CosmiKnot

Hawk what light through yonder a broken window awakens? It is the east and Deptford is the Sun you are startled awake once again by the sound of the rowster the Dauster lovingly known as Ginger as he bellows the theme tune to the stirring movie of cosmic Love and War where all is fair. This film is not so popular nowadays but one day will hold the entire world in its transactional matinee group in for a penny in for a pound tick-tock tick-tock tick-tock tick-tock it is time to see Star Wars.  Groaning you pull on your Gola tracksuit bottoms and bustle on your way to the front door of the flat and descend the narrow shabbily carpeted stairs passing piles of post on the shelf and jostle the latch of the ill-fitting fake Georgian door. You find your way out on to the real world of Deptford. A realm so real it’s smells of fish from other lands and even the damp early morning air feels exotic. Deptford the Manhattan of baby London where everything is emergent and anything is possib...

Like fish we swim in water  Unlike fish we know its there  And sometimes we remember  That we used to breath in air    R U Knowstalgik for the stasi?  Longing for the Reich?  When they thought a thousand years  Would be drawn out in a trice   Comedy is now the window  Onto the feeling of a loss  And a humour me placebo  Has made Urizen cross    Remember when things were different  And difference was a thing Not just the vestige of a melody  That our hearts once longed to sing    So a joke or two will fill the gap  That moves between the motes  Of dust that dance above the thinking cap  Boom boom I’ll get my coat(s).    Comedy!!!

   This instant   This instant she is Craning her neck Sight reading the starlings on the aerial She fears the sound of The ceramic glazed lustre A side dish of olive stones Exploding into the cosmic Void of the walk-in kiln Does the light go on? The bulb above your head Does the penny drop? The dripping alchemy Of this stickle brick universe Is somehow all wrong An inverted syrup Am I losing my hair?   Come here this instant Your escape velocity  Is terminal four The quick sand conveyor belt Is up to your neck in it Squelch went the dying sun She says sticking a finger in her cheek A plastic spade blade gamely Patting the top of the old block Plastic flag at the ready Seagulls whirl and crow Expounding obvious pride in The I told you so of it The that which every mother knows The new dog old tricks Pavlov’s bell ringing certainty of it Of it all of it all of it all   this instant instantly explodes a highly improbable moment   then this one then the n...

  Let’s call it the scene of empathy. Let’s call it the hesitant sociological scene. The scene of the incalculable rhythm. It is a scene neither of subjection nor objection. Looking with this hearing is a kind of building with or bearing. (Fred Moten 2017) Oh Lucky man   Whilst you were queuing The earth quaked Seth asked if you could bite down And you find yourself in the washrooms Wondering if you really should Wash your mouth out with soap and water Excited to finally have this opportunity  To enact a phrase hitherto only heard In the echoing hallway outside  the headmaster’s office Knock and come in said the Pharaoh A machine whines and whirs As you wait for it to deliver its verdict You will grow up to be a parent with a fine head of teeth Well, if that’s all there is to it? You think I’ll take my chances and sit here Lapping up the applause As you stand to acknowledge your victory In the district school sports sack race Your thumbs squelch into the clay You pas...

You are in the car reception Waiting for your car to be serviced   Your crutch is on the carpet tile covered floor Beside you You glimpse its large grey rubber end on the taupe texture of the tiles Stout and reassuring Is it you or the car that is being treated you wonder The car is having the oil changed It costs an arm and leg You dislocated your ankle on holiday It felt like a chicken bone when you carve the Sunday dinner Schlplop it went as it slid back into place Like a miracle The car that caused your fall then drove off It didn’t hit you Just threw you off balance You can bet they didn’t fancy that litigious look in your eye As you lay flat on the tarmac Then rose like the dying Gaul To stare in disbelief at the new angle of your ankle Then that schplop as it slid back And here you are now back in England Waiting in a car garage for your car Your crutch at your side Mosquito bites on your legs Soaring to strange heights of...

The Fungus Foray and Rhizomatic Being Full Fungus Foray images Before setting off on today’s fungus foray I’d been thinking about memory. About how memory is perhaps not simply within the brain waiting to be picked up off the shelf but rather is in the objects around us. I was standing in the back garden looking at my neighbour from hell’s ladder. I found it hard to look at the ladder without relieving the various kinds of abuse we have suffered at his hands. (Thanks to a police visit he seems to have gotten the message that everyone has a right to live without fear of abuse). Still I was ok and it seemed to demonstrate how objects in the outside world don’t just trigger memory they help embody it. Ever since attending a lecture about consciousness by Marcus du Sautoy (Professor for public understanding of science at Oxford University) at The Barbican I’ve had a sense of unease about the way we conceive of our consciousness from a machine-like perspective. It’s similar to visual...

Buttering toast is Something we do a lot And yet each time there are decisions Leave the toast to cool? And the butter sits atop All buttery and unctuous  But visibly guilt prompting Butter it hot And whilst succulent and invisible May go soggy And then there’s the jam What does it say about a man? Who spreads jam with the butter knife? A man out of control Butter in the jam Jam in the butter And then there’s the butter straight from the fridge That should never be a problem Not if you use the butter dish But we shape our tools And have to invent spreadable butter Every single time I butter toast I remember the time My sister announced the innovative method Her stubble faced boy friend had For cleaning the butter knife He would stab it into the edge And slide the knife inside This is similar to opening the post If you use a letter knife The knife ventures into an unknown world inside the bread The family murmur en masse...

 I've painted my mum for The harry Pye curated show, Mothers which opens in Chester's contemporary art space Thursday 8th March. Here's a close up. She's in her district nurses uniform as I remember it. I was about 9 when she became one and the transformation into blue really struck me. She seemed important and useful. Until then she had never worn a uniform at home.