Sunday 31 July 2011

Gilded

Sunshine on dusty, yellowed pages and a shabby, gilded cover with curling corners.

Saturday 30 July 2011

Early

Quieter, softer: early morning - we should get to know each other.

Friday 29 July 2011

Mexican

Mexican chicken salad: green, pink, brown, herby, spicy. Gently, it bites.

Thursday 28 July 2011

Unanchored

Today I was unanchored to the world - my eyes saw nothing. Try again tomorrow.

Wednesday 27 July 2011

Patterned

The abandoned freight container has become a work of art, its deep-blue panels patterned with layers of half erased graffiti and the peeling traces of fly-posting.

Tuesday 26 July 2011

Slender

Four slender white legs come flash, flashing on the grey road. Four dainty black shoes tap, tapping. At the edge of vision: green, amber, red.

Monday 25 July 2011

Insidious

Despite the soft, stippled sky, there's a small, insidious chill that makes the body stiffen. It's as if the cold is a worm within.

Sunday 24 July 2011

Painted

My painted plate: the white yoghurt runs into the burnished yellow of turmeric, the smooth surface broken by floating beads of channa dal.

Saturday 23 July 2011

Undignified

The men sitting opposite read the news on their phones. It's an undignified activity: two outsize, baggy children poking and peering at their tiny screens.

(I've been away for a week without internet access, but continued to write these every day)

Friday 22 July 2011

Heightened

In the sculpture park, everything is sculpted by the eye, aesthetically heightened: tree, gate, sheep.

Thursday 21 July 2011

Rectangular

The big, rectangular window in the white gallery wall is a picture that dissolves and re-forms with the shifting angle of view.

Wednesday 20 July 2011

Unchanging

In the millpond,
time’s unchanging
reflection.

Tuesday 19 July 2011

Invisible

The heron is invisible – so still – until it unfolds wide, blue-grey wings and floats above the water.

Monday 18 July 2011

Wavering

The wavering reflections of tall windows in the dark canal conjure a fantasy of living in this elegant, haunted place.

Sunday 17 July 2011

Ragged

These ragged purple flowers that sprout against the old, red bricks must have bloomed here unseen when this was all dereliction.

Saturday 16 July 2011

Pointilliste

Rain on the train window turns the landscape into an unfurling pointilliste fresco.

Friday 15 July 2011

Muggy

Muggy heat, but it might be cold tomorrow. Noisy electric fan, but behind it is silence. Mounds of work, but no urgent deadlines. Floating anxiety.

Thursday 14 July 2011

Deep

Suddenly, vibrating warm air and deep colours:
a storm approaching - or passing over.

Wednesday 13 July 2011

Sticky

The office pot-plant crouches miserably on the window-sill: a thick layer of sticky black dust coats its once shiny leaves.

(after writing this I washed it and talked nicely to it)

Tuesday 12 July 2011

Noisy

Deserted office after hours, but noisy still: a tumult of voices funnelled upwards in the cleft between buildings and a roar of low-flying aircraft funnelled downwards.

Monday 11 July 2011

Grey

The man is all grey - hair, clothes, aura. He moves so slowly. Doesn't want to get to where he's going. Doesn't want to get to anywhere.

Sunday 10 July 2011

Cool

On a warm day the cool pleasure
of clothes holding skin less tightly,
skin holding flesh less tightly.

Saturday 9 July 2011

Mournful

Baggy, mournful eyes,
ears of long, grey, silky hair -
spaniel woman.

Friday 8 July 2011

Red-black and blue-black

Cherry and blueberry
Red-black and blue-black
Shiny and velvetty
Bite one and suck one
Neither too sweet

Thursday 7 July 2011

Alien

White smudges all along the street - the paw-prints of an alien visitation?

Wednesday 6 July 2011

Pink

The sun comes out. The thousands of old pink bricks in the wall opposite my window light up softly and emit their infinite gradations of rosy glow.

Tuesday 5 July 2011

Chill

Chill rain pounds on the roof, which hunches self-protectively, dribbling at the edges.

Monday 4 July 2011

Floral

Back-to-back in the bus aisle, two floral cotton dresses, two flushed bare arms, swaying in the clammy heat - they could be a single, two-faced creature.

Sunday 3 July 2011

Oily

The deep, gentle, oily scent of lavender reaches over the low garden wall, clings to trailing fingers, fills the pale London air with purple.

Saturday 2 July 2011

Green

The man in the green dragon suit bends over, carefully packing his groceries into a big back-pack. His stiff, bright-green tail sticks straight up.

Friday 1 July 2011

Diagonal

Behind the fluffy tree, two perfectly diagonal contrails cross at right angles - a thick, bright X chalked on the sky.