DANIEL R MARKS
Naarm Melbourne / Artist
Attempting Self-isolation
I am an interdisciplinary artist working primarily in expanded performance. I am based in Melbourne, and am undertaking a PhD in Art at RMIT University.
𓅔
1:46am
In a dream,
Men
The one I feel weighty love for
As a boulder in my lungs
My emotional fireball, my gravity and lingering hand
He lies beside me
Head falls on the nook of my shoulder
He asks if he can stay
That question always on the tip of my tongue
Said back in a fantasy
In subconscious self-gratification
Then, a strong man I meet the next day
In the dream we are bogged in mutual desire without feeling
In the harsh wind and afternoon sunlight we feel distant, like I spoke those words again whilst awake
The third is a romance and a trauma
Repeated often
Always in the corner
Always in a crowd
The back of his head
The back of his neck
This time, a memory of a memory
Just a single frame of film
Somewhere interwoven is a narrative of the high life
Slow realisation that my lifestyle is inherently tied to fame
As I meet with a celebrity singer for coffee
A good friend
But I never reach him: a doppelgänger at a cafe table is a red herring
All maybe another fantasy
Nobody would ever believe it
The second man falls through a counter top
Becomes a dolls head and disconnected legs
A laugh track plays
Every human is a blue animal
One animal is an evil woman
One animal is a little girl
The girl repeats “you’re dangerous” as she gallops away to her mother
Four hooves, round body without a head
No eyes, just a wide vertical mouth
Disturbingly vulvic
Crushed
I feel sick to see it
Blue liquid like jelly
And squashed shards of carapace
An embryo or organ within a transparent abdominal sack, burst open, flesh-coloured against the blue
Mother comes to the liquid gore of her daughter
A blue crab in inhuman despair
Horizontal body on flatly spread limbs, a sack with her own baby-like thing bobbing
Several pincers hold silver tools
Gathering the jelly in knife-like syringes
The blue liquid is reformed into something like a legal document
Text and graphics
On a sci-fi computer display
The daughter is still dead
I still feel sick
All day I think of the men and the disgusting blue creatures
Both are everyone in life, turns out
Every man haunts me
Every other human has its other form
I want to feel the weight of desire returned
I want to feel the nausea subside
To be held tightly, eagerly, lovingly, finally
And free of this pit in my stomach.
(15/3/2020)
In a dream,
Men
The one I feel weighty love for
As a boulder in my lungs
My emotional fireball, my gravity and lingering hand
He lies beside me
Head falls on the nook of my shoulder
He asks if he can stay
That question always on the tip of my tongue
Said back in a fantasy
In subconscious self-gratification
Then, a strong man I meet the next day
In the dream we are bogged in mutual desire without feeling
In the harsh wind and afternoon sunlight we feel distant, like I spoke those words again whilst awake
The third is a romance and a trauma
Repeated often
Always in the corner
Always in a crowd
The back of his head
The back of his neck
This time, a memory of a memory
Just a single frame of film
Somewhere interwoven is a narrative of the high life
Slow realisation that my lifestyle is inherently tied to fame
As I meet with a celebrity singer for coffee
A good friend
But I never reach him: a doppelgänger at a cafe table is a red herring
All maybe another fantasy
Nobody would ever believe it
The second man falls through a counter top
Becomes a dolls head and disconnected legs
A laugh track plays
Every human is a blue animal
One animal is an evil woman
One animal is a little girl
The girl repeats “you’re dangerous” as she gallops away to her mother
Four hooves, round body without a head
No eyes, just a wide vertical mouth
Disturbingly vulvic
Crushed
I feel sick to see it
Blue liquid like jelly
And squashed shards of carapace
An embryo or organ within a transparent abdominal sack, burst open, flesh-coloured against the blue
Mother comes to the liquid gore of her daughter
A blue crab in inhuman despair
Horizontal body on flatly spread limbs, a sack with her own baby-like thing bobbing
Several pincers hold silver tools
Gathering the jelly in knife-like syringes
The blue liquid is reformed into something like a legal document
Text and graphics
On a sci-fi computer display
The daughter is still dead
I still feel sick
All day I think of the men and the disgusting blue creatures
Both are everyone in life, turns out
Every man haunts me
Every other human has its other form
I want to feel the weight of desire returned
I want to feel the nausea subside
To be held tightly, eagerly, lovingly, finally
And free of this pit in my stomach.
(15/3/2020)