offstage

 

9 offstage (from exhibition) 

sketch in pencil on very thin paper

a man walks into a room

sits on a chair at a table

the room itself is suggested

by the presence of the chair and the table

not by the man    he drums his fingers

on the hard wooden surface of the table

he fidgets with a pencil   makes tentative scratches on the air

he feels the unbending wooden chair beneath his buttocks

his feet solid on the undrawn floor of this room   and he doubts

he sees a door he looks out a window in the undelineated walls of this room

 

a giant eraser descends from the unseen ceiling … and the prayer

body

4 body  (from exhibition)

Sculpture - unfired clay

in the architecture of himself

this church the vaulted bone holding up his sky

the light streaming in staining the air crossing space

a diagonal narrative of colour of shape and source

the nativity the naivety the congregants in the nave

on his knees stouping supping the stirred water

running over this skull the cleansing of the confessional

a change of skin in the sacristy an alterity served upon the altar

flesh and blood on the hands held out here’s the steeple open the door

hands in the mud here’s the power the white and the grey to build a tower   to body a god            

self-portrait

1 self-portrait  (from exhibition) 

watercolour on torn-out unlined notebook paper 

white washed out on white paper

a loss of integrity a dried-out watermark face

liable to tear lost to all but memory-fake 

folded unfolded kept in a pocket of air

locked breath held under water   disintegrate   disappear  

landscape

 

2 landscape (from exhibition)

oil on canvas 

a ploughed field   an old man’s hands

rutted and veined   tendons and tendrils

the turned earth turning   the wind pulling at the rain

browns against greys thick in the air a figure canted over

stick-like bent bending into against a sky under the weight of the horizon  

striated cloud a promised sun lost   the touch strokes of rinsed etiolated ochre 

nicotine-stained fingers a claw holding on   the nails digging in

for want of a needle and thread

 

4 for want of a needle and thread  (from qualia)

in his pockets

a map

a train ticket

a packet of seeds

some keys

money

a handwritten note

his hands    the fists clenched

gripping the holes

through which life had bled out  

drenched the soil  

caul

1 caul   (from qualia)

does it still itch

this skin you were born in

sealed   vacuum-packed

kept in a drawer by the bed

the cap that does not fit    yet   

you will swim   and you will drown

a hapless Lucky lumbered with baggage

Lucky chained to the end of the never-ending chain

running   a skinny-dipper out on the town

out on a limb in limbo dancing on the ropes

bending over backwards   down

on your knees to accept this … 

this gift …  this crown   still scratching

the head pushing through   an egg still hatching  

unwrapping itself    gaining ground