artist in residence Sarah Murphy
introduction
to the fellowship
fellowship
journals 17 june to 13 august 2007
fellowship journals 14 august to 1 september
2007
fellowship journals 2nd - 22nd september 2007
fellowship journals 23rd september -12th november
2007
fellowship journals from 13th november 2007
slow
sun signals through torn cloud
stones of the old mill bask in fact
why is the traffic so secure?
to learn again what song was
over and over
long notes on the edge of breath
do not equal it
the world of music far from here
inside the body
closed in here
a little oak tree at the hedge
foot
green as a lime and
springy with two leaves
where my heart lives
who
escapes?
and through what door?
the leaves sink
into me
and change
i fall through
the leaves
and change
they
found cellars hung with scarves of dust
to hold their children
they found only the cage of the sabbath
to stage their exhaustion
they found earthless theatres of soot
to hang clean clothes
they found the furnace of rum
to burn their images
all falling pinched to disaster always
falling
hopeless and employed
now they lie fixed in my mouth
like a host of wooden tongues
all who pass my
way are changed
who is lost?
and through what door?
2
i am here
i
sing
i am
here
like
a blade of grass
under horses’ hooves
on the outskirts
of a riot
on
bad days my bad voice makes
burnt umber blood trails
by the stony banks
i am the naked dark fight
of two abandoned men
i am the reasonless battering
at my own absence
of drunk boys under floodlight
i am the vandalised cunny
of the municipal rose
i am the puke-flower
of the sleeping tongue
dreaming its own silence
in the silver gulches
of the night
i
have been all this my spotless brothers
i have been the hands of dust
i fell so far that i began to grow
again like fireweed
on the wordless earth
on the finest dust of the beyond i grew
on the last breath of the city i began
on the empty jetsam of the plastic world
i found my root
i found my voice
3
pressed
by the pavings
by
the feet on pavings
the
relentless passage
of
every block
inquisitors
from Progress
testing
the limits
of
the peapod
escaping into buttercups and horsetails
blue
moment of a greenfly’s wing
unnoticed by the giant eyes
of the guardians
of work
i am the weight
of the dust
a moth leaves
i am the weight
of the touch
of a spider mite
i am the weight
of a single parasol
breaking
from the dandelion’s
clock
that small moment
on your shoulder
when the rain came
was my kiss
© copyright keith jafrate 2007
dancing beneath
leaf
flames
blue trails
a dive of arrows
feathers or fingers turning
leaf to leaf
sun lit blue weed lace
fierce cool & slipping
light from shadow
damsel fly blue
shimmer
breathed
wreathed
in fireweed coronet
flame or scarlet
ascending
in
fireweed plumage
these curious green scarves
cling
my
weed gloved hands
admired
arched into black
see
the moon towers
mushroom smooth
glowing
what’s been forgotten
*
the
fireweed
the fireweed
falls as comet trail
pheonix tail
cinder whiskers
solar arrows
godflecks
the
bright fury sounds
swallows leap to it
but no-one else hears
the
dark green’s gathering
as sleep
secret & travelling
a path so dark
memory falls
in drift & longing
something
on the surface is alight
dust constellations
spangly & glamorous
or little flashy tapping shoes
*
feathers
leaves
shells
hooves
footfall
hands
hair
scales
stars
eyelids
wings
lips
shadows
shallows
boats
sky
swifts
swallows
the workers
the walkers
the runners
the dealers
willows
birch
oak
lime
sycamore
dogrose
bright red berries
nettle
rose baywillow herb
clover
himalayan balsam
bindweed
ragwort
groundsel
