Lima II- tinny singing christmas trees, mime artists and rightous old men.

"We wish you a merry...."

"jingle bells, jingle bells..."

Rudolph the red nose ...

Silllllllllllleeeeeeeeeeeent niiiiiiiiight*

te de deee ti de deee ti de di de deeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee..... beep bip bip. bip bip bip bi.....

*in spanish!

December 27th- Lima's historic centre and night markets.

It was a few nights after Christmas, and still they sung on in the 30 degree heat. Fairylights adorned trees singing sugary sweet, tinny music into the hot night.. Out of date Christmas songs that must have grated the ears of those working those post-Christmas nights.

We were wandering round a city centre park, sporadically lit up by lurid lighting amongst the singing trees, colonial churches, food sellers and street artists.

Having checked out the night craft market, we wandered until we found a crowd. Holding fort were a couple of mime artists. Half baked jokes washed over us as we sat in the flickering half-light.

Couples promenaded, children ran and we chuckled along with the crowd. Eyebrows raised every so often to reassure the other that the reason for the laughter sometimes went right over our heads, even as the laugh itself tugged at the sides of our mouths.

And the mimes jumped and squeaked and ran and fell. And the crowd tittered and oohed and aahed in all the right places and the coins went in the pot.

We were in a mini Colosseum- a round, seat tiered hole, with our non-violent black and white adorned lions running riot in the middle. In amongst the youngish crowd, a benign Cesar sat, up on high, aged, wrinkled and worn, apparently half dosing as he lent on his wooden sta..stick.

Yet not all was well in the land of this little amphitheatre. Even as we sat beneath our weathered Cesar, all smiles and laughter and with his metaphorical thumb definitely up, usurpers were gathering forces round the ringside. 

Security guards, no doubt driven to point of bureaucratic madness due to the incessant tinkling of drivelly electronic xmas-trash, stormed our little theatrical haven, declaring an end to to the show as the black and white lions weren't officially registered, had paid for no licence, and were as thus being illegally gainfully unemployed.

[- security guards should really know that storming mime artists' turf tends to lead to mimicry and jokes at their expense-]

With half a serviant face, as the other roused the crowd, the artists slowly mimed the slow process of packing up. No food on the table tonight. Painted smile tuned to off. The slow trudge of the repressed. And the hands silently orchestrated the crowd's protest.

The Guards were firm- you have got to go, 

the law must say, and the the Law says no.

Cheeky hidden smile as the crowd shouts their plea,

 they were bringing us smiles, all smiles can't you see?

And the guards are uneasy, not sure what to do. 

The law is our job, but they have this crew

of happy belligerent watchers- 

now watch as they shout out this fight...

argh- !get reinforcements!- a phone call 

and then the strategic flight...

soon a blackblue uniformed huddle- 

and then a brave one comes forward-

no look here chaps, he starts to say, 

this is all quite untoward

a civil disruption, we must keep the flow

of people here promenading, 

and then off into the night they go.

Uncomfortably standing by 

the limits of reasonable force,

just one more unfair action- 

part of the city's nightly sauce?

Yet. now here our Cesar raises his weathered head

"now enough is enough, and enough is what I've said

be off, you show stealers, and leave the smiles to us"

all punctuated with the walking stick, now arbitrator of all this fuss.

And the Arena's played out it's nightly play- comedy to morality- and all to say

the crowd sometimes wins, the crowd's sometimes right,

. this is a travelling memory, warm... and bright .

Late December 2007: Lima

Having left Chile veeeeeeeeery early on the 26th Dec, Jenny and I started the first leg of our trip with a stop-over in Lima, capital of Peru, before continuing the trip proper, which really started in Caracas, Venezuela.

In order to not to spend 12 hours in transit in Lima, staring at institutional walls until we decided to climb up them in delirious boredom, we decided to stopover for two days and see what the city had to offer.

As turns out, it was a brilliant idea. From the off, Lima grabbed us and took us with her- we were both sad to leave and venture into far scarier Caracas.

Lima. Well, Lima, where you don't hail buses, buses hail you.
Where the trees sing: tinny Xmas songs that must drive all those working nearby to the brink of nervous exhaustion and beyond.
Where the plums taste of caipirinha (no, really). Home to amazing ceviche, friendly locals and as much colour and music as you can deal with.

So far, so guidebook. Where to start really?

For us, 'Lima' started right at the airport : no taxi, no tourist bus, but straight out onto the motorway with our "worlds" on our backs and 'hidden' (sort of...) bound round our waists.

We were promptly hailed into a noxious gases and reggaton spewing mini-bus and spirited right into the centre. For all the Espanol going on, we, suffice to say, stood out. Jenny is very blonde by South-American standards (as am I, coppery brown hair notwithstanding), and apparently person-sized backpack wielding, blond(ish) girls aren't quite de rigour in Lima, as it soon became quite apparent.

Yet there was such a "beginning" feel to the whole ride, sitting sandwiched, balancing the precious camera-case on the bag tower and trying to hold on for dear life using my abs, as I had no holding hands left.

This was more a tourist than a traveller stop: Miraflores is quite a gentle introduction to Lima.
We hadn't the time to do more than just skim the surface, and decided that our first two days should ease us in, not leave us staggered by the culture and poverty gap. This doesn't mean however that we didn't see the "real" Lima, or "real" Peru. Or at least, I don't agree with such concepts. We saw how a certain, reduced slice of the population lives: and that sometimes sheds interesting light on a country, when reading between the lines.

Miraflores is a calm, residential area on the sea, with nice bars, cheap 'almuerzo' shacks, good restaurants (for a westerner, anyways) and a few "too cool for you" size zero fashion shops.

We had a great time in said shops gasping at the prices, ranting at the ridiculous body-shape ideals propagated by the designers and, in my case, being convinced out of spending £2 on cute, if pointless and DIY-able strawberry earrings. As far as the prices were concerned, they were still at least less than a third of London prices in similar shops, but wages are... significantly lower-- it seems that it's around £80 a month minimum wage - and often in the informal sector the legal minimum wage is but a distant dream.
[ Funnily enough i recently spent £2 on a pair of cute, if pointless and DIY-able strawberry earrings in one of the bricklane markets here in London.]

Miraflores also has a 'conveniently located' Inca relic: the Inca pyramid for city-dwellers too time poor to leave the city walls. perhaps?

Our themed dwellings- the Inca lodge, no less- were a pleasant base surrounded by cheap cevicherias and a nice walk from the sea.

The Miraflores seafront really brought home the difference between poor and middle/upper class South America. A far cry from the inner city trade area we'd just visited (although walking distance we'd been advised, nay begged, to take a taxi, rather than cross the invisible line between affluence and poverty unprotected), the sea-front felt like we'd walked into an "exotic" family sitcom on a day trip to the beach.
This Miraflores isn't the Peru I had been told of, it isn't the Peru one expects to see: it was sleek modern architecture, and groomed open spaces. Sculptures and a mosiaced wall covered in love poetry. Caucasians in high class sports gear running along the cliff front as radiant expectant mothers waddled and exercised the bump, with babies and toddlers playing on the lawn and riding along on brand new Christmas tricycles.
It was powder-puff-pink sundown over the ocean, with adrenalin junkies paragliding and europeanate Peruvians and tourists alike wondering what restaurant to have dinner in.
It was the glittery facade of dusk's lights, recorded for posterity by hundreds of identically whirring, shiny, automatic, walking, talking, singing and dancing brand new Christmas cameras.
And although calming, and soothing, and interesting in its own way, It isn't what I travel to experience.

