ocean of dreams

how much living am I doing between my screens and dreams? last night I lost you in the ocean. I hope you made it home okay.

my inner feral

when we can't start the car we leave the house to meet the neighbours. the retired psychiatrist lives in an old convict hospital next door. in the kitchen we break bread between the shrink and a forest nymph, drinking his wine and listening to her stories. you hold my hand under the table. together we do well to keep them entertained into the afternoon. I could listen to you laugh forever.

the forest nymph asks about my inner feral. her own led her from straight lines in the academy to a lagoon at the end of the world. am I listening to mine?

elektra

trawling the panopticon they made for art / for fun / you didn't like until you did

you count the floors we climb past ghosts and strangers

I count the sleeps before you go

people pose in shades by headless angels

partners take their portraits

you feel in ways I can't explain from one container to the next

I list the things that make the chamber

wishing I could write your thoughts as clearly with my fingers.

Kiefer's prison: concrete, shipping containers, barbed wire, rolls of film on zinc, plaster, hay, reinforcing bars, timber, tin, glass floor, cables hanging lightbulbs, assorted sticks, old palms, dried sunflowers, water (stagnant), shards of glass, memory (perhaps).

penguins and robots

we ride bikes to keep afloat and circumnavigate the island. our peddling keeps us up above the water. and so we race the sun into the bay before it sets. you're laughing and I can't keep up. at dusk we pass the man at the end of the pebble beach with his hand open to heaven. a drone descends into his palm. our search for penguins only leads to robots.

after dinner you'll tell me to leave the dishes. on the floor by the fire you'll hold my hand and sing. maybe I'll scratch your back. either way I know you'll wrap my limbs up tight in yours.

just another corner

we walk around the corner where something happened once. only we remember what and why it matters. I remind myself that every corner matters to someone, that this is just another corner to anyone else. it's a funny thought passing over the spot we stopped and started tying knots into each other. I passed you and turned back three times before coming back. you waited where you were with the flashing green man. we pass him now a little less clear / free / impish than before, however many months since falling into orbit, dragging heads and hearts of however much uncertainty of what it means and why.

I think about the corner being just another corner. before something happened I'd cross that pavement every day without a thought. how many Babels did I pass today? how much can truly matter without being there to care?

how I'd like to know the end

I want to kiss you as we watch the world disintegrate through someone’s big glass window

with a view of the city

we can see the flames and mushroom clouds

and listen to the sirens

as you hold me in the last light

your fingers in my hair like flowers

your scent and my lips in the curve of your neck

we sing and we sway to the thunder of hooves

the sky as it falls

and the beast at the door

when not a boulder remains

in the moment we choose to be as we are without question or doubt

the heavens descend

and there’s no better way

to waste precious breath

to greet judgement day.

steer or stop

in my dream I'm riding a bike without handlebars or any way to steer or stop. rolling down the hill the only thing to do is sit and pedal. I speed through once familiar streets washing over me like water. the sky is blue if not for translucent clouds on the horizon. my natural conclusion races to meet me. wind on my face through my ears drawing tears to icicles. hurtling towards my final boulder I think of you and laugh.

we sing to each other

and we sing to each other. our songs write a testament: a subtle score, fleeting and secret and sacred only for a moment / to us. an amalgamation of misremembered tunes from childhoods never shared apart. together weaving something palpable from and into songs that seem to say what we should and won't.

we sing in the car / as we walk / drift with trolleys down the aisle for fresh and processed produce. we sing by the kitchen sink / across the table / through the walls to one another. we sing in secret / each other's ears / arms / on the floor by the fire in the dark.

each night is a song / has a pulse we share and keep until we can't. you're as constant as you like. I'm there whenever you want. how many more songs can we write this way? friendship can only be so much.

dead end

another winter night in red: the masses colonise the city / split the bones of a former department store for fun. mum used to buy her cotton here. you lose your scarf on the floor at the rave, where once they cut our curtains. lights and smoke and music to forget to. caring less every breath I’m still wearing your shirt. a dead end is a vision of the only way we’ll ever go. we dance between strangers I’d like to get lost in. you pull me back closer. for what?

anthems for a sapphic friendship

fidelity

thinking about you

touching yourself

the louvre

everything is romantic

human being

dreams

summer in the city

current affairs

futile devices

fly to you

hard feelings / loveless

we'll never have sex

ever again

illicit affairs

Samson or Eugene or Alan

all too well

heart's a mess

a case of you

parachute

you're losing me

I know things now

I know the end

chewing cotton wool

safeandsound

galore

gods you make yourself

what makes this what it is? your words and the wants they claim do little to write away the way we are. and yet they try, lacking sense beyond the laws you draw from tablets scribed by gods you make yourself.

on paper you extinguish ambiguity with the candles. I resign to the bed you've made me. but I turn off the lights and you're there: warm and soft and reaching for me in the dark. in my arms you heat my blood like secrets or the songs we sing each other. ambiguity prevails. you hold me through my dreams. I melt into your compromise once more.

the fly in the wax

we clear the table in the dark, washing dishes and our hands of whatever games we've played / shreds of clarity we've forged from second guesses. candles are extinguished and the water runs to cover over everything. from the door I watch you hunch over your camera and the table. some kind of fly caught in the wax of a dying tea light. who could blame your pause to take a photo? we live for spectacle to keep us from the mirror / doubt / ourselves. but I think about the scene in the candle through your lens / the way we are.

