my parents were awesome

firstly:
i'd like to know why, yesterday at 2pm in november, did i suddenly convince myself that it was in fact 4pm in september.

secondly:
will someone or something, please, please tell me exactly where i am going so wrong?

i told you so

mer

guardian angel with nothing to do/so blue for one so pink/sock marks on the violinist

through my one good eye
i can see
that the kitchen is a mess
and it reminds me
of a building site where i once
lost a cat

the year of you

"he is a 5 piece jigsaw of a well known face compared to you..
you are a million piece jigsaw of a clear blue sky.."

alex is named after a russian ballet dancer, as are her five sisters.

number 12

A major research project into coastal erosion has led to the towering cliffs at Boulby, on the East Cleveland coast, becoming one of the most intensively measured areas in the UK.

Early findings suggest it is pushing back the boundaries of coastal science. It has long been held that the action of waves on the foot of cliffs is the primary cause of landslips which destroy properties and environments.

Existing theories have been based on the assumption that waves create a notch at the toe of the cliff, which eventually causes a chunk of the cliff to fall off.
But this analysis is being challenged by the Boulby study in which high precision lasers have been installed to scan the cliffs once a month. Early results have shown that actually almost all of the cliffs erode at about the same rate.

Professor Dave Petley, of Durham University's geography department, said: "Like a bat out of hell I'll be gone when the morning comes. When the night is over like a bat out of hell I'll be gone, gone, gone. Like a bat out of hell I'll be gone when the morning comes. When the day is done and the sun goes down and the moonlight's shining through, then like a sinner before the gates of heaven I'll come crawling on back to you.


Herald & Post August 26th 2009

twilight on the beach with the muse and the dancer:
* night fishing
* empty crabs
* teens filming a wrestling match
* pink skies
* a bat and a black cat travelling together

• mistress/monstress
• lemon ice (rose shaped)
• tearing edward to pieces
• lets go to bed
• all that and for nothing
• no letter from the kestrel keeper
• once i saw you with a tarantula, now you are drunk on the steps
• some sundays i stray
• me and you in black and white
• i had a dolly/i ruined its face by licking it
• fatten up the pussycat
• bruges/ghent
• glass snail and china fox
• 127/129 borough road
• i dreamed you were a baby and not a very happy one
  

i dreamed of a new home.
it was full of sunshine and yr scowling face.

i'm useless in the dark
even the moths don't visit

days and days

the new adventures of us

me: we're like kurt and courtney or sid and nancy..
him: yeah, except yr not gonna kill me and i'm not gonna kill you..

tell me, keep me

this is gorgeous

if only you were all i needed

get the fuck out of my dreams, you clown

• hit men and hypocrites
• me in one of those gowns
• nudges, better than before
• try not to drown
• my babydoll
• yr not really a lord
• i'm sorry i didn't tell you about trotsky, i didn't think it was important
• little dead shrew
• threaten me, see what happens
• poor o' malley
• not a boy
• sleeptalking baby foxes and a marmoset
• blackbird with ornamental cherry
• billy egg's flyaway bandage
• queen of sweden's earrings
  

knowing how lovely it can be

• the bus with no sound
• (lots of) blood on the snow
• the girl from the television
• he told me everyone in the chemist's was dying from drinking the drink
• inept blood bringer/father figure
• smug in three piece
• skinny jeans arabesque
  
• my name is virginia fur
• lightning bolts in my chest
• notes from a forest in 1969
• from the desk of sir merrylegs
• half a cup
• may i come in?
• mother-of-pearl?
  
