CAOIFE POWER
Naarm/Melbourne/ Artist/ Writer/ Teacher/ Swimmer/ Speaker
Caoife is an Irish born poet raised Eora east coast now living in north suburban Naarm who explores the many languages of the fugitive body: sick, crippled time, feminism, queer, past, present, narrative, spirit.
𓅔
I dreamt I woke up to my car driven to me with a note that read 'out of place'. Awkward in a new room I wasn't so familiar with. I felt isolated and unaware of these rules of place, lacking control, isolated and discomforted.
I felt watched by the girls in the beds behind me. There was a mirror and I could see their faces, they seemed attracted to me but I felt discomfort.
There was a series of shop like rooms and compartmentalised spaces.
There was an opening at the front in the chaos of a market where confronting interactions with these girls happened.
I dreamt of a baby that died by drowning as I tried to hold him up above the water and I couldn't bring the two year old back to life.
He was not my baby. I knew the baby boy must have belonged to the girls. And then avoided the confrontation and news of telling them I'd killed their brother.
Danced around as sweaty wet bodies in the market place I held the boy up and screamed out for help does anyone know first aid can anyone resuscitate. A man came in and we held the boy on his side but it was too late, he had swallowed too much water. If only I could have held him up higher or found help sooner, perhaps then I could have saved him.
I escaped to a gathering on a park hill with giant tree roots. I jumped between each section hiding from the girls this way. Torn by my friends as they supported my deep sorrow for I couldn't save him. I think it was Ally who consoled me. She said it would be ok. I felt so sad for the baby boy, and so sad for his sisters who were yet to find out.
By the end of the party they confronted me, I couldn't run any longer. And I told them this sad honest news.
They left me behind and I sat on a mattress roof of a car driving back to the market rooms that were now my home lost in my sense of desperate disappointment. I had failed and the perfectionist in me could not have felt more alone.
(6/8/2020 Sydney)
A cast for the shadows
I sleep again
This is not a performance piece
Settling slow rhythms
cast with the waves
I miss the sea
Salt
drivers past
splash cause the mountain shake
Rattle undercover snake
who hides in the bush
next to the baths
with girls tops off
splash rocks
hard edged sunburn
dent burnt tan lines
down our backs
I swim
I swim to get away
I float to watch the waves roll over
ocean spills
cast their net
set a line of salt white crisp
lines of momentum
caught by a wind
over my stomach
arch
I seek the knife
I draw a chord
swoop dagger at the neck
Fine line
you told me to be careful
I seek out a wish
Take away this skin
Tight crisp binds
Metal drawn reflections
cast a shadow
A long drawn out dawn
sun for the taking
pools of orange turned pink
help me find a cause
don’t answer the question
swim
swim to get away
NOTE: Home bound without work that got cancelled casual art dimes were too rich for making us.
(27/5/2020)
I felt watched by the girls in the beds behind me. There was a mirror and I could see their faces, they seemed attracted to me but I felt discomfort.
There was a series of shop like rooms and compartmentalised spaces.
There was an opening at the front in the chaos of a market where confronting interactions with these girls happened.
I dreamt of a baby that died by drowning as I tried to hold him up above the water and I couldn't bring the two year old back to life.
He was not my baby. I knew the baby boy must have belonged to the girls. And then avoided the confrontation and news of telling them I'd killed their brother.
Danced around as sweaty wet bodies in the market place I held the boy up and screamed out for help does anyone know first aid can anyone resuscitate. A man came in and we held the boy on his side but it was too late, he had swallowed too much water. If only I could have held him up higher or found help sooner, perhaps then I could have saved him.
I escaped to a gathering on a park hill with giant tree roots. I jumped between each section hiding from the girls this way. Torn by my friends as they supported my deep sorrow for I couldn't save him. I think it was Ally who consoled me. She said it would be ok. I felt so sad for the baby boy, and so sad for his sisters who were yet to find out.
By the end of the party they confronted me, I couldn't run any longer. And I told them this sad honest news.
They left me behind and I sat on a mattress roof of a car driving back to the market rooms that were now my home lost in my sense of desperate disappointment. I had failed and the perfectionist in me could not have felt more alone.
(6/8/2020 Sydney)
A cast for the shadows
I sleep again
This is not a performance piece
Settling slow rhythms
cast with the waves
I miss the sea
Salt
drivers past
splash cause the mountain shake
Rattle undercover snake
who hides in the bush
next to the baths
with girls tops off
splash rocks
hard edged sunburn
dent burnt tan lines
down our backs
I swim
I swim to get away
I float to watch the waves roll over
ocean spills
cast their net
set a line of salt white crisp
lines of momentum
caught by a wind
over my stomach
arch
I seek the knife
I draw a chord
swoop dagger at the neck
Fine line
you told me to be careful
I seek out a wish
Take away this skin
Tight crisp binds
Metal drawn reflections
cast a shadow
A long drawn out dawn
sun for the taking
pools of orange turned pink
help me find a cause
don’t answer the question
swim
swim to get away
NOTE: Home bound without work that got cancelled casual art dimes were too rich for making us.
(27/5/2020)