‘I wish for you butterflies in the airport’ - Crispin Best, ‘Is It Still Brunch If I Am Alone’
tiny // seismic an anthology of work from ‘Writing “Nature” and Ecology’ 2020. featuring: Lily Allspaugh Andy Barr Matilda Eker Signe Eriksen Rosa Gilder Angus Gillies Lily Kuenzler Hayley McGaw Freya Stone Ina Tribukait + class collaborations with photography and artwork by Matilda Eker, Lily Allspaugh, Lily Kuenzler and Maria Sledmere. cover design & editing by Maria Sledmere
‘What do you think of when someone says ‘climate crisis’?’
What is the world I’m inside of? Oh God…they’ve put me on the spot! Grey coral reefs… Consumed by panic, overwhelmed Getting weepy with Greta Thunberg Self-harm and empty… A greater divide between the rich and the poor Am I gonna die in some horrible way? De-forestation, destruction, depression I just feel quite anxious and try not to think about it The world burning, with everything that’s happening in Australia New technology and hopefulness I cannot feel the pain of the world / I wonder if we feel it enough A peculiar sense of mindlessness
The nature of things Ina Tribukait
I tend to forget we’re all jellyfish and ruins of our shared past hollow / stuffed / overflowing excavating the meaning of physical facts with symbols our fossilized brains are spineless reckless shifting like continental plates, and I tend to forget we’re gardens in deserts living in fata morganas of liquid crystal like sailors stranded on high sea, shipwrecked, hallucinating, drinking salt water - I just miss my daisy girl and the may bugs my mother told me about I tend to forget we’re Neophytes in neon lit greenhouses carnivorous plants so touch me tenderly my green skin my venom tentacles I’m starving to see somebody / that doesn’t look like me
‘what if smartphones are actually making us less connected?’ Andy Barr it’s really time you got used to that changing of colour. the high high violet was never going to last the suit-and-tie news cycle. besides, it’s not all about you – remember? not me but us. there’s hardly an inner me anyway. a me, outside of the million fleeting gaps between words and verification forms. for me it’s always been we. it’s us, it’s we who empty every jar wash 3 times inside-out-and-backwards separating similarbut-not-identical sisters and cousins for a thankless crowd. we’re all stained and spilled anyway. an amalgamation of heroes and green teas, second glasses of wine and violent fuck-ups. despite my coffee-machine something I, me has always thought – why are we so quick to discriminate against illegitimate, unlicensed television sets?
my mum’s arms (for Scott Hutchison) Andy Barr
you died in my sleep last night you died in my mum’s arms on the bbc front page. more than a woodpile. yours was the kindest bonfire, burning in technicolour. visible from devil’s ditches, broken elevators, glasgow basements, edinburgh record shops. guiding me through – gathered storms of shit, ragged fuck ups, looking through old photos, getting my hole keeping myself warm. you died in my mum’s arms i don’t think you died at all. you live on through human heat through every drink that shouldn’t be sank through that breakdown bench through your words – and all they’ve inspired like these through tiny seismic changes. as far as december’s traditions go i think christmas might be taken but every boxing night i’ll pour one out for you.
