My friend, Armitage.

I met this fellow in Year 12, or maybe it was Year 11. My teacher loved him. I remember excited discussions as the class discovered him more and more and I remember loving how he says things so bluntly yet so beautiful. I've kind of came to view his work as having a cruel, heartless emotion behind it, but I love it, because there still is feeling, but this drawn out distance. Like his poem about killing a hitcher, but its ambiguous as to whether it was just a fantasy. And Gooseberry Season, and November, and My father thought it bloody queer and Mother, any distance greater than a single span and Poem and The Shout and the one that starts 'Tricked into life with a needle and knife.. and so much more. And hardly any are online.

If I were to own any book I would want Book of Matches.

I've made out a will; I'm leaving myself

to the National Health. I'm sure they can use
the jellies and tubes and syrups and glues,
the web of nerves and veins, the loaf of brains,
and assortment of fillings and stitches and wounds,
blood - a gallon exactly of bilberry soup -
the chassis or cage or cathedral of bone;
but not the heart, they can leave that alone.

They can have the lot, the whole stock:
the loops and coils and sprockets and springs and rods,
the twines and cords and strands,
the face, the case, the cogs and the hands,
but not the pendulum, the ticker;
leave that where it stops or hangs.

**

'Boy with the name and face I don't remember,
you can stop shouting now, I can still here you."

Wikipedia says he is known for his 'critical seriousness'. It is all serious, but I like it.

Today was amazing.. talking to Jackie for the strengths finder = wow wow wow. 

I miss having a bed.

Yeah, I really do. Crawling onto a messy mattress just isn't as restful. You can't sit up in it all cuddly and be on your laptop. I miss a bed. I'm almost tempted to somehow get a double in my wee room just cause a bed a bed a bed a bed a bed

Happier note: A Poem I like A LOT, stolen from Luke's blog

Past One O’Clock written by Russian poet Vladimir Mayakovsky.

This poem was found among Mayakovsky’s papers after his suicide on April 14, 1930. He had used the middle section, with slight changes, as an epilogue to his suicide note.

Past one o’clock. You must have gone to bed.
The Milky Way streams silver through the night.
I’m in no hurry; with lightning telegrams
I have no cause to wake or trouble you.
And, as they say, the incident is closed.
Love’s boat has smashed against the daily grind.
Now you and I are quits. Why bother then
To balance mutual sorrows, pains, and hurts.
Behold what quiet settles on the world.
Night wraps the sky in tribute from the stars.
In hours like these, one rises to address
The ages, history, and all creation.

The Bedbug and selected poetry, translated by Max Hayward and George Reavey. Meridian Books, New York, 1960

Thoughts of a sleepy/on caffeine pills and stoked on interesting classes, Sonya Jasmine

Things that aren't cool: man outside my bedroom door at 7.30am checking the filter of the HRV thing when I only went to bed at 5.30.

So, last night, this morning, had some good old chats with my good friend Taylor. And he kind of made me aware/I became more aware through conversation that I have become quite negative about my future over the course of.. leaving school! Since leaving school. Well it actually went something like this 'me do long rant about how I'm gonna end up teaching English in a NZ high school etc etc and how I'm gutted but actually actually what else will my BA do?' and there's a pause and a 'Sonya, that's very negative.' Yes! I am shocked to acknowledge in myself that I don't see my future as bright or sparkly as I did a year ago!

I had some pretty crazy and exciting dreams in my final year, of what life after school would look like. Things I would/did would like to do include starting a sustatinable/co operative, publishing books of epic poetry etc etc but now I'm like, really, Sonya?

Why? Why is this? I could attribute this to being a boring adult. Paying bills and budgets and time constraints and a lot of this year is self awareness and I'm realising my lack of self-discipline means I don't work as hard as I should do therefore I won't get far. Oh that's so negative! So accepting of a fate which actually isn't fate! I can change this! I need to! The Bible is big on making good use of what you have - I have skills and time yet, does my use of time reflect my core values? I really really like that thought. No, I didn't think of it. No, my use of time often doesn't reflect my core values.

