allthatisconstantlymoving

[allthatisconstantlymoving]

Am I vintage?

Because my life is analogue

And is it retro

To read on the metro or put a record on?

And is it passé to think

I ain't seen enough?

And is it old-school

To still feel stuff?

Not Everything Was Better In The Past, Fink

[allthatisconstantlymoving]

All in my mind the anvil and

The weight upon my back

Has the world gone mad

Or is it me?

All these small things they gather round me

Is it all so very bad?

I can't see

All these small things they gather round me

Small Things, Ben Howard

[allthatisconstantlymoving]

Look for the girl with the sun in her eyes and she's gone.

Two hands, two feet, 

two heads, two hearts.

The same in all but colour and the flip of a coin at birth.

One compares while the other talks 

of a life experience unknown.

One rests while the other works 

without promise of the same financial ease.

One holds the other tightly 

forgetting the sins of those that look like them.

Two eyes, two ears, 

two breaths, two beats.

One wants what two has, 

 grasped loosely in a single hand.

While two craves what one has mastered, 

under the pseudonym of a white label.

One dreams of promised lands 

 while the other crosses borders without thought.

One stays while the other leaves, 

the power over when they’ll meet again 

never touching her hands.

The title for this is taken from the lyrical genius of The Beatles.

[allthatisconstantlymoving]

Taiwanese flag. Taipei, Taiwan.

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Shifen Falls, Pingxi District, Taiwan.

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Confucius Temple, Taipei, Taiwan

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Ningxia Night Market, Taipei, Taiwan

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Pingxi District, Taiwan.

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Confucius Temple, Taipei, Taiwan.

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Scooters in the rain. Taipei, Taiwan. 

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Datong District, Taipei, Taiwan.

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Ningxia Night Market, Taipei, Taiwan.

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Outside the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall, Taipei, Taiwan.

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West Minquan Road Station, Taipei, Taiwan.

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Revisiting photos: near Maai Mahiu, Kenya, 2015

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Stitches

It’s been a while since I felt enough to write again. This year, I’m hoping to challenge that things that scare words from me most. 

To start - the following is in response to the events of 20 January 2017 in Melbourne, Australia.

Lives on tangents

looping and threading,

tying and knotting.

Held together by auto responses 

and an etiquette of predefined actions.   

Phrase books of to-dos 

and life goals. 

Of doing and dones. 

Of needs and wants.

Failing to see the fraying of others. 

Failing to see there’s something other at all.   

Our mending is merely patchwork, 

rearranging the pieces that weren’t one to begin with. 

Selling it as new again. 

Thoughts of it gone as soon as it’s off the shelf. Until one day, it snaps. 

Until one day, the thread comes undone. 

  (Insert: Little exhales, last inhales). 

We’ll pretend we didn't know that

it was all woven in the first place.

That we were part of something bigger, 

than a singleminded trajectory. 

The cloth that didn't catch one 

has now failed many.

[allthatisconstantlymoving]

Maasai warrior, Musa, in his boma near Monduli, Arusha, Tanzania.