Freya

They said you'd died.
Last Thursday.
Car crash - plain and simple
Among sunny beaches of Costa Rica.

And, I guess noone got it.
Yeah you were dead, but not dead dead.
Not really.
More asleep in tumbles of brown curls.

Messages of sadness and loss poured in.
'Rest In Peace' and 'sleep forever'.
Because sleep is utterly harmless.

Then you were a body.

Body.
The weight behind it like a truck
Struck with startling realisation.
Body with no air, no laughter
No whisper.
No movement, like the deepest ever sleep.

You are just a body now
And they'll bring you back next week.




For Freya
x

the new week

it has been a strange few weeks.
i have no idea what to do with life because i have messed up.
and though it seems fine it's really not, sitting next to the ugly mathematics building at Leeds Uni and wondering what this will all become.
and this is truly the end of all things, moving on and becoming great and learning curves to suit all tastes.

Unity Day - did some work for the Cadaverine Magazine tent, heard some lovely pieces from a girl whose name I didn't catch, she won the best poem prize and one poem in particular was just gorgeous.

I need to plan my life out and decide whether Australia is right for me or not, deep down I know it isn't but I think I need to try it out. No-one else does.
Oh what to do and how to spend my time

asking you was just an empty gesture so don't try to find meaning in it.
although you look good in a vest you're just not as imposing anymore.
just more and more shallow and cold.

i am writing a short story about AIDS
it's not the cheeriest subject but it might be.

septum piercing, i look like a bull
but it's tiny which is what i wanted.

this whole 'us against the world' thing is a pile of bullshit because you are not a love story you are infatuated and it's getting old.
so next year remember me.

accomodate accomodate

i am scared of people forgetting i am scared of people leaving i am terrified of people

i do not know what will happen tomorrow, next week or in any period of time between now and when i die.
this is not what bothers me.
what bothers me in the complicated intertwining existence of humans and the increasinlgy fragile bonds between social groups.
come together and separate like oil on water.
come together and never stick.

never put your trust in anyone because nothing is as ugly as a honest person, by their very nature.
but then again, can we even trust ourselves? are we any closer to understanding 'i' than we are to 'they'
probably not. of course not.

i saw Inception last week, how many people are now waiting for the pull to wake them up? wake up wake up it's time.

today i saw Toy Story 3 and cried like a baby.
i would have preferred it if they had stayed with andy, they spent the past ten years waiting in a box for andy to open up to them again.
they've travelled to pizza planet, sid's house, al's apartment, toy barn, sunnyside, bonnie's house and always gone back to elm street and in the end it was all for one big goodbye.
was it worth it at all for another smile and five minutes of imagination?
probably to them, to me it seemed far too sad.

remission

sunday was surprisingly alright
i managed to read my stuff without wetting myself or throwing up so all in all a good job.

today i got £500 from my mother for my birthday
it's all getting saved for sensible things like rent next year.
boo i want to be nice things and splurge

going london on the 18th for birthday treat
first class train, five star hotel - both free
going to the tate, some PR meeting thing, Harrods and the markets

can't wait to be 18 at long bloody last
though kind of feeling like it will end up beingf awful because some people won't care

and can't really sort anything out cause everyone is fighting.
screw it i'm just going to pick up presents and go drinking on my own.

come on australian application, be finished
'and all the lovers with no time for me'

not always, just life

Whilst you are reading this
someone collects a pension, child support.
Someone queues for greasy McDonalds,
a heart attack in the hospital bed.
A teen takes their first sip
of syrupy, sugar alcopop, an old man
raises a glass and drinks whiskey
to fallen comrades. Baby drinks milk
from a sippy cup.
Every second, mothers try to pursuade
young ones to eat their greens, mothers
try to pursuade their daughters to eat
anything.
A man thrusts glass in another's face,
a caterpillar escapes from a cocoon and
flutters on stained glass wings,
a believer kneels to pray.
In that split second just then, dogs
chase after the hare, frantic businessmen
chase buses. Red pens trace lines,
lines across a mirror face. People fall,
get up, babies and grown men learn to walk.
Nurses inject morphine, people inject morphine,
needles pierce purple veins for every condition.
The grip of a newborn wrapped around dad's finger
slack hand of a grandma surrounded my family.
Fingertips press on computer keys, violin strings
the lips of lovers. Intellectuals read 'The Cherry Orchard'
blossoms gather in piles on street corners,
Chinatown smells of seaweed and spicy soup.
Life is always going on, regardless of you.




i am nowhere near as good as brian bartlett
but this is my attempt at brian bartlett.
one day i will be a good writer
the kind that people talk about at art galleries and buy my books and get sad that i'm wasting my life living in myself and drinking
occasionally i'll come out and give interviews and look blue
and people will rave and it won't be as good as they say but it will be good.

suggestions/alterations/improvements welcome.

medusa

i feel beautiful and sad and stunning and completely unloved.
as if running after the hare and every step makes it harder to keep up
and the other dogs are disappearing over the hillside.

my hand is bruised and bleeding and swollen and i can't write
if i can't write i can't live.
thus fulfilling the criteria as given by rainer maria rilke

in my dreams i can only run like an animal. on two legs it feels like running through treacle but on all fours i'm like a big cat and streak across land faster than light.
what that means i don't know

read the poem 'always' by brian bartlett
this week i am supposed to write a poem inspired by that one by about west leeds
i'll post it up soon, it's about caterpillars and pensions and mcdonalds.
the mentor at the residency gives us good things to read: etgar keret, rilke, martin stannard.