ARRIVAL TO THE BIG ROOM IN THE BACK CORNER OF THE ACCA EXHIBITION

The artwork is big and loud and red and rectangle.

The paintings were pale and like the wind that brushed past or against me, indifferent to my

breath.

But this cloudy room in the back was waiting and waiting like a friend who waited with

you for the train to come.

Staring, the colours shake in front of me and I wonder

What’s After This?

What could go after this?

When I am perfectly glad to be sitting here on this couch in this room,

where I can jump through long hot summer nights

when the question really is: What is after this?

And our locked jaws need new activities every fifteen minutes or so,

and when whispers become gossip and I’m trying not to hear just so I can focus on the

band playing in front of me

and when phone filming dancers don’t let the people behind them see the stage properly

and when water is needed now more than ever

and when the dirt mixes with skin and we feel home again.

Under the warmth of the sky we stand solo in big crowds and try not to feel so alone

and the rhythm continues, unceasing, so loud that we don’t have to think,

and we realise that sooner or later,

we’ll be in our bedroom, alone,

wondering what comes after this.

THIS IS WHAT COMES AFTER THIS, IN OUR BEDROOM, ALONE, WHEN BOOKS AND SONGS ARE ADOPTED LANGUAGE

Where will this all end?

Another depressing news story.

I knew it would come to this,

Some summers they drop like flies.

He paid his rent in LSD

Like a pack of wolverines on speed

On New Years Eve I did acid and

we rode our bikes up Brunswick Street

and went to St Kilda for the gig.

I really should have gone out last night.

The bleak awful isolateness.

I cry and the blackness speaks back.

I hear the rapturous ring of silence.

The day greying into blackness.

I justified the mess of my life by saying I gave it order.

The September sunlight seemed weakened.

Don’t that sun look good going down?

Don’t that moon look lonesome?

Goddamned it, I’m lonely.

Everything distracted me.

Do you feel sad? I feel ready.

Autumn leaves and the pouring rain.

He wanted to do things his way and his way alone.

His reluctance to play the game was spurred by a collection of fears.

The Student went out of his way to never show any work.

Sly was Stagger-Lee.

Robert Johnson inherited this world and made a new kind of music with it.

I didn’t know what I had until I threw it all away.

It’s like World War III in my brain all the time.

It’s like that Peggy Lee song: Is That All There Is?

Every night I tell myself ‘I am the Cosmos,

I am the wind’,

I’m a street-walking cheetah with a heart full of napalm,

I was saying ‘let me out of here’ before I was even born.

It’s not enough,

My future is dissolving rapidly into a pit of misunderstanding.

SARAH SAID THAT WE BRING OURSELVES TO THE ARTWORK

It is Monday and I am out of my depth,

I am so stressed that I am nauseous,

I don’t work enough and I spend my money too quickly,

I wander, not aimless,

but with aims that I always forget to move towards.

My brother just moved out four days ago,

and another brother is set to graduate VCA for Jazz guitar in October,

and my third other brother is on holiday in Japan with his partner and sweet baby Ottavia

with another darling niece set to be born in January,

but what is it that I’m doing?

My teenage dream was to tour Europe at twenty, playing Rock and Roll in Berlin,

now my closest friends are doing that in April and I’m not going.

It is like I ordered six thousand empty pens and expected to fill seven thousand empty

notebooks.

I listen to The Beatles over and over and over again, like two separate detectives on a cold

case listening to a forty-year-old tape of a suspect’s church sermon trying to figure out if

there are any clues they missed.

I listen to The Beatles so intently and in awe, as if ‘She Loves You’ was released

yesterday.

America, you killed John Lennon and you ruined my life.

I am so stressed all the time and I didn’t sleep well last night and I spend too long on my

phone and wonder why no tasks ever get done.

Jealousy fills me until arrogant pretention takes over,

I got a useless high ATAR but no license or ability to operate an automobile,

I brag about accomplishments accidentally and also on purpose.

I get irritated when the dishwasher was stacked terribly and then remember I was the one

who stacked it.

I feel empty when my friends gather without me

but I find myself consistently cancelling plans so I can lay awake on the couch,

watching Vietnam War documentaries on the television waiting until Creedence

Clearwater Revival plays as the army commit war crimes.

I worry that my parents think I’m rude and angry,

but then I say something rude and angry.

I am walking the plank on a pirate ship of my own creation.

The green grass seen on the other side has been chopped, rolled and smoked over and

over again

and here I am wondering why dirt surrounds me.

It is Monday,

I am out of my depth,

I am so stressed.

