abingdon fair

steel glimpse

concrete grip slipping

extinction in effigy

scurrying

target

shelter

burnt paper sandwich

palate teeth tonguetip

sick hungry hangover stink

of cheap hydrocarbon foods

condiments

vinegar

brown sauce

in the rain

better hungry

tea and cake

fag ends in the gutter

run

later

sun

lime leaves are hearts

they yellow and fall

--words and photo by DTH

in summerwind

gypsy twin

sister plucked from plains of high old summer

mythic childhood space

one day or three

a school year touched

some stretching slim

young animal's awkward grace

and gilded hair on limb

sun-kindled halo crowned

each on each

sun-burnished tint

a mirror in a mirror

Karen and Carrie, Mary

girls of summer

passed into the reach

of memory's summer garden

tended in age

stroked into relief

in every newborn summer's

griefless grief

--words and monoprint by DTH

revised moon

this wound

that will not spill but thrills still

and dry

awaits the moon

a girl awaits

the blood that will not come

the mouth is closed

the sun

too soon wound round

in cloud awakes no song

no hue

the child is overdue

--words and photocollage by DTH

"i am a seed in the slippery, silent, blind, breathless dark.
i have no nose or mouth, ears or eyes to see. just a skin
of satin black and a secret green dream deep inside."

Masson - Minotaure

Bartholomew Griffin

Sonnet 18 from Fidessa, 1596

O, She must love my sorrows to assuage. 
O God ! what joy I felt when She did smile ! 
Whom killing grief before did cause to rage.
(Beauty is able Sorrow to beguile) 
Out, traitor Absence ! thou dost hinder me ! 
And mak'st my Mistress often to forget, 
Causing me to rail upon her cruelty, 
Whilst thou my suit injuriously dost let ! 
Again, her Presence doth astonish me, 
And strikes me dumb, as if my Sense were gone. 
Oh ! is not this a strange perplexity ? 
In presence, dumb ! she hears not absent moan !

Thus absent, presence; present, absence maketh: 
That, hearing my poor suit, she it mistaketh !

Wise Old Dada

VII

je dis comme je vis

je vois comme la voix

je prends comme j'offre

ma vie est ainsi

je ne dois rien à personne

je dois tout à tous les hommes

from Quarante Chansons et Déchansons, Tristan Tzara, 1954