• i told a boy to shut up today
  
• kiss me on the mouth please
  

"The time has come that I must tell the events which began at 40 Pest Street. The houses, which were reddish black, looked as if they had issued mysteriously from the fire of London. The house in front of my window, covered with an occasional wisp of creeper, was as black and empty looking as any plague-ridden residence subsequently licked by flames and smoke.
This is not the way I had imagined New York."

next of kin

(brimstone)

the jealousy mule that massacres it's day and finishes with it's night

(found in old notebook - translated from portuguese)

barely yours

why, you have a nightgown and no feathers!

even i do not know
why i walk
up the stairs
on all fours
like a cat.

she'd never slept that way before, wrapped in arms.

dream after dream when yr next to me

• one more goodbye bear
• kill me and i'll kill you back
• post-it itinerary
• shaky with pigtails
• ice cream hallway
• eggleston versus the sky
• i saw you today, tomorrow i will tell you
• water with lime and essence of daisy
• the tallest fern
• beloved is the skinny king
• i can't make it better, i'm sorry
• relicked
• lawn
• dark red sleeves
• my face/your shoulder
• it's still you
  

why do you come here?

heart/courage

• simultaneously saving and destroying
• almost midnight
• an unknown house with sugary coffee
• boarding school with coffins
• kisses and distraction
• as i predicted
• moths, woe and other things that live in the dark
• i fear i may be
  
• red setter/upsetters/box set
• like a special power (knowing what everyone is thinking)
  

eyes like saucers filled with rain water

alone is gorgeous

when no one is around, love will always love you

folk notes: april

• for forty years i've loved that mine
• tigger socks/tie dyed lining
• sylvian's bewitchment
• thieving knave
• sneak notes
• strange fortune
• fond creature
• middle-aged plaid man singing about astral travelling
• raffle 446 & 447
• pin stripes/snake hips/penny whistle
• sex lives of the folk duo\cddd

(the very last bit was added by the cat's back foot)

just put yr arms around me.
it won't make everything alright but at least we'll be warm.

lonely monster seeks brilliant brain doctor
for friendship and possible heart-shaped future.
willing to travel.

saying less but feeling more

how silly, to get so deliberately lost.

she should know better

• nicky in rainbows
• disco curry house/hot date
• i'm an animal trapped in yr hot car
• let's make out
• the curse on the book coming back to you
• 4 hour seminar/40 winks
• chainsmoking requires a soundtrack
  
• demure
• mystery roses
• helpful post-it situation
• scented throat
  

you
give
me
butterflies

last night, i dreamed that i was dreaming of you
and from a window across the lawn, i watched you undress

she's too delicate for this century.

curiously, i went to bed with swollen feet and poker straight hair
and awoke with swollen hands and a demi-wave.

parable

it feels endless because it is endless.
how do you make it stop?

witches, birdies

how you know no one cares

the beginning of forgetting

from the wishing-well

like the apple of my eye
like are you still my auntie nicky?
like a pain that wakes you up
like a notebook with a ring-a-roses bear
like pineapple juice on a mouse
like falling asleep on concrete
like a warning
like forgetting who you are and what i meant to you
like the ghost in the garden
like a lucky escape

last night i had the most beautiful dream.
i was in love and someone was in love with me and it was so simple and honest.
i finally felt good enough and never wanted to lift my face from his warm shoulder.
then my pussycat sneezed in my face and woke me up.

• leave feeling illuminated
• meaningless notes on fridges
• one plus one is less than none
• jerry lee loves myra 97%
• valentine salt in valentine wounds
• just think

the understanding

'cos you wish you were here with me

lonely as a cloud

that girl might look like a witch
but she has no powers

lay me down

never faint on concrete

you can tell me anything.

never never never

i also confess that i went to the sabbath on trina's broomstick

last year, the lovely Tara Sinn wrote to me saying...

please finish this sentence for me:
"when i think of horses..."


this was my reply:

when i think of horses i think of them at twilight.

i'm riding a black mare and we are friends, she can read my mind and she knows that this is my favourite time of day.

i ride bareback and sometimes i just lay down while she walks slowly around the meadow in the half light.

when i think of horses i think of them in lemon sunlight which is so bright i have to look through my eyelashes. i am riding a white mare and it's 1971 and my hair is very long and so is my maxi dress and it's muddy from the fields.

Her mane is long long long, almost touching the ground.