All I need

is for someone to explain to me,

in a clear and direct way,

What this fucking Art Writing thing is,

Please?

HUZZAH! EUREKA! I FIGURED IT OUT! THIS IS WHAT ART WRITING IS!

WALL LINED WITH THE COLOURS OF STREET KIDS WHO WERE ONCE THERE – DEEP UNDERBELLY SHADOW CREATURES WANDER THROUGH NIGHT UNTIL QUIET TO MAKE GREY SLAB WALLS COLOURFUL – EAGER SILHOUETTES ARE DRAWN TO THE DISGUSTING STAIRCASES THAT LEAD TO WHERE THE RHYTHM IS – MILK CRATE TABLES FOR CIGARETTES AND A BREATH OF AIR – THE NAME OF THE GAME IS CELLOPHANE OBSCURITY – BECOME INFLATABLE AND A MYSTICALSTAR WHOSE LIGHT DANCES AROUND YOUR FINGERS LIKE TWELVE BULLET TRAINS EXPRESS RUNNING TO ALPINES WHOSE CHARACTER IS SNOW – SHINE AND BUILD UP CROTCHET HI-HAT AND BE DISCIPLINED BY SEMIQUAVER WARPED BASS BUT BREATH QUICK SEMIBREVE SYNTHESISER WILL GIVE YOU LIFE – SHIMMER LIKE GLASS SHARDS THAT DON’T CUT – EXPLODING AND PLASTIC AND INEVITABLE – CONCRETE UNDERGROUND CARPET DRENCHED IN SWEAT AND GLUE THAT STEALS YOUR SHOES AND GIVES YOU THE ATOM BOMB FOR FEET – TREBLE CONTINUOUS MULTIPLYING CUT LIKE TEPPANYAKI CHEF INTO OMINOUS BEAUTIFUL MELODY – TAKE YOURSELF AWAY AND BUILD YOURSELF BACK UP – LOOKS GOOD FROM FAR BUT SEEN AS FAR FROM GOOD – TRUE THICKNESS PIERCES YOUR CHEST – GUM-SUCKING CHEEK-BITING DRY-LIPPED VAMPIRE WITH A CUT NOSE NEEDS A STAKE IN THE HEART FOR PURE LIGHT – FIFTEEN MINUTES TO GATHER PROPHECIES UNFULFILLED ONLY FOR YOUR GENIUS TO BE LEFT AT THE DOOR – FULL HOLISTIC SELF-REFLECTING RUMINATING CONTEMPLATION OF UNINTELLIGIBLE INNER-MONOLOGUE BEGGED TO BE PUBLISHED AS A FULL UNEDITED WORK OF ART – SPONTANEOUS BEBOP PROSE IN DOUBLE TIME MULTIPLIED – STACCATO NOW CHOP CHOP CHOPPING – SCREAMING LEGS THAT TURN TO A BATTLE OF WATER AND SUN – RA WHO IS THE FALCON HEADED KING OF THE GODS – HELLO TO HELIOS WHO DROVE A BLAZING GOLDEN CHARIOT ACROSS THE DAYTIME SKY – GOD OF THE SUN IN FLAMING FIRE RED AND THE EQUALLY FLAMMABLE RED OF ARMAGEDDON WHOSE INFLUENCE ENGULFS – THE SERPENT HERO OF THIS GATHERING WILL SLITHER LIKE THE WHITE MARKER WRITING ON THE WALLS WHOSE INK EXEMPLIFIES NEWTON’S LAW – DIRT AND MUD AND FEELING SOIL ON THE SKIN OF YOUR FEET THAT HAVE RETURNED TO YOUR LEGS – DIRT AND MUD AND SOIL BENEATH YOUR FEET THAT DEVALUES THE REAL CONCRETE YOU’RE CURRENTLY CONFINED IN – TIGHTROPE WALKING WITH NO ROPE TO BE FOUND – STUMBLING INFECTS THE POPULACE AND SHAKES ITS CONFIDENCE IF THOUGHTS OF DEPARTURE CREEP IN TO TAKE YOU AWAY FROM THE ROOM WITH THE MUSIC AND VISIONS – STAY SAFE FEELING LIKE THE WIND IS WITHIN YOU – THE EQUATOR AND THE EARTH’S CORE HAVE SET UP SHOP IN YOUR ABDOMEN – MOLTEN LAVA AND A MAGNETIC FIELD DRAGS YOU BACK TO FLASHING LIGHTS – YOUR TWO EYES MULTIPLIED TO FIVE THAT CAN’T HELP BUT TRY TO FOCUS ON