thoughts (fragments)

'Manas, we went through the repentance business yesterday. I told you what I thought. I won't do it. I appeared before an officially consituted tribunal, before a branch of the law. Before that secular tribunal I pleaded guilty, a secular plea. That plea should suffice. Repentance is neither here nor there. Repentance belongs to another world, to another universe of discourse.'

____from Disgrace, JM Coetzee






gelbes licht by suzy yes


RAGING LAMB

it's after the pills wear off that it dawns on me. after the pills are gone and i've slept for 4, maybe 5 days straight. wake to eat, then collapse again, 8 hours on my couch after breakfast till my mother wakes me and i've slobbered and there's a plate with my breakfast on it within arms reach, and i've brushed my teeth and dazed and hazy-brained stumbled to my bed for another 10 hours till i wake some day maybe the next one maybe the one after with a god awful back ache and had another bowl of eggs and collapsed on my couch read half a chapter then wake up it's midnight; ____after all that; ____and after the books are packed away and the scraps of paper all over the floor from where i've wrote-learnt pages and pages of facts and section numbers and mind-maps of this and that, and the bathroom is vacuumed and the bedsheets are washed, and my heart-rate slows back down to nearly acceptable levels, after all that;

________then i notice what we're left with.

our parents bitching at each other or divorcing or both or neither; sitting in cars in traffic jams while the heat affects us in waves like a pendulum, or the ebbs and flow of tides so you can feel periodic rampages growing inside, subsiding for a second, then, tick (it returns), tock (it goes), tick (it returns), tock (it goes), each time coming holding a knife or a piece of wood to pummel you with, bludgeoning the final gasps out of another idle tuesday with too many errands that aren't your problem made your problem and the stench of burning rubber as they do roadworks and your ears filled with screams and paranoiac moanings of incapacitated family members once and for all you'd like to see locked within the confines of a silent film from the 30's or behind prison glass or whatever other medium can be devised with a mute button.
____by 10am my eyes are heavy and i keep dropping the fork, when no one's looking i take a pill to get me through till midday. the narcolepsy gives me the finger but at least i can drive without being a health hazard.

after the haze of drug crammed exam weeks and law competitions and folders full of papers read and remembered and noted and recalled and forgotten and oh yeah! remembered again just in time, woken again out of my 12 week comatose obsessive-compulsive dream, life is exactly what i remember it being: the bitchings and moanings of our hopeless mothers and deluded fathers and disabled sisters with their heavy anchors wrapped around our necks calling in their debts which somehow always manage to be unpaid.

________fu&* this.


*___*___*

THINGS I WROTE IN MY WILLS&ESTATES EXAM, A LIST:

"... with the estate vested in the custody of the Masters of the Court of Chancery..."

"... the Court likely regard it as a matter of omnia ritte esse acta praesumuntur..."

"... s 59 has been said to have 'obliterated the anachronisms and anomalies of the former law."

"... rather, to paraphrase Salmond J in Re Allen, the provision that 'a just & wise father' would feel it his obligation ... the High Court, sadly, not been wise in being too just."


*___*___*

even if the nightmares subsist, there's still the future-fear. i can't remember the last time i noticed the moon. there is no air. this is not working for me. i am going to get coffee and breathe air and read.
bye.

notapoem

home stretch by Julia Pott


if you have nothing to say then you are nothing they say
it seems to me only that this table is white ,
that it is too warm for autumn ,
__(too bright for it to be tonight
____so then i must have nothing to say

all this time unused words continue to pile up
they make a thin film, like dust maybe ; like books and dishes and pizza boxes all over

(sometimes i tire of fantasizing about headlights and carousels and hometowns that stood in one place long enough to make sense,

god you're dull, tell me a story. ; 'there was this piano once' (it began), but before i could recall -
enough. (if you have nothing to say then you are

it seems to me only that tonight is (bleeds away from itself,
slips its fingers into sunrise and locks in tight and opens its eyes to a blueness
(she's looking in the mirror, says to me they're soo blue! i nod and she asks how blue? and i say vintage anatomy textbooks, faded pictures of the half blueness of the veins in my our these known empty parts of hearts but before i can settle the score) opens its eyes to a blueness,
morning like a stab of sincerity -

__that tonight is a dreamscape galleon floating , and that if you concentrate you can feel the warmth of stars pinpricks on your face when you wake left marks you have freckles, single-manned galleons and epic shrouds of darkness (when i cried i told her i couldn't sense if i was falling or rising, she said maybe it was neither, i said that maybe it was both)

____and tonight itself walks besides me,
pens and empty cans and tissue boxes are its teeth and
(as usual she reminds me i have lost myself mid sentence again ,
ran out of words, or ran out in front of them,

the forefront of life distance love humanity improbapossibility is silence, __and i ____sit ,
___________________________________________________out on a ledge
___________________________________________________kissing time
__________________________________________________and waiting
________________________________________________for my bones
________________________________________________to catch up.

meanwhile, books lapdance their stories and yapping girls in
giggly dresses with erect heels and nail polish crawl out from
behind every 3am and blow you kisses you're impotent to catch.

