tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-91177738223985917322024-03-05T15:20:36.263+00:00Catalogue 25Catalogue25http://www.blogger.com/profile/02863458501695192139noreply@blogger.comBlogger367125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9117773822398591732.post-43959263852219421422009-10-26T23:38:00.000+00:002009-10-26T23:39:04.818+00:00I have moved again!But this time is the last time, I promise.<br /><br />Join me! Follow me! Laugh at(with?) me!<br /><br /><a href="http://www.just-somestuff.blogspot.com">www.just-somestuff.blogspot.com</a>Catalogue25http://www.blogger.com/profile/02863458501695192139noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9117773822398591732.post-18046561034978339482009-04-13T23:59:00.003+01:002009-04-14T00:25:44.624+01:00The End.</br><br />Hello and thanks to everyone who's read the blog over the year: whether you've seen them all or picked a couple here and there, I have appreciated your unknown presence spurring me on.<br /><br />If you're interested in seeing what happens next, feel free join me at <a href="http://cataloguetwentysix.blogspot.com">CatalogueTwentySix</a>. I'm not sure what this is yet, but we'll soon find out.<br /><br />xx<br /><br />Catalogue25http://www.blogger.com/profile/02863458501695192139noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9117773822398591732.post-55984523198585046522009-04-12T23:46:00.002+01:002009-04-12T23:50:44.704+01:00This is it! The end of the year!</br><br />Self portrait one year on.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSKnX-F9aVfRl7FrJJdQdo5CDj2AD7bNZoDBBw6hWTP812rg7pc3bY_kjq006yWfVhft5ZypnyNItcPQu1IPGQnTeBdWgHlY09QXu6AM57wnsthr4_9ycZy5i7WH_fLpz-5rQ4suFarYBU/s1600-h/self+portrait+one+year+on.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 299px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSKnX-F9aVfRl7FrJJdQdo5CDj2AD7bNZoDBBw6hWTP812rg7pc3bY_kjq006yWfVhft5ZypnyNItcPQu1IPGQnTeBdWgHlY09QXu6AM57wnsthr4_9ycZy5i7WH_fLpz-5rQ4suFarYBU/s400/self+portrait+one+year+on.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5323940787171650386" /></a><br /><br />Catalogue25http://www.blogger.com/profile/02863458501695192139noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9117773822398591732.post-38890760734989286292009-04-11T23:59:00.000+01:002009-04-12T23:44:33.037+01:00One...</br><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">From everywhere else to a first memory</span><br /><br />I come from, and sing of, green carpet<br />up the side of the bath and false memory<br />of the feel of that. I come from a bed I slept on for years<br /><br />as a mattress on the floor, from the painting of a tree<br />in the corner above me, from a wonderment for the thrill<br />of the wind and its movement through leaves. There is more to me<br /><br />than this, you understand, but impediment is rife. I come from<br />house parties and sitting on my dad’s tapping feet<br />while he played sessions in pub after pub and our own front room.<br /><br />None of these is first because some will always be wrong<br />I am germolene on my first spot, hands-and-knees-horses,<br />poems and poems and back-tickled songs sung in the dark.<br /><br />I am in a room in a dream I have no memory of otherwise<br />and so come upon the idea that this must be the first: fear<br />and a resolution I am told it is impossible to engineer.<br /><br />Catalogue25http://www.blogger.com/profile/02863458501695192139noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9117773822398591732.post-81458446756718143982009-04-10T23:59:00.000+01:002009-04-12T23:40:13.618+01:00Two...</br><br />Portrait of a moment in Glasgow.<br /></br><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpv6_RIzwuFJXCtnvJ8fc3a9z3dkekV1sxFvLL53HuKO3e8IumLWJH6wU2UTzLSEwDStaYIV5nD1WOdFEloX99LqUoqbpAbwYhlbim6qZ2MNWQfH7o6N4oUw-8rbarVc_F4NfcjzQ6QylR/s1600-h/table+in+a+coffee+shop+in+glasgow.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 299px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpv6_RIzwuFJXCtnvJ8fc3a9z3dkekV1sxFvLL53HuKO3e8IumLWJH6wU2UTzLSEwDStaYIV5nD1WOdFEloX99LqUoqbpAbwYhlbim6qZ2MNWQfH7o6N4oUw-8rbarVc_F4NfcjzQ6QylR/s400/table+in+a+coffee+shop+in+glasgow.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5323938243722395986" /></a><br /><br />Catalogue25http://www.blogger.com/profile/02863458501695192139noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9117773822398591732.post-43904473006458969992009-04-09T23:59:00.002+01:002009-04-12T23:45:58.248+01:00Three...