No-one knew if he was falling or rising, laughing or crying, lost or found. They couldn’t reach him or understand him, so they simply ignored him.
The Pilot
Category: Poetry and stories
Some of my artwork has accompanying stories and poetry. Here it is.
Peter and Paul
Paul hatched eggs from the warmth of his hat and the birds carried his thoughts far and wide. His brother brought twigs for the nest, and food for the young, and together they reared a flock of pure and fine creatures. Even when Peter saw the approaching danger, it was already too late to halt the spread of their winged messengers.
The Believers
An eccentric life indeed; literary arguments, philosophical discussions, politics and pamphlets, marching and music – and sixty years of quiet love.
The Family
They gathered for the portrait from all corners of the house, interrupting games, prayers, tapestry and business. They and the photographer waited in uneasy silence for Aunt Ingrid to finish her blessing and for little baby Jolly to stop his infernal laughing…
The Patient
When all the clamour and madness of the world grew too much to bear, he retreated to the safety of the inside. Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil – even his blood ceased to flow in his veins. He was aware of being helped, but was serenely happy in the knowledge that one day they’d simply stop trying.
Moondaisy
Out of her long ago lost days of darkness, she awakes to find a star growing inside her heart.
The heavy world falls away as she begins to weave, in her slow, intricate, intimate years of dreaming. No colour is missing, no feeling unexplored. Innocent eyes and tender hands nurture this flower of cruelty and love, horror and wonder.
As time passes, shapeshifters with woven haloes come calling; Angels and Animals, Purehearts and Poets, the Almost-born and the Strange; stealing threads and kisses, leaving colours and curios. Every touch is entwined in the pattern.
And when she takes her leave of the slowly turning world, she will wrap and roll herself in the heart of her creation and unravel into the endless, unknowing night.
And maybe her essence will rain down into the dreams of the dark world, seeding the open minds of a precious few.
And maybe they will wake with a star in their own hearts, and a new, hard brightness in their blood.
Wonderful and curious
Across the season’s endless tides
These dervish days are spinning,
Most wonderful and curious –
The skulls beneath are grinning
Lost in seas of colour,
A Ship of Fools; an Ocean of Stars;
We shall all escape the grasp of Time –
We are beautiful and bizarre…
I speak of you
‘I speak of you until the dawn remains;
in the world, of your love, of your fame
…until your heart remains’
– Farsi verse from Iran 1200-1220AD
Faith
Submerge yourself in faith and take a close look at its microscopic, exotic, idiotic nature.
You may as well let go – and swim for it.
Baby
Her past life was washed away in the fresh blue womb, and she burst forth, reborn and re-engineered, as a biological miracle – no longer a stranger in a strange land, but a new child in a wondrous world…