Regret.

Nibbles away at the tiny corners of the conscious mind.

Preoccupying ones thoughts with remorse and somewhat desire.

Remorse over what is done
and what is to be done.

A desire
to do it again.

Regret.

Not a feeling rather a trait.
Its characteristic
embodied within the human

Its here, and its here to stay.

The Open Studio

Usually the journey by car flattens expectation, and there’s that all-preoccupying conversation, so one only takes in the view where there’s a halt at a traffic light or at the occasional junction. A pattern on a wall, a damaged sign, a curtained window. Waiting, one looks and sometimes remembers, and what one sees later reappears in dreams or moments of disordered contemplation. A train journey is another matter: you sit and look, and when it is a trip rarely made, you put the book away and gaze beyond the ***** windows to a living landscape that scrolls past the frame of view. When you arrive there’s inevitably a walk: today through a town’s industrial hinterland, its pastness where former mill buildings have tactfully changed their use to become creative places, peopled with aspiration and strange activity. Walking reveals the despair of forlorn roadside business falling back into alleys ending in neglected and empty buildings, so much *******, silences of waste and decay.

But here’s the space, there’s a sign on a board outside, OPEN STUDIO TODAY. Entering inside it is quiet and cold, the door remaining open to let in the December air and the hoped-for visitors. But it’s bright and light: a welcoming presence of work and people and coffee and cake. And here’s the studio, a narrow space between make-shift walls where the artist works, where the work awaits, laid out on the surfaces of desks and tables, on shelves and walls, specimens of making; ‘stuff’, the soon-to-be, the collected, the in-progress-perhaps, the experimental.

Good, a heater blows noisily onto cold fingers. In the turbulent air pieces tremble slightly from their hangings on the walls. They are placed at a good height, a ‘good to be close to examine the detail’ height, the constructed, the made, the woven, the stitched, the printed, all assembled by the actions of those quiet, intent, those steady hands. There, a poem on a wall next to the window. Here, photographs of places unlabelled, unrecognised, but undoubtedly significant as a guide to the memory. Look, a dead badger lying in a road.

Next to the studio, a gallery space. Two walls covered with framed prints, well lit, a body of work captured behind glass, in limbo, waiting patiently for the attentive eye to sort the detail, that touch of the object on paper, that mark found and brought out of time and place. Perhaps these ‘things’, some known, some mysteriously foreign adrift from their natural context, have been collected by that bent form on a windswept beach, by the hand reaching out for the  gift in the gutter, struck by the foot on the track, unhidden in the grass by the riverside, what we might pass as without significance and beyond attention. This artist gives even the un-namable a new life, a collected-together form.

Moving closer let the eye enter the artist’s world of form and texture - and colour? There is a patina certainly, colour’s distant echo, what is seen on the edges, a left-behindness, more than any subtlety of language knows how to express, beyond comfortable descriptions, not excitable, where the spirit is damped down and is restful to the mind, a constancy of background, like a capturing of a cloud but bulging full of hints and suggestions, where texture is everywhere, nature’s rich patterns colliding with things once invented and made, used once, once used left and changed, thrown away, to be brought before the selecting eye and the possibility of form with meaning its patient partner.



J.M.W.Turner writes  on poetry and painting

Poetry having a more extensive power
Than our poor art, exerts its influence
Over all our passions; anxiety for our future
Reckoned the most persistent disposition.

Poetry raises our curiosity,
Engages the mind by degrees
To take an interest in the event,
And keeping that event suspended,
Overturns all we might expect.

The painter’s art is more confined,
Has nothing to equate with the poet’s power.
What is done by painting must be done at once,
And at one blow our curiosity receives
All the satisfaction it can know.

The painter can be novel, various and contrast,
Such is our pleasure and delight when put in motion.
Art, therefore, administers only to those wants,
And only to desires that exercise the mind.



Twilight

A day aside and diaried into busy lives
So to a morning walk to Turner’s View
Above the River Wharfe and Farnley Hall
Where it is said the inspiration came
For his famous oil of Hannibal,
with elephants and storm-glad Alps.

On to lunch where six around a table
Souped with salad before we homed
Mid afternoon the day in decline
We were done with words so watched
The edge-timed light flow between our hands.

