Sunday's Child Speaks To Sleep

Once upon a Sunday, I saw god
and she looked like you – moon-eyed insomnia
collecting sleep-dust at the elbows, rusting
ball-joints. She chewed the chalk-lit skies
as they curved chromatic into my stiff yellow collarbones,
and swept up the night. She was busy setting suns
and settling the air, but she took the time
to answer my prayer in lullaby tones.
"Sleep is wrong", she said, simply.
And I agreed. Because alone,
I see you clearer –
hiding behind your rag doll physics as you rip
one day from the next with the kiss of death-
in-life, you shallow breather. Caught on the cusp
of your muchness, I have always been
your interrupted
girl;

sucking the warmth from your kerosene fingers
whilst counting the cloud-bodied creatures
with their faces of the blackout. Sometimes
there are whole nights unbroken,
of plump and pregnant hush; baited spaces
of uneaten breath. Your psalms of silence.
And then sometimes
I hear only the sheep speak
in their tongue of Morse Code,
clicking out heartbeats
as they tap their trials into my veins.
I count their cries on fingers,
but their bleats bleed like rain
and I soon run out of digits.

It seems, (as god said), that
I could learn to love you
if you didn’t smother me.
If you didn’t stifle me so completely
with your windowless pitch
and night-sheep that breathe fumes
to choke the lights. I am Sunday's child,
but you unplugged the sun
I sung to and left me
voiceless, orphaned. Now
I’m just a child who cries when her star sleeps
and your atrophic echoes litter
the ceiling, scattered blackly; latching
onto the backs of my eyelids.
You never did understand
that I only need one shadow. So
I made a promise to cling to my
unbroken daybreak immortality:
Never to let go; never
to close my eyes; never to get lost
in your fathomless deep -

and that when I grow up
I’m never going to sleep.

* * *

[Please see this poem in it's proper format here.]

I was born on a Sunday. This may explain a lot.

Sleep and I have a weird relationship. Sometimes I'm continually exhausted and think of nothing else but sleep; other times I can’t think why I ever need to sleep at all. I'm not sure whether the idea of it – a limbo of unconsciousness between the days – comforts or terrifies me.
The longest I haven’t slept for is 4 days or so. Apparently you go mad at 5, and die at about 10. It's a good thing that 'never' is a continually shrinking time span nowadays.

For the record, I’m not sure whether this is serious or nonsensical. The line between the two has blurred too much recently.

'When I grow up I'm never going to sleep
When I grow up I'm never going to cry
When I grow up I'm never going to try
When I go out I'm never coming home
When I grow up I'm never going to die.'
- 'Sleep is Wrong', Sleepytime Gorilla Museum

Terra's Revision Playlist

We've all been there. Revision is the dullest thing since England's World Cup matches (or even – le gasp – the dullest blog in the world). In order to prevent yourself from doing something stupid to throw off the boredom, like suicide or listening to your sisters throw insults at one another for an hour or so (then suicide), you need something to counteract the sheer dullity of revision notes. That something is music.
So here are my top five albums (yes, albums – single songs are too insubstantial to have any real effect in counteracting the monotony that is my study leave life) for revision.

* * *

I:Scintilla – Prey On You
So the album 'Dying and Falling' has been set back a few months (/eons). But if it's anything like their latest EP, then it'll be well worth the wait. 'Prey On You' marks a definite shift in the industrial band's sound to a more EBM-inspired electro-beat. They've certainly been studying their Ayrias and their Zombie Girls – Seb Konor even does a remix of the title track which has the exact same synths as Creepy Crawler, I swear. They seem more willing to give the synths a greater voice and give Brittany's vocals a rest for a while, striking a nice balance.
Stand-out tracks: Prey On You and Hollowed.


Jack Off Jill – Humid Teenage Mediocrity
We all know revision has the power to completely destroy all positivity. Well, Jessicka knows your pain and your frustration. In fact, she's the queen of teenage angst – and nowhere is this clearer than 'HTM'. This compilation of non-album tracks and blunt-edged originals is all the more hard-hitting for its lo-fi punk undertones. Nothing compliments Jessicka's Kat Bjelland-style angelic to banshee-like vocals better.
Stand-out tracks: Bruises are Back in Style, Girlscout (I couldn’t find the 'HTM' version on youtube, so this is the ‘Sexless Demons and Scars’ album version. Not as good, imo, but nevermind) and Cockroach Waltz.


Räuberhöhle – Deep in the Forest
If you're looking for something to cheer you up rather than wallow in, Räuberhöhle is probably of more interest (this is about as close to pop as I get, so be excited!). The German retroclash singer's musical blend of retroclash, 8-bit chiptronica and lo-fi 'revolution girl style' punk gives you hope that the spirit of riot grrrl is still very much alive and kicking down the glass ceilings of the underground. 'Every Day More and More Ppl Are Going Radical' even samples Bikini Kill's 'Rebel Girl' – what more can you ask for? Oh, and if puppets, sparkly-pink capes, and people dressed as bears is your thing, then you're in for a treat.
Stand-out tracks: Every Day More and More Ppl Are Going Radical and Angry Dancy.


Kidneythieves - Zerospace
There's nothing lo-fi about Kidneythieves' industrial music. When listening to 'Zerospace', you get the sense that every second of electro-beat, synth and noise has been carefully thought out, and the resulting sound is very polished and clear-cut: what I like to call 'the Collide effect'. Free's lyrics are intelligent and her vocals extremely versatile – she covers just about every vocal technique known to man over the course of this album. The result is a diverse range of tracks; something to suit every mood.
Stand-out tracks: Zerospace, Crazy and Before I'm Dead.


