my father and I went on an adventure, trying to someone he once loved,
someone from his past.
we looked from house to house on the sea,
trying to find that familiar yellow,
just to discover that it had been swept away years ago.
just to discover a decrepit, dieing place.
All that would remain was a quiet memory.
And in that dull void of nothingness that followed,
after all the anticipation of finding his brother,
the wind whipped my hair,
I stared into my father's eyes,
and I swear I could hear the emptiness in his heart.

 

 

hope you've kissed summer goodbye,
she's left,
skirts flying high,
not a glance behind
as she disappears into the thicket.
(all on various slide film)

you appear in my night terrors as a figure in the distance.
I know that you are lost, I know that you are gone.
but
will I catch up to you,
before the black sky
turns blue?
if the whole world comes to light,
will you be out of sight?

I will soon be a memory.
patched together,
across an ocean,
fading into a dream you can't remember.

 Some self portraits I've taken based on a piece of poetry by the remarkable John Keats:
La Belle Dame sans Merci

I met a lady in the meads,

    Full beautiful - a faery's child,

Her hair was long, her foot was light,

    And her eyes were wild.

I made a garland for her head,

    And bracelets too, and fragrant zone;

She looked at me as she did love,

    And made sweet moan.

I set her on my pacing steed,

 
And nothing else saw all day long,

For sidelong would she bend, and sing

    A faery's song.

She found me roots of relish sweet,

   
And honey wild, and manna-dew,

And sure in language strange she said -

    'I love thee true'.

She took me to her elfin grot,

    And there she wept and sighed full sore,

And there I shut her wild wild eyes

    With kisses four.

And there she lulled me asleep

 
And there I dreamed - Ah! woe betide!

The latest dream I ever dreamt

    On the cold hill side.

forest dreams.

the wind is changing.
I hear John Keats in my head often these days,
as if I knew him.
I find that his words always describe my vision, my photographs.
So this weekend I am going to take a series of photographs inspired solely by one of his poems.
in the meantime, some end of summer bits and a few of his words, as always immaculately beautiful.

Past the near meadows, over the still stream,
Up the hill-side;
and now 'tis buried deep in the next valley-glades.
Was it a vision, or a waking dream?
Fled is that music.
Do I wake or sleep?

 

sticky fingers, shiny eyes, and the county fair.