27 years and you don't got a story to help us pass tha time?
i always thought 27 years the story's been passing me along
you make no sense kid.


the Dr says it's good you came,
i ask him if it's a game of win or lose
and he says games you can't win at you can't lose at,
but before i finish smiling he says but maybe it's no game.

when you wake up you got two hours in the dollar and an amphetamine headache and a missed-call your girlfriend wants to know what gravity drags you through 3, 4, 5am or if it's just that you eat sunrise for breakfast.


you definitely got nothing to say kid, which is to say you probably are nothing

if only words knew the same stories as silence

but this is no life for dreams.

is it.

the too late part of the too late night

everybody loves somebunny by lauryn holmquist


sometimes it makes good sense to download 250 top hits of the 90s and to spend most of the night listening to them. i keep thinking any second Mr Jones is gonna come storming into my room holding a grey guitar ranting about some spanish girl he saw dancing with perfect black hair and throw me a bottle of Jack and pick my meds off the table and read the label with some difficulty, deehhxx, aah, phet, a-mine. hmm. and then throw me that too, tell me to mix em up nice. and to scratch his short beard and throw his long hair around and then say yo kiddo, lehss go, turning and walking out without checking to see if i'm following; __but next thing i know we're sitting on the roof of a building somewhere screaming PICASSO! loud as we can eyes-soo red we think we're on mars and finally, at some bar somewhere dancing the two of us holding hands and crying into each others' ears, don't say that word don't say that word don't say that word while we smell _l o n e l i n e s s_ in our heads uncontrollably. before, finally, in a fit of exhaustion we collapse into a small booth with two blonde 19 year old hairdresser-apprentices who complain about how their feet are uncomfortable in their heels and we look under a table and our groins twitch at their little feet in those long-necked aphrodisiacs. i think she's lookin' at you i say. but he just shakes his head without taking his eyes off her.


*___*___*

if you want to know why i don't write more it's because exams are two weeks away. and because i sometimes, especially lately, just... [he sits and stares away a while. she waits for him to answer; but after a few moments thinks she's probably lost him again.
___and that's just the thing with him, he lives somewhere between his thoughts and the interpretation of his thoughts he does (and does not) find around him in his daily life. and when he finds things contrary to what he thought he becomes confused and... [he sits and stares away a while. she waits for him to answer; but after a few moments she thinks she's probably lost hima again.


*___*___*

tomorrow we can drive around this town
let the cops chase us around
past is going something might be found
to take its place,

__(the 90s kick ass)


*___*___*

THINGS I PLAN ON DOING WHEN MY BREAK STARTS IN TWO WEEKS: A LIST;

1. is that ocean?, if it is, i want to sit by it and breathe a little.

2. read. i have books everywhere, you can' reach to turn off a lamp or close a door without disturbing a small colony of books living on desks and under coffee tables and littering the couch. anything will do. maybe John Ashbery. dear poetry, it's been too long.

3. listen to the well-tempered klavier with the score in my lap.

4. dream.


*___*___*

- oh, lookee here, now we have tired-Q.
- whha?
- we've had four Q's tonight, it's been hectic
- [for me too... trust that] whhich?
- first we had drugged-up wide-eyed no-emotion Q. then after the movie we had crazy run around me giving me the finger dancing to the bathroom Q. then for a while over coffee we just had normal Q. and now we have falling asleep tired totally retarded Q.
- ...
- you're asleep aren't you?
- ...


*___*___*

when i was 12 i would blast Who Is It? by Michael Jackson out my bedroom with the window open, which i'd dance to like a mid-fit epileptic while playing basketball while taking breaks to dance with my overweight cat named Molly that i'd become allergic to in a week or two and would eventually have to get rid of to my still enduring sadness.