We gallop and i can hardly breathe and i can see the ocean in the distance and the gold evening light is just like that scene in 'play misty for me' when clint eastwood seduces donna mills.

nicky peacock, england.

xxx


from tara's zine 'horse girls'

bad dreams make me wake up with very curly hair

where the bluebirds live

suddenly it seems, i'm having someone else's dreams.

• falling for my new everything
• mystery of the late night feline operatics
• lights and buds for the lonely tree
• starting monday
• white phosphorus
• the lying, the wish and the white rose
  

snowy zoe

i miss you

• i remember making lists, just for you
• bouncing dishes/regency sofa
  
• my cursor has become invisible
• re-organizing the books in the darkroom
• dreams of paper dolls and things that are naughty
  
• crumpets and 10mgs of tar
  
• kissing booth $1
  
• eureka and slare queeny
  

girl meets boy, girl loses boy, girl haunts boy.

i made a scrapbook.
a bit like the one i made when lady di got married.
but different.
no pretty dresses, no sugar paper.

sleepwalker seeks same



oh and a couple of my pictures made it on to this really nice website
the photographic dictionary

do you want to play a little game and try and find me?
i'll give you a clue...
i'm in T & S

i'll never say it out loud

• i walked with a zombie
• night time garden friend
• no, it's best that i stick to my tune
• fixing things all by myself
• saying hello, every day
• learning what i need to eat
• difficult bolshoi
  
• rosebud lips
• but it is a wonder
• alone or together
• and you're standing here beside me, i love the passing of time
  

i'm accidentally killing all the plants and i'm trailing like a ragged flag.
if only i could tell you.

i'll be there

i don't mind you coming here and wasting all my time. but when yr standing oh-so-near, i kind of lose my mind.

it wasn't the cough that carried her off,
it was the coffin they carried her off in.

let the loveliness begin

She says "When violets bloom on the window-pane
And roses grow on the kitchen floor,
It's then that I'll return again
And be your bride forevermore".

He's taken her by her yellow hair,
And tied it to his horse's tail.
He's dragged her through the bushes and briars
That grow so thick all on the plain.

nicky sees a bright moon
nicky fell over
nicky saw giant paw prints in the snow
nicky is an amaryllis
nicky uses half load
nicky chases skimble
nicky says goodnight, every night
nicky was confused between 7 and 8pm
nicky and her pictures
nicky looks forward to laura
nicky took a long bus ride (with a woman who drank cough medicine from a bottle)

i'm going to the moors and to tell you the truth,
i may not come back.

the good decision

i accidentally hypnotised myself in the garden just now.
it was cold but interesting.

evensong

december field study

the only thing that matters

my hands, like my garden, are frozen.
do i keep the wolves from the door?
or just let them in?

there are so many words but they are all stuck in my throat like a plum stone.
none of them are nice but i'll swallow them anyway.

lean in close to me and i'll tell you all about the little things.

friday morning:

the unanswered phonecall
the cold paws
the cigarette
the change of heart
the ivy dust
the lateness
the thanks
the talking to
the work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction

• the long and the short of windowsills
• marriage to a dog
• the glorious voucher
• yes, loyalty is still sexy
• he's only a little credit crunch
• he said, girl you gotta try to have fun no matter what you do, but he's a fool
• tomorrow's graveyard forage
• butter spekulatius
• a little something for the mouse-face
• tea and toast guest
• compliance
• lay me down by the lake
• i'm going to a robot-making party

How long had she been asleep?