Indeed, the inner-city trade area we'd seen that day, full of bargain markets and the kind of shops that are seen as bric 'n brac in poor neighbourhoods, and called retro or antique when wishing to sell to higher bidders, gave us an example of those fuzzy feel-good chance encounters that one does travel the world to feel, if only to experience them all the more when they happen at home.

part II pending

10th December 2007- boats and memories

The 10th December 2007 saw me at the beginning of my 2007-2008 southern hemisphere summer/christmas (!) holidays.

I was with my parents at this point, on a utterly bizarre Chilean cargo-cum-passenger ship. The Navimag

I run up to the top deck, the wind shocking me with its force.
Buffeting my hair this way and that, baggy trousers flapping, alive at the cold touch of the icy air through the crocheted holes of my jumper.

It has a surprising force. With some difficulty I get up to the front top deck- dad's the only other person up there. I run past, staggering slow-motion, and lean over the front.

I'm completely permeated by the wind- its sharp coldness, its strength, its roar.Rushing though my holes and around my whole.

I turn to dada, take his headphones- stylishly cordless of course. The music is calm, majestic- rising...

The ship form where he is standing- somehow protected by the wind- is proudly sailing over the great expanse of grey. No longer a small, flaming-dolphin adorned cargo-passenger ship, she is a HMS special, flanked by mountains, rolling clouds and golden rays breaking through from the new blue above.

I try and lean over the front but it doesn't work- her majesty is lost in the infernal roar- this wild me contrasting with the sleekly designed headphones.

"It's not what I would have chosen."
Dada considers, taking them back. Half-smiles. "It's incredible. The music is in time with the boat"
I smile back "Not from where I was standing."
I flee.

The back top deck is all mine. I skit about marvelling at how the mood changes.

My wild boat, the wind molding it and manipulating its inhabitants.

Dad's space of calm- Stravinsky's 10th Symphony

A man joke screams as he scuttles to the cover of his warm AAA cabin.

Muted, drowsy viewing from the captain's deck. This amazing light lost to dusty windows; roar tuned down to a polite murmuring.

I need to write.

I consider the scene- my permeated self, the flapping of my pin-stripes, my curls.

Patches of the grey lagoon, silver in the misty rays of new light.

I need a pen.


So here I am, perched on a bench in my ski-jacket, wielding a borrowed pen.
Sat halfway between my wild and dada's calm. Buffeted enough to feel alive, yet calm enough air to write.

My writing with borrowed pen reminds me of me- this ink doesn't seem to know if it's coming or going: faint, then strong, then lost again.


It's such a weird boat this one- Saga holidays meets a Chilean cargo ship.
The average age seems to be over 60... with about ten exceptions!

It makes me strangely restless, I have pretty much eaten two books in two days- living vicariously though their pages- slightly groggy with this speed trip through two other's worlds.

28th July 2008 Home (well almost. in tranist in Dublin)

28th July 2008

Alive and well in the British isles, having paid €15 for a full irish breakfast, including coffee, and fresh orange juice. It’s good to be in my expensive wet cold corner of the world again.

It really is. Home. Home. Home. The thought of home is a wide smile and a hardly controlled urge to cry.

It started yesterday evening, as I was walking through Williamsburg, a cidery smile on my face. Home.

Happy I saw this new New York, happy I finally made some unfinished stories for myself in the city. And Happy to go Home.

Just one hour more of flight, Dublin to London this time, and I am home.

Back to terccaota and black chessboard tiles. Back to an airy kitchen and rose and strawberry gardens. And the pub and friends and pool and cider.

In borrowed blue jeans and an old clock pendant. Ripped bule jeans to my mum’s displeasure. Wonder if I should change before I see her, yet wonder if that would be denying her the pleasure of criticising my messiness.

Home. Where some of the heart is.

21st July... in tranit.. yet definately leaving South America

And here I am. In the slightly nightmarish bubble reality known as being “in transit”.

Having left my room at 03:10am Chilean time, sans sleep as packing till the end, it is now 9 hours later and, post baggage-weight, lack of Chilean ID and too-much hand luggage troubles, I am in Lima. Hoping to somehow make it to San Salvador and then New York…

I Have thoroughly completed the undignified 'leaving-a-country-which-almost-became-home' experience.

I... packed until the LAST minute. Yes.

Was sent to the wrong desk. Yes. (although luckily the lady allowed it, as I would have looked really stupid if, after sauntering past triumphantly, I’d had to go back to the back of the queue again…)

Was made to undo bags in the airport to balance weights. Yes.

Had two bags, eventually, of EXACTLY the right weight. Yes!

Will be fucked over in New York as baggage allowance there is stingier. Yes….

Lost ID card so immigration guy actually uttered the words. “IF you haven’t reported the loss of your ID card to the police you can’t leave”. Yes.

And finally, I almost cried. Yes.

There are rumours of only one hand luggage being allowed here. I have two bags which stretch the concept of hand luggage to its very breaking point.

I have a hostel in Brooklyn which is wither a three train one hour journey away, or a $50 cab…

I have about my body weight in luggage with me (this MAY not be an exaggeration.. I have 46 kilos of checked luggage and two mahuuuuusive hand luggage bags, which could quite possibly weight ten kilo a piece. In which case I have more than my body weight with me…)

a post-post-scriptum.

And to round it all off nicely, although I did make it to New York in one piece with my 66+ kilos (146 pounds) of luggage, I lost my visa-waiver rights to combined stupidity (my own) and ridiculous bureaucratic inflexibility (US immigration, need I say more?).

Needles to say I took the taxi!

Fragments

And there I was, and am?
I want to keep my blinds on, keep on staring at the shadows, not accepting this cynical ‘real’, this undermining of my ‘feel’.
The weirdness of it all- of lives lived and somehow lost.
Did I really do that, feel this, be it? Be me?
Finding the codes of that alphabet I made up- the Rosetta stone of a lonely teen. Each stroke a key to that old me, the old ‘I’.

So here we are, now?
I like the time travelling aspect of weed- what it does not how it feels. The “Oh.. so we’re doing this now?” The implicit idea that this now isn’t so fixed.

Like a river never flows twice, neither do I. Fundaments and bases ever shifting- this ‘unbearable lightness of being’. For all the strutting and philosophising on the stage, this player’s play will only be played once.

And so we write.

Characters in perpetual search of an author. In search of actors to act out those facets of our own play that were lost on ourselves. Writing out those wrongs we let slip by the first time. The last time. Thos things we let slip by forever.
And so carpe diem. Seize the day as it is an almost extinct species..

21st May 2008: What is the political? And can we ever be impartial

As part of my thesis research I’m finally pushed into the subaltern world of the human rights activists. Most groups can be characterised by wanting to bring perpetrators of human rights abuses to justice, although recently more attention is also being paid to Mapuche indigenous rights.




21st May 2008
What is the political? And can we ever be impartial?

Not quite an impartial observer now, am I? The scene, from behind the squared weave of the raglan hood, Abu Ghraib-Style, seems oddly calm. I stand, head bowed, watching the flash of cameras in the foreground, with a military ceremony behind. Berating my slowness in Spanish, as well as wondering where exactly I now stand from a methodological point of view. I am, after all, not a sociologist (not really a historian either, but that’s another story) yet being part of a protest can’t be the best way to “objectively” get a feel for the human rights group. Yet. Yet, maybe it is? Was I ever really going to be impartial? Was my work ever going to really stand back and look on impassively? And also. Would that even have been a good thing?

