gateways

November 19th, 2008

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

how to react

November 18th, 2008

someone once told me
that my problem is
I take things too personally

science fiction

November 17th, 2008

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

loved me and left me

November 15th, 2008

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)

hiatus

October 23rd, 2008

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

deepening

September 28th, 2008

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

stillness

September 20th, 2008

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

somewhere in august

August 23rd, 2008

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

screening

July 14th, 2008

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—

thinking of the audience

June 30th, 2008

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