2.11.08
little
I know these are little words.
But they are trying to say something.
I wish I knew more than this.
Why is the door always locked up? I swear at one point it was wide open with a whole new exciting view of trees and bees and bustling little words that make big pictures of other words which mean so so much more than now.
Don’t expect too much. I wish this floor was a little softer. A little warmer. Somewhere else… through a train ride, prints on hot tarmac leading to a pin point of a distance which wasn’t always there… Somewhere else.
But when you get there what's next?
What is next.
Im tired. So tired of this way of things. I want a bag of other things with other names and other words that fill it up. Then start all over.
If you could start over what would you do differently?
Is it bad that I want so much. I just don’t know how.
What happened to all that confidence I used to wade through. It was like I could do anything… I just didn’t want anything.
Now I want everything and I don’t even have a trickle under my feet.
It all trickled out.
Too many things.
Too many little words.
But they are trying to say something.
I wish I knew more than this.
Why is the door always locked up? I swear at one point it was wide open with a whole new exciting view of trees and bees and bustling little words that make big pictures of other words which mean so so much more than now.
Don’t expect too much. I wish this floor was a little softer. A little warmer. Somewhere else… through a train ride, prints on hot tarmac leading to a pin point of a distance which wasn’t always there… Somewhere else.
But when you get there what's next?
What is next.
Im tired. So tired of this way of things. I want a bag of other things with other names and other words that fill it up. Then start all over.
If you could start over what would you do differently?
Is it bad that I want so much. I just don’t know how.
What happened to all that confidence I used to wade through. It was like I could do anything… I just didn’t want anything.
Now I want everything and I don’t even have a trickle under my feet.
It all trickled out.
Too many things.
Too many little words.
by saul williams
Dear History,
For too long have I pondered your meaning, memorized dates of battles, years of servitude, decades of injustice, named eras after movements, mourned the extinction of species, cursed founding fathers, worn vintage suits and cloaked myself with references of your hold on me.
I have walked through museums wondering how it is that greatness had lived and died all before my time. Parts of me feared becoming great because it seemed to include a price of death and a postmortem glory that my memory could never resurrect. I've stared at paintings dying to catch glimpses of the painter, closed my eyes to listen to songs that drunken ghosts dance to, and all the while I've fought to FREE the present to BECOME.
In 1995, I stood with poets in the middle of the Brooklyn Bridge, barking metaphors at the new moon of the summer solstice wedging words into it's craters, sewing seeds through nightly wind.
In 1996, I forced the ocean back with words, fathered planets, climbed pyramids, and began to decipher the sirens song to conjure the dream-filled Children of the Night.
In 1997, I stood with prisoners in our nations capitol bending bars with the power of thought as wordsmiths served sentences and Hip Hop diddy-dandified itself: stealing golden calves from the Old Testament to smuggle into the lavish crib of Pontius Pilate for it's birthday party
In 1998, I swallowed fear and sun-danced on film reels, projecting a me that had not been into a me that ever shall be.
And HERE I stand, ten years the difference and witness to changing hands.
Dear History,
I beat you. I stand a generator of generations bearing witness to a world that we are holding accountable for past actions. Me and my friends, we're changing our diets, re-inventing marriage, check-mating capitalism, re-defining ethics, replacing cruelty with compassion, and have sworn not to re-elect the sins of the father.
We are casting our votes for so much more than a lesser of evils, but for change, and greater insight, for wisdom out of the mouths of babes, for races that bleed into ONE.
Dear History,
You are behind us and we are no longer looking back. We are standing on the threshold of new times, new days, new worlds, and charging forward without battle cry or trumpet, while cynicism, apathy, and cowardice take their place beside you, behind us.
Dear History,
We no longer believe in you. We have invested our our thoughts and dreams into the present moment and opportunity to shift our reality into one that does not resemble your dog-eared books.
We stand on the shoulders of those who have dared to dream and on the necks of those who have wasted their time and ours proclaiming a past past its prime.
Dear History,
Blitz! It's my turn now. You can have your mounds of flesh, leather boots, cannons and sabers, nooses and guillotines, warships and fighter planes, trails of tears and blood, genocides, dungeons and dragons, ghost stories and fairy tales..........
Come on guys! Help me out!
For too long have I pondered your meaning, memorized dates of battles, years of servitude, decades of injustice, named eras after movements, mourned the extinction of species, cursed founding fathers, worn vintage suits and cloaked myself with references of your hold on me.
