WHAT IS TIME THEN? WHAT IS IT FOR?

To move in a circle is to align.

But what do birds know? We say.

Their reality out of tune
With the clock we chose to follow and obey

This coloniser

No time is lost
When we lose sense of time

And timeless are those
Whose internal clocks
Embrace chaos

The rest of us
Eventually draw
Impregnated by the order
That has little to do with our own digestion

Breathless
Choked
We grow and eat fruit that is out of season

And even if we have plenty of time to ponder
The quantity of time we are left with
We fear time being ‘wasted’.

What is time then? What is it for?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

All that lives has time
But wise are those who, like birds,
Don’t think of time
But are in time

The rest of us are slaves
Too shy to resist
To dull to rebel

To release ourselves from the strains of scheduled existence.
Are we most vulnerable, most naked when still?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It is a transgression of a sort to be in one’s individual time
You can’t put a madman into a timeframe
And to be timeless you need to be a little mad

But, oh, she is so timeless! We sigh in envy.

As we continue to spend time in this obedience
Working out someone else’s clock
Our precious time
Worn out in tiredness

What chaos are we fearing when we introduce ‘time’?

This clock that ticks above our beds and dining tables
And by now ticks in our heads too

What a paranoia
What drowsiness

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

How perfect are those unplanned,
Meant to be interactions.
When my time, by accident, aligns with yours.

It is meant to be! We say, in thrill.

Doubting the necessity of that which Is not destiny.

But it takes courage
To build relationships through chance encounters.

To see what comes
And trust it will come again.

To not produce that which is not in season

But rather to delight only in that which
Calls for sprouting by the logic of its own time.

No excess.
No overflow.
Moving cyclically as all else moves beneath our feet.

Not reflecting upon
But reflecting it

Refracting

We too are the rays of sun

---

Written: June 2021 as part of the IS TIME REAL? residency project at BigCi Australia.

---

LISTEN TO THE POEM HERE

BROKEN GOLDEN

Written as part of 'Poetry with Raynen' on 21st Oct 2020. Text in a written form: www.artemisprojects.com.au/poems/broken-golden Music used: CURIOUS IN EPIDAVROS by Felicia Atkinson

THEY SAY THAT BROKEN

COULD BECOME GOLDEN

 

I’D LIKE TO BELIEVE

 

BUT MY HUMAN EXPERIENCE

PROVES ME OTHERWISE

 

SOME

THINGS

ARE

BEYOND

REPAIR

 

THE GOLDEN PARTS

EVENTUALLY GLUE OFF

AND REPAIRED NEEDS REPAIRING

 

OR AM I MISSING SOMETHING?

 

THOSE PARTS THAT HAVE BEEN SO WELL REPAIRED

I FORGET THEY WERE BROKEN ONCE

 

ATTENTION GIVEN ONLY TO THE PLACES THAT ACHE

 

IT’S NATURAL

 

WHAT DOESN’T STING US

FALLS OUT OF FOCUS

 

IT IS NATURAL

TO PAY ATTENTION

TO THAT WHICH

NEEDS MENDING

 

SO WE FORGET

THE HOOPS WE HAVE PASSED

THE BRIDGES CROSSED

THE GATES OPENED

THE ASPECTS OF OUR LIVES

THAT HAVE BEEN WORKED THROUGH

 

REMEMBERING

COULD HELP US WITH

REPAIRING THAT STILL NEEDS TO BE DONE

---

Written on 21 October 2020 as part of ‘Poetry with Raynen’.

Left Cheek

---

IN SPOKEN FORM :

Written as part of 'Poetry with Raynen'. On 8th Oct 2020. See it here in the text form:

---

Written as part of ‘Poetry with Raynen’. 8th October 2020.

Pear Poem

An analogue collage and a poem. Created in October 2015.

To scream silence into your ears.

Your fears soft under my fingers.

Ready to dive in.

Dare to be nothing.

Your cracks arouse me.

Grab me.

Imperfect as you are.



Offer me love on a platter…

Raw, uncooked…

Unchoked.


I want your courage to infiltrate me.

So you can too melt into me comfortably.

Don’t you dare to pull me down.

Ježenje

This poem was developed in April 2020 as part of 'Ježenje' online/zoom-workshop with Croatian poet Neva Lukić and performance artist Josipa Bubaš, during which we’ve contemplated the sensation of 'goose-bumps' (‘ježenje’ in Croatian language). For more about the project, you can listen to this podcast.

The poem is written in form of a collage and it can be read differently (in different order) each time. 

