Janet Jiahui Wu


The Sun Is My Life

the sun is my life
I live my life sunlike 
in the sun every life is me
I am the sun I am life I have it
forget about the old prayers
today we have it
there is life and we have life in the sun
today we have the jar in the sun and paint brushes
in the sun
today we have life inside a sponge sunlight on me
I stand ears to shoulders chin lifted to the sun
old tomes and clouds in the sun
tall dark buildings in the sun and the town hall clock
out in the darkness still is the sun on the other side
all life awaits the moment of today
today is the sunny day on the moon side of the city
today life is the sun on the bay side of the city
tall dark faces lean into the sun fade into it
I lean right into it
the city changed its ebbs and flows but the sun
comes down to the rocky shores
the sun is my life today
I live my sunny life in the night today
I forget all that I am not today
I forget the old life on the shore yesterday
my mother still pains me in the dark day after day
she has life much life much more life than my life
in the sun we offer prayers to each other's lives
in the sun we speak from the bodies of ourselves
in the sun we bake like persimmons 
bay of night and days of my sitting still
how many hours of sitting still
offering prayers and wearing no clothes
how many hours of sitting in no clothes in the chair
the cold erases the sun in pieces
I repeat mother, mother, mother in phrases
mother did this mother did that mother is insidious
trying to shake a hole in the sun
to throw me in forever
trying and does 
hit me with the backside of a jellyfish
on the green ocean
and the tip of the eclipse
takes me to the moon
my mother's bosom
the sun, my life
the doomed nebula—
 


Consolation

  Don't sit, stand up, come out, into the air
don't wait, one, two or three lifetimes
  between a wall and a wall, your place: lean
into it, and wait
  and see, and truly believe it
your wound seals, your heart heals, like a miracle
  cat scrambles up the door, no bells ring, but birds are singing
and the night embarks on long, black journeys
  today, go up, and away, break from love, all
that frustrates & flattens you, deceives, or makes you discontent
  fly a kite, over the dusty blue sky, write a letter, don't text it
go down to the beach, even if it's rainy
  float on the rip, just go with it
some say it is better to lose your head
  never lose heart, it's true
don't wish you were dead, because you aren't
  in any case, not just yet.

 

Two Psychogeographic Studies of Canberra:
A Travelogue

I

The Road That Leads To It From Sydney

Canberra.

Capital country. Forest trees.

The mountains were so beautiful I have no words to describe them.

Ram to court and ewe to raise her bum over her hind legs.

Injured magpie fluffed about under the cars. When I got to it, I found one eyeball gone out with the other. Body still warm and soft. I left it on the side of the road.

Lights to brighten up spaces unoccupied. Laughter. Ejaculations. If clouds knew what I was thinking, they would talk amongst themselves.

Grasses as at dawn. Curious and lazy kangaroos. Grass on lips. Cigars. Grazing. Defenseless against the cruelty of men. Unthinkable cruelties. Do not think.

There is no one on the other side.

Life sweetened with the rays of the red sun. I want to see the sun set tomorrow again. I want. I miss. I desire. One too many.

The disappearing lake was full of ducks. Two spoonbills with muddy bottoms. Snakes that made the reeds tremble. Pelicans in the sky.

What we call weeds. Tucker for parrots.

Swaying. Seedy. Feathery.

The high road coming out of the Great Surf City. Through a tunnel. Dark. Noisy. Muted. Invention. No moon.

It is good to be alone. Balcony across David Jones. Closed for the night. High waves at home. Invisible.

It is so good to be alone. In fact, the night can seem to go on and on.

Deadening. Numbing. Stupefying. Alive. Somewhat.

And then the stars are stampeded.

Erased. Forgotten. Sold under a different name.

Regrettable.

Overcome
by morning.


II

In the Heart of It

Marble rungs. Balls of stateliness. Flags of countries. Stars of ignorance.

London circuit. State circle. Rabbits in time for Easter. Grasses. Munch munch munch. The scream. Fist stuffed into lips.

Maple nut milk. Morning champagne. Cut and share a similarity. Kawai. My name. Time for Revolution. Homeland. Thirty-Five dollars a ticket. One show only. The Fall of Hong Kong. Yellow stars shining. Over Satan's head. Winnie the Daemon.

By the lake. Boats sleeping at ramp. Ancient Greeks still killing Persians on the clay. Horses galloping. Comedians wearing strap-on's in 300BC. Way way way before Christ.

Clean tidy peopleless night. Windy. Two black swans glowing in the light. Waves ruffling lake purple from the wind. Bridges lit up the water no home but here. The harmless darkness. Houses. Reeds and rocks and hirable fences. Posts poisoned with arsenic.

Forgetful. Promised. Removed. The ordinary becomes the strange.

Up Mt Ainslie and down again. The familiar is still familiar. Almost crushed a pigeon. Many lawns and maple leaves. Iconic Telstra tower. Bus stops. Woods. Tattoos. Faces without jaws.

Other people's emptiness becomes my emptiness. A fish jumped.

Currawongs woke me. Magpies woke me. Parrots woke me.

Plane trees. Emptying by the early autumn wind. Dancers. The muses. Somewhere flowers too, falling.

A few raindrops.

One-eyed monsters. Cotton groves. Green and blue beasts with talons. Clawing into my nostalgic innards. Dry stones. Rubbles in a ripped calico bag. Estranged curlews. Disappearing lotusbirds.

Labyrinths in a skull. Blocks and blocks of walls. A tiny person. A saturated self. Entering the impassable.

Paper wails. Sausage dog walking into its own urine. Natural progression. Two pessimistic souls. Laughing at depression. Facing wall after wall and block after block. Facing two labyrinths. Two closed windows.

Questions without answers. There are no answers without questions.

Wide streets. Rainbow center. Aching branches. Kick me over my head. Knocked-over mushrooms. Hope into decay. A few here.

Like craving eyes searching. The meek murder the meek. Gravestones. Somewhere unknown. No longer capable of the same folly.

Simplicity. Calmness. Talking, because the voice of my twin is pleasing.

Like the unseen, changing, unknown factor of our totality. Raging over stillness. No total sum. No surrogate feelings unearthed.

We came out of the museum and jumped into the lake.

Remembering . . .

The God of War—



Janet Jiahui Wu writes and makes art. She has published in journals such as Plumwood Mountain, Cordite, Rabbit, SFPJ, etc. A part of the LGBTQI+ community, she lives and works in Sydney.She acknowledges and pays respect to the Gadigal people, their elders past, present and future.

 
 

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