The Checks - Candyman Shimmer (official music video)

have been obsessed with this Checks tune for a good while now!! Love love love it.

An Empty Room

Ramblings from last year ....
I am home again, again. It feels different every time. Outside tonight it is darkening. I have in front of me a glass of red wine, some blood red tulips sit on my desk. An old painting of some quietly pink orchids sits behind them. In the living room plays Dadawa, world music at it's best, at it's most soul opening. Sadly, it makes me want to take acid.

Here I am, sitting in another room, in another house, on another part of the earth. It doesn't really matter where the room is, I always feel as equally at home and not at home, as familiar and as alien.

My friend Mike wrote a poem about a lone person standing in a room which is empty. I imagine that the room is made of wood, wooden floors and walls painted white, without any decorations at all. Like Jackson Pollock's house on Long Island. But this one, the one in Mike's poem as imagined by me, looks over the ocean. Sits up on a hill and I imagine the lone person, whose face I never see because their back is always turned to me, looks out an open window to the ocean. And I imagine this person, this way, forever, in this empty room.

I think it says something about me, about the way I think. I can feel the wind coming into the house off of the ocean far below, a cold wind that channels in and touches all the empty places of the house. Moves the hair of the person standing at the window, who never moves. It's probably me, but it looks like Mike from where I am standing. I told Mike about this, and he said something which I hadn't pictured in my version of the poem. He said something about the room being furnished over time, with the things that you bring into your own life. I had imagined it coming from more of a zen point of view, as in not needing anything and in the essential truth of aloneness.

What he said gave me faith, because I think that the way I pictured his room, is the way that I picture myself. Alone. Eternally unmoving, unchanging, the wind making sure of it.

So, now that I am home again, I struggle to furnish the room of my life. I think about what I could possibly decorate it with, and nothing seems to feel right.

Masters of Creative Writing

I received the best possible news I could've hoped for late November just been. I've been writing, mainly poetry, since I was about 8 years old. It's always been something I've just kind of 'done', it's always come naturally for me and has been a great emotional aid in my life, especially during tumultuous times.

At the age of about 17 I became aware that one of New Zealand's most eminent poets, Bill Manhire (at that time his profile was still building toward the colossal form it takes on the New Zealand literary landscape presently) had created and was running a creative writing program at Victoria University in Wellington. Since then the mana of the course has grown and grown.

It's been something that I have often dreamed of as a kind of ultimate goal. It was a dream that sat somewhere on the outskirts of what I really thought I was capable of achieving, somewhere on a shelf along with traveling to the moon to look back at the earth and owning my own home in New Zealand, i.e; totally unattainable.

But what do you know, isn't life funny? I applied, and I got in! Dumbstruck, flabbergasted, discombobulated and rapturous don't even begin to describe what I felt when I opened my gmail account and saw the subject line from the IIML, "We are pleased to offer you a place in our program....". Talk about dreams do come true.

I think one of the biggest lessons I've learned from the whole experience, which is maybe not so much a lesson as an insight, is that I really do doubt myself and my talents. I am not saying I am superbly talented, but I do tend to undervalue myself. As soon as I had overcome the fully body shakes and desire to vomit upon reading my acceptance e-mail, I got to thinking and here's what I thought, "Well, If I got in, it can't be that hard to get into after all." My inner critic coming out in full force just to remind me that no matter what happens, I'm not that great. Thanks me.

So anyway, me, myself and I had a bit of a korero and I put ol' critic back in her place, which is outside in the swamp at night with all the outside lights off. I'm really proud to have gotten in, and I feel extremely lucky and thankful that I am someone who has a life where such a luxury is even possible. To spend so much on a year of post-grad study, to be able to afford it, to have a whole year to focus on nothing but something creative. I realise that not many have such an opportunity.

Thanks life.

One of the coolest things about the MACREW is the the IIML (International Institute of Modern Letters) is located in Glen Schaeffer House, a building which hangs on the edge of Mt. Victoria like an eagle's nest on a rocky outcrop of the Grand Canyon. The room in which we will hold our sessions is a huge glass cube looking out over the whole of Wellington Central and the harbour. Oh the bliss!!

In love with Choi Jeong Hwa

Watching the Auckland Art Gallery come into being has been a magical thing. As the months passed those who work in Central City were witness to the birth of this truly superb space which will surely become and remain a true part of the evolving heart of Auckland.

