Eating slow, mouth agape, I ask for mornings off and wait.
I stuff a whole landscape in my mouth—
I think that there are poems in the air,
on this apple skin,
on the porous rind of an orange,
in the slow establishing shot of a body, in sunlight,
on the shore of a beach of a planet,
in the rerun of a forgotten classic film on late-night tv,
in the flare of a nostril,
in the holding of a door, expectant,
in the light that happens when late afternoon transitions into dusk,
in the sharp pause before an exhale,
in the catch of a word in a throat,
in the town you grew up in,
in the first realisation that this is life, hey,
in the curve of the arc of a finger down to the wrist,
in the first time your hand was held with intention,
of a feeling that screams: I like to be around you,
in the way that soft plastic rips too easily,
in the dent that a body leaves in a two-year-old mattress,
in an awareness of your body in space when walking around a place and suddenly it becomes
smaller than initially felt,
in the fold of a lap of a wave,
in how we turn every little thing we say into the biggest event possible,
in the edges of my field of vision,
in textures,
in abstraction,
in a refusal of smoothness
/ in the asking,
/ and in the giving,
in the intense circularity that a finger twists a strand of hair,
in the idea of listening as a type of meeting: an event, an occurrence,
in the question: what does it mean to write a life? Or a moment?This is the pressing of a heart
in the unconscious struggle against form,
in interpretation,
in a body being “beyond the normative codes of visual recognition,”
in stepping back, in asking, is this right, will this do?
in the winter sun, a still life, I take an image from the air,
in photographing the musicality of absence,
in the expectant wait between drop-off and development,
in the experience of a street from an angle you thought you forgot,
in the length of the space of a song you put on at karaoke,
in the fade-out,
in the plane of descent between meaning and example,
in the gap between window and curtain,
in the maddening desire for the thing that I do not yet know,
in a word on the tip of the tongue,
in lovesickness,
in entanglement,
in both shame and in joy,
in the fantasy of hips on hips, hands on hips, lips on hands, hands on hands, lips on lips,
in the fantasy of a life in which we can spend big,
in the promise of leftovers,
in your favourite tote bag,
in the feeling of a day, ready as ransom,
in translating the space between body and gesture: boundless and incomplete,
in the empty yet urgent thereness of an airport,
in the passage of time as accumulation, breathing in,
in the temporal dislocation of a Sunday,there is no afternoon there,
in penance, like water, unable to hold, slowly apart of you,
in the feeling that yes! my new medication is working,
in explaining the dynamics of a dream and in the crucial action of it all,
in the afterimage of a face, left for a few more seconds where it once was,
in taking the best bits of a daydream and turning them into warm syllables,
in the silhouette of a body living, nothing more,
in getting a bruise from sitting too tightly cross-legged,
in reading a novel that makes your brain go zap,
in imposing on motion the human meaning of what it feels to be ill,
in developing a personal style,
in the feedback loop of an algorithm that knows you too well,
in that decade-long friendship you found online,
in the favourites photo folder in your phone (an archive)
in that out-of-time period of childhood where years folded into days,
in fresh bread,
in every absurd pattern, seldom spoken,
in that profound yearning for both release and submission,
in seeing and believing, an exit strategy, a graceful knowing.I know, I know. In my head, in my art, I want to be ready.
A thing of ease,
a way of easy being,
a pressing of the heart.
- 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