videopoem #2

Three Lions - Roderick Coover (video) and Nick Montfort (text).

"Filmed in Puerto Rico, this one minute loop is a work developed under the Oulipo tradition of creating under constraints. The one minute loop is read by Brett Keyser. Gallery premiere Esther Klein Gallery 2007; festival premiere, Philadelphia Film Festival 2007. This is the first in the CURRENCY Series."

(by way of) introduction

Some 200 posts in, figured it was time to write an intro to this here blog.

In my practice at least, where there's poetry, there are petri dishes & test tubes, lab rats in lab coats. Everything is experiment. Some failed, some foiled. Some sometimes semi-successful? (only to be dragged down by lame alliteration)

I post stuff here once it's reached some degree of 'readiness' (my judgement can sometimes be wayward, but hey). Once it's posted, I will continue to edit it on here. Everything here is 'in progress' / unfinished; there are annoying roadworks everywhere.

More recent posts are likely to be the most raw, therefore. Sometimes I'll fall out of love with a piece and it will disappear off the face of the blog.

Fact is, I go through phases and moods, like some old moon.

If you want to taste a sample of my work, and see how it has evolved (or not), check out the 'specials' list on the sidebar for poems which are special for one reason or another. Some are personal favourites, some are dedicated to friends, some received accolades, etc. Published poems are also tagged (if you click on the tag all published poems will surface). The links to 'poems elsewhere' on the sidebar is also worth a look. The 'kindred' and 'miscellany' listings provide useful escape routes if you just want to get the hell outta here.

This place started purely as a repository for my poems, but more recently I've been looking to add spice by way of quotes, audio and 'videopoems' (more on those later). In future I'd like to post more of my own ravings re poetics, etc. I'm aiming to feature a variety of content, and am always open to comments and suggestions.

So then, maybe this is more disclaimer than intro.

- Your humble apologist (shown below in pretentious chin-stroking bookshelf-backdropped mode)

1. my father down (2007)

my father down
in the crush
tearful beautiful

if only you could see him under
the machine
__(raining blades,
__time seeping in all ten directions)

my father visibly embarrassed
my father visibly beautiful
___is not what needs fixing

what to fix
___& what first?
nothing’s cheap except the heat

my father failing under it,
or the heat fails him

never thought we’d ask
but come on winter
___need your muscular hand
___on this particular shoulder
______tense as glass

protest (2008)

hear they're going to close us down...
who are these people?
where are the women?

nothing ventured...
air your grievances

the same silence cannot be broken twice
so be wise

Alchemy (2007)

(the third of 3 Brett Whiteleys)

... he became his admirers. - W. H. Auden, 'In Memory of W. B. Yeats'


You’ve succumbed. Tall Poppy,
they crave to say you’ve over-stepped.
Don’t go too far. Stay too far. Settle
your petals against the sand; today’s
a hot one on ego beach. Where we
can see, between the flags!
Swim on a rope.
_________How’d you expect us
to eat all this? What,
weren’t you thinking?
What weren’t you thinking?
_____________Too long
in the kitchen, sniffling;
we want to feel your pain
but not forever. Brett,
it seemed someone was missing,
was not listening.
___________Your rockstar
mirrorgazes; hallucinating
momentary masterpieces,
blown away as studio dust
or shot up as lunch.
_____________You
painted our waiting,
expectations in exquisite detail.

We’ve been tailgating you,
true, your faulty tail lights.

This was a painting of ambition,
Icarus flightpath. Ambition is there
on the canvas, waving, screaming,
drowning in world. It writ large.