She tried to identify any object in the starlit darkness which would confirm where she was and give her some hope that she might eventually escape from this strange bedchamber. But no matter how hard she tried, she could see nothing but one corner of the sky.

the risk

the endless heartlessness of you

seeking:
someone else's boyfriend,
for skulking, sneaking and general deception.
must love girlfriend, kittens and kissing.
no singles.
no time wasters.

what about the things in yr daydreams that you don't want?
where do they go?

you can't even eat them
'cos they're not made of rice paper.

love nest

it's a date.
you bring a brolly and i'll bring the spellbook.

night night

1. golden time
2. pooter's good morning sneezes
3. that weird taste
4. the unfathomable desk of gerhard richter
5. dear mr gable, i am writing this to you and i hope that you will read it so you'll know...
6. sugar, everywhere
7. except when soft rains fall and drips from leaves then i recall
8. i only know what i teach
9. sippy sops
10. letters that say i'll come get you

me?
i'm living on the naughty step.

you know everything i am thinking right now. everything.
this is true.
if you choose to know, just close yr eyes, concentrate and there it is.
is it good or does it make you want to run into the light?

diving in the pool at night

going to sleep
'cos that's where you live

i'm going to take up a hobby i can't afford.
not golf,
or crack,
no,
horse riding...

throw me a lovely

send me a pretty

self portraits at midnight tonight

not really
it's just how i feel



gorgeous horsie photographs by nina buesing

november field study

• the boats in my hair
• dream of black pony kisses and my yellow mane
• lost and found
• 2 bars of a 3 bar fire
• not being kind to my eyes
• it was become golden
• dressing a shadow and combing it's hair
• stevie d / curly paw
• soren lorenson
• for whom do you model? the boston strangler?
• awful, just awful
• the mummer play at the end of the street

haunt me, please

knock my drink in the sink
and mess on with my nets

lonesome is the new cosy

talk to me,
leave some words
in a bird's nest,
behind a bike shed,
buried at sea,
pressed to my breast,
laid out in feathers,
in spilt milk,
or brown ink,
written in crumbs by my bed.

the gypsy caravan on the A1

curiously, this morning,
i awoke with hair like a tidal wave and
felt less wistful about the little red apples ripening on the bough.

wednesday: fire on the moors

hello day

Friday 21st January 1944
Monk's House

Darling Tiger,
I am slightly excited & at the same time apprehensive of your saying that I'm once again wrong or foolish or both. I went into Lewes this morning to buy some horsemeat for Merle, but what I actually bought was a Rembrandt etching for you. It is No. 27 in the enclosed catalogue. I sneaked in at the back of Miller's and found no one there at all. So I broke into the gallery and had it all to myself for half an hour. I was just congratulating myself on being able to get away without seeing anyone when the two sisters caught me. I was fascinated by No. 27 & when I found that it could be bought could not resist the pleasure of seeing it on your wall. You've put so many beautiful things on my walls that you must let me put one on yours. That is if you think as I do about it - I do hope you do. The show ends tomorrow - isn't it a nuisance? I should have liked you to see it.

I do hope you won't be very tired by all your visitors. I love you dearest, more than ever.

Your L.



Love Letters
Leonard Woolf & Trekkie Ritchie Parsons
1941 - 1968

i knew it.
the magic radio station - the one with the singing indian gods...
it's gone.

i am exhausted

Thursday 18th November 1943
Monk's House

My Dearest of creatures, It was wretched having to leave you. But I am sure you will be alright if you stay in bed for the week. And lie like a log. You are too full of life for a patient. So don't sit up in bed like a Jack-in-the-box whenever you think of something - which is what you do.
Otherwise you are a perfect patient.
The bitch is being sent direct from Scotland with her name on the label.
She will probably not arrive until Sat.
I can just catch the post, but I felt I must tell you that I love you though I think you know it & that it is a twilight world without you.

Your
L.




Love Letters
Leonard Woolf & Trekkie Ritchie Parsons
1941 - 1968

what's my status?