I arrived to the FUNA (Chilean human rights organisation) meeting point just on time and was given, well, to say I was given a lukewarm reception would be adding too much “warm”. My presence was acknowledged and tolerated. Taking the hood, and thus agreeing to actively take part in the demonstration and not just watch, may, I feel, have been a needed show of goodwill on my part.

I stood there at the meeting point for a good twenty minutes observing the scene as the crowd assembled. Everyone there had been affected by the dictatorship. Most of those present were sons, daughters, nieces, nephews and even grandchildren of the disappeared and/or tortured. I'd been told that FUNA is different as it represents a new generation, socialised to take up the fight of the old. The leaders seemed all to be around the 40-50 mark, and maybe half of those present were in or around their twenties.

The scene from behind my checked mask seems to be changing. I notice tense looks between the photographers, as the police behind seem to be swirling in increasing menacing ways. The chanting of the protesters had been getting louder, gathering momentum, and it’s obvious the Robocops are starting to see it as a threat. I feel increasingly vulnerable, standing there in my hood. I glance to side and see all the pseudo “prisoners” are getting jittery. A couple tears off their hoods, looks at each other and then the girl grabs the guys hand and they flee, jumping the police barrier as a platoon of robocops descend on the scene. SHIT! I’ve already stored the hood away and I’m considering following the couple. I can’t be arrested- as I’m here on a student visa, they can deport me for political involvement.

Is this a political act? Could I be deported for this? It’s a human rights demonstration, but anyone who says that isn’t a political act here, misunderstands contemporary Chilean society.

We’re penned in- robocops- police in full riot gear, helmets and shields in front and to the sides, and a metal fence and the Mapoche River behind. I’m blessing the metal fence as people start shouting “What! Do you want to throw us into the river?!?” and one of the organisers starts shouting into her megaphone “And now, the FUNA human rights group is being brutally repressed for trying to exercise their right to free speech” and chants go up in the penned in crowd.

I’m panicking- claustrophobia grabbing at my throat, looking around for someone to follow as we are squeezed closer together and the police start to channel us over the river.
Violently I cough, eyes prickling. Tear gas! What! I can’t believe it… this was a non-violent protest by no more than 30 people [according to the FUNA website, 100], and we are being “controlled” by exponentially more police with riot gear and tear gas… Tempers flare… I’m trying to keep my head down... (I really can’t afford to be arrested) and try and keep a clear head. At the other side of the bridge is a police bus... they can’t mean to detain us all? What are my odds if I leg it? Slim if they want to follow really… People are being “restrained” around me… four police to one protester, slammed against the metal side of the bridge... fuck... this is getting nasty.. An organiser shouts at them to not push..."we will go if we have to” she says, “Just don’t push us”… from what I can make out, she’s arrested for merely talking back…

We get to the bus and are again hemmed in- police on three sides and the bus in front. The police grab people and push them into the bus… It seems carrying a flag is a crime now. A boy, who can’t be any older than eighteen, is grabbed by three policemen,, his flag impeding the officers in their attempt to force him into the bus. It's chaos- a 3 square metre riot. People are shouting, crying from the teargas, crying due to panic and fear, avoiding batons, avoiding batons and the like hitting their very young children, trying to stop people being hauled onto the bus, trying to avoid be bundled onto the bus themselves. It eventually leaves with about half the protesters and all the commission leaders.

There is a strange lull after the bus leaves. We are defeated, as it were. Flags to the ground and tear-stained faces. A few disjointed robocops stand about unsure what to do with the remnants of the micro-riot. Market traders try to re-jig there stalls, although trade is looking unlikely.

I’m not sure what to do- the commission leaders were who I needed to talk to, yet it seems disloyal to leave now.

A Mexican women is arrested as she leaves the scene alone, and I take it as my cue to go.

This fragment is just one facet of a much wider discussion about the Chilean police and their heavy-handedness. It is especially important as the Chilean police force is held up as a South American example, yet their continous disregard for civil liberties can only be understood withihnt the context of a society that has also priveledged order, over freedom.

This is to be continued.

I did inhale. So did/does much of young Chile

I'm guessing that this particular blog won't be to everyone's taste. Yes is it about weed, yes I have done it, and no I don't really like it (although I may take some if you're offering, depending on what kinda day/week/month it's been)




I like what it does but not how it feels.

And down.

Barbed fireworks exploding in my throat.

I splutter out the remaining shards of my consciousness to general hilarity. "She did it in one! Nice one!"
The odd compliments that accompany this odd sport- "Well done. You managed to assure your loss of self by swallowing all the knive-d smoke in one go. Nice nihilism."

I splutter. And cough. Helen is similarly indignant. It is to expected: no-one mentioned that sand-paper effect of the contents of the smooth glass tube.

I'm so concerned with assuring the complete removal of my innards via the medium of multiple coughing fits that it takes me a while to realise I’m loosening. Losing… Loosening my control on my sense. on my. On.

Curled up cocoon like on the sofa, discarded juice testimony to discarded attempt at quelling the dry flames. Flashes of pain now mere flashing. Multicoloured diamond criss-crosses lighting up the "real" outside. Losing "me". Losing my time.

Dialogue between a me voice and my cocooned self on the sofa. Constant "me" seems surprised at which point in my life she's stumbled on. "Oh so we’re in Chile now?"

Melting limbs again, sinking. Sinking into the sofas as, what was that line?
"As my known me rots".
This’ll all be worth it if it manage to get that lost poem back again.
"Last night i discovered cubism, much to my own surprise.
My left arm swapped with my right one, my skin swapped with me eyes".

(Writing this now, I wonder how that poor lost moleskine is doing. Thoughts of me , of old hims, of Cuba. Poems and scribbles, numbers and figures. Happiness and fear, anger, love and finding square one all over again. Wandering somewhere between Hong Kong and Shanghai in my mind, now mouldy, maybe even burnt- ash joining us all over again.)

Words and music reach me form far away. Kevin makes excuses for me. God I’m stoned

The cold burns my shoulder sparkly warm as I sink into the bed. Spinning to a crescendo, to the brink of pain, then back again. Spinning on an ever-changing axis. Each move pulling me in different vibrations. Frequency responding in different parts of the hollow instrument I’ve become.

Loss of control- I’m locked inside and can’t find the way out. Where did i put the bloody off-button? I’m always loosing such important things


I make it home. In my confusion I sit next to the taxi driver- he looks disgruntled but doesn’t comment. Kevin shouts something I don’t catch (presumably wrong door?)
It feels like a long ride- I fight to keep awake as we cover the 400m to my door.

And I don’t like it. Wondering why I smoked when I often end up feeling like this. My known me melts and everything breaks up. Heart beat insane. yet I don’t know if it's my motor or my senses that are going haywire.

Yes, I don’t like how it feels, yet I like what it does.

Tensions falling like peels from shoulders, discarded gloves
of reality and "am"- meaning starts to break down
symbolism inverted, staring at the grinning clown
sandman scared away, as his existence is put into doubt
as time gives up, colours grow, ration looses clout.
as senses invert, limbs swap around
my flying becomes easier, as my sky becomes my ground

reminded of how Sally fell flat on his face, hoping inspiration would come from Sambuca´s drunken stupored slumber.

