through the chaos of the night and the honking of the horns

Five weeks from now I will have moved out of my house in Fitzroy. I will have worked my final day with the wild youth of Melbourne's northern district. I will have packed some things, smiled at my sister, kissed my mother's cheek and held my father's arm. I will be boarding a plane for India, for a new job in a new city surrounded by new people. Five weeks from now.

It was nearly a year ago when I made the first preparatory step toward my imminent adventure. I was concerned with other things and dedicated little thought to how my decisions/actions would affect the landscape of my life. If anything, the last twelve months provide testimony to a separation between the lived trajectory and the torments of conscious thought. We make decisions and move toward outcomes and all the while our heads chase chickens up a tree.

I remember a friend saying that she would be sad if my plan was a success. I remember receiving an email and filling out a form. I remember asking my principal for a reference.

The application was not an easy process. It took time, preparation and sustained effort, and not once did I question my decision. This must be what others speak of, when they know that something is right. When they feel that they are on the right track. When everything "just works".

This sensation was... not a sensation. If Freud is right, that the only true feeling is anxiety (all others are simply variations thereof), then this was the one thing that was free of feeling. With dumb determination I just signed another page and transferred the set amount.

My brother, my sister, and many of our friends have stood before themselves and said "I do".

I have said "I doubt".

"I doubt" myself and all things.

This move to Bangalore? Of course I am worried. But there is little thought and little fear and only quiet anticipation. It is a gentle sense that something is about to change. That soon that which has long been still shall once again be moving, quickly... dancing through the chaos of the night and the honking of the horns.

winds calling

For the longest time I have not felt the inclination to scribble down the random thoughts and occurrences that constitute my life. What have I done? Little. J'existe.

The desire (need) to write and create was smote when I returned to Melbourne. For a while there I chattered like an estranged lunatic about the bitterness of home and the will to overcome. Then there were codified grumblings and resentments, some romantic, some just cursing at the sky.

But for the first time in that topsy turvy to and fro, I feel the gypsy of my soul reach for the known not yet. My work as a teacher casts light on new direction. A confidence swells in the quiet darkness, and I feel the winds calling. Recently I applied to an agency that assists the professional courtship that brings teachers and international schools together. An interview awaits, and will be followed by further inquiries and a trip to Sydney. In a year I should be settled some place new. Some place known not yet. I let my fancy tip toe here and there, and picture cluttered streets in Shanghai, onion domes in Moscow, or the calm inlets of Basque country. It is a long time yet, and time will bring it's mysteries and lay them at my feet. Let's pray our feet find their way, and deliver us new happiness.

Maybe I will find myself in Persia...

This construct is in sight

Our rusted cages sadly sway, some second close,
some far away,
Bitter breath that blows between, now heard my voice,
my dance, unseen,

And this, my corpse, which I forgot,
I hold,
between two broken fingers.

My palms meet in morbid prayer, communal love,
communal fair,
For it is time, and he has risen, alone he walks,
in lonely wisdom,

And though your heart may wish it not,
he hangs, aloft,
between two broken fingers.

We are alone, my desert flower, "don't, not yet!"
no not this hour,
For what it was and now lays dying, cannot go on,
cannot keep crying,

And you, my friend, who I must kill, I leave you now
so you may end,
O! spiteful thing, that we must die, and still we dance,
still. . . we try,

And you, my heart. . .

you shall someday stop your beating,
my tiny life, crushed,
between two broken fingers.

my child

You do know who you are talking to? You do have some awareness of who I am, right? This morning, heaving with autumn, breaks apart as burnt paper beneath a whales tongue. Sweet memory of summer, held between our teeth. The old air of London, holds aloft a single hair. That old air, of London...

The sores in my mouth are better today. The canker tells of strange, acidic vapors - my teeth are cagey with it all. Perhaps one must dilute the existing quaquaqua... to up and have done with viscosities and verbose wall hangings. One oily figure melts into the next. An uncluttered life reflects an uncluttered head. And still there is movement in that old air. The spinning leaves remind me so.

If one should experience disasters within, then the world will bear the marks of strife. But if the mind is witness to a troubled world, and refuses to call it so, then surely strife will pollute the soul. I know from my own lies, the corrosive fictions that scatter here, now there.

Is that your fist you shake beneath the table? We have such intimate contempt for one another. Better to walk against the wind - to hear the wooden nail scratch your grimy window. It is all up with us. My body creaks like a wind blown cellar. Each bottle sings unto the melting snow - blow my child. Blow.

Sun, arise.

Here, amid such ruined things,
Words, in dust, crawl and cry.
Here, alone, where symbols sing,
Set in stone, or sung to die.

Still! my breath, my beating heart,
Broken clock, or time unwind.
Alone, again, be not in fright,
Up! ol boy. Sun, arise.

A few words on/off

It never starts on a first page, it can't, it wont.
Make this your start and the lamp light your sun.
Sweet robe of morning, when chill pursues my nakedness.
Your kiss a tongue of weeping, i miss the wanting, not the wanted.
Her eyes still cast the stone, a creature's shadow creeping.
But never in the daylight, never on the breeze.
This is the shape i make in the moonlight, i catch silver.
Were i a wolf my blood would pump quicker.
And if i were a spider, my many legs would wrap around.
The firmness of her belly offers a tongueless clue.
We cry alone together, separated by our own impossibility.
Sketching idea that phlegms from emotions unutterable.
Manufacture flame from shade - give me a picture.
Portrait of solitude, a lone lee ness, a song.
A poem of crisis and buzzing bees, they carry us.
Over earth and under the wire, catches my throat.
Curdled and gargle, as wrath of bitter toad.
Her purity (a song in A minor) suspended between two hollow trees.
Swung from a bough, beaten, dry, lidless eyes.
And toothless ears! readily suck at swollen strings.
Her hatred is my refuge, no man is an island.
I start counting backward, and lose my mark, in time.

Just checking in

It has been ages since i wrote here - little reason - Just not much to share - and i harbor disdain for the current zeitgeist of narcissistic idolatry. Facebook, myspace and blogging. I hate people who self worship at these holy cyberspaces. Man i hate myself.

If you want to know a bit about what i've been up too, creatively speaking, then check out www.myspace.com/chottomattemusic We're playing stacks of gigs - and the ethos behind the music has evolved significantly.

Otherwise - living in Fitzroy. Teaching at a school in Glenroy (and absolutely loving it!). And still singing. My teacher turns 86 tomorrow. Happy Birthday Myra. I love you.

Oh, Culture vultures should quest for scraps at www.openculture.com This is my new favourite site in the whole pathetic joke of a universe.

Nokta . from Onur Senturk on Vimeo.

Merci , adieu