* nicky sees shiny paving
* nicky is kept warm by pooter
* nicky will learn to make porridge tomorrow
* nicky laughs at bouncy-ball in the kitchen
* nicky cries in the morning
* nicky is reading leonard woolf's love letters
* nicky bought a pretty top today
* nicky likes gin and cucumber
* nicky will give school another try
* nicky has to provide evidence of her grandmother's death

you can't see what i'm doing,
but it's meant for you.

don't talk to me about yr husband,
i'm jealous and it gives me crying eyes and hands that ache from not being held.

i just found a magic radio station.
it's full of singing indian gods.
they sing the longest songs.
now i'm scared to turn the radio off.
in case it disappears because it's all just in my head.

it hurts

another odd day.
boy dreams.
science of sleep for breakfast.
big turquoise ghost in lounge.
paper swirling on kitchen floor.
you, wanting a hotline to me.
mushroom eyelids and plum lips.
utter silence.
older/oldest.

curiously, this morning,
i awoke with autumn hair
and a desire to poison you with french lavender.

beyond which a baby cried endlessly

* heavy sky/lamb in manger/bees everywhere
* notes on romance (grand gesture variety)
* childish gifts/ungrateful
* falling over braids and boats
* uneasy from apples and white beans
* you used to make art but you gave up
* baroque bassoon, nickname 'the bedpost'
* pleasantly scratched arm
* you and your cat on telly
* i want, i want, i want a blockhead of my very own
* the village sleep-over
* unfathomable clutter plus amigurumi

i ate a fuschia berry earlier today and my throat is still sore.

i'm creeped out.
there's something going on.
my town is empty.
i mean empty

where did they all go?

this evening in my garden, whilst getting my washing in, i was suddenly stuck by the light that was so familliar.
it was the light from my nightmares.
a blankety grey, half light in which i am endlessly and fruitlessly trying to return home before darkness falls fully.
i was thinking about this, holding my clean sheets and staring into the unseen corners of my garden, happy to be six feet from my door.

i keep my nails short now.
i remember cutting them all off for the first time.
i suddenly felt like krystle carrington and i knew they had to go.

i thought about the time i got sent home from school because i had 'fire engine red' polish on them.
i was about 5.

i thought about the time i had a scrap with my best friend marie in the playground - she pulled my hair and that gave way to a kick and a nip and so on. my long nails got involved and she ended up with a bleeding scratch. after playtime i had mrs mazzer's class. we sloped in, marie and her bloody cheek, me and my 'denim blue' fingernails. marie was sent to the nurse and i was thrown to the wolves. mrs mazzer told the class to listen carefully. she told me to stand on my chair. she told them that i had clawed poor marie's face, cut her to ribbons with my talons. she told them that i must be a cat because cats have claws and little girls do not. she told me to stand on the desk. she asked the class what sound cats made. someone miaowed. someone else hissed. she told the class to all make the sound that cats made and soon, every one of my class mates were loudly and joyously hissing and mewling and wowling and screeching. i don't remember how i felt or if i cried. i think i was about 6 or 7 and cats were (and still are) my favourite thing in the whole world.

when i try and remember mrs mazzer's face i imagine a scrunched up ball of brown paper with an old lady wig, i don't know why.
today my nails are short and round and shiny and the colour of raisins.
miaow.

folk notes:

1. knit one, pearl one
2. heavy bangles and handbag indigestion
3. touching toes with the one who came home
4. why do they all sing about australia?
5. pitiless winds and outwitted melodians
6. bagpuss voice and decieving maidens
7. pale pink, holding hands with herself
8. little birdy dying to sing
9. scent (faint) of fish and tin
10. his hawk and his hound and his lady fair-o
11. my mouth is full of flowers

i just went for a walk to deliver something to someone i've never met.
it started raining heavily and the sun was massive and totally golden and i didn't have a coat or an umbrella so my fringe was dripping in my eyes. i got the wrong address first - i was tipsy from 2 double gin and tonics, did i mention that?
then i got the right house but it was surreal, suburban...i knocked on the door and a woman started shouting angrily at someone to get down - get out - whatever..
a little finger poked through the letterbox and a tiny girl voice said - please can you wait a minute? i said yes. the little girl looked at me through patterned glass - i waved at her and she waved back - the woman inside carried on shouting, really loudly..i was really tempted to leave and then the door opened. the unhappy looking woman told me whilst trying to rein in a sleek grey puppy, that no such girl lived there..on the way home it rained more and whilst i was speaking on the phone to my friend who was unhappy and in a field in suffolk, a man shouted at me from a crack in a car window, he shouted - SEXY! but he shouted it so aggressively that i jumped.
everything is at sixes and sevens at the moment. the rain has stopped and i need a drink. i am alone and it's ok. i don't have knots in my stomach for the first time today.

