whilebird:

The train delivers us cleanly.
Our host had said 
the top deck made the best 
viewfinder.
She has to doff her magazine 
every time, 
a commuter’s mark of respect.
It is a fitting carriage:
modernity’s chariot 
terminating
at the site of its leisure. 
Saturday doers 
nudge the turnstiles. 
Sublime is right, but 
a complex descriptor: 
there is the architect’s gift 
of course
but crowds too have always 
made me conscious
of infinity. 

A couple asks a stranger 
to foster their camera,
directs him to 
just fit in 
as much building as you can. 
The lens levels 
not at their bodies 
but through, a compass 
divining its version of proof. 

If you bought a postcard here, 
bought several, 
you would recognise the pose,
not quite instinctively –
rote learning is 
not quite wisdom. 
But you know 
the candent carapace 
with or without 
the Sydney scrawl, 
despite the sunset having weakened 
to a greenish canker. 

Or maybe 
that card arrived once
rolled up with the gas bills 
and beneath an inky stamp 
was that familiar recline,
a theme varied, hawked 
world-wide
in school-books and gazettes. 
The city’s autograph 
blanched 
by cheap inks: 
moon moulds 
in silhouette, parted 
cockatoo crest. 

Up close, angles are 
just angles. 
Whites differ. 
Forced to look, 
it’s impossible to see 
anything 
but parts for the whole.
The clouds are filmy 
sacs, slowly 
ballooning.
The shells become shelter 
when rain bursts.

(via: literarypiano)

Synecdoche, by literarypiano opens “One Hour Opera”.  Isn’t it a beautiful piece of writing. What a pleasure to work with one so talented. 

One Hour Opera is an independent zine project by literarypiano and whilebird and myself. The project documents our impressions of one of the world’s most documented tourist sites, during a recent trip to Sydney.   

Click through to view the magazine on Magcloud.  You can also purchase a shiny, perfect bound print version at the site (it’s less than $10).