*___*___*

these are nocturnisms i guess. if that means anything.
i like to think of it though, that 3:18am Wed 7th April is kinda a strange planet somewhere. like i'm a man who lives on a moon somewhere who walks around kicking rocks and dipping cookies in tea and masturbating and who no one knows about. my neighbors think it's just a light in the house across the street that no one ever bothers to turn off.

floating off.

in our strange galaxies.

listening to Michael Jackson and thinking about cats and forthcoming autumns and when life became an is that was possible of a was.

what i mean is...
___[




______________________________________________________]

_____what?

hello 4:21am

IMG_1718 by Andrew J Keep <--- awesome person


sometimes you write to create the world you wish you had. beautiful women. restful nights. large Southern houses with white bay windows. two parents. that kinda thing. sometimes you write to vent what you actually got in your pocket. (rather, what you don't got). most of the time comes right down the middle. fragments of wishfulness and autobiography. meaning, i transmogrify myself into limbs and outbursts and chorus chants and dreamscapes and paranoia and end up right back in my bedroom at 4:24am still writing the same blahblah still thinking the same blahblah and still satisfied enough to try again.

(sidenote: i have green knight by the memory tapes stuck in my head i'm listening to it for the 10th time today).


*___*___*

___'he's a force of nature'
___'you're a force of nature'
___'na-uh. he's a force of nature'
___'fine. he's a force of nature'
___'see. now you get it'
___'yah. i get it. he's a force of nature. and you're a chump'


*___*___*

maybe i just always like to be up at this time because it's my own little private uninhabited world where no one calls or emails or texts and there's absolutely nothing useful that can be done at 4:32am so you drift off and spend some time embodying inanimate objects and another hour as a shade of slightly not soo dark shadow under the coffee table and read a little and listen to something or another and sunrise is always worth the 99c magic show and for a little while it's the quiet place you always wished it was and for a little while it's all yours and no one elses and for a little while it can be anything you want it to be the perfect life-sized playground made of libraries and concert halls and perfect black pens and when i'm lucky (sometimes) from time to time she sleeps in my bed and makes a soft purring sound and i look over from my desk every now and then to see the contours of her body and the silhouette of her skin and her little feet and her this and that under briefs and a singlet.


*___*___*

when it is fall and i am in chicago i will drink hot chocolate in the law library and walk with my hands in my black pea-coat pockets and keep to myself and share my thoughts with the Balthus'es hanging in the Art Institute and when people ask me questions i'll just smile and say i have no idea.


*___*___*

___'i don't know if you're aware or not, but you did that entire moot without looking at any notes'
___'uhm'
___'you were quoting judgments, like, reciting passages. but you never looked at your notes'
___'uhm, thankyou?'
___'it was incredible'
___she leans over from the left and takes her pen and scribbles on the paper between us:

_________ssooperr epic BIG nerd ---->
_________(you ar)e

and i just nod. take the pen. write beneath hers

_________Thou art chumpest of them all
_________<---- to which she makes a face.


*___*___*

so why do i repel when people try to touch me? i keep turning away so by morning i'm on the edge of the bed. she won't let me get out so she holds her entire hand around my index finger. i sit on the edge of the bed feeling sick to my stomach from amphetamine come-downs or caffeine withdrawals or morning sickness or loneliness or future-fear or self-loathing or hunger or a pure unadulterated happiness i'm not sure how else to respond to. meanwhile she falls asleep still holding my index finger. for whatever reason i just sit there for a half hour or so. staring at the black of my piano and noting the gradated changes in light as the sun comes upper and upper. eventually i slide my finger away from her hand because it was going numb. but i keep sitting there. another 10, maybe 15 minutes. i hear her stir behind me what are you doing? ___to which i have no good answer. so just stare at her oddly i feel soo ill i say. why? i don't know. because. because i say.

when she leaves, in a hurry. i take two pills washed down with redbull and i sit at my white desk and stare at the painting on my wall and it reminds me of autumn. and i stare at my books. and i find it difficult to form thoughts, and i find it difficult to transcribe my emotions into...


*___*___*

i'm not hibernating Ash. but i'm not really here either. one day i'll look up and it'll be another year or another life and we'll be drinking lemonade on the moon and we'll say to each other how'd that happen kiddo? and we'll shake our heads in amazement and say something like hey text Mona, see if she wants to meet us on the westside for a movie or something. and when she gets there i'll mouth into her ear completely inaudible, just the heat of my lips moving the words _how_strange_the_sound and she'll be the only person on whatever planet we're on to know what i mean by it. and she'll look back and say how strange the sound as if answering a question i had asked (which maybe i had) and it'll feel like...


*___*___*

i'm listening to Lionel Richie at 5am.
try not to tell anyone.
it can be our little secret.
like a penpal thing.
or a pregnancy.
something like that.

