Short – Tafel

short #19 – basic mechanics

admin — Mon, 16 Oct 2023 14:43:14 +0000

project by Maud Gyssels, Isabelle Weber, Cristina Emmel

Basic Mechanics is a hold-loose collection of words as findlings and carriers, that hold or lose meaning.
Consequently, a description of this work will never simply come out of one’s mouth. The narrative will seem tied together with loose threads.

As Ursula K. Le Guin writes in The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction, we know the story of the hero with the spear and the violence and the teleological progression. But isn’t the story that can be told by all, one of carrying and being carried? Isn’t language a wrapping for all those contradictory and wondrous thoughts and feelings? And can they be captured on paper, for a while, and set free again to counterbalance the killer story?

Confessing secrets and desires to each other became a method of sharing. Accompanied by giggles, we somatically connected the stories we carry, which we (dare to) place with another, which move from the inside out.
This publication spills, soaks, opens and closes to confessions, poems and drawings in looping motifs. A shell swimming in a sea of words.

i’m a vessel
that pours plain words into myths
by snakes invited for a dance
of knots

i’m the ancient man
wrestling at the shore
to hide his womb
to eat his child

tonight a pearl will bloom
in my mouth
and it will be holding me
(i’d give it to you)

feasting on the mess i knitted myself
moon after sun
star after star
the shells on my skin are
antique letters
“to (hold) loose is not a waste of time”

edition of 100 / for sale at sliding price 7-12 EUR / contact via mail
thanks to Spare Wheel Brussels for the publication launch

short #17 – can we hold these words

admin — Fri, 21 Jan 2022 14:50:22 +0000

TAKE 1
my big bang was a wave
that slowly rolled nearer
and further and further
and filled my teacup
with warm springs and
cold rain
and I ask myself what it is
not to matter
and to be hollowed out
I lost time lost all
found you
while reading these teacup fossils
that move us
move an I that’s slowly
finding the pace of peace
slowly as I move
and circle around you
fossilizing
slowly as I move
loosing my shield like a
soft shell crab
peeing in puddles
while singing to the
sea

TAKE 2
you’re inside the teacup
your tongue licks the last drips of earl grip
earl grey
swallowed into your body cave
the heat spills into the space
between lungs and ribcages
vibrating air
touching not touching your chest
feeling not feeling yourself
breathing to calm down
from the inside out
darkness spills over and covers the white bones
that now are hollow and ready to be played
soft hard hits
the darkness sings its rhythms and
the bones become a bag of ticking clocks
because time has stopped
you have stopped moving above them
thrown in the air they have become
whistles
played by the wind
stormy spreading
without light
to fill the gaps and holes
playing in eights
nine playing winds north south east west
and the in-betweens
shaping a totem
a house of horns
you used to drink from and defend yourself with
a tunnel in a tunnel
the deepest pore gushing out rose quartz
that’s supposed to be healing but
it’s not
it knows all is decay
drumsticks are whistles to pitch
into the tune and surrender
black bones are growing asymmetrically
and all you can do is stop and feel them and bloom

TAKE 3
can this word touch your ears
while wetting my tongue
while drowning in the muddy mass
I once played in all
naked and
snotty and slimy
a steaming cage that
sucks and shuffles
can this word hold onto your ears
while radiating away linguistics
can I repeat myself
while throwing over board
my fingers, my eyes, my mouth
my skin and bones
and swim inside-inside
can I repeat myself
to echolocate you
*click click*
can I repeat-repeat
*clang*
and would it reverse the distance
like an implosion
like shouting “echo” in
the well

TAKE 4
it gives away its presence
by bouncing back the waves
the remnant
of consonant loss
of ebony hair
of vessels and bottles
of potpourri
of struggling words
of pompous bodies
showing itself for a while
sticking with a glue called time

TAKE 5
gradually drop your face
and watch yourself rattling a song
clacking ex aequo
you left by speaking
took the passage through the glass glass galleries
for a bird’s eye view
for a magnet’s alternating poles
phasing
how to restore a *boing*
there is no *snap* you silly
there is a gate and a way around
which move you back and forth

TAKE 6
feet moonwalking on the dancefloor to rewind
waves
see the rippling water of the lake
and the music don’t feel like it did
when I felt it with you

TAKE 7
guess that all is
licking the chalk of my hands
rasping my skin
spitting loose teeth in my palms
mute words dripping
after the battle of speech
and afterwards
and the next
trying to be a gathering of
a. flutes
b. spines
c. swinging tongues
d. hollow
e. hanging at the lost and found
f. tingling
g. *clap*
i. a row of people reading fossils
m. (shape)
z. a collapse into one

short #16 – triptych plus one

admin — Fri, 21 Jan 2022 14:37:02 +0000

2020

shorts #15 – brown ink

admin — Fri, 21 Jan 2022 14:28:05 +0000

short #14 – dinner

admin — Fri, 21 Jan 2022 14:22:19 +0000

The conversation during dinner made clear they were thinking about, questioning the Same – be it the ever Very Different. As if they faced the same formula yet to be written. The formula for Change and the way this life or meaning unfolds itself, unfolds the folds of itself.

The beginning was an ending. a dot. a capital letter. in a glimpse. You read. Read me. in a beat without a heart. words without weight don’t last for long. You, wait. waiting doesn’t pay. everything moves past. slow. or late. we are bigger than ourselves.

short 13# – song piece

admin — Fri, 21 Jan 2022 13:28:29 +0000

short #12 – after laughter

admin — Fri, 21 Jan 2022 13:07:34 +0000

photos (c) Jean Didier Gazeau

short #11 – piñata poem

admin — Fri, 22 May 2020 12:18:53 +0000

tonight is tonight and tonight is a good night. sun comes up sun shines bright sun goes down. and i sold my soul and i sold yours too. for the night to be long and warm. for the sun to rise another day. tonight is tonight and tonight is a trip. as only the fools know and only the brave live. dare to hit. liberate your luck. take the stick. take the stick. take. the. stick.

drunk. so drunk I will lick my own tears.
check Snake 18k via www.dauwtrip.com

short #10 – cave piece

admin — Mon, 16 Dec 2019 12:31:44 +0000

short #9 – cave

admin — Mon, 02 Jul 2018 08:46:03 +0000

going inwards
inwards the body
the body is empty
empty inside
inside the mountain
the mountain has gone
gone in the cave
the cave within
within the sound
the sound is echoing
echoing waves
waves towards
towards a meeting
a meeting of matter
matter is there
there is lost now
now lost a feeling
feeling whole
whole lotta matter
matter is moving
moving fast
fast moving slow
slowly knowing
knowing is to listen
to listen stop speaking
stop speaking to know
knowing all all all all

photo (c) Dániel Mátyás Fülöp