Not only is it visually stunning, it's also a feat of architecture; a space that offers scintillating newness, a space which is alive as it's various structures and levels interact with one another and a courageous design which seems to fly in the face of speculation that New Zealanders tend to doubt themselves in those crucial moments when bravery matters the most. It's a building which to me reflects how modern Aucklanders feel about themselves and their rapidly changing physical, social, cultural and emotional landscape. And if we take the gallery as a symbol of those things, the feelings must be good.

But the true Pièce de résistance of Toi o Tāmaki are Korean artist Choi Jeong Hwa's two works; Flower Chandelier and Red. To have chosen two such playful and joyous sculptures says something of the team working at the gallery. They blow me away each and every day as I stroll my way to work, red especially. Complete adoration and thanks to the amazing team who've created such an incredible gallery, and to Mr. Hwa whose work inspires me to keep creating.

Korea fighting!

Iris Murdoch

“Writing is like getting married.
One should never commit oneself
until one is amazed at one's luck.”
—Iris Murdoch

Life: never what you expect

I think that part of growing up must be coming to terms with the fact that life never really turns out the way you think it will.

I can look back to so many different periods of my life, and see that my perceptions of my own future at those times were so.....unrealistic, so unlife-like. I think it`s that so many people externalise their future goals; `I`ll be living HERE, doing THIS kind of job and being THIS popular`, when in fact the things that really evolve and hold meaning in our lives are internal situations. The way we deal with ourselves, the way we treat others, the amount of effort we put into the people and situations around us. That`s where the value is.

It`s something I am still learning. Actually, I am seriously not very good at it. I think because my mother died when I was 16, that I`ve felt completely anchorless and have just drifted from one experience to another for the last 13 years. I have never really invested in anything, emotionally or otherwise. And, while it`s a perfectly fine thing to do when you are young, it doesn`t offer much return in the long run.

Styx

underground
the boat
takes yet another load
of hibernations
babies to the far side
of the slow water;
waving....goodbye!
Upstairs, the
jonquil bulb
is breathing hard,
little coffins open.

Te Paatu

i have just learned that the area i come from is called Te Paatu, thanks to Janice Clarke, a memeber of a long time far north family. I think i am going to write a collection of poems about the valleys of Te Paatu; Honeymoon Valley, Fern Flat, Kaiaka, Oruru, Victoria. I dont want to fall into the trap of writing about maori things as if i myself am maori. but i do want to explore the history of where i come from and then write from that basis.

i feel i dont know enough about my own home, and how can i write about something i know nothing about? Id love, for example to find out why the valleys are named as they are and id like to learn the stories of the people who populated the area over the past 300 - 400 years. My primary school was established in 1873! well over 200 years old and i know that the school alone holds a lot of history, such as the banning of maori language. a project in the making. exciting.

It's Just Different Here .... in Japan that is

I had a sudden memory today of something I saw a few weeks back now. I was waiting for my morning train at my local train station, Unga, and noticed on the other side, a woman with her elderly mother who was in a wheelchair. They were waiting at the far end of the platform, just opposite me, at the wheelchair access ramp.

Waiting with them was one of the oshiya, or station workers. i love these guys. they're always dressed impeccably; crisp blue shirts, police style hats, often white gloved and always looking as if their job is the most important thing in the world. It seems that people really respect all kind of worker here; train station workers, bus drivers etc.

I don't know in which way, but it kind of feels like people who work in these positions in Japan are more involved in the beauracratic and regulatory / safety aspect of what they do, than say, in New Zealand where bus drivers have a slightly disinherited manner.

Anyway, this oshiya stood with the elderly woman and her daughter, waiting to assist them onto the train. as they waited he talked to them both, but I feel mainly with a focus on the older of the two - although it didnt seem that he felt obliged, or that the conversation was forced. It just seemed that he would never ever consider NOT talking to her. he was holding one of those orange safety batton things and with it he was pointing to various places around the station and on the tracks, possibly explaining the finer art of train conductoring (i know i made that word up) or maybe even some recent and exciting train station event. who knows.

