Weird Scenes at the Plantation

Is it all so long ago? Maybe they came from space, maybe from another time or dimension, maybe they were already here, always, and then just burst up through the earth when the time was right. The year was 1955. The memories were all mine but they might as well have been neanderthal for all the difference it could make. You could smell it in the air and I knew when the old man said that there was something very wrong with our lands that he was right. Now we suffer the consequences. The brown earth rises under what strange energy to pass on the message. Now we have historical perspective but little understanding. Under our feet, awake when asleep, never dead, never alive, simply eternal and it's not coming home because it never really left.

Scrap Collage

Industrial skies

Iron and rust

Industry cast offs

Reflected in the price

Of scrap metal.

Icy Blue Nowhere

Somewhere, beyond icy blue

A stream of thought awaits you

And all you have to do

Is clearly think it through

And all you'll have to show

Are the simple things you know.

Potato Sack

Don't worry about test and trace

Don't worry how to mask your face

Don't worry that the government tells tall tales

Don't worry our success is a list of fails

We're OK, we'll get back

We're beautiful

Here's Marilyn in a potato sack

See Marilyn in a potato sack

Don't stress at the daily brief

Don't fret don't suck your teeth

Don't cry when you get bad news

Don't listen if you get the blues

We're OK we're not slack
Rockin' the Corona snacks

Here's Marilyn in a potato sack

See Marilyn in a potato sack

Don't worry if we contradict

Don't worry if the facts don't fit

Don't worry you can't get a test

We'll beat the world and we'll be the best

We're OK soon in the black

We're makin' it

Here's Marilyn in a potato sack

Just like Marilyn in a potato sack

Marilyn in a chlorinated chicken shack

Marilyn's life is a life is a hack

Marilyn in the conga line at the back

Marilyn Monroe in a potato sack.

Birds

Birds building bird houses - for your soul of course.

Never really know

The driver promised her a car

Another backstreet cruise

Relax just like a movie star

There's nothing left to lose

Maybe there's a gun in her handbag

Or a tiny pack of coke

Cloned and poisoned credit cards

Stolen from some bloke

A mobile phone a side door key

Appointment card for surgery

A photograph of you and me

We'll never really know.

Still Short

Still from a film with a long commentary.

"I cleaned out the dishwasher filter, removed the gunge, fed the cats, 

(you know the chicken they are eating needs to be used up as it's past it's use by date).

MPs are not the same as experts. 

The shower should be unblocked.

Following a slow police van.

The laundry pretty much does itself itself. 

Black out Tuesday.

I've lost a sock.

Recycling by booking only.

I've three clean jiffy bags but nothing to put into them yet.

Black Lives Matter.

Sports laces on Amazon and an Arsenal birthday card.

Various types of fish.

Donald Trump doesn't know how to hold a bible.

I routinely check the temperature of the fridge, mostly it's making it.

There's a 61% chance of rain but only after 1700 this evening."

Some say some things happen.
Other's say that those things didn't happen.
Some know what is true.
Other's say that all depends.

Things of no consequence

And there they are, random and untitled, unlisted and unknown and without context, apart from being here.

Letter to Members

Parked Pictures

Some people park cars, some people walk their dogs in parks, some people take part in park runs. I'm just parking pictures here in this picture park. A parking area where pictures can be parked whilst their fate and future is decided. It may take some time, you can never tell. The parking here is free (at the moment).

Ear Head

"I'm an ear head baby, can't buy a thrill."

Jungle Connections

My jungle connections

Time spent under an unkind sun

Lost and pathless

Eyes through the trees.

It fights back

Somewhere in our DNA

A Neanderthal stands tall

And mocks

Our thirsty journey and our progress.

He's on a couch, watching 2001

Beer in hand

Having a laugh.

Better than expected

It's a howling gale outside, wind, rain the works. It is January and this is Scotland. Anyway this wee piece of shadowy distortion turned out better than I expected. God is the great programmer and we are the great programmes and I truly have no idea what I'm talking about.

Colours of January

For no particular reason the colours of January this year will be represented by colouring book colours of cats and dogs displayed in a slightly distorted fashion.

Going about their business

Some people might think

If you see some celebrity or public figure

By chance (?)

Three times or more

In odd places

Out in the real world

Outside of a screen

Just going about their business

That it means something

That it's a message

A call to action

A call to act

What would you do?

What would you do with that thought?

The View

The View.

Still life landscape

Traffic cone, vacuum cleaner and piano.

Economics

In the school of economics

Things are seldom comic

Things seldom make sense

There's cause and consequence

But no clear explanation

Theories and equations

Factors, actors and detractors.

Oh yes.

Substance is lacking

You need fiscal backing

Relentlessly attacking

Other schools of thought

You see ...

