before we take away the poison

we talk about coping. there is no cure and so we're left to choose to live. the doctor asks me to consider what I do to try to keep control of myself and every day that beckons I voyage further. I think about the tools I use to manage, the tools that often have sharp edges. how much of this makes sense in words beyond the realms of my cerebrum?

we write the words together: exercise has been a form of self medication. this has been the case for over half a lifetime. I still indulge and this makes sense. even in illusion control can keep me warm. in the long term this needs changing but with grace and calculation. before we take away the poison we should find out why it was needed in the first place.

‘one way to avoid emotions we can’t deal with is to make our body lack the energy to hold them’. I think about the proverb from the pixels on my window. is physical exhaustion a plea from the subconscious for protection from the self? was the exercise for exorcising anger from my bones, releasing out into the wind from which it came? this is more than just a habit. this is how I build my armour. wringing anger / growing / needing more with every push. and the snake sinks her teeth into her tail. her scales are greedy and she knows no moderation.

in the commons

there are things we share

often without choosing

common currents in our coding on the runway straight to hell

being as we are

unconsenting shards of stars compounded into breath and taxes

we wake into the day at someone else’s whim

in the light

in the morning

we are screaming for the cradle

of the matrix

for our mother

weeping for a shell

the dark and quiet of the being before breathing

but there are archangels and fates

to pacify

to cut the cord

measuring the thread

they sew our costumes in the patterns and the colours we will want

as our screams are tamed with sense

to ask for milk

to say hello 

we learn to move

rolling like the trolleys over asphalt to the shops

we learn to listen

to the radio and wisdom

taller people tell us all the things we need to know

what is wrong and what is less

news and stories

which ones matter

what we think

they talk about the day

and all the ways it can be spent

and so we work

and so we pray

all the king’s horses and men

to be a little older

to grow up into someone

before too long we find our reasons

strong enough to dull our demons

making use of precious hours dancing for some other powers

milking purpose from a treadmill

as we learn to love the boulder we can only move so far

stop to eat and shit and listen to the people on the screen

between static and our dreams

watching doomsday from the sofa

or the spring/summer collection

sirens singing us to sleep

because the day is long

and needs our energy to run

I dream of sardines in a box

trapped like heroes in a trick that didn’t work

screaming silently to gods that never cared

the joke was on us

I dream of eyes I never kissed

and an angel on the subway goes to work and takes the stairs 

when I wake I greet the ceiling of a day I never chose

I brush my teeth and wash my face and spit my dreams into the sink

find the path back to my boulder

like a goldfish in the mirror

silent

smiling without thinking

and tomorrow and tomorrow

with the clouds

and breath and taxes

on and on

until the sun decides to set

and the day begins to end

and the fates sharpen their scissors

and it’s time to scream again.

waiting for brambletyne

before I wake we're hiding from the rain under an awning on the doorstep of a hotel. we came here to listen to an author once. your dad is with us incognito (without his guitar) and I can't tell if we're kids again but we're waiting for a poetry reading from our favourite of his bandmates. Murray Street runs a river against traffic shooting for the green light out of town. across the road your brother emerges from the arch of the cathedral by the financial planners. he waves and manages to reach us dry.

the sky cries louder. your father yawns and leaves to take a smoke. in his absence your brother bets you can't beat him down to Collins and back. I hold your coat and watch you run into the rain. he's bigger and faster and I want you to win.

in the Arizona desert

the artist talks about exit culture. this idea is new to me. already confused by his sculptures I open my ears a little wider. he paints a picture of communities emerging across the globe committing to another way of doing things / rejecting death and taxes / our Western capitalist / consumer-minded existence. there are people cultivating new shapes and shades of civilisation under stones and glass domes in the desert. new states forging different futures. some grow rainforests and harvest their own goods. others are not yet manifest, existing in theory and chat rooms filled with strangers willed to feel like-minded in resentment for a world they can't escape.

prompted by the curator, the artist talks about the tasks facing those that choose to leave and build a new world out of nothing. though he indulges in the optimism and excitement of the worlds he traces (all fixed on improving current ways of being), he refrains from painting newness any which colour or way. I sense his doubt in the words he bites on his tongue. how can anybody guarantee that an attempt to improve won't echo the mistakes they wish to run from? can anything new be anything more than a frankensteined shard of the past?

after the talk before looking at his work again I ask what led him to think about the exit. he tells me he visited some of the new worlds himself. we look at photos on his phone of vast abandoned boulevards. rows of roads curated with hedges and sculptures. grey walls glistening with patterns and stories like some dystopic vision / Cold War Sistine Chapel. there is a glass pyramid cradling an aquarium in the Arizona desert. he tells me I should visit. they love to show the old world what they're building.

his paintings trace passing light like sunset through kaleidoscopic frames abstracting into nonsense. strange shapes, colours soft and layered in oil. stained-glass glimpses of a church for some future religion. hidden electronics spin lazer cut gingham shapes in plastic lifetime tables. I watch them moving through holes framed through plastic painter's palettes.

our odyssey

our odyssey is void

or time between one dream and the next

our odyssey is playing out in every scream and breath

your odyssey is mythical

my odyssey's the same

getting lost inside the supermarket

forgetting why I came.

some dreams disappear

some nights are for sleep. some nights are for dreaming. some dreams disappear though some are worth keeping. in the morning we ask and tell each other all about the ones we want to and remember. you tell yours with excitement and precision, like adventures from a children's book of cautionary tales. I tell mine vague like clouds, only able to recall the general shapes and movements as they pass into the morning.

without you I dream of plagues and monsters I can only run so far from. the nightmares scare me back to limbo in the darkness between bedtime and another dawn. I reach for former friends and family through endless airport terminals and cyclones. running from a madman that can only be my future I lose all sense to Christmas on the beach. the songs sound alien and I want to go home.

on my phone you ask how I slept. without wanting to worry I tell you I woke a few times from nightmares. you say that's very troubling but dreams aren't real (although we are). I pinch myself and know you're wrong. if only you could see this something / your spell through my eyes.

one is bigger than the other

and I don't recognise the part of me that you draw out without trying. though this body is his puppet he moves and sounds in different ways, lacking reason and patience with an ear only for you. you don't seem to mind the company. you dance with him so well.

I wish I had the words for all the worlds I want to give you. exposed by lack of language I am shaking, unprotected from the elements and feeling. being where we are is all it takes to spit me deeper into danger. through the eye of your storm I sink into the sea orbiting the pupils staring back. in the well I breathe some secret sort of spell I tell myself I shouldn't see or think about: some remnant of the stars from which you came before the clay and taxes. I tell you I don't understand your eyes. you tell me one is bigger than the other.