the idea was to work all day, this last day of june.
another being all the towns of the country:
all possessing a brick-built national museum of
something-or-other. we hate the ineffectual
hammering of two disparate things together though,
don’t we. like bobby mcferrin’s ‘don’t worry
be happy’ played atop a documentary on financial
intrigues, or gwyneth paltrow playing a friend
of yours in a new hollywood movie (lauded
at cannes). & so we get a linear reading:
me from morning to evening, going through the
little decisions working to prove that radical curse
of freedom (& thereby amount to a positive sense
of ‘thematic’). around three i left work & stood
near the car, deliberating, sniffing the promise
of rain & wind coming across the valley.
it was fantastic, & i wanted to linger there,
be a stranger in this familiar corner of bush
& weatherboard. were it documentary something
apt would have played then (back in the mix)
a track in tune with my feeling of elements
mixed with completion. but it probably would have
included an unplanned whist / ennui / melancholy.
(i’m pretty sure paul dempsey used the word ‘ennui’
in a song today, in the car, & i don’t know that
i’ve ever come across that before. i’m not french
enough perhaps.) we’ll never nail that particular feeling.
it was tempered with glossy dots of colour, spinning
over my field of vision or apprehension, spurring
the thought that i’m not seeing things properly,
or that it’s old-ground: the cold of the hill
only delicious when felt from the crest of a blanket.
i opened the window a chink trying to negotiate that
very balance in the heater & the wind. it was a failure
but the failure was poetic, & the thought of a mention
in the very real ‘poetics of failure’ document now
makes me smile, i suspect. the power-steering
seizes up leaving afternoon piano lessons & you’d
almost see me becoming a facsimile of the past,
a little raft in the sea of transit from where i’d shout
at the damn waves & sea-horses. i’d close the blinds.
were i sixteen & the girl next-door & considering
a change of clothes though, who knows. we just can’t
explain the vagaries of probability: how things add
up, the chances of something happening becoming
smaller at the same time. the phonecalls tend to be
relatives interested in dates & arrangements but
i still anticipate the criticisms made more real than
aero-gloss text, despite the electricality of a distant
voice. ‘you’re giving too much of yourself’, just like
an old photographic / text study, lying around the uni
art studios, the alphabetical component claiming
our secrets made us ourselves. i believed it –
but there’s more to me. june was a lot of work
only i wouldn’t say a lot happened. i didn’t
watch too many movies. my kids are atom-bombs
& just now, mid-effort, i noticed the sky has cleared,
after the promise; even near objects blur &
it’s quite uncomfortably real.
.