Sunday 20 January 2013

Jeremy and the whale

 There are a number of black framed linocuts around the house that I made twenty years ago. They grew from my friendship with Jeremy Peyton, a shy Edinburgh based poet. He wrote a series of pieces (Open Secrets) some of which he then read at "Mouth Music", a children`s poetry festival at the Netherbow in Edinburgh. We collaborated on seven or eight of his poems, and I really liked the combination of black and white print and black and white text.
Deep down, beyond
your sight, and sound...

Beneath the storm
 that stirs the waves...

beneath the calm
sailors then crave...

I glide and slide
enormous, warm.

Where dangers swirl
strange tentacles

that rise and fall,
or razor teeth,

and nameless things
that suck and sting

I sidle past
solid and vast.

Where colours hide
inside dark holes

or sharp hard shells,
and rainbows swim

so fluid, fast
- elusive shoals

silver and gold,
purple, emerald...

I also dwell
a mobile wall,

where currents pull
countless minute

creatures, to fill
my massive mouth

that gapes, and sweeps
a mile deep.

Through silence, still
I strongly sing

then, surfacing
shoot out a spout

of water, from
my great grey back

that turns, and rolls
down, down, again.

[Jeremy Peyton]





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