The Early Days I (Poetry)

the early days

of untrustworthy cognitions

of streets with too many corners

adventures behind each one

and pictures too

writing up tables

and plans for survival

the poet had just killed himself

as poets are wont to do

but there are lots of

other

new

ghosts here

too

of going undetected

through your streets and your circles

in your back rows

different spectacles each time

until they found out

declared my income and that this would not go on

that I would take and eat and grow

value

jets and ferries and planets

so many of them

days and days of blinding sunshine

my bed smells like light and air

the days of the

goddess of denial

who strenghthens one with vacancy

with independence (i tried to kill her i have not seen her since)

and the God who was even closer

I have not forgotten,

my first night here

you gave me food and talked about the return of the prodigal

and my soul smiled

kyrie, eleison

and long ago

the days of cider and guitars

and giving your heart to jesus

my soul was older then

but my world less daunting

it is early days yet

and we shoudn't read into it too much

square zero is an excellent place

from which to start

perhaps they do not hate me after all

Chocolate Sorcery And Other Family Treasures.

Chocolate Mug Cake (mine) (actually I think it's Michelle's)

Size six egg. In a mug. Some flour, some butter, lots of cocoa, some sugar. Adjust ratios till it's the right consistency. Doesn't matter, it can't really fail. The more you do it, you'll get the feel for what's right (just like life). Cook it till it's cooked. (In a microwave). Decorate with chocolate sauce(ry)* and m$m's. Best eaten in a break from creative mania, or alternatively creative frustration.

Chris' Lamb Shanks (younger brother) (lamb is such a christian thing to eat lol)

Lamb shanks in slow cooker. Put sprigs of rosemary, thyme, and sage together and tie some string round each end. And add them. And Delmaine Crushed Tomatoes With Olives. And decent mushrooms and cheap red wine. And potatoes or whatever. Cook till its cooked.

Rachel's Curry (older sister)

Buy a beef roast. Cut it into SDcard-sized cubes. Get six onions, blend three ** with a bulb of garlic and two inches of peeled, finely chopped ginger. chop and fry the other onions. Add the meat to the pot to brown then the onion/garlic/ginger paste. Fry for several minutes, then add 2 tsp coriander, and one of cumin and tumeric. Cook for a few more minutes then add a tin of chopped tomatoes. Cook for a few more minutes then add 250g of unsweetened greek yoghurt in three or four lots. Cook for about another hour and add chopped fresh coriander.

Andrew's Dessert (older brother).

Cut up bananas. Put in a bowl. Also put in cognac or baileys or whatever. And chocolate chips. And marshmallows if you are a girl. Microwave until cooked.

*the family chocolate sorce(ry) recipe:

butter, sugar, lots of cocoa, heat till dissolved. little bit of full cream milk maybe, unless you do want it to sediment as solid blocks at the bottom of your icecream yum

** the last time I did this was ten years ago in an undergraduate laboratory with detergent to lyse onion cells for a biology experiment. The blender's lid came off.....

I found a ledge above the cablecar

a tiny ledge

and i sketched undisurbed

the bars made it easier to do composition

a frenchman came down to take photos

and we had a bit of a conversation with a few french words thrown in

just a few

he told me to visit the south of france, by the spanish border

he likes it there

i bought food this week instead of paint

it was a tough decision

then i realized i could paint watercolour with granny's old rembrandt pastels

i love using hand-me-downs from Artists

and i have screeds of large watercolour sheets

bliss

i am catching my flatmate's cough. one afternoon out painting and i'm already sick...

mOdax

...he couldn't turn up, texted me just before I got there. I went anyway, got a coffee and scribbled in my pink&green jewelled notepad:

God the cities are so cubic, such a clamour of colours; God we are so crammed with these overlapping grids of various perspective, these right angles; do we unconsiously crave the silent purple curves underneath shyly suspended pollen drops, hinted nectar, frozen doe's with their outstretched fawns?

God I want to go to Antarctica with my camera.

She brings my coffee, i put it on the edge of the single column, newstype on the almost-imperceptible grey grain of newspaper, through which i am entering into South America. There is no photo, but i find brown faces black hair rainbow clothing, and eventually i find new characteristics crawling out of the faces which I found all_the_same just a minute ago.