February Frame of Mind Matilda Eker
It’s my first winter in Glasgow and I’m wondering if it’s always this stormy. The rain makes Sophie really angry; she keeps bringing it up, and she sometimes skips lectures she’s been looking forward to just because she does not want to get wet. (Sometimes I just wants to leave, but this is home now and where would I go?) I guess I’m tired of the rain too, I’ve been tired of it all my life, but right now I feel relieved to wake to raindrops smattering the asphalt outside my window. The bad weather calms me. Sooths me. Diverts my thoughts from the early bloomers. Far too soon, far too beautiful for me to say anything, but all I’m asking is if you could just please please stay in the earth and sleep for a few months more? The daffodils will be dead by Easter, what will we decorate the table with? I close my eyes and walk past the pink rhododendron and budding magnolia, straight for the greenhouse. I like the flowers in there. Guilt free splashes of colour! Except of course every train of thought seems to lead to the same destination, and as I walk through the humid glass rooms I can’t help but think of greenhouse gases, and with each new room a shade more tropical, I wonder if this is what the future feels like. Days later, I snap a picture of a cherry tree and I send it to my Mum because we used to live on a street called Cherry Road, almost like Cherry Tree Lane in Mary Poppins she used to tell me, and cherry trees were planted on either side of the road and when in bloom I would cycle in the middle of the street and look up and see the white flowers melting into clouds against the blue sky. The whole street would smell of cherry bloom. Anyway, we’ve moved now, although we live close to our old house. Apple meadow I guess the translation of my new address would be. Apple meadow number six. All the streets in the neighbourhood are named after fruits. Most of them have the trees of the fruits planted outside the houses, but there are no Apple trees outside our windows. When Cherry Road is in full bloom I still take a longer way to school just to feel, one week out of every year, that I am living in the most beautiful place on earth. Last year I missed it though because I was in France that week, and I cried when I got back and the petals had fallen down and matured to a caramel brown on the ground. It was my last spring at home for a while, and as it turns out the last spring for the trees too. Someone decided they were too big, or too sick, or too likely to fall down on someone during a storm, and one day they were all gone. They did plant new trees, but they were small, and I must admit, it’s almost comforting to know that it will take a few years until that street looks the same again. I guess it makes me feel like I’m not missing anything, living so far away. I’ve got a couple of years to find my way back.
Mercury Lily Allspaugh First she wrote down all the ingredients with pen and paper Then she walked out the door with the handwritten scroll of nurture “More curry, more curry” She thought She couldn’t wait to cook tonight But on her way to the shop A puddle filled a giant pothole To the brim With a silver liquid “More curry, more curry” She was pacing in flow Striding with breath and pulse The strange silver puddle looked like a spillage of gasoline Mixed with rain water So the girl trod on it She f e l l to a metalsmith’s death And was erased by the wheels of a double decker bus
Honolulu (you grow on me, I shrink on you) The apocalyptic musical with only one song Lily Allspaugh I have the will-to- possess a bunch of carrots and hold them like a small neck A creepily augmented version Elvis’s ‘Ku-U-I-Po’ plays loudly over the streets of Paris. Two bodies wearing scuba diving suits crawl towards each other under a mulchy haze. On the stage is the Eiffel Tower and a palm tree. Arnett Hey Fil, what’s the cutest part of home? Fil The cutest part of home? Arnett Yeah, it’s a joke. What’s the cutest part of home? Fil (deep in thought) The cutest part of home… a cat! Arnett No, no, no. Okay listen: A door bell. Fil (slowly) Adore-bell! Arnett You like it? First joke I ever thought of all by myself. I’m gonna start telling jokes, Fil, it’s the human way of saying, ‘I am looking at the world though rose coloured glasses.’ Fil No, humming La Vie En Rose is the human way of saying: ‘I am looking at the world through rose coloured glasses.’ Arnett I’m not one for melody anymore, Fil. Hey, what do you know about comedic timing? Music continues to play over emergency sirens. A new song glitches on: ‘if you like piña coladas, and getting caught in the rain.’ The ground shakes. The light on top of the Eiffel Tower flickers. They reach towards each other but can barely advance more than an inch due to the heaviness of their scuba diving suits. Fil It hurts my neck to when we talk like this. Shall we lay? Arnett Lay lady, Lay. They roll onto their sides So what do you know about comedic timing? Fil Comedic timing. Like, a funny clock? Arnett Yeah, sort of like a clock, a clock that is very valuable for the joke to hit right. Okay, like… Fil Like when you look at the clock and realize you still have two hours left to sleep? Arnett No, like a catwalk, you know at the end before they turn around, when they stand there for a really long second. Fil And they look fit as shit, in pink tweed, make-up. Arnett That’s just because of timing. You don’t have time to look for too long, because otherwise, they might look bad.
