Gteeuu
04-06-2015, 06:08 AM
I started writing poem about a series of experiences spread over a large number of years. When I was reading it back it sounded more like a story, so I started writing and came-up with this raw set of words. No expectations but wanting to share the imagery. Let me know what you have in your head if/when you read it.
--------------------
I love structure. A streamlined and carefully measured structure of action, of
labouring and processing where there was nothing there is now something. Someone at some point
started laying the blocks of everything that I see in front of me. A decision was made.
To take apart the bones and flesh of the way we live, see why we live in a way. I want you to
behave in a way, a set way of thinking. When I see you moving through the streets, my mind
traces the choices you have made to get to the edge of that pavement. To press that button at
this point in time. Why didn't you stop over there, by the table with the red and white striped
parasol? A dark and not a garish bright red. This busy street in Prague full of tourists and locals,
one body fighting with another to gain supremacy over a second.
I sit at my table gently touching the smooth glazed white pottery lip of this tiny espresso cup and watch
the malty smooth brownness sit and rest after circling. Really tiny bubbles of emptiness popping. I sit and
wait for something to happen. In the middle of everything nothing happens. Hours move by with the sunlight
getting stronger and the air's breath spreading the fragrances of pastry, alcohol and roasted coffee.
I'm sitting on this chair, one leg over the other, black shoes on one foot as it gently taps up and down freely in the air.
The other firmly on the ground but relaxed and a green woollen suit clothing my body. I notice the jacket sleeve
just brushing the few long hairs on my wrist as well as the saucer. The everyday ambience of the day's
customers fills me with a calm joy of knowing. I look out from my position over the throbbing square
knowing that there must be some people here talking about life-changing situations. Some people must be
discussing politics, economics with a disdain for an opposing side. Others, I'm sure, must be discussing
weddings and children. A person talks, another person's ears and eyes witness, process and feedback. The
pattern starts again. How long must it take? From sound and sight to reaction and response?
There's noone out there like me, sitting and questioning. I flutter back to the previous thought, now
a realisation. I'm watching from a distance that feels like twenty metres but the distance between the action
and my mind making it real is tiny. I inflate the delay in my mind for fun. Watching a conversation unfold over
minutes but stretching the delay between one's words and another listening, now unravelling what it it means
to Have a Conversation. It's now starting to drive me mad thinking. Now I'm unnecessarily imagining the brief
delay between each person's gaze and their thoughts. This is strong and makes me uncontrollably ill at the idea
that we are suddenly not in control, we're not choosing when to talk or when to listen a sound.
I begin to have this realisation that we're not in control. I am not in control of anything, inside my own body
and in my mind and outside in the endless environment around me. I feel unnerved and at a loss.
Panic? Am I panicking? I've never felt this before. My arms and legs feel like they're flailing about trying to clutch
some kind of stability. Why isn't anyone looking at me? Don't they know what I'm going through? Can't they sense the
confusion in my head? Aren't they able to see my distress? They see it, but they don't care. Do they realise I'm here?
A person's walking past (the waiter). Can he help me? Why is he ignoring me? Am I standing up or have I been continuing
to sit still? Am I on the floor? This is strange.
**
Hours have gone past now and the upset has retreated. The black shoes are still on my feet and the green
woolen suit is still on my body. I can still detect the hairs on my wrist shifting slightly when my
sleeve moves up and down my arm as a piston would in a cylinder, except without the lubricant. Was it
just too much caffeine or did something with more purpose happen just then? If I'm asking too many
questions I probably don't know. Whatever happened it has me feel different. A spring has fired-off
in my mind that once held a door firmly shut. I never knew such a door existed but I can picture it
as clear as if it were right here in front of me.
Imagine a white wall, the whitest wall you could possibly imagine. No dirty thumb marks, no speckles
of grime or dust from months of uncleanliness. Just a white wall, perhaps with a skirting board of
equal whiteness. The light isn't too light to make the situation surreal, but it's there, illuminating the
scenario enough to give you full understanding of the faux-landscape in front of you. A white wall.
One third of the distance along this wall in length is a door. As ideal a door as you can imagine in this ideal
white wall leaving two thirds of clear wall and a skirting board. The door framed with a surround of equal
whiteness, nothing too proud. This is the door that is now in my head. I stand facing it waiting for some
force to push me through. Scared of what is waiting if I were to reach for a handle. Should I go through it?
Its presence alone must be enough to accept it and carry on. Why should I go through? A new realisation.
I'm not looking at some new opportunity to enter. I don't need to go through it at all. Why would I want to
go BACK through it, I'm already on the other side staring at the door back to a past. I'm already on the other side.
