High speed, non stop, heading North.

High speed, non stop, heading North.

Heading somewhere that silently screenplays in me as I watch real time scenes unfold and reflect back in that odd merge of inside and out that train windows always hold. All tracks lead to a sandy shore where the breeze is carving pathways of it's own.

Little scenes sing out between the hash of horizontal speed lines. Dead end streets give way to buttercup fields. London lets us go and we tilt into a rising roar, head for the splatter of hedges and ditches that run towards us like rows of wide open arms.

Pulled in beside the road, a flower truck with the side open. Blocks of colour, stocked full. Roses lined up looking out into the fields, roses that only know greenhouses on flat land that lies like a smoothed out quilt, neat with reds here, pinks just so beside the yellow.

Redbrick. Midland town stations. Going too fast to ever know their names. Rows of coaches parked up. Rows of canal barges. Pylons. Chimneys. Square fields of lone horses, noses touching across fences. One runs circles and circles within his white fenced plot. New cables above us, like lines of light. Dip and rise, dip and rise towards each pylon.

Narrow lanes climb the hills. No-one drives them except diving swallows. And I'm dozing in the image merge layering of here and elsewhere, dream and daydream, sepia tinged and weather blasted.

Migrant blackbird

Donna Watson has a beautiful blog called Layers and she has included one of my poems in her latest post which is called Visual Writing. You can read Blackbird, which first appeared here in May, by clicking here. I hope you will take a look as it sits with some excellent and inspirational company.

Thanks Donna. Ax

Treat

Shallows

I run the shallows, the final edge of an ocean of crumpled lace.

Curve in, curve out, slow as a sleeping breath, transparency made visible by neat white stitches at the rim. A final gesture to hem the seam.

This is the lull, a fading back to stillness. The new moon pulls this tide close, keeps it to herself.

And then the rush begins, and she turns like a sigh she's kept in all night and the push rolls up the beach like an ozone kiss, wet beside your ear. Seaweed and sand suddenly scent the rise of air. You'll find them tomorrow on your sheets, though you knew you washed them all away.

Paper hearts

It's lovely to have a piece of writing featured elsewhere. Seth Apter has a blog called The Altered Page and he has included some of my writing in his post today. Thank you, Seth.

"Paper hearts" is one of the short prose pieces from my booklet "Blackthorn" which is available from my esty store (or direct from me if you know me).

Click here if you would like to read "Paper hearts". It's at the end of the post, so scroll down!

Drawing on the wire

Always a good sign, I think - when you unroll your pages from a drawing workshop and the charcoal and pastel dust puffs out at you like it was still on the move.

Here's an upside down pose by Katy aka Spidora, who is an aerialist and wire walker. As soon as she began, I was reminded of those wonderful pastels of circus performers by Degas which I've always loved. She performed for us today at a workshop called "Drawing on the wire", just down the road from me at Fabrica gallery in Brighton. The workshop was one of the events to support and compliment the current exhibition which is "A fine line" by Frederic Geurts which we were lucky enough to sit amongst as we did our drawings. If you take a look at that link, do scroll down on the opening page as there is fascinating series of shots taken by one of the gallery volunteers, Daniel, which shows the exhibition in construction.

To be honest, it was an absolute treat to be sitting beside his pristine steel pylons in such a great space and when Katy began work, it all felt like a private show. Wonderful wonderful wonderful and of course, because she was in motion a lot, very difficult. My insides went GULP at the start when I first looked at my blank paper.

However, I told myself I hadn't gone there to gulp and selected a lovely bendy twig to do some ink drawings with. Never happier than when I have ink on my fingers, away I went, although much of it was seriously off the mark and will fuel my next bonfire. So, here's an inky piece of wire walking with an umbrella which I felt reasonably happy with.

And here's an aerial pose, hanging from the delicious white silk that she managed to twist around her feet as she found rest.

But there were so many tiny moments that I could never have captured in drawings. They made for such a memorable session. Here's one that just makes me smile.

Mint

It's the scent that draws you closer, leads you down the winding path.

One purple chive flower has burst through the waist high stems, optimistic for founding a new colony in this old tin bath. It's the greenest patch on the Summer dried plot. The breeze ruffles through the leaves, sounds papery in the sudden shadows of evening. The leaves brush like unexpected felt through your fingers as you break stems that gasp out their perfume. Under the apple tree you make mint tea.

We sip through the twilight. Watch the plants turn to dark silhouettes.

The flutterby survey

The leaning teasel is just coming into flower. Always breaking into a pale purple ring, half way, like a tennis headband that would hide your frown. Hover fly heaven. Humming hub of all for one and all on one note. And I could give in and let that delicious unison bring me to shut-eye, except, the butterfly survey chart is in my hand.

The fennel heads are bending with the weight of a ladybird gathering. Festive against the new yellow, they make each stem dance and bob. Some wear colours I've never seen. A beige one with orange spots catches my eye.

Bees are frantic in the thyme, happy that it's flowering again this year. Busy, bizy, bizzy. Three types loop and regroup. Methodical, possessed, ecstatic.

Pale confetti flits past my head, almost brushes my cheek. What I'm supposed to be looking at. Their favourite marjoram sways and flickers with their wayward contrary crowd. A white, many types that are orange and brown, and some smaller solitudes in the low stems that might be moths. They tussle over the choicest flower-heads like sale bargains, their unfamiliar names a flighty wash I cannot grasp.

And then, three blues blossom down. I'm meant to be counting them, checking a list, seeing which are the commoners and which are rare. I'm trying to see if they are all one species, but they are taking me away into wondering if they are flakes of fine porcelain adventuring out of the patterns on the tall jug you chipped on the tap by accident, as you filled it for buddleia.