?
Happy to be near you,
When you need someone to cheer you, all the way
And I realised that whilst they were pretending to write a diary (the usual stuff packed and pricked with plots) something else was intervening, something that the lonely diarist, wracked with neurosis, scratching at the fibres of his page smudged both by ink and tears, only hints at. In theses texts the writers voice was not stitched behind the charming narrator; here the writers voice did not form the deftly woven tableaux through which the interplay of character and plot were teased and tricked. Here we were asked to be interested in… ah… the writer himself. And it was thus I realised—like a bird looking up, listening to what we do not hear, hearing what we do not understand—that stabled before me were some of the hungriest egos of our time, and this is why I was cringing… earlier on, remember?
Taller than the tallest tree is
That’s how its got to feel
Deeper than the deep blue see is
That’s how deep it goes - if its real
Funny… that night, I drifted off quickly from those first blogs… there were links of course, and comments and all the trappings, the stepping-stones if you will, that nimbly guided me from one site to another. I got a little splashed along the way of course, but I found myself, well, found some stuff that maneuvered my spirits, kind of fucked me over in a way… the way the curve of your lips could rewrite history.
I pretended I had found a community of people with blood and emotions, a society condemned to live by their confessions alone, a clan of neurotic individuals for whom the publishing of these coughings-up was a massage to their egos as the analyst massages the id.
When somebody needs you
Its no good unless he needs you - all the way
Through the good or lean years
And for all the in between years - come what may
I was astonished by the naked hunger demonstrated by these texts. So disenchanted was I by their rapacious and unquenchable thirst for glory that I ran for cover more quickly than I had arrived. Yet cowering—like mole, in his snowy tree-stump in the wild wood, longing for his dear friend ratty-—I heard a sigh, the sound that comes from a body expressing the emotion of absence. It was me… as if each of my breaths, being incomplete, sought to mingle with the other. I was, sadly, unglued, drying, yellowing, shrivelling. It had only been fifteen hours and seventeen days since I took my blog away, I’d been out all night and slept all day, since I took my blog away. And unlike the seventeen-year periodic cicada, it had taken me only seventeen days to dissolve into amorous absence.
Who knows where the road will lead us
Only a fool would say
But if you’ll let me love you
Its for sure I’m gonna love you - all the way, all the way
Bring your lips to mine, so that out of my mouth my soul may pass into yours.
17
Seventeen years here. Here in the dark. No sound. Almost no sound. There’s the scurrying of course. Is it scurrying? No. It’s certainly, what would you call it, footfall? Yes, somewhere up there, dull undefined footfall. And the sounds here—scratchings, scrapings—all the sounds that reach this point below, which make their traffic through the leaf litter and the soil into this rotten retreat, if that’s what you could call it, are so vague as to be indistinguishable. In fact, you might say, that we’ve been here so long, that trying to distinguish one sound from the other is nigh on impossible. The result of a kind of apathy of waiting I suppose… what else would you call it? As sure as the diurnal relief of night giving birth to day (we know nothing of these matters here), the equinoctial marking of the seasons pass, the years unfold unnoticed.
Year after year of lying here
A serenading I would go.
Nymphs. That’s what they call us. And its not that anyone is around to take notice. Oh, look, those bloody nymphs are at it again! Nope, we’re not at anything. Actually the contrary is true: we're busy doing nothing, whatsoever. Waiting. Biding our time. Biding our time whilst nature awaits our deplorable gift. And as sure as the spring and autumn equinox measures the growing and shortening of the days, we wait. Getting fat.
Year after year of lying here
A courting I would go.
You can imagine it… complacency, boredom—call it what you will—a kind of tedium sets in, and the mind bluffs, beguiles, loses focus, is hooked on the mulling over of… is imagining (if such things are imaginable) is calculating the passage of time, the passing of the winter and summer solstice. One year, five years, ten years, fifteen years. It all the same. It all blends. Here in the dark. Hardly able to move. Breathing, feeling the tightly hugging earthy grave.
