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.

dolphins in the fountain

in my room you want to explore the pictures on my walls. I start to notice more and fall a little further. when we open ourselves to each other / where we are the moment feels like home. in the feeling I start to melt again under your orchestra and we are all that matters for a moment. when I open my eyes I fall into yours without a say in the matter, pulled into a dream by the ankles. we move like sound. we sound like finding dolphins in the fountain.

in the back seat I watch the lights of traffic pass over your face. the night casts you holy in new colours like a moving painting. I can't wait to learn you better.

the ceiling starts to rain

somewhere between tomorrow and my vat of swimming memories I find myself under stage lights for the finale of a musical or opera. though I seem to know my cues and movements I don't remember how it's going to end. the whole ensemble dons long robes flowing heavy with the movement of our limbs. they cover almost every inch of skin below the neck. a dramatic score rumbles from the pit to conjure spirits or the fall of man; a friend nudges me to move upstage to catch my stone. with the looming brass crescendo the ceiling starts to rain rocks: pebbles precede bigger bricks of granite threatening much worse than scratches or bruises on unexpectant eyes. my rock is heavy and nearly sinks me with my knuckles to the floor.

an invisible audience spectates. I hear their gasps in shock as we the players struggle with our falling sky. some of us miss our moment and cannot find our marks. I watch bigger stones and boulders land on heads and shoulders. a chorus of chanting gives way to screams clawing to release the sudden pain of injury and anger. the rocks keep falling. the players start to join them stagnant on the stage and I lose my war against the urge to fly out into the dark. leaping offstage I run through the audience, none of whom can look away from such captivating theatre. the foyer folds into a similarly neon-lit supermarket I don't know but crave escape from into the night. once familiar discopop grates through overhead speakers against my ears to the stomp and howl of some other monster in the labyrinth that cannot help but take my money.

when I escape the minotaur the night is cold and I need to find my way home. passing by the creek instead of bed I wind up looking for a fish. between what I want and what I need I find an ingénue from home knelt at the foot of the stream. her once blonde hair died a dark dirt brown splays a pool around her figure as she talks to the river. I sense there's magic in her gaze and rush away to not be cursed. on the way I hear the water dancing softly to her spells. I wake before I find you.

fish boy

there is something in your eyes

I didn't see until I did

if words would work I'd find the one that this belongs to

though they don't and so I won't

and I am captive to this something

in the waters of the irides

aquamarine

or some other kind of blue

cursed to change a little with the light

the dark

and sensations of your skin (on mine)

fingertips and open lips

your laugh

and other sounds that seas would part for

there is something in your eyes

I think you see it too

if words would work would we will them to our waters?

cast a net into the sea?

are words worth wasting precious time spared for this something and your arms?

I breathe the air between us

you hold my face as though it matters

let me melt into my cotton

rise and fall and melt the same

and I don't know where you came from

but I think I like this fish.

 

to lose my ears

sneaking through forbidden archives in blue light on the plane. I read the texts / our words we trusted time to take. there are curses conjured by the shapes of your name alone. feelings still stir from even the briefest exposure to your pixels. it's a silly kind of poison. your shadow is only ever fingerprints away.

the child in the seat behind me cries on our descent through the clouds. his mother tries to keep him quiet. I hear myself and remember how it felt to lose my ears.

shapes and sounds we teach our children

and I can let the days run over me like water. without stopping to catch a moment / tie it to a page with ink the current is quite capable of taking everything that matters. my pen and paper are my only defenses in the face of forgetting and being forgotten by the spaces between being and not. but sometimes I am too tired. and sometimes the words don't come, or what is / has been remains beyond definition / the scope of any shape or symbol drawn from our lexicon.

words are strings of symbols. we spit them into air and ears and paper in pleas to make sense of a moment / feeling / ourselves. we try to agree about what they mean. but even when they work they are rarely enough. they only matter when we want them to. words are shapes and sounds we teach our children.  feelings are evasive as the clouds. cameras and pens are fickle tools. our minds aren't any better. 

laughter and spit

if I open my eyes to see through the mirror

there are beautiful things in beautiful rooms

when I open my hands to the sky or tomorrow

there is light and dark

dreams open with doors and laughter and spit

then I open my mouth

to taste something new

and remember these songs were never about you

(dream, be, dream again).

floating in the dark

floating on the water off the island in the dark. looking up into the glitter of stars between the gentle leak of city lights I remember I am small and momentary as the ripples passing from my feet and fingers and the algae I can't see. the water is warm and laps over my ears. I look into the night as best I can without my glasses. each dying sun blurs between the mist of artificial counterparts and eyes that fail me in the dark.

I float alone on the mass of movement connecting me to every person on this and every other island on or under water. held between the ocean and another passing night I forget where I am. for a moment I relish my momentary breath of fidelity with our primordial mess. asteroids and waiting rooms and jellyfish and you; new facts and faces every day. how wonderful it is to leave the shore.

too many mirrors

at the bar there are too many mirrors downstairs. every wall is covered in reflection. every shard is dressed in pretty frames that should be housing paintings. the masses stop in passing between bathrooms and another drink as our backstage becomes the epicentre of shared vanities / our apathy / performance. even at our best we can't compare to masterpiece or dream. even at our best can we ever look good enough?

nothing = everything

baby blue and mustard clouds pass under letters stencilled blood red coal and poison green:
nothing
is
real
so
nothing
is
wrong (acrylic on canvas on doorstep of op shop). this truth could be yours for no more than five dollars. I take a photo for later / to remember a glass half full.

of course to flip the coin we find another side. everything is real so everything is wrong. a little like the last line of the chorus from the song. would you live in a hologram with me?

