i think of you when i'm alone like this.

The body is aching and tired but the brain is wired and whirring, alive and flickering with too much caffeine and staying up all night to get a story written. It was finished at six in the morning, just as the morning light began to peek in through the blinds, so I left the self-imposed prison of my room and escaped into the light of the early morning.

The smell of eucalyptus and soil, heavy in the air. Traffic gearing up along the main road. Birdsong. Hot-air balloons. floating distantly on the horizon. On the top of the bridge my tummy begins to cry out for food - home, I go. I promise myself that I'll do this again, but properly, very soon.

SLEEP.

save your light for darker days.

photo © ziz.

Twenty minutes to the next Hurstbridge train at Parliament station. I step outside the station for a cigarette, from underground, up to air, sitting down on the steps still warm with the unrelenting heat of the day. Moths are gathering around the bluest streetlight, strong above me. I spark up; inhale, exhale.

Nineteen minutes.

Song on repeat for the commute home: Digitonal, 'A Lighter Touch'. This gorgeous, warm, simplistic ambient piece speaks of comfort and of sweeter things, to me. Things I've been missing.

Home, and the ceiling fan is going strong above me, the lights are all out. The heat of the day is still going strong. I think I'll let Alison Goldfrapp sing me to sleep tonight.

it makes it melt away.

I was in a filthy mood all day long, but it dissipated once I left the house and walked into one of the clearest twilights Melbourne has blessed us with in awhile. Funny, how that works out. There was coffee with an ex-boyfriend and later drinks with a friend of ours and I left feeling remarkably healed.

There's light to be found even after darkness has made its way into the backstreets and suburbs and city. The midnight commute home tonight was full of it. The train turning away from Clifton Hill, gaining speed, passing the last city-bound train for the evening lit up, illuminating the few and far between faces of the night's last commuters. A full moon hanging low and sweet in the sky. The digital clock at Bell Station, reading 12:11AM. Stars, strewn all along the horizon, dimmed by the glow of the CBD's light pollution. The blur of late-night traffic along Bell Street. Somebody's security lights flooding the street with its paranoia as I walk past their front yard. The shimmering, moody, joyful beats in my headphones, put on repeat, meshing with my steps, my heartbeat. A curious feeling of warmth in my heart.

The light is everywhere - it's just a matter of looking for it.

the traffic never slows.

Despite the day-old headache, I roused myself out of this apathy and went for a walk around my suburb at eight and went for a walk around the suburbs this early evening with a Canon 350D. Twilight sinking gently into the backstreets of Preston. Barbed-wire fences, ageing industrial wastelands, metal degrading and decaying everywhere. I grew up here and despite the ugliness of it, it's my home and I adore it.

--

Few days ago I discovered a note a good friend had left me in my phone, back in September. I never wanted to be your rolling train; I never wanted to be your dancing shoes. I love surprises and I love that boy.

--

Plastic cups. Burn holes in the carpet. Full ashtray.
Your breathing. Your breathing. You're still. You're still.
Still here. Still here.

Film photographs. Negative images. A ghost of you,
resting against my back. Late spring rain.

Quiet flat. Open windows, impossible night.
Spinning fan. I could recognise that laugh anywhere.

Swallow hard. Against me. Against me.
It's no good.

--

Dashed off, quickly, in a fit of sleeplessness. Right now I'm just writing and writing and writing, knowing that most of it is bollocks, but hoping that with a lot of time and a lot of practice, something of not-entirely-dubious quality will reappear again. I'm looking forward to properly getting my jam on with Luke. Downloaded a copy of FruityLoops a few days ago and gave it a whirl tonight - it's a complete mystery to me, at the moment, but with the guidance of a good friend and some sweet beats, I think we could be on our way to making magic. The dream: I am living it!

the ocean calls us.

