Work submitted by members of the Agbrigg Writers
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Solstice |
| solstice_with_picture.docx |
Creaking Gate
"When are you going to oil that gate?" she said for the hundredth time.
"I have my reasons dear", he replied defensively.
The fact was she walked in her sleep. Several times she'd be through the front door and he'd only known when the gate creaked as she set off for the river bank. He'd always brought her back safely and she'd never realised.
But he got around to it in the end.
The coroner recorded death by misadventure.
From then on, he made a habit of oiling the gate regularly.
After all, that was what she would have wanted.
John Seacome October 2017
"When are you going to oil that gate?" she said for the hundredth time.
"I have my reasons dear", he replied defensively.
The fact was she walked in her sleep. Several times she'd be through the front door and he'd only known when the gate creaked as she set off for the river bank. He'd always brought her back safely and she'd never realised.
But he got around to it in the end.
The coroner recorded death by misadventure.
From then on, he made a habit of oiling the gate regularly.
After all, that was what she would have wanted.
John Seacome October 2017
Barbara Hepworth - An Inspiration
Stoned
The stone was in the room.
It had taken ten men to get it there.
She felt like a mother whose child was safely home.
Now she had work to do.
She circled the stone.
Taking in the angles and shadows.
She wondered, how many sunsets had it seen?
How many miles travelled?
She knelt and shut her eyes.
Like a lover her hands caressed the curves and dips
Awakening a frisson of energy.
With a final embrace she stood
Seeds of an idea crystallising.
Images emerging with a shudder of excitement.
Lyn Graham
Single Form
stonelike, you squat in my studio
an achingly sad pill to swallow.
chiselled to a point where I
struggle with balance,
perfect imperfections
are there for fingers
to gently explore.
this eye is
following
watching
weeping
waiting
for
the
s w a l l o w s
Lesley Moore
Jagged Stone
Sunlight seeps into the crevices
Of the jagged stone
That sits precariously on the window sill.
Smoothing my fingers over its sharp contours,
I feel the angular scars of a previous life,
And wonder how I should attempt
To tame it,
To smooth away the roughness,
To restructure its haphazardness
Into some kind of meaning.
I move it out of the sunlight
And place it alone on a plinth
Where it takes on a different hue,
Standing proudly in the hushed dimness
Of my studio.
I walk around it,
Slowly, softly, reverentially
Viewing it from every angle,
Admiring its rugged shape, its greyish brown tints,
Its history and its resilience.
I take out my camera to frame
This work of art for posterity,
Before gathering up my tools
To sculpt it
Into an unnatural form,
To be placed on a plinth
For others.
Larraine Harrison
The Journey Inwards
The rock looms in the bright white studio light.
She knows what she has to do.
The form has long been in her
echoing her need to express.
The stone’s heart is resistant,
resentful maybe.
It yearns for its ancient rest,
thrown up in the boiling seethe that formed the planet,
cooled and split by the seismic rolling of the oceans.
Then frozen to its core.
It has no fear.
Integrated in its completeness
it views the puny soul that knows nothing
as she readies with a ladder and chisel to scribble on its surface.
The granite boulder squats,
menacing,
very much alert.
Alive
and waiting.
Viv Longley
Tussle
It is 2:0 AM on a starless night
Tormented by the stalking jackal
Who blocks the rhythm in my head
Along the longest journey inwards
Through misted corridors, I quell
the brain tremble. Ignore his yips.
Haunted by a concept that slips
out of reach. Beyond the edge of
a precipice. Grappling mind pictures
that evolve, dissolve, snowflakes on a hot plate.
It is 4:0AM the artful beast savages notion
at conception.
We wrestle
grumble, thump, growl.
Floored to a count of eight.
And as pink skies bell in the dawn
Rise triumphant
June
ART INSTALLATION. CORNELIA PARKER 1991
AN EXPLODED VIEW / COLD DARK MATTER
Method :
People searched their cellars, lofts , garages for unwanted clutter, junk,
keepsakes . Memories let go .
Examples of labelled items :
Item 4 A well used colander from Aunty Marjorie…. two doors down .
Item 17 Frayed grey string from James’s toy sailing boat .
Item 54 A mouth piece from Annie’s grandad’s trombone .