I cannot explain these new distinuishing features, like you cannot explain the lady you always meet on the bus and with whom you step into deep conversation, who would be spoiled if you ever exchanged names; you already have a languageless name for each other that doesn't belong to writing or speech.

The South Americans are in trouble, but the children grin, and there are babies. Electoral; process; discussed; referendum; Chavez; health; opposition; deterioration; oil; credit; missions; social; brutal; grip; economics; activists; front; vehicles; popularity; prudence; empire.

God I want to go to Antarctica.

Back on the bus:
Outside the window, driving past a kite in a tree, children in a treehouse. The man at the back, i know him namelessly too; he owns a bike for sunny days.

Wellington II

The phone booths are red here. The buses are yellow, the dairies are yellow, the bulwarks are yellow, the tugboats are red. There are canyons downtown. I accidentally sheltered in the foyer of Mojo's headquarters while waiting for the portrait gallery to open. There were stacks of sacks of coffee up to the ceiling and huge espresso machinery, likely for antique and aesthetic purposes. It smelt so nice. I swear I will destroy my camera by taking photos in the rain. But Wellington in the rain is ravishing. It shines. (The relevant photoparagraph is far below and it justifies this rambling one).

I went to an exhibition opening night and on the way there some athlete woman was like 'seal in the harbour!!!' and I followed the people to see it and I managed to photograph it's tail or something. At the exhibition I randomly joined the band with their tambourine and made art and music contacts and ate cheese but not wine.

I will never run out of galleries here.

This is a city of poetry. It is perfectly acceptable to have abstract and unnecessary words inscribed in commonplaces, and for graffiti to be philosophical.

Modern art got the better of me yesterday. There was a fountain down on the docks, a rigid black tube reared like a cobra spewing water. It moved incrementally but froze again. We were enchanted. Then we saw the rest of it lying on the other side, and some sensible person found the tap and turned it off. It was just a broken hose.

I moved to the top of a different hill. This one has a view of the whole of the hutt valley.

I get up early to observe the four planets, and am slowly becoming sleep-deprived again. Here I have a desk and a GARGANTUAN chest of drawers that all my clothing cannot fill (the first of it's kind i have ever encountered; needed I any excuse to buy more clothes?) and a shelf where my books fit PERFECTLY and flatmates who are not particularly permissive of my self-neglect (I have been frugal of late in apprehension of the mechanics bill....) HA the mechanic, that's a story...I got the cash out for him last night and walked back but he wasn't there and it was getting dark and he had locked my car up so I headed back up home past the Beehive and ended up walking up Glenmore St past the gardens (it is a dank and creepy street; trees at night have always freaked me) with $600ish cash in my wallet going "I JUST hope the rapists don't check my wallet...." (Luckily the universe was not eavesdropping on my brain at that moment) so once I got home safely there was the adrenaline euphoria. Apparently I'd arrived in the 5 minutes the mechanic was away.

I realize now that I trusted him because he was scottish and he looked like my scottish brother-in-lore and I am biased toward accents of the homeland. He seems to have been trustworthy though.

I can see the observatory from the lounge. I asked them, but they are not open at 5am, for me to go and see Mercury. How can they call themselves Astronomers??? Never mind, I shall become one of their astronomers in time for Jupiter's return in a few months....

I moved from a flat in Vogeltown. I was there for a month. I was generally cold and hungry and sleep-deprived and fleabitten while i was there. I had bread and jam and butter in my room which was fine as the wooden floors meant it was frigid, but also noisy from drunken small-hours footsteps so i didn't sleep much, also because of the biting things (i was so sure they were bedbugs, as they bit me in rows and columns on my torso, 17 at a time...)

They must have been dogfleas, that got stuck under waistbands and hemlines and socks...I had welts on my ankles.

I loved the lanky black quiet old dog though, I do not blame him.

I found where the pianists gather. there is a Welsh Dragon Bar on a large traffic island on the one ways. It used to be public toilets, and has domes on the roof. It is red and green and white, like the welsh. We collect there on a sunday night and play each other music on a total honky tonk. Dave pulled some chopins out of his head for me.

canyon

mojo

canyon

yellow yellow red yellow red