© _barb_

maggie and milly and molly and may
e.e. cummings

maggie and milly and molly and may
went down to the beach (to play one day)

and maggie discovered a shell that sang
so sweetly she couldn't remember her troubles,and

milly befriended a stranded star
whose rays five languid fingers were;

and molly was chased by a horrible thing
which raced sideways while blowing bubbles:and

may came home with a smooth round stone
as small as a world and as large as alone.

for whatever we lose (like a you or a me)
it's always ourselves we find in the sea

--

Off to Eildon for the weekend. Happy birthday, Calum. See you on the flipside.

all your sundays come back to haunt you.

you're a razor-wired beauty.

(For those unfamiliar with the program, for which you should be ashamed: Spooks. Ros Myers. The fiercest woman on television right now.)

haze.

© skydiveparcel.

Here comes another change in pace. I've been reading Karl Hyde of Underworld's daily blog, thoroughly enjoying the idea of day-to-day posting with images, too. It's a lovely, personal look at the innerspace of one of my favourite artists. I love his openness, the way he's so willing to share with his fans - it's not something you often see. (And obviously, I'm not stalking his online presence at all. What sort of a creep would do that?)

The last few days have been headaches and nausea. I'm doing something wrong, though I can't pin down what it is, exactly. Too many cigarettes, coffees, too much stress and apathy, not enough food? (I need to learn how to cook, and properly, too.) Who knows. My creative output has hit a standstill: full ashtrays, blank pages. Haven't touched my Canonet QL17 in days, or figured out how to get my photos off Dad's Canon 350D, and left my friends at the Corner Hotel when the the headache (hi, mum, are you having fun, and now are you on your way to a new tension headache?) became too much.

I waited forty-five minutes for an Epping train at Flinders Street Station before disembarking at Bell and walking home in the cool and darkness of a late spring evening. Strange how those small things can be the sweetest moments of life - the backstreets of Preston, singing 'Born Slippy.NUXX' loudly, raucously to the dark and empty streets - well, empty, until I realised I was walking towards a twenty-something male who looked rather disconcerted and bemused at the sight of me. I crossed the road, unlocked the door and entered my house, still riding the high of Karl Hyde and Rick Smith's delightful grooves. I'm going to make it to Romford one day. One day.

that was yesterday.

Your breathing, whispering
through the pear trees

outside. Midnight train in
the distance hisses,

with longing. Memory, tissue-thin,
brushing against my eyelids.

in the distance.

I know loving Richard Siken is what all the cool kids are doing right now, but I couldn't resist.

Boot Theory
Richard Siken

A man walks into a bar and says:
Take my wife–please.
So you do.
You take her out into the rain and you fall in love with her
and she leaves you and you’re desolate.
You’re on your back in your undershirt, a broken man
on an ugly bedspread, staring at the water stains
on the ceiling.
And you can hear the man in the apartment above you
taking off his shoes.
You hear the first boot hit the floor and you’re looking up,
you’re waiting
because you thought it would follow, you thought there would be
some logic, perhaps, something to pull it all together
but here we are in the weeds again,
here we are
in the bowels of the thing: your world doesn’t make sense.
And then the second boot falls.
And then a third, a fourth, a fifth.

A man walks into a bar and says:
Take my wife–please.
But you take him instead.
You take him home, and you make him a cheese sandwich,
and you try to get his shoes off, but he kicks you
and he keeps kicking you.
You swallow a bottle of sleeping pills but they don’t work.
Boots continue to fall to the floor
in the apartment above you.
You go to work the next day pretending nothing happened.
Your co-workers ask
if everything’s okay and you tell them
you’re just tired.
And you’re trying to smile. And they’re trying to smile.

A man walks into a bar, you this time, and says:
Make it a double.
A man walks into a bar, you this time, and says:
Walk a mile in my shoes.
A man walks into a convenience store, still you, saying:
I only wanted something simple, something generic…
But the clerk tells you to buy something or get out.
A man takes his sadness down to the river and throws it in the river
but then he’s still left
with the river. A man takes his sadness and throws it away
but then he’s still left with his hands.

one-line poetry.