saturday morning alone
caterpillars on silky threads, glowing in the sun
and butterflies, butterflies inside all the time
no food is good food
they want to steal me but there is no shine because you are not there to call
half a sandwich and one sip of pear nectar
don't ask me out because it makes me nervous
i miss the smell of the brown soap
it could happen
i'm so tired
pancakes
cuddling yrself only half works
when i didn't love you

i am in the wilderness
you turned out my light
this time i will make things right
i get cold by fire

* last night's bumpy ride
* asking my love to leave
* she smelled of synthetic strawberries
* cat takes up residence on his pillow
* cry the yellow eyeshadow off before leaving the house
* bunny spinning around in the headlights
* the list in my little drunken head
* it's about time
* can't smile without you
* apart from singing gold digga in the van
* bombay sapphire/sweet potato/lucky's
* heartbroken and up a ladder

this morning's list - a pictorial

i'm hurt
just kiss me and say goodnight

imagine that?
being a 'just nibble on some fruit' kind of girl...

my neighbour speaks english but shouts at his louder-than-bombs grandaughter in a language i do not understand.

he smokes on the back door step and gazes into the middle distance, possibly longing for the day when he no longer feels the need to shout in the foreign language.

he washes up quite a lot, which is nice.
sometimes i see him cuddling his dog.

and he stirs his tea like he's having a grand mal.

notes/plans/diagrams/: more experiments with :

* 4 leaf clover
* brioche
* white hair
* knotted stomachs
* ghosts of scottish printing press
* complete silence (additional birdsong)
* courting flies
* lost cats
* dappled shade
* headless valerie
* sense (common/garden)
* shadows in the circus font
* what i'm going to say to you

yesterday, in a conversation with my mother,
i said 'what if i get hit by a truck?'
at least 4 times.

wednesdays aren't usually this gorgeous...

wildbirds & peacedrums

mariam

of course it's easy to be pretty, when yr eyes are all sparkly from not crying.

self portrait with green screen

you know that feeling you get?
after toast and jam,
looking awake but feeling asleep,
where is my castle?

the panel think she's a 'beautiful girl with an amazing voice'
where as i,
think she's a dullard with eyes as black a great white shark.

i lost the brooch that everybody loved.
it was pinned to my black coat.
it was a pink brooch, made of pink silk and shaped like a large flower.
it had burnt edges which made the petals curl.
it was the best thing about me.
everywhere i went, everyone i spoke to,
commented on the loveliness of that brooch.
i told friends that it was lost,
they miss it already.
it was the best thing about me.

if nothing else

i wonder what it is that i'm trying so hard to not think about?

a list of smoke and mirrors:

* biscuits and egg-snow
* fierce bitches and deletions (hanging up boas, 12 girls but only 11 pictures, no rose for you on the one to one etc. etc.
* sailor jerry and free hennessy
* her, having my eyes out with that shit
* quilted leather
* the going-to-sleep-dream of horseback riding
* fury at the children's noise
* what's in the fridge?
* pet land and all its pit falls
* myriad of problems with yr wife/husband
* old cat's milky eyes
* glowing box plus swivel seat
* lists of lists

i know that i'm tired of being earthbound; clutching an anchor under the covers, fingers too fat for a ring of silver, never visiting
and never telling you why

and last night's heart attack?
i'm so over that.


(homework)

what's my status?

* nicky sees a frozen birdbath
* nicky feels she might die by means of an exploding boiler
* nicky is hiding
* nicky has spilled rum on a rather important document
* nicky is trying not to be eaten alive by it
* nicky wants to ride a horse with a veronica lake mane
* nicky dreams about punching you
* nicky at 11:03
* nicky likes american boy
* nicky has more books than hot dinners