Alchemy at brettwhiteley.org

videopoem #1

the books - smells like content

vindictment (2007)

all about you I guess, snapped pencil freakcase who know all & better you awkward as source code you hyperverbal / you question mark in parentheses / yet another tangled wizard’s sigil

[Sure, let’s all erect vindictive monuments. (Maybe this is yours.) Depicts: your retreat into desert. Lived off sand. Thought it through your fingers. Read visions off the moons of your fingernails. Pursued by built-in bestiary. Juiced all gately cacti in sight but still a raging thirst. Only so much the eye can plan and prepare for.]

but in fact i love you yet again you the poem lived / thinking in tongues

[An error has occurred. Start with what you have. Could it be yours?]

you once troubling precocious, nascent psychic talents intimidating highschool teachers (we go way back) / always your scarf stitched with cryptograms, formulae

[I don’t have the patience.]

careers in prophecy? ditch day-job to contest/corrupt all assumptions

[Software is not for you: it does things you’ve asked for. You realise your mail keep bouncing?]

time to resign yourself to fallout, the recluse's winter? but you persist repairing dead philosophers / philosophy as repair, beyond repair & yet life in the beast still dehydrated gills / dabbling in junk gather skulls unzipping peripheries

[Squeezed prophetics out of manga-dreams. You the hero / a thousand traces. Such an immortal. Statue of light.]

you’re not the only delusionist flexing to grandmaster the Web / yours just another unseen site / face the fact I am half your traffic

[That’s right, ring the psychic hotline. Don’t like the forecast? So… ring another hotline.]

two aspects

"... the idea of portraiture and the idea of the recreation of the word. I took individual words and thought about them until I got their weight and volume complete and put them next to another word, and at this same time I found out very soon that there is no such thing as putting them together without sense. It is impossible to put them together without sense." - Gertrude Stein, 1946.

Pictured: Picasso's portrait of Stein.

telltale (2007)

bloodshots (red cables cross my eyes) –
_-telltale,
______obvious I’ve used

_________________lip-cracks / foodless sta-
______________________sis / cold-core bones

_____________________-afternoon: slight OD,
________________-fell asleep online

___________________evening:
__________you arrive home /
___________my straight act:
_______________________no trace,
_______________________paraphernalia locked away /
_____________________affectionate lies

bud (2007)

Have history with you
makes it hard to be
with you when I am. It’s
so beautiful outside, but
outside of what? Hey
now the sun is mighty
loud. Birds call me out,
heavy on the roofs.
Disciplined gardens.
Sidestepping trenches
& amber barrier mesh.
Just another castle
under construction.
Slick & unimpressive. As
if some new wild epoch
could bud in the suburbs.

optional (2007)

which hut? /
train passes overhead /
options fly / day party:
sun as DJ / the clouds
the wider painting /
meditate with
confidence, sleep with
confidence / world
comes more as an
abstract / how to
put these / two
birds talk on a wire /
together / hut them?

repackaging 'evil' (2007)

on the track to the city
a snake says, ‘trust me’,
and what could be
simpler? it’s just an
advertisement, but
clearly everyone
is implicated

/ way the ads burst
volumed at our outer
skin to nudge the inner
what big hoofs more
than a little tampering
with our brittle
___________/ forever
surrounded by cranes
fishing for significance
they hold our dossiers
as if ‘connect’ means my
brand is your brand but
i can’t get no, no no no


Note: "i can’t get no, no no no" - The Rolling Stones, 'Satisfaction'.

As published in Snorkel #9, April 2009.

audio

If you'd like to hear me reading Self-portrait (with wires, city & no clothes), click here to download the .wav file. The file is optimised for playback via QuickTime. Other players (e.g. Windows Media Player) may require a codec to play the file. For some reason I think the audio has been ever-so-slightly sped up, so that my voice sounds higher than normal (as if I'd just inhaled a balloon full of helium!)

The poem was originally published in Verandah 22, and this reading was recorded for the Images & Texts on the Verandah exhibit at Deakin University.

ear tells me

"When I write, words or phrases come to me. I don’t go to them or start with a plan. I start with scraps and pieces and something comes. I never know. I never sit down intentionally to say something. It comes to me. But as I work more on a poem a meaning is established and then I must continue until I feel it's done or undone. To an almost alarming extent -- alarming for me -- sound creates meaning. Sound is the core. If a line doesn't sound right, and I do always have single lines or single words in mind, if a line doesn't have some sort of rhythm to it, if my ear tells me it's wrong, I have to get rid of it, or change it, and a new meaning may come then."

