Thursday 15 July 2010

city animals: pegasus








city animals: drift bestiary










The images in this and the next three posts come from a long drift in the area of the City and the Inns of Court in London. I didn't set out with animals on my mind, but I kept seeing them (or their representations) and photographing them; they are everywhere. Most of these animal forms relate to arcane bestiaries connected to the law, commerce, the monarchy, the state. A couple are from art nouveau lifts I chanced upon.

While some of these animal presences are innocuous, some are mysterious, like shadow daemons from another time, waiting and watching. When I looked back at a couple of them, they had moved. Like grandmother's footsteps.

I'll let you decide which ones you think they were.

Saturday 10 July 2010

last day on planet d

B takes a photograph with her eye.
S paints in the crust of salt with a finger of spit.
T wheels the last piano onto the fire.

P throws stones at a rock.

The afternoon turns over in its sleep,
then sleeps.

C trades her kingfisher skull for
a tinned peach. M traps air in a screw-
top jar. F plants the last of his teeth.

L pulls up the ladder,
Secures the hatch.
For Catriona S; adapted from Simon Armitage