Stolen Babies – There Be Squabbles Ahead
Strangely, someone recommended Stolen Babies on a Kidneythieves page. Trust me: they sound nothing alike. I'm thankful for the recommendation though, because 'TBSA' is a great album – nay, an amazing album. Stolen Babies have a truly unique sound with a wide sphere of influences that largely defies genres – the closest you'll get is circus-inspired punk avant-garde metal (or something along those lines). If avant-garde metal sounds a bit daunting – the genre is known for its experimental heavy metal eccentricity – then don't fret: Stolen Babies combine the instrumental-weirdassness of bands like Sleepytime Gorilla Museum and Unexpect with the more melodious sounds of a dark cabaret. Dominique is one of the most talented vocalists I have ever heard, and their music has probably the best punk/funk-inspired bass I have heard since Lunachicks' Squid Silver. Besides, anyone who makes the accordion badass deserves respect, right?
Stand-out tracks: seriously, the whole album is note-worthy, but if I had to choose, they'd be Filistata, So Close and Tablescrap.

* * *

I hope that's brightened up your revision experience - or at least made it more interesting! And remember; the end is now in sight!

From Rags to Riches

HELL YES, my friends. YES.

Remember ages ago I wrote that poem for a Born Again lit contest? Well, my poem, 'Rag and Bone', won the poetry section! *insert image of Terra crazy-dancing with joy here*

Finally, something good comes out of exam leave (two down, one to go!)...

Double Helix

All I ever wanted was to be simple - right like a well-done sum and broken down to a number in the singular; the answer to end all answers. But then someone left the phone off the hook, cut the [dis]connection and I was left stumbling over silences. To survive, I became a shell for words; a cup for floods – a receiver for all unspoken correspondence.
That was when all I ever wanted turned to downpours, and I lost myself in the rain.

Now, I am
a tangle of wires and loose connections; swallow-strung lines and faulty safety switches. I am the love of liars for words with the lick of life that give false impressions a heartbeat and hands to grip a jealous chest.
I am knees that knock on hardwood floors, bitten lips and fingers that knot themselves over and over, until they are stitched tight and I am undone. I am the trees growing on the underground and the birds humming between the lines, scratching track marks into skin.
I am the water locked in neptune skies, where hoverflies are caught in submarine eyes just before the rain starts to fall. Then, in watercolour landscapes, I am fixed-fluvial - thought interrupting thought interrupting thought interrupting the soundspaces of ceiling-scapes; tongue-tied shoelaces and spatial oddities. I am the daughters rocked shut in the crux of a double helix.

I am dyscrasia, slipping between the steps, the cracks in the pavement. A temporal disconnection: a formula without a face. I am a television between channels, waiting for the storm to pass so service can continue. I am insomnia with eyes the size of moons, pitted against the black of planets and the back of the sun, spinning reflections out of glass.
I am a means to an end. I make a fine fit for outstretched hands; a mouthful of split ends, spitting oceans that are deep and dark as lies; as cavernous as the pits of stones. I am the aching seams of dreams, splitting, splitting -

I am a placebo spaced between teeth, the god tablet, opening and closing on one-one-one- moment spent moving in fast-forward-motion just to look like I had a purpose, a meaning, a definition.
I am as tall as my shadow, tall as stories.

I am king of the silver skulled muses, and I am choking. I’m choking. I’m ch-

* * *

Forgive me, revision sends me crazy (or crazier, as the case may be)...

Yet more attempts at self-definition. But I still think this song does it better than I ever could.

(No, it doesn't make any sense either).

On the plus-side: prose-poem! Yay! Haven't written one of these in ages!

The Salt of Stones

Some say that opulence
can be spurned from trash,
beauty cut from carbon, and
minted cash spat from the hands
of the dirt-poor to form the monoliths
of the rich that rise tall -
but they forget
that before we stand, we crawl:
shaping love into our kneecaps
and the snaps of our brittle bones.
We’ve been suckled from the salt of stones
and the peaceable scrawls of our old
apostles’ apathy, which we emulate
with the empty coal-toned bleats
of shackled sheep.

And though we speak
of angels and dove-tail
rhetoric, what makes us who we are
is not some higher being, or some flicker
of the supernatural, but our god-tongued
culture: the lick of colour and crescendo
in each flag we strive to thrive under. For
we may pray to the beleaguered skyspaces, but
we’re only prey to our own parasitic verse; the traces
of each concrete cleft we’ve cradled,
stitched and nursed.

Now we’ve bled our grassroots dry.
Our earth is worn and ember-dead, mined
cold, while our ‘scrapers split the sky.
Tithed to a god who always aches for more,
bent-backed, all we’re left with
are the kidney stones that clatter
and clack. The flinted lip
has become a fissure, stitched.

Reality is what we’re led
to believe; what we want to perceive -
we know only what society shows
is true; what can be gleaned from a city
that spits in smokescreen tones.
Who we are is what we spend: we’re
just the means to our own end. Like match-sticks
we’re made to burn – black or blue –
and only the head-stones have learned
to savour the wordlessness
of truth.

* * *

I've been meaning to write something more political for a while, but I was hoping for something a little more clear-cut and focused...

Being ill muddles my thoughts. And this is probably far more coherent than the timed essays I've written in the past few days (oh dear).

Inspired by Angelspit’s 'Ditch the Rest' (and the whole of their 'Hideous and Perfect' album, whilst the title is taken from a song by I:Scintilla.