A(nother) day at home, so the orange lounge pants, the green table lamp, the simple rhythm of my computer cursor tapping her dainty finger The sun, in its afternoon glory, slants through my northern window, throwing itself off the wall mirror, that sends shafts of primary colours across the study I watch the spectrum shift and evolve with the arc of time, conscious of its brief life, conscious I am wasting my day, with such minutiae distractions of the mundane like citrus pants like this, and that like the intercourse of glass and light like all the hours that bells have tolled, so ordinary but loved
Tag: writing
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touching me where few have been his voice warm, deep, masculine has its own contours and texture; in his smallest of laughs is a potent gesture that holds and envelops me yet there is a mystery in his words in which i see an inner man grow gradually more transparent whose magic peels me back petal by petal like the sun opening a bud i have never before encountered anything that matches the power of his perception for which reason i let its complexity feel my mind like an archaeologist a wall of hieroglyphics it is hard to know how he touches from that distance only something in me understands the caress of his voice is safer than home nothing, not even the wind on nakedness reaches into such unreachable places
A Boring Weekend
So she sips on almond milk, warming her hands around the mug. Outside, the clouds are hurrying east, as they darken the earth and un-darken it in endless cycles. Her feet are cold and, setting the cup on the writing desk, she pulls on her socks. How nice it feels. Life is good. She takes another sip. Faraway in Afghanistan the Taliban is winning -- quickly. Farther off, in Haiti, the president has been assassinated. Closer, Indonesia is running out of oxygen. Then, there is the arts. She turns over the cover: this edition is three months old. For nearly 180 years, The Economist has fed fuel to thought, a friend, teacher, scientist for presumably the curious thinker. Book reviews -- often of worthy works. But, so perfectly do these analyses distil their essence, that inclination to read the paperbacks sags. She runs a finger down the contents page. Social justice and self-interests. Are these opposing ideas? Does one help the other? Which one comes first? Does Covid have the answers? Technology -- will we co-exist with artificial intelligence, like with plants? The planet -- more salmon or hydroelectic power? And meanwhile, the air is sliced apart, as Jeff Bezos heads for the clouds. Do we want our enterprises ruthless? Or do we want them visionary? Take Berkshire Hathaway. Take Microsoft. What defines success? Then there are the Big Techs and Big Pharmas. Can we reconcile both qualities? And what of our leaders? Does age persuade our voting preferences? Or gender? Class? Maybe persona. It is a dated but excellent magazine. Are you a voter? Take the case of Trump. Take the case of Macron. Take the case of Aung San Suu Kyi. Is Chinese capitalism, capitalism? Yes and no. Think Jack Ma. All things in moderation -- religion, also. There is art everywhere. Economist journalists write succinctly, are possessed of balance and clarity, and talk to the point. Meanwhile, Donald Rumsfeld dies of blood cancer. The Secretary of Defence who is remembered for his much-quoted conundrums -- notably the "unknown unknowns" -- has been saved the spectacle of Afghanistan's return to its former Islamic rulers. Nobody, at the time of print, knows that yet, either, even if suspicion is strong. Nor does America anticipate the flood of Haitian refugees at its borders. And Australia does not know the treachery of Delta. But they will.
In the balcony
It's time to give the plants a drink. In the balcony I pour water into soil, wait for excess to drain. Day is giving way to dark: a clear deep blue on the northern sky. Above the jacaranda trees, a bird sails home, an orange tissue crumples the air. Indoors are photographs of those I miss: Mum posing in a kimono. And there is Dad who would tickle the spaces between my ribs as I spun on the floor -- tied to my body where his fingers held me -- then flew apart. Music flows from the heart of the house to every room. Things are just as I've left them. Stew is simmering on the stove. Salad servers stick out of the wooden bowl. Rainbow of vegetables tossed and relaxed. I tilt the watering-can over the last pot of herbs, the distant oak now full of night, as a star presses his gentle face into the sky. I want to go inside and smell my dinner. I want to light my candles, while the earth slows down to breathe, until they begin to tell their good stories in soft low voices.
Book review: The Forgotten Waltz
A dose of sobering responsibility sinks into the central character — anti-heroine for some, heroine for others — of Anne Enright’s novel, The Forgotten Waltz.
While this might sound like a spoiler, for a story about adultery and easy love, it is no more than the author declares on the back cover: If it hadn’t been for the child, then none of this might have happened. She saw me kissing her father. She saw her father kissing me. The fact that a child got mixed up in it all made us feel that it mattered, that there was no going back.
It is 2009, and Dublin is seeing her first snows. Thirty-four year-old Gina Moynihan has been tasked with meeting Evie, her lover’s adolescent daughter, after school. Sean Vallely, the father, is delayed by the weather in another city. Although we will not read about this, nor have any idea about the relationship-dynamics involved until the latter part of the book, there are early signs things the way they have unfolded are not what Gina could have imagined.
Five years following an initial encounter in 2002, Gina, newly married, becomes irresistibly attracted to the family-man Sean who, more than fifteen years her senior, lives down the road from her sister. As the interest progresses to flirtation, and desire, then full-blown obsession, Enright chooses the names of songs as headings for her chapters: Will You Love Me Tomorrow, Everytime We Say Goodbye, Stop! In the Name of Love.
In the tumultuous seas of longing and misgivings, the author offers the pair a plethora of opportunities to shift course and salvage their separate matrimonies. But, despite their best effort, not for the lack of trying, both remain wilfully helpless to their irresistible passion: At the train station, I sat in the car and said to him, “No more”… By Mullinger I thought, if I did not see him soon again, that I would surely die.