And yet. Today. I am slow today. No flight, no coloured sight. Slow today- hollow headed and a sparkling pain in my back.



I did try. And I did inhale.
And the point is, so did a significant proportion of the Chileans I met. Indeed in some circles not smoking would put you into a insignificant minority

I know a few people out there who I would assume do not smoke, and yet I know a whole lot more, that definitely do. In my time in Chile I cannot remember one Chilean who turned down a joint, when passed to them.

This is incredibly significant considering recent laws to make cannabis a class A in Chile. A decision ridiculed by the independent press, yet trumpeted by the dominant right and their mainstream newspapers.

It is symptomatic of the disjuncture between most young people and the political classes, and parallels wider social trends. Political apathy is rife, personal distrust epidemic, and the only grass-roots party with real and growing following is the Pinochetist* Unión Demócrata Independiente.
(the serious part of this is to be continued)

*People may quibble my labelling the UDI as Pinochetist. It is true that from 2004, they and Renovación Nacional have increasingly tried to distance themselves from such positions. A wolf in sheeps' clothing is still a wolf, no matter how much free food they may give out

April '08 Reconciliations. With Chile. With myself.

Reconciliations. With Chile. With myself.

And that’s the picture I fix in my eye’s camera. Pink silhouetted mountains against the pale blue sky, frayed with pink as the smog distorts where the mountains and the sky meet.
Above it all the new moon- light and pure and large.
A flock of birds crosses the sky and the purpley-pink Mountains could be a Japanese watercolour but for the ugly tower blocks in the foreground and the incessant row of crap reggaton behind me and Santiago’s traffic below.

To round it off in true Chilean style street dogs sleep before me and couples canoodle behind. And when one says that Chilean couples canoodle, one means that they are self-absorbed in a public dry-humping display that leaves very little to the imagination. Well… it probably adds much to their imagination as most Chileans live with their parents until they marry.

A small yet significant spot in the picture, Christ stands with his arms wide over the Cattolica building, benignly presiding over the traffic cacophony below. The ever present yet oft forgotten conductor of the dominant strand of Santiago’s symphony.

One feels that the Virgin Mary is top dog (should that be bitch?) as far as conductorship of this city goes. She resides above the Cerro San Cristobal, saintly skirts elevated form the infernal symphony raging below.

Noise. I feel persecuted by it. It is my wakeup call and bedtime lullaby, eternal companion to my sandman and unwanted houseguest to my days.
I dream of escaping to the sea, just to leave the city’s cries far behind.
Earplugs are to become my best friends as I reach all-time lows of flinching every time a bus goes by.
I’m told I’ll get used to it, yet I fell this rather means it will become an assimilated annoyance- an extra knot in my over knotted shoulders along with everything else.

The noise on the living room with the balcony doors open seems to have a physical presence.- like someone attempting to noisingly hoover the insides of your mind. With a blunt hoover.

The martime mountain range is a dusky grey against the red and orange sky.
The colours of sundown claiming and painting the ugly lines of the city, bouncing off the mirroired skyscrapers, they day’s final bow framed by velvety red curtains with gold tassles.
Santiago is essentially an ulgy city with an infinite number of hidden gems and beautiful moments. Sundown is one of these as

To be Cont..

Me?

So here , this is me
i hand it over-
you see what is written down

funny thing to be
black blue swirls on white-
collection of subject verb noun

a formuliac collection of who i am
(was),
on those days

my angers joys fears
multifacted me
in multifaceted ways

Yet i hate that word
multifaceted
overused abused and sad

how to describe one without it?
for the lack of word
I'm glad

of the inabiltity of this paper
to actually be me

rather than burnable, crumpable paper
I`d rather be the tree

Now I know trees burn
I know they`re cut down

yet a burnt tree, a fossil
can be the carbon in the crown

its mutilated trunkks- a bed
chair desk for inspiration

its hue texture grain
instigator of new sensation

its branches- when at last reduntant
once holders of seeds and more

of hopes, fears projects:
life and the seeds it bore

The frame

I seem to be eternally self referencing
Only by writing and reading do I see what I was getting at
My pen seems to intrinsically be self-analysing
Rendering in back and white where when with whom I sat

The intricacies of the discussion, what hit me most
The images I absorbed, each couplet a ghost
Of an idea, a picture, the smiles they raised
Something I ran with, someone I praised

Each attempt I launch to jump the frame
Each abstraction, contraption seems to end the same
Anchored to my me by a bungee jump string
Extrapolated to the max, snapped back to earth again

My language my metaphors centre in my Gaia, my me.
For all my running and jumping, Gaia is all I’ll ever be.

(An april-may poem)

Gaia is.

Gaia is two steps forward and one step back
Slowly getting this show on, right on track
Train picking itself up, slotting back on the rails
Yesterday’s hard bitter blow, today’s bittersweet tales
Yet this record is desperately seeking for a different groove
Mime artist stuck in invisible net, each single move
A laboured languid attempt for some peace from my mind
A reaching out of the frame a new start, yet every time
The frame grows in unexpected dimensions
All discussions taking on the weight of old and new tensions
An attempt at being carefree as the walls close in
No matter the push, this pressure seems to win.
Yet.

Yet I’ve cheerful attitude to my own destruction
Argh. Destruction, wrong word. To the temporary reduction
Of brain and breathing space- although in interesting ways
The pressure squeezes me well- soon I’ll be writing plays
As creativity becomes my outlet. That and learning to fly
Once I’ve taped my wings back in - i'll be leaping through the night sky
sitting on a trapeze suspended on the stars above
climbing up wrapped in blood red silks for a body-glove
suspended by the straps of these muscles- muscles yet to grow
yet growth is what i fell each day- in body spirit mind and so
colours get brighter, conviction stronger whilst i burn the midnight oil
weight ever lighter, sky even in sight'as I stretch from the stars to the soil.

(april-may poem)

Jump? Push or Fall.

I bore of this pain.
This constant thought
Want to move on
Yet Trapped. Muscles taught

Ready to jump
Ready to go
Ready to break it all

Yet for all the climbing up the silks
The inevitable.
Pondered. Fall.

Sssh, or To Rhyme or not To Rhyme.

Sshh.
This poem is leaving the frame
Quiet.
Rhymes not squished into rhymes again.
Frame? Ag(aane)? What! Ag(e)n. urgh. So then

This poem needs regulating through regulatory phonemes.
My imagery is capitulating, The rhyme has captured me, it seems.

Words. Gone said used and wasted

… Again

Dessert. Prepared constructed not tasted

‘n then

I miss you.

Said once, twice, a million times
Meant?

Felt?
Doubt and hope seamlessly 'ntertwined.

A poetical Rant

Now breath. n' hold. and channel the anger
Crystallise the thought, to denounce the wanker

Declaim them, defame them, write out their wrongs
With the spikes of your language as veritable tongs

Disintricate the problem an arms length away
Garter the cat, and let the mice play

Gutting the meaning, throwing words around
Fleshing and peeling each constituent sound

Break it all down to the essential blocks
Construct it again into a real that mocks

The ideal we see, the idyll we’re presented
With, symbolism inverted, tensions resented

The invention of truth, the angle that’s taken
Tear up the script- “objectivity” forsaken

Manifesto: I want to write, I want to be.