The two women were thoroughly engrossed, especially the older woman. What struck me was how gently, respectfully and easily he spoke to her, obviously seeing the value in her presence. I love this about Japan. People are so so kind to one another. I see this in my class everyday, and in my mixed level english chat sessions. More fluent students are kind and patient with those whose level is lower or those who struggle. And in my main class students are so respectfully interested in one another. Its so lovely. Japan is a kind and gentle country.

about life

Lately life has been interesting. its not that its been fast paced, overwhelming or tokyo-ish, thats not why. i live out in a totally different prefecture from tokyo, which is the chiba prefecture. it is still the greater tokyo metro area, but not tokyo central with all its amazing nagameguro, shimokita, shibuya, shinjuku, harajuku, rippongi, ueno and so on. what has been interesting is the way that i am dealing with being here. or rather, what is happening internally while here.

i feel like i am growing somewhat. possibly a cliche for someone from new zealand (or anywhere) who has traveled to other, distant places. but i am not 20 or even 25 and i have been there and done that with the whole o.e. thing. so that is not what it is about. its more like some kind of relief work, a cutting away of the small things that need not be there anymore, where i feel the effects of what happens around me acutally shape the physical reality of who i am. i guess they could be called light-bulb moments, or epiphanies, realisations. but they are not just realisations because i actually feel changed afterwards. physically, but in an internal way.

often, in my life when i experience these things, i have been reading some great book. i think that it is to do with timing and my frame of mind as much as what i am reading, and of course, sometimes i need not read anything and still i experience change. but often a great work of literature; the words of a woman or man who has thought beyond the realm of what i am capable of thinking, opens up a new way of looking at myself, and thinking about the world. surely not a new thing for anyone who reads? so yeah. but ... its different this time and i dont know why. i guess.... i just feel .....i dont know.

so often i feel the intimacy and warmth of my private thoughts, resounding, reverberating against the massive feeling of cold insignificance that seems to be in the world. and insignificance isnt even the right word .... i dont know if there IS a word in english for it. it is that i know we are not insignificant, but when you look yourself in the eye and truely let your heart feel what it feels about who you are, why you are, where you are, that there is no answer! that no matter what you feel, there is no resolution, there is no object, human or otherwise that can solve the deep longing i feel.

Expression

I had dinner at an izakaya tonight with two of my lovely colleauges from the Tokyo University of Science. An izakaya is as close as you'll get to a Japanese version of a pub, unless you want to go to a pub which feels like it was made in an 'English Traditional Pub' making factory somewhere on the outskirts of Birmingham, then flown via helicopter and dumped in central Tokyo. In an Izakaya you can order beer without actually ordering food, but its unorthodox, and even if you dont officially order something from the menu you'll get little side dishy things of unusual bits and bobs. I love how Japanese and Koreans seldom consider driking without food.

Anyway, Phil, Alex and I tried out an izakaya that we've not tried before in our tiny little township of Sakasai. As Alex pointed out, when you tell the students at our uni that we live in Sakasai, they laugh, as thats how small, uncool and inconsequential it is. Cute though, and pretty. Gardens. Miniature old people. Vertical death stairs. Houses hand painted with Disney kingdoms.

Over dinner we chatted about this and that. Good travel experiences, terrible ones, which weirdly always end up, in retrospect, being the best travel experiences. Alex had accidentally, while drunk on absynth, sat on a fat woman who he mistook for a chair, while Phil had been ordered to finish his Stolichnaya vodka by Kashmiri malitia with a mounted machine gun. We then got onto the topic of language, which isn't very surprising for a bunch of language teachers, and that lead into chatting about langauge as a form of self-expression.

Phil was saying that while language is satisfying and allows us to put our ideas out there to be recieved and considered by others, that it's an ultimately limiting experience as we can never really express the true essence of what we feel and would like to be able to say to the people around us. That language doesn't come near being complex enough to match with the things that we feel, understand and question.

My point of view, at the time, maybe overstepped the boundary of what we were actually talking about. I said that if we were able to express exactly what we felt to every person around us, wouldn't we have reached some kind of end point? Wouldn't we have nothing left to do? Without the limitations of languages we would be able to explain ourselves with such perfect clarity that most misunderstandings would cease to occur, and that humans would essentially have nothing left to discover, not only about others, but about ourselves.

