Doing things methodically
Repeating and repeating
The chaos becomes clear
The unnatural natural
Do this
Do that
Do this again
Do that again
Keep on keeping on and
Keep on keeping on
Change will come
in ways you want
And ways
You don’t
Be with the water and the air
And the grass and the trees and the soil
And the concrete pillars that grow because we plant them
Second nature is still nature,
I suppose
Deadly tired
(but I’ve been tired-er)
And I will be so, again
Drifting and drifting,
I hear you call
I listen and remember and wish
you can hear me call back to you
Drifting and dreaming
Drifting and dreaming
Drifting and dreaming
When they strike it is beautiful.
They come, one after the other
Flashing by, almost too quickly to catch
When they do not strike it is hard.
The world becomes harder
The days longer
The music bleaker
And they have not struck for some time now
Enough time, that I wonder if they will strike again.
But if my faith wavers elsewhere it cannot waver here.
In the new year
In the new year
In the new year
Where will I be?
What will I be?
What am I this year?
The city passes by the carriage windows and slowly turns to bush
The green I crave But where is the blue?
Surely I will make it to the ocean soon
For now the changing sky will have to suffice
Graffiti thins and disperses and congregates on the train line
I don’t remember there being so many billboards when I was younger
Something, something, something
It will come if I work hard enough
Write hard enough
Think hard enough
Or is it the easy thinking that works better?
The water refracts and reflects the speckled blue
The hot coffee warms me, but I am already too warm
It is summertime and the rain is always almost here
My handwriting gets worse and better and worse again
The door stays open, propped by an old artist’s stool
The hours I spent talking and working and thinking on a stool like that
and probably that stool exactly.
The plants are growing even if we feel we aren’t
The music plays and we listen
The camera clicks and we smile
Smile wide and the world opens
(It completes when you smile)
For that infinitely small moment it completes, I smile too
The wind comes through the house and whips at my shirt
My legs
My hair
I am grateful each time
The rain is coming, I know.
The house is leaving and I am staying
Staying and continuing The year is done and the paintings will leave the walls and the magnets the fridge and
I will retreat to the comfort of the beach to ring in the new year with a
bottle of wine and a beautiful girl.
The floor is dirty and we will clean it
The lights will come on and then go off
The sun will set and rise again
and if I am lucky I will watch it
That is a free luxury for all, but especially the
Poor and lonely
Because we cherish each day or at least try to.
It is the trying that matters and when you cannot try,
The knowing that you will try again and it will be good
That’s a riff on an old Hemingway quote, who I always seem to come back to
despite his problems
Write a true sentence, he says.
Write it true
The truest.
Why lie?
Why do we lie?
That’s above my pay grade.
That’s a lie. A cop out.
If anyone has the means to try and decipher an impossible
question it is someone who might call themselves a writer.
We live and lie for love in all its forms.
Even if it is love of the self
My hand starts to cramp from the writing
It has been that long, yes.
Too long since we’ve known anything.
The mind warps and fades and comes to, for shorter and shorter bursts.
To be on all the time
To be driven and passionate and alive
To be free
The coffee is warm and ‘Me And Your Mama’ plays and almost all the conditions are right yet I still feel vaguely suspended in life
A waiting point and I am searching
Searching
My mind is learning, working, training, being.
Why sleep?
Why do?
Why be?
Why do we feel a little more complete when looking at a painting?
A film, a plant, a mix of words on paper stolen from a tree that just wanted to grow?
Just wanted to be.
Just be.
Live and breathe and drink coffee and nice Japanese whisky and look at the mountains and listen to the rain and the music and feel the warmth of blood rushing round your body as you run and cherish the pain and be.
There are things to be grateful for if you only look,
You don’t even need to look too hard
Again, again, again.
I feel low and uninspired and unhappy
It’s a new year and the tea is brewing but my mind is not.
No thinking no breathing no desire
Water is not enough anymore
The well has dried and nothing is the same but everything is
And I can’t stop thinking and doing
But I can’t start thinking and doing
The door is closing from the wind and the music is anxious and the tea is bitter
But now the door has swung open and I must jump through before it shuts—
There it goes.
I have propped it open with the old artist’s stool
and
let’s try again.
