Blog Archive

Tuesday 19 April 2011


april dailies


how does Heather in London
know to tell me

that the primula scotica
have come through in Orkney



better to fall
than cling on
and rot

(last years apple, in the garden of Huntly Arts Centre)



M / F

gendered cables , Ingleby Gallery, Edinburgh



all my
failures

are turning to
honey

after Machado
beehives of the Dunblane &
Bridge of Allan Beekeepers, Stirling University



after the party
we're heavier
than air

for Martin Creed 
at Lucy & Andy's; Pascoe's balloons



"it's a craft – like knitting
you take two needles
but one thread
could unravel the whole thing"

a French actress, on marriage



full

moon                   heart

rising


Byker Bridge, view over the Ouseburn
toward my studio in Lime Street



LESS THAN A CALL OR SONG

tweet



the path from making
to accepting
begins with making

for Jeremy Millar



KAGENUMA

Mirror Pond

with Jon Thomson & Alison Craighead
Kagenuma is one of the destinations Basho and Sora visit
on the journey described in the Oku-no-hosomichi.
Basho offers the teasing remark that it was cloudy
on the day that they passed by



3 of the admiral’s oaks
turned to gold

ready to be impaled
on a divided shield

per pale azure & gules a chevron or
The new heraldic coat of arms for Kate Middleton
The oaks represent her family home at Bucklebury, Berkshire.
The oaks are said to have been scattered by Admiral Collingwood
on his return from Trafalgar, in order that the English Navy
would never be short of ship’s timber
Middleton’s arms will be ‘impaled’ with those
of her new husband when they marry



"ex-
hausted

by
blood"

(as said by a doctor, Misrata, 20.IV.11)
i.m. Tim Hetherington



laying on
the sun

painting on
the gold

walking in Clerkenwell with Iain Pate, we happened on 2 women
on ladders working on the railings around a churchyard.
At first it seemed that they might be stripping off
the gold under orders from Mayor Boris; they were
in fact renewing the gold leaf



piss-
head

Taraxum officinale




piss-
head
 droop

Taraxum officinale



tented
seeds

tended
greens

Byker Allotments



doing
various
dishes

listening to
selected
verses

James' house, Old Trafford, Manchester
after a reading at The Other Room
James makes it a rule to read, or if he can't read
then to listen, to 30 minutes' poetry each day



Dragonfly Pond, Iris Brickfield, Newcastle



fern
finds

its
home

in
stone

Ingleby Gallery car-park, Edinburgh



gean
again

(later addition by a passerby)

not again
this time

University of Newcastle



in the little while
I was away

the rowans un-
furled its fingers

Cumberland Arms steps



wobbly kids
their first yellow
dandelion

City Farm, Byker



last year's
old greens

and croquet
hoops

for Donny
Byker Allotments



Roger
lights
 black

Roger
smiles
back

for Roger Ackling
after the opening of his exhibition at the Cairn Gallery, Pittenweem



sun
flames

the
tulip

Virginia Woolf described an orgasm as a match
lit inside the flower of a tulip



the heart
fankles

to see clouds
and mountains

in the
faraway

dreaming of the hosomichi of the Highlands



the heart’s a
valve
the heart’s a
bell

Bel Engineering
on the banks of the River Tyne



wheels under
willows on
the margin

Ouseburn



hours
only
find
their
order
after
they
scatter



the paulownia
of Place D’italie

still bloom
from 1700–1900

for Agnes Varda, after 'Cleo from 5 to 7'



the gull
knows
before the sun
goes

opposite Stills Gallery, Edinburgh
opening of Ruth McLennan's 'Anarcadia'
after a scene of Edinburgh at dusk
described by a friend

this inspired a companion poem

watching
the sun

gild the
gulls
under-
wing



we both give her tea
one of us wonders

which side of the cup
she drinks from ?



what a
fool

will
find

at the
rain-

bow's
end

in the woodland above the Ouseburn Valley, Newcastle



nights
cave’s
made

from
the
inside

after Celan, loosely



As part of a regime of self-medication
I recently began injecting vitamins
taking the needle
one day at a time

(Magnesium Sulfate 05ml)





getting used to
the needle
just another day

(Cyanocobalamin 05ml)



HEIR OF AIR

blossom

a one-word poem
on the white of the blackthorn
first tree to blossom in the Ouseburn Valley


I added a companion poem-label the next day

a strong
centre

so as to
blow

around
in the wind



adaptation of a postcard, ' Ideas'
by Ian Whittlesea, published by Peter Foolen
made during my illness as part of a body of work
titled 'Counterpane projects'



sure of her way
seeing the world

upside down
or sdrawkcab gnidaer

tied on a friend's handbag at the opening of
Jeremy Millar's exhibition at CCA, Glasgow



the distance
from Counterpane to here

is measured
in breaths

this was the first poem-label I tied
as a marker of the beginning of my recovery
from a 3 month illness



The next day I added this companion poem
in a blackthorn bush

nested
in
thorn



the trolley
is cooling
its wheels

Ouseburn



we are
the debris
of time

as the cosmologists assert



1 comment:

  1. Hi, Lovely stuff. I met your Father back in 2001 and on my return home to Australia i created a sculpture in his honour. This is one of a series of photo collage work. One of the prints i donated to the Garden History Museum in London when i spoke there for Vista lecture series in 2008. See http://williammartinswigandiaagardenofthesun.blogspot.com/2011/06/ihf-ian-hamilton-finlay.html
    Best Wishes
    William Martin

    ReplyDelete