Friday, May 30, 2014

Kidneys Failing


kidneys failing
he starts to close down
a bee in a puddle

Paul Conneally

On Tiptoe

Les Musiciennes du Temple, Victor Lagye (1825-1896)

spring festival
the littlest girl sings
on tiptoe

Paul Conneally
May 2014

Thursday, May 29, 2014

Stray


she walks slowly from
the office to Charing Cross
looking at the floor
a few stray dandelions
and a pavement crack penny


Paul Conneally

Tuesday, May 27, 2014

Messages



she is so drunk 
that she cant't work her own phone 
but somehow can work mine 
so she texts her husband from my phone 
sending messages back and forth 
asking him to come and pick her up

she promises him sex 
he says 'I'll come straight away' 
and does but the next day 
she tells me he never got the sex 
she was too drunk and when
she got home she fell asleep

Paul Conneally
May 2014

On the makeshift map



on the makeshift map
I kiss
the lost cities

Alan Summers

The image is of the Haiku Jam jar labels made by Paul Conneally and featuring Alan Summer's haiku with translations / Japanese versions by Hidenori Hiruta.

The haiku jam was sold to raise funds for the Japan Earthquake Appeal 2011.


Small Creatures

searching for the small
creatures of a spring pond in
saturday morning

小春の池 土曜の朝の自然観察
tomomi iguchi

we bang our muddy boots
on the garden wall

paul conneally
Tanrenga composed during the build up to the Renewability Haiku Hike, Lower Lea Valley, London  as the Olympic Development Park was getting underway. 

The Renewability Exhibition took place in the Mile End Art Pavillion.

Monday, May 26, 2014

RAVISHING A UNIVERSE FOR LOVE!


Ravishing a universe for love!

Artists Anne-Marie Culhane and Paul Conneally show Mothra (June 17 2014) as part of the ongoing Fruit Routes / EAT YOUR CAMPUS works at Loughborough University.

They will show the film in a popup cinema garden shed on an allotment garden on Loughborough University campus. The garden is tended by Loughborough Students Landscaping and Gardening (Our) Society.


The film will be followed by a night of trapping and viewing moths on the Fruit Route.

Sunday, May 18, 2014

The Fall of London - James Boswell


James Boswell - The Fall of London: Museum 1933 Lithograph on paper

In his series The Fall of London Bosworth gives us a city under siege but who from?

The Tate, where the lithographs can be seen, suggests that the images portray a London invaded by fascists. There are scenes of body strewn streets. Here, in Museum, a pile of dead people sits at the top of the steps, in others men hang from lamp posts.

This 'fascist invasion' interpretation is probably more palatable than the actual vision Bosworth was channelling, one not of invasion from without but from within. The people of London broken by unemployment, class division and poverty, rising up against itself as groups get behind a homespun fascist movement.

The lithographs are a particular vision of what London's streets could have become and in fact could still become given particular circumstances.

They are powerful images undermined somewhat by the Tate's view that they portray an outside invasion rather than contemplate that Londoners could in certain circumstances turn to fascism.

For those that wonder what a possible fascist or genocide perpetrator might look like take a look in the mirror and keep that face in mind.

The power for good and evil is in all of us, choose wisely.

Paul Conneally

May 18 2014

Saturday, May 17, 2014

A Few Stray Crumbs


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sat at his work desk
high up on the fifteenth floor
Geoffrey eats his lunch
a panini delivered 
by the Brucciani van

eighteen eighty two
Luigi Brucciani
arrives in England
footsore after having walked
all the way from Italy

he travels on to
Scotland where he makes ice-cream
he works up in Ayr
before moving to Barrow
to set up his own business 

this ice-cream parlour
becomes hugely successful 
his kids start others
Morecambe and Preston get
their own Brucciani

Leicester has to wait
'till nineteen thirty seven
for Brucciani
to appear in large letters
on a shop in Horsefair Street

Leicester folk love this
'oasis in the city'
an ice-cream haven
that Luigi junior
puts his heart and soul into

throughout the forties
fifties, sixties, seventies
the business expands
a bakery in Bath Street 
to prepare cakes and pastries

cafés open, close
Horsefair Street closing in
Nineteen ninety two
but Brucciani still thrives
as popular as ever

two cafés serving
delicious ice-cream, coffee
snacks, cakes and pastries
all made in their bakery
still located in Bath Street

none of this knowledge
disturbs Geoffrey's lunch break  
a glance at page three
he just