Inevitably we climbed the stairs to lie
In twilight’s path beneath the skylight’s
Square a sliver-moon we couldn’t see
Gracing the remaining daylight hour
Marbled with shadows our collected
Curves and planes lay as sculptures
In the approaching dimity and dark
Each experimental stroke of touch
Holding us dumb to speech and thought
As night’s soft blanket covered us entire


Northcliffe Woods

Oh nest in the sky, empty of leaves,
Those tangled branches
Reaching out from twisted trunks
Into the sullen clouds above, when

Suddenly a crow -
‘Corvidae’, she said -
And simultaneously pulled
a hank of ivy from a nearby tree.

Hedera Helix I thought
But did not say, instead
I whispered to myself
Those ancient names I knew.

Bindwood, Lovestone
(For the way it clings
To bricks but ravages walls),
A vine with a mind of its own. But

She, in a different frame that day,
Apart, adrift and far away
From our usual walk and talk,
Fixed her gaze on the woodland floor,

Whilst skyward I sought again that
Corvid high in the branches web
Black beyond black beyond black
Against the pale white canopy above.


Franco*

Blow She Still
Ed insieme bussarono
Sweet Soft Frain
Cloche Lem Small
Spiri About Sezioni
Portrait Eco Agar
Le ruisseau sur l’escalier
Etwas ruhiger im Ausdruck
Jeux pour deux
For Grilly Fili Argor
Atem L’ultima sera
Omar Flag Ave
The Heart’s Eye*

play joy touch
code panel macro
refraction process solo
quick-change constrained
hiatus sonority colour
energy post-serial scintillating
aleatoric reuse transformation

A lonely child who imagined music
on sunday walks, he would talk about
how one lives with music as someone
would talk about how one might live
with illness or a handicap. He said,
‘You cannot write your life story in
music because words express the self
best whereas music expresses something
quite beyond words’.

I don’t know how many knocks
I’ve had upon my door and
opened it to the sight of
some poor, ill-fated,
hapless crumb ***
standing there
with another
sob story:

“I got kicked out of my house
and I don’t know why.”

it was always the same thing
and yes, they put on quite
a show during their
initial screening
with their
spongy eyes
like ****** cakes
and as vulnerable as a
clay pigeon shot into space.

I’d buy into their dinosaur tears
and they knew I’d take them in
because I was an enabler.
I could never say no.

and next thing you know there was
bodies on the couch,
bodies in the bathtub,
bodies in the basement,
all drunk, drug-addled
and without women.

each time a new one entered the house
it always ran in the same sequence:
first, everything would
start off good, fun even;
they’d buy the beer,
I’d provide the music,
the music brought conversation,
the conversation brought laughter,
the laughter brought moments of joy
and the beer, the music, the conversation,
the laughter is what kept those nights alive.

many lively nights had passed.
gradually, they grew more
comfortable with settling in.
subtly, their courage piqued enough
to overstep some boundaries but not
enough to notice it or brush it off.

they were testing me.

seeing what they could get away with.

I was a pushover,
allowing myself
to get steamrolled
by their daringness.

then I noticed that none of them secured employment.
they’d pour their excuses all over me as to why
they couldn’t work or even pay me rent.

I imagined some interviewer
flipping through pages of their resumes
extending out a long rap sheet of various jobs
knowing they wouldn’t last long.

their twenty-four hour presence
thickened the tension in the house;
up and down the stairs
in and out of the front door
beer run after beer run
& continuous song writing.

I’d come home after the 12 hour shift
to beer cans preoccupying every
countertop and table in the place.

and just like that, I became both the
innkeeper and the house maid.

their incompetent and noise-laden identities
had troubled and angered my counterpart.
it wasn’t her fault though.
she had to put up with
my poor decision making:
I ran our home like a flophouse,
like a homeless shelter, like a charity ward,
like an adult foster care center.
I was inexcusably bad at playing landlord
and at subletting my house.

too much resentment had burst.
she’d curse me. we’d get into it.
the arguing would get out of hand.
then one of them would boldly step up
and say something robust and tumultuous,
interrupting our personal affairs,
as if it was their business,
as if they were now
running the show.

I’d let my emotions get the best of me and snap back at them.
boy, oh boy, did they have an answer for everything.
confrontations were never my strong suit and
winning an argue with these dolts seemed virtually impossible.
I had trouble saying what I really meant and what I really felt.
things never got resolved.

suddenly, it was starting to become abundantly clear;
as to why they couldn’t hold down a job,
as to why no one else would house them.

we’d return to our corners,
let some time blow over and
then reconvene at some later point.

burying the hatchet over a few suds,
only this time I was buying the beer
and they were taking over the music
and the conversations were awkward and dull.

the nights were quickly dying into a stale dankness
our eyes met in silence, there was no more laughter,
the room became uncomfortable, aloof, standoffish
no matter how much the beer and the music worked its charm.

the quality of our lives had gyrated into pure toxic sludge
we were pushed and pushed and pushed beyond our limits.
I was brought out of character; a reasonable man,
driven to do unreasonable things, I too, like so many
before me, had to kick them out of my house and they
hadn’t a clue as to why. they’d put up their fight,
they’d storm out with a dramatic exit and act
like I was losing something valuable.

oh yes, there was a time, when I believed it would be easier
to live in sheer misery over hurting someone else’s feelings.

