dailies

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