Think. I now do not really associate writing with my identity. Taylor and I established this is probably because as time passes from high school achievements and stuff that gave me cred, you have less to say to people if they ask. Like the gap between high school where smart kids have a lot of achievements and then the gap of say ten years or more until you actually start achieving. Like as an undergraduate there's little recognition to be had for years but thats the point - its where the work work work has to come in. But there's the risk of losing your dreams because this stage of life requires a great deal of self-motivation as the rewards are a long long way away

IF if after I do my BA and probably some post-grad or whatever.. IF IF IF I go.. oohh i should go to teachers college now cause thats secure and safe and IF IF IF I end up teaching at a local high school at like age 20-something and IF IF IF I just acccept that is my lot in life and have a kid and get married and COMPLETELY LOSE THE BELIEF I CAN soooooooaaaarrrr! can all youu readers PLEASE PLEASE okay well ya knooww you probably won't but this is just a cry to the Sonya within - DON'T LOSE THE PASSION, GIRL.

Don't lose the belief you can do great things! Work, girl! Taylor was like 'Sonya, 8 months and you've finished just ONE poem?' That is shockiing. It is, right, when I consider writing important to me and to life and to the world and to art and to part of my lifes purpose. BUT this year doing the Jesus stuff is so so useful and beautiful and amazing but

DON'T LOSE THE NAIVETY YOU CAN CHANGE THE WORLD
I don't actually have any intentions to actually change the world, but to go far far beyond what people say is possible or my background says can be done or to succumb to mediochrity or just floooaat and not make an IMPACT and

oh, Sonya, my dear friend
go home and do your essay
and don't you dare let life pass you by

Don't you dare be cynical about your OWN future
ESPECIALLY when so many people have always BELIEVED in you
when circumstance said things weren't possible

Look where you are now! tertiary study! Three years ago that wasn't an option.

I got up at 9 had breakfast, a no doze (caffeine pill), went to an exciting class where we discussed pokies and crime rates in New York and abortion and broken windows theory, skipped down the corridors, often running, ate lunch, and more lunch and DEBATED stuff (its been a whiiile) and and here I am

Don't you dare settle for mediochrity, Miss Sonya. Especially when people believe in you. Remember what Mrs. Taylor wrote in your history book on the last day of school. Remember the words of your teachers. Remember how they believed in you! How they saw themselves in you and told you so! Remember the radical lengths they went to to help you have the same opportunities as others! Remember, remember

I remember the night Gerard and I hit the realisation we won't live ordinary lives
despite perceived circumstance
It was a beautiful moment

I love catching Mick's eye and he  knows exactly what I'm thinking. Goofy grins and crinkly eyes.
As we walked down the stairs he was like 'Sonya. People have lost the value of doing a BA to learn how to learn. They try to equate everything with jobs.'

Things I don't like about myself

I can only do one thing at a time! Like tasks. I have three things to achieve this week. Yet I will be unproductive if I don't do them one at a time until completion.. Who are these multitaskers? I just don't function that way.

Focus! What is focus? I am forever trying to learn more things. I am understanding myself better this year. I did that test and got input 'collecting ideas and thoughts and knowledge and quotes' as my number one strength. This can be a problem. Like I will be lying down in the dark trying to sleep and just think but oh! I must learn something before I sleep! And I will read a poem or something and then of course the ideas just swirl in my head and won't go away

In the same test it was like: 'accept the constant mental hum'. Oh yeah? Accept it! How do I rest from.. myself?

The days improve

It is good to be here. It is good to know Jesus. It is good. Good.

I have actually never been more lost in my life.
But I know, I know I know I know that I will not give up my faith. Walking away is not an option.
So then, what? What am I still sure of?
You know, God, it would be really really nice if you could be here right now. Oh, I know you're here, that's not what I mean. But like be really obviously here. Ya know. With a cup of tea and a beard or whatever it is you do.

Shattered.

I am shattered. Spiritually, emotionally, physically, heart, mind, body, toes, fingers. I cannot sleep, I am continually told to eat more.

I tried to have a bath but somehow the whole whanau ended up in the bathroom. Privacy can be an issue.

