Feral

Sitting drinking champagne and reading my book in a riverside cafe in Singapore last week I saw a feral cat move confidently through the space. She was low to the ground and unhurried - this was obviously her domain. I assumed female, she was lean but full bellied, probably pregnant. I watched her until she left and looked for her the next day and the following. She was never there during the day but always as dusk fell and I enjoyed my glass of champagne watching the lights of the city emerge. I was reminded of another feral cat I had seen last year - that one during the day and moving quickly through the city. She hid under a bus as she saw me notice her.

I wonder now at the assumed female of these - they felt female if that makes sense but also now makes me consider the historical relationship - European - between cats and women, but that's another post.

The later in the week an article on National radio about the increase in size and ferocity of feral dogs in rural Australia made me think of an incident in New Zealand some twenty years ago when a pack of feral dogs was culled from the Auckland city rubbish dump. Autopsies shows all the females were pregnant and all carried female pups only - an exponential populations rise in the making. Here, the feral dogs are becoming much larger and the packs bigger. Not only a threat to sheep but now also to cattle.

in my post apocalyptal considerings I think about these two groups - the dogs moving in a destructive and harmful way across the environment, slaughtering, creating fear and retribution while the cats move quietly through their environment taking what they need and not drawing so much attention to themselves.

I know this is a totally simplistic structural reading and probably says more about my thoughts on patriarchy than anything else - but hey, this is a blog!

I also remembered a comment made about the CBD in Wellington as the heights of the buildings continued to rise. That in the event of a major earthquake - the big one scientists keep drooling about - the CBD would be covered in no less than sixty feet of broken glass. Survival seems distant in that event.

But back to the cats and the gentler notion of feral - that it is possible to live independently of the dominant paradigm.

I've just realised there is no conclusion to this post - it is just a series of observations!

sex and thinking!

I was invited to participate in a threesome the other day. I don't think it was a serious invitation: as two young men got out of their car one of them grinned at me and said, "Will you come with us and let us massage you?" There was a world of suggestion in his grin and I smiled back at him as I declined their invitation.

It made me start thinking about sex. Ive never truly understood the concept of sex - why we determinedly combine affection with the means of reproduction. People talk about the need to reproduce and how in lower primates and animals there is no 'love' just a need to procreate.

Animals don't rationalise a need to procreate - they feel lust and act on it!

sex and monogamy also entrances me. Again we entangle two disparate actions. Firstly, the need to know parents. Well, paternity actually, mothers are rarely confused about their own maternality and secondly enduring love. So sexual exclusivity becomes tangled with enduring love and we have many problems.

I personally believe humans are designed to have group sex. We are group oriented, we eat together and we used to defaecate together. I believe we used to do this because the smell of shit exposes the health or lack of it in the individual and in small groups health would be vital.

Sex is an olfactory experience and in such small groups the smell and sound of other members having sex would have aroused the group as a entirety.

There could be advantage on this. if women menstruate together they probably are pregnant and bear their children together. This makes guarding and nurturing the group easier than constantly having one or two infants at all times.

Group sex with multiple partners is also good for the construction of babies. The stronger sperm will get the egg!

So my smile to the young man who offered me the opportunity to explore something i never had was heart felt. I'm too old for this now but as they say - we regret what we don't do not what we do!

I make books

because I love them and have always loved them from the moment I understood what they are and what they do.

I love them as artifacts and constructions, I love them as repositories and I love making them from stuff I find.

This book is one of my post-apocalyptal artifacts. It is incredibly fragile and lives in a small box of its own. It is an empty book - I have yet to write the poems it will hold.

I love the process of turning pages - even empty pages - its the ACTUALITY and experience of 'page' that I love in that moment.

I remember having to relearn how to turn pages as I regained the use of the right side of my body. I was determined I WOULD turn pages, WOULD read books again.

The moment when scroll transformed into folio must have been delicious!

post apocalyptal beauty

it's curious that post apocalyptal imagery these days is almost always hideous - we have moved completely into the realm of the dystopia. In all things - if we are as evil and destructive as we are good and creative - maybe PAF's will be similar to what we have now.

For me - as a collage artist and poet/anthropologist I wonder about the use of objects in such a time.

What will become precious if we lose the means to make new stuff. As the stuff in the world decays and disintegrates what will we treasure and how will we store it?
I began making books!

this haiku is for Julianne

magical to find old friends - I'm looking forward to visiting Christchurch again to revisit and relearn an old friend.

I remember a glorious girl with glorious red, red hair and a way of looking at the world I deeply envied.

I wrote this haiku after watching my daughter play in the piles of leaves in the playground after school when she was tiny . The playground was full of these minute creatures swathed in uniforms and aprons far too big - maternal frugality at its most curious!

Haiku for Marion

Small hands in red pockets

scattering winter's leaves

scarlet, floating feathers.

On a roll!

It's been a while since I blogged and I had almost forgotten how much I enjoy it. Its a lot like, and completely unlike, writing in my journal. I've not explored this difference yet - just enjoyed very much the experiencing of it.

Blogging here has also changed the way I write in my journal - I'm less precise and wordy - more cut and stick and play!

This piece is to hold another of my older haiku. I wrote it after my divorce in the deep pain of being left.

Did a year go by

and the Blackbird's song return

while I was crying

a remembered haiku - and a thank you!

I very much love it when people say something on my blog and it reminds me also of the reciprocity of this read/write business!

This I wrote some time ago.

Give me lions' claws

and talons of an eagle

mice are not gentle.