I will be performing on the 9th of May (Friday) in Huddersfield (West Yorkshire, England!) along with other artists at a bar called Hand Drawn Monkey (Wood St).. It is a launch event for my book (My Deerboy) which will be available to buy on the night (all being well!)
The Victorians did death a big favour.
They gave it a physical presence for their future;
Bulked it up, developed the theme, the
Theatrical recapitulation of life;
Monolithic, gothic, romantic;
They thought they were worth it,
All that science and soul and stone;
They invested, made safes, parks of
Safes; they booby trapped Time and they’re
Still there blackened by their burning
Industriousness in common land laid out
For us, their invisible pollutants, forced
To associate with their shadows
Still..my baby loves to wander amongst
And between the constructed chaos, each plot
And we find well-tended graves, shrines
Recently attended by modern investors
And who would have thought it,
There is so much to cuddle in a graveyard!
As my two-year-old ambles she finds
Ornamental angels and teddy bears set there
As offerings, keepsakes for death to embrace,
Connection points between worlds; she bends and sniffs
Flowers; I can’t stop her or her embrace
Of these sentimental souvenirs of existence
Such a gift of life as she is, she can almost
Dissolve death held in these faded blocks, unshiftable
On sacred spots; whoever’s forever that was theirs to own,
Loosen the grip, the ownership; make a mockery of
These aspirations set in stone.
Gyms are human hangars with
the fit fine-tuning and bangers
being overhauled, all spinning
well lubed, some seized rotors but
never leaving their fixated
ground, making the most of
memberships; exclusivity.
I couldn’t fit into that, I need my
helicopter to take flight, to soar
outdoors in the sun, the rain-
rise above time, terrain;
survey the ordnance of my
body and mind. I need
the runner’s transfusion that comes
with the territory like a hunter intent
in a perfect suspension of resistance
and submission; go coursing
exclusively down my own veins and back
over the kind face of this earth
only then do I really feel I have made
the most of my membership.
My Deerboy 