- Susan Howe (pictured), from The Difficulties (1989).

desist (2007)

(after Stan Brakhage's desistfilm)

the night (is it night?) is
_____-____________-teeth,
_sitting round dumbing stuff
________-we have cool haircuts
_______-if this is the 50s,
_____both sexes thrown in dark room
__________-music loud enough that we can’t

____music through a glass, a fly

_boredom sits
______-reading your shoe
__________________tugging our own hairs

_surface-bound
_-sit round dumbing stuff
__________starting cigarettes
____________stacking a house of books,
__his shortlived match sculptures

_later run out
screaming deaf into treescraped
__ horizons, bracken
__________________-slow our fire
_________descend to
__________________________magnified touch

_at some point back in the room
caught ourselves paused
__-dancing it was kindergarten
______________plus an ashtray

____________________our flesh blur
___________________________strung
__________________________refused that kiss________


As published in Sein und Werden 'cinematique', Spring 2009 (print edition).

Note: A poor quality copy of Stan Brakhage's early work desistfilm can be viewed here. There is sound, but you'll need to turn up the volume. I recommend tracking down a copy of the Criterion DVD By Brakhage: An Anthology in order to approach his films through a medium closer to the one they were intended for (i.e. a cinema).

notes on status (2007)

Today you toddle off
elaborately inane, to where your profile

fills out like a bin-liner caught by the
wind.

– John Forbes, ‘Colonial Aubade’


ha survive in a corporate office
without actually working (just
live there, haunt the espresso
machine)

see brother, la revolution begins on every page, in
every line

in gel caps /
in the deepest blues

only to find that
nothing beards us like a lack
of ritual responsibilities

a life of not being able to
pop a balloon with a stick of celery

(not the place itself but your slim scared imaginings of)

like spring racing ‘carnival’,
fashions in the field yet
another vocabulary for
status to shake around in...

deep in the bowels of
some corporate tent or other
you realise luxury is irresistible,
has its own set of ‘classique’ emotions

& one day, with a dab of brio and your lucky haircut,
you could have your very own war

(thief!)

perfectionism (2007)

make all these minor adjustments what does it matter no one
turns up except other
DSMIV entrants other tangled wizards
their pet tangents
_____________-brands of solipsism software variety the
_______________price of life
_______________________-me making my
_______________________-minor adjustments
beginning to believe technology's a blind alley though we too are
technologies writing ourselves blind / written out /
the trees still living seem hunched in doubt
______________________________hey!
_________________________________turn up the light or
________________________________________is that as
____________________________high as it goes?

mondays (2007)

monday nights catching up with the
boys operating system updates new
Radiohead all these burnt offerings
leap druglike from hand to hand behind
raised boot of the car not mine i’m not
'the driver' i have no poison file me
under monk the
___tv jokes bounce off me like sponges

though dead soldiers pile
til the bussie busies us
with his pisa-phallus of
_____________empties

look at us the weary
tribesmen surrounding
a table fire built from
mobiles, keys, sunnies
_(dancefloor handbags?)

damn pokie pub twittering
machines money travels
thrilling nowhere adventures
___________ of a 10c piece

because suspicious of everything
while counting down your stardom
rain on your parade since mine's
already soaked i really dropped the
room make mental note to email you
__________another long apology

as 4 blooded men we agree
PCs are distraction files
& files of nectar for the
dumb-bum bumble bee got
tissues? only 1 sting til the
____drowse of the next life

we make our exit as something
heroic but this too collapses
__eaten under the idiot lights

watch out if not for nuggets
of bottle glass we could
walk barefoot as bronze
kids in a holiday eden
engrossed in our triple
____________scoops

at this intersection of
stressors taxi honks
when cut off & therein
how language, as
threat, first
_________pounced?

stem (2007)

a watched rain never falls. alone in our many rooms craving left-aloneness.

