The refrigerator’s humming outside
and I like that.
Outside of any use I could make of it.
But I can’t see it now,
cause I’m in a different suburb, but this reminds me
of how I used to like
the ‘Here’s Too-ee’ sign, lit up at night, in steam,
in the headlights. The freezing lines,
weather-forecast needs, indeterminate
flow of large blurred lights becoming objects again.
Trying to fragment the sense
but it doesn’t work, because of
the connections, between words and
each other. You try to attend,
but not attend properly, or try
not to attend – but you do. If this is manic
it’s fairly restrained. It’s probably relaxed
really: a hammock swinging in the
backyard of a sense of
quiet retrieval, of the linguistic connections
that constitute the idea,
or of something automatic
behind it.
You think it: Time, small
parcels of thought in train that
move darkly past unopened, familiar beneath
their disguises, the disguises that saying ‘No’ lends
each of them – and are
incognito, as in Who wants to know?
Wait, your hand reaches for
a beer, but the fridge is stuck.
And relaxes across your chest, your glass empty.
You go to sleep fully
apprised emotionally, and calm.
Falling out of the air
with both arms,
but in charge somehow and not desperate, as though
your worst fears
had telegraphed the vicissitudes you deal with.
Then outside again and clutching the rail
which is very nicely cool
and makes the hand relax actually.*
The air-conditioning like distant aircraft
or the way trucks hum at night in sleep.
Most things at night make the mind relax,
(against the grain, again), like lightning
illuminates the real world but discharges
ions that soothe anyway.
Inside, the telly rages greyly
as a channel switches off. You go inside
and change it, and come outside again, the new
image bouncing, reflected, in the glass behind.
And time for this thought:
each image occupies its own
parentheses, without surprise, appearing
one at a time, although it’s a dream
from the details of an ordinary day,
carrier waves to an idea or impulse
that can only be named …
where you know the name of something
best by just not thinking about it
– by ignoring them, in their immediacy,
their fascination – epiphenomena
to an aspiration – as you reflect upon
an ‘ideal’ of self-quotation,
remembering how you had looked up
to the sun above the top floors of buildings,
where the light hits,
as, below, the silent swimmers
appear, one by one, in the streets,
in the calm erasure of their paths through space,
without reflection and unknown to you,
all the days that beat like waves, black and white,
where a white froth of minutes is ineluctable
and inevitable and you too far to care.
Though caring is the least part. Let’s say, you
simply leave it, as someone shouts
up from a lift shaft, and lights appear,
rising from the airport, across the city.
A face looks down. Your face? Your own,
or the image in your mind’s eye that expresses
your attitude? Over and over, like a pop song you hate
but cannot ignore, these words: these truths
harm you to attend and are final – you stand ‘outside’
to think them, but you are outside
really, now,
and a few other occasions like these.
- 115: SPACE
with A Sometimes
114: NO THEME 13
with J Toledo & C Tse
113: INVISIBLE WALLS
with A Walker & D Disney
112: TREAT
with T Dearborn
111: BABY
with S Deo & L Ferney
110: POP!
with Z Frost & B Jessen
109: NO THEME 12
with C Maling & N Rhook
108: DEDICATION
with L Patterson & L Garcia-Dolnik
107: LIMINAL
with B Li
106: OPEN
with C Lowe & J Langdon
105: NO THEME 11
with E Grills & E Stewart
104: KIN
with E Shiosaki
103: AMBLE
with E Gomez and S Gory
102: GAME
with R Green and J Maxwell
101: NO THEME 10
with J Kinsella and J Leanne
100: BROWNFACE
with W S Dunn
99: SINGAPORE
with J Ip and A Pang
97 & 98: PROPAGANDA
with M Breeze and S Groth
96: NO THEME IX
with M Gill and J Thayil
95: EARTH
with M Takolander
94: BAYT
with Z Hashem Beck
93: PEACH
with L Van, G Mouratidis, L Toong
92: NO THEME VIII
with C Gaskin
91: MONSTER
with N Curnow
90: AFRICAN DIASPORA
with S Umar
89: DOMESTIC
with N Harkin
88: TRANSQUEER
with S Barnes and Q Eades
87: DIFFICULT
with O Schwartz & H Isemonger
86: NO THEME VII
with L Gorton
85: PHILIPPINES
with Mookie L and S Lua
84: SUBURBIA
with L Brown and N O'Reilly
83: MATHEMATICS
with F Hile
82: LAND
with J Stuart and J Gibian
81: NEW CARIBBEAN
with V Lucien
80: NO THEME VI
with J Beveridge
57.1: EKPHRASTIC
with C Atherton and P Hetherington
57: CONFESSION
with K Glastonbury
56: EXPLODE
with D Disney
55.1: DALIT / INDIGENOUS
with M Chakraborty and K MacCarter
55: FUTURE MACHINES
with Bella Li
54: NO THEME V
with F Wright and O Sakr
53.0: THE END
with P Brown
52.0: TOIL
with C Jenkins
51.1: UMAMI
with L Davies and Lifted Brow
51.0: TRANSTASMAN
with B Cassidy
50.0: NO THEME IV
with J Tranter
49.1: A BRITISH / IRISH
with M Hall and S Seita
49.0: OBSOLETE
with T Ryan
48.1: CANADA
with K MacCarter and S Rhodes
48.0: CONSTRAINT
with C Wakeling
47.0: COLLABORATION
with L Armand and H Lambert
46.1: MELBOURNE
with M Farrell
46.0: NO THEME III
with F Plunkett
45.0: SILENCE
with J Owen
44.0: GONDWANALAND
with D Motion
43.1: PUMPKIN
with K MacCarter
43.0: MASQUE
with A Vickery
42.0: NO THEME II
with G Ryan
41.1: RATBAGGERY
with D Hose
41.0: TRANSPACIFIC
with J Rowe and M Nardone
40.1: INDONESIA
with K MacCarter
40.0: INTERLOCUTOR
with L Hart
39.1: GIBBERBIRD
with S Gory
39.0: JACKPOT!
with S Wagan Watson
38.0: SYDNEY
with A Lorange
37.1: NEBRASKA
with S Whalen
37.0: NO THEME!
with A Wearne
36.0: ELECTRONICA
with J Jones