Artistic Motivation - Head of House

The Dissertation Series, in its second cycle returns with a poets response to Natural Artifice by Alice Maher at the Djanogly Art Gallery, Riverside- Nottingham, June 2007

Head of House

House without doors
House without windows
House with no one
Inside or out

House,
Made of thorns
A protection of sorts
Or a suggestion

That home
Is all we have to cling to
Or that home is all we have
In our struggle to get away

Artistic Motivation - To become a painter

The Dissertation Series continues in Belgium with a poets response to the Surreal and the Natural at the Ancient and Modern Exhibition with Various Artists from the Musee Royaux des Beaux-Arts, Brussels, May 2007

To become a painter

Angel du Nord
All over the papers
All over the skyline
The Blind Light of confusion
Drips from my brow

That these words
Are the headline story
Is your transient momentous reward

Nine years
Six alone in preparation
Watching the light
Through the seasons
Watching
Cows crossing the Lys

That these words
Caught the tearful story
Is your lasting posthumous reward

Artistic Motivation - Placement

The dissertation Series second cycle takes the poet back to Belgium to reflect on the spiritual works in Lumière et Intériorité by Pierre Deuse at the Cathédrale des Saints Michel et Gudule de Bruxelles - Brussels, May 2007

Placement

Straight lines
Frames arranged in a semi-circle
Around stone pillars and prayer rooms
Under arches and overhead vapours

You take your light
Through stained glass windows
Eulogise, from about now
Until…

Well some say
'It will be sometime soon'
Although
For those of a deeper persuasion
A little while longer dwells the silent clock

Artistic Motivation - Real to Reel

The Dissertation Series, in its second cycle sees the poet respond to Degree Show Open featuring Various Artists graduating from their BA (Hons) Fine Arts at University of Lincoln, Greestone Center, Lindum Hill - Lincoln, May 2007

Real to Reel

A sense of refined chaos, as if your fathers jam jar, full of screws and nails and picture hooks had been scattered on the floor, over an ordnance survey map of Lincolnshire and beyond

There was a plan, and a classy catalogue
Even so, as an exercise in disorientation
It was fabulously successful

Guys in high leg turned over leather boots
A sop to the roundheads
Or the cavaliers

Street scenes layered with a palette knife
To lift the slippery sloppy pavement
From the oily doily canvas

Unreeled cassette tape is nailed to the wall
A loop-less but continuous story
With the obligatory I don't give a fuck

Artistic Motivation - Self Portrait

The Dissertation Series continues its second cycle; the poet responds to WE THE MODERNS featuring Henri Gaudier-Brzeska at Graves Art Gallery - Sheffield, April 2007

Self Portrait

Reds, browns, yellows, oranges, greens
Cream, did you say cream
These were your colours were they Z-B?

Modigliani, Matisse, Alexander Archipenko
Auguste Rodin, Rodin did you say
And these were your eminent contemporaries Z-B?

I step sideways besides a Giacometti
Forwards, there a Pablo Picasso Tête de Femme
Sideways Giacometti, straight ahead Pablo Picasso

Slow down, stand back, take a breath
At the entrance, on the wall - a self portrait
The pastel chiselled features of a most attractive younger man

A short life, she the second part of your name
A woman almost twice your age, such life in a short life
Home thoughts from abroad, in your own self portrait

Context: Your contemporaries live forever
Pretext: The war came, you never…