Rest Pieces
nicolette clara iles shares a DIY surrealist collage poem on liminal spaces of rest, dreaming, and reality
Based in thinking around the ‘Repetition of Rest’ with DIY surrealist methods, Nicolette’s twisting, turning poem lives in the liminal space between sleep and consciousness. They explore rest and inertia, fleeting thoughts and solid earth, and how the body transforms in/between these states.
Rest Pieces
gasp pause gasp move
still stillness, in and out of being
1
I rest, sluggishly, shell spiraling round into myself.
I rest, dreamily, whilst dreams are too vivid to comprehend.
I rest, but it is not rest at all.
2
rest as a standstill.
rest as being the rest.
rest as existing defiantly.
defiance with lack.
defiance with inertia.
defiance with energetic intensity.
living with toes tread in duality.
soothe these wounds in silence.
transformed, we live in multiple worlds.
transformed, both of the living and the dead.
transformed, an unmovable verb, transforming.
sometimes, it is like breathing underwater.
sometimes, it is.
sometimes, it is like shuffling into mud.
sometimes, it is.
I become creature-like, as I always was.
3
hibernating in eternal time.
when will the seasons change?
I move like change itself,
shapeshifting as turning sky.
as a twisting emerges,
I curl into myself.
Gastropod, both on land and slick like water.
stomach-churning bewilderment at this smallness.
With each day, a new part of the body speaks.
on the edge of catatonic empty space
aware and unaware
it looks like stillness
and it is chaos
4
touched by weather,
effects in the body
uncertain as peering through fog
rest by being swallowed whole
swirled amongst a bed of unrest
rest by the unnamableÂ
speaking all day long
tiresome is the task
sludged in dream
dreaming awake
am I missing out on reality?
the drudge of being asleep
wakes up parts of the self
that haven’t been conscious
for a time innumerable
counting like a clock
time ticks with the sheep
and yet I am always sleeping,
and always awake.
nicolette clara iles (they/them) - is a british/jamaican disabled visual artist and writer, using the mediums of poetry & photography with an exploration of themes of interconnectedness, generational lineages & altered surrealist neurological states.Â
You can find more of nicolette’s work on Instagram.
This post is part of the Substack series, ‘On Rest’. Each of the disabled and chronically ill creatives featured receives a remuneration of £50 (made possible by an Edge Fund grant).
If you would like to share your reflections On Rest, please get in touch! If you are financially able, please consider a paid subscription to resting up collective’s Substack to support our work. As ever, thank you for being part of our slow space.