Fil Oooooh. Right. Suddenly the fog begins to clear, revealing that the Eiffel Tower is covered in fishing nets. Strange parrots, palm trees, and fishing net houses reveal that the climate is now Tropical and in a catastrophic state. Fil starts to sing: Somebody plugged the fields full Doves and crops have turned to grease Green and summer softness Used to mirror into me Electric bodies in the night Pull out taxes from the weeds Dirty hands around my neck Like a farmer harvesting Sailors used to sail here Questioning the soils worth Every port in England France and Spain Has come to feel the void Silent notifications Pour blue light into my cell You hold me still Like I’m an adorable voicemail We’re not homeless, you say, we’re on vacation. Technically, I should feel the breeze. Arnett We’re not homeless, I say, we’re on vacation! Come on Fil, don’t you feel the breeze? Arnett, with a glass half full smile, manages to get his arm across Fil as she comes out of song and back into reality. Fil I can smell damp chestnut trees… and hear a radio fade-out as it zooms past me. I am sitting by a heat lamp inside of a plastic smoking room… the air is fresh. Arnett Fresh to death! La Fin.
Overcast. Freya Stone
The sky is overcast. Clouds guard the sun, but rays break through like escapee prisoners, light crowns the mountain-tops so snowy peaks glisten white against grey. I do not know how tall the mountains are, or how many hills there are - I gave way to climbing a hill, or maybe a mountain earlier, but it grew infinitely. whenever I thought there was only one peak left to conquer, a new top would be revealed behind it: a new peak to conquer. The task became an impossibility. I conceded to defeat and rolled back down the hill. But from where I stand now, down by the water, I can cover two peaks with one hand. Flooding has made the lake greedy and exist in places it shouldn’t. Trees now stand half immersed in water, roots and trunks hidden, the branches and the places where leaves should be are silhouetted against mountains. Dark lattices and blushing clouds repeat themselves in water. Standing on the edge, I place my clothes on a tree (discarded on the ground) that’s by the lake, not in it. Running in I am immediately engulfed by waves and paralysed by the cold (walking in slowly and cautiously, pausing with each step to wait for each part to numb: toes; feet; ankles; calves; hands and thighs; waist and forearms; shoulders and breasts; neck, then head- fully submergedI can feel nothing) paralysed by the cold, frigid water burrow(s)ed through seven layers of skin and froze my bones brittle, they shattered. (unfeeling: the divides between water and skin collapse, sensation dissolves as i both sink to the bottom and float to the surface) The last of the sun falls and plays on me, happily, with it, i ripple and refract.
Midway Atoll Hayley McGaw open feathered thing ensnared in plastic trap of bone and broken beak
Angus Gillies FADE IN INT. Botanical Gardens – DAY. SUMMER. Perversely, you enjoy the stifling heat within the conservatory, as you have a subconscious regurgitation of the experiences you have had where your body has been in similarly suffocating heat. You and a close friend stare downwards at the collection of New Zealand and Australian tree ferns, some of which have lived in this conservatory for 120 years. You both fight to maintain focus and, though you notice their attention slipping, you try to keep your friend entertained.
