The Occult Panopticon

High spirit of brine
overlooking this doll-size panopticon
Only parts of his face coming visible
Occultly visible
and soaking in brine
for seven years and seven nights
with limitless supplies of dried fish
I am not a doll!
they had all tried that argument
and gotten a glass of brandy for comfort

Mattias, Merl, Nikos and Paul

Wednesday 9th March

Exhibition: Jean-Claude Charbonel & John Welson

Click on the image to see (and read) a larger version.

Caster Sugar

This has been going on far too long, yet nobody seems to have the strength to stop it. Rabbits and toads have proved powerless in the face of the compulsive Black Prince's dog-smoking, and herds of ostriches are running around in a fundamentally unfettered way. We see no other option at this point but to dig up our long-buried tools for invoking rarely mentioned spirits, such as those of well-meaning polar bears and cute space giraffes. The tools in question comprise arctic terns' beaks, a full set of bicycle spanners, a golden key, and the flowers that grow from our shoulders. May the three-footed hart arise again, to reinforce the metals of the rage that we see no way of stopping from letting loose at this stage. It will make mushrooms erupt. It will feel strangely comfortable. It will gallop down the hill with a scream and a yell and a cry of coriandered frenzy. To its voice we will add our tree-worn fury, our confused sense of orientation and our longing for impressively fine-grained sand, and it will converge in a singular, not noisy, perfectly spherical lawn, sprinkled with dewdrops and gilly flowers. The endless sky of Cumberland will drip ether onto the soil below, the snow will burst upwards in the stride of a hatted man, and there will be hardly anything left to abandon. It's only then, when the moon has risen and the mortal folk have put their cares and their toys away, that our horses will race in riotous charge, the cavalier cavalry of our mountain health, and with this we trust our voice has already reaped its victims. Solemnly. Like the giraffe's lips.

Mattias, Merl and Paul
7 March 2011

Destruction

The pink tulips lie abandoned on the lawn.
No black carrots are gathered together up a tree.
Cherries fall from the sky into a pool of sugar.
A martini glass climbs from the hole into a salt lake.
A lump of coal falls through the sand beside a freshwater stream.
A diamond jumps into a window over a salted meadow.
A shard of glass opens a hole and a sweet secret lies in the grass.
Thorns close a block of bitter juice on the pavement.
A fur blanket is swept aside to reveal a sweet pool of seeds in the sky.
A feathered bedstead is dragged over to cover a sour heap of dead plants underground.
Barbed wire falls across lush flesh in a meadow of sweetness.

Merl, Paul, Patrick and Aniano
1st March 2011

Collective drawing

Aniano, Merl, Patrick and Paul
1st March 2011

Exquisite corpse

Merl, Aniano, Patrick and Paul
1st March 2011

The Annular Projection

pencil drawing
by Aniano Henrique

The Organic Process

pencil drawing
by Aniano Henrique

The Mechanical Process

pencil drawing
by Aniano Henrique