22 09 2011, Sydney

en ascendant les escaliers (toujours) vers
le septième étage de Fisher Library du troisième (rez-de-chaussée)
je compte les pas

première compte (vers 14h30) : quatre-vingt-trois escaliers

deuxième compte (vers 17h30) : quatre-vingt-six escaliers

troisième compte : à faire


conclusion : la realité n'est jamais fixe

10/12 09 2011, Sydney

Sydney is a safe city for bicycles
But not for cyclists

07 09 2011, Sydney

∑∑∑∑∑∑∑∑∑∑∑∑∑∑
∑ O S E R :::: R E S O ∑
∑ R O S E :::: E S O R ∑
∑ E R O S :::: S O R E ∑
∑ S E R O :::: O R E S ∑
∑ :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: ∑
∑ O R E S :::: S E R O ∑
∑ S O R E :::: E R O S ∑
∑ E S O R :::: R O S E ∑
∑ R E S O :::: O S E R ∑
∑∑∑∑∑∑∑∑∑∑∑∑∑∑

05 09 2011, Sydney

the sun sets into sky scrapers, orange and dusty, slowly beating them into darkness until they switch on their electric show for the night. they are secretly so ashamed of that poor imitation of the sun's rays that they will only show the moon. for the moon naturally understands imitation, but what the scrapers don't understand is that the moon would never stoop to feeling shame for it.

03 09 2011, Sydney

"You Who Will Never Be Mine" (L.I.)

it is always, always the self
under scrutiny
in any issue whatsoever
in every circumstance whatever

the self may believe the other to be a cause for scrutiny
the self may believe that the other demands scrutiny
the self may think:

why did the other do this to me?
what does the other want from me?
why doesn't the other understand me?

but the other is merely a foil through which the self ignorantly
auto-scrutinises

scrutiny is directed at the other by the self, flowing from the self
the self believes in the other's problems, in the other's ideas, in the other's necessity or uselessness

rather,
every thing the self says to, thinks of, does towards the other
is merely a reflection of the self
a projection of the self
an idea of the self
the necessity of the self

the other serves to give the self excuses and blindfolds for the self's
weaknesses, loneliness, desires, faults, confusions, obsessions, fears

if only the self would see the other as just that
other
as is
then the self would see
there is no need for scrutiny
and without scrutiny, the excuses and blindfolds appear as ludicrous as they are cruel
these would fall away and the self's fears would seem tolerable
because the other is there, just there

but never near enough to scrutinise

the self will then stop bothering the other with all that hidden self stuff
and they will both learn they will never know the other
but that they can try to learn to know the self
together

25 08 2011, Sydney

effondrement

all is lost
no direction

city
people
university
career
country
bureaucracy
love
money
family
time

all throwing me
in different directions

so that (as They say):

i have none.

*

i can't focus my eyes
without something sure to see
(there is nothing, of course, i know that but...)
suddenly i've not even the illusion of surety
to see to, to look after, to cling to
because everything is blurring and slipping

my eyes are bleeding and my organs are crying
heavy wind and rain would be welcome relief
pound me all over
until blinded eyes learn why

*

They are right:
lost, no direction.

and i blame Them
for trapping me
so that i no longer know

what to do to
how to move to
who to go to
where to look to

just live

25 08 2011, Sydney

environment
encourages
embrace
emphasis
enhancement
effort

31 07 2011, Sydney

[Written for l honneur de timur's rezeption happening - 27 08 2011, Berlin]

When we talk about receiving someone we imagine them to be physically before us
When we talk about missing someone we imagine them to be physically absent
Reverse the terms
How much do you hear?
How much do you see?
Can you see me?
Can you hear me?
Can we be together?
It is the same story over and over
The same numbness and the same loss
The same ecstasy and the same gain
Whose loss and whose gain?
Reverse the terms
Reverse the terms
Reverse the terms
They are only terms after all
Grammar has long chained us
As it does now
From feeling each other to be here with each other now
Now, now, now
Here together
Again, again and again
Past, present, future
Present, present, present
Does it make a difference
What we say
What we said
What we will say
Are you here with me?
Instead we are fearful that we will be seen
That All Will Be Revealed
And so we conceal
Forget about being seen
What do you feel?
Are we here?
Do you hear me?
Can we be together?
Hear me as I hear you
Say that, please
Hear me as I hear you
Does it make a difference
What we say
What we said
What we will say
Are you here with me?
Ask me that, please
Repeat it back to me, now
Are you here with me
If I have lost you, I am no longer here
If I was never here, you have lost me
Let's understand that
Let's hear that together
Tell me that
Reverse the terms
Receive me missing

