Within comfortable range

"The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum -- even encourage the more critical and dissident views. That gives people the sense that there's free thinking going on, while all the time the presuppositions of the system are being reinforced by the limits put on the range of the debate."

Noam Chomsky, linguistics professor and political activist (1928)
 

Beauty on canvas

The girl with the pearl

set the world a-whirl

to then the following year

be mowed down by the Reaper

 

Last one awake

Every evening

of every day

I have to be

the last one awake

Just to make sure

– everyone's safe

– none has to be

the last one awake

The first one up

to watch over

them all even

the last one to wake

The nights are short

but all worth it

there's joy to be

the last one awake

At times it hurts

to stay awake

but I'll always be

the last one awake

And if there be

once I shouldn't

then let me be

the last one to wake

 

Reality check

"I don't believe in playing down to children, either in life or in motion pictures. I didn't treat my own youngsters like fragile flowers, and I think no parent should. Children are people, and they should have to reach to learn about things, to understand things, just as adults have to reach if they want to grow in mental stature. Life is composed of lights and shadows, and we would be untruthful, insincere, and saccharine if we tried to pretend there were no shadows. Most things are good, and they are the strongest things; but there are evil things too, and you are not doing a child a favor by trying to shield him from reality."

Walt Disney, entrepreneur and animator (1901-1966)
 

Centripetal gyration

"I live my life in widening circles that reach out across the world. I may not complete this last one but I will try."

Rainer Maria Rilke, poet and novelist (1875-1926)
 

Watching a glacier move

"It was not conscious. There was no recognition in it of one's fortune, or fate, and for that very reason even to those dazed with watching for the last shivers of consciousness on the faces of the dying, consoling.

Forgetfulness in people might wound, their ingratitude corrode, but this voice, pouring endlessly, year in, year out, would take whatever it might be; this vow; this van; this life; this procession; would wrap them all about and carry them on, as in the rough stream of a glacier the ice holds a splinter of bone, a blue petal, some oak trees, and rolls them on."

Virginia Woolf, Mrs Dalloway (1925)

Drifting still

"Normal is the average of deviance."

Rita Mae Brown, writer (b. 1944)
 

The Hours

She had not come, she had not yet come.

The waiting, the longing, the unmoving

in each of these stretched-past-breaking-point hours

the hole that can't be filled

in the pit of the stomach

the hunger pushing the boundaries

of the hours, of solitude, a bit further off

she had not yet come, not yet come

and she dug her absence with a pick axe

laboriously, apparition ploughing in the dark

silent against a clear backdrop

She had not yet come.

Of course, one doubted she would ever come

the hours reached cosmic dimensions

almost ridiculous in their order of magnitude,

density and aloofness

Yet sometimes in the search one would find

a smoking camp-fire

steaming coffee on the stove

wet trees and grass one mile away

whence no rain had fallen

a tinge of peppermint in the air

a hair hanging off a warm pillow

It was hard to make sense of the hours.