You: This plant got off the boat in what, the year 1900? Maybe it’s even older. I wonder if it got ripped away from its Fern family. Or if it witnessed itself survive but its parents were taken out (You notice your friend’s disinterest in your attempts to personify a Fern) You: - By a sniper rifle. Close Friend: haha. I wonder, do you reckon plants can talk about things, or communicate certain ideas? Like a biological transmission? You: Well, as much as I do like the idea of oak trees sending saucy love-letters to each other, I read somewhere that plants do release compounds into the air to warn their neighbours about certain things. They do it underground too. Funny though, they only warn plants of their own species, as even though making other rival plants anxious sounds like a good thing, it’s not good form, evolution-wise. Anyway, I can’t imagine it’s useful for a plant to stop producing chlorophyll. Close Friend: - True, even members of the plant kingdom are susceptible to refusing to make chlorophyll, shutting the curtains, blasting out experimental-noise-rock and working through Lars Von Trier filmography. It’s also not as though a fucking plant can relocate at the sign of imminent threat, so it’s probably best they just don’t think about it. You: They *struggle to relocate, unless they can wrangle a scholarship to Fern University. Actually, this little prick isn’t a
foot tall, it’s wouldn’t make it to House-Plant College. I’ve also read that plants have a very elitist higher education system. (You pleasantly toy with the thought that the tree actually did get a scholarship to get from Australia to Glasgow and try to ignore the possibility that plants are probably very xenophobic to each other. You also try to not think about whether plants contemplate death and hope your friend doesn’t bring it up.) Close Friend: You ever read up on any of the fatalist stuff I sent you? (Despite trying to seem like you are not worried, you cannot help your face developing the rigid contours of one becoming obviously anxious. Your friend, who is typically perma-jolly, has uncharacteristically developed a conversation on death to the mention of fatalism. You remember having a panic attack when you were 14-years-old after delving into the Wikipedia page on the subject) You: What do you mean. Close Friend: My aunt’s funeral anniversary was today. You: - A funeral anniversary? That’s a little weird, right? I’m so sorry – Close Friend: I’m fine, don’t worry. (You both take a pause, and you break the silence with a question about the plant, rather than his aunt. Whilst showering, a week later, you will realise this was incredibly insensitive, and you’ll question how receptive you really are.) You: What made you think about fatalism? Close Friend: Well– fatalism is all about acceptance (Their eyes say “Bear with me”). Rejecting a fatalist outlook is to fight an infinite number of losing battles, on the side of an army perpetually invading itself. Or at least that’s how I feel about it. Slamming pieces of a jigsaw puzzle that doesn’t fit, but you need a frame so badly to figure out what the centre looks like that people will believe in literally anything else. My aunt had all these spindly fern plants in her house. She also told my brother on her deathbed that he was her favourite. You: Sorry, I – Close Friend: Hey. I’m fine. (Your friend holds up their hands in protest) Close Friend: My aunt, I think, wanted to produce one last reaction. As if to prove something to herself. The final say on our relationship, maybe. But, I was surprised by just how strong a reserve of apathy I had. What if we don’t need to feel anything about things we are told to have feelings about? I’ve been reading Montaigne – You: (smugly) “To philosophize is to learn how to die?” (The literary reference immediately comforts you, as it provides a framework of conversation with which you immediately find it easier to manage the extra gravity in your stomach.)
Close Friend: No, no. He also said, “Don’t bother to learn how to die, when the time comes to die you will know how to do it well enough.” I used to feel guilty when I ignored talking about death, and I used to think that my aunt’s last words held so much meaning because of the circumstances they were said in. (short pause) I’m talking about something, like a developed, strategic anti-shock. I don’t know. I just think it’s liberating to free yourself of every transmit of pain, catastrophe and displacement and death, and instead to focus on what you need. You: Not giving a shit is, whilst very bohemian, just another way to evade responsibility. Like most of your bohemian traits are. Close Friend: I mean, hey. The news, culture, general social expectations and norms are really just the compounded anxieties and neuroses of thousands, if not millions of people. I just think a great deal of it should be read passively, whilst we focus on adapting as best we can to the environment we’re placed in. If anxiety develops rapidly, maybe healing works in the opposite fashion. I mean Ferns have been around for 360 million years… You: Shut the fuck up. (playfully) “Adapt as best you can to the environment” and transfer me your damn rent money. You both laugh. You roll yourself a cigarette without asking if your friend would like one and leave. Before you leave, you rip a leaf from the plant. You forget entirely about the Fern for the rest of your life, and the Fern doesn’t think about you either.
Earth 4.543 Rosa Gilder
Buried unstably in my forever home, My misused lungs full of youthful smoke Cough warm infections into the heart of woodlands Encasing my limbs with impassable borders
My mentality stopping the gears turning Only my former self weaves the bicycle around time, asking for hidden dodos and neglected admirers hoping for stagnation, to renovate the damage.
Forgetting the concealed decay of gravity Further sprouting with each expression It is life branding my skin with smiles My well-earned crow’s feet pecking at the bark.