Year after year of lying here
A mating I would go.
Suddenly a shout goes out, a rasping call, there’s the scraping of carapace, against… something; the scratching of legs amongst grit, panic abounds and incredibly, after seventeen lonely years below, we claw with one ambition, tunnel and haul ourselves up—up to the drying rays of the sun, and with twitchings, and palpitations, crack out of dry casings to stretch our fresh formed slender still-damp wings. Flexing to yield our serenade of eros and eloquence that lasts for one night only, we fight up tree and branch, scramble higher, yes, higher, to find a mate, to sing, to audaciously flex our new formed wings, to seal our fate.
After seventeen years of lying here
I’m dead of course.
Having found a mate, eggs laid, the seventeen year periodic cicada drops dead to the floor. Like a brittle carpet formed from twiglets, the cicadas lie crisp underfoot and return their macabre gift—the largest dose of fertilizer in the natural world; as eggs hatch, nymphs traffic through the leaf litter and soil, to their rotten retreat below, in the deep dark wood.
Seventeen years I’ll be lying here
Getting fat.
Year after year of lying here
A serenading I would go.
Nymphs. That’s what they call us. And its not that anyone is around to take notice. Oh, look, those bloody nymphs are at it again! Nope, we’re not at anything. Actually the contrary is true: we're busy doing nothing, whatsoever. Waiting. Biding our time. Biding our time whilst nature awaits our deplorable gift. And as sure as the spring and autumn equinox measures the growing and shortening of the days, we wait. Getting fat.
Year after year of lying here
A courting I would go.
You can imagine it… complacency, boredom—call it what you will—a kind of tedium sets in, and the mind bluffs, beguiles, loses focus, is hooked on the mulling over of… is imagining (if such things are imaginable) is calculating the passage of time, the passing of the winter and summer solstice. One year, five years, ten years, fifteen years. It all the same. It all blends. Here in the dark. Hardly able to move. Breathing, feeling the tightly hugging earthy grave.
Year after year of lying here
A mating I would go.
Suddenly a shout goes out, a rasping call, there’s the scraping of carapace, against… something; the scratching of legs amongst grit, panic abounds and incredibly, after seventeen lonely years below, we claw with one ambition, tunnel and haul ourselves up—up to the drying rays of the sun, and with twitchings, and palpitations, crack out of dry casings to stretch our fresh formed slender still-damp wings. Flexing to yield our serenade of eros and eloquence that lasts for one night only, we fight up tree and branch, scramble higher, yes, higher, to find a mate, to sing, to audaciously flex our new formed wings, to seal our fate.
After seventeen years of lying here
I’m dead of course.
Having found a mate, eggs laid, the seventeen year periodic cicada drops dead to the floor. Like a brittle carpet formed from twiglets, the cicadas lie crisp underfoot and return their macabre gift—the largest dose of fertilizer in the natural world; as eggs hatch, nymphs traffic through the leaf litter and soil, to their rotten retreat below, in the deep dark wood.
Seventeen years I’ll be lying here
Getting fat.
getting there
Whilst once again wondering what to write, where to begin, how it will end, where occurs the middle by which I may commence—as it were—the tormented countdown to some kind of conclusion; in what direction I will launch my address, by which I suppose I mean, who will be listening—yes, yes, we have briefly squinted at these questions before, dwelt several times on their impact, in fact I have already perhaps tired you out with them—it occurs to me that writing is like travelling, a journey without end where plots pass like moving landscapes, slipping predictably from this comma, to this ellipsis…
Scenes zip by relentlessly like the back-end of towns: backyards littered with broken swings, bicycles tossed to the ground, thrashing threads of strung out washing and sheds surveyed from the window of a train. Against the rhythmic clatter of train wheels on tracks, travelling assumes a kind of suspended disbelief, neither arriving nor leaving, crying or laughing, whispering or screaming; vista, town, ocean and mountain pass like plots packed with characters waiting to be cast, unfolding like a thousand stories waiting to be told. I love this no-where-ness of transit.