One possible reading:

This poem was developed as part of 'Ježenje' online/zoom-workshop with Croatian poet Neva Lukić and performance artist Josipa Bubaš, during which we have explored the concept and the feeling of 'goose-bumps' (‘ježenje’ in Croatian language). Held in April 2020. The poem is written in form of a collage and it can be read differently (in different order) each time. See the collage here: Language is Croatian. Another poem written during the same workshop is available here: https://vimeo.com/411371511

As part of the same workshop, I have also created this stream-of-consciousness ‘walking poem’:

Made during and inspired by 'Ježenje' online/zoom-workshop with Croatian poet Neva Lukić and performance artist Josipa Bubaš, during which we have explored the concept and the feeling of ježenje (Croatian word for 'goose-bumps'). One day during the workshop, I went for a walk and thoughts about 'ježenje' emerged. So they wouldn't get lost before I return to my desk to write them down, I decided to turn on my phone audio recorder. This is a random (stream of consciousness) succession of thoughts and a surrealist (automatic) walking poem. In 'Language and the Unknown', Julia Kristeva writes that "body is a source of language." Philosopher Michel Serres put it similarly when he wrote: "Language is already in bodies." While walking I allowed for the movement to generate words. After I recorded the audio, I thought of filming the rest of my walk. I was not aware how long the audio was but it turned out it was exactly the length of the rest of my walk. There was a perfect (albeit unplanned) synchronicity between the two. The language is Croatian. Made in Sydney, Australia. The whole thing was made on 21 April 2020.

Clouds

A poem about adapting to changes and embracing uncertainty.

Written in June 2020, in response to Lleah Amy Smith’s project #MemorialFlag that encouraged observation of clouds and contemplation of loss.

The poem was also inspired by reading Ada Smailbegovic’s essay ‘Cloud Writing: Describing Soft Architecture of Change in the Anthropocene’ where she writes about ephemerality of clouds and says: “Clouds’ edges always remain pliable and soft, casting them towards other clouds and the infinite possibilities of mixing and dissolution.”

The poem was then turned into a whisper, through collaboration with sound artist Trevor Brown.

CLOUDS are full of LOSSES

“Edges pliable and soft”

“Continuously shifting boundaries”

But CLOUDS do not lament the forms past
Smoothly shifting from shape to shape

Embracing the “infinite possibility of mixing and dissolution”
Without attachment

Ownership can be LOST

CLOUDS do not have property

They do not think of themselves as beautiful, precious, worth keeping

And so, they continuously LOSE themselves

Merging, separating, morphing, …

Endlessly

We watch their choreography without the sentimentality of LOSS

Sometimes we dare to LOSE ourselves watching

LOSSES are daily because changes are daily
Ongoing and vital transience of things  

To stop LOSSES would be to stop time

To freeze, to control, to supress, oppress, to preserve

Some things must be LOST

Supremacy

Consumerism

Selfishness

Ownership

Assumptions

Otherness

Violence

Arrogance that one way is better than the other

LOSS is the result of getting used to things

An exposition of settlement

We fear LOSS

We are not as liquid as CLOUDS

But rigid, solid, proud

Resistant to changes (although, not resilient)

LOSS prevents us from moving on

A quicksand that slows us down

A sense of safety that betrays fear

A value system

Every archive is a resistance to LOSS

An exposition of the things we like

Our fixations

Our inclination at fixity of things

Preservation

Recording

A great taxidermy of everything that fits our frame

Unlike LOSS, CLOUDS are not anchored

They give themselves to winds

One form constantly LOST to the next one

With pleasure (or with nothing; pleasure too holds the possibility of LOSS)

CLOUDS are free of all that

They embrace LOSS of all that

They do not hold onto

But float

Always new

Forever different

Have there ever been two same CLOUDS?

LOSS is bound

Or a bondage

A refusal of a new world

Stubborn
Nostalgic

Romantic

LOSS drags past into the future;

An uninvited guest

LOSS leans on:

A settled state

A status quo

The institutions

Ideologies

Preconceptions

Consumptions

Assumptions

Plans

Promises

Hopes

Orders of things

Regularity

Boredom

Seriousness

LOSS is dormant in everything that is moored

Looming over it

Scared of its own shadow

Of its own inevitable emergence

Fear can be LOST

Shading of the skin

Uncomfortable

Foreign

Intriguing

LOSS can surprise you

You find something when you LOSE something

LOSS opens up to:

Chance

Difference

Unpredictability

Indefinability

Playfulness

Surprise

Discovery

Undoing

Destabilizing

Privilege can be LOST

Values can be LOST

LOSS can be valuable

LOSS is an opportunity for otherwise

Avoiding LOSSES

Can lead to becoming LOST

Sometimes we are LOST

Perhaps now

we are

all

a bit LOST

Because we, unlike CLOUDS, need time to shift shape

Time to discover that shapes are meant to be ephemeral

Responsive

Humble

Unassertive

As CLOUDS

---

BELOW IS A READING OF THE POEM BY MICHELLE ST ANNE, ARTISTIC DIRECTOR OF THE Living Room Theatre.

Written by: Ira Ferris Read by: Michelle St Anne Music by: Trevor Brown Full poem: https://www.artemisprojects.com.au/poems/clouds