Manifesto

I want to write. I want to be,
the kind of person that would interest me.
A person. who could hold me down,
bright 'n quick 'n sometimes the clown.
Cutting their own path in this jungle’s city
not assimilating, duplicating, sit-ting pretty
but creating, making, doing their own thing

being the getaway ladder, as the walls close in.

The start of the poems: Politics- rhyme and reason?

Politics- rhyme and reason?

Right wing cunt- an affliction that seems widespread
From Santiago- all the way down to Stansted

Dominant stock that this uni seems to breed
Not good but necessary- the gremialist creed

The facts speak for themselves- I’ve never heard them have you?
That x and y equals z, d'sn’t make z necessarily true

The economy is god and god is always right
Money makes good. Can’t you see the trickle down light

A light-following right-winger is scary, one tends to see
The elevation to a fine art,'f the politics of me me me

Daddy was in the military, and daddy is never wrong
Or daddy went to x-school too, as did grandpapa- so on, so long

The lines of privilege that stretch all the way back
Although new money likes to join in too- political selfishness – it's quite the craig


Having said all this I’d like to reiterate
That a militant left-winger ain’t all that great

The dogma is the way and although god may be dead
Fanatism survives in those who, with fist ahead

Call for the red to live, the international sang out loud
Marx ‘n Lenin may be outdated, but of their determinisms, this left is proud.

And the cynics. Well the cynics are very boring, this much is true
Whatever the argument they’ll find a hole in me, and in you

And in us and in them- “they” especially are always wrong
There’s always a covert interest group- the eternal cynic sing song

A loophole- ok. But have you considered it form this point of view?
Ah well, if everyone knew the truth, think what panic would ensue

The masses, well the masses can’t be trusted, they’ll always be force-fed
Fast food diets of junkish facts, the masses-ah- they’re easily lead

And manipulated, perambulated, spoon-fed by the nanny state
I’d like to believe in democracy- believe in the system- wouldn’t that be great!

But “they” are always out to fuck you over- Especially from behind
And “they” will always bring you down- Intrinsic malice of their kind

Yes, Power corrupts-And these guys are corrupted to the max
Ideology forgotten, wealth the object in bellum and in pax.

(An april-may poem)

Endings, (a June flashback) When the night’s song ends well

Morning breaks, shedding light on whatever was being concealed by night. Sometimes that is darkness. Indeed sometimes morning brings no solace. The headache or heartache or soul break of the night before persists. Made groggy and overwhelming for fitful sleep. Or lack thereof.

And sometimes morning heals. The misunderstandings and mistranslations of the night. The searching for who-knows-what beneath the sheets, with a stranger, with a friend, in the sandman’s oblivion. Sometimes the morning brings laughter- the light brightening the nooks and crannies of our minds. Birdsong removing the bittersweet taste to attempts at finding intimacy in a wineglass and another’s embrace.

Yes sometimes. Sometimes the morning with its fresh breeze of new light and new air – even in Santiago’s smog ball- provides a clam ending to an ephemeral (fugitive?) chapter in our lives, A night’s escape, a sinking into someone else, an intimacy given by chemistry, not time. Dawn gently announcing the end. An end sung in by Sigur Ros and birdsong. Light tenderly filtering through the yellow curtains, cradling the insecurities on the night, assuring us that some things are merely an end unto themselves.

What was the point?

None.

And it was good.

3rd December 2007: the aftermath if the 21st, exploding pipes, tiny biting ants, giant headlice and a Chavez-induced heat stroke.

3.12.07
And what an odd end of week-weekend it has been. From poo-explosion, to head-lice the size of small ants, to actual small ants rapidly colonising my house (who seem to bite), to non-sex (dry-humping is definitely underrated, as Louise so delicately put) to ten clones of me (in being John Malcovich fashion) to epiphanies, home truths, and a few “I love my Santiago family” tears.
(Re: the usage of the words “non-sex” and “dry-humping” I still maintain this book does not set out with the intention of being chick-lit. It takes itself far more seriously than that.)

So. Home after a hard day at Uni (work is sometimes rumoured to happen there) in the sweltering heat. Ahh… shoes off.. coolness of inside wood on sweaty outside feet. Paula runs in.
“Nooooo (picture slow-motion running face) Gaia your feet… put.. shoes..on..The smell!”
I was quite genuinely offended “What!? They don’t smell that badly, do they?” I splutter in Spanish.. frowning a lot, raising a critical eyebrow, and possibly pouting. It’s a raw nerve, as my feet generally do smell quite a lot I fear.
“What? no! the floor… the smell? Sewers… the sewers exploded. Go wash your feet. Urgh its terrible…”. Cue much clutching of chest, anguished looks and moans. This may sound like its hyperbole but it really truly definitely isn’t. She’s Spanish.
(She also once got sunstroke by sunbathing naked.)
Wash my feet? Disinfect and possibly exchange for a new model. Urgh.

It may seem harsh to needlessly insert at this point that Paolo got sunstroke by sunbathing naked. It is however justified for three reasons.

1) it’s an incredibly funny, if slightly disturbing picture.

2) She once convinced me that poring vinegar on a lice-bitten scalp was a) a good idea and b) would kill them.
However a) it hurts a lot and b) it really doesn’t kill them. Indeed, it makes the lice shiny and strong, if slightly cutting and sarcastic. It does c) also make your hair shiny and strong but, d) that isn’t much consolation in the light of combined a) and b). (enough of the lists I feel).

Finally (3), she made me get under a ice-cold shower, unsupervised, when I was dieing (suffering?) of a Chavez induced sunstroke. This is a bad move as, if the sunstroke-or UV induced radiation sickness for the US Americans (no, really!)- is really bad, you’d probably collapse. In my not-so-bad condition it was such a shock to the system that I decided to turn the hot water on. For ‘shock to the system’ it may be useful to reference those army and ice-adventure films where the coldness of the water makes the person forget their own name and species. I didn’t actually ‘decide’ to turn the hot water on, rather my hands reached for the dial in a desperate attempt at survival. In case you were wondering, showering in hot water when sun-stroked is an equally ‘bad move’. In my experience it makes you almost pass out and probably doesn’t help the over-heating
either.

Thus, I had been to Paola and Co. to request painkillers, and was left shuddering under my bed cover- freezing in the 30C summer evening- with tears in my eyes, muttering obscenities. Apparently it’s a sink or swim test- if you don’t crawl out of the shower cursing them, it’s a sign they need to take you to hospital. Insults show you should probably survive. Luckily there happened to be a Cuban Doctor in the house (of course, who else?) and he gave me the all clear.
I still have flashbacks of my skull being drilled into without anaesthetic and being thrown into an artic pool whenever I hear Chavez’s voice. We were at the National Stadium from 9am to 5am to hear Chavez and Morales speak. Chavez is the Chuck Norris of logorrhoea(ic?) speakers. His voice filled the shade-less stadium and brought me to the brink of resistance. I’d like to say he spoke from 9am-5pm, but he was busy being told to shut up by the King at that point. In the end he only spoke for about 3 hours. Which is standard really- (give example- un speech, own 5 hour radio shows. Possibly a brief history of Chavez?)

Head-lice. (to be continued)
The sheer big-ness of them. And tears at finding babies (!). And only having 7 because I presumably killed most of them with the strengtheners. And the scariness that is websites about head lice.

