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
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
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
hoops
for Donny
Byker Allotments
Roger
lights
black
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
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
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
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
thorn
the trolley
is cooling
its wheels
Ouseburn
we are
the debris
of time
as the cosmologists assert
