Rooms from my oeuvre

Something I wrote based on one of my mixed media pieces.

Hotel

Taking the penthouse, a three-room suite,
homage to that pickled shark,
once YBA enfant influent,
now can’t-paint-for-shit shock-conceptuality,
all dead butterflies and money.

Over in one wing,
crumpled biro sketch for a green man
wrought in silver fretwork,
now etched and hammered, chained
and put up for sale.

Brushed to one side,
an empty blister-pack of brain-pills,
each 20 milligrams
a bitter bite of sweet chemistry,
I'm such a neuromantic.

Tiger balm and beaded lizard
whisper nothings through wood-thin walls,
varnished with intent –
grinning, a brass-balled imp
sits sly on his stack of timber.

Paper-cut bamboo forest,
trees hold onto chainsaw blades,
while triplet queens lie supine
under a celestial arch,
contemplating their paradox.

Faded letters speak of old contests
and hints of science,
print-block songbird
calls the ink down from her serinette.

Fragments of ammonites,
pebbles once shiny and gleaming-wet,
but still interesting in the dry,
unlike childhood holiday gleanings.

Bar-room in miniature
touts ‘beer’ above its rug of ribbons –
next door, ransom-note wallpaper
proclaims the anguish and ego
of the artist.

Of course,
there is a lacuna,
always one empty
among a hundred others,
ghosts of occupants unknown.

This hotel will stay my own.

Digital wampum

Inspired by some of the works in Offending Frequencies (Poetry Review 102:4 Winter 2012), especially the photographic responses by Yemisi Blake to new poems by Elmi Ali and Jo Brandon, I produced the following:

The hanging piece is entitled 'Digital wampum' and uses plastic components from VHS cassettes (a defining technology for someone who was a teenager in the 1980s) to depict key dates in my life, the black and white arrangement encoding them in binary. The words indicate the events these dates relate to.

Vicarious performance

Inspired by a 2-hour performance by Louiza Hamidi in Southampton, 26th April 2013.

Vicarious performance (mask)

I am scared and crying,
The slab-cold meat
Hangs cloyingly upon my face,
I sicken at its stink,
Its bloody mess
Will not let me see,
Out through the glass in front of me.

I am scared and crying,
I know the passers-by are staring,
In from the street, uncomprehending,
But I’m blinded by the flesh,
All I can do is stand, impassive,
A test of strength –
‘No reaction’ equals power
Over obstacles and fears
And any inability to access, connect, engage.

I am scared and crying,
But the rawness hides my tears.

Crossing the gallery threshold

Though the Ellipsiad is about my versifying, I also do a bit of jewellery/metal-bashing and have just got my first piece into a gallery. And so...

Across the Threshold

I step into a gallery

The first time bearing something I’ve made,

To be scrutinised,

And maybe, just maybe, you never know, adored,

It is in fine company,

Trash-can samurai, milk-bottle polar bear,

Knitted doughnuts pastel-sweet,

Jolly drum-fish, log of blue,

Matchstick galleon, table too,

Shower-head pouring electrickle wires,

Quilted embroidery green-man inspired,

Shelves with new novels, collections of verse,

Open-access artists’ shrine,

Walls hung with treasures,

Painted and printed,

Pixelated and sewn,

I leave an offering,

Made of steel, brass and time.