</br><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Dissection</span><br /><br />The eyes are prominent as would be expected<br />in an animal as wary was the rabbit. Note the position<br />of the eyes on the head and how this compares<br />with the position of yours. The movable upper and lower eyelids<br />are provided with eyelashes. You will also see the edge of a third,<br />the <span style="font-style:italic;">nictitating membrane</span>, which is whitish and fairly thick.<br />Draw it across the eye with the forceps.<br /><br />The white of the eye is not visible until the upper lid is raised<br />or the lower lid drawn down. The size of the iris<br />and the pupil will depend upon the extent to which the iris<br />is contracted. The pupil is a window through the iris. <br />You will be able to note the presence of glands<br />that are pink due to the presence of blood vessels. <br />Take the upper eyelid in the forceps and roll it outwards.<br /><br />Catalogue25http://www.blogger.com/profile/02863458501695192139noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9117773822398591732.post-66693728004134680072009-04-08T23:12:00.000+01:002009-04-08T23:40:02.313+01:00Four...</br><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Holding hands</span><br /><br />How it becomes an easy regularity<br />is a mystery to me, but it seems strange, <br />now, not to be attached from one side.<br /><br />How is it that something so easily abandoned<br />becomes something so readily missed<br />when it is a possibility again with you around?<br /><br />All I can think is that my hand temperature<br />is normalised now only with yours in it.<br />Without it I am colder than I thought, <br />even with gloves on.<br /><br />Catalogue25http://www.blogger.com/profile/02863458501695192139noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9117773822398591732.post-25189396814443682802009-04-07T23:09:00.002+01:002009-04-08T23:09:01.685+01:00Five...</br><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Colour co-ordination</span><br /><br />It is not about the colour, but the naming of it.<br />We stand around gesticulating with arms spread wide<br /><br />for brights, our posture closed in for cosy reds.<br />One girl stands looking up with one arm out and one by her side<br /><br />and we all take this to be blue. But our room is only blue and green<br />by circumstance of naming: it is not about the colour<br /><br />until we read out the shades we find: Pepper Grass, <br />Green Trance, Treasure Isle, Cozumel. <br /><br />Catalogue25http://www.blogger.com/profile/02863458501695192139noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9117773822398591732.post-5145407629567461772009-04-06T23:57:00.000+01:002009-04-06T23:58:11.712+01:00I can barely keep my eyes open.</br><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Quiet revelation</span><br /><br />It’s the sort of tired that makes everything almost,<br />and nothing for sure. Even air has negative connotations<br />on a tickly throat, and sleep is no guarantee for tomorrow.<br /><br />There is nothing I can think of that is entirely without<br />the influence—except perhaps what you said to me today<br />and how it changes everything, knowing that.<br /><br />Catalogue25http://www.blogger.com/profile/02863458501695192139noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9117773822398591732.post-25736272639320695752009-04-05T23:59:00.002+01:002009-04-07T00:03:31.128+01:00Very near the end, now.</br><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Ad for a partner</span><br /><br />You want somebody who can land<br />just like that, with the air shooed<br />to the curls in their hair.<br /><br />You want somebody who can stop dead<br />in your arms with their weight gone<br />hovering somewhere.<br /><br />You want someone who proves<br />a point in the flair<br />of detail.<br /><br />I'd like to say <span style="font-style:italic;">you want someone<br />like me</span>; but it's never as simple as that.<br /><br />Catalogue25http://www.blogger.com/profile/02863458501695192139noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9117773822398591732.post-68827829038748584802009-04-04T17:31:00.000+01:002009-04-04T17:32:19.283+01:00Portrait of a party.</br><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigpdsr5Fiiy2huUE8jECj5PhgSwMv9TS9eBy7W5avFQVPJ8RM9vq57I0_38rd2N9riOV4haWfZlN22zgBLn1ANbpqSVIAWxw-jh5CMFyyhWb76dKaULrbLqZwl5AvdnMuwJpw7fl2g37b9/s1600-h/portrait+of+a+party.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 299px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigpdsr5Fiiy2huUE8jECj5PhgSwMv9TS9eBy7W5avFQVPJ8RM9vq57I0_38rd2N9riOV4haWfZlN22zgBLn1ANbpqSVIAWxw-jh5CMFyyhWb76dKaULrbLqZwl5AvdnMuwJpw7fl2g37b9/s400/portrait+of+a+party.