There are times when I wake at night and I feel things that obviously I can't explain. I feel things about the world, about space and time, I feel like there are small moments when I grasp really large ideas of what is happening here, in this mysterious place. if I could explain exactly what I felt to someone, and they to me, as I am sure many people feel these profound things at times, wouldn't we have solved the riddle? Wouldn't we have reached the end? What would I have left to wonder about? Einstein would have said `so, e=mc squared, and this means EXACTLY this about life, therefor, i have solved the equation of life, space, time and existence, the end, and goodbye`. And then there was silence. I am sure he probably felt a lot of things that he never found the language for. What a relief.

My inability to express myself perfectly has shaped who I am. Misunderstandings in my life, with myself and with others, has shed light on the way that I view this world and has changed the course of my life. These experiences have made me different from others.

At the end of my mothers life she and I had a really sad misunderstanding. It's something that haunts me still and possibly always will. It was completely to do with language, with a mind shaped by sickness and drugs. If only she and I had been able to share, eloquently, our exact thoughts with one another, she would have died with our relationship at peace, completed, finalized. But that is not how it went. What I have realised slowly, and painfully, is that in someways the most terrible things in life turn into the most amazing. It is from that experience with my mother that I can truely feel what it is to love someone fiercly while they are still alive. I can see my dad with clarity, his fragile beauty and his massive heart and I can love him like I wish I had been able to love my mother at that time.

I wonder if I would be able to do that otherwise. It's impossible to know.

Every man is an island, it's lonely, but it feels right.

Wild Geese - Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good,
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles, through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
Love what it loves.
Tell me about dispair; yours and I will tell you mine;
Meanwhile the world goes on
Meanwhile the sun and clear pebbles of the rain
Are moving across the landscapes
Over the praries and the deep trees,
The mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile, the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
Are heading home again.
Who ever you are, now matter how lonely,
The world offers itself to your imagination,
Calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting,
Over and over announcing your place
In the family of things.

- Mary Oliver

New Places

the smell of different puddles
of rain
after
city showers ~
different laundry powder
reminding you
of someone else`s
strange, familiar
mother.

The calls of the
night ~ fights
between lovers under
neon skies,
and the momentary
love of a tryst
between fighters
in dark
night-erased edges
of the city
giant.

Lonley and lost
people in 24-hour bars
feeling like they`ve
reached twilight.
Eternal sunset.
Endless moonlight.

The quiet beauty of
lonliness you feel
when you wake at
3am in your
apartment
full of the beige
grey ghosts of
enduring half light;
the rush of the
massive arms of traffic
thrumming distant faceless
people to unknown other
places;
just dark shadows riding
in dark cars ....
passing passing passing.

And you - full of your
senses
empty of the usual
delusions of family
and togetherness,
vulnerable to the great
drum and throb
of the nothing,
the void.

Teaching in the J

sooo .... I have been here for about two weeks now and in some ways it seems like its been a lot longer, but in other ways a lot shorter than that. i still cant find punctuation keys on this keyboard....(or maybe i just cant be bothered, the more likely scenario).

so, its the evening at about 9pm after another long day at work. we (the other teachers and i) work pretty hard over here, japanese style. its not that its difficult work, in fact its actually weirdly easy. but we just work looooong hours, and have lots of little bitty classes all over our schedules. the classes are only ever forty minutes long, and we teach the exact same lesson about seven times a day. the down side is its boring at times, the upside is that you get a meanly perfected class by about period three of the day.

i do love teaching, while i do manage to keep the class student centred the vast majority of the time, it is a profession which has allowed my inner show-off / wanna-be actress side to come out. i love performing while telling stories using wildely over the top body language and heaps of hyperbole. i love getting them to believe things ..... letting it sink in for a bit, and them telling them its a lie. like i used to do in korea when id tell the kids i was a robot teacher sent from a factory in new zealand, and theyd believe me! professional? maybe not. fun? most definitely. also, the class floors are really slipperly linolium and my heels dont seem to have any traction, so ive taken to skidding over to students when they need me, instead of walking. hhaha. they probably think im mad.

the students here are so so lovely though. i kind of knew that from teaching in nz, but they are just so kind and polite and they laugh at most of my lame jokes. i cant imagine a single one of them ever doing something mean or self centered. i am sure they do .... well, i am not sure actually. the culture here seems very about the `we` and not much about the `me`; none of this `this plate of food is mine, and that one over there is yours` stuff.

