Arts Articles
Garden lessons
There is more than one way of calling in the seed. A woman may sit in a garden of young blossoms showing their faces to sun for the first time, and wait for words to take root. Soil knows the spell of waiting just as the robin knows the right...
Ashes and diamonds
There are no diamonds in the ashes of despair. Anger writhes along each cortège as broken souls go down to brandished flags and guns. Hope seems lost.
Listening post
Silence is hardly pure. Life engenders Breathing aloud, spider steps, and white noise – Your nerves fretting to their own agendas – But there seems to be a spirit that employs What rises from near quiet. Just recall When Elijah, bloodied by raw righteousness, In hiding unclear how fate might befall, Heard...
The dance
Not like Matisse’s ‘Dance’, as Touch for now, is merely a hopeful thing, and for them, not a dancing ring of five; nor, it seems, just communal friendship, but something more: a longing to embrace, but never quite achieving that closeness.
Jerusalem Odessa
Walk upon the rubble In the Odessa Bar of Jerusalem, they were drinking shell shock from the clouds, by whatever name this place is known no one loves them as much as this; walk upon the rubble, except perhaps their own camouflage leaders. and the collateral crucifixion, Imported weapons of...
Wake brain
WAKE BRAIN, DRAW BREATH, CRY LIFE Return once more to consciousness, the roar of being, of seeing half-bright galaxies roaming overhead, of struggles in foaming floods of alien...
Dear diary
I am so sorry that once again today I have not been able to save the world. Somehow there is never enough time. Problems arise in unexpected places and so, because of me, once more the world will fall apart. All my fault. Of course.
Meeting
Breath held – while still idling in and out. Breath as a bubble, something caught and sealed. Breath expanding then, becoming its own country, world, see: whole continents of breath.
Odessa Cathedral, July 2023
The rash of wounded cities spreads across the map; I walk Odessa in my mind once more, to join a festival of loss, of torn-up friendships in a poisoned land. Into this sacred space we came together with knees which faithful bent, with lips which kissed the antique ikon of...
Neediness
Some things you may not need any more than an earthworm needs a toothpick. And some needs can be habits in which you’ve snuggled far too comfortably. Of course, some people might assert that you need to mend your ways – to suit their...