And an up (work in progress- photos and music form my first semester in Chile)

a girl from the "barrio pobre"
of Santiago...


ojala....

Mira Niñita

And the good of being away.
23rd November 2007
Hello.

I am your paper guide of what promises not to be a paper exhibition.

Inside you will find (…) with which to compose your DIY audiovisual show.

This “exhibition in an envelope” is intended as a taste of Gaia Marcus’s Chile- or her Chile so far.

I hope that through this exhibition you may be able to walk Santiago’s streets- coloured, high-rise, rich, poor and otherwise. Feel her temperatures- from desert cold to desert hot- listen to her catcalls (you’d probably need to be wearing a skirt for this one, although long hair or even just tight jeans might suffice), read her grafitti, feel her pain and laugh with her smiles.

With each exhibit there’s a suggested soundtrack- to hear through the ears of the photographer whilst you see through her eyes and lense.
Hope. A beautful child at a non-violene demo in central Santiago

A down

The bad of being far away.
10 Oct. 07
00.45 am

She sat, tears streaming down her face…

Oh who am I fooling?

They say that fiction is part free therapy (they say? He said.) part autobiography… so be it.

I sat. Tears not streaming, merely rolling. Slowing completing hollow arches form eye to chin… The song. It filled me. Physical weight of the emotions it dredged up… dull pressure on the glass cage I’d constructed round my heart, grief filling my chest as it attempted to break through. Attempted to win the emptiness and the cold. Pain in my shoulders as the tension escaped elsewhere. My neck always hurts in an argument, physical manifestation of pain, anger and most things in between/. Milano. A different milano to the one that used to cause me pain (and love and joy at times). Musical memories of sheets and sighs. Of timing- the good (the oh so good) and the bad.

This pain, almost a vibration. Dull note that resonates in my now empty chambers from hands to heart, chest to shoulders, spine to neck. Poor neck…. No massages for a while. I stretch it. Familiar clicking form side to side… the chiropractor! Another of those plans, unfulfilled- on the to do list for each week.

The song ebbs off. And I’m calm again.

Cities II- a helping hand to let you in

Beginnings- a June 08 flashback about August 07.
Josh and getting under the city’s skin

Swaddled in wool, watching the coloured walls close in. I am? I’m lost.
Wondering whatever it is that I am doing out here. Why I make life quite so complicated: each plan a new challenge.
Alone in the house with Chileans, not quite liking this Chile I’ve know so far. Or at least, feeling a mere observer in this Chile- a spectator not yet integrated into the seams of the show. Wannabe actor left watching the puppets, not yet given access to the puppet master’s secrets.

And I called Josh, and we met. And he let me into a bit of his city.

This new Santiago was sweet, sweet like candyfloss, candyfloss as big as my head. Wide smiles walking thorugh the ‘parque forestal’, watching as childplay and clowns thaw santiago’s bitter winter chill.
And we walk and we talk, watch jugglers and observe paintings. Marked by food drink and sweet stops the day passes amicably, heralding the yellow and teal dusk and then finally nightfall.
And the run! Quick! The Cinema, we’ll miss the showing! My first meeting with the biografo cine-arte, soon to become a staple fix in my life. I can’t quite remember whether we even watched something that night, just that we did watch for the rest of that semester.

The biografo arthouse cinema in Lastarria, symbolises a lot of my first semester in Chile, right down to providing a soundtrack. I believe I watched, mainly with Josh, every single film they showed over a three month period- the vast majority of which was French. Which explains why one of the main songs that come to my mind when thinking of Santiago is Edith Piaf’s “la vie en rose”.

The cinema itself says a lot about the area its in. Lastarria is polished bohemia for those with cash, a paved pedestrian gateway that provides an entry to and condenses most of Bellas Artes. Lastarria is a small venue of Parisian influence with faded grandeur and red velvet sears roughened by use and time. It is overpriced shops selling packaged street-culture, whilst the real-deal is sold, at a price, albeit reduced, on the pavements outside. It is bookstalls and wonderful bookshops crammed to the rafters with condensed thought and dense prose in a country with an estimated 80% functional illiteracy rate. It is Turkish coffee shops and free wifi in (internet access in Chile details).
It is a bubble of café culture squished between the alameda and ….

As happens in such a small city centre, each microcosm blends into the next, an invisible line in the sand which time’s tide washes around in everchanging ways (corny?)
The Parque forestal is, for a start, neither a park nor a forest. It’s a slightly forlorn strectch of green and trees which runs from Plaza Bauedano to before the central market- no more than just over 1-2km wide by now more than 200 m wide. It does however have joggers and dog-walkers and enough canoodling couples- on a sunny day I’d say at least a couple per 2m2 – to be defined a de facto park. Whilst generally unremarkable on a week day, on Sundays it shows up some of Santiago’s contradictions and tensions, and the highly ritualistic way that they are expressed. On a Sunday, the stretch of the ‘Parque’ form Baquedano to the Bellas Artes musuem is home to children and xclowns and puppet shows and candy floss men.
On the other side of the main road, however, it becomes and informal flea market with people selling vegetarian burgers in amongst the handmade jewellery and low-priced real-street clothing. The square around the museum becomes an exhibition playground for jugglers, acrobats, break dancers, drummers, people doing aerial silks in the trees; all with a few beers going round and a the occasional whiff of weed in the air. Basically Camden or convent garden before the money and the polish and the onset of the “packaged alternative lifestyle”. Its generally full of middle to lower class youths and it shows up the seams of youth counterculture and informal sector, albeit one that maybe dresses up (or down?) mainly on the weekends. It is a ritualised place, and seems to be home to ritualised confrontation with the authorities.

[this is unfinished and will be continued]

Starting out- Cities and how we navigate them

Cities- [written in June]
A city is a territory delimited by our perception of its contours and given texture by the people we know.
St paul’s cathedral isn’t just a cathedral (although this is definitely a phrase symptomatic of M&S brainwashing) it is walks with Nicole and tales of her life. It is walking back to a strawberry scented nest in a silvery sheaf. It’s not just a place of worship for an alien religion, but beautiful song and the smiles of strangers. And I’ve never been inside.
The river isn’t just the Thames- putrid waters and a trapped whale. It’s a sweet 21st made bitter by impromptu yearlong goodbyes. It’s blue and yellow pictures of a city dusk., a drunken duet of “things” and a sobering walk explaining how those “things” went wrong.
Camden road is London seen from an 8year olds car window; “coolness” for an Oxfordshire 14 year old, and the long walk home weaving through the drunk, the stoned and the high, after a day and evening speant cramming for uni exams.

It follows that cities we live in, as opposed to those we visit, are mostly two dimensional until we get to pear in through others windows and see the life going on behind the curtains and under the covers.

I like the idea of a city as lit and unlit tunnels. We reside in conceptual bubbles that are linked to each other by an infinite number of tunnels. Some lit, some lit, some obvious, other tortuous, steep and generally a lot more fun. Some tunnels are well trodden, other we need to dig ourselves. Each meeting, each random discovery, each flyer we actually follow up is a new torch to guide us though these new channels. Each new friend, new smile often acts as a guiding hand- showing which of the tunnels make up “their city”- offering bits of theirs to be made your own.