and theyre just so cute. i know cute can be a really patronizing word but i dont mean it like that. for example, one of my favourite students, Shouta, (pronounced like a person who often shouts) who is a 25 nano world scientist (i made that up but its something like that) put down that his favourite band were the `funky monkey babies` !! i just love that! no 25 year old in nz would ever admit to liking a group by that name ...... another student put down under hobbies; `my hobby is cleaning my room, also, i love anything that is really small` ... so nice. all of these students are seriously smart. the tokyo university of science is apparently one of the ivy league colleges here in japan. students hope to get into tokyo university, and if they dont then where i am working is the second choice, according to our program coordinator. in a country of 130,000,000 with a highly competitive university entrance system ..... well, yeah. theyre smart as.

anyway, its great!

also, i saw a highschool girl with a mini popple hanging off her backpack today! made me feel all nostalgic for being five years old and having my popple collection. had no idea they were still rocking around.

another awesome day in japan

i went for a mission by myself yesterday. i woke up really early because the sun rises at(or at least it is light by) about 4am here! the one thing i don't feel like doing at all here is sitting around my apartment watching info-meat-mercials. so i was up about six and decided to head into ueno, a large park in central Tokyo. i had no idea it was going to be so awesome!

the first thing i saw was a ventriloquist ..... i am not usually into that kind of thing because it creeps me out quite a lot, but the girl who was setting up her performance in the park was so interesting looking that i stopped and watched. she had these massive crescent moon shaped eyes and wore an old school charlie Chaplin style hat. her doll was about 2/3 the size of a human, wore a similar hat to her and a grey suit, he had a brown face and really blue eyes. she slid her feet into his feet and one hand into the back of his head so she could move his head and eyes. then she kind of woke him up and he peered at the whole crowd as if this was his first time on planet earth and he had just arrived and was being greeted by a hoard of completely unfamiliar beings.

it was pretty amazing. then he started dancing. carefully at first with controlled movements and as time went on he got more and more free. the woman herself danced with him rather than just being the invisible force behind him, when he lent right, she`d lean left. i loved the way she used her eyes, so theatrical and provocative.

after that i watched a kind of b-boy group of jump rope artists! haha. they were sooooooo good at jump rope, i had no idea people even did things like that with jump rope. five of them and two ropes going at once, constantly changing hands while different people did break dancy style stuff in the middle.

anyway, I've just realised i cant be bothered writing about everything that happened! haha. i bought an amazing book about a cat and mouse who fight and then end up friends with the most beautiful Japanese illustrations. there was a huge children's literature market in the middle of the park and i adore children's books. i have a feeling the book was illustrated by a famous Japanese artist but i only understood about 1 percent of what the woman was talking about, and that part was when she asked me `wakari masen?` which means `do you understand?` ..... i lied and said, `yes....a little` and she laughed.

i also wandered through an intensely gorgeous peonie exhibition ..... i started smelling the peonies and wondered why no one else was doing it and before long the whole line of people wandering near me were doing it too! so cute! the smell of peonies is like nothing else, really fresh and lemony.

near the end of my meanderings (i probably walked for four hours and saw about 10 percent of ueno park) i almost completely passed by a saxophonist because i thought he was just pretending to play along to a recorded piece of music, that is how beautiful it was. but he wasn`t. he played `somewhere over the rainbow` which added to my already intense feeling that my body and mind are not as solidly connected as usual. i cried. for the second time that day because i also cried in the ventriloquist's performance, and then i almost cried when i bought that book. hahaha.　i think it is to do with jet lag and stuff, because i also feel like laughing heaps. i love how travel opens up your emotions though, things you forget that you feel when life`s routines kind of numb them over.

anyway ramble ramble. xxｘ

from japan with love

i just thought i would write a quick note to let you know that it is all going really well over here. as you would expect, Tokyo is huge, amazing, overwhelming, exciting and beautiful. i also don't know how to find caps locks on this computer. or any punctuation keys.

my apartment is great, it is like a little dolls house and i sleep on a kind of bunk, the stairs up to my bunk open up to be storage areas and my toilet has a tap which sits at the top of the cistern and you can wash your hands as the tap refills it. ingenious! i also do not have a drier and that is because my entire bathroom turns into a drier when needs be. i simply hang all my washing on the shower rack thingy, close the doors and press a series of buttons and the vent at the top of the bathroom starts blowing out hot air and dries the clothes in about an hour. rather cool.