The worst bit is I cannot feel, only think. Its like the opposite of what my faith used to be.Of who I used to be. And I feel like I have been strange recently.Even when I sleep I am not sleeping, I am thinking.

I vomited on the bus. It can be dehumanising clutching a toilet on a bus, on the ground. I had a beautiful moment, though, with two cups of tea and A Book of Luminous Things, sitting in a truckstop diner on state highway 2. I think that is the most beautiful book of poetry I have ever read or owned.

I came home and looked through the stuff I left behind. I felt like I was meeting a different person. The framed picture of his family on the bookshelf. The favourite children's books, my Plunket record, describing a lovely baby girl. School yearbooks. Everything here is the same. Almost. The stuff God put on my heart years ago to do is now being done by others.

Jesus, fill me. Please. I want to cry. I do not know how anymore. I am enjoying my newly bald, affectionate brother who has the biggest heart and one of the bravest hearts too.

Galveston Bay, Bruce Springsteen. Beautiful. Thank you, Taylor :)

Going back to bible college? My head is fractured enough as it is.
Lord! Spirit! Jesus! Take me to the place where we first met.

I am here.

Where do I start to reflect? It has been suggested I start off the trip, off the page. I feel quite in limbo. Limbo is one of my favourite poems. By Seamus Heaney of course. I remember reading this to the class and writing angry essays against why a Church would do this when Jesus started off in love. Same thing today, huh.


Fishermen at Ballyshannon
Netted an infant last night
Along with the salmon.
An illegitimate spawning,


A small one thrown back
To the waters. But I'm sure
As she stood in the shallows
Ducking him tenderly


Till the frozen knobs of her wrists
Were dead as the gravel,
He was a minnow with hooks
Tearing her open.


She waded in under
The sign of the cross.
He was hauled in with the fish.
Now limbo will be


A cold glitter of souls
Through some far briny zone.
Even Christ's palms, unhealed,
Smart and cannot fish there.


So over this time I am in limbo. I don't think I am in a cold glitter of souls in some far briny zone but it would not surprise me if that were true. Because my head is full of things and thoughts that must must be turned into action but there are so many. If I were to become all of this I would be a vegan part-time worker in some literary thing spending the rest of my time with the poor (bivocationalism, downward mobility etc etc. new words in my vocab) and I would never never eat bananas. But then I ponder things like the SPIRIT like like like


I don't know I don't know
I am looking forward to moving to Wellington next year but I am becoming uncertain at my leaving and leaving
It is more that we, I, us, desire depth not breadth in our friendships


and yes.
And a book closed yesterday. Someone held a giant pen and wrote on the earth a nice ending to a novel that will come out in small portions in this girls poetry in the future. And the book closed when the girl and the boy or the woman and the man walked apart, one towards government and one towards the train station. Pick which one you would like. And there was nothing more to say. And there was nothing more to do. And there was nothing more to stew over, to think or ponder on, for some would say it is finished. And one floated one way and one floated another. But here they are. Now. Apart and finalised. It is funny how life turns out. I like where my life is going. And so did the man who walked to the train station. But they still must part ways. And they did.


I'm not sure if I'm homeless tomorrow night but whatever.


Today I was walking down a giant fleet of steep bushy concrete steps when I heard my phone yelling and a voice saying Tom had died. I told my parents never to scare me that way again for I was walking down a giant fleet of slippery concrete steps on Garden Road and they KNOW there are too many Toms.


I cooked beef stew for fourty people. I like that I am capable but I do not like that I cannot drive. I like herbs and I like that this house is full of books. I want God to fill me up and up so that I burst over and I wish my throat was not so sore.


Most of all I am behind in my academic work but I will get to that.
I am getting my nose pierced which I like. My brother shaved his head today.


I will end this now for it makes no sense. I hope you enjoyed this.
Dear Asian spammers, please stop commenting my blog with random proverbs.

Someone else's good lyrics

I like songs about drifters, books about the same. They both seem to make me feel a little less insane. Walked on off to another spot. Still haven't got anywhere that I want.