I am the fly and you are the wax. you make of me a funeral pyre. I'm trapped and slowly burning at your whim. your flame is warm and beautiful.

like holy wine

on the back of a Kiefer postcard

of a painting you said you liked

I drew a map of home

Tasmania

with your face sketched on it twice

penning your name

thank you > sorry

as constant as whatever you like

my name

I hide it in the book you read all week

you’ll find it on the plane

we’re being grown up when it matters

saying goodbye in the rain.

our favourite toys

watching robots telling stories and their makers wash their hands. 'over the past year AI models have learnt to self regulate'. we don't know where we're heading but we probably can't keep up. convenience is dangerous and keeps us on the couch. the brain becomes redundant with the cuts in cost and layoffs. less spending and thinking. more hypnosis and dictation / bluelit oracles online.

what happens when we lose control of our favourite toys? 'ask the apes the risk of humans really taking off'. the tea leaves say extinction isn't off the cards. it hasn't ever been. the only question is which mess we've made will bring us to our knees.

in my dream I follow a friend downhill towards a playground. we are riding our bikes / laughing like kids with nowhere else to be. I want to dream like this forever. if I could wake without my phone...

looking for America

after church we walk down the rivulet. the platypus are hiding but there's at least a little wonder in knowing they're around. the mountain looms over everything in sight: monolithic and defiant to the elements of change. we follow the path through one of many valleys absorbed in our own significance and the current moment. I feel winter on my nose and think of the fire. 

sun fights through the clouds and trees. the leaves of one glow tall and golden against the mountain and the grey of rain to come. we talk about the fall of empire and how it's going to end. there's a good podcast I should listen to about tech giants / the spread of the digital plague / humanity and critical thought slipping down the drain. I think about my ignorance and this privilege to sit back and watch the it all burn. our ancestors went looking for America to forge a new world. they did so with poison, we reap what was sown. the masses choke and splutter. we keep scrolling while we can.

the theatre after death

in my dream dream I wake at 2 am to sterile sunshine streaming through lounge room window. a housemate lies horizontal on the couch a mask covers his eyes headphones in singing himself lullabies. the sky must have fallen whilst I slept. the world outside the house is silent like the theatre after death. not even the trams can be heard. am I the first to wake to see that night’s been stolen? I sit on my bed wondering what to do about the fall. without the stars without the dark how can I ever reach the moon? I think about the tides and hope they’re going to be okay.

the barking continues

a dog tied to the bus stop barks at passing traffic. we've nothing much in common but I think we both want answers. the current rushes on unbothered. I wish I could help. the barking continues.

deluge

the sky weeps rivers through the city. every road becomes a current spilling down each lane threatening to claim the floors of every store. we scatter like ants under colourful synthetic sheets, disorder at the whim of clouds. the rain does something to our systems: we all move faster a little more frantic any sense of direction lost to the elemental threat. as though we've never seen this. as though we don't know what to do when the sky starts to cry. strange to experience, funny to watch.

the masses lose their minds in water. the trams keep running. we see the rain so often in this city. watch us revert to animals even under umbrellas. maybe there's a reason. some kind of stunted survival instinct. we could be preconditioned to run from water when it comes. did the great flood really happen? did we ever change for good? or are our bodies all still waiting for the sky to swell and cleanse the earth? could we be beyond saving? I could never build an ark.

if you were a jellyfish

in another world we’re jellyfish and I see through your faces. you can see my vital organs and choose to run or drift with me a little longer (as you please). jellyfish are dangerous. they're nice to look at but couldn't make sense if they tried. maybe you’re a jellyfish. if you were I’d keep you an aquarium beside my pillow. if you were we wouldn't need to talk or touch. we'd listen to our music and confuse each other less. but your voice is worth the hazards and there's thrill in chasing answers. jellyfish don't write riddles. despite the clouds I like the way we sing and dance around each other. I'm glad you're not a jellyfish. if you were I'd miss your fingers and the way they feel in mine.

doomsday or the night before

craving chocolate leaving someone else's home I ride against the wind up High Street searching for an uncharted supermarket. the only one still open glows over a carpark all but barren if not for overturned shopping trolleys. I tie my bike to the metal frame in place to keep them all in order. inside aisles are a mess with aliens and tall storage cages stacked with boxes of goods for restocking. shelves overflow onto the glossy plastic tiles. too much to sell not enough space.

characters of all genres glide round each corner on their own time. some move mechanical like robots others as though it's their first day on earth as though they're learning how to human. the spectrum echoes the feeling of a hotel lobby or some other kind of waiting room. a woman with dark violet shades the size of saucers marches like a funeral celebrant past the eggs. old workers young workers all workers grumble as another tower of non-perishables tumbles to the floor. customers crack open bottles of water milk bright fluorescent fuel to guzzle on their cycle from one aisle to the next.

unsettled radio static dangles hints of 80s nostalgia inherited through film. 'if you're lost you can look and you will find me...' the scene feels a little like a fever dream or vision maybe doomsday or the night before. a young man in black watches over the self-checkouts like his kingdom or a vulture knowing something that we don't. I escape with my soy milk and breakfast, followed by the lady with the violet saucers.

my toothbrush and my phone

and this half life I'm too tired for

that I wake to watch and eat my way through

blue light and natural gas

one plague or another

taking what I can

and Frankensteining everything I see and hear and long for

gasping for more

exhaling to inhale again

another meal

another cloud

another boulder on the freeway

fingernails keep growing

in my dreams

in which each day feels as real as breath

that is to say

enough until the hypnic myoclonus (thank my phone for the expression)

and another Monday comes

one hand on my toothbrush the other on my phone

scrolling my dystopia to life

cleaning my teeth I'm never alone

scrolling for affection

through my morning twilight zone.