my neighbourhood is soooooo gorgeous! it is very residential with lots of beautiful houses all of which have the most amazing, well cared for and deeply loved gardens. lovely old Japanese folk are out at all hours of the day pruning their large bonsai, feeding the fish in their little outdoor ponds, weeding and so on. one house near mine is completely hand painted in Disney characters. there are huge huge crows all around the neighbourhood, they fly low along the streets and are rather foreboding. but, i have to say they are magnificent.

everyday at 5.30pm in my neighbourhood there is a `work has finished!!` bell. it is piped out over the community on loud speakers and its like the kind of tune you'd hear in one of those ballerina jewellery boxes!! it is very cute!! and all it means is, lets relax now. so funny.

we had a huge orientation day with all the teachers who are here as part of our program from all the different campuses westgate works for. it was a looooong day and the president gave a speech - he is the ultimate cliche of what you'd imagine a Japanese business man to be like! apparently he was informed that he had to tone down his welcome speeches as his last three speeches included a racist rant against Chinese, an opening line of `did you know i am extremely rich? well i am and i will tell you why!` and another where he said that it was good that he wasn't an actual teacher as he wouldn't be able to stop himself sexually harassing the female staff. his speech was one of the funniest things i have ever seen, and he was intentionally funny, but also unwittingly funny as i don't think he realises how much of a caricature he really is. i had that terrible repressed hysterical laughter thing in a huge silent room full of people. Ive had that quite a bit here in japan .... i think its the jet lag and the late nights but also just the weird funny small things all around.

there is soooooooo much to say and its only been about three days. i cant really fit it all in. i went to a central Tokyo house party last night where within the first five minutes a woman pulled her skirt up to reveal her bum to me in the bathroom to show me her tattoo .... she then went on to tell other people at the party that we were a lesbian couple. that makes it sound like a rather extreme party, it wasn't, it was quite lovely and sedate and i met some really cool Japanese girls and a real estate agent from San Fransisco who just sooooooo looked like a real estate agent from San Fransisco that i told him so about four times. he seemed rather chuffed.


anywaaaayyyyyyyyy - i love all you guys. Qantas smashed my computer on the way over so i have pretty much no means of communication unless i come to a PC room which is strangely harder than it sounds in such a technologically advanced city. so its hard to contact everyone at the moment.

feel free to email me because i am missing everyone to be honest and its weird not having any friends or family to hug ..... makes me realise how much physical contact is necessary!

all my love

magnolia

Clare - 4th March 2008

I don't miss anything as much
as I miss you.
In your fractured shadow
of softened and forgotten
dust I trace with my fingers
around the seams of your
world.
I hear your thoughts in the
silence of the kitchen and
your stride in my step
from the old blue door into
the cold air of the winter garden.
Time does stand still here....
it's a place of memories
of scented roses sat in copper
jars on waiting tables.
Tables whose legs curve in
paws against carpets,
frozen with the unspoken songs
if someone else's past.

In war time slippers with someone's
cold and discarded cup of tea
I wander between the walls and
bones of the past peeling your
ochre coloured photos from
the wall and building them
against myself in a new skin.

To the eye I at times
look like you but it's a
double fake
conundrum;
a multi exposure situation
of the faintly autistic....
you look and see....
but something doesn't settle.

When the sky came in
and pressed it's mouth
firm against your grave,
the earth responded
grew with love and
grass as green as
the prettiest grazing cow
would nestle it's warm
muzzle upon
and roses as red and
full of the blood no longer
kissing the soft contours
of your heart and lungs,
they sprang up
looking with unblinking certainty
at the quiet rural
air.
The world breathes she said,
it is one lung living,
one eye seeing.

If I put my 8 fingers and
two thumbs down into
the earth like fresh cuttings
and I deftly and gracefully
flip myself into a headstand
upon your resting bed,
I may sit quiet forever
like the willows so tall
and downcast of eye,
What's left of you fallen
from or through your home
will work as fertilizer
and I will grow into
a tree
that resembles
you closely.

Wind-Up Heart

Wind up the key
in the
back of your heart.

Hear it ticking,
little enamel
clock, click, clock's.

One day
rust will
bind the key tight to
it's chamber.

You will feel metal
fuse
to metal.

The pain: You will love.

The Animal - 2008

It is only one child on the distant hill
a shape you see when you are
not looking
not noticing that someone
is watching you.

Like a pine so far away in the darkness
of evening shadows, body of trunk
dipping silently away
from the lighted
day into secret night existence
the different animal
the inner eye
which watches the outer
silently.