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5320874888131251826" /></a><br /><br />Catalogue25http://www.blogger.com/profile/02863458501695192139noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9117773822398591732.post-26302282903173001012009-04-03T23:59:00.000+01:002009-04-04T17:21:58.790+01:00No, really... a backlog perhaps but I haven't forgotten!</br><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Thoughts on kitchens</span><br /><br />You are the breeze that shoos garlic skins<br />to underneath the fridge. I watch them drift<br />urgently to their resting place, dream lazily<br />of a future when they are finally discovered again,<br />brittle and crackled. It will be many years<br />from now, I think, as this house is home and home<br />means not cleaning under permanent appliances.<br /><br />Your hands are pungent and you’re dressed<br />in a pinny I used to wear for Home Economics at school.<br /><br />Time treats us well, I think, in the end. <br />Even if we end up papery and brittle like your favourite Grandma’s hands.<br /><br />Catalogue25http://www.blogger.com/profile/02863458501695192139noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9117773822398591732.post-15213070991788799832009-04-02T23:59:00.000+01:002009-04-04T17:03:30.356+01:00I haven't forgotten!</br><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiu50ZFCfXIeL8DIkOx2IjtSC5KT8XlTt2VM4uAacMZNsOCcKs_Pai-MViHZ1ogIOtaD2rBpN11BqQmM1kuWDkzUldzCuXpstHtaduct7v8XSkS_Ixo4HRD2_5z_u5uT7Pk0Hpc_acLZGiQ/s1600-h/soozeslegses.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 299px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiu50ZFCfXIeL8DIkOx2IjtSC5KT8XlTt2VM4uAacMZNsOCcKs_Pai-MViHZ1ogIOtaD2rBpN11BqQmM1kuWDkzUldzCuXpstHtaduct7v8XSkS_Ixo4HRD2_5z_u5uT7Pk0Hpc_acLZGiQ/s400/soozeslegses.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5320867361324745794" /></a><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Sooz's legses.</span><br /><br />Catalogue25http://www.blogger.com/profile/02863458501695192139noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9117773822398591732.post-69373044152781900292009-04-01T23:49:00.000+01:002009-04-02T00:10:51.118+01:00Do you know the difference?</br><span style="font-weight:bold;"><br />Do you want to sail the stars, or the universe?</span><br /><br />I am told the difference is political<br />but don’t know which way round I’d be if <br />it was me. Perhaps I would know the meaning of serene.<br /><br />It must be the brink, an existence like that,<br />the Earth hovering and the blackness<br />elsewhere. My own paranoia <br /><br />would be tenfold: at every creak and whistle<br />the threat of nothingness and implosion<br />from the very idea of it. And free from gravity?<br /><br />The pull of my body would not exist,<br />the tugging, the nagging—gone.<br />Only functions would be left. Basic need.<br /><br />In light of all of this it would seem irrelevant,<br />perhaps, to choose between the stars<br />and the universe. Do you sail for the sights,<br /><br />or for the inbetween? Choose your side, <br />they’d say. Astronaut, <br />or Cosmonaut?<br /><br />Catalogue25http://www.blogger.com/profile/02863458501695192139noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9117773822398591732.post-1167770443806628842009-03-31T23:59:00.000+01:002009-04-01T20:05:49.095+01:00Unabashed false optimism</br><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">It is the sort of weather that carries voices</span><br /><br />It comes as a surprise, to hear it like that,<br />and it changes everything. It changes the fundamental<br />smell of things; it matters. It is weather that is longed for<br />from behind windows, that is perfect for bike rides<br />and relies on a cool breeze to keep it realistic.<br /><br />You are not in it, but it needs a winter coat.<br />You only know all this because of how the blackbirds sing<br />compared to how they used to; and from the frozen puddles<br />you walk past at night holding hands against the bite.<br />It is the sort of weather that forces optimism you are not used to.<br /><br />Catalogue25http://www.blogger.com/profile/02863458501695192139noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9117773822398591732.post-84261412281019777472009-03-30T23:59:00.002+01:002009-03-31T00:26:23.222+01:00Just a small observation</br><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;"><span style="font-style:italic;">Hello morning</span>, you say, every day<br /></span><br />And to be sociable with the concept, it takes tea<br />which you describe as delicious<br /><br />even though it goes straight through you<br />like eggs, which you conversely avoid.