098. Scars

Sina is also intrigued by the whole asemic writing concept, and has been doing some wonderful stuff over at 100 Days of Sun and Art. Today I am pinching even more detail from her piece "the scars language can leave behind" and pairing it with a further experiment of mine on the spiral theme. More thoughts on the ending of the project. And I have been working on a compilation of all the work in this Magpie Days blog and exploring where to post it...

there will be an emptiness at the end

we were stuck too close to not tear the skin 

on parting on leaving threads filaments

jellyfish stingers embedded in each other

unbearable itching tearing off the scab

making it well blood and junkie blind 

searching for the next fix something to fill our

mouths our fingers and steal our minds

094. My backbone

The cool blue of Sina's "Day 94" and the gentle curves really worked for me today, flying off to a Slovene heat wave... Feeling the lethargy of coming to the end of the project, wondering what is beyond 100 days...

It looks ridiculous on the table, lying there. It seems smaller than I had imagined somehow. You have done a good job, it is mostly clean; there are a few scraps clinging to it here and there, to remind us where it came from. I droop a little. With its extraction the few words left to me nestled in the crevices, I am no use to them now. We have done it, with my help you have rendered me spineless. It scuttles off the table on invisible feet.

090. Vulcanology

Whether it is plate tectonics, mantle plumes or a thin spot on the earth's crust, the lava surfaces. It is too hot to keep down. Inspired by Claudine's "Night Eighty" and working still with Sina's wonderful curves from Day 82, I have volcanoes on my mind.

my words build heat, animalistic desire
not love, except as a rationalisation
because lust would be too simple, too base
a betrayal. the earth splits apart to grow

087. Blue Hotel

Reflection is today's theme. Not the quiet contemplative type, the crazed thoughts spiralling, zig-zagging backwards and sideways. Trying to have thoughts before engaging feelings. Loving the dance, but knowing you will be shattered glass afterwards. I stole Sina's "the implied geometries of building" from Day 73 as the calm before the storm; and paired with my image of windows in Hong Kong as the aftermath.

job interviews and marmite blow jobs
anal beads and plastic sheets, washing
my curtains, new double-entendre
to me anyway, breath fresheners
   (I still prefer Tic-Tacs)
the state of english rugby, ahead of the world cup
e-mails bouncing back and forward
we are chatting, only that
he said I wasn't far off perfect

086. Language

More ponderings on curves, lines and asemia today. Wondering if there is any such thing as a common language, if so it has to be non-verbal, deep & instinctive. I used Sina's "curviliciously arced" from day 82, with a few adjustments - rotated to look more menacing for example; and a development from the series I've been calling "foamwritten"

when i look back at the things you say they mean so little even the things that we said to each other that stopped us saying things to each other for so long they no longer have a kick or a twist to the guts i wonder if it is because i am healed because i have reached that plateau where your words are just not sounds that i hear they are scratchings dead things without you animating them so that it is only a game that we play now and of course we both think each of us is safe as the words are pretty teasing things but dead pinned to the paper the screen i look down at rosetta and see the tablet that allows me to translate and bring your words to life

071. Sunflower variations

While staying with my brother, I did plenty of playing in the garden with my nieces. Splashing pools, spraying hoses, swings, playing school, trampolines & hammocks. And taking pictures of some past-their-prime sunflowers, following on from Sina's series yesterday; and as always loving Billie's b&w photography & Dorothee's extreme cropping...

               come closer, come closer
                              see into the pieces of what I am
               that is no heart
                              organelles only
               more details make for
                              more fascination
                                             come closer

070. Sunflowers

It's not just the huge scale of sunflowers that is striking, although it is because of the scale that you can see so many details of how the flower is built up. Sina's picture (from Day 59½) shows the underside and the gorgeous coloured petals of a prime specimen, mine shows the aftermath...

                              my bloom has become fitful
                              I have to wait that much longer
                              until someone finds me intriguing
                                                  and always
                                                  I have to stifle
                                                  the cry of
                                                  pick me
                                        pick me
                              pick ME

053. Stripes

Sina still keeps coming up trumps with the zoo residents, and today I have stolen away her zebra patterns from Day 54. I am eating striped (crinkled) crisps and drinking wine from a glass with striped indentations, crenellations at it's base. And to go with it I pulled a picture from 2009 that was taken in a hotel bathroom the other side of the world from here, in the Indian Ocean. I was experimenting also with overwritten asemia, but I am not really satisfied with the finished product yet, more playing required...

this is what happens

if you insist on 

seeing it all, and

cut me complete, 

bisected, you at

last believe that

I am multi-layered,

striped through.