A long time tredding feet through
penny royal and bees
on to ridges where
down below in damns the untouched frogs
sing untouched songs
of dry and wet seasons
the changes from the life
of the water
to the life of the earth.
We changed they sing!
We changed.
And in the shadow on shadow
it is only the
outline of a child that lies in the grass still
afraid of all the sounds of the world
unable to move with
the beauty of it all.

Just still,
just another penny royal
heady with warm summer
evenings
a small blade of some grass
inked over by
the long arm of the night.

Dad - 2011

In your garden the flowers
seem to wait for you.
We walk around
and I could swear
the little orbs of colour
lean out to you -
expectant and hopeful
of affection
like small animals.

And you hold them,
so softly - in your
rough fingers
your words kissing
each little life

'Isn't this one just beautiful?', you say.

Nameless

Sometimes I see you in
the most unusual places.

Once,
I saw you in my bedroom
window -
you came in and
spoke to me about
the summer and
the wind,
the smell of ripe grasses and
where you
had been and would go ....
and then you left again

and I was changed.

And again - in Paris
I saw you with
a beautiful black man - he waved his
cane at me and smiled,
I sat so shyly with
you both a while.

In Tokyo - in Yoyogi park
you made me cry.
I saw you in the moonlight
dancing with abandon
and I heard you -
a sad flute
amongst the warm
darkness
in the trees.

Cable Bay - 2011

The dark lip of night
comes from far
across
the horizon.
So far -
but it is coming.

The fingers of land
which make the usually
brazen mouth
of the bay
fall into shadow -
silenced.

And the ocean roars.
She pushes her body
onto the curves
of the shore,
and exhales.

MAYA

Maya -
bad girl.
Whispering about
killer snakes
and gays
in pink t-shirts.

Teaching me
to shave my
young legs in
the mineral stained
tub at 12.

Smoking pot
down on the
quiet river bank
together
the soft singing water
eternally leaving us
for somewhere
new.
We didn't talk a lot.

And I remember your
night dark eyes,
and how you
cleaned your
small
curtain walled room
for me before I
visited you .....

and the jewel
toned
jelly babies
you hid from your
family to give me ....
in a blue and beige
tabby cat tin.

You were only 13.

Gwangan Early Morning

I feel so quiet here
this morning
so soft
and voiceless.
This morning has
shifted me -
opened me out
into beauty
and I can't
speak.
I feel touched
by the sky's
hand.

Korean Elvis - 2010

Thank you
small Korean taxi driver -
probably a
grandfather
to small moon eyed
Korean children -

thank you for
driving me home
one neon-sparkled
night in the
balmy
tidal summer

- thank you for
singing me
four
perfectly melodious
Elvis songs
as rounded
and clear as
the chime of
a bell.

Untitled 2001 (one of my many death themed poems from around this time)

The day
that you
left
someone hung
the veil
of the forgotten
over my eyes.

I'd cry
and even
I
wouldn't
notice the
grief.

I wandered
the paths
of shadows.

Untitled poem - 2000 (genre: humorous emo)

The amount
of times
that I
tried
to spin my
web
around
your face
and you would
raise
your arms
and yell:
'don't suck my blood!!'
or
'I fear the end!!'
and I would
laugh,
for little did you
know
about death.

When you found
me
slumped
against the prison
wall,
you ran
screaming
like some panicked
rabbit
across the hot fields
of
Mexico.

I watched you
sprint
in and out
round and 'tween
the cactus plants.
Then you fell
and were slumped
against a goats skull
-now you understand.

Untitled Poem - 2001

The sun set
yesterday

and seems to
have remained
so on it's own
accord.

Fetch me my hook
and
sinker, boy
and soon I'll have
it's heat
baited to
my line.

Tugging and huffing
we'll prise
her precious shell
away -
wrench her from
her skin.

Sky's House - 2001

I smelt something old
something past.

It was your house
a memory
in dark woods
and heavy curtains
and sprawling feijoa
orchards,
wooden pergulars
and your sunny blonde
haired
marmalade
brother.

Your mother's
unknowing comb
through my
untangleable
corkscrew hair.

Found Poem (from my New York daily planner) 2001

Marxist
Anagram
Green
Nostalgia
Ontario
Lint
Initiate
Astoria

I don't know what I was up to when I was 20 ......!! cracks me up tho.