06 08 2011, Sydney

the pain of time passing
of feeling that it is passed
is unbearable

we feel this time but cannot see it
'signs of change'
have nothing to do with time itself

and everything to do with vain attempts
to fix time to a physicality
a body, a face, a city
to possess it

we will feel them all change,
think we see time's traces,
try to grasp its cruelty,
and why we will never see again as we did
but only feel something is no longer

look at your face
time is not there, engraved

time is beating in your chest
floating about your mind
bleeding from your skin

and one day it will be pulsing through your inert body

02 08 2011, Sydney

I don't care
But I do care

26 07 2011, Sydney

going
now
into
professional
hyper
active
mode
AGAIN
but
hopefully
more
calmly
and
without
loss
of
experience

let's see what happens


maybe i don't belong to you, after all, my old lover

ha! what a novel thought!

but, granted, take you away
and i'm starting
afresh
AGAIN
here, of all places

which is odd
and 'nonsensical'
and easy (or the opposite)
is it giving up?
or in?

but why not, actually?
why not?

(i lie to myself constantly
but i can't hear what i'm saying
it's all muffled
by endless jetplanes
and chlorinated water)

17 07 2011, Paris

je suis triste

after nearly a year of parking my Paris bike in the street outside my flat
in one of those bike-parking-lots you see
with a dozen pieces of bent metal
to support all these vehicles
old and new
belonging to all these people
you'll never know
but who all have many different stories
and ways with their bike

tonight I leave my flat
I go to my bike
I unlock it
and it won't move

after nearly a year of this wonderful bike doing (almost) exactly as I tell her
it takes me longer than it should to realise
what's going on !
I scan the chain
the gears
the shift
all looks OK, even if she's seen better days
but she still won't pedal
and I'm bewildered

slowly I realise there is a dent in the metal mud-guard
merde! dents that will not budge despite the attempts of my weak hands
they press into the tire and grip it like defiant scars on otherwise normal skin
scars of an accident
always and ever an accident

I'm sure it meant nothing to the driver
if they even noticed it happen
as they hurried down the narrow, one-way street
towards the inevitable traffic lights that will tell them to
ARRÊT
the driver notes nothing but the way to traffic-lights (feux)
but I find - after the fact - a block in the road
or a signal - material as it could be - that the road is changing
must needs change

ce que dire rien pour le conducteur / what means nothing for the driver
signifie beaucoup pour moi / says a lot to me

for one, my plans are changed
I can't go meet my friend and dance as planned
too far, too slow
so plans are changed,
and changed again
LIVES ARE ALTERED

for two, how could it not strike me as prescient
that the day before I leave Paris
(in the most official sense to date)
my bike - my always companion during this time here -
permits herself to be intervened with
by one of the larger, more aggressive road vehicles
(who until now, a thousand times, passing by this narrow road, haven't affected her)
while she waited patiently in the bike-parking-lot
for me to collect her
and take her on our way

the red back-light is smashed
all that's left is a tiny little bulb
I imagine it still works
but its reflective casing is non-existent

it feels violent, this random act
that no-one will acknowledge as such
except me
it feels strongly
I feel it too pertinently

l'hasard frappant qui se lie à la verité actuelle

if it was my bike trying to tell me something
it is either:
get out of Paris !
or
I can't live without you !

so I'm even sadder to leave her in this
lonely, self-sacrificed state

this accident, among many
speaks to me
and gives repercussions
all the more strong
because
the driver has no idea
and certainly thinks not to it now
while I
not only think
but write, seek answers
FEEL HURT
by what I term this violent occurrence
but which is nothing more or less
than accident
like all the rest

perhaps I'd be better off heading for traffic-lights
instead of seeing prescience in broken bikes and altered nights

