hot grey day, a cold water smile

The truth, like all immense things, is shattering. It plucks worlds away. It stymies, and it bucks. 1. I have been putting the truth together for a while now. 2. I have been trying to make a truth. 3. I have been trying to make my truth loudly. I can't exactly say, why there is a broken traffic light sitting in my bones, that has this life slamming through, scathing, in abandon.

There is a small bird. There is a whole fucking sea of birds, and sky of birds, and wracking flight—LEATHER. SEIZURE. NOISE. The small bird is still there, and it is still pretty, and I could still be sad for hours about it.

Why can't I make truth? It is there, but remains haunted by rot and shoe string, these things you have loved falling under water and never coming back to you. The way that violence makes my mouth drop, my teeth all bared like an animal all gun-shot through.

And yet some kind of happiness—the way you count your words, the way the curves taste, the repulsion of remembering, the smear across the earth.

The truth fills me uncontrollably, violent, loud. And it empties—cold toes, vacant eyes. The truth is an orgasm of my years. (Convulsion, hand in mouth, sank biting into blood, and the small of death.)

Ian William L.

the human stain

"But the pleasure isn't owning the person. The pleasure is this—having another contender in the room with you.

—The Human Stain; Philip Roth

head arch

this night has lost its stars, and he has fallen back through the dinner table, where i don't go, and they are museum pieces, tagged with plastic private breath, and you are a strange show, stung me through with halving charm.

impel

the truth is, I don't know how to remain still, or silent, to not feel the spur, the glow, the spirit. and right now, from the train carriage alone, I feel the steam on the glass, the old couple making hands, that togetherness, how loud and clear the passing light, beckoning for such quiet life.

Ian William L.

reach high

Reach high, for stars lie hidden in your soul. Dream deep, for every dream precedes the goal. 

Pamela Starr

old pine

such a slow day song, and such a beautiful clip to accompany it. I would strongly recommend watching it directly through youtube to watch it in true realised size. such light, such colour.

unfettered howl

Let all of life be an unfettered howl. Like the crowd greeting the gladiator. Don't stop to think, don't interrupt the scream—exhale, release life's rapture.  

Vladimir Nabokov

split

Fault lines hold the earth together, flaws make us brave.


filled with love and noise.

he tells of a spark

We are all born into a single moment in time, filled with our own force of colour, of sound, spinning through a spill of days and finding hope. We can't expect to master all pursuits, or know all great kindness. But neither can we cripple ourselves with a shrug of our spark, where such invention yet moves to radiate. We should hold warmth for the happiness of others, and perseverance for our own. We should wear ourselves well—ragged—lightning bolt—brave.

my eyes were clicking

so much sings within me, but on broken legs and flickering and hung from a clock, bloated and coursing and measured and still. there is vinegar—my tongue?—skies thumping, purple-into-orange-into-green, a strong love that might bruise, an acceptance i slowly keep. i am licking street graffiti and following the dusk chiming with a pinball glow, brilliance. i fell heavily on his lisp and wanted to hold his bones all thrown as dinosaurs and might of days. i pulled at her string, the spill of words knitting to my disease, trapped her eyes on my snaking light. but there is a path here only i divine, this soil in my blood, rush of daybreak, wanderlust scraping at my bird skin.

make

you are a jar they will put back into the earth, a secret i would like to believe, a wound that refuses to weep, an apple that uprooted the tree.

you are an earthquake awash in a spare room, a breath of frozen jagged sleet, a language curling with bruises, a wild growth that pierces these streets.

(you are a reference card once stolen for a book i am yet to write.)

all my days

"And even breathing feels all right."

Every now and then shuffle brings this back to the surface, and how it brings its own smile. Discovered a long time ago via Away We Go (which is such a moving film in its own right.)

For today I lie in the grass, and watch—the leaves flare green-into-gold, the sky continuing to search.

you are a detective

This gave me my last smile before sleep—a page taken from How to Be an Explorer of the World: Portable Life Museum by Keri Smith.

[via ffffound via don't touch my moleskine via keri smith.]

let it in

It is only lightning bolts that arc out forever all before us: the brilliance made clear.

—Ian William L.

sometimes to feel the morning even here

I make my body into a flint, so that the night can't get in, and strike every heartbeat of the hall as i find my way down. the scratches are familiar, and comfortable, and I hope they are enough. and I am always turning back, finding it could be a new season, finding you made of puddles, and mop-hair, and corners of pages tugged, finding you crumpled and real and softly still, catching on the wall.

the ugly end of the month

i can't seem to keep my focus for more than a few minutes. it strikes me as getting worse and i am scrambling to defy it. these all fell to drafting.

i have turned away from you now, my compass stung wrong in halves, and i never see the fire set...

i want more for you and always have—the only strength i could hold. my sadness is easy, with every hour, and violent strings, and a head that moves faster than my body. but you were an even weight, and blinding light—

i feel the house creeping up on me and my tongue buckle.

or it comes like a lung full with lightning, fingertips that are not fast enough, signals that burn up the chorus dusk, suddenly a single cracking note, for the fire song, my skin straps yours—

is this how a cartographer must feel, to have his whole world come to be found?

we will all be changed

The chorus fills the morning with light.

[via we are fuel you are friends.]