Found Poem (from my 'what I did today' notes) - New York 2001

What I Did

Caught taxi to Eliz St
met tiny girl
in Soho Apt.
She said Madonna
has eaten downstairs.

Went had sand & coffee
after scouring NY for
village voice.

Wandered bought Madonna
and Dylan t-shirt,
dance CD and I <3 NYC
t-shirt for Tracey.

Went to Bloomingdales
and got
serious agra / claustra
phobia.

Changed FDNY t.
Realised train NOT till 8.47.

-Umbrella & I
walked all around.

Went to catholic church
emotional and through
unemotional service
felt safe
calm.

Took photo of flashing lights
of man with fake penis.

walked 20 blocks to
Anne O's house;
wasn't there.

Walked in rain, aimless
till Italian diner
for dinner.

Penn Station - long
nosed girl, bright red
lipstick
African print skirt.

Laughing to myself whole
time cause it's so
full on and hard to
handle but I love it so
much.

Pager: 917 883 0748
Dog, T and Pat
Harlem boys.

Jackie: Apt 8
Nolita
New York, New York
10012.

- Mags

Tokyo Dreaming

Am currently in the throws of a terrible fever; Tokyo fever. And I'm not even there yet! And there are also no guarantees I am even going to Tokyo. I don't know what's happened. I think it might be something to do with Ebony Bizy's hellosandwich Tokyo blog. It's got me all ...... longing for elsewhere-ish. I am dreaming of leaving New Zealand and never coming back.

Of meandering the ancient yet painfully modern streets. Of walking through the Spring gardens, of jogging early on Saturday mornings in the cool air of yoyogi park. Of the clean lines of my apartment. Of a neat, well organised life where my stationery is embossed with my own initials! Of Comme Des Garcons Carnation. God ..... I don't know! Romanticization, for sure. Of being awed by life again; like a child.

Hello ...... a tentative hello that is.

I don't think anybody shall probably read this. But running (yes, running) through Grey Lynn park today I felt an overwhelming urge to start sharing again .... even if it is just with myself on my old, dinosaur bones of a blog site.

There's been a long gap in my writing here, and even when I was writing more regularly it was rather aimless and irregular. But I've read back over some of the things I wrote while in Korea, and I've got to say I enjoyed them and even laughed out loud at some of my own humour .... !! Well, I wouldn't have written it if I didn't think it was funny now would I??!!

The long gap in entries has been due to the end of my Korean travels coming in March of last year. Arriving home, starting up a semblance of a life again here in New Zealand, living it in a kind of half hearted way, although I did manage to get my C.E.L.T.A. and a job at Languages International, a kick ass school where I've been working for the past six months. I've been teaching adults how to speak English as a second language, an ESL teacher.

I know many people think ESL teachers are a lackadaisical breed with no real career ambitions or cares, but this simply isn't true. It's a great job! But by no means an easy one. And the people I've worked with the last six months are such an interesting, dynamic and intelligent bunch of folk. No wonder I fitted in so well ;) haha. Actually, I didn't. Fit in that is, although probably only in my eyes. It took me up until only two or three weeks ago to start feeling really at home there, at ease. And here I am leaving again. Ain't that just life for ya!?

I think there are a couple of things I love so much about L.I. The students are the best. There are the HUGE hearted, eternally smiling, dreamy, sand swept princes of Saudi oil Kings. There are the stern, crease browed Russians. There are the grammar obsessed Swiss who ACTUALLY adore the fact that Auckland buses occasionally just .... don't turn up! There are the Koreans who are so close to my heart I can barely see them anymore, you know, like looking at yourself in a mirror. But I guess it's their kindness, there simplicity of taste .... I don't know. I can't do them justice. And everyone else ..... !!

The second thing is the location. Right in Albert Park. Surrounded by native and exotic tress. Four massive old historically protected villas house not only our school, but also multitudes of visiting tui, fantail, trush, sparrow and blackbird. I had fantails in my classroom twice last week!

So yeah.

Anyway. I am off to Japan come the end of April. Exciting. Nerve wrecking. Amazing. Lonely. Liberating. All of those things. Apart from maybe lonely. Something I don't really suffer from per se ...... it's something more along the lines of existential angst or doubt.

Not sure where I am off to yet. Have to wait and see.

Until then,

bye