<br /><br />Catalogue25http://www.blogger.com/profile/02863458501695192139noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9117773822398591732.post-43272072801073214012009-03-29T22:23:00.002+01:002009-03-29T22:24:21.135+01:00Got some dreams back!</br><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Waking from a dream of air-trombone impressions</span><br /><br />it is the wall of Wispas (59p each, 7 for a pound)<br />that stays with me. And it is early, so early, and I am waking<br />of my own accord and turning alarms off in advance<br />of their ringing. I am not as clean as I would have liked,<br /><br />but my dreams don’t take this into account, only my height<br />and how the smaller objects are easier except<br />they’re out of reach, and it is only the big concepts<br />my short arms have any hope of carrying home.<br /><br />Catalogue25http://www.blogger.com/profile/02863458501695192139noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9117773822398591732.post-29642698966001346192009-03-28T23:59:00.000+00:002009-03-29T22:06:38.520+01:00Distracted, but all to the good.</br><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Unexpected shift of outlook<br /></span><br />Distracted, full of unprecedented smiling,<br />I am trying to conceal my cheek movements<br /><br />with a turn of the head. I don’t know what any of this means,<br />only that it is a difference I had not accounted for<br /><br />and the sun is so much warmer<br />on days when the smiling is like this.<br /><br />Catalogue25http://www.blogger.com/profile/02863458501695192139noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9117773822398591732.post-86614339191879682122009-03-27T23:59:00.001+00:002009-03-28T17:36:18.243+00:00A form of time travel in resurrection</br><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">The notebook tells a story of me over again</span><br /><br />It was here that I found it, already half full<br />with the potential. If I couldn't have <br />locked the door I wouldn't have<br />read it but of course, it knew that,<br />and lay in the only cubicle with an easy bolt.<br /><br />Just an unconventional form of time-travel, <br />of course, but it's strange<br />that it happened on the day they happened to say<br />on the radio that going forwards in time <br />is uncontroversial. It enjoys controversy, takes the trouble <br />to transport me to all the places <br />I used to know and used to go, and<br /><br />here, with my pants round my ankles,<br />there's no need for avoiding the rules of time <br />by camping on a star<br />with some of the pull of the universe at my feet<br />or in my ears or on my inadequate<br />metabolism. Here, it<br />and I commune in timelessness and out of sync<br />with one another, and I can leave it,<br />when the time comes<br />to be found by myself again: just another poet<br />with the same urgent need to be locked in,<br />and the same urgent need for two hands.<br /><br />Catalogue25http://www.blogger.com/profile/02863458501695192139noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9117773822398591732.post-15909200310158470732009-03-26T23:59:00.000+00:002009-03-27T00:55:33.008+00:00I don't even remember writing the first version of this...</br><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">I arrange myself artfully</span><br /><br />as if the sheets of my bed were not cold<br />and hard with first frost. I <br />frame my poseable limbs<br />as if the brush of my hair falling here<br />is natural; as if the balletic point of my toe<br />is effortless; as if, <br />as if, I assume that he won't notice<br />and am just preparing for sleep.<br />I find myself unable to expect what really happens:<br />the gentle tipping of time and the spread<br />of a thigh relaxed to twice its size.<br /><br />Catalogue25http://www.blogger.com/profile/02863458501695192139noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9117773822398591732.post-90374386186050154972009-03-25T23:12:00.000+00:002009-03-25T23:13:02.096+00:00Rediscovered, sent somewhere.</br><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Optimist</span><br /><br />A man across the road is moving in.<br />I note his possessions as signs of love:<br />the loose white shirt he's wearing and the pink<br />one he unfolds; the DVDs he moves <br />from shelf to box; the full bottle of gin;<br />the undressed bed that wears its ageing stains<br />like cow skin; how he holds his stomach in<br />and stands a while to finger familiar curtains<br />open and closed. He isn't moving in.