purple sky, seen from the ship

a goddess

from the British museum

If it wasn't for the museum with its plundered treasures
I would never have seen this beautiful Venus.
But she wasn't stolen by piratical peers;
Italian born and bred, she passed through dynasty after dynasty
then she was given to Charles I.
Poor beheaded king,
his collection was broken up and sold off
and she found her way into the museum,
where she crouches, more luminous than any other,
her mrble skin seemingly as soft as roses.
You long to run your palm over her luscious thigh
men and women melt at the sight of her
she is more desired than ever.
Goddess of desire,
in an age when everything is splayed out in front of us in gory colour
pulsating and suppurating
her creamy marble-ness is calming and profound.
She makes you belive in love in all its relentlessness
and all its pain
and that whatever hell love is
it is always worth it.

beneath the water

Hackney canal, filtered light under tunnel, digital sensor captures the world beneath the water that my eyes barely grasp onto, the water shivers and ripples as the black ducks glide along.

Last week they found a head near here, long sunk under these shallow green waters, a head bagged and packed. For many months I averted my eyes from the water, careful not look too closely into the depths since I knew the head was there. We all did. Weekly the police marine unit convened here, rubber suited divers plunging up to their waists in the murky canal, diving below to try and find missing body parts. Eventually it was all recovered, that which was once a person, poor murdered girl. Horror gives way to pity. The mysteries of London.

Berlin flats at night ...  as I climb the stairs I can see where they got the idea for Expressionism from ...

quiet world

...
Behold what quiet settles on the world.
Night wraps the sky in tribute from the stars.
In hours like these, one rises to address
The ages, history, and all creation.
...

- Vladimir Mayakovsky

Intense colour.