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Part Time
I maintained the gears of the moon as a university job. On my empty days, I polished the levers, tightened the cranks and ensured there was enough oil to guarantee a smooth rise. At night, the company had a whole team on standby for the show, but during the day I was left alone with the machinery, inside a vast and echoing warehouse. My jobs did not take very long. I was a glorified security guard. Most of my shift passed in the staff room, deep under the surface, surrounded by the whirr and sigh of complex systems I could barely understand. I ate my tuna sandwiches, read terrible sci-fi novels, listened to music on my half broken walkman held together by duct tape and watched money for my studies crawl up in a ticker inside my head.
Midwinter
Fresh frost has visited overnight,
morning shudders, barely starts
Our fallow fields now writhe with blight.
Fresh frost has visited overnight,
We have lost colour from our sight-
like fools, we hold hope in our hearts.
Fresh frost has visited overnight,
morning shudders, barely starts.
Dawn Chorus
Blackbirds sing from the only tree
left standing on land scrubbed clean.
I am watching these buildings awake
as hidden beaks and wings call to light;
Alchemical
2022 in Review: Personal Reflections
Following on from last week's year in review post, which was more political in nature, I thought I would take some time to reflect on last year from a personal perspective. Each year I go through the Year Compass as a ritual to close down the last year and set goals for the next, so this post is informed by that.
2022 in Review: Weaponised Nostalgia
Another year of political chaos, with three prime ministers, war in Ukraine and a cost of living crisis. It has been a lot. Instead of returning to relative stability, the ripple effects of lockdowns have continued to have a huge impact and will likely reverberate for years to come.
Suspended Animation
During the second spring,
gorse opened exploratory
canary buds, lending
a perfume of coconut
to apathetic winds.
November 2022 Input
November rattled by. I thought I was going to read more due to the dark days and frost but actually I went to a lot of gigs and generally enjoyed myself. And here in Bristol, the frost only started in December. Here's what I did read and consume.
Unwrapped
Her morning started with misty adolescent mooncore.
Slowing Down
After I got married at the end of September, I went on honeymoon to Croatia. It was bliss- two weeks of lying on the beach, reading books and occasionally swimming. Now of course I'm back to real life with all the admin and bills to pay.