SHEPHERDS RISE WITH GUNSHOT & CROW:

Walked into the sun, skating blacktop frost in skimpy trainers
better suited to Hoxton than the fields of Essex.
Arranged broken-stick sculptures on frozen puddles for the
camera, capturing frosted Redbull cans discarded, standing
scarecrow silent in fields as solitary cars past, imagining
they couldn’t see me if I didn’t move or better still were
alarmed to happen upon such an unnatural sight. Give ’em a
thrill, the whole world’s a stage, don’t need galleries to
make art, it’s right here now, it’s whatever you want it to be,
just call it & it is. Scarecrow man in skinny jeans stands
rocksteady in a field of frost, discovered unexpected as the
car turns the corner the driver’s eyes thrill, dragging with
them a smudge, a memory of something out of sync on the way to
work this morning. The hiss of rubber, the low thud of distance
gunshot repeating, a cynic crow up close concealed in naked
branches, scratching records with a rusty nail.
Pull the sticks out of the mud, throw them down on the ice,
photograph them where they fall, all you’re allowed to control
is the framing. Leave them, move on, following a breadcrum
trail, capturing what catches the eye & giving it at name.

Johnnie Mathis was singing “When a Child is Born” in my head
when I woke up, so I dialled up The Monks from last night’s
gig to flush him out.

(K)