wander-mind

"To The Former Self In Art Class"
Hannah Faith Notess


You didn't know the boy sitting next to you
in Watercolor 101 was going to shutter himself
in the car, stop breathing, break the heart
of his father and the whole college.

Let's be honest. His cones and cylinders
were as lopsided, as badly shaded
as everyone else's cones and cylinders.

When you hear the news two years later,
you search your own tatty portfolio
for clues, sigh If only I had known—
but I want to shake you and say, You didn't,

and anyway that phrase is a stupider knife
even than Ockham's razor. If you went,
with your grey lens of knowledge, back to that
minute, you'd still be painting the same

burnt-out cathedral under burnt-orange blood
dripping from the sky, collaged with quotations
from The Waste Land. You thought it meant

you were losing your faith; but look, there you are
sitting in church, five years in the future,
wondering (like a good Protestant) why
you want so much to pray for the souls of the dead.

In fact, you could go back and forth enough
times to wear a rut in the floor of time,
but your awkward brushstrokes would still paint
the same cathedral that lists to the left. You'd still

stay up all night in agony over the alchemical
substance of the soul. Your grand attempts
at phthalo yellow sunrises would still turn murky,

while the same boy sat silent beside you,
washing the globe of an apple with quinacridone
gold, shading it with Payne's grey,
the same dark worm asleep on his heart.




---
I'm erratic, what of it? Can't be measured in a vial or filed away; I evaporate, I don't stay. I finished napowrimo 2 weeks late but everything I write is deeply unsatisfactory. A lot has happened, or been happening. My parents are being sued by a disgruntled shepherd. My little brother got expelled from his highschool for dealing drugs. I bought a tub of icing and ate it with bananas and I do not regret the improvement it has made to my weekend in the slightest.

You should watch the miniseries 'Top Of The Lake', set in my homeland (the South Island of New Zealand). It's beautifully shot, and was produced by Jane Campion (a woman I admire very much).

I hope you are well.

I've set up a facebook page for my paintings: DeviantArt has generally been unsatisfying for painting exposure over the years for me, so I'm trying something a little different that will hopefully open up more local commissions. There isn't much work yet (it's been a 1am initiative and I don't have a heap of art on my laptop) but I'd dearly appreciate some expression of interest. Wouldn't we all, I suppose.  www.facebook.com/rebeccahawkes…


untitled text post by tumblr user lavenderfieldsinparis:

In Australia, we don't say "I love you" we say "kangaroo
steve irwin crocodile didgeridoo" which roughly translates to
"you can have one of my tim-tams" and I think that's so beautiful.

Fête by Andrew Nance

I thought friends friendly, & so starved.
I thought friends fiend-like, & so carved

an altar. I came for the communion, not
the conversation; caught fire, blackened

the banister. I had a hell of a time saving
face; facing Mitanni, my president.

Son after son rode the waves; the sight
was hard to believe, to insinuate. Duped,

I was content to watch women carouse:
each carrousel passing in place, pleating

into an envelope of eve. They took
my card, catalogued my number. As I was

pulling, not plucking, my eyelashes, one
after another, they said, come on, said

we're ready for feeding; together they
pried at my parts, packed me up, a point,

into the little drawers of a chiffonier.
Parried from the door by a large man

in a pearl necklace, my teeth began
to chatter. There was little left: I starved

still. I chose carousal over caving; cabal
over waking. I came to a catastrophe.


Cameroon by Andrew Nance

          Imagine lastly eager
grins regretting, back & forth
as if on a hinge: the snow-belt
a wind-building people, people
dismantle like dogs on stilts
or a sneeze in the night

          back & forth, as if on
a hinge, the snow-belt pulling
my lover out of the sea & up
to my chin like a dog on stilts
a sneeze in the night, a dress
that wears me, clings to its

          camera, pulling my
lover out of the sea, up to chin
mouth hinged to summer's
certainty: rain, a dress that
wears me, clings to its camera
all the money in my pockets

          curls like cats, & in my
mouth, hinged to summer's
certainty, rain & velvet organs
washed up on shore: all the
money in my pockets curled
like cats: I bend over to pour

          my grin into her
mouth, an organ washed up
on shore, a wind building people
people dismantled: I bent over
to pour my grin, & lastly, I am
pouring the eager grins I regret.

Things by Fleur Adcock

There are worse things than having behaved foolishly in public.
There are worse things than these miniature betrayals,
committed or endured or suspected; there are worse things
than not being able to sleep for thinking about them.
It is 5 a.m. All the worse things come stalking in
and stand icily about the bed looking worse and worse
and worse.

At some point it becomes true that all stories
are love stories. all making, love making.
I didn't make this rule. but it binds me
all the same. I wish there were a law
against condescending against love. against
the economy of fear that says your joy
means less joy for me as if love
were pie, or money, or fossil fuel
dug or pumped from the earth, gone
when it's gone. it's just not true. the heart
with its gift for magnificent expansion
is not coal. not fruit set to spoil or the dollar
cringing in its wallet. when you say darling,
the world lights up at its edges. when mouths
find mouths and minds follow or minds find
minds and mouths, hands, hips, toes, follow –
how about you call that sacred. how about you raise
your veined right hand and swear on the blood
that branches there, yes. I take this crush
to be my lawful infatuation. I will bend toward joy
until the bending's its own pleasure. I will memorize
photographs and street maps, I will acquiesce
to the maudlin urgency of pop songs and dance,
and dance – there's a perfection only the impossible kiss
possesses. there are notes you can only hear naked
in the dark of a room to which you will never
return. anything that moves the world toward light
is a blessing. why not take it with both hands,
lift it to your lips like a broth of stars. this
is the substance that holds our little atoms together
into bodies. this sweet paste of longing
is all that binds us to the earth.
and all we know of the gods.
— Marty McConnell, "Three of Cups"