*

stem overgrown with thought. seated in lotus position.

*

we map disappearances. small birds wrapped daily. cannot drink the river.

*

rowing three hours each way between us. to arrive at degrees of fidelity. granting the eye permission to lick.

*

think we’re coping better with crop failures. though there are times we want to murder the fruit. unpeel what is peeled. how we never know how to hold what's dying.

*

in spite of our ghosts, go scuttling in party shoes. go scuttling, eyes wrapped in sheets. ditching dharma, ditching precepts.

*

our housedust. a lint magnet. stem the breath with fluff. dustmites fed on skinflakes.

*

if the rain would pile upon itself. if the harvest. bring breath to what is said.

*

lotus position. the spine a stem.

*

to err. still planting the heart. craving left-aloneness. listening for dry echo.

*

i say tremble then. break with the room. strew dust. be spilt.

*

you say stay faithful. wear blue on blue days.

Image & Text reading

On Thursday the 4th of October I was one of three featured poets who took part in the Image & Text reading at Deakin University. I was honoured to share the bill with Angela Costi and Judith Rodriguez... plus there was an open mic section which included Peter Davis.

Thanks to all who came along and took part. The readings were fantastic. Thanks also to Karen Le Rossignol for organising the event.

I selected poems which (mainly) fitted in with the image / text theme. This was my set list:

Drive-thru
Vipassana
pollen
Heartwood
Art, Life and The Other Thing
Saturday, Brunswick St
Self-portrait (with wires, city & no clothes)
I will not carry

Images and texts on the Verandah - an audiovisual display

As part of eXposure season at Deakin University, there will be an audiovisual display featuring poems and artwork from Verandah 22, including readings of poetry by Tom Cho, Rhys Tate, Virginia Spicer and yours truly. A rendition of my Self Portait (with wires, city & no clothes) was recorded especially for the display.

The Verandah 22 display will run from Monday 17 September to Friday 5 October in the Phoenix foyer, Building P, Deakin Burwood. Entry is free.

Update 11/12/07: The audio file of my reading can be downloaded from here.

pollen (2007)

night air aroused
drawling with spring

*

pollen delivering words
as raw silk
through the unseen
caverns of my nose

*

in the middle of the street,
also high on pollen,
deadkids play lazy karate

*

halogen lamp oversees
glossy 'for sale' sign,
spraying its light,
mistakenly conjures
tilts of red from garden roses

*

on a nature strip,
legless ergonomic chair implies
a silent office of Zen


A previous version of this poem was published in Frame Lines issue 7, February 2009.















Below: Scanning electron microscope image of pollen grains from a variety of plants. (This is a public domain image sourced from here.)

While we tried to love... (2007)

reception clearer now
(no white noise haunting)

been straight
for just on 2 months

equipped with
transaction burns,
synth tears,
mounds of sugar fiction

& imagination
(a sleek, amber-winged insect)
crawls over the drumskin
of my cheek,
drums polyrhythmic
code into me

the latest flight dream,
we were frenchkissing clouds
with our teeth

*

escape the bed
before you
to check the newsfeeds
(a pretense)

another internet death today

none of us can hide the blame:
it's there in every click,

early reports,
'love' in the headline

Verandah 22 launched!

Verandah 22 was launched yesterday at the Melbourne Writers' Festival. As usual, the launch attracted a large, enthusiastic crowd. It was great to see everyone there, and to meet some of the editors and contributors.

I was presented with the 'Books4U Literary Award' for my poem Self portrait (with wires, city & no clothes), and did a reading of the poem. Adam Davis and Tom Cho also performed their work - Tom's delivery of his piece AIYO!!! An evil group of ninjas is entering and destroying a call centre was highly entertaining! Special congrats to the incomparable Toby Davidson, who breezed in from Warrnambool to collect the Penguin Literary Award.

