I love the way plucking

Out unwanted hairs

From the otherwise glamorous

Parts of my flesh

Reveals

That the root of all problems

Lies a good centimetre

Below the surface

Four times as long

As the protruding matter

And much darker

Blacker.

With a tiny white bulb

That marks the root.

Where Is My Purple Jumper?

I carry a knapsack
On my back
For those moments
When thought and memory shadows
Step across my vision of light.
Where once I let the shadows
Encase me in concrete
Now I'm learning to bend down,
Pick up my shadows of memory
And fold them up inside
The knapsack on my back.
I'm standing on the bank
Of a great misty lake
My toes caressed by gass
And naked, but for this bag
I carry eveywhere.
It's here that I have to let them free.
So I open my knapsack
And pour forth from it's depths
My own
Into the place from whence they have come.
Free and cleansed; my empty bag
Disappears
But I have come to meet my maker
So I dive
Down and
Down and
Down
Where the moonlight of my mind
No longer shimmers on the severed
Hearts and hands floating round me.
Thunder bursts in my ears
As I descend to a place
Where I stop breathing
And seeing
Where logic ceases to exist.
And I fall into her grotto.
She's there, black and cold
Impenetrable with talons
And spiky tale.
Her yellow eyes, nonchalant
Ask
“What took you so long?”
I realize that I'm supposed to have
Some sort of weapon
Like an enchanted sword
Or some pepper spray
And I have nothing
Standing before her
Naked and scared
And having forgotten why I came.
“I guess you came
To check out the loot?”
She makes to show me
Around her cave -
Our cave -
And just what she guards
There for me.
The horrors of my ego.
First we checked out the state of my pride.
Then we moved onto the arrogance,
The envy, jealousy, the possessiveness
And when we hit the state of my vanity
I broke down and cried.
“There, there,” she said.
“I've seen worse. At least you came by
To check out the state of things.
And look!”
She points to a shrivelled up heart
In a glass box
“Your fear's got a bit more colour in it.
It's a lonely life in here
But your dodgy bits provide the drama.”
“Can't I free you from here?”
I ask. She bravely replies,
“This is my duty. I must feed
Off your fear, selfishness,
Your guilt and malice.
The less you leave me,
The weaker I become.
We gazed at each other
Both with mixed feelings.
Where I should have come
To slay her, I felt nothing
But compassion.
I thanked her, wanting her
To transform and come with me.
A final question, instead:
“Where is my life going?”
“Don't mistake me for
Being enlightened, Honey.
I'm your darkness
Not your light.
It's what's here in this cave
That holds you back
Don't ask your ego -
You'll just have to live it out.
Follow. Your. Bliss.”
I promised to come back
And visit her
To balance out the lack of food
I'd be providing her with.
We'd share the past
And I'd go off to the future
Floating back up to
Where the moon shines
Through my memories
And I'd search the drifting debris
For clues as to where
I left my purple jumper.

Dream

My arm around your

Shoulders

My nose against your

Neck -

Breathing,

Wanting your smell to be

In my last aching inhalations.

But softly,

So softly, so I don't frighten,

Push you away.

You take my lips in yours

Gently, so gently,

Afraid to share too much.

I'm dying in your kiss,

Yearning to live

To see the day that this

Kiss

Might be real.

I wake

Alone

Broken

Hearted

But

Thankful that your smell

Remains

Bottled

Deep in my memory

To comfort and pleasure

My empty armed sleep.

FRIDAY THE THIRTEENTH

I've been hurumphing around the city streets all afternoon.
The burden of being as non-committal as an old leaflet
Advertising a cheap factory-seconds booksale,
And yet feeling like a redundent member of a
Functioning society,
Failing to reach
Some true potential,
Spoiled the overcast and dank grey laneways.
I stared in the bathroom cabinet mirror,
with a head nigh split in two, and staring making it worse,
And took to pruning unruly eyebrow hairs.
I thought of that night that I performed with you
Bonnie and I dipped our long wigs in coloured paint
to splatter about the room.
I blinked,
And on opening my eyes there was a splash of
Pink paint on my eyelid in the mirror.
Remember, I made the costumes, too?
But you can't live with me anymore
Because I bore you and you can't change me.
I can't live with you either,
but I'm the sort who puts up and shuts up.
So, I have to kiss my blue door goodbye
Because somebody has to be the one to leave.
Now you're interrupting me writing this
Because I haven't performed 'cleaning'
Enough before your eyes;
I guess someone must have pissed you off,
So you're taking it out on me.
Nobody can live with anyone really,
We're not too good at sharing;
And if you're good at giving,
You end up with nothing.
And what are you alone?
My right eyebrow is half reddy blonde
So it looks shorter than the other one.
But, it is in fact shorter than the other.
Hate the eyebrows – remind me of my grandfather's.
I see them in forty or fifty years time,
Silver and white wire coiled so tightly
And grown so thick
That the world before my eyes will be ensnowed
And invisible
I'll be able to live only in my memories
I won't be dreaming of the future
And what great use I'd be to society
Because there won't be much of a future,
Except for visions of the afterlife,
Or what the hospital ward looks like.
And I'll be known as the woman
Who could plait her eyebrow hairs
Together with her ear hairs.

Onions

I've used up every tissue I can find scrunched up

On my bedroom floor; the ones under my bed,

From the fathoms of my coat pockets,

The ones from the depths of my handbag -

Smeared with lipstick.

