CosmiKnot

You are in a semi-trendy coffee shop come bar on Long Acre, WC2, on a fine day in May at some point during the turn of the century. You do that half getting up thing to shake the hand of the man who has just joined your company. He is boyishly handsome with a certain rugged traveller’s masculine quality. He reminds you of your best friend at school who had the same easy self-confidence, arising from good-looks and physical presence. This is Michael says Kevin the man who has invited you here today. Earlier Kevin told you that you would be joined by the son of Ronnie Biggs and so when you shake hands there is a mutual acknowledgement in the brief locking of eyes, that you are meeting the son of someone connected. Quite why the son of a great train robber is at your meeting is not something you can answer easily but somehow fits in with the felt intensity of being on the brink of something. It’s a feeling you often experienced during your time with Humbug Records. Humbug were a tiny labe...

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...

  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 ...

The Poor Door A collective exhibition tackling London’s housing crisis A-side B-side Gallery Amhurst Terrace E8 2BT Opening night: 1.10.15 6-9pm Show dates: 1.10.15 - 11.10.15 Gallery opening hours: 12-6pm Weds-Sun Artlicks Weekend: 2-4 October www.artlicksweekend.com www.asidebsidegallery.com @Aside_Bside_ @artlicks @TinselEdwards Curated by Tinsel Edwards Alison Berry, Rebecca Byrne, Tinsel Edwards, Mikey Georgeson, Mars Gomes, Kin, Lee Maelzer, Reena Makwana, S.P.A.R Society for the Preservation of Admirable Rubble (with Brian Guest courtesy of Calum F Kerr), Tom Rizzuto, Julia Russell. “This Ghetto crowding is not through inclination, but compulsion.” It’s 2015 and we are in the midst of a major housing crisis in the capital. In 1903, Jack London wrote ‘The People of the Abyss’, a book describing the cramped living conditions and experiences of the poor in...