CONDUIT

My room is scattered with empty cans. Fragments of conduit. Each one is a segment of a pipeline that I am building, to tap and channel the subterranean currents beneath the pavements. I take my part from the current; part is expelled as breath, thought, writing, sex – clouds of alcohol breath and smoke – the remainder pours back into the subterranean rivers, through porcelain, then earthenware, finally into brick lined catacombs. The city is an economy of liquids. Talk drips, describes liquidation of capital, flows of traffic and people, of capital crystallised into buildings tapping other credit streams. The cornucopia is filled, not with fruit, but the decayed ferment of it.

Liquid reflects; this is how we recognise ourselves in it, gazing back at us. The recognition acknowledges that we can see ourselves where we are not, but this is not what is recognised. It shows us that there is a place within us, too, where we are not.