Creative Venture #36

Been thinking a lot about this graffiti in Krakow, and then wrote a poem about it.

Rivers run, malaphorically rich,

We'll burn that bridge when we get to it.

Overpass sea to sea seen as cleave,

Birds of a feather are worth two in the bush.

A tributary tribute to arbitrary perimeter

Lets the cards lay where they fall.

Curdled creme de la resistance,

Je ne suis pas Charlie.

Beyond it doesn't concern me,

And we let dead dogs sleep.

Creative Venture #31

"There is no such thing as accident, it is fate misnamed."

- Napoleon Bonaparte

Creative Venture #30

It's been a long time since I did anything. I'm crabby and cross and, I think, part of that is because I'm not making time to create enough. So I'm going to try do it more.

Creative Venture #29

Creative Venture #28

The air is too thick here, thick with the light.
It's like the sky touches the earth and there's no room for us to move beneath it.
No-one here breathes, no-one here grows,
They just sink into the soil, putting down their roots, tangling their veins
Everything is still here, it's stuck and stiff,
It's too warm and too empty and too soft
Soft colours rounded shapes gentle voices slow blinks
Like a Monet left in a loft
Loft in a left hand shake.
The air tastes of soil and the soil tastes of death.

A December Update

So it's been a busy couple of months, and I've been naughty about documenting it, so here is an overview of what creativey things I've been up to...

I directed a play with LUDS called Fanny and Faggot. It sold out 2/3 nights, and we got some lovely reviews. I was very happy.

I've also done some acting in a medieval piece called The Second Shepherd's Play, a collaboration between the University of Liverpool and LUDS. We performed at The Walker Art Gallery, and did a mini tour of the North West, it was great fun.

It's been a good couple of months for dance too, I've had several performances throughout Liverpool.

The Humanities Yule Ball, MODO

Black History Month Closing Ceremony, LGOS

Winter Jamboree, LGOS

I've got a dance gig at the Echo Arena on Friday too which is pretty exciting.

I acted in the annual LUDS Ghost Tour, which was a great success. I also performed in my first Sketch Show in November.

I presented a Strictly Come Dancing charity gig at the uni with DanceSport and Banardos...

I was the Production Unit Manager for a show at The Epstein Theatre, How Nice to be in England! With Neil Innes. It was great to get experience with a professional show, and the team were so lovely.

Other stuff? Well I have lots of exciting stuff planned for the New Year. I'm directing a new adaptation of Oedipus Rex, continuing acting in a friend's short film, performing in a music video, producing a dance show, and we're booking accommodation for our Fringe 2013 production today. I've read a couple of great scripts recently which might yield some interesting opportunities too. Also, my degree.

Creative Endeavour #27

I have a feeling in my tummy that is like hunger
But I have gorged myself on your orgy of flesh
A word which bites and savours
Gorging orgies
Everywhere I go.

I can’t be hungry because I have eaten and eaten,
I have tasted all the flavours and I am tired of them
I also have a feeling in my chest
It’s sortof tight
Sortof loose.

My body has all these sensations, I’m ravenous
I want to bite cut rip tear slice with my teeth
But I much as I keep on tasting
Nothing has flavour
Nothing to bite.

Creative Endeavour #26 - a reply

Someone left a comment telling me not to repeat words and use more punctuation in poems.
The result is now before you.
I’ll try to use various symbols (finding synonyms for the ‘p’ word feels difficult)!
Clarity’s evidently requisite…
…ellipsis’ may or may not be useful here.
Perhaps we should ascribe alliteration also.
Be this good poetry yet?!

(keyboard lacks interrobang)

Creative Venture #26

Gold teeth are falling now

From pastures of before

I knew in golden towns

Knew better than their law

Back to the wall I stood

Beside a man I almost was

And for all we knew we could

Have been forever lost

Turn me back to the pet I used to be

Council my breath

My back's to the wall and I'm lonely

I'm standing, counted. I am left.