I was too busy pulling knives out of everyone else’s back
that I didn’t realize how many were stuck in my own

but after many years of waiting it out,
I finally got the message
and had to pin
eviction notices
on the doors
of my beliefs
and on the doors
of the strays,
the rejected
and the runts
of the liter.

They stared down upon high, glancing in
Trepidation at what was slowly ebbing
Forward, not a snail of a pace but slowing
To that of a sloth, mundane consequences
Where the topic of the day.

What would two of undue taste relish in these
moments of flickering thoughts on what waited
Edging forward to an unseen fate but in their
Gawking  at what was time counting down to a
Conclusion that was abiding its momentary time.

"I do hate this moment,

"What moment begrudges you at the crossroads,

"Its just watching it slop off into prominent areas,

"Never regress what will undoubtedly happen,

"But my taste buds ponder the relishing aroma of what awaits,

They as would be voyeurs of this collapse of will,
Heeding their pace of what is happening. And upon
Sullen branches they pincer upon gladly. Dead longer
Than their birth, but granting views of otherwise,
Winged visions from high above.

"Just a little nick, to ebb away spirit,

"Yes let us bleed upon the ground,

"Really??

"Why thoughts peruse me of this endeavour, and consequences,

"What ramifications would be birthed from actions?
"Nothing but a time indulged must quicker on us,

Fleeting droplets would adhere to the winds gestures,
"Carnivorous undertakers would inhale and smile,

"Do you understand what I imply on your thoughts,

"Yes undue wanting's of our lingering dinner,
"Unjust would this be upon our delicate waiting,

So they gathered upon a the caked ground, speaking
Side by side as their dinner slowly moved on, contemplating
That ever closer moment when breath would leave and
waiting would be done. But night fell and so curled up
Did their feast stop still upon cooling ground shivering.

"Should I degrees  that we wait no longer,
"Its stopped moving, just a nibble is all one wants,

"Thoughts contemplate this endeavour as rumbling is heard,
"Not of the wind or ground but my stomachs hunger aches,

So one approached wings flapping silently in the desert air,
A gust catches as claws capture the ground and stills himself.
"Whoops,
The other shakes his head at his friends near flight into nights
Abyss only to edge ever closer to their midnight feast.
He gently grabs fingers and squeezes pressure ever so lightly.
Momentary pleasure is interrupted by a sudden shift.

"O my god it just chipped my beak,

"You impetus fool I told you to heed the voice below,

Just then, without due warning an arm flared in all
Directions as if life had breathed anew and feathers
Leap in joyous freedom into the clinging air.
Noises of man and bird filled the twilights moon.  
Then as hands gripped tightly upon a beaconing
Throat preoccupying breath talons played with
Subtle tones of skin. opening them up to the waiting
Floor below and it drank so very well,

"I...,
"Think,
"I've,
"Woooo,

And with that a head now being where it shouldn't be.
That which had crawled also a last breath did escape.
As a river of life ran past my claws soaking the earth
In its need for substance. The night was still and death
Had spoken angered torment.

"Well I have never had a friend for dinner,
"Don't give me those dead eyes, ok ill eat them,

And on this night the vulture who gathered around
A meal only dreamt off in this barren place. He'd had
Invited a friend for a chat before dinner, never thinking
That his companion would be the starter before the
Main course. light graced the  morning and he was full.

"Now that was a meal, a friend would want to be part of.
"Sorry I didn't mean it like that,
"But you know what you both taste like chicken?

"Funny think is I don't know what a chicken was?

So he waved goodbye to a meal well had,
"Bye my friend or what's left,
But unbeknown to him, the air was seeded in the
Night crisp air of deaths whispers and others who
Knew that taking of fallen prey was at hand.
He sensed breath and behind coming fast was a
Hungry pack. He flapped his wings knowing flight
Beats feet, but wings pounding upon airs grace.
And still he ran upon soiled earth, to much had he
Gorged upon friend and foe, now filled him so.