<br />A woman stands in front of him and moves <br />her mouth like she is talking but the man<br />sees only lips and shapes he used to love.<br />There is no understanding on his face.<br />The room's half empty and a different place.<br /><br />Catalogue25http://www.blogger.com/profile/02863458501695192139noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9117773822398591732.post-84845051607396598102009-03-24T23:52:00.001+00:002009-03-24T23:58:28.571+00:00From a small point of view.</br><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">The Curious</span><br /><br />It is around us, deep and dark, the potential<br />and we are such unseen that it is hard to know<br />how far it is possible to go. We are incapable,<br /><br />in the grip of muscle that stretches to others’ will.<br />Sometimes it is too much scented space, too far<br />to travel; temptation for our inability to influence<br /><br />but put us elsewhere and we are lost entirely.<br />We change colour, but this is not distraction<br />only function and circumstance. We are made up<br /><br />of your in-between, and you do not see us.<br />We have no voice. We are palpable time<br />because we count it, document and expect for change.<br /><br />We do not know what makes us look beyond<br />but huddle together in this deep and dark<br />changing colours, changing shape, fitting in.<br /><br />Waiting for a trick of the light, or perhaps<br />of time, to loose us.<br /><br />Catalogue25http://www.blogger.com/profile/02863458501695192139noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9117773822398591732.post-12728578164551607942009-03-23T23:41:00.000+00:002009-03-23T23:44:02.702+00:00As requested.</br><span style="font-weight:bold;"><br />The naming of the clowns</span><br /><span style="font-style:italic;"><br />Are the eggs blown?</span> It is always the first question,<br />whispered over these scentless hollow eggs; diagrams<br />of faces in red and white. Next word is usually <span style="font-style:italic;">creepy</span>, <br />but it is all a grinning comfort for me.<br /><br />You picture a hallway, with shelves and little stands. <br />It is not that. It is padded drawers and curating. It is cataloguing <br />and checking. Sometimes they need to add an extra tear,<br /> take away an outline of black. I can help them with that.<br /><br />I do not keep their wigs, or stick on tufts of hair.<br />Their outfits do not matter much to me, though most<br />like spots. We keep a note of employability elsewhere.<br />It is just the faces here, fixed and personalised. Named.<br /><br />There must be easier ways of doing it, yes. But I like the feel<br />of the eggshell under chalk-white paint; the ritual<br />delicate hollowing. Nothing says ‘face’ better than an egg<br />for me. I always paint the eyes in last.<br /><br />Catalogue25http://www.blogger.com/profile/02863458501695192139noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9117773822398591732.post-88836207636748859752009-03-22T23:08:00.001+00:002009-03-22T23:10:43.793+00:00I have hardly left the house today!</br><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">What’s in space.</span><br /><br />Everything we want to be: beauty<br />and timelessness, the unknown. We are,<br />and our first words still echo<br />in intelligible clicks and whistle. Space dust <br /><br />and our own junk. Violets; yes, even their delicacy <br />exists in space in as much as anything does <br />on this rock of ours. Everything we have ever been: <br />small and significant, timed and irrelevant, a blip. <br /><br />A need for justification and delight; the first time <br />your mother called your name.<br />It is all there, waiting for someone to make sense of it <br />and its uncanny similarity to a face when you squint,<br />and angle the picture just so.<br /><br />Catalogue25http://www.blogger.com/profile/02863458501695192139noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9117773822398591732.post-11791355884291378392009-03-21T23:59:00.000+00:002009-03-22T18:54:50.023+00:00weekend habits! terrible, muriel!</br><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Roboctopus</span><br /><br />The peculiar motions of an octopus tentacle<br />cannot be copied, but are mapped in diagram form<br />on your wall. You dream of the ability to squeeze <br />through holes smaller than your own head;<br />change your limbs, boneless and elongated, caress<br />eight things at once, or one thing intimately.<br />When I ask why, you cannot answer, except to lose <br />your definition as human, a faraway look in your eyes.<br /><br />Catalogue25http://www.blogger.com/profile/02863458501695192139noreply@blogger.com1