Taking a cue from Ian McBryde - one of my favourite contemporary poets. (Melbournians do it better!)

Curtains astir in the burnt-out house.



Light in the west, light in the east.



I am setting fire to the school gates.



It isn't the wind which moves the playground swings, by night.



The nightmare, again. No safe harbor.



A loaded quiet, before the spark.



The haze and mist of rain over an abandoned London.



Car crash on camera. Glass, metal, pixels.

hide and seek.

Stranger's backyard, unfamiliar
plum tree. Blossoms, floating in the wind. You
and the night's stars, my anchor.

february.

metal kitchen sink
open window; close, dense heat
distance, between us

the buzz surounds.

photo © rich74 on flickr.

Somewhere in this vast and
impenetrable night: a light,

switched on, a room filled
with the dull hum of a a

refrigerator. You, asleep on
the kitchen table, cloaked

in uneasy dream, awaiting a
call that will never come.

saturday night smirk.

Deception comes all
too easily to girls like
you. Filthy lipsticked

mouths, glass eyes, a cold
passion for nothing at all.
Pilot light sparks out.

origins.

I'm terrible at updating this thing. Have been neglecting writing; moving out, work, friends all conspire against me. Fate is a cruel and harsh mistress!

If you know me, you've probably read this poem before. I'd count it as one of my favourite poems, and it's what the name of this blog is taken from.

The Whisper-Stream, Ian McBryde

No city sleeps. Weeds defeat concrete. The blood
runs and everyone comes from elsewhere, citizenless,

without an address. The midnights pass. Wheels spin,
sleek vehicles peel off just before the lights go green.

Justice weeps for itself, alone at home, wherever that
once was, if ever. Blackness gathers, falling on these

red rooms, this darkened carnival. One will stay, one
hastens away. High-rises wait. Abandoned blocks exhale,

safer places hold their breath. That which heals us also
rips us in half. The cruel bruise, the rack, the broken

back. Scarred shoulders in mirrors. The slaughterhouse
calmness of tired men lunching with their stun guns

on the table. The cave, the castle; there is no difference.
Long splashes of shadow over single women breasting

their children close in cold, lonely kitchens, believing
nothing they are told. Racks of candles reduced to stubs

in untended empty churches where there is nothing left
to confess. Bandages, triage, sirens. The dripping wall.

Everyone in hell wears kevlar. We all are coming back
from nowhere. Regret. Revenge. Truth rules the gutters.

All of us arriving in from nameless, nightshift places.
Blood runs. The messages are banking up. No city sleeps.

a gentle hum.

© edona at deviantart.

Somewhere on the other side of this wide night
and the distance between us, I am thinking of you.

'words, wide night' by carol ann duffy.

as i look into your eyes, i'll pay no mind

Unkle feat. Ian Brown - Be There
Uploaded by shinri-ikeda

Independence is not freedom, and the tracks lead nowhere.

thames river (for ruth).

Flat, gray river light;
ash-dark skyline. Postcards from
Paris, Prague, Naples.

12:18am.

Rain against the glass.
All is dark. Your voice, lost, in
a haze of static.

(Here begins my attempt to write a haiku a day. Watch and laugh!)

i still remember.

(Not quite sure where this photo came from! It's not mine, in any case.)

Nightly: a rollcall

of names, a medley of whispers,
sirens through the cold
clear night. Locked windows. Ghosts
in my bed. A blur of light

though the glass,
some distant dream. Fingerprints.

can be sweet, though incomplete.

and the frames will freeze
see me on all fours—

—it's been a long time.