I have walked through museums wondering how it is that greatness had lived and died all before my time. Parts of me feared becoming great because it seemed to include a price of death and a postmortem glory that my memory could never resurrect. I've stared at paintings dying to catch glimpses of the painter, closed my eyes to listen to songs that drunken ghosts dance to, and all the while I've fought to FREE the present to BECOME.
In 1995, I stood with poets in the middle of the Brooklyn Bridge, barking metaphors at the new moon of the summer solstice wedging words into it's craters, sewing seeds through nightly wind.
In 1996, I forced the ocean back with words, fathered planets, climbed pyramids, and began to decipher the sirens song to conjure the dream-filled Children of the Night.
In 1997, I stood with prisoners in our nations capitol bending bars with the power of thought as wordsmiths served sentences and Hip Hop diddy-dandified itself: stealing golden calves from the Old Testament to smuggle into the lavish crib of Pontius Pilate for it's birthday party
In 1998, I swallowed fear and sun-danced on film reels, projecting a me that had not been into a me that ever shall be.
And HERE I stand, ten years the difference and witness to changing hands.
Dear History,
I beat you. I stand a generator of generations bearing witness to a world that we are holding accountable for past actions. Me and my friends, we're changing our diets, re-inventing marriage, check-mating capitalism, re-defining ethics, replacing cruelty with compassion, and have sworn not to re-elect the sins of the father.
We are casting our votes for so much more than a lesser of evils, but for change, and greater insight, for wisdom out of the mouths of babes, for races that bleed into ONE.
Dear History,
You are behind us and we are no longer looking back. We are standing on the threshold of new times, new days, new worlds, and charging forward without battle cry or trumpet, while cynicism, apathy, and cowardice take their place beside you, behind us.
Dear History,
We no longer believe in you. We have invested our our thoughts and dreams into the present moment and opportunity to shift our reality into one that does not resemble your dog-eared books.
We stand on the shoulders of those who have dared to dream and on the necks of those who have wasted their time and ours proclaiming a past past its prime.
Dear History,
Blitz! It's my turn now. You can have your mounds of flesh, leather boots, cannons and sabers, nooses and guillotines, warships and fighter planes, trails of tears and blood, genocides, dungeons and dragons, ghost stories and fairy tales..........
Come on guys! Help me out!
30.10.08
accidental
I am finding working very difficult. Days seem to zoom past and I end up in black work clothes sitting in my kitchen and waiting for bedtime so I can make sure I sleep before getting up to go to the place of dreams. It makes me crumble a little bit, and each day i want to run away more, but get home and sit down and realise it is 10 days later than I thought it was, there is no such thing as outside-of-work and my feet have forgotten what those lovely trainers sat dusty under the table are for.
I'm trying to remember why I stopped studying. Why I'm sat here feeling a bit shitty about the world because all I want to do is help and instead I get angry Irish women screaming down the phone at me because their 'tag' is not work correctly.
I can't remember why I want or need money what it is I want to do and why I want to do it.
I just can't remember.
I'm trying to remember why I stopped studying. Why I'm sat here feeling a bit shitty about the world because all I want to do is help and instead I get angry Irish women screaming down the phone at me because their 'tag' is not work correctly.
I can't remember why I want or need money what it is I want to do and why I want to do it.
I just can't remember.
28.7.08
transference
I think i'm going to write up some of the things i have previously written upon these here pages.
although typing seems to be my unpaid world right now.
mm m.
frightened rabbit
although typing seems to be my unpaid world right now.
mm m.
frightened rabbit
20.7.08
unbelievable
unbelievable.
there are not many things that make me physically furious, that make my blood run faster and more fiercely with heat.
but watching the prime minister of this country, my home, my land of birth, step infront of a camera and play the honourable allie of Israel (then America), in the afterglow of the holocaust in a city which formerly had a Palestinian name, a Palestinian population and a Palestinian culture, makes me want to scream until the tv soaks up my anger and takes it away from my disgusted eyes.
how can we be so blind to the immediacy of the present and yet still be able to focus to intently on the past?
