Poetic Movements

A house loves to have smiles to show to the world for a house full of smiles is a house full of light. Smiles are placed across space be it large                      & labyrinthine or small              & contained on walls on tables even on the floors; smiles are shaped once an instant brightening a face enough for them to be infinite. Smiles are framed in colour or in black & white to welcome you inside or wish you farewell; smiles are a promise you’ ll see a face again. Maybe that’s why every time I s pot a frame – peeking through windows, passing by open doors – I miss your smile. February 2020, St Andrews. Photograph: windows at quartier Madou, Brussels; 23 Oct. 2019.

I. The weather came in showers and as hours pass in tandem horizons threw on us gale. I can't imagine a world full of sunshine said the lonely soil and opened up to the skies. The windows licked the drops before the wind would steal them; their surface l usting for salt t he freezing sensation on ice. The storm had only started and ducks fled the lake like children should flee war. The river tried to stand for a second or a moment; the river tried to say it was soon going to go away. II. I held your hands in mine and watched their wrinkled lines; your breath was like a cigar’s smoke s ome winter back in the chalet. Snow brewed from us above a moonlit avalanche to strike ; I hadn’t seen you in a while so I kept holding your hands in mine. St Andrews, February 2020. Photograph: post storm Ciara; Lade Braes, St Andrews, 9 February 2020.

The store is gone but you still think you can walk past its door. The white aisles create a void but you almost touch what was your milk of choice. Cities raise a joy in front of the eyes only to abruptly dematerialise. Suddenly you are haunted by an eventide that never found the time to thrive. Visiting the empty market people come & go their bags laden. What else was to expect? – places do not just ebb. Children rush from us beyond riding on the menacing dragon; made of stone & standing still in the ghosted streets of D è . January 2020, Dundee. Photograph: dragons in Dundee; 1 February 2020.