Apr '14 27

Eye to Eye . Photo by Robert Rath from Robert's website.

I was at Brighton markets this morning and I picked up a copy of Tim Winton's 1986 novel That eye, the sky. (As an editorial aside, the punctuation of the title is inconsistent; neither the title on the cover nor the main title a couple of pages in is punctuated with a comma, but the titles on the first page and in the copyright information blurb are.)

Yesterday I spent some time reading through the final (18th) chapter of James Joyce's Ulysses for a little project I'm working on. I love the language of Molly Bloom's stream of consciousness and the way her thoughts leap all over the place and not a scrap of punctuation in sight (except for capitalisation of some words).

And so, today's piece.


the way you might look at it

that eye the sky is watching is just about to blink its lid is about to close jaysus whatll we do when the cosmic gale comes blowing with the blink itll unsettle gases and those photony molecool things will go to wrack and ruin and the sky will be bracing itself and going quiet and the atmosphere will be getting all wound up a bit like the way I go when himself is getting all randy on me and the sun will be turning all still and chill and fading while its waiting to see if the eye will complete the blink and open again like it did long ago but sure the sun cant remember exactly how long ago that was how could it remember its own birth I cant remember being born and why would the sky or the sun or the stars or anything else be able to not that Im saying Im all powerful or anything but if were supposed to be the conscious ones then surely wed be the ones who could remember ourselves being born but its probably better we cant remember our entry into the world isnt it enough that we remember it for our young wans all that pain and blood and us shouting our heads off until the slimy little caffler emerges through our impossible tiny hole and anyway the sun will be waiting to see if the eye will complete the blink and open it again because the last time it did that the last time the eye opened it saw the sun into being and it saw the sky into being and now its just about to shut its lid and itll be a long time before it opens again you know what they say eternity passes in the blink of an eye except if youre bang slap in the middle of you know what and himself taking for ever pardon the french but for the most part yes sir eternity passes in the blink of an eye the blink of that one our sky is watching

Posted by Jennifer Liston

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  1. rob walker says:

    *You're channeling Molly Bloom!

  2. Jen says:

    *Haha Rob it certainly seems that way, doesn't it?!

  3. Robert says:

    *Than blink brought visions to me of a timescale spanning aeons rather than tenths of seconds. That blink might be important in an astronomical time frame but I don't think we need worry from our human perspective. At least I hope we don't! ;-)

  4. Jen says:

    *I hope we don't either Robert but what would this rambling wan know? xoxo

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