the road to nowhere

I am on a path of ideas. I have to keep walking. There is further to travel to reach my destination. Continue with me if you will.

Do we use methods of capture to keep a safe distance between ourselves and our reality, ourselves and our experiences, ourselves and our former selves? Do we seek to put a frame around moments so they are contained and cannot leak beyond the boundaries we allow them. Does this extend beyond the stasis of photography. Is it at play in films trapped on celluloid and wound onto concealed reels? words inked into bottom-drawer diaries? conversations ended with knowing silence?

‘maybe I shot the video tape so I wouldn’t have to remember it myself’ David Freidman

I wonder if all things look better from a distance? Up close we are microscopes to every imperfection. With time and distance the serrated edges of emotion grow blunt - so we can press against them with little fear to our paper thin skin. In their time smoothed surfaces we see a little of ourselves, but mostly just them.

‘you pass through boredom into fascination’ Adam Phillips

Writing becomes universal and somehow more profound when read at a time when the acute meaning has dimmed. Like large works of impressionist art. Up close we see blocks and dots of colour and paint - take a few steps back and a masterpiece greets us.

As I retreat from this room I look at the far wall, and ask… is it leaving me - am I leaving it - or is the parting mutual?

paper poses

This island melts to soft focus - my eyes threaten to drip from their sockets to the page. Thought shifts to photographs. To faces frozen in time - expressions locked for lifetimes to come. People inkpinned to paper.

Some of my favourite photos of my favoured friends are those they probably like the least. Images where their mind has left the building that is the body. Vacant possession. They are sham castles - all flashy front but nothing to inhabit.

Their eyes are empty of meaning, thought, life. They have been bled dry by madness, misery, or distracting thought. They hold two dimensional poses - as if they painted themselves that way that day because they knew the only thing they would be fit for is a quick dip in a chemical bath and an early burial between the pages of an unread book.

right

left

down

up

angels with silver wings

Its not for me to mourn something I never knew, to cry over someone I never lost. I don’t want to pick over the ashes of the remains of the day. Its not right for me to keep my silence for two minutes just because the papers tell me to. Silence cant stitch together the holes we tear in time.

I don’t want to be told when to remember any more than when to forget. Within my mind all knowledge is mine - to play, rewind and erase as I see fit. I don’t want mourning marked on my calendar like the chalk lines around cartoon murder victims.

I want to be surprised. I want to be scared. I want to be caught unawares and grabbed by the throat by a memory best left forgotten. I want to be made to remember something that didn’t happen rather than something that did.

On Sunday 4th June memory paid an unexpected visit. A chance call to remind me that she guides my hand more than I care to admit. A year to the day and she called my name - turned my head from rain to flame. She is the messenger - the bright burning angel who speaks for the silenced. Singing songs of echoes of echoes of echoes.

And to take myself back to where I began, I tell you that what she told me is not yours to know. But I’ll give you a precious fragment of what she gave me, that -

The truest promises are those that never come to pass.

On Sunday 4th June, in a place not made for your eyes I wrote -

‘This is a blank space. A series of backspaces to erase what was previously laid. To pick it up in its delicate entirety - and carry it to another place, another day.’

This is that place. And today is that day.

I pad through the dark

You are the bonfire burning four or more gardens away. I never left the house but I’m sure I lit the fire. Sleepwalking with nothing on my feet but a spark between my teeth. Sleepwalking sweet pyromaniac dreams. I whispered you into ignition.

Embers flutter through the air. Black moths of memories lost. Twisting like discarded letters - spelling out the secrets we tried to burn. I wait and watch as they fall to where I lay. To where I came to rest at last. Ever grey on white skin. Fading into my pores - they spell your name.