Yet, I hide botanic growth from mouldy extinction Ironing organic folds and creases from the pure surface: Foundation masking the mine’s thieving crevice Extracting costly minerals from virgin pores Plucking out weeds, plucking out hair
An undignified Venus Brittle and insecure Watching my lost granddaughter: heir to ‘Clear[ing] the forest for coffins’.
Something about earthquakes Signe Eriksen
It is natural and therefore good. Rotting teeth, human reason, the tsunami, how blood tastes irony. We practiced disaster response in school, and while I was waiting under my desk for the drums to cease, I became the earthquake. I evolved like a Pokémon. I studied the movements of tectonic plates, volcanoes and mountain ranges. Folds and gashes in skin. They were scratches to please me. And then fear was easy. Fear of things that make us weep, and sleep in, or sleep for days. Leftover pasta sometimes turns mouldy, eat it or leave it.
We can leap into caves filled with bats and hope there is such a thing as bottomlessness. Or hope there isn’t. Will it contain temperature? When you find a cobweb in the upper right corner of your room, you can leave the house alone, leave your job, stop speaking for days or decades at a time. May I shake aliveness into you? I’m not reckless, but I am erratic and unelastic. Even earthquakes contain rigidity. I don’t want to be liquid but some elements of liquidity. When I quake, I’m not livid, I’m enthusiastic. When I swallow you, we are both unwavering. There is iron in me. I could be alloy steel instead, natural man-made metal. Reshaped under your hands, like jewellers’ brass. Obscurely defined, if it’s a part, I’m a giver. If I can’t create, I can break. I’m okay with that, I don’t have much else to hang onto.
Thoughts inspired by Hiro Kone’s A Fosil Begins to Bray Lily Kuenzler I am swelling, rolling, crushing. You are crumbling, crying, biting. We are love. Crunch, crunch, swell, swell, I am like a fat swollen rat and you are too. You are like a moth with torn wings but I am not. Drum, drum, thrum, thrum, tickle, slap. Your feet against the ground like dry tongues. I taste it in my skin. I see it in my nose: sweaty, thick. You hear it in your eyes; slap, slap. Crash, crap. Arms, flailing out and touching the sides of everything. You make the furthest thing away close enough to lick. I make the closest thing even closer. You make the furthest thing away impossible to reach. I reach it. We barely touch except where skin meets tooth. You are inside me, around me, apart from me. I am you. You can never hope to be me, and you don’t. You waste my time. Tick, tick, flick, spit. Time well spent. You lend me a millisecond, I take an hour - a long life steam rolled flat as a pancake, piece of paper, layer of cells, planet. As fat as love. ______________
Utopia Thoughts: My utopia is dark and damp and rooted. I am deliciously content deep underground, where rats crawl through my organs. My eyeballs have become homes to friendly maggots and they feed and love and party until my sockets are run dry. The touch of soil on my rotting cheek is unlike a hand that can only rest against my face. Our skins fuse with a hundred little deaths. Imagine the joy of rock on bone and tooth. Imagine the freedom. Up there each breath tore out of me with fingers up my throat and out of my mouth with poison. Now I’m gone I am finally here. Peaceful as a dream, whilst worms eat my eyes and shit my guts. I am free again. ___________
If Humans Were As Wise As Lemmings Lily Kuenzler I think my opposable thumbs make me a big-shot They hold the tik-tak click-clack in a palm Hind legs hold me high Schlick-schlack a snap of the back Straight spine Green grass, mud rot - Pave it over! Ferrel forrest - snip-snap Running river - slurp, suck - bleed it dry! Shiny beetle black oil - grab it before - its too late. If you think that I am afraid you are wrong We are not like the orangutang Flailing, floundering, sucking for air like napalm freaks I spray, they flay: pick your fighter Pick your flighter Pick pocket, sky rocket There’s always more space. Not aphid green. I am pink Not prawn, pearl, pomegranate Person pink Our days are numbered one to infinity And I will bleed, bleed, bleed, bleed, bleed, bleed, bleed you dry