CosmiKnot

A Pair of Laces In the end it was easy Do you sell laces? Trying not to wince Fully expecting the negative response Having already given the premises an inspection. But no sooner had the words sounded Then there they were On top of the glass counter Inside a shallow box Once used to store cognac miniatures Between the gum and the flapjacks An assortment of various Widths, lengths, textures and colours The expression of the girl at the till Seemed to tell me she found my enthusiasm ironic somewhat unbelievable It’s been a bit of a quest I explained beaming Finding a pair of laces Yes I can tie them But I’ve been trying to find a new pair. My shoes have lasted well The soles welded tight As I walked unlaced Head bowed examining the feet of strangers For signs of renewal There just isn’t the call for it I surmised There’s no business in laces No local shop seem prepared to take a stance To provide a service Was I seeking l...

Last Night Dec 19th I was joined on stage by the legend Foz? Together we meandered our way through the origins of our band David Devant and His Spirit Wife. I made a power point of various pieces of evidence for our existence. Foz kept the historical anchor points in position and I riffed on the themes of coincidence, accident and Day dreaming. It seemed to form some kind of cohesive sense of what we do as a group. And this was further enhanced by the arrival of the Professor. Thanks to Fred Pipes for filming this . Iceman levitates Cocky Young'un at The Rock public house circa 1992

Ah I thought, gingerly easing myself from bed into the day ahead. It’s obvious really. What went wrong with Communism is what went wrong with Modernism. It became inextricably joined at the hip with a functionalist morality. Puritanism. This is part of a false dichotomy presented everyday by the presiding left-brain culture - you are either functional or a messy over-indulgence. So with the superscale version of Communism we see a drive to strip away the excess until we are left with what is necessary. Who is fit to say what is necessary? Of course there are echoes of the drive to purify culture of the excesses of the bourgeois that we find in the French revolution. Fragonard painted the Swing just before the Revolution made him an anachronism and the sleek timeless message of classicism replaced the intimate and anecdotal. Commentary of the Swing often focuses on the name of the commissioning patron (?) and the story of how another artist (?) turned down the work thus giving Fragonard...

I was all set to over turn the tables and drive out the money lenders in the Art under Attack exhibition at the Tate Britain when I thought I ought rather to check what the curator’s intentions were. It turns out that the parameters were narrower than you might have presumed – this is an exhibition about “Image breaking in Britain”. The show does achieve this end which makes it’s rather puritanical air seem rather appropriate. As with all acts of creativity (curating included) no matter how scholarly the intention, something unintended will emerge. Something that resonates beyond the artist’s intentions. I’m including curators as artists as the idea of re-appropriating and re-presenting is what a lot of contemporary art is about. The something here is the question of literacy rewiring the brain until we (civilisation) somehow lose the language to express the ineffable problems of being human. There are a few powerful moments in the show. I say powerful but they are not the visceral in...

Funeral The concertina organ ebbs and flows Fingers politely jostle on the keys A chord is resolved Breathe in and breathe out Softly stumble from the pew Feeling suddenly self-conscious Down the aisle now Touch the wood – what tree you wonder? Fingers catch on the varnish Hadn’t expected that Feel more self-conscious Caught out trying to be sagacious Body of Christ Amen Blood of Christ Christ Amen Eyes down body stutters back to pew Pack of tissues in left pocket Mother of dead school friend over right shoulder We always ask ourselves Who am I mourning? The cheerful old soul in the coffin? Body of Christ body of Christ body of Christ Christ the priest has a clip on mic Old chap in the box lived a good life Life and soul Lit up the room Photo in the order of service Glint in his eye I wipe away tears Who am I mourning? Missing mother of two boys? Her mum over my right shoulder How great thou art Filing out now down the aisle God let me be strong enough to listen She’s not in pain any...

I’ve been searching for an analogy to try and explain how it feels to have fibromyalgia. I’ve come a long way in a year. This time last September I was pretty terrified by the tumult of pains that suddenly pummelled my body. In a panic I asked my doctor to test me for lead poisoning. I needed an explanation. The same doctor told me I’d have two weeks off max if I were a premier league footballer. And he told me this apropos of what exactly I still ask myself? It was after sending a two-page complaint about his bullying attitude and compulsive need to make me exercise in front of him that my diagnosis began to take shape. I got referred. Eventually I saw the much-respected Professor Powell and in April he diagnosed me with fibromyalgia as a result of the head on collision with a bandit vehicle two years earlier . He was pretty unequivocal and even when I said I didn’t want to jump to conclusions assured me that this order of events was pretty normal (all the other usual suspects have no...