Some days this world makes me ashamed to be a human being. not that we fight, for we can fight for justice, what we believe in, human rights.. but for the ability of humanity today to manipulate with such ease, without the flicker of shame, the honesty and innocence of humanity, via the media, to create wars, justify them, and reap the benefits of death, cultural destruction and loss, in order to drill a little bit deeper for the oil, to sell a few more of those limited edition submarines and guns, or to make sure, lest it be lost, that the 'enemy' is still evident, alive and kicking, and easily distinguishable form our own. whether they be russian, eastern european, chinese or 'the muslims' the distinction of us from them needs to be maintained, and easily maintained.
but the war on terror, the thriving corporations, the insecurity of the world in every aspect- economically, environmentally, politically, all provide a new list of priorities for the everyday man, the earn more money, work harder, and leave all the reasons why we are live behind.
unbelievable.
i wonder what marx would say.
there are not many things that make me physically furious, that make my blood run faster and more fiercely with heat.
but watching the prime minister of this country, my home, my land of birth, step infront of a camera and play the honourable allie of Israel (then America), in the afterglow of the holocaust in a city which formerly had a Palestinian name, a Palestinian population and a Palestinian culture, makes me want to scream until the tv soaks up my anger and takes it away from my disgusted eyes.
how can we be so blind to the immediacy of the present and yet still be able to focus to intently on the past?
Some days this world makes me ashamed to be a human being. not that we fight, for we can fight for justice, what we believe in, human rights.. but for the ability of humanity today to manipulate with such ease, without the flicker of shame, the honesty and innocence of humanity, via the media, to create wars, justify them, and reap the benefits of death, cultural destruction and loss, in order to drill a little bit deeper for the oil, to sell a few more of those limited edition submarines and guns, or to make sure, lest it be lost, that the 'enemy' is still evident, alive and kicking, and easily distinguishable form our own. whether they be russian, eastern european, chinese or 'the muslims' the distinction of us from them needs to be maintained, and easily maintained.
but the war on terror, the thriving corporations, the insecurity of the world in every aspect- economically, environmentally, politically, all provide a new list of priorities for the everyday man, the earn more money, work harder, and leave all the reasons why we are live behind.
unbelievable.
i wonder what marx would say.
17.5.08
today
i really don't know where to be today. I want to be a character in my book or a musician in a band or an artist filling pages up with beautifully intricate drawings of the world around me. Or in a deep deep sleep remembering what it was to be asleep when I was a child and scared of the thunderstorms/power cuts/loud noises and shadows painted across my sliding bedroom door.
i want to be sat in that tiny bedroom on the 80's red and grey carpet my face to the floor, laying out my marbles as little villages of people with friends, parents, lovers, schools, jobs and discos across the dog hairs and bits of thread that always seem to follow me around to this day.
i want to look out of my window framed by jagged stones in the old walls, thrown together with some cement and little pieces of folded up cardboard in between to hold them in place. imagining what is written on the little pieces of paper sticking out, knowing, from previous curiosities that if i did take the time with the blade of a pair of scissors or hair clip that the letter printed will be of old concreting companies or packaging from boxes.
i want to sneak into the spare room and curl up inside the spare duvet with my book and my cat and imagine i was in a different room in a different house without a bed or home and no family to wake me up with a shout up the stairs for dinner or to feed the dogs or brush my teeth...
i want to crawl into the fields next to my house through the tunnels of long grass, smelling like fresh summer dew and new cow pats just to sit and sing to myself all the songs from all the musicals i can remember. until i actually feel embarrassed in myself for enjoying the sound of my own voice so much.
i want to take long walks in the fields of corn and rapeseed plants backing onto my house, only to cry and indulge in teenage grief of growing up and acknowledging the world moving and changing and the fact that things, however hard you try are not perfect, will never be perfect and that boys hand will never really fit perfectly into your own. because thats what the movies and books and songs i listened to told me.
i want to lie on the table outside and look at the stars and smoke my first cigarette and light candles and be warm in my clothes and confused at the state of the world to a soundtrack of the band of my youth.
i want to take more time.
i know the dream was shattered years ago when i felt my heart being pulled in two directions. but when the shards are reflected in real situations, where homes are sold and hugs mean so much more than they have ever meant, that is when the sadness fills up my heart, my throat and my eyes and i feel like i can't quite manage to hold it all down and if someone looks at me, all they will see is a big pool of water and sadness that is heavy and warm and spilling into every inch of my footsteps away from the fields of that house.
i want to be sat in that tiny bedroom on the 80's red and grey carpet my face to the floor, laying out my marbles as little villages of people with friends, parents, lovers, schools, jobs and discos across the dog hairs and bits of thread that always seem to follow me around to this day.
i want to look out of my window framed by jagged stones in the old walls, thrown together with some cement and little pieces of folded up cardboard in between to hold them in place. imagining what is written on the little pieces of paper sticking out, knowing, from previous curiosities that if i did take the time with the blade of a pair of scissors or hair clip that the letter printed will be of old concreting companies or packaging from boxes.