SIX THINGS AT ONCE – YOUR ONLY TWO OPTIONS ARE TWELVE K RESOLUTION OR THE CLARITY OF AN EIGHTEEN-THIRTIES PHOTOGRAPH OR TECHNICOLOUR VISTA VISION CINEMA – REALITY RETURNS IN FRAGMENTS UNMEASURABLE AND JADED PICKING YOU UPRIGHT AS YOU FEEL THE SHIP IS SINKING – THIS IS THREE HUNDRED HIKES UP A SHREDDED MOUNTAIN ILLUSION – GRAVEL ROADS MAKE YOU SLIP AND FALL BUT WHICH PATH YOU TAKE IS YOUR CHOOSING – LOSING SLEEP STRESS TEETH AND BREATH – LOSE SIGHT IN THE GRAND SCHEME – THE GRAND SCAM IS THAT YOUR COMPANIONS ARE LEAVING – THE GRAND SLAM IS THE PING PONG CONVERSATION YOU KEEP STARTING – SHOUT SHOUT GENERAL STATEMENT – POORLY PLANNED PLANS FOR THE FUTURE WILL NOT COME INTO FRUITION – EYES DART SIDE TO SIDE TRYING TO COMPREHEND THE CONVERSATIONALISTS’ VERBAL VOLLEY – MISUNDERSTOOD RALLY OF SLAPDASH OPINIONS AND HASTY TELLINGS OF PRIVATE PERSONAL SECRETS – CHANCE ENCOUNTERS WITH THE OUTLINES OF NEW BEST FRIENDS YOU’LL NEVER ENCOUNTER AGAIN – VACANT BRAINS AND EVACUATING PARTICIPANTS – THE TIME WHEN CLOCKS STOPPED CLICKING IS OVER – THE PERCUSSION HAS BUILT TENSION WITH NO DESIRE TO RELEASE – THE SHADE IS BEGINNING TO RETURN AND YOU MUST REUNITE WITH YOUR SHADOW AND BECOME ONE AGAIN – ONE LAST ODYSSEY TO THE CAVE THAT GIVES YOU NOURISHMENT HYDRATION AND A HEADACHE – ONE ANIMATED MOVIE TO MAKE YOU FEEL LIKE A KID AGAIN – LIGHTS OUT – THIS PARTY HAS ENDED. GET READY GET READY GET READY GO AGAIN – FIRE ENGINE RED WITH NO NEED FOR AN EXTINGUISHER – THE TIDE HAS SHIFTED AND IS RISING ABOVE THE SEA OF SHOULDERS AND NECKS AND THE BACKS OF PEOPLE’S HEADS – INSIDIOUS PURPLE MATURES INTO A BLUE HUE ALTRUISTIC IN ITS AIMS – I REALLY DO LOVE YOU AND I’M GLAD YOU’RE HERE – FINGERS TAP THE TOP OF CANS THAT GOT TOO WARM IN YOUR HANDS AND RENDER THE DRINK INSIDE THE ALUMINIUM USELESS UNLESS YOU SEE A VESSEL TO ENTERTAIN YOUR DIGITS AND GROUND YOU TO REALITY A PROPER FUNCTION – YOU ARE THE COSMOS YOU ARE THE WIND BUT THAT WON’T BRING YOU BACK AGAIN – THE AETHER FEARS YOU AND OBLIVION WORKS IN PAIN TO FLEE YOUR WRATH – FIREFLIES FLY ABOVE AND POKE HOLES IN YOUR FLAWLESS LOGIC – EPISODIC VISIONS OF COLOUR PLAGUE YOUR MOVEMENTS AND DECISIONS – FIREFLIES TAUNT YOU AND THE BLUE HUE HAS TURNED EVIL – THE GATES ARE CLOSING AND REMEMBERED LOCATIONS HAVE ESCAPED YOUR RECOLLECTIONS – TRANQUILLISED THOUGHT PROCESS RUNS IN CIRCLES AND ILLUMINATES YOUR WEAKENING BONES – PRIMARY COLOURS NO LONGER BELONG TO YOU – ASH AND THE BURNING DANCERS ARE TURNED TO CONCRETE – RETURN TO YOUR CAMP BEFORE CHIRPING BIRDS BEGIN TO HUNT – RETURN TO YOUR TENT AND ZIP BEFORE EARLY RISERS’ SILENCE SHAMES YOU FOR YOUR HORRIBLE GLOWING GREEN AURA THAT YOU THOUGHT WAS GOLDEN – REMEMBER THIS LESSON FOR THE REST OF ETERNITY; THE SUN IS THE ONLY ONE WHO IS GOLDEN.