Economics can be bought.

Triptych

The Holy Spirit moved across the earth, across the waters and through the ether. That was about all he could manage. It had been a tough assignment.

In the jungle, the mighty jungle, the Virgin Mary sleeps tonight. She had no memory of the previous day nor had any flashbacks (yet).

Having done his "job" he moves on and does other things. He does not have a robust span of attention it seems. Eyes all seeing, ears all hearing and a dark brown voice with a contemporary  Middle Eastern tone to it.

Without thinking

Walking down the sides of tall buildings

In a single bound

Faster than speed

Darker than a bullet

The dawning of the age

As a spider moves across a wall

Yonder snow capped peaks can't speak

Before yesterday was another day

There always was tomorrow

It brought comic strips and impossibility

Very straight lines and talk

Noiseless words describing noise

Where the buffalo roamed

We imported that other culture

Misappropriated it and all their deeds

Killed the hostages and bought fresh slaves

Piled gold into limousines

And planned a better future

All without thinking about what we were actually doing.

Moody

Moody Cafe

From a table

interior 

looking out

 light comes in 

traffic and blur 

wedding guests

 shoppers

 pavement hoppers

 hawkers

 apple juice

 gallery 

Saturday

lunch.

Pizza V Timewarp

Intergalactic pizza with fruit

Here are a series of words: Some roads are bright coloured roads. Some roads are black and white. Monochrome. Painfully coloured. Darkened by plain tones. Mixed in places. The plain meets the tones. Here and there. On the borders. Where they mingle. Intergalactic. Inner.

Eastern sunset

Eastern sunset.
There is no Western sunset.
Ever.
Unless you view it in a mirror.

Number two

...in an occasional series.

Wild sea

Here's a picture I created
Called "the wild sea"
Far away from me
but still it surrounds
space - water - time
from a safe distance.

Breakfast

Here's a breakfast I made, earlier.

Now it's a flash in the pan,
a mark in the dishwasher,
debris in the bin.

Some say waste is a sin,
but not the kind of sin or thing,
the excludes you, or eludes you,
separates you, makes you,
look a fool.

Then I reflected.

The eggs have eyes,
well that's where the thinking began,
that turned me into a vegan.

I didn't even think about the bacon.

About time

"Why should I of all people believe in the words of the Buddha? Why should I follow his teachings? There is no peace, no occasional rest, no respite.  I have seen things but they are in the past so what is the point in searching for justice? We are all in constant crisis." 

These are some things I said, they are things I may have meant at the time. Now I'm not so sure. I'm not even sure if I ever said them. It may be that you said them all along, throwing your voice, closing out my thoughts with some bombastic forces that I couldn't counter. I may have been weak. You cannot hang a man for that.

I wasn't sure what was really going on. I was unsighted for a moment. It was all a bit chaotic. I could however sense the disapproval. We had crossed some kind of line, broken away, travelled through. There was a new space and place before. Perhaps there was a breach in the space/time continuum anyway. I'll probably never know. All I can recall was that her nose seemed to grow, her features became sharper and the grasp of her hand stronger. I read later in a lengthy footnote that this kind of thing was to be expected. I did feel judged however.

So those great blocks of concrete closed in around us. The daylight became a precious thing. The size and the bulk was overwhelming. It took courage just to look up, to lift our eyes from the flickering screens, to watch as the heavy air descended upon us. There were cracks in their lungs. Those others in the gloomy dark. The air was like some heavenly poison, too much, too late, too soon for any redemption. After a struggle with myself I found the door and walked out alone. I didn't look back. That would have been the right thing to do but the time was wrong. In the end it's all about time.

Trees walking

One day, quite by chance, the trees came to life. Of course the trees were already alive so when I say that they came to life I mean that they developed movements, animal attributes and what seemed to be consciousness, at a low level. Funnily enough I was the only one who was aware of it. Others couldn't see it. I tried to explain but well, you know how these things are. So as for the trees, they turned out to be reasonably peaceful, perhaps not fully aware of what people had done to them and happy to be poking about in the woods (?). How they were used as a raw material etc. might bother them if they ever find out. They were a bit like cows. I often think of how that first occurred to me. "These trees are alive now, fully alive, but really they are like big. wooden cattle with leaves and bark so there's no need to be afraid unless they learn anger". Once I'd come to this point I relaxed a bit. The trees would mostly be OK but there may be some upsets if they ever get to understand human history but that hasn't happened yet even with cows so we could be all fine albeit forestry is going to be a little more complicated now that the trees are moving around. I considered reading them the chapters from Lord of the Rings referring to the Ents but then decided that might be a bad idea as it might give them good ideas. We'll have to wait and see what happens next.