Isaiah and Tom talk about dreams

once I woke up thinking 'I wonder how AI and AI slop has influenced dreams'
yeah
anyway
wait because your dream felt like that?
it felt like kind of AI yeah I don’t know
did the monster look AI?
I mean hard to tell cause it was dark and the monster was like half the time a wolf and occasionally it was a man then it was like a big ant thing
a big ant?
weird
I’ve had that before in dreams
a big ant?
being chased by a big ant
yeah it wasn’t fun
it sucks
did you find the treasure?
no
did you forget about the treasure?
yeah

the ones you wore when we were

the rooftop is open to the moon. radiators hang like palm trees over every other table so we sit outside in the shadow of the skyline. the few buildings tall enough to scrape the sky look silly amidst more modest friends. from this distance it's hard to tell which ones are used for what. but it doesn't really matter. what really can from such a distance?

across the table a stranger twirls his hair like I would as a child. sangria and ambiguity for two. he talks about returning from another world to feel alien in his own home. I try to understand and think I can a little, thinking of chapters closed in transit between one life and another. we laugh about the city and being the way we are / timid / proud / precious in the face of our decay. he seems nice enough and we seem to enjoy our time under the radiators. but he has your nose and hair and his glasses look too much like the ones you wore when we were for a moment. if I look too close his eyes might also belong to you. he wants to find something to eat. I want to hear you say my name again.

after dinner we decide to surrender to the cold. I leave him waiting for the tram. do you remember how it felt to lose and win each other back between our planes and trains? you kissed me at the station for both of our goodbyes. I ride down streets you'll never see and wonder when you last thought of me.

sushi and seagulls

world war three is seagulls shrieking / tearing sushi airborne through the lunch crowds in fed square. 'some animals are much more palatable than others'. cats or dogs or condensation? we come for one reason and stay for another. I laugh a little much until I leave forgetting why. you linger like a curse on every other second question.

Helicon's lament

and I could not give you the moon

though I see her every night

looking back at me through glass

crying stars into the dark

if words would work I’d ask her why

but words mean less to giants

I wonder what she thinks

looking down on us to death

condemned to witness every fault and flame

silent and lonely

undersung after the sun

almost beyond utility

a truth-knowing god without hands

left to spectate our decline into the clay from which we came

a little closer every day

a matter of patience

she waits with little else to do

sick of pulling tides and glowing

watch us dance

watch us spinning out of reason

through the veils of vice and virtue

making tombs of our tomorrows

at night

judgement day on the horizon

she would laugh if she could

if the moon had a mouth.

death with flowers

death walks beside a girl with flowers. the petals fall for no one in particular. but you’re still here. how did you become my burning hill? I swear the last one never died. the coals still glow sometimes.

some other kind of prison

the apartment suite is white and round and inward facing. at the eleventh hour the place is soft and still if not for the trickle of fountains. streams pass down the white walls of one landing to the next in and out of plants hanging and crawling in latitudinal directions. each landing is a ring of rooms sheltered from natural light under the spire of a beige big top tent. you'd never know it's nearly midnight from inside. a soft stone courtyard below and stepping stones to cross the manmade streams. from our spot on the top landing we could see any other movement as it happened if it did. a zen panopticon or some other kind of prison. it reminds us both of a gallery in New York, though we don't say so til morning.

you sacrifice a Friday night to leave the silly city / see me acting in a play. the stars or moon give us our best run of the season. I bite my tongue in thanks. in the audience I see you sitting with my mother. after the show she tells me you bought her dinner. you play coy and laugh off her thanks. when we make it to our room we're as we were before. our limbs coil to comfort / close the space between the time since last we danced around our hearts. I find it funny that you came all this way to see me play pretend. have you not seen us in the mirror?

our last words into sleep are the same. when I wake it's dark before the cracks under the curtains. you're warm against my neck. I wear you like a coffin.

to Eden

because I cannot change like wind I lose another day in transit. leaving one bed for another to sleep alone again. most days trickle on like water / feel as though I live more in corridors than rooms. I pour time into keys into cells made of codes on liquid crystals I don't understand. passing by the sun at dusk makes shadows of the hills / over rich green fields rendered in periphery. the seat in front takes photographs of sheep. I should close the lid and watch some world pass through the window.

in the data from another world somebody praises God. when asked about their ideal state they bow their head to Eden. where others dream of change this one rejoices in the promise they believe in. there's a challenge to look at what we have / to cherish the given that's taken for granted. what more could we want than a whole life? who needs the moon? they say we should be grateful for fertile time crops. I'm more grateful for ambiguity. still, I agree to thank the sky today for the abundance of being and tomorrow. we can only pray for peaceful co-existence with the rest.

civic people

I overhear a breakup whilst I’m typing in the food court. she asks questions. when he doesn’t respond she starts to cry and speak quicker. a pigeon stirs to scraping chairs and flies into the ceiling. Mum falls asleep on her hands on the table. faux marble and laminated timber. man in green plaid shirt giggles like the joker into his phone across the hall. his laugh would give me nightmares. I wonder if my mum can hear him in her dreams.