Congratulations to all the other prize winners and contributors, and to the Verandah editors, designers... and everyone involved in the conception and production of this edition. It looks fantastic, and the content is top notch. I especially like Jessika Tong's poem Transformations.

Verandah 22 is available now from good bookshops. In Melbourne, try Readings, The Brunswick St Bookstore, or my personal favourite, Collected Works Poetry & Ideas Bookshop.

Mid-city meditation (2007)

I take off my shoes
so the grass can imprint
abstract designs on my ankles

can't see any other meditators
in Alexandra Gardens

a precious day

sun gushing,
pooling on gemgrass;
river metallic

cars on City Rd
sounding like the ocean
(peaceful cars)

I slow
& stop thinking
for some seconds

then I remember
to take off my sunglasses

& it becomes a lot brighter
behind closed eyes

I notice this,
then revisit the breath

an easy breeze
stroking my face

I revisit the breath,
revisit the breath

until half an hour later
I hatch
from my trance-shell,

look over at my shadow,
my head made of grass

*

8pm that night
I meet Monica on the bridge

we gaze through the sci-fi city,
make new pledges,
smile out...

a 4x4 crushing
a skater's stray deck
jolts us back to the wheel


As published in The Cartier Street Review, February 2009.

Eggs & Roses - post-gig review

Thanks to everyone who made it to Eggs & Roses last Thursday. I enjoyed meeting you all, and reading my poems in an intimate setting. It's always a pleasure to read to an appreciative and friendly crowd!

Thanks to Alexis Harley and the La Trobe English department for having me. And kudos to Catherine Padmore, who also read from her fascinating novel-in-progress.

This was my set list:

Drive-thru
cashed
The Breaking
unplugged
Vipassana
A Taste of Cindy
I will not carry
Saturday, Brunswick St
apology
Self portrait (with wires, city & no clothes)

Verandah 22 Launch - update

I can now confirm that I'll be doing a reading at the launch of Verandah 22 at the Melbourne Writers' Festival. I'll be reading my poem Self portrait (with wires, city & no clothes), which is featured in the journal.

Apparently I'm also going to be presented with some kind of literary award.

As mentioned in an earlier post, this free event is happening from 2pm on Saturday the 1st of September, in the Bagging Room at the Malthouse.

surveillance (2007)

9:38am sinuses go to war

navel gazes back at me, floats
a question:
“who did this to you?”

these burns, slits, scratches
are fabulous

(eager to share)

enjoy the waiting,
skin’s self-repair

*

11:16am have erased everything
sold my guitar

tantrum in-grown

dust rushes the room

thankfully
still know all the words for food

*

12:00pm ‘life gets you
in the knees’

scratch reflex
spreading parasites

while the sun multitasks

*

5:20pm sky is boy’s & girl’s
(pink clouds stretched)

still know all the words for food

& know you from photos
(in some your face survives)

*
5:46pm was once a great lover
of books

serrated fingernails,
bleed from scratching

smell of breath mints

*

8:12pm maximum dark

eyes suck on monitor-glow

no recent updates

a joint to curl me:
night passes quickly this way

muted TV
reminds me: haven’t eaten

*

10:18pm haven’t eaten

(all these demands)

taste my teeth:
breath mints

head tilts toward kitchen

*

2:13am the flawless setup

wired, rigged
no need to rise
from keyboard

eyes unblinking,
learning you

*

2:14am frosty monochrome
intercepting your walk

(that onscreen brittleness)

& full volume
your pulse
charging the speakers

Eggs & Roses - Thursday, August 23

On Thursday the 23rd of August I'll be doing an extended reading as part of the 'Eggs & Roses' spoken word and literature series at La Trobe University's Bundoora campus.

I'll be reading my stuff (both old and new), discussing the origins of my work, and generally talking shit about the intersection of poetry, technology and madness (or something along those lines). Questions and audience interaction will be encouraged!