i want to sneak into the spare room and curl up inside the spare duvet with my book and my cat and imagine i was in a different room in a different house without a bed or home and no family to wake me up with a shout up the stairs for dinner or to feed the dogs or brush my teeth...
i want to crawl into the fields next to my house through the tunnels of long grass, smelling like fresh summer dew and new cow pats just to sit and sing to myself all the songs from all the musicals i can remember. until i actually feel embarrassed in myself for enjoying the sound of my own voice so much.
i want to take long walks in the fields of corn and rapeseed plants backing onto my house, only to cry and indulge in teenage grief of growing up and acknowledging the world moving and changing and the fact that things, however hard you try are not perfect, will never be perfect and that boys hand will never really fit perfectly into your own. because thats what the movies and books and songs i listened to told me.
i want to lie on the table outside and look at the stars and smoke my first cigarette and light candles and be warm in my clothes and confused at the state of the world to a soundtrack of the band of my youth.
i want to take more time.
i know the dream was shattered years ago when i felt my heart being pulled in two directions. but when the shards are reflected in real situations, where homes are sold and hugs mean so much more than they have ever meant, that is when the sadness fills up my heart, my throat and my eyes and i feel like i can't quite manage to hold it all down and if someone looks at me, all they will see is a big pool of water and sadness that is heavy and warm and spilling into every inch of my footsteps away from the fields of that house.
1.5.08
dialogue
Now this is tricky. It makes me think of understanding, or communication and of peaceful means to settle a situation of conflict or at least provide a path to new understanding... But it's just a really really big blanket thats thrown on the situation to cover up what is actually happening. It provides an exterior of peace and calm and methodical approach to resolution. But in reality everything underneath continues to churn on, cogs spinning, wheels turning and in the sitaution of Israel and Palestine, people dying.
I have been to two very very interesting talks this week that have made me realign my own position in the row of seats I have taken to calling my own. I have always put faith in dialogue in talking and peaceful means of understanding. Then the Israeli physicians against occupation and a group of Palestinian university lecturers put forward two differing methods of resistance to the overarching omnipotent power of Israel, the nation state and the hand of god within this territory.
Do we stop, take a step back, shake out heads and refuse to cooperate? a Kind of Gandhi-esque take on the situation, with non-cooperation where the Israelis pride themselves so fully- within the realm of academia?
Or do we put pressure on our own to in turn put more pressure on the medical institutions of Israel? building up the force until an organization has the courage to stand up, point to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and say out loud, "Aren't Palestinians human too?"
Having written my dissertation using numourous Israeli academics work, alongside many Palestinians and Internationals I might add, the human rights question pops up again. We all have something to say, men, women, children.. but we can choose who to listen to. We have our preference, our favourites, usually those that align strongly with our own perception of the situation. I believe an academic boycott could potentially create more walls, but this may be needed.. I dont know.
And pressure upon our own institutions has an aura of hope, due to our own doctors and medics continuing to treat asylum seekers for free even as laws change, promoting a level standard of human rights internationally, oblivious of nationality or ethnicity or political stance.
It's difficult. but also promising. The people apparently do care. Enough to boycott their own institutions, to go against their own high court, to rally against the state that they once moved to in order to be secure and wash away their own past of exile, loss and discrimination. Now only to be faced with imposing those terrible three upon another subjugated minority in their wake.
I have been to two very very interesting talks this week that have made me realign my own position in the row of seats I have taken to calling my own. I have always put faith in dialogue in talking and peaceful means of understanding. Then the Israeli physicians against occupation and a group of Palestinian university lecturers put forward two differing methods of resistance to the overarching omnipotent power of Israel, the nation state and the hand of god within this territory.
Do we stop, take a step back, shake out heads and refuse to cooperate? a Kind of Gandhi-esque take on the situation, with non-cooperation where the Israelis pride themselves so fully- within the realm of academia?
Or do we put pressure on our own to in turn put more pressure on the medical institutions of Israel? building up the force until an organization has the courage to stand up, point to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and say out loud, "Aren't Palestinians human too?"
Having written my dissertation using numourous Israeli academics work, alongside many Palestinians and Internationals I might add, the human rights question pops up again. We all have something to say, men, women, children.. but we can choose who to listen to. We have our preference, our favourites, usually those that align strongly with our own perception of the situation. I believe an academic boycott could potentially create more walls, but this may be needed.. I dont know.
And pressure upon our own institutions has an aura of hope, due to our own doctors and medics continuing to treat asylum seekers for free even as laws change, promoting a level standard of human rights internationally, oblivious of nationality or ethnicity or political stance.
