The old man passed over the rooftops of night, the glowing shapes of light; county town and countryside. He threaded the stars of orange spangle and blue and white. There was a hum that came to him; not of electricity - because that was like kettledrums or rumbles of sheet metal thunder. This was a … Continue reading Float On.
Lunch was a joyless chore in South Shields. The allowed hour was passed in that miserable and stifled staff room of P. Marsk Hairdressing, where the legend We Make You Look Good - that irritating and irksome italicised 'Good' - bearing down erroneously from the brown wall behind him, into him, through his thinning crown, his dimming mind, … Continue reading Mirror 9 – JMW Turner [Shields, on The Tyne, 1823] postcard.
8 [photocopy of a snapshot] I cut Lillian's hair every twelfth week, dry it every sixth. It grows. I cut it. I dry it. It has become grey by increments; city pigeon to autumn noon, fading print to cigarette ash. Each accretion of tone slowly highlighting further her pink brittle cheeks, the pools … Continue reading Mirror (8): Pale Airman.
7 [postcard]: portrait photograph of Walt Whitman (credited to Mathew Brady, 1860) Casey A thoughtfully sent this from Seattle. In the border frame she has written, brilliantly - v v Double ewe u u w Thoughtfully, because she is a good listener and, brilliantly, because marginalia is where she blends her work into … Continue reading Mirror (7): Three Christmas Mornings.
6 [business card]: Kelly Jayne, BA, MA. Artist. Art Psychotherapist. * Distant Bells. Parade of grave shoes. Their shadows shrink and loom. He believes he sees them, so he sees them. He watches them askew. They hover and pass, never ending. The shadows were drawn to this place, he imagined, by … Continue reading Mirror (6): Distant Bells.
5 [postcard] Marguerite/ Amedeo Modigliani, 1916. * Penny Diamonds. They were sat at a large table papered with plates and balled napkins. The table was adorned in glass and everywhere was dusted with knuckles of crumb. Snapped and unsnapped crackers, penny diamonds among the paper crowns. There was a cliff face … Continue reading Mirror (5): Penny Diamonds.