Eggs & Roses is running every Thursday during second semester, from 4:30pm in room 431 of the Humanities 2 building at La Trobe Bundoora Campus. A campus map is available from here.

Hope to see you there!

Verandah 22 Launch

Verandah 22 will be launched on Saturday the 1st of September in the Bagging Room at the Malthouse, from 2pm. The launch is part of the 2007 Melbourne Writers' Festival. It's a free event.

I've been to the last two launches, which were both well attended, with refreshments aplenty (that means free booze for you boozehounds). I imagine there will be some readings involved... I'll try to provide more info closer to the date.

fashionably (2007)

time I reach the party
all the drugs
have already been played
(a recurring theme)

my selfish friends!
I just wanted a little toy-toy for me!!!

to let the drugs
do the talking

get the monkey off,
write myself off on

okay, I’ll drop the code
if you’ll quit coding with me

all you can offer
is flattery
& these wedges of lime

sure, there’s booze & pot
(downers covered)
like you said

but I arrive &
everyone’s leaving

whispering “life’s too short
for this dreck”

(am I that undanceable?)

leaves me no choice but
to steal your lines
drink you dry
crashland on your couch:

when you kick me awake
I'll be itching,
pestering you

to make that call
(fingers crossed),
drive across town for pills

apology (2007)

sorry for the slow reply

I’ve been sick again,
spitting air,
haunting town without a face

(this face no longer valid)

hungry words flock
to define me:
'cut-price', 'reheated', 'uneven'…

so uneven I’ve been cutting
around the gardens rather than through,
scared fresh breath of pines
will make me retch

I’m watched by a list of eyes,
tailed by some voodoo priest
giving off his dark light

can’t do new people
can’t chase a thing
taste a thing

I mostly hide tight
up in this one-window bedsit
flicking switches
experimenting with the light

no call for music,
or food

I gaze jealous down
at the playhard kids
screwing with their own wiring,
scalping tickets to fastland

they’re ready to ambush me
with scissors,
lick the medicine out

although wait for it, the icing:
my phone is dead
(I killed it)

but enough of me,
how are you?

please accept this
small peace offering:
a freshly picked posey
of eyelashes

Stand up for the Burrup!

On Saturday the 3rd of June I joined my wife and friends to 'Stand up for the Burrup'. What's the Burrup, you ask?

"Western Australia's Burrup Peninsula is the world's largest outdoor rock engraving site, containing rock art of world importance possibly dating back to 30,000 years ago, including possibly the first ever representation of the human face in history. Woodside Petroleum and the Western Australian Government are planning to turn part of this site into a natural gas production facility against the wishes of some of the site's Aboriginal custodians and the scientific community." (from http://www.standupfortheburrup.com)

Stand ups have been held around Australia and internationally to protest Woodside and the WA government's plans. Representing Melbourne, we stood up in Federation Square, opposite Flinders St Station and Young & Jackson's (see picture below). Representatives from the ABC and Australian Associated Press were present to cover the protest, and a statement of support from former prime minster Malcolm Fraser was read out.

Visit standupfortheburrup.com to find out how you can support this cause and get involved.

Verandah 22

I've just received word that one of my poems, Self-portait (with wires, city & no clothes), will be published in Verandah 22, which will be launched at the 2007 Melbourne Writers Festival.

Stay tuned for further details of the launch party!

Something essential...

I got meme-tagged by sam of the ten thousand things... a nice little meme which originated from They Shoot Poets - Don't They?

Here 'tis:

“Give us at least 10 quotations pertaining to poetry - from 10 different writers &/or poets which best coincide with your philosophy vis a vis ars poetica. They can be posthumous or otherwise. The order is not important - unless it is to you.”

Sam rather charitably added the following disclaimer: "If the number ten is too daunting, go for less." Although I've managed to pull ten together from everything I've (n)ever read. And yes, for me the order is important.