2.12.07- my 21st: coffee, overwhlemed feelings and a promise not to do a Bridget Jones

2.12.07

So… 21… ¡Que raro, tengo veintiuno anos!
I don’t know if it’s the coffee of the tiredness. Or the slightly footloose feeling of a societally important birthday so far away from home and my usual loves. (In the “present”, 09.6.08, Alvaro compounds this by having just shown me, on google earth, the humongous distance between here (Santiago Centro) and there (Holloway, London)).
But in my tired coffee-d, vauguely confused state I find myself trying to imbue this all with significance. Weird feeling of a watershed, of experiences that need to be grabbed with both hands!

I suppose I feel that with this upcoming three month break (FYI, in Chile, as it’s in the southern hemisphere, the long holidays are in the Christmas/Summer period) it feels as if I need to return with more direction, more certainties.

To do

1) email human Rights NGOs about job opps. next term (email Tania about this)
2) thinks of internships for August in London
3) Change flight home!
4) ?Learn to roll with the punches?

[Update! June and I still haven’t applied for my student loan….
Only point 3. has really been covered, 2 and 4 are still work in process and 1… well 1 kind of worked out, just in a different way.]

Notes for readers:
I promise the Bridgte Jones style list thing will not continue. I can only blame the coffee and tiredness. I have been reprimanded and I Promise it will not happen again.
Also. Please Note. This, although it somehow started out that way, does not intend to be chick-lit. I will speak about sex a lot, I promise, but, you know, in a like, political and societistical way. Kinda. (And for any pedant itching to write in and correct “societistical”…I know! It’s a poor joke. About, like, stereotypes and, um, stuff.)

The travel journal so far... a disjointed manuscript - Intro.

Aquí estamos, y aquí es casi el fin. Sentadas sobre Baquedano en un trapecio, colgadas en telas en el parque forestal. Mirando el cielo desde santa lucia… Conversamos. Hablamos de las cosas que solamente se conversan en las ciudades. De vida, de muerte, de sus vecinos del otro lado de la cordillera, de mis vecinos que hicieron tanto ruido anoche, haciendo...lo. Conversamos no como amantes, sino como quien se ama… por simbiosis, por el tiempo. Un matrimonio de conveniencia que convivió de manera muy conveniente. Como los que se aman porque el uno y el otro se metieron bajo la piel, entre las manos… No es romántico, pero si es real. Es tangible.



And here we are, and here it is almost the end. Sitting on a trapeze above plaza baquedano, hanging from silks in the parque forestal. Watching the sky from santa lucia (insert)
And we talk. We speak of those things that one tends to talk of with cities. Of life, of death, of all the miracles in between. We speak of her neighbours from over the Andes and the deserts, we speak of my neighbours that made so much noise last night doing… it . We don’t speak as lovers do, yet we speak as two that love each other… by symbiosis, because of time itself, an arranged marriage that came to an arrangement. A love that came as Santiago entered under my skin, between my very fingers into the lines of my hand. It is not a romantic picture, not a romantic love. But yes it is real, yes, it is tangible and yes it has become part of the patchwork of my feel.













Santiago llegó de noche. Era fría y desconocida, una película hiperreal con subtítulos malpuestos. Sus personas hablaban un idioma rápido. Rudo. . Veintidós horas de vuelo y un corazón lleno de dudas hicieron las luces mas brillantes, el negro mas oscuro, los ángulos mas afilados. El viento frío intentaba sacarme, me gritaba. Me decía que debía irme, volver a casa, que aquí no era el caso…Dormir. Necesitaba dormir. Y dinero, ¿pesos? Si, pesos. Necesitaba pesos para llevarme al taxi, para llevarme a dormir. Para poder subir escaleras anónimas, agarrando mi mundo, mi yo, en dos maletas. Necesitaba este nuevo extraño dinero para poderme echar en una cama desconocida, supervisada por una nota severa que me avisaba de no utilizar demasiado gas, porque no había. Tenia algo que ver con Argentina, pude ver... y yo en esta cama extraña muriéndome de frió y sueño y distancia. Y, esta extraña moneda... ¿Diez mil pesos por un taxi? Díez MIL… ¿mil?-Para un taxi que en realidad no era un taxi, si no un coche negro sin nada- “¡Ah no! No eh! No seas tan tonta... no es un taxi… no entrar… ¿Quieres ser asaltada en tu primer noche?. ¿Que haces? ¿Porque sales?” La voz de la mamá me grita, pero soy cansada, las palabras no me salen... intento quejarme pero no… y ya tiene mi maletas… mi ‘yo’ en su coche. Me siento. Y vamos. Y llegamos. Y soy la gringa solita que desconfía de todo y de todos.Y entro y pago y subo la escalera y me echo en la cama desconocida. Y ya. Ya estamos. Ahora aquí estoy


Santiago arrived by night. She was cold and alien, her people spoke a harsh fast tongue. She was a hyper-real movie with subtitles misplaced. 22 hours of flight and a dubious heart made the lights brighter, lines sharper, the cold winds trying to blow me back. All the way back to home.
Sleep. I needed sleep. And money, money to take me to the taxi to take me to sleep- up anonymous stairs clutching my world, my me, in two suitcases; into an unknown bed, watched over by a stern note telling me not to waste gas as there was close to none. I was supposed to blame Argentina, I believe. And the cold. From new york’s summer to this cold that grabbed you by the feet and round the back of your neck- a mean veil over poor sleep.

The morning taught how deceptive Santiago was.
I woke to brilliant blue skies. A smile with my morning stretch as I readied to face this new real. Yet, I woke early, it seems.
Just a shower, make-up, and breakfast’s blink away, and it was grey. Grey bubble that we breathed in, seeped in, and produced out. Vicious circle of absorbing and creating our own filth. The muck spewed out of cars and coalfires hemmed in by the invisible mountains on all sides. One soon learnt that the visibility of the mountains indicated how deeply one should be breathing in. Most days, it seemed that past 10am one shouldn’t be breathing at all.




Santiago had arrived with her cold smile and grey embrace. She had arrived with her warm secrets and coloured lace.

And yet we Start here, as here is the (unchronological) Beginning of the diary.
This diary started a long time ago. Before Chile, before the chilly winter in july when I lay curled under innumerable blankets wondering why exactly I’d decided to speand a year in this foggy smoggy place.
Before the andes and a total of 30 hours flying over with 4 stopovers.
Before trapezing and falling and starting all over again.
I suppose like most projects it was born and died many times. It started over and then vanished again and again and again. Its nearest relative, its Neanderthal cousin as it were, is, in spirit, lost somewhere between hong kong and shanghai. Lost on a jetplane, I was never to see it again. It was cute and small- a mini moleskine given me by an ex, bursting with thoughts poems, recipies, contact details and a trip to Cuba. This diary, like the last, was a gift.

this is me?

So here , this is me

i hand it over-

you see what is written down

funny thing to be

black blue swirls on white-

collection of subject verb noun

a formuliac collection of who i am

(was),

on those days

my angers joys fears

multifacted me

in multifaceted ways

Yet i hate that word

multifaceted

overused, abused and sad

how to describe one without it?

for the lack of word

I'm glad

of the inabiltity of this paper

to actually be me

Rather than burnable, crumpable paper

I`d rather be the tree

Now I know trees burn

I know they`re cut down

yet a burnt tree, a fossil

can be the carbon in the crown

its mutilated trunkks- a bed

chair desk for inspiration

its hue texture grain

instigator of new sensation

its branches- when at last reduntant

once holders of seeds and more

of hopes, fears projects

life and the seeds it bore

Gaia was... on pressure and growth

Gaia is.

