CosmiKnot

  Be more Organismed   Whilst walking with my two sons to ward off depression, anxiety and in my case fibromyalgia, the eldest turned to me and asked, do you think you could build a nest with your mouth? I thought for a bit and was understandably taken aback. How do they know how to make the structure in triangles he went on? I’m not sure they know how we consider knowing to be. They don’t have an instruction manual to follow. It’s more a case of the knowledge being part of their body. My son started to say something about them being programmed. But who is controlling them he asked? At this point I felt that this idea of control is perhaps the greatest stumbling block to expanded empathetic thought that there is. God used to be the controller so who or what is in control now that he is dead?    After being thrown in at the deep end with affect theory during my doctorate in fine art I have become more and more interested in the idea of embodied understanding and the analogy of birds bei

I once went to a funeral in Norwood of the neighbour opposite A widower who fought in the Korean War, lent me a book on Darwin as well as The Origin of Species. The vicar told the one about going to another room And I espied in my mind's eye the pale lime green shiney embossed wall-paper interior A water colour of a boat on the sea hanging forlornly on the wall Roy had had stomach pains for a while Try peppermint tea I suggested In my new father's alternative wisdom Nothing will shift it he says a month later It's cancer he politely tells us a few days after. His son, a nomadic young man, comes to stay When his father dies we hope he will remain. Take on the house but he doesn't want the bother doesn't want the legacy the what's its name? the responsibility. Is that how we do it then? Tell ourselves we have a responsibility to suffer? hello Mr Burden  I'm your responsible adult Roy's just gone to another room says the vicar forgetting that the whole conc

Here is a poem An if not now when? *Passes the binoculars Think of it like a bird-table hanging from a goat-willow tree Somewhere for the sparrows to arrive upon and take succour inside its damp moss covered form A miniature primitive hut evoking the majesty of Corinth Suspended for a moment mid-air seeds spilling to the ground below Birds twitching like anti-matter bulbs in an inverted roadside illumination beckoning drivers to stop and grab some nutritious sustenance a bite to eat before continuing on their way to the final destination the museum of human endeavour. 

  Why do young people walk so slowly? Content to saunter and gently chat About the mornings course or this and that I genuflect for youth is holy   Why do young people walk so slowly? Behind them I must trail and stumble My ears eaves drop the words they mumble I cannot understand their manners wholly   Why then do young people walk slowly? Legs languidly stretched across my path A head softly turns and I hear a laugh Its muted echo repeats come follow me      

Today I walked up Den Hill Past the museum with its historic recipe for gingerbread Through the Carfax with a memorial for the war dead I did all this whilst sitting still  Today I walked up old Den Hill Into the park where, as a child, I watched a re-enactment of the American Civil-War Down past football pitches where I longed a spectacular goal to score I did all this whilst sitting still Today I walked upon Den Hill Up past the Co-op that was once a Spar and before that a Vivo Behind the house where I grew up kicking a ball against a wall, a place we had to leave though I did all this whilst sitting still Today I took a walk up to Den Hill Past Waterstone's the bookshop serving coffee and posting handwritten recommendations  About life changing insights and transformative story-telling sensations I did all this whilst sitting still Today I walked up to Den Hill Down the Causeway towards the old Parish Church Through the golden daffodils in the graveyard where for Shelley's l

A song created for Blakefest 2020 by David Devant and his Spirit Wife. Inspired directly by William Blake's vision of Albion:  Grass - green screen- green screen grass - analogue - virtual - virtual - actual - green green screen - grass - lawn - earth - pixel take everything and make it matter for expression and the virtual weaves with the actual in fiery visions. There’s something magical about grass as a green screen when one considers how William Blake found the virtual in the material. released for Blake's birthday on Corporate records

No one cares what you think.  Freudian analysis is the multi-storey  carpark of the human as mind.  We approach the child’s fort  where we hold the figures  ready for battle as if we know the truth.  I want to cry because I feel  there is no victory  because victory is failure  or rather submission.  Are you following this outline?  This sketch? Death  ah yes congratulations  you spotted it up ahead.  Here is the Kantian hearse  drawn by the feather-headed  black horses the glass glinting in the sun.  Here is the Lord of the flies  swallowing old ladies  who cannot shine his silver up to standard.  Here too is Plato spinning his way  back to his correct position.  Here is Zizek brum brumming his cars  down the ramps of a wooden multi-storey carpark  the  glossy  smell of the paint still lingering  years after his uncle built it for him.  I want to cry. Cry cry cry.  Or was it weep ? What’s the difference?

