Freswick – photos – changing light, changing elements
Scotland: photos – Glencoe, Ullapool, Laird to Wick
ROME
QUEUING IN HEAVEN
QUEUING IN HEAVEN
Can we choose where we sit At the eternal church lunch In that great house of heaven? Do we have to share a room? Could it be โฆ dormitories! What music will there be? What if itโs country With a worship leader. Shall we wear fixed smiles Through eternal centuries Playing games to pass the time? What happens if you are A private person? Will there be queues To meet our heroes While others stand in lonely corners Whistling a quiet tune Looking at their shoes? Shall I sit on the dunceโs chair As befits my dotted line of faith While passers-by With hooded eyes and doubtful lips Assess my long-stay permit application Wait. This is hell. Or else a church weekend away. In heaven, The lines of weak and strong Break in confusion at the thought of God Before a limitless horizon.
THE CRY – LE CRI : A CHRISTMAS POEM (kind of)
THE CRY – Christmas poem
We struggle through life Dragging carrier bags Heavy with what we know But once a year we dream That the world stops running Its habitual course Just long enough For God to put in An appearance But in our city streets Everpresent neons bling and hoot As the wind blows Newspaper around our ankles Weighted with words of All we canโt put right With our clinical knives and surgical gloves Under the lamp of our Great belief in ourselves Hate hisses and swells across the world Meanwhile, hot air escapes From bankers and wise men While love is just a heart Scratched between two names On a toilet door God, in all this ? We look for him In some sweet imagined silent night Snow dulling the worldโs noise Angel voices ever singing Peace in a plastic Snowstorm bubble Village church scene But the cry of the newborn child Deep gasp fighting for life Shout of protest on entering this world And at the status quo Of what we think we know Doesnโt wait for the dream But cuts across time The cry that guides us Never leaves us Calls, through the real Of the then, the now And the will be Bullshits the fiction And fills our lungs in turn With clean air
LE CRI – poรจme de Noรซl
La vie nous encombre de Sacs de courses Chargรฉs de notre sagesse acquise Or une fois par an nous rรชvons Que le monde arrรชte Son cours habituel Juste le temps que Dieu Fasse son entrรฉe Eclair Mais dans nos villes Sous lโรฉternel nรฉon, clinquant, criard Le vent envoie contre nos jambes Du papier journal Lourd de paroles annonรงant Les maux que nous ne pouvons soulager Avec scalpel et gants chirurgicaux Sous la lampe de notre grande Confiance en nous-mรชmes La haine siffle, gonfle ร travers le monde Alors que banquiers et sages Ne brassent que du vent Et lโamour se cantonne en un cลur Taguรฉ entre deux noms Sur la porte des chiottes (pc WC) Dieu dans tout รงa ? Nous lโattendons ailleurs Dans une quelconque nuit Douce, silencieuse, imaginaire Oรน la neige attรฉnue le bruit terrestre Et les anges dans nos campagnes Chantent la paix au village Dans une boule ร neige en plastique Mais le cri du nouveau-nรฉ Qui se bat pour respirer Lance sa protestation Dรจs son entrรฉe dans ce monde Contre le statut quo De ce que nous croyons savoir Et nโattend pas le rรชve Pour transpercer le temps Ce cri qui nous guide Ne nous quitte plus Appelle, au cลur du vrai Dans ce qui รฉtait, qui est, et qui sera Fait taire le pipeau Et remplit enfin nos poumons Dโun air pur
THE LINE – LA LIGNE
VIdeo – Noรฉmie Daval – reader John Featherstone