Another late night, though this time not out wandering the streets of Melbourne. 'Inertia Creeps' is one of the singles off my favourite album ever, Mezzanine by Massive Attack. I recall a review of it describing it not as dark, but light-absorbing, and I think that's just perfect. Tense, volatile, and moody - the band went through some serious internal conflict (which, if you're interested, you can read about here) throughout the making of this album, and it's reflected in the feel of the album. It's the sort of record you need to listen to with good headphones - with heavy bass, of course - in a darkened room, at two in the morning to really get into. Do yourself a favour: acquire a copy and follow my instructions. Maybe go for a walk in the evening and plug yourself into it. Lose yourself. You will not regret this.

a change in pace.

© dyspeptic at deviantart.

I bring you: Bloc Party lyrics. (Stop looking at me like that.) While I'm not usually into this sort of indie-hipster music, it's undeniably well-written and goddamn, is it good to dance to or what.

i was sitting on the roof of my house
with a shotgun and a six-pack of beers
(six-pack of beers, six-pack of beers)

the newscaster says the enemy's among us
as bombs explode on the 30 bus
kill your middle-class indecision:
now is not the time for liberal thought

so i go hunting for witches
i go hunting for witches
heads are going to roll
i go hunting for—

in the nineties
optimistic as a teen
now it's terror
airplanes crash into towers

the daily mail says the enemy's among us
taking our women and taking our jobs
the reasonable fool is being drowned out
by the non-stop baying baying baying for blood

so i go hunting for witches
i go hunting for witches
heads are going to roll

i was an ordinary man with ordinary desire
i watched tv, it informed me
i was an ordinary man with ordinary desire
there must be accountability

disparate and misinformed:
fear will keep us all in place.

Singer and lyricist Kele Okereke on 'Hunting for Witches':

"The 30 bus in Hackney, which is just around the corner from where I live, was blown up. [That song was] written when I was just observing the reactions of the mainstream press in [the UK] and I was just amazed at how easy it’d been to whip them up into a fury. … I guess the point about the song for me is post-September 11th, the media has really traded on fear and the use of fear in controlling people."

So I'm in a little bit of awe with how sharp and insightful this track is. Opening with a haze of disjointed voices and white noise, as if one is shuffling through radio stations, receiving a mess of static instead of information. The lyrics have an almost absurd quality to them: "sitting on the roof of my house / with a shotgun and six-pack of beers", and the references to witches. And yet there's an element of reality about it: we've gone "hunting for witches" in a way that mirrors the witchhunts in Salem such a long time ago - demonising the Middle East, stirring up panic and hysteria and fear, lapping up the lies and spin fed to us by politicians and the media. And that bomb on the bus really did go off, those planes crashed into the Twin Towers. Nightmare and reality: it's as if they're becoming almost indistinguishable from each other.

I'll go to bed now.

along flinders lane.

© emilly at deviantart.

Yesterday: a whisper, a stirring
along the pavement,

the movement
of cigarette butts, paper bags,
discarded faith.

Another step down this lonely
laneway. I tilt my face and

catch a first glimpse of sky.

that was just a dream.

© smellout at deviantart.

this shoreline, our shipwreck; our
only solace. the light doesn't

think to find us here. time's endless
drift, through my fingers. your

pale shoulder, your luminous
glow. nothing pains me, now.

---



I'm quite enjoying this already. This piece feels awkward and childish to me, but it reminds me of a dream I had and somebody important to me, so. WHAT-EVER.

after the bomb drops.

© viscosa at deviantart.

Shattered glass. Skeletons
of steel. An unfinished
message, scrawled

on the burnt-out buildings
the trains never pass,
anymore. Your voice

echoing in the blank
space, folding back in
on itself. Twilight; back to

dawn. Light, dancing
nakedly, openly,
in the streets where we

once could have. The
sirens have long since faded
into the gray. The view

from this bridge
is no longer beautiful. Oxygen.
Neon. Underground.

(Keep this secret.)

--



So, hi. For those who don't know me: Miki (female, Japanese-Australian), seventeen, a reasonably-proud inhabitant of the city of Melbourne. Assuming this blog is updated more than once, I foresee it being home to a mishmash of my poetry, photography, artwork, and half thought-out musings. It's lovely meeting you.