Cornelia collected the precious cargo and she placed, pushed and piled
it into a wooden shed .
She asked the army to assist her. On a summer’s day under a cloudless
sky they carefully positioned the explosives in the shed ……….
Worlds were torn apart . Splintering, spiralling, crashing down .
Cornelia transported the destruction to a calm , large, white room
waiting to be crafted .
With passion, she choreographed and composed the now . She
carefully created movement, shadows and reflection ………..
The suspended fragments
strangely sharing time and space .
Stories floating ,falling .
The air light with matter .
Deborah
SINGLE FORM
An embryo made of metal
sits sullenly before me.
How should I deliver this child
and breathe it into life?
Enable it to speak to those
who understand.
Not figuratively.
That’s not my style,
But intangibly.
This one’s made of bronze.
Warm tones emanate like
A tanned torso on a Spanish shore.
Some essence into this I must distil.
Its shape, Its colour, its meaning.
I chisel an eye.
It stares insolently at
Those who try intently to respond.
And those who already understand,
the steadiness and harmony
A metal lump can signify.
The essence permeates deep within.
And is the eye peering at me
as I rest exhausted?
John Seacome
Deep Within Me You Grow
My thoughts fit like insects caught in the wind,
buzzing and humming until,
they struggle and squiggle across the page.
Creeping, covering bare earth
with delicate tracery. Searching
For somewhere to take hold.
In dappled light I meander through woods.
Wild garlic words
weave together and interlace
making their patterns more defined.
Standing taller and straighter
Gaining strength in their number
And order. The water is clear
as it flows
over moss covered stones
Leaving debris below.
Deep within me you grow.
Anne Brook
Deep Within
I feel you there right at the edge of my mind,
itching to get out and live on the blank paper,
which sits, sadly waiting for the idle pen.
'Get on with it,' you say.
'Easier said than done,' I reply.
'My minds too busy with other stuff.'
'Get rid of it then, be calm,
breathe deeply, anything.
If you don't I'll disappear.'
'I know you will.' I sigh.
'Ideas, that's what I'm short of.'
'Oh come on... you're wasting time.
You can do it, here I'll help.'
I feel the tickle.
Maybe this is the beginning.
I feel a sense of what I want to say and then,
I tentatively write the first sentence.
The pen dances, the paper comes to life,
The momentum begins to build
and we're away.
It's like a trickle of water,
that becomes a brisk brook,
then a swift flowing stream,
turning into a raging river which chunders on
and on, threatening to burst it's banks if it's not controlled
as it races towards the ever changing ocean.
I feel the flutter of energy as
words flow out of my pen
finding their space on the page
no longer blank, but filled with images
wrought from a dream of ideas deep within
Loretta Fallas
The stone was in the room.
It had taken ten men to get it there.
She felt like a mother whose child was safely home.
Now she had work to do.
She circled the stone.
Taking in the angles and shadows.
She wondered, how many sunsets had it seen?
How many miles travelled?
She knelt and shut her eyes.
Like a lover her hands caressed the curves and dips
Awakening a frisson of energy.
With a final embrace she stood
Seeds of an idea crystallising.
Images emerging with a shudder of excitement.
Lyn Graham
Single Form
stonelike, you squat in my studio
an achingly sad pill to swallow.
chiselled to a point where I
struggle with balance,
perfect imperfections
are there for fingers
to gently explore.
this eye is
following
watching
weeping
waiting
for
the
s w a l l o w s
Lesley Moore
Jagged Stone
Sunlight seeps into the crevices
Of the jagged stone
That sits precariously on the window sill.
Smoothing my fingers over its sharp contours,
I feel the angular scars of a previous life,
And wonder how I should attempt
To tame it,
To smooth away the roughness,
To restructure its haphazardness
Into some kind of meaning.
I move it out of the sunlight
And place it alone on a plinth
Where it takes on a different hue,
Standing proudly in the hushed dimness
Of my studio.
I walk around it,
Slowly, softly, reverentially
Viewing it from every angle,
Admiring its rugged shape, its greyish brown tints,
Its history and its resilience.
I take out my camera to frame
This work of art for posterity,
Before gathering up my tools
To sculpt it
Into an unnatural form,
To be placed on a plinth
For others.
Larraine Harrison
The Journey Inwards
The rock looms in the bright white studio light.