Vertical line wafer-cotton-thin Top to bottom, heaven to earth Perfection drawing down to gravity Pure line cuts through messed-up years Soul-tearing conflicts, each sideโs tug of war Pulling to displace it, transform it, own it Thread-bare it out of all recognition In order to occupy the centre ground But this plumbline across which the pendulum swings The pivotal point of Every Thing Continues its course Through every nightmare of human emotion The scream, the fury, the nourished resentment Of the woman whose mind has got lost in her life Soiling herself as she hits out at cars The power-crazed, feeding on the hearts of others Childrenโs voices silenced by a real gun Or made adult too soon, souls sold for cash The homeless washing t-shirts in a Paris drain Pride strutting down the sidewalk in smoked-glass shades The complacent me-dom of righteous indifference Its scrapheaps of privilege Paradise to the scavenger The misplaced hope in fairy tales The disappointment in reality Pinned out on a slab with nails between this point and that Left to be picked at by crows This divine line takes the electric charge Of the death-row chair Full on Racked by the voltage from our killing fields 3 days of nothing Before the line resumes where it left off Regains its purity of form and becomes The heartbeat underpinning the world, for ever
Vidรฉo – Noรฉmie Daval – lecteur John Featherstone
Verticale, tรฉnue, filament Haut en bas, ciel ร terre Perfection rencontre gravitรฉ La ligne pure traverse les annรฉes ratรฉes Les conflits ravageurs qui fendent lโรขme Chacun tirant ร la corde pour sโemparer du fil Le transformer, dรฉnaturer, รฉlimer Jusquโร le rendre mรฉconnaissable Afin dโoccuper la place centrale
Et la balance oscille dโun cรดtรฉ, de lโautre De ce fil ร plomb Pivot de Toutes Choses Qui suit son cours A travers chaque cauchemar de lโรฉmotion humaine
Le cri, la fureur, lโamertume nourrie, De la femme dont la vie a dรฉtruit la raison Qui se souille alors quโelle tabasse les voitures Lโaffamรฉ de pouvoir, qui se goinfre de cลurs Les voix dโenfants tues par un vrai fusil Adultes prรฉcoces, รขmes vendues pour le fric Les sans-abris qui lavent leur linge dans un รฉgout parisien Lโorgueil qui se pavane sur les Boulevards derriรจre ses verres tintรฉs Le moi-roi qui se suffit ร lui-mรชme dans son indiffรฉrence vertueuse Les ordures du privilรจge, paradis de lโaffamรฉ Lโespรฉrance mal placรฉe dans les comptes de fรฉe La dรฉception du rรฉel โฆ
Tendue sur une planche, clous รงa et lร Abandonnรฉe aux rapaces Cette ligne divine reรงoit la charge รฉlectrique De la chaise du couloir de la mort de plein fouet Tenaillรฉe par le voltage de nos charniers
Trois jours sans rien โฆ or la ligne reprend Retrouve sa puretรฉ de forme et devient Le battement de cลur qui soutient le monde, ร jamais
SHAPES & LIGHT
SHAPES & LIGHT
GYM STUDIO
GYM STUDIO WORLD
Shrink, priest And confessor The gym coach listens In muscular manner โAnd he said and I said Too much to bear No-go relationship Then thereโs my bossโ Machines pound An hour of energy and sweat Just to stay on one spot Maintain the status quo Radio adverts play Padded child car seats Only the best for you and yours Protection guaranteed Meanwhile In another world The children play With landmines Under the proud eyes Of a Paris shopfront Kids, chips, rugs, dogs Tumble on a mattress Paper cup out for coin Turning billboards Show the limits of our dreams Two-time dating Perfect bodies in sleek cars Cruise down champagne rivers Under the gilt stars of a chandelier The flagpoles of our culture Rattle empty in the wind While the god born through its navel Appears on every screen Grinning empty blessings From the filmscript of its mind Weaving foolsโ gold We make nests in the ruins Sing sweet lullabyes While the eye of a storm Wipes a world away
MEMORY
MEMORY – the decreation
The person she thought that she was Is unravelled by time The seams of her body The paths of her mind The reasoning tongue Now forked All certainty gone The fabric of dreams and of life Full of holes Thoughts flicker and swim Down dim corridors Collide Search alien rooms For half-open doors To throw in some light On who sits in her chair And the shoes that donโt seem To be hers Maybe someone out there Who sewed stars on the night Knows her name
LIGHT
LIGHT
Light fractures On entering earth Has a hard job Staying whole On hitting The atmosphere Diffused shards Give partial sight Fractions of the whole Fragment of certainty We stand on In the world Refracted rays Negated When closed in human fists So, empty handed We fabricate What we cannot own How best reflect Subtle shades of Liquid light Infinite prism? We come up with The neon
Mud at the wall 