it must be that all is accident or nothing is

15 07 2011, Paris

reality
movement
volatility

reality
irregularity
dependability

reality
stability
deception

reality
artifice
reassurance

reality
comfort
denial

reality
contradiction
actuality

10 07 2011, London

ovah
it

o-v-a-h
ovah

06 07 2011, London

sans
sans
sans
sans
sans

avec
avec
avec
avec
avec

aujourd'hui
je me suis dit
j'ai plus du temps te donner
j'ai plus de l'énergie te donner
j'ai plus de l'amour te donner
et que maintenant
j'ai envie de la distance que tu m'as toujours offert
à travers tes yeux attentifs
à la fois
aujourd'hui
je me suis dit
j'aurai toujours du temps te donner
j'aurai toujours de l'énergie te donner
j'aurai toujours de l'amour te donner
et que maintenant
j'ai aucune envie de la distance que j'avais supposé tu m'aies donné
chaque fois il semble que tout soit trop proche au truc-même

chaque fois tu te sens peur (moi aussi, forcement) qu'un jour il faut arrêter le jeu
et se dire:

sans
ou
avec

mais bon
tant pis
pour tout le monde et personne
aujourd'hui n'est pas le jour
ni pour nous, ni pour l'amour

finalement, je me suis dit
c'est que une question du timing
comme toujours
mais, quand même
c'est triste
c'est rien sauf triste

30 06 2011, London

Strangers in the Night

A series of bars, a series of beautiful faces

Of laughing smiles and glistening white teeth
Of arched brows and over-shoulder glances
Of a wine in the hand, and a cigarette in the other
(Here we take life and death together)

Of cascading conversations about nothing in particular and everything at once
Of enthused introductions and realised connexions
Of witty eyes and generous grins

Of the slow descent into floaty intoxication and communal seduction
Of beautiful goodbyes at the ends of endless nights
Of emerging into the city's breathtaking exactitude from smokey hallucinations

We dreamed it all and we wake up alone
Only to play it all over again, again, again
(Whether in mind or body - it is the same)

Until all that's left is a series of bars
A series of memories
Of deep words and fleeting expressions
Of beautiful faces -
Glowing candlelit, peripheral, with ever-fading edges -
The cold shock of Time
The joyful pain of ecstasy surpassed

The knowledge that all series must end
And that the end was written in those radiant stars
From the first time we think 'beautiful'

29 06 2011, London

tired and tired
i want to go home
i want to stop
self
reflecting
self
projecting
i want a hug
with someone who
just gives it
without expecting
me to be
clever
beautiful
witty
well-dressed
cosmopolitan
challenging
sexy
interested
interesting

someone who just loves
me
like the animal
that i am

that we are

26/27 06 2011, London

six minutes left

cyber cafe life
headphones fading in and out of functionality

now five

and what did I want to say?
something about something else
entirely

in speaking in third person
about something
with someone
with whom the topic is actually first person
with whom the topic is actually yours
one feels the weight of abstraction
the inherent fear -

three minutes -

of revealing that behind the third person
generalisations
there is a first person
an intimate person
a relationship
something very, very particular indeed

if we could escape our social moulding!

one minute

even in love we are tormented by fear
and if truth is only a dream
abstraction brings it closer

16 06 2011, Paris

things always seem much lamer in hindsight
either that
or we romanticise them and make them seem much more wonderful
both are lies
lies
to make our lives tolerable

06 06 2011, Berlin

another sign

during thunder lightning torrential rain storm
where i find the most beauty and reason to smile
kids running

04/05 06 2011, Berlin

one chooses to read this as one likes

on the first day a beaded Union Jack bracelet falls out of the arm of a lounge chair we are moving

"it's a sign" Florinn says to me

today, whilst exploring a courtyard, I see one lone photo lying on the ground beside a skip bin

I pick it up
it shows the back of a woman
dark-haired, dressed in black
looking at Tower Bridge

"it's a sign" I say to myself


(we generate meaning from events we presume are unrelated in order to give our lives shape and sense
both are delusions
but neither dangerous
unless taken to be necessary instead of chaotic
for the shape and sense of life exists more precisely in the chaotic than in the necessary)

29 05 2011, Berlin

currently
I live my life
in the assumption
(grounded or not)
that I will be around
in a year's time
to start
living my life

(everything that happens
in the meantime
is preparation)

28 05 2011, Berlin

My voice has been colonised
or rather decolonised

26/27 05 2011, Berlin

the skin on my ankles is dry
and white in that Ivory kind of way

I was looking at my ankles and feet whilst doing stretches this morning
and all I could see where my feet should be
were my mother's feet -
exactly the same -
though perhaps marginally larger

