America

Red Collection

From Morecambe to Berlin

A selection of poems

Here is a selection of my poems. Some have already inspired artwork in various media. Others may become starting points for new projects. Some will stand alone as the written word.

Hey cowboy

Hey cowboy-

How was your road trip.

It’s cold and I’m drinking cocktails.

The swing dance band is playing hard-

So let it-

Dance.

Sweetheart-

I like the way you shake your tail feathers.

Each and every word a poem.

Come back to mine and let limbs tangle till dawn.

No heartache will happen-

Or dive into your own dreams and stroke away your own desires.

Darling-

Don’t cry-

Because in my mind, in my mind’s eye,

The sky is glorious,

Not purple and polka dot,

And you are the queen of the bees’ knees.

Honeychild-

Hold my hand-

The swing dance band is playing.

Lets-

Follow the people with the painted faces,

And the dark green bottles in their hands-

Rejoicing-

To scrape the stars into a dirty jar-

With long and pointed nails.

Into an exquisite pot of jam,

To gaze at till

Days-

Long-

Gone-

Fade-

Into rivers of chocolate milk on the floor.

Go fetch a straw-

Brothers of blues and lovers of so much more,

And we will drink it all.

Long island ice tea, darling.

Kiss me nice darling,

The circus and the clown

 Will spin round and round-

And let them.

Thumbel

When we first found her she sat on the palm of his hand.

Told us- she lived in a box of paints.

She was three inches tall and would spit on her feet in a strop- march up and down

The watercolours- muddying the pigment.

She sat on the scarlet for hours and cried herself a blood bath.

There she would ponder the cigarette musk of his scent.

He loved me and that was that. But I was jealous- sometimes.

The way she would sit on his pallet-

Watching the violet blend with the blue. She would swing from the brushes

In the jam jar. Giddy-

She would slide into the murky water, press her tiny face against the stained glass,

A miniature mermaid. Blowing bubbles.

She didn’t have to bother with airs and graces.

The anxiety of keeping a roof over your head. When you work

All hours in a crippling, crippling office-

And he paints away his pain.

Recovery

And my mother said,

There’s signs of spring all around the garden,

The blackberry bush

Has buds on it and I’ve planted new anemones,

underneath the sycamore tree.

And my daddy said,

He just drags it out there,

Leonard Cohen.

From the pit

of a thousand overflowing ashtrays,

and a lake of brandy.  

and

the brittle days they blister.

Throw hope across the cold salt sea.

Seven years bad luck-

fucked me over-

fucked me up.

I wrap green ribbons in my hair and smash another mirror.

She was outstanding.

As in she stood out from the crowd, as if she wasn’t allowed to fit in, in anyway, and anyway she was a filthy little liar.

If she told you it was raining you’d go to the window sure to find the sun.

A backstabber, a twisted tongue – deep fried, her mouth was black with lies. She told me-

It’s not gonna work.

I’m a really dirty flirt-

With anyone once I’ve had a drink.

And besides I think I’m a lesbian.

She was outrageous.

A royal pain, a royal pain in the neck, whipping up a paranoid frenzy and smoking so many cigarettes you were sure she longed to die.

I found her crying in the toilets.

I found her crying in the rain. I found her crying out to the grey blue day, tearing down wallpaper in her newly done up house.

And I don’t know how she did it.

Holding our desires in the palm of her hand and squeezing, suffocating compassion, with two faced  change and lack of giving a shit.

But she was not a sex offender, a dog walker or the chief of police.

She told me-

I used to be reserved but since then I’ve spread my legs like Lurpack and I don’t deserve your love or that of the next man.

Wearing purple stockings she was-

An attention seeker, a cat catcher, a sexy dancer, a feather in the breeze.

A curly haired, pale face, freckled thing, whose “crazy” leaked out all over the shop floor,

Demanding the right to return a bag she’d shoplifted a week before,

Looking for a cure for loneliness.

And she told me like butterscotch-

Nutha notch,

The 88^th,

In a chamber full of flames.

You were stupid to fall for me.

Photographs from final exhibition

Here are some photographs of the sculptural pieces from my final exhibition.

The final exhibition included feathers soaked in gin.

Shedding skin chairs and shoes.

A crib of thorns.

There was also a film the link can be found here -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXhMROQnU6M

Ideas that I have developed and explained previously in the blog.

Blue shoes red glove

I experimented with blue shoes and a red glove, both as single objects and also as an exploration of age and damage.

I felt some of the most interesting pictures were close up of the blue shoe and the red glove wrapped around it in an almost womb like structure.

I also took photographs of single baby shoes.