I Tried Practising Solos

I tried

(not) to choose purple
please know this colour (i don’t like)
red and blue are properties of
purple hanging through

my window reveals,

and rather than stir things by dancing past,
by their view
I’ll stir them.

My body writing
a friend Amaara said,
is an act of speaking while
sitting against one white wall facing in
conditioned and then walking with closed eyes lashing the form of
my way into purple:

at the end, red

thinking of blue,

bluets, inlets and its
an infatuation
the weight of a book sustains
a building.

Here a dancer might hold absent colour
in their arms
as well as
their mind, how
we can’t write a field but I will try
to release It-things from their functional reality.

I tried
practising solos,

with the residues of others
        spending time
        edged in
colour / some rich
somatic psychic data
from which to swing or

                leap(s) making It here and there
a tower of tape rolls or
the way atoms touch and feel
one time as Cutout¹ 1. Choreographed by Jo Lloyd, presented in the Melbourne Festival, at ACCA on Monday 1 October 2018, in response to the solo exhibition by Eva Rothschild; Kosmos (28 September - 25 November 2018)
and as many visitors dance through the
fields of their It-things

where I collect all the Kosmic blue about me with open arms,
scatter-sow a love from what
It is:
property no one owns,
        particles that wave
             with cliches:
                  when we’re saturated in blue we
               touchdown from days of
        feelings
        run scarce / run past
        vivid-white and red
             and green and purple and black in search of It

to bring back something absent:
a relief gives you great potential
                                                        press up
and flutter your lashes at my sunken mountain.

All the dirt I need to eat to level myself with / the ground
is concrete and when you squint
is blue
            revolutionary relational dirt moving us
which is to say that from my position:

the Kosmos moves.

I tried
practising solos,

          a: start with something known

I say blue and you see blue as

a spell I fought to stay under and get out from under,
in turns ² 2. Maggie Nelson
jump me while I brace the sea and
bear back longing into water.

It could be the self that falls
         or objects,
lap onto me as foam,
white and aquamarine.

I’m speaking to my love of her³ 3. My love for Maggie Nelson
and her longing and
my attraction to her longing:
two people in the entity of blue.

To want to write on a feeling, without having chosen
         one
         night walking
a friend tells me I deserve happiness
as though we’re walking to destinations
parting one from two
makes less sense / a sheer opening /
hopeless case / open lesson.

Green is yellow and blue
is sometimes blended
pink and aquamarine

         is a shared property of two instances of blue.

To get a rich blue
drop an anchor
through the water,
fold over the boat rim
to face your surface,
         let It sieve
your real mind
drowns in.
Your eyes sink down nylon lines.

My blues stretch nausea:
a mixing process on my flesh.

I am not interested in longing
to live in a world in which I already live.
I don’t want to yearn for blue ... ⁴ 4. Maggie Nelson

                                    sensations roll

the visual world
is mostly composed
of disembodied properties /
                                                  a shiver
                            on my thigh a scene

then waves with brain-y excitement.
The self can move around.
One time a gift. Thinking of the discus tower
in your exhibition / in my shower
building up to a well versed spine,
you know if you do It again then again ...

The pleasure of holding is a case of things I like to fold together:

my individual / goes
this and that
hand and on one hand
feels and is superficial
but
what I hold
re-cycling inside
can't long for pages from an outside world /
an infatuation
I could return to
squeeze
my brow to
my cheek to hang
a narrow panel of flesh behind
a polyvinyl edge

is being asked
to do,
something
knocks against me.

Now the ball (I imagine) I’m holding
is every bit of precious blue
a distilled
indigo
to fall in
throw It up
then catch a button,
collect a lozenge.
Transience is edible
like an image
hand over nothing
and see your reflection everywhere,
in the swallowing find
the body and object fit.⁵ 5. Sara Ahmed

This room is for this kind of work⁶ 6. Sara Ahmed and I wrote this and then, I realise the width I’m playing within is pale white with comfort and less I felt no pain.

I tried
practising solos,

          a: start with something known

b: suppose I were to begin

... to speak ...suppose I shredded my napkin as we spoke⁷ 7. Maggie Nelson

a field lost Its
still blue feeling, no more
words moved and now
like the ocean locked down
assuming this feels
violent.

I look up napkin in my dictionary
even though I know what a napkin looks like and how to use one.
A square or oblong piece of linen, cotton cloth, or paper as for ... little tablecloth⁸ 8. Macquarie Concise Dictionary Seventh Edition
for each table is being asked⁹ 9.Sara Ahmed
to line up in rows and so
the earth moves
beneath a surface of tables /

stitched with
clean hands, and never go more than three days without playing¹⁰ 10. Viv Albertine
something in the air
                     landed

to stay alive is to stay relevant.
How I long to be a hanky tucked away in a pocket or purse, to go on daily trips.¹¹ 11. Dodie Bellamy

Do not, however, make the mistake of thinking that all desire
is yearning¹² 12. Maggie Nelson

is length, pulling from location
writing from tables
to have
confined children finish all sentences with the word
my Nanna’s teacher told her not to use
but¹³ 13. Dodie Bellamy
in her story

the most I want to do is show you the end of my index finger¹⁴ 14. Maggie Nelson pointing ... out to security¹⁵ 15. Dodie Bellamy
the pointing finger of beauty
fell downward and swung sideways¹⁶ 16. Dodie Bellamy a movement only connected to and at the sole mercy of one
upon a line
a clever woman would jump upwards
to hang below the earth,
under the table,
under the cloth,
under the bandage.