I observed closely the blue veins
feeding every muscle
and the tendons
which flicker at every movement

they look just like hers

and I felt closer physically
nice fleshy closeness
my own showing hers to me
like a subtle message
from genetics

or SAUDADE, perhaps
own flesh providing nearness to a distant other
a mother

here I was missing her
only to find her, here,
there all along
for better or worse, as it may be -
though neither before realisation

not only with me,
but literally part of me,
I saw her
in me, on me

in ankles and veins
and elsewhere I'm yet to discover
or am trying to deny

23 05 2011, Berlin

If you live life with the thought that death will creep up on you when you least expect it then old age comes as a surprise.
Cruel, perhaps

17 05 2011, Berlin

Boredom is a foreign emotion to me
Impatience I know well
but boredom eludes me

Even now, here, with nothing
really to do, boredom only
occurs to me as a stranger,
passing by - as concept -
through my stream of consciousness

We try to identify one another -
"Maybe I am bored? Come hither,
Boredom, let me recognise you..." -
but to no avail

Boredom appears to me as a mere shadow,
weak and superficial - a faux emotion.
Lacklustre.

A word, an excuse, masquerading
as emotion.
A façade beneath which something much
deeper lies

Those aware of this deeper, real
emotion - present always -
can never feel true boredom
and are thus doomed to a life
without this excuse

However, perhaps blessed
with a life where façades are self-erected
(and thus boredom is a convenient choice,
not a state of being)

10/12 05 2011, London/Berlin

Again
Again
Again
Again

Now
No
N

Nothing

08 05 2011, London

Fuck you for stealing from me

You don't even know me

And fuck you for playing games with me

Who are you to play ?

You don't even know me

You wish you knew me

And I wish, too

04 05 2011, London

yesterday
my chest was very tight

i thought -
for the first time -
that maybe i would have a heart attack
not yesterday
necessarily
but one day

it felt very possible
likely, even
fated, perhaps

but the tightness
was not (only) thanks to
eating butter
drinking alcohol
smoking cigarettes
or even stress

more vital
was a mystery force
that clung itself
violently, almost
around the most crucial of my muscles

emanating thence
through the echoing chambers
of my lungs
silent to all but
lethal to me

once ignorant
until i felt
actual pain from le coeur -
the core - hardcore
heartcore
for a future unknown
but felt yesterday


then today
i woke up
having slept luxuriously well
and maybe the thought had gone
momentarily
maybe with it
the animal clinching
at my core

but now i feel it creeping back
heart attack
wringing thing inside my ribs
lungs, shoulders and throat


so it's definitely there

26 04 2011, London

Trois actualités d'aujourd'hui :

1) Al.
the love of my life
truth

2) An.
sudden loss
connection severed
obviously, unexpectedly
surprising and not
now it's just time
flowing ways
all was words
close
and now even they feel empty

3) Ri.
call from landline
come
together
simple and pure

25 04 2011, London

I am bleeding on the inside
For this world

Which gives me everything
And yet
Doesn't let me have it
Really

Sometimes this abstract burden
Of barbed wire and cruel determinism
Of arbitrary rulings
Upon our lives
Makes my heart writhe and pound
Within the chest I thought was mine
But which, I have learnt, has nothing to do with me
And everything with territory and skin

They tell me I'm lucky to have them
My pay-off is security and wealth
But only if I respect their game
If I don't, well, tant pis!
It's majority rules in this world, baby
Or was that minority wins?

Doesn't anyone ever think that
Without wealth there would be no poverty?
Without security there would be no danger?

You've got it mixed up, girl!
They say
Girl
But oh no
They forget that neither is possible
When the soul is oppressed
By fear and hate and
Me versus you
Us versus them

Same bullshit, really

Yet my heart still pounds inside a skeleton
That will one day -
Indiscriminately -
Be rotten
In this Earth
The very same Earth
They told me wasn't for walking on
But ruling on

I choose not to believe!
But bleed, anyway

24 04 2011, London

upon discovery that torture is not screams and flesh
and certainly not their image
rendered by tricks of light
and angles of cameras -
how absurd -
one is relieved

through the (boring) picture of synthetic pain
one can learn that pain has nothing to do with
foreign objects
and everything to do with perspective,
power

upon realisation that there is always choice
(how much do i need to believe?)
in terms of relation to

the choice to believe that screams and flesh
could possibly be the torture
we all fear
is dangerous,
it allows the abstract rules of life and death
as binaries, as light and dark
take over what is never whole
and rule!

as if they were black and white -
like this and that -
or white and black, rather

nothing else

and the images were that
with some red
how symbolic

one is relieved