Gaia is two steps forward and one step back

Slowly getting this show on, right on track

Train picking itself up, slotting back on the rails

Yesterday’s hard bitter blow, today’s bittersweet tales

Yet this record is desperately seeking for a different groove

Mime artist stuck in invisible net, each single move

A laboured languid attempt for some peace from my mind

A reaching out of the frame a new start, yet every time

The frame grows in enepcted dimensions

All discussions taking on the wight of old and new tensions

An attempt at being carfree as the walls close in

No matter the push, this pressure seems to win.

Yet.

Yet I’ve cheerful attitude to my own destruction

Argh. Destruction,l worng word. To the temporary reduction

Of brain and breathing space- although in interesting ways

The pressure squeezes me well- soo I’ll be writing plays

As creativity becomes my outlet. That and learning to fly

Once i've taped my wings back in - i'll be leaping through the night sky

sitting on a trapeze suspended on the stars above

climbing up warpped in bloodred ribbon for a body-glove

suspended by the straps of these muscles- muscles yet tpo grow

yet growth is what i fell each day- in body spirit mind and so

colours get brighter, conviction stronger whilst i burn the midnight oil

weight ever lighter, sky even in sight'as i stretch from the stars to the soil.

improbable cows and cathartic writing

I'm hyper and manic and stressed today

There may be more to it, not much left to say

(mainly caus its been said again and again.

No phone call yet, ill you know if and when)

So.

I'm hyper and manic and stressed today

There may be more to it, not much left to say

An orchestrated hyper- half-speed thought before I act

larger than life congeneality- exagerated gestrures- infact

those extrapolated, manicated moves of thos mad for true

although what is mad for me, may not be mad for you...

And her, she? Well she just sits there as life whiles away

the parrot on my shoulder, her thoughts mine, she may

just be a construct of this poem- attempted escape from own cliches

but i'm running out of steam, not much left, and so she sways

Comfortably numb.

- never understood the phrase-

but maybe now i do

Comfortabky

not thinking

of me. and of you

Of us-

and the U.S.

and how it all went wrong

and the parrot on my shoulder? well she just burst into song

Whilst spieing my wierd legs (that look so dry yet feel so smooth)

Those legs? well they just went, upped and moved

down to torres del paine, to run jump and play

bored being my little sahara, just watching parrots sway

so i waved them goodbye- ill miss them its true

they left on the night bus- my new pair is bruised black 'n blue

and hidden and hairy and slightly uptight

though they loosened at the party and now they took flight

swinging upside down on a trapeze in the sky

as my eyes looked up from down below, wondering why

the camera hadnt shown up- to capture swinging light against inky blue

as an improbable cow jumped over us all - its last lament a solemm moo.

This is the first poem of the April-May 08 series.

Having come back from a failed 10 day trip to try and sort things out with an ex, things felt liek they were falling out at the seams but, you know, in a good way, kind of.

It got me writing again!

Endings and beginnings and square one all over again. Leaving Santiago

Aquí estamos, y aquí es casi el fin. Sentadas sobre Baquedano en un trapecio, colgadas en telas en el parque forestal. Mirando el cielo desde santa lucia… Conversamos. Hablamos de las cosas que solamente se conversan en las ciudades.
De vida, de muerte, de sus vecinos del otro lado de la cordillera, de mis vecinos que hicieron tanto ruido anoche, haciendo...lo. Conversamos no como amantes, sino como quien se ama… por simbiosis, por el tiempo. Un matrimonio de conveniencia que convivió de manera muy conveniente. Como los que se aman porque el uno y el otro se metieron bajo la piel, entre las manos… No es romántico, pero si es real. Es tangible.

Santiago llegó de noche. Era fría y desconocida, una película hiperreal con subtítulos malpuestos. Sus personas hablaban un idioma rápido. Rudo. .
Veintidós horas de vuelo y un corazón lleno de dudas hicieron las luces mas brillantes, el negro mas oscuro, los ángulos mas afilados. El viento frío intentaba sacarme, me gritaba. Me decía que debía irme, volver a casa, que aquí no era el caso…

Dormir. Necesitaba dormir. Y dinero, ¿pesos? Si, pesos. Necesitaba pesos para llevarme al taxi, para llevarme a dormir. Para poder subir escaleras anónimas, agarrando mi mundo, mi yo, en dos maletas. Necesitaba este nuevo extraño dinero para poderme echar en una cama desconocida, supervisada por una nota severa que me avisaba de no utilizar demasiado gas, porque no había. Tenia algo que ver con Argentina, pude ver... y yo en esta cama extraña muriéndome de frió y sueño y distancia.
Y, esta extraña moneda... ¿Diez mil pesos por un taxi? Díez MIL… ¿mil?-Para un taxi que en realidad no era un taxi, si no un coche negro sin nada- “¡Ah no! No eh! No seas tan tonta... no es un taxi… no entrar… ¿Quieres ser asaltada en tu primer noche?. ¿Que haces? ¿Porque sales?” La voz de la mamá me grita, pero soy cansada, las palabras no me salen... intento quejarme pero no… y ya tiene mi maletas… mi ‘yo’ en su coche. Me siento. Y vamos. Y llegamos. Y soy la gringa solita que desconfía de todo y de todos.
Y entro y pago y subo la escalera y me echo en la cama desconocida. Y ya. Ya estamos. Ahora aquí estoy


Santiago arrived by night. She was cold and alien, her people spoke a harsh fast tongue. She was a hyper-real movie with subtitles misplaced. 22 hours of flight and a dubious heart made the lights brighter, lines sharper, the cold winds trying to blow me back. All the way back to home.
Sleep. I needed sleep. And money, money to take me to the taxi to take me to sleep- up anonymous stairs clutching my world, my me, in two suitcases; into an unknown bed, watched over by a stern note telling me not to waste gas as there was close to none. I was supposed to blame Argentina, I believe. And the cold. From new york’s summer to this cold that grabbed you by the feet and round the back of your neck- a mean veil over poor sleep.

The morning taught how deceptive Santiago was.
I woke to brilliant blue skies. A smile with my morning stretch as I readied to face this new real. Yet, I woke early, it seems.
Just a shower, make-up, and breakfast’s blink away, and it was grey. Grey bubble that we breathed in, seeped in, and produced out. Vicious circle of absorbing and creating our own filth. The muck spewed out of cars and coalfires hemmed in by the invisible mountains on all sides. One soon learnt that the visibility of the mountains indicated how deeply one should be breathing in. Most days, it seemed that past 10am one shouldn’t be breathing at all.




Santiago had arrived with her cold smile and grey embrace. She had arrived with her warm secrets and coloured lace.





And here we are, and here it is almost the end. Sitting on a trapeze above plaza baquedano, hanging from silks in the parque forestal. Watching the sky from santa lucia

And we talk. We speak of those things that one tends to talk of with cities. Of life, of death, of all the miracles in between. We speak of her neighbours from over the Andes and the deserts, we speak of my neighbours that made so much noise last night doing… it . We don’t speak as lovers do, yet we speak as two that love each other… by symbiosis, because of time itself, an arranged marriage that came to an arrangement. A love that came as Santiago entered under my skin, between my very fingers into the lines of my hand. It is not a romantic picture, not a romantic love. But yes it is real, yes, it is tangible and yes it has become part of the patchwork of my feel.