This getting-there of travel is a kind of floatation—the suspension of arrival—and the pleasure is the pleasure of reading not terrorised by foreclosure. Getting-there is so pricked with excited restlessness, like the book one cannot bare to finish, like the narrative, so ensnaring that one has to look up, stop reading, in order to release the delicious pleasure contained within the words so sweetly stitched. So entangling can be its spell that one despairs of the release wrapped up in the last sentence, afraid of the abandonment and the loneliness after the last word is cast, no further page to turn, but the cover left to close.
The suspended fictional world cruises us, then seduces us so completely, in so brutal yet enchanting a manner, that to finish is like arriving, like tumbling—at our destination—from it’s beguiling net, only to dream of travelling-on once more, wistfully into the night, the patina of the city’s dancing lamp-light calling us to suspend once again, and float away to that other place, away to Never-Never land, to The Wild Wood, to the Emerald City, without the muting, dulling anticipation, without the arrest that foreclosure affords.
Mummy, are we there yet?
Mummy, can you tell me a story?
Mummy, can you read it again?
Mummy, I don’t want it to finish.
And as the various combinations of words and characters in our favourite plots never fails to give pleasure so long as they endure, so their repeated telling only reassures and cocoons us, casts its inspiriting world of images, and like our journey, it’s all about the getting there not the arriving. It’s about the writer’s ego-centric pleasure in the bric-a-brac of telling. We don’t mind how often the tale is told, just keep on telling it.
And like the authors of our favourite blogs, perhaps it is not the what they’re telling us that we listen to, but how they get there, the chosen mechanism of their transport, the grain of their voice.
We love getting there; it’s just that we don’t know where we’re going yet.
Scenes zip by relentlessly like the back-end of towns: backyards littered with broken swings, bicycles tossed to the ground, thrashing threads of strung out washing and sheds surveyed from the window of a train. Against the rhythmic clatter of train wheels on tracks, travelling assumes a kind of suspended disbelief, neither arriving nor leaving, crying or laughing, whispering or screaming; vista, town, ocean and mountain pass like plots packed with characters waiting to be cast, unfolding like a thousand stories waiting to be told. I love this no-where-ness of transit.
This getting-there of travel is a kind of floatation—the suspension of arrival—and the pleasure is the pleasure of reading not terrorised by foreclosure. Getting-there is so pricked with excited restlessness, like the book one cannot bare to finish, like the narrative, so ensnaring that one has to look up, stop reading, in order to release the delicious pleasure contained within the words so sweetly stitched. So entangling can be its spell that one despairs of the release wrapped up in the last sentence, afraid of the abandonment and the loneliness after the last word is cast, no further page to turn, but the cover left to close.
The suspended fictional world cruises us, then seduces us so completely, in so brutal yet enchanting a manner, that to finish is like arriving, like tumbling—at our destination—from it’s beguiling net, only to dream of travelling-on once more, wistfully into the night, the patina of the city’s dancing lamp-light calling us to suspend once again, and float away to that other place, away to Never-Never land, to The Wild Wood, to the Emerald City, without the muting, dulling anticipation, without the arrest that foreclosure affords.
Mummy, are we there yet?
Mummy, can you tell me a story?
Mummy, can you read it again?
Mummy, I don’t want it to finish.
And as the various combinations of words and characters in our favourite plots never fails to give pleasure so long as they endure, so their repeated telling only reassures and cocoons us, casts its inspiriting world of images, and like our journey, it’s all about the getting there not the arriving. It’s about the writer’s ego-centric pleasure in the bric-a-brac of telling. We don’t mind how often the tale is told, just keep on telling it.
And like the authors of our favourite blogs, perhaps it is not the what they’re telling us that we listen to, but how they get there, the chosen mechanism of their transport, the grain of their voice.
We love getting there; it’s just that we don’t know where we’re going yet.
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