The garden light is blinking Its power from the sun diminished Hearing aid bleeps dying signal finish Through clouds the moon is sinking Alert the royal astronomer I've never heard of such a phenomenon The end of our world will have been and gone before I can pass this news on to her So she can arrest said titanic projectile before it plummets into the ocean And I'll freely declare my devotion taking care to address her in the correct style The moon dives through a gap in the clouds That seem to stand so perfectly still On the air hangs a will that is fetid and ill Wrapping the earth in its shroud

  I haven’t had hearing aids all my life I hear virtually and my brain interprets the sounds This sounds rather like one of those cassette players That you used to play with as a child The ones that turn all sound into a sharply defined clunk Even the air seems to have sounds on these recording devices I think because I chose to get hearing aids Rather than having them bestowed upon me My body enfolded the technology into my being Adapted to this hissing realm of warp and woof The wow and flutter are enfolded into my sensory order Make sure your equipment is working properly Is your turn table rotating evenly? Slow and fast quick quick slow "Rose and iris and carnation" all have their meaning in themselves.  This is why no matter how hard I try to say something  my meaning is best heard when I'm singing.  

  Someone suggests that Deleuze is a romantic and I think that this is because they are accessing his ideas through spatial thought. He is not a wanderer above a sea of fog he is perhaps a paraglider in the fog landing on a field he hasn’t yet identified. But even this is a useless analogy if we maintain the critical distance of the observer inside a human command module, processing the sense data and verifying it with reason. The romantics sensed that this was a limited mode of understanding but somehow maintain it by opposing it so whole heartedly. When I’m wandering on a landscape such as Kinder Scout I might sometimes consult my map to get my bearings and experience that strange thrill of connecting my reasoned position with my immersed experience of being within in the primordial rock forms. The snow on the west side of these amorphous protrusions defines their shape in a sculptural manner I think. This is the first path where public access was established I think. The right of wa

  It’s a how many layers? kind of day The sun is out but further away A scanning the station piazza  For whose wearing what morning A fur trimmed parka comes out Without warning With autumnal clarity Overcoated punctuality Beard sprouting from underneath surgical mask New normal actuality Stick up man ticket collector Hello stranger I’m sure I once met you Back in the old times When did this all begin? Please wear your face Covering correctly It must be over the nose To work effectively. I’m working up a head of steam Heading for platform two Hope I wake up from this dream  pen my eyes and see you It’s a how many layers  kind of day Always wear a vest when work rest or play It’s the same but different Life with brand new insertions More terms and conditions And upgraded versions Now your train won’t be stopping There’s no time for hesitation It’s the refrain we are adopting At this our final destination Buddleia railings ivy and brambles Layer upon layer of signs, poin s and cables Fai

    Anna Fairchild BA (Hons) MA DFA   Song of the Fig and Apple, 2020 The film takes its reference, in part, from William Blake’s  Songs of Innocence and Experience; Holy Thursday, published in 1789. Is this a holy thing to see In a rich and fruitful land, Babes reduced to misery, Fed with cold and usurous hand? Is that trembling cry a song? Can it be a song of joy? And so many children poor? It is a land of poverty! And their sun does never shine, And their fields are bleak and bare, And their ways are filled with thorns: William Blake moved from London to Felpham on Thursday 18 th  September 1800. On arrival he mentions the wind, trees, birds and the air in a letter to his patron Thomas Butts. The experience of the abundant garden and landscape around Felpham, with a vision of God on the beach at Bognor Regis had a life changing effect on Blake.  Apple and fig trees often appear symbolically in biblical and other religious texts; the apple falling from the tree and eaten by Adam and

 What's the inside of a third year chemistry student's house like? Like this you realise all o a sudden O would some power the gif he gi us Your son the 3rd year chemistry student is ushering you up the stairs towards his small but surprisingly practical bedroom Past the checkered laundry bags which will never know the comforting ever so slightly uplifting aroma of bold bio blue tinged washing powder And instead partially conceal hypothetical (never to be rebuilt) shelving units and well intended veg racks You're trying too hard a voice at your back reminds you as you briefly greet two healthy  tanned and confident housemates One of whom briefly assists you with assembly of your sons desk You have by now learned not to try and be funny Just get in and get the job done Not out of shame or ennui But Love and now though dost protest too much And this is the inside of a third year chemistry students house Behind the white stucco walls Of a third year chemistry student's hou

The human brain contains The old chestnut That the outside world Does not exist unless He observes it This is the Lands End Of concrete specificity The model requiring that We keep stepping outside To check things Pass muster No we declare there is no such limit No lands end There is something in this Such is the sanctity of the concrete And perhaps  Leibniz was closer With the reckoning Of a miasma of Specific points of view Each a subjective position Defined by the point of view But even this requires Total faith in the misplaced concreteness Of simple localisation And who here is willing To commit the heretical act Of claiming the cosmos does not revolve Around the human brain?

