looking at the pictures of a thousand orange tori gates
ascending the kyoto mountain side
I think about thresholds, significant passageways, points of no return,
and, instead of the uphill climb, I imagine the joyful child running through
and I run down Mt Warning after the downpour
and I jump off the shed roof
and I speed through the countryside
and I plunge upside down toward the yarra
and I fall in love
someone once told me
that my problem is
I take things too personally
I’m standing on the planet’s surface
in my silver lurex pantsuit
with a flag in one hand
and a drink in the other
I’m claiming this floating rock
this lump of misery
this insurmountable distance
this galaxy far away
in the name of Mills and Boon
(those great explorers of the interior)
with a twist of Captain Katherine Janeway
and a dedication to Xena the Warrior Princess
(apologies to Jeanette Winterson)
I’m a collapsing star
I’m an unstable atmosphere
I’m a space-time anomaly
I’m out of phase
I’m realizing resistance IS futile
I’m becoming photons and force-fields
I’m sending out a distress signal on all wave bands
and he still doesn’t answer
actually
tragedy is not so desirable after all
(footnote: former deluded rock star aspirations)
after all those days recently living the romantic comedy
I much preferred the happy ending
seriously
this sad face is just making a mockery of my age-defying skin products
turning my conversations into single syllables
and putting Amy’s “wake up alone” on Ipod rotation
luckily
too many people here still love me too much to let me hide
and the unexpected good fortunes appear
and I can think about beginning the re-write
(after the next sad song)
three months a different status
host to my Indian Prince
every day a new stick of incense in front of ganesh
removing obstacles (western) to understanding (eastern)
dismantling preconceptions
undoing stubborness
dissolving pain
uncovering an enormous love
Turn around days
where we move around another corner
another shift, a softening
into each other’s edges
As I let down my defences
I feel my heart opening
and my smile growing, melting things
an emotional skinner release—widening, broadening, deepening
I can see my heart beating in a lock of my hair in the corner of my eye
I am watching the weather move across the sky
a melodic progression makes me cry
my feelings and my memories wind around each other like two pythons
…a wringing
seeing and being seen
looking into and not at
there’s an era under those eyelashes
generations strung along optic nerves
a universe of witnessing in a single glance
my Bastille is stormed, prodded and squeezed
looking cancer in the I
in search of happy endings
40 something sex and the city survivors
home to the 17″ screen
his face grinning in different positions
titled “past, present and future”
and it pulls me back to the looming possibility
of love
and a future—
the subject of quite a few discussions recently
about dance
and what it “gives” to an audience
there is some dilemma involved here
clearly, muddy terrain
on the one hand
the audience needs to do some work too
see things more than once,
or, if it’s improvised, see it many times
on the other hand
without the audience
we are just entertaining ourselves
strange unknown contracts
they get people scared
they use words like self-indulgent when they feel left out
we just have to work out
how to let them in on themselves