My skin too white to last the night

I wanted to muddy yours

Still I can taste that pale light

And you know when it rains sometimes it pours

The sweetest lipless embrace I know

Was too much to allow

Bury yourself beneath the snow

For I am golden now.

Creative Venture #25

My friends Katy and Greg are moving into a new swanky flat in London to live their fabulous lives. They asked me for a painting combining their two main interests - modelling and organic chemistry...

It's based on Katy's very beautiful face.

Creative Venture #24

I'm starting a new mini project, a study of my own face. I want to see what I can do with something I see every day, whether I can present it in new lights. It's called The Face Project, because I'm not witty enough to come up with anything better.

Creative Venture #23

Having said that, here is another angry poem I wrote on the bus today.

I wish I was stupid. 

I wish I didn't invalidate every one of my feelings before I even had them,

That I didn't believe love was logistical and hate only a tool for the pack.

I wish I didn't see an animal when I looked at you,

I wish I didn't see more of an animal when I look at myself and I wish we were all animals just

Biting and sleeping and fucking.

I wish I had never read a book or heard a song that made me cry, 

I wish I had no eyes and no mind with which to see that which my eyes have

calculated and counted and commissioned 

for purpose.

I wish that flesh did not taste so fresh, nor blood

flow so freely the slut. Slut slut slut.

Blood like lies like slut.

I wish I could use words like never and always and believe them.

It's all logistical and I am so calm.

I wish I could flail and cry out and scream but I only how how to be calm.

It is logistical.

Creative Venture #22

I've been away for a while, working on plays. I'm exhausted and happy. Whilst I was in Edinburgh, I reckon I experienced just about every emotion under the sun, and I wrote this one day when I was angry. It's OK, I'm not angry any more.

I stand here on the edge of oblivion
And it kills me that I know I cannot fall
For I am chained here to the spot
Which is ever transient and moving
Moving and even the Northern Star is moving
The weighing scales are broken, there was too much to measure, we were too heavy or maybe we broke them on purpose deliberately deliberating the liberating of the libellous libraries that lies to our eyes to our minds to our hearts to our lips
And our lips. Are. Traitors.
What good has your mouth ever done for you?
I'd say cut it off but it is a gaping black and vacuous hole, and you cannot amputate that which is within you
And I am so angry
I am disgusted at the touch of every living creature but most of all horrified terrified sterilised by my own gentle and heinous touch.
A hundred people walk by me, a hundred hundred, maybe five thousand and I want to feed them, I want to force poison down their fat little throats, poison and pain and terror and everything they would be feeling i only they understood what was happening to them to me to you to us to tomorrow to your plans and your hands and the deeds you planned to be good.

If you can see Jesus Christ in toast, then I see me in coffee. I could put my hand through this stone wall, through this stone body I could punch and punch and punch it until the air shatters and I can't breathe and I am beginning to believe my own lies and what is truth?

Creative Venture #21

So it turns out men are a lot more difficult to draw than women. Must practice. It's supposed the be the Archangel Michael.

Creative Venture #20

Here is a trailer I directed for a play I'm ADing for. I can't claim any credit for how awesome it looks though, that was all the boys behind the camera and the kids in front of it.

Creative Venture #19

Creative Venture #18

If I should cling to you in the night
Press my face into your chest in fear
Or in like which is not love, or in a closer friendship
If my breathing should alter or falter
If you should catch me tossing or hear me
Whimper
Then put your arms around me and
Make me feel I am safe
Wrap me in you and keep me inside
From the raging dragons.
Perhaps stroke my hair.
But do not read too much into it, whatever you do -
For I am only dreaming.

Creative Venture #17

This weekend I have mostly been shooting trailers for my play and making mermaid scarecrows. 

Creative Venture #16

Make me hate you
Strip me naked and beat me in the street
Leave me bruised and pulsing, convulsing
Make me real and make me kneel
Make me want to hit you back.

Yellow drapes and pale skin
I am pliant, I am anyone
How high?
You are no-one and that's the game.
One thank you sir.

No more dimensions please
Don't spoil the refraction
Be fiction and figurement
And I will be anything you want
For something I imagined.

Creative Venture #15