Sunday 14 June 2009

The Queen and concrete

The first blog since the winter, I see, so is everything much the same? In Gaza they are building houses out of mud because they still aren't allowed steel, concrete, glass, by Israel's kindly Military Government. I am still writing letters in protest and hope the rest of the world are doing so too, except of course, you can bet, the bankers, the top politicians, especially the certifiable Cheyne, and onetrack Rupert Murdoch. Oh and I shouldn't think the Queen is doing much about it either.
But at least Michelle O persuaded her to give some of the now impoverished scurvy riddled villeins of her capital a bit of space for growing veg and potatoes in the Buck Pal garden ( that big military zone we can just see full of nice trees and empty lawns over the top of the barb wire as we bus down to Victoria. (You have to sit on the top deck.) Not since the war! Patriotism!
Meanwhile back home I have the freedom to work away at poems and fictions , and latterly at preparing my next Open House, happily collaborating with my friend and terrific artist and artbook print-maker, Carolyn Trant.
Last year we held our first Open House together, as part of Lewes ArtWave. This year I am concentrating on acrylic paintings on canvas. Somebody wise said that the best rest from work was other work (Who was it ?) Too true for the poet, the frustrated activist. The movement of paint or ink over paper, board, canvas, charcoal over newspaper, water into charcoal, watercolour slipping into the charcoal. That rim left when it dries. Or to collage photos, preferably mine, copied and recopied....messing around... no-one wants all this junk, I know, but I do, for the time at least I'm making free this way, making hay, making gold out of flax. And if afterwards, if a glimmer remains, so much the better. Oh but what does it All MEAN.? Oh joy, Oh liberty, Oh sneezes out of straw.

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