It's difficult. but also promising. The people apparently do care. Enough to boycott their own institutions, to go against their own high court, to rally against the state that they once moved to in order to be secure and wash away their own past of exile, loss and discrimination. Now only to be faced with imposing those terrible three upon another subjugated minority in their wake.
23.4.08
new words
these are all the new words i have learnt during my time at university.
the dialogical panacea of the incepient occluded hypostases was an apogee of the ubiquitous lacuna.
the dialogical panacea of the incepient occluded hypostases was an apogee of the ubiquitous lacuna.
6.4.08
30.3.08
20.3.08
19.3.08
17.3.08
16.3.08
israel
i have many things to say about israel and palestine. maybe ill say them in bits an pieces. today i was thinking about my lifetime and the major events that have happened which i should have experienced but didn't. due to governmental abilities at hiding events and due to my white middle class ignorant blissful childhood.. which although i would never ever renounce as it has provided me with the stability of mind and empathetic ability that has led me to question the world and yearn for information, has also shown me how life can and should be for children all over the world.
Its strange to think that this is where my life experiences have led me, concerned for children living in a prison verging on humanitarian crisis, but not quite hitting the marker with enough force to be a serious cause for concern (for the governments in question, not for the people involved/ watching on).
there are places i have never heard of, with things happening that i have never ever imagined. aborigines in australia that still stand unrecognised in camps similar to concentration camps, leaders of the khmer rouge regime that decimated millions of cambodians, wandering free and easy in local communities without so much as a slap on the wrist...
and now we are confronted with israel and palestine.
what happens next?
12.3.08
5.3.08
writing
today i thought i might write some things. for many things seem a little blurry around the edges right now... a little less obvious and a little bit more full of little possibilities fluttering about beneath the smudges. i know that little things are the important things, that the breaks and stops and commas between all of the words make the words better, in their own minor way. but every now and then the big things seem to be fading and blurring and you stop trying to focus even. you just cross your fingers and hope that maybe tomorrow your vision will return, your clarity and sense of purpose. i wonder though, how long you can wait for this day to come.
because i look around me every day, and i see so many beautiful amazing people living their lives a day at a time, paying no heed to the bigger picture. they are just tinkling away, triangles in hand, being paid just as much as the orchestra because ultimately... where would the orchestra be without the triangle?
i know i have spent so much time worrying about whats happening in my life. where im going next. who im going to be. but mainly worried about the lack of determination and focus i have, when it seems, i have forgotten. forgotten why i wanted focus, because i am focussed. just not on the things i expected to be focussed upon. its almost as though my brain is ticking away like a grandfather clock, waiting for the right moments to come out and say what i mean to say. it does take time. and effort. and passion. and all the little things that everyone always forgets about.
but these are the times that test out souls.
movies will be made about days like today.
words will be spoken and ignored and reiterated and written.
with the eventual realization that its the little things that make us smile
because i look around me every day, and i see so many beautiful amazing people living their lives a day at a time, paying no heed to the bigger picture. they are just tinkling away, triangles in hand, being paid just as much as the orchestra because ultimately... where would the orchestra be without the triangle?
i know i have spent so much time worrying about whats happening in my life. where im going next. who im going to be. but mainly worried about the lack of determination and focus i have, when it seems, i have forgotten. forgotten why i wanted focus, because i am focussed. just not on the things i expected to be focussed upon. its almost as though my brain is ticking away like a grandfather clock, waiting for the right moments to come out and say what i mean to say. it does take time. and effort. and passion. and all the little things that everyone always forgets about.
but these are the times that test out souls.
movies will be made about days like today.
words will be spoken and ignored and reiterated and written.
with the eventual realization that its the little things that make us smile
15.2.08
hero #1
John Pilger. My hero.
"We're invited to be obedient and passive and to believe there is nothing we can do to influence the course of apparently invincible events- whether they are the criminal disasters in the middle east, or the distortion of resources and wealth in our own societies.
Then suddenly we glimpse the possible in the action of those with nothing, such as the heroism of the people in Gaza in breaking out of the prison of their homeland.
They ought to inspire us to break down our own walls."
the diving bell and the butterfly
sometimes i think we work in circles.... mainly heart shaped circles
5.2.08
puzzles
and pieces of puzzles.
with one piece missing.
charity shop mistakes. i wonder where it is now?
with one piece missing.
charity shop mistakes. i wonder where it is now?
30.1.08
hello
this shall be a place where i shall write things in a way that you and i can both read them.
firstly, hello.
firstly, hello.
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