They were not pointing in any clear direction

they dragged and eluded description

showing and veiling

the hours, the hours

both filling and containing the void

the restlessness, the fidgeting,

the looking-for-reasons

the paralysis and the purpose to get up

to brush up one's teeth and one's knowledge

the impetus to not put commas

to par one's fingernails

They were the inherent contradiction

the dryness and luxuriance of the world

that which rendered all words empty

and gave them meaning, new meanings

sucking life out of every second

breathing her mind back into them

It was foretold she would burst like a hurricane

and turn the whole world upside-down

leaving carcasses of animals and cars

and a foot of caking mud

a glistening sense of agony

a jungle-like silence

and sudden gusts of wind

that sent shivers up the spine

and then other hours will come

freed prisoner scratching the days

before the next meeting

off the invisible wall of his cell

other hours will grip and churn

curled up, foetus-like, in pain

seeing things that are, and aren't,

unable to differentiate

these other hours one will not court

will hammer in certain intuitions

among which holding sway over one's mind

the certitude that one will hurt

will die from this last hurtle-down love

because there is too little and too much of it

giving and taking as rampaging crusaders

ruining to build anew

burning down to fertilise the ground

these hours will make wormfood out of you

they will sow anger in the lap of your heart

those same hours that have levelled

mountains down to sand

won't even cock their ear

at the crushing of your skull

the hours etching their distinctive mark

over every action and thought

even on the foam in the mug of coffee

the hours are like letting go

of that which is still yours

making a memory off a living person

off a moment that would never come to pass

and the holding-back when she wakes up

at fucking long last

and needs time, more time

and it feels this is all you have

all you have left

the time without her

even after she had come

the waiting

the hours metronoming your heart

making you dream of Maghera cave

and the waves beating the sand

into the wind

and for some reason

you yearn for the sea

for a barefoot shoreline walk

hands folded behind your back like a peasant

and your nose up in the briny air

you then understand that she was picking flowers

or was it caterpillars

dancing wildly by the roadside

the reason of being behind

and your constant glancing at the gate

for she was the hours

she was the hours

and saying this I realise

she had always been

here and now and there and then

all along

I will have to wait for hours

for her to deign glance back at me

to catch a glimpse of her like a shooting star

cowering in a corner when she flares like the sun

elbows on the gate to the prairie when she's the night

when she rains, looking ahead,

smiling when she appears in the doorway

when she leaves, smiling.

 

Coffee

She lifts the cup – the bland china clank still

above the morning murmur of the hurried customers –

to her lips only for her pen to be stilled

by the surprising absence of content –

it's like finding out one's cigarette's out

even though they're designed to burn out –

running out of coffee remains uncanny –

the story stalled until the next gulp –

time measured in punctincting china –

halted mid-air staring at the blackbrown ring –

granular negative of a near-perfect eclipse –

blended shadows of distilled words,

bitter if left to sit on out for too long –

in one movement she stands up, pushes back

the stool and lays down the cup –

the day stretches outside the bay window

people after cars after people after cars –

queueing up again – keeping watch on her things

– her things – in a haloed blur on the table –

the pockmarked, unnerved, unsmoothed wood –

the tinnital wave of the conversation floating

like bobbing flotsam in the middle of the café,

she feels aloof, stranded, a standstill runaway,

an exile without a justification, a fraud almost

though she has money, a job, club cards –

been mocked for the black hair on her brown arms –

more disturbing to her is the pulp of her skin

loosening so visibly when she drinks water –

as anyone she is the sum of her memories,

slave to them – ditching one means losing a finger –

– her things – her coffee – essential and trivial –

the café, the people, the cars, the china

keep her head down and blank and running,

the noise motions her in the here and the now –

the threads adjusted, the cup filled, the ink stayed –

disambiguates the scars from the words –

while the bland china still clink – while she lifts the cup.

(p)leisure

"The only thing one can give an artist is leisure in which to work. To give an artist leisure is actually to take part in his creation."

Ezra Pound, poet (1885-1972)


There are many shades to be found in this quote when one scratches the varnish, but I'll be discussing only one right now that's the most obvious to me (quick aside: I like the idea that what's obvious at one point in time, in your life, may be different at another further down the line.)

 I initially wanted to say in the title to this quote that "leisure equaled time". I realised quickly this wasn't true, and not what Pound meant. Time is part of the concept of leisure, but so is to be free of any constraint. Providing an artist with a smooth relationship when they're in an artistic process is to take part in the process itself. Without an understanding partner, no success is possible for no anchor in the real is possible. Pound didn't specify the context, so if the artist isn't in any relationship then it's much easier in one sense, but they'll need an equally understanding society to give them free reins.

Leisure is a broad term that in our modern society can encompass many things, from being free from financial constraints to some form of emotional distance -- yet with a maintenance of the strong bond -- from one's partner. Giving space, time; providing a poised, safe environment; taking care of the world around while something else is being created...all of these require dedication, respect and trust, from either society or the artist's partner. Its process is egocentric, yet humanistic in nature. This process has to be recognised as "work", just as Pound envisioned it. Leisure isn't just "free time" or spending endless hours looking out the window or staring at a blank canvas, even though a measure of maturation process has to be suffered.

Last, of all: leisure is really "the only thing" the artist needs to be given. The rest they'll take care of. Hence the title.