050. Shell

I have been enjoying Sina's up close animal shots these past few days, starting with the elephants on the run, and when I found the glowing colours of her "Turtle topography" I knew I had to use that too! And finally made it through to number 50! I would be half-way if I had caught up on the backlog... those 3 missing pieces from the beginning are weighing on my mind, and I need to get them completed, but oh, when? I have some strange internal rules about doing them, which is why it's taking me so long... anyway, using Sina's image and adding more asemic text...

You think I built my shell to keep the world out. You are not sure if the world includes you or not. It annoys you if I say it is only there because it looks pretty. You do think it looks pretty, it has a certain sheen and you like to think you can see below it to the pink huddled fragility underneath. The pinkness does not look like a shell to you because that is what you expect to find there. The blackness at the end of all the layers would frighten you.

035. Patterns

Still beside the seaside, but a less obvious picture today - inspired by found patterns at Sina's blog. Her day 33 piece was called "A dog eared sky"; my companion piece is called "Table top"

you do not believe in science, in molecules, but in the nebulosity you call nature. a crystal is only for you a shard of pretty stone, brought to sparkles by hard work polishing. if I try to explain, that a thing is not blue, it is simply reflecting that wavelength of light, you tell me that atoms don't really exist. you won't back down but on this I will not defer, and so we both go on believing we are right in our minds. I know that solid matter only seems so, that it is made up of points and space and atomic forces, and space. But no matter how, I can't put my finger into the space...

026. Fragile

Today's post is inspired by two of my favourite-so-far participants in the 100 days project, and a newbie. I know there is so much to see in the project, and with the type of pieces I am doing I do have a bias towards the visual artists when posting; I hope to be able to use others words more to inspire me in the future, but here is a joint attempt...
Stand up Sina (Day 26 - just gorgeous) and Catherine (Iceland slipping through my thoughts, and allowing me to bring out this picture of twigs growing alongside a waterfall); and a hand-clap to George Sebastian-Coleman (Conversations 3) for the following words of wisdom.
Woman: Routine. Routine kills everything. When you date, the other person is the thing that makes things special. When you marry, they're just part of the everyday.

He will not take a risk to be with me because sparks fade, he says. But, oh, how fragile is his world, their world if it must be protected from the real world? It is spring, he cannot help but send out those tendrils, seeking sweetness and lightness and fun and escape. They look so pretty, so hopeful, I don't want to yank them up and put them on the compost pile, but I know it is easier now than to hew at a thickened trunk. Unless, like me, he is a baobab; hollow insides waiting for a glut of water to ride out the parched seasons.

021. Fire

Today, Sina Bo Bina of 100daysofsun.blogspot.com provided the inspiration with a fluid, spilling fiery piece called Fire in Mind. She shows us two pictures, steps in the creative process, and I love the first version, for me it has more energy than the later one. My piece alongside comes from a 2x 6 haiku set called Robbed & Mugged written in 2010. The haiku for the piece is also strangely apt today; relationships never seem to tie off neatly.

Repeated goodbyes

touched to fiery sparks, puddled

blisters left to heal.

005. Surface

More time to catch up, over a long weekend, with the dizzying display of work that I stumbled across when I was first introduced to the project (on day 11), one of the pieces that caught my eye then, and I have searched for since, was "A clean (enough) slate" by Sina Bo Bina. I loved the idea of the broken surface, and had just returned from Israel, where my image of the surface of the Dead Sea comes from, and also building on my practicemakesperfect post with the piece below.

surface splits, dividing and fractal                                                                                    

finger under the surface. pulled                                                                                    

epidermis the skin of the earth pushes                                                                                    

the natal fluid, flows to the edge                                                                                    

gasps and dries. crusted coral                                                                                    

polyps too stubby to function,                                                                                    

cracked chasms and dessicated                                                                                    

corruption, my new face