In every cry of every man,
In every infant’s cry of fear,
In every voice, in every ban,
The mind-forged manacles I hear.
- ‘London’, William Blake

The people need poetry that will be their own secret
to keep them awake forever.
- #355 (‘Now I’m in the spider-web of light’), Osip Mandelstam

Reality is not simply there, it must be searched for and won.
- Paul Celan

The human body is the best picture of the human soul.
- Philosophical Investigations, Ludwig Wittgenstein

each word is a room built around us
- ‘Pitching Woo’, Karen Weiser

The great city has a hundred million rooms so any combination is possible
- ‘Day at a Time’, Michael Dransfield

Money is everywhere, but so is poetry. What we lack are the poets.
- Federico Fellini

i had always had mixed feelings
about being considered a poet “if robert lowell is a
poet i dont want to be a poet__if robert frost was a
poet i dont want to be a poet__if socrates was a poet
ill consider it”
- David Antin

If you can do it then why do it?
- Gertrude Stein

In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s there are few.
- Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind, Shunryu Suzuki

And I'm going to tag exoiced (aka Brow of Calm), Yarni, Nathan, EZB and Reyes Cardenas.

digitalia (2007)

every day here
at the image farm

dum-dee-dum
crop & resize

I’m shrinking into, becoming
synonymous with my work

am this low-cost ‘virtusurgery’

am ‘his’ & ‘her’ sightlines

*

every day here
looking for some other face

out in the pseudo-rain,
packet traffic

not another me for chrissakes

will someone come visit,
feign interest

have their cowled, smoky needs
deluge my inbox?

*

photograph is a spell,
curse

seductively true

*

desked, but
pumping the brakes

(praying for
glue to meld the storm together)

I am a fat, balding forgery
with a swipe-card

faulty (2007)

your speed-reading eyes
stalled by things I don’t have names for:
birds, trees... nature stuff

so we invent names from our lexicon:
banking bird, valium tree

our poems detail
glitches of perception,
are loose & easy,
repel ghosts


An earlier version of this poem was published in otoliths 12.

Scissors?

chose pile of scissors as my profile pic

oh no symbolism help !!

(may these scissors fall into the hands of fools)
(may these scissors fall into the hands of fools)
(may these scissors fall into the hands of fools)

Vipassanā (2007)

Meditation
shouldn't be misunderstood
as another search for an exit

It is a way back
to where you are

First letting the eyes stop,
calming the antennae

Then all punctuation dropped,
an unhurried torch
shone throughout the body

The mind does not need to shop

Silent as smoke
except for the radio
from the apartment below,
bleeps counting in the newshour;
swooshes of traffic, birdsong solos,
hum of the nearby city

Of course the body hands out flyers
for a protest march
and sometimes a slow bee visits,
buzzing at every itch,
every knot of fear,
every burn of venom in the blood

The ongoing task of sitting
may be learning such restlessness
by heart
(the heart has many commas)
while mind writes smaller and smaller

Though my first teacher taught
that mind and heart are the same bell,
fused in a single word:
chitta



Note: The literal translation of vipassanā (Pali) is ‘insight’. The word is used to refer to ‘insight meditation’, and a specific form of Buddhist meditation practice which is taught in various strands of modern Theravada Buddhism. See the Wikipedia entry on vipassanā for more information. I practice vipassanā meditation each morning, following the method taught by S. N. Goenka.

Below: An image from Ansuman Biswas' project Self/Portrait (sourced from thelab.org)

unplugged (2007)

day two of rehab

the raw bed
no exits
air soured by puke

steel-cold / sleepless,
fingers heavy with days

deserted eyes
lucid-dream:
running city steam-alleys
to cut a repair deal

ever try a sprint lying down?
(it's exhausting)

& the stories I hid in the city
have scattered, escaped into films
(my brainchild their goldmine)

outside of visiting hrs
a squad of ghosts
makes another sweep