Yet through my blocked and ever-running nose

I can still smell onion on my hands.

Backwards, it says, "Snow, I know",

Or, more pertinently, "It's 'no', I know".

Forwards,

My excuse for tears.

William Kentridge - Weighing... and Wanting (1997)

Betjeman and Kentridge

On my umpteenth time at St Pancras International station in London, I discovered a bronze life-size sculpture of the poet Betjeman.

He reminded me of William Kentridge.

I consider myself fairly lucky to have seen an extensive exhibition of Kentridge's work at MOMA, while I was in New York. I'd known nothing of Kentridge beforehand. I feel it to be one of the best exhibitions I've seen - I was truly moved.

Melbourne's One and Only Peugeot 104

My dad's little baby... And Robert de Niro. Shooting in Spring Street. A supposed Paris of the seventies - and I told people in New York that Melbourne was visually European! This picture doesn't have me convinced as I can see Little Bourke Street's Chinatown behind de Niro. But we might even get mum into the cinema to see dad's car's big screen debut.

Picture: Tim Carrafa, in Herald Sun 7.7.10

The Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

What collections at the V&A!

Not one single gallery or museum did I see in its entirety while abroad.

[Actually, that's not entirely true. I believe I scoured the Guggenheim all the way up and around, and did the shop. But, this was my very first museum visit.]

In both the Brooklyn Museum and the British Museum I only got as far as the Islamic collections, in which I spent an hour and a half anyway.

My mind couldn't stretch any further. Plus, it was closing time.

While at the V&A I couldn't resist buying tickets to the temporary exhibitions after spending an hour with Rodin in the sculpture room. The permanent collections I assumed would be there on my return... For that day it would be a spectacular quilt exhibition; a collection of Horace Walpole's collections from Strawberry Hill; and a small room of some of Grace Kelly's clothing.

Too excited was I to be spending a few minutes in the presence of those beautiful chiffon dresses from 'Rear Window' (my favourite film) and 'High Society'.

Plus, both Grace Kelly and Auguste Rodin were born on November 12th - my birthday also.

In the meantime I got snap-happy. And, the exit of every exhibition led you straight into the V&A book shop. Did I manage to resist? No! I bought I a book on masters of photography and another on William de Morgan's tile designs.

The Natural History Museum, London.

London

Leicester, again.

Leceister, three hours north of London, and where my mother originates from, had the best street art I discovered on my travels.

I particularly enjoyed the juxtapositional elements of serene parkland and meadow, fragments of industrial past, and graffiti... Life is complicated.

Again, I've forgotten the name of this path - it has a name. But it runs along an old canal and disused railway from Blaby (the next biggest village outside of Leicester) to central Leicester (the town).

It was a pretty warm day by English standards and I was desperate for a beer. So I bought a bottle of Stella while I was in town and realised on my walk back that I didn't have a bottle opener. I tried hacking the top off at the steel bridge (where I took a shot of the canal through the cobweb) and tried in vain.

I carried that bottle of Stella around for a month afterwards. I drank it on my last night in London.

Arthur Rackham (1867 - 1939)

Plate 3 from The Ring of Nibelung

Alice, the Mock Turtle and the Gryphon

One of my secret passions is for children's literature. Not so secret anymore.

The illustration for Wagner's The Ring of Nibelung (I assuming the libretto), first above, brings to mind Waterhouse's nymphs - a much more romanticized depiction of these Nordic Valkyries - and Hokusai's Great Wave off the Coast of Kanagawa.

I wish I'd have had it read to me when I was little.

It's the ultimate Norse saga of a man named Sigurd who, after winning the ring of Andvarinaut by slaying its dragon guardian, is cursed and doomed by it. He falls in love with a Valkyrie called Brunhild, but is bewitched to marry another woman - Gudrun. Brunhild encourages, vengefully, the envy of some guys called the Nibelung Brothers which drives them to murder Sigurd for his gold.

It all ends rather tragically.

York

I perhaps should have premised beforehand that, unless stated otherwise, all these travel shots were taken on my meagre, but handy, mobile phone camera. Hardly Leica quality, but some travel shots nonetheless.

My Uncle Mick and Aunty Linda drove me up to the county of York to meet my Uncle Tom, who lives in the delightfully named village of Thorpe Willioughby. Our afternoon was spent, however, wandering around the city - or town if you prefer - of York. A place steeped in history, some of which is wonderfully respected and preserved. As you might spot, it's very touristy, but it's aesthetic/historic appeal makes up for it.

I wanted to go back to visit a book shop hidden within the Shambles.
Hidden is a strong word. Let's just say that I can't remember the name of the shop, so until I do it's kind of hidden unless one of the first shops on your left as you come away from the Minster is enough direction for you.

I was drawn inside by some deliciously smelly old leather bound books out the front, and a window displaying some Arthur Rackham prints.

I went to buy one Rackham print for my mum, one for Adele, and one for myself. Then my card declined. So I bought none.

I don't believe Rackham has anything particular to do with York, but his illustrations are pure pleasure to my eyes and imagination.

He's my next post.

A brief digression.

These shots are predominantly of the York Minster Cathedral, and the Shambles (which are a group of Tudor laneway shops, the structures of which are largely in their original conditon).

I hope you're into architecture.

Leicester, Blaby and Foxton Locks (UK)

St Pancras International Station - 4:35 am