___(guess i'm on my way.


*___*___*

On my tombstone it will say... (one of the following:

it's too late to die young.
in any case, he tried.
Thy Trust hath been returned to Thee.
stillness, at last.
save the last chance for me.

how strange the sound

me + u

___ps
___meet
___me
___at
___the
___air
___port

___Kx








pia jane bijerk

i was dreaming of another life today

http://lost.net.au/vic/ ___good find Ashtree!


one where we're not girlfriends __ secret agents __not brothers who don't speak on the phone to their sisters enough, __who live in faraway timezones so the memory of their friends erodes slowly, __who miss first and second weddings __and struggle to keep up with your job interviews and your daily stories and your auditions to be a world famous supporting actress in a comedy category. another life. quieter and stiller and less full of clutter and traffic signs. (ever think how quiet it was when there were no cars? no buildings. no machines no television. when the world was just what grew out the ground and out of women. could walk from town to town and mistake wind for music. God's morse code. help me help me help me.

__one where we're not at the end of youth __where the books got read __we had the right numbers __they liked our resume __they'd been waiting for someone like us. __and when you planted something in the ground you could see a tongue poke out to taste sun, __and our girlfriends weren't mad at us for being late __selfish __aloof __scared,nervous,anxious __where we didn't have paranoid attacks at 9am about needing to take showers and didn't feel fat at 2am and go for runs and didn't feel stupid all day long

that life. __a dream for fools and beggars and too young men too much already dead and forgotten. __but look at its colours. __the way sunday drifts into wednesday , __for almost three years i lived on a mountain in the desert. i must never forget that i say to myself sometimes. __for almost three years i memorized maps. Botswana and North Dakota and the Galapagos Islands and Kyrgyzstan , __for three years we slipped away from our parent's divorces and siblings' high-school dramas

where we're riding on carousels __and sunset is a feeling __where i can think in poetry, so that i smile as i walk home from the bus-stop at all the loveliness in my head __where our friends kiss their wives in front of us and we smile for them each time like we did at their weddings, __and their children are born whole and healthy __in old boxes we find our childhood toys, hollow yellow plastic baseball bats that served as electric guitars and swords and when stood on a surf board
____where our cars drive straight __and when we put our arms out at night we feel a body, what's more a body we're glad to have near, __and when you kiss her shoulder she groans and automatically turns into your arms, we sleep like handfuls of vines __where colours have ends so we after staring into eyes and ocean's horizons and pink tutus we reach a satisfactory conclusion. __where our ties always match __our opinions are based on our willingness to become informed __where we dance when we're alone __and go to the beach even though we're fat and thin and have patchy skin and rashes and bald so we need sunscreen on the tops of our heads __and our Faith makes us believe it's worth the time to hug, to speak to children, to sit a little bit each day in quiet rooms just ourselves and all the screws and nuts and bolts of our too large universe that we cannot control or fathom or fail to be a part of

where everyone stops speaking to me when i listen to Thomas Tallis so that i may forget that i have skin and not angel's wings

i was dreaming of another life today
where i was not late. __average. __not sitting in a room alone, __where i was not worried __not doped up with shaking hands __where my laundry was dry


*___*___*

LITTLE PRESENTS PEOPLE GOT ME THAT I'LL REMEMBER FOR EVER AND LOVE FOR EVER AND EVER (AND THE PEOPLE THAT GOT THEM), A LIST:

Kiana, the film Magnolia (she'd heard it was my favorite) on VHS

Ginger, a drawing

Dad, a box larger than me. insider another. then another. then another. the last small, the size of my hand. insider it the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles nintendo game that came out on monday that cost $50 and i knew we couldn't afford

Gol, Entropy Pieces, selected writings by a pennyfortheoldguy (and 6 months of patience before it finally caught up to me)

Jinab, a painting i'll die before i let outta my sight

Chad, two inny-winny super tiny moleskins i use as my daily to-do lists

Mona, who one-upped him by finding them in red. (and two green pens for valentines day when i knew damn well there were no more of my fav green pens available anywhere in town)

Ashtree, Prayers and Meditations, softcover, so that i could always have it when i travelled

Martha, Pablo Neruda. (but actually, i remember more fondly the poem written in her own handwriting in the back of one of my notebooks)

Mona, 6 polaroids that pretty much sum up our first 5 years of friendship.

_ _ _ _ _, an ipod with an inscription: yours is the music for no instrument. so that for two years when i thought of her i thought yours are the poems i do not write.

Richard, who listened to me love and miss and eventually die because of _ _ _ _ _, a striped black and white shirt. and he said Q... _t r y_ and look after yourself. ok mate?

Eman, a small chess set that's soo much heavier than it should be

soo many things.
my walls are full of your pictures and drawings and photographs and prints from india and my shelves are lined with you autobiography of bigfoot picture books and if someone ever stabbed me all your names coloured bright bright red would come stumbling out.

it's good to be me tonight.
love you all.
hopefully see many of you in the fall.

dear Jesus:

i really need this to be my next car.

keep me in mind in case you have a miracle lying around in need of a beneficiary.

thanks boss.

Q