A poetic response to Italo Calvino’s essay ‘Lightness’.
Read MorePoems
The Animal That Therefore I Am
Exploring musicality and rhythm of language.
Read MoreTHINK OF DOORS AS VERTICAL BRIDGES.
Think of doors as vertical bridges.
Read MoreClouds
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