"I do so hate the circle of life sometimes,

And with that thought did jaws close tight and
The circle of life greeted this fat bird, as the one
That growled found this bird to be like Christmas
It had once heard this word. a bird stuffed three,
This Ferrell pawed one had just had the best bird
Nature could have given. It howled upon the sky
At the delight of its friends, what a feast they did eat.

Shades of orange and green and yellow
Settle upon the ground
Twilight wind blows through the trees
As the leaves dance, and twirl, around

Painting a perfect picture, the colors that match so well
The winds’ whispering chants, casting a shadow of a spell
Listening to the echoes of tangents of thoughts
Words moving quickly to avoid being caught

The rushed nature of the world and the words that move within
Leaves the observer waiting, wondering, where do I begin?
Inhaling crunchy autumn air as if tasting leaves from off the ground
Listening to the wind howl and tear while not making a sound

Time moves faster and faster, but at a constant pace
The preoccupying obstacle being the finish line of the race
But time seems to hold still as the trees bend with the wind
When you listen, take it in, you’ll know where to begin

Allowing yourself to see with both eyes is a rare commodity
Constantly changing subjects, society as comedy
Blinded by issues, the light in our eyes makes it hard to see
But I live with my eyes open and my being, free

if there's no point to anything what's the point of trying if not to prove that were trying harder than someone else? and what's the point of that?
trying to prove to everyone you are worth something instead of actually making something out of yourself?
arent you just wasting time?
aren't we all just wasting time?
so if there's no point to
anything what's the point of not trying?
what's the point of not doing anything?
what's the point of this poem?
couldn't you argue the same thing?
i could spend my days pacing in my room
spend them crying tears over boys
or kissing and not telling
i could meet a nice clean cut man become a mom
i could go get my masters and buy a big house
but what's the point?
what's the point of fighting nature?
of preoccupying oneself with materialism? of acting more sophisticated then we let on?
yes it is survival of the fittest
the
jungle
rules
but who is the fittest?
the people who stuff there pockets with cash and drive fancy cars?
that's what we look up too?
that's what we blindly fund?
some metal melted together to form some akin machine?
why do we take pride in the things that hurt us the most?
why am i still wasting my time?
doesn't anyone want authenticity anymore?
doesn't anyone have a yearning for the truth?
does anyone still crave adventure?

I have realized
the world is a lonely place
In our homes
jobs
schools
preoccupying our minds
People come
they learn with us
they grow with us
We live
laugh
love
and move on
With the world at our fingertips
no matter the hundreds around us
or the ever growing bustling crowds
nothing can be done
to remedy us
from the fact
that though we can try until the end of our days
we will always be the most alone
In our minds

