Seen Not Heard
That without a name can't exist.
Like so many of us who remain
nameless and faceless,
to be able to hold a reflection
in your palm for the first time
makes you feel far less,
graceless.
But how to navigate,
how to respond,
when that name of ours
becomes a weapon,
by which we are wronged?
Take it on the chin
by now a jaw thick as kuih cake
frosted, sparkling and golden
trembling on it’s pillars.
So we can’t complain,
can’t beat on the wall,
can’t scream from our insides
which must remain inside.
Because to be seen and not heard
is sometimes better
than not being seen at all
and after all,
You gave me a name
and a name means
We mean
something.
I can’t hear past our laugh,
unravelling at the seams.
Quickly! Collect him up,
there’s less than you know
but more than three,
can’t see you staring back at me.
We’re lost if we escape the pain,
but would you do it all again?
He says, “Hold on son”
We’ll feed you till your skin bursts,
I climbed the trees,
saw all that I could see,
greens, blues and the filth in between,
the fool never knows
home is where it really hurts.
You’ll die if you stop looking,
I was good, I sat still,
now the boys are coming,
don’t stop running.
Come in close, you can choke
the hairs on my neck.
Deep below in your gut
and in that mind, now a wreck
You know you’re not them
and never will be,
cause
you can feel
each
individual
Rib.
But break your back,
bleach your hair,
dance the dark,
reject your Father
and pray to God
you wake up each morning
changed.
This curse showers you in sleep at night,
soaking the sheets
with nightmares and insecurities,
the gift of our ancestors
to compliment that of strangers,
it rises and falls, reverberates
within the walls,
shakes the bed you share with a lover
only to make haste
and sleep with another.
Now we are contorted
like the mangled clothes of
our predecessors suitcases
waiting to be opened once again
and made love to by the curse
of one another.
I can’t hear past our laugh,
unravelling at the seams.
Quickly! Collect him up,
there’s less than you know
but more than three,
can’t see you staring back at me.
We’re lost if we escape the pain,
but would you do it all again?
The boy in the blue dungarees stares back at me.
His eyes now crows
scars swallowed by wrinkles
but brown bullets piercing my skin
I’d recognise anywhere.
Fingers and toes, dirty and ragged
Wiggle against the plain of his own
reflection
like our memories, lost
in translation between time.
His eyes glaze sapphire and dust
as cataracts in old age, wonder
the space between us
Blinded, crumbling from missing pieces
While I remain, whole
watching the boy in the blue dungarees
shaking in the white light,
looking for sight in a bright room.
Maybe I’m not meant to exist
in the image of you, who
was born from blank reflection too
but live in this age
with fingers on the glass
watching you and our kids
turn our page, littered
with letters of red ash
and familiar empty spaces.
So, please, I beg
those beautiful faces,
clench your fists
spit words which
creak under your
unbroken voice
like robins of
the morning choir.
Shake your head,
crack it against the glass
roll into yourself
and rock between
filth and love
present and past
as it’s all one
one we are all
bound by it
brothers and sisters
children and men
mortals and gods
run run run.
Because even when I am gone,
somewhere in the black of night,
you’ll hear that familiar static
of a channel you once forgot
and once again
as if you never left,
it'll be like birds
waking you with a morning sun
singing
I am here,
no matter what.
I can’t hear past our laugh,
unravelling at the seams.
Quickly, collect him up
there’s less than you know
but more than three.
Can’t see you staring back at me,
we’re lost if we escape the pain
but would you do it all again?
Seen Not Heard is a work in progress that spans spoken word, dance and film.
It is being developed by writer/director Cameron Tharmaratnam and dancer/choreographer Clara Kerr.
Their previous collaboration was on the short, Hand Me Downs.