I'm staring at what's always been, I've just come through. What happens if I turn around?
--------------------
I love structure. A streamlined and carefully measured structure of action, of
labouring and processing where there was nothing there is now something. Someone at some point
started laying the blocks of everything that I see in front of me. A decision was made.
To take apart the bones and flesh of the way we live, see why we live in a way. I want you to
behave in a way, a set way of thinking. When I see you moving through the streets, my mind
traces the choices you have made to get to the edge of that pavement. To press that button at
this point in time. Why didn't you stop over there, by the table with the red and white striped
parasol? A dark and not a garish bright red. This busy street in Prague full of tourists and locals,
one body fighting with another to gain supremacy over a second.
I sit at my table gently touching the smooth glazed white pottery lip of this tiny espresso cup and watch
the malty smooth brownness sit and rest after circling. Really tiny bubbles of emptiness popping. I sit and
wait for something to happen. In the middle of everything nothing happens. Hours move by with the sunlight
getting stronger and the air's breath spreading the fragrances of pastry, alcohol and roasted coffee.
I'm sitting on this chair, one leg over the other, black shoes on one foot as it gently taps up and down freely in the air.
The other firmly on the ground but relaxed and a green woollen suit clothing my body. I notice the jacket sleeve
just brushing the few long hairs on my wrist as well as the saucer. The everyday ambience of the day's
customers fills me with a calm joy of knowing. I look out from my position over the throbbing square
knowing that there must be some people here talking about life-changing situations. Some people must be
discussing politics, economics with a disdain for an opposing side. Others, I'm sure, must be discussing
weddings and children. A person talks, another person's ears and eyes witness, process and feedback. The
pattern starts again. How long must it take? From sound and sight to reaction and response?
There's noone out there like me, sitting and questioning. I flutter back to the previous thought, now
a realisation. I'm watching from a distance that feels like twenty metres but the distance between the action
and my mind making it real is tiny. I inflate the delay in my mind for fun. Watching a conversation unfold over
minutes but stretching the delay between one's words and another listening, now unravelling what it it means
to Have a Conversation. It's now starting to drive me mad thinking. Now I'm unnecessarily imagining the brief
delay between each person's gaze and their thoughts. This is strong and makes me uncontrollably ill at the idea
that we are suddenly not in control, we're not choosing when to talk or when to listen a sound.
I begin to have this realisation that we're not in control. I am not in control of anything, inside my own body
and in my mind and outside in the endless environment around me. I feel unnerved and at a loss.
Panic? Am I panicking? I've never felt this before. My arms and legs feel like they're flailing about trying to clutch
some kind of stability. Why isn't anyone looking at me? Don't they know what I'm going through? Can't they sense the
confusion in my head? Aren't they able to see my distress? They see it, but they don't care. Do they realise I'm here?
A person's walking past (the waiter). Can he help me? Why is he ignoring me? Am I standing up or have I been continuing
to sit still? Am I on the floor? This is strange.
**
Hours have gone past now and the upset has retreated. The black shoes are still on my feet and the green
woolen suit is still on my body. I can still detect the hairs on my wrist shifting slightly when my
sleeve moves up and down my arm as a piston would in a cylinder, except without the lubricant. Was it
just too much caffeine or did something with more purpose happen just then? If I'm asking too many
questions I probably don't know. Whatever happened it has me feel different. A spring has fired-off
in my mind that once held a door firmly shut. I never knew such a door existed but I can picture it
as clear as if it were right here in front of me.
Imagine a white wall, the whitest wall you could possibly imagine. No dirty thumb marks, no speckles
of grime or dust from months of uncleanliness. Just a white wall, perhaps with a skirting board of
equal whiteness. The light isn't too light to make the situation surreal, but it's there, illuminating the
scenario enough to give you full understanding of the faux-landscape in front of you. A white wall.
One third of the distance along this wall in length is a door. As ideal a door as you can imagine in this ideal
white wall leaving two thirds of clear wall and a skirting board. The door framed with a surround of equal
whiteness, nothing too proud. This is the door that is now in my head. I stand facing it waiting for some
force to push me through. Scared of what is waiting if I were to reach for a handle. Should I go through it?
Its presence alone must be enough to accept it and carry on. Why should I go through? A new realisation.
I'm not looking at some new opportunity to enter. I don't need to go through it at all. Why would I want to
go BACK through it, I'm already on the other side staring at the door back to a past. I'm already on the other side.
I'm staring at what's always been, I've just come through. What happens if I turn around?