"Sometimes, late at night, sleep comes not to the weary.
Some rooms will not stay silent.
Some houses stalk their inhabitants with ghastly intent…"
**************
My travels in Eastern Europe had brought me to a strange place, located in the dominion of Romania. I sojourned to a destination about 13 miles to the North of the city of Timisoara, where I found the sprawling expanse of an ancient castle, once used by Stephen the Great of Moldavia (1457 – 1504). It was literary pursuits that lead me to such out-of-the-way stops, as I conducted my research. By day, this gilded station offered many fascinating discoveries: a grand library filled with treasured tomes of old; an enchanting, if moribund, Ball Room where opulence once found its true expression and extravagant masquerades took place; I saw mesmerizing chandeliers and an impressive sitting room, within the Great Hall, which was home to a majestic hearth.
On the day of which the events recounted here unfolded, the hearth was enlivened by a roaring fire the caretakers built for the guests. The blazing timbers provided much needed warmth on that sodden, wispy, late-autumn day. I admired the armory and the regal Coats-of-Arms. I skulked with trepidation within the bleak and forbidding dungeons. As I explored the many rooms and passageways, it occurred to me that this was a space mysteriously ensouled with medieval history and told of a former glory, long since passed. I felt caught up in the enigmatic atmosphere as I gave in to rhapsodic ruminations of what life must have been like, in those distant times. Yet, I also encountered something more…something which disturbed my revelry, by degrees, as the day progressed.
As I opened my imagination to a divining altered by the antiquarian surroundings, I began to detect a more malevolent, yet unseen, presence. Illusive whispers wafted toward me from a distance; my trammeled vision seemed to perceive phantasmal shapes with the similitude of persons, lurking. There appeared unexpected movement, but when I looked there was nothing. It was as if the shadows in the rooms and hall ways were reaching out to me, almost clawing at my clothes. Something otherworldly was trying to convey to me that I was not alone, even as I conducted a solitary route. The startling sensations seized my lucid mind in fits; a wrinkle in reality reared up but quickly dissipated, causing me to question my reason. Had I heard someone speaking? Was someone crouching yonder, just beyond my field of sight? What made my skin crawl and the hairs stand? It was these transient but peculiar incidents that I carried with me into the evening.
The night had come, with full moon looming high. After a delicious meal, I took my evening Brandy with a book, in the reading room. I read of the history of the castle which expounded upon both the marvelous and the disturbing of its 800-year existence. The Medieval world in Romania was indeed a ****** time (i.e., in wars against the Ottoman Empire) and the castle dungeon "apparatus" were utilized to dark effect, over the centuries. I had felt a very “close” and unnerving atmosphere in that part of the castle; a palpable sadness hung in the air...and I felt there was also a latent anger that lingered. I could only imagine the tortures that were carried out there. I turned in about 10:30, with the day’s events, the rigors of my travels and the thoughts of history preoccupying my thoughts. After a while of restlessness, I drifted off, as a boat upon a mild bucolic lake. The peace, however, would be violently upended. At the late hour of 3:00am, I awoke with a start and sat up, sharply, in my bed. The cause of my upset was this: I thought I heard a voice in my room where no other voice should have been! Worse still, this voice seemed cloaked in villainy; it was harsh, guttural and brutish. It cackled and threatened from the black corners! In my panicked state, I believed that someone or something sinister was watching me! I struggled to discover a source, as I blinked furiously, looking this way and that! My sight was, in turns, elucidated and bewitched by the ethereal countenance of a moonlight-enticed obscurity. For a time, I felt utterly enslaved by the oppressive persuasion of this sudden horror, as I trembled in the semi-darkness of my esoteric enclosure. “Who is there?!” I called, into a deadening silence. My ears filled with the sound of my heart beating and belabored breathing. During those enthralled minutes, I became aware of the various occasional creaks, groans and pops that tend to emanate from old buildings in the quiet hours of nightfall. There was a drone of wind gusts outside, as well, that impinged upon my hearing. When, after a quarter of an hour had lapsed, I heard no further nefarious sounds, I began to calm myself. I decided that I may have been dreaming or mistaken a natural sound from the old castle for something unexplainable. I laid my head back down but kept a weather ear out for any odd disturbance. My restfulness began to flow, slowly, back to my soul. My heart steadied, my breathing became measured and drawn out, I thought of more pleasant things… Quiet returned to my mind. Sleep cajoled and invited me back to a relaxed state of suspended consciousness. Deeper I slipped into the lake of these languid hours…
That is when the unexplainable returned: the naked horror of the moment! The twisted evil of that VOICE in my ears! A savage FACE next to my burning skull! Boney, hairy claws on my gasping throat! A reviled breath most acidic and repellant forced its way into my fleeting, aghast sentience! I recoiled from that side of the bed and leaped away, towards the door, in the dark. I crashed to the cold floor as sweat poured from my shrieking face. I clamored upwards, clutching the handle, swinging the door open, and I stumbled out into the hall way! The scream of undiluted shock echoed through the ancient building.

All the sound I heard was white. All the light I saw was red. All the world I knew was black fear!

In the false spring, there was light

                                                               Epiphany

                               Eureka in technicolor

But blinders above centrifugal spokes
                     scattered through prisms
           a deflection of armor
And
                  
                                   The rain came.

                                                                                       Light remained.

But what previously perceived
                       as vibrancy
was shattered in repeat streams
                       of disbelief
over every evil stitch seamed
                       in the fabric of my clothes
                                                                     And Rose-

Colored glasses gave way
                                                without rest
                external tempest
                                                with self-inflicted misery
I could not leave.

                                                                    And now I see
that the foyer of this love
                                               was not chromatic
                                               was not prismatic
                    though gaudy, flashy this all-encompassing
Prison of color
                                  was nothing but
           mediated, alternating, monopolizing
                                  preoccupying
                                                                    Shades of Blue.

                And then there was you.

The false spring melted down
                    to fragments in cracked glass
Wiped my blood from broken mirrors
                    no longer asinine and crass
Still mentally impounded
                                                 in emblems au courrant
Took a sip from poisoned drips
                                                                   just one more scar to flaunt

But every day in smaller strides
                                 the forage cleared and scorched
The winter came with sleet and
                           Rain
                                                             another touch to tortured

And as the ice begins to melt
                       and false spring lays to rest
With you there are no problems except
                                                                         where to be happiest