Living deadly...

Had a very productive day with a brand-spanking-still-being-put-up exhibition at mga to poetically exploit. Particularly enjoyed chatting to people about the marvelous Taking pictures some time later exhibition by Concettina Inserra and Lyndal Walker. It is probably the most challenging narrative series of photographic art I have ever seen, and inspired the second draft-poem below entitled 'all those streets in photographs'. 'Worm Blood Stains' was from a James Morrison sculptue series that is also well worth a look.


Worm Blood Stains
by jeremy davies (with thanks to James Morrison)

The devil rotates slowly
in thin air
made stone taken from an altar somewhere.
There's a dagger of light running down his miniature dick,
thoughtfully scabbarded.
There's a howl caught in him,
under his tongue,
Gene Simmons-like,
and between his still-frozen teeth.
And the light and shadows twitch
and sway
and make their way
in silence.

'Primordial man' has male-pattern baldness:
he's an accountant, looks after himself,
goes to the Y and swims enough.
But his cock's too big
(the old women worry in the café…)
He doesn't complain, he stares
Palms hung low, facing forward, ready for nails,

reflective, refractive,
strangely interactive.

'What the fuck?' says he
to me:
not like a question, like
a plea

and all I know is
kinda how he feels:
so, guilty-as-charged.

He hasn't seen the devil yet.

Looks like he's gonna trip on a turtle.


all those streets in photographs
by jeremy davies (with thanks to Concettina Insena & Lyndal Walker)

in picture one, 1975

Long hair in sweep, tits out,
'tis Juliet, lit-bold, with
every knowing innocence and
foreground to

two Romeos, en-jungled,
tattooed, dark and hairless,
one hand upon a bony hip

with all the whimsy of The Bard
and youth
and watchful indolence
as if you were passing by and staring—
Tybalt, therefore art thou!—
from a brown slow-moving Kingswood

such age'ed black and white,
it's attic-like nostalgia,
musty, guilty air they breathe
between the patient leaves.

in picture two, 1976

Wearing picture one as halter top,
perhaps to stop
the heated hated herpes of your gaze,
our Juliet is centre stage
(exeunt Romeos, one looking for his clothes.
One chasing the photographer—
with ready rapier—
right into the back o' last year.

The Kingswood's in the shop)

She looks the same, so soon,
made flesh from art
stepped out, her hair: perhaps:more oomph—
some mousse?—There's

more space for jungle,
without the crush of men behind.
Even so, there's something
far less wild.

Already the statement of the statement being made
is unrepentant? Maybe so, but
just a little, also, squeaky-scared

in picture three, 2000

and now, Pole Street homagé.
Juliet, recast,
no longer naturalé,
arms tight across her chest
with painted prim, perfected lips:
it fits.
Pulled tight
so bright
despite
the sharpness of fresh black and white.

And Romeos, returned,
grown hair, tattooed again,
still in the shadows of the leaves
inviting a restraining order, or,
at least, an employer-sanctioned
sexual harassment seminar.
(nibbles provided, but bring your own lunch)

Aware, and so aware of it,
wanting you to give a shit
but…

in picture four and five and six and seven and eight and nine and ten and eleven, 2010

…awareness has a virus
asexually transmitted
and it replicates in colour now
in suburbs of Street Everywhere.
There's every Montague and Capulet—
the Prince has passed a law;
that's how you learnt the lesson of—
neutral faces holding Pole street
by the fingertips, as if
it were the givings of a household pet
on arvo walkies

In Loving Memory of
Romeos and Juliet

We are in John and Nicholson and Albert:
Turnbridge Manor?
Now so puritan,
now so floral frocks
ordered in from Ipswich
now so stairs and doors and windows
and balconies sans star-crossed anything but

no no no tattoos or tits:
please
be pleased—
and look them up in diction'ries—
that picture three
(if we may return without the frame?)
can paint for us a thousand words
we never saw before,
unless we could've seen it from a Holden
they don't make no more.

(Picture two we see again later
Picture one is now blank paper.)

And the younger they are
The blanker their eyes.