She knows what she has to do.
The form has long been in her
echoing her need to express.
The stone’s heart is resistant,
resentful maybe.
It yearns for its ancient rest,
thrown up in the boiling seethe that formed the planet,
cooled and split by the seismic rolling of the oceans.
Then frozen to its core.
It has no fear.
Integrated in its completeness
it views the puny soul that knows nothing
as she readies with a ladder and chisel to scribble on its surface.
The granite boulder squats,
menacing,
very much alert.
Alive
and waiting.
Viv Longley
Tussle
It is 2:0 AM on a starless night
Tormented by the stalking jackal
Who blocks the rhythm in my head
Along the longest journey inwards
Through misted corridors, I quell
the brain tremble. Ignore his yips.
Haunted by a concept that slips
out of reach. Beyond the edge of
a precipice. Grappling mind pictures
that evolve, dissolve, snowflakes on a hot plate.
It is 4:0AM the artful beast savages notion
at conception.
We wrestle
grumble, thump, growl.
Floored to a count of eight.
And as pink skies bell in the dawn
Rise triumphant
June
ART INSTALLATION. CORNELIA PARKER 1991
AN EXPLODED VIEW / COLD DARK MATTER
Method :
People searched their cellars, lofts , garages for unwanted clutter, junk,
keepsakes . Memories let go .
Examples of labelled items :
Item 4 A well used colander from Aunty Marjorie…. two doors down .
Item 17 Frayed grey string from James’s toy sailing boat .
Item 54 A mouth piece from Annie’s grandad’s trombone .
Cornelia collected the precious cargo and she placed, pushed and piled
it into a wooden shed .
She asked the army to assist her. On a summer’s day under a cloudless
sky they carefully positioned the explosives in the shed ……….
Worlds were torn apart . Splintering, spiralling, crashing down .
Cornelia transported the destruction to a calm , large, white room
waiting to be crafted .
With passion, she choreographed and composed the now . She
carefully created movement, shadows and reflection ………..
The suspended fragments
strangely sharing time and space .
Stories floating ,falling .
The air light with matter .
Deborah
SINGLE FORM
An embryo made of metal
sits sullenly before me.
How should I deliver this child
and breathe it into life?
Enable it to speak to those
who understand.
Not figuratively.
That’s not my style,
But intangibly.
This one’s made of bronze.
Warm tones emanate like
A tanned torso on a Spanish shore.
Some essence into this I must distil.
Its shape, Its colour, its meaning.
I chisel an eye.
It stares insolently at
Those who try intently to respond.
And those who already understand,
the steadiness and harmony
A metal lump can signify.
The essence permeates deep within.
And is the eye peering at me
as I rest exhausted?
John Seacome
Deep Within Me You Grow
My thoughts fit like insects caught in the wind,
buzzing and humming until,
they struggle and squiggle across the page.
Creeping, covering bare earth
with delicate tracery. Searching
For somewhere to take hold.
In dappled light I meander through woods.
Wild garlic words
weave together and interlace
making their patterns more defined.
Standing taller and straighter
Gaining strength in their number
And order. The water is clear
as it flows
over moss covered stones
Leaving debris below.
Deep within me you grow.
Anne Brook
Deep Within
I feel you there right at the edge of my mind,
itching to get out and live on the blank paper,
which sits, sadly waiting for the idle pen.
'Get on with it,' you say.
'Easier said than done,' I reply.
'My minds too busy with other stuff.'
'Get rid of it then, be calm,
breathe deeply, anything.
If you don't I'll disappear.'
'I know you will.' I sigh.
'Ideas, that's what I'm short of.'
'Oh come on... you're wasting time.
You can do it, here I'll help.'
I feel the tickle.
Maybe this is the beginning.
I feel a sense of what I want to say and then,
I tentatively write the first sentence.
The pen dances, the paper comes to life,
The momentum begins to build
and we're away.
It's like a trickle of water,
that becomes a brisk brook,
then a swift flowing stream,
turning into a raging river which chunders on
and on, threatening to burst it's banks if it's not controlled
as it races towards the ever changing ocean.
I feel the flutter of energy as
words flow out of my pen
finding their space on the page
no longer blank, but filled with images
wrought from a dream of ideas deep within
Loretta Fallas