  We three super kings   We three kings dispersed Over the kingdom’s surface Scratching our heads as we Gaze up at the same ceiling Our sheets damp with dew Undulating as molluscs perform Before our eyes We behold our return Back or was it forward? Ours is not to reason why There’s a cobweb on the cornice Cracked plaster edging Is this our limit? We chime Your hand my hand his hand Feeling for some cool sheet I was a terrible heir And I regret those statements I posited that you banked upon But now I’m left counting the stars One is so very difficult to keep Count of: don’t take your eyes off it You say looking straight ahead I love the smell and feel of sand Beneath the camels’ hooves I passed an old friend The other day Why isn’t he here? He’s busy keeping his hand in You say smiling Like a plaster matelot Will we make it in time For midnight’s mass I wonder? But I know the thought Is just grist As the mill thunders on And in the distance the sun Is rising over the bedframe Your pyja

  Outcrop   This soon to be the heir to The skin stretched camping chair The wanderer above the lakes Cuts a distinctive figure Upon a dry-stone wall Plastic adventurer’s camera in hand Arise sir win-a-lot Reborn without cuticles Magnificent in discreet isolation Child man elect Ribbing the yellow gardens Of dawn’s early sitting Soot settling on your cheeks You will wipe that smile Off the escarpment’s Skittering fossil face Skimming one for luck Out of the corner of your Daddy’s eye For you are the daddy  Now and forever There’s no going back No looking down The view churns over leaf Bite sized reminders On the back of your hand You feel held Back and back we go Are we there yet?

 Oh M G Mikey G If I could write poetry yesterday I opened and read an email instructing me how to compose poetry kill me now it should have said Like I was like do you remember poetry like? Oh yes sort of I mean wasn't that something they used to do at Christmas? No you're thinking of funerals Ah yes i remember. Well Scientists have discovered how you do it Well you see its this weird thing you imagine a feeling thats beyond words and then somehow say it in words Then you think of someone you love Living or passed on and you write down all the things about them that cause them to be endearing But this must include their wonky smile Because their wonky smile shows how unique how quirky and truly deserving of a poem they are Then you go for a walk (easy now a days) either in your head of for real And you mix up the walk and the person And Bob's your Uncle And Fanny's your unremembered gate. Hey pesto you are a poet and you didn't know it. Are you telling me this is a

  I’ve just watched Midsommar straight after watching Hereditary last night. This morning I wrote a poem about how it made me feel (wake up art I thought you were dead). Essentially the poem is about how I’ve noticed that art is a way we access the excess or the shadow in films. Think about all those serial killer’s sketch pads prepared by the film’s art directors. Hereditary had the sketch books of the Milly Shapiro character and the aesthetic of what turned out to be a cult of Satanists, whereas Midsommar took this much further into a whole complex ritualistic culture of a remote Swedish village. Anyone whose been near to my recent art making will have perhaps picked up my obsession with aesthetic ontology. I like to think that art can speculate about a culture that places feeling at the core – hence aesthetic ontology – this is what the village of Hargar in the film started to represent to me. In this realm, however, we do not abandon reason and our ability to problem solve using in

Now that's what I call now   You have to admit that Gary Numan may well have had a point But that is the point isn’t it? Isn’t it After all, why should there be a point other than the total of the form itself? Perhaps we are required to listen to his song in the car to experience the fleeting infinity of mind body machine model immersion. Conveniently his single is a singularity in no dimensions And journalism is the calculus of the music world with paper doilies on Gary sings sung sang here in my car I feel safest of all. I can write that down Here on this page And it stops before my eyes The ink drying as I resist the temptation to smear the words Make them less sure of themselves. I did think it might be good to discuss this In the style of Sylvia Plath But that would be derivative Do you see what I did there? I planted a clue for the stalkers out there My fellow stalkers stalking the thing we call the point But you have to talk quietly and keep your distance Or it becomes an ac

Rachel Searle of Blakefest suggested that as curator of the festivals's Corona Visions show, I respond to the ruling that Poetry will be optional in the next GCSE syllabus: This sylla-bus is a coach driving through the boundless Amazonian forest via the wilds of Siberia with a well-tended bed of specimens and flowers down each side of the interior. The people on the bus believe this is the limit of knowledge, after all you could spend a life time analysing the bus’s botanical cargo. Poetry has been a lifeline during the lockdown and presumably most people have accessed it via their computers and yet the reason given by Ofqual is that respondents to their consultations have “highlighted the difficulties for students in trying to get to grips with complex literary texts remotely”. What they mean is that there is difficulty translating the individual responses to observable measurements. You see there is a limit to what observable measurements can tell us otherwise why not just have