This physiology of love develops against the backdrop of the Global Financial Crisis, in which Ireland’s economy, that is hitherto riding the surging waves of technology and real estate and open-market optimism, collapses into a free-fall, and crisis of confidence. Observations can be made on a delicate correlation between the fiscal trajectory and the evolution of the romantic affair.
By the time money in the country has dissipated like vapour, rupturing the dream of a fortune from selling her late-mother’s family-home, Gina realises the one for whom she has left her husband regards her as “secondary” — particularly to his child. It must be said, however, that Enright is never heavy-handed in drawing these parallels.
The time of snowy-white solitude Gina finds at her disposal, presently, when Sean is away, frames her reflections on the recent time with him, and her former marriage, and childhood, that, told in flashbacks, make us empathise with her one moment and loathe her the next. Confusion and guilt, endless attempts at self-assurance and quiet resignation inform her emotional journey. Finally, aimed at honouring her love, Gina resolves to gather a deeper understanding of Evie; for in spite of its melancholy-title, The Forgotten Waltz is a love-story, after all.
With writerly skill, Enright pays no respect to chronology in her story-telling. The narrative traverses with her mind to what place or year on which her thoughts decide to rest. Fragments about coping with Evie at home juxtapose with memories of her own father; shadows of her mother’s ghost jostle against Sean’s presence in the house.
It is one of those books where there is a reason to every word. The imagery is vivid and hefty with meaning.: The [hotel] room was impossible to find. I had to walk miles of corridor, go up in one lift, and down in a different one…Apparently it was all easy to find from the outside.
Enright constructs a desultory and remarkably precise psychological drama in which outside events constantly echo inner scenes. It is a tender, humane, and visceral work that leaves an unmistakeable scent of sycamore in the air.
Love
Against the facade of sleep: breathing, stars, waters Not even waters, but its stars -- the smooth fabric of breathing To enter the waters of this wall I must love myself fully
(Digital) Theatre review: Berlin
If you are going to stage a romantic thriller do it in the Sumner; better still, film, and turn it digital. The intimate confines of the Southbank theatre, not least our screen constraints, are perfectly suited for the sort of dangerous, intriguing, and sexy interplay that pheromonal busyness often engenders. And the blistering performances in Iain Sinclair’s production of Joanna Murray-Smith’s play rivet your eyes on the action, as history and philosophy and emotions converge with devastating consequences.
The sexually-attracted pair are Tom (Michael Wahr) and Charlotte (Grace Cummings). He is an Australian law-school dropout newly arrived in Berlin to find himself. She is a published poet who works in a bar, where this night Tom issues carnal signals in her direction.
Despite an initial lukewarm response Charlotte invites the lonesome stranger into her loft apartment that, sensual in Christina Smith’s set design, is where we meet them. They drink beer and flirt and recite poetry: “I want my conscience to be true before you,” repeats Tom, after his female companion, as she reels off Rilke halfway up the stairs to her resting-lair. In a heart-to-heart moment, there is a touching exchange of tragic stories in each of their lives, which leads to an exploration into some pretty fascinating metaphysical concepts.
Following a night of heady passion, though, a series of mysterious calls to Tom’s cellphone, and to the lodging’s intercom system — plus his frantic urgings for her to flee overseas with him — raise Charlotte’s suspicion. As she probes and he evades, they find themselves over the course of the drama debating the political and socio-cultural legacy of Germany’s troubled past. Should the nation be in a permanent state of contrition? Does this perpetual remembering not mean murdering the victims again and again? When will the quest for justice end? The stronger her polemic, however, the farther Charlotte’s new beau seems to pull away.
As always, Murray-Smith’s writing is fabulous: fast, ferocious, and at times brilliantly funny. What holds it back is the implausibility of the plot that, after starting out in the most credible way, twists, then descends into the unconvincing. It feels like an elaborate device to play out the writer’s own thoughtful, unanswered, inquiry. But the acting is first-rate and highly charged. With the chemistry scorching between them, Cummings’ Charlotte is seductive one moment, and distraught incredulity the next, while Wahr gives Tom a memorable journey. Ultimately, Berlin is a work that provides us with fine fodder upon which to chew during this period of isolation and struggle.
Animosity
I believe you are not happy I believe you have gone to the edges of yourself, and what is in the centre is anyone's guess: nothing -- that is one answer -- or, nothing much I believe peace, disappointed in you, has long left your side I believe loneliness is your most faithful companion I believe connection is never a game you can play without stumbling I believe fake riches are as woeful as the people they seduce I believe you are a fugitive of reality I believe distractions and delusion are staples in your daily diet I believe at dawn you cannot face yourself in the shaving mirror I believe at night you lie down none the wiser and unassuaged Superficial, Synthetic, Scared
Alpha
The rouge of leaves and trees so voluptuous as if this autumn the first autumn The wind blows making gathers on the lake this day the first day A pair of green birds so happy and so in love lift off a bough soaring toward the sky everywhere orange, blue, green, red, purple, yellow all at once This sunset the first sunset
Cyclamen
This morning the sun strokes me with the back of his fingers and I open -- a spread of folds, blushing pink -- and all day butterflies land on me burrowing through curves and creases into my deepest universe as they lust after the sweet juice, then carry away with them, in their quest for world domination, and all day with the playful wind like a candle flame at dusk I curl and lean my slender body of stem that holds all that wetness and adventure gently and softly. So, here I am: un-shy, unclosed, honest. And you? Do you love yourself? Do you embrace your simple life and its impulses to be untamed and sublime for a while before nothingness keeps its due appointment?
Berries at Sunset
What could be better than delighting in a handful of nature's sweet largesse -- rasp and straw and blue -- as the sky writes in their voluptuous colours
Tea
Rose petals diffuse in hot water, and the air wafts with a garden at springtime; sipping on its sweetness is like the gentle touch of your lips
