A buzzing in the ears as if bees
were swarming in my thoughtsor as if my head had become
a clearing in the forestfilled with the never-too-late serenades
of cicadas at summer’s endmakes me long for the gritty obscurity
of the west’s wavesor the suave silence of eastern lagoons
through which pouting fishmutely swim. On the other hand,
if I listen carefully enoughto the sound of my own listening,
I might eventually hear something.The hum of longing seems to fade at last
into a kind of aural impasto,thick and bland, without apparent surface
but also without depth.Neither meniscus nor void, without perspective,
not flat and not profound,without extent or distance, not able to be touched
and incapable of penetration,not flattened so as to stack up the shoreline,
the sea, the salty spume, the sky,but not tricked out as a mirrored infinity
or a beach-walk into the never-never,neither free nor necessary,
not imaginary and not a law of nature,not spirit, not matter, without colour
but not the whiteness of all colour,not abstract, not phenomenal,
not even the kind of paradoxthat would let me end this
hapless catalogue, not ‘a jar’both round and empty that might make
the wilderness gather itselfaround a hollow core of form, nothing like that,
nothing like ‘a long-legged fly’walking lightly on water
as a metaphor for the mindmoving across the surface of silence,
nothing like that –so what am I saying? That this may be
the sound of consciousness?But how, then, to imagine the silence
of oblivion, a kind of oxymoron,since there can be no silence
where its opposite doesn’t equally prevail,the waterlogged yells of those
whose upraised armsmark places where the frothing rip
drags forests of kelpin the direction of shipwrecks
whose phosphorescent ribsflicker above their beds of black iron-sand,
or the hilarious shrieksof revellers impacting
on the dawn-flushed harbour?Yes, this could be the no-sound no-silence
of oblivion, but whatwould I know? It’s the busy world
that sits outside my windowas if across a table
with wine and food on it.Indifferent to the buzzing in my ears,
asking only that I listen and respond,the world tells me stories.
That car whose windscreen glints across the bayhas a sad man in it. That yacht whose bow
pecks the wrinkled harbourwill still be tethered when
the next tide turns. The squawky soundof talkback radio seems to come
from a patch of sunlightor from the cat that basks there.
I want to call out to my lifeguards,the one who watches my hope
flailing at the rip, the otherincurious as I loll in dismay:
Over here, guys. Find a seat. Fill a glass.Help yourselves. Has anyone told you
what a great job you do?It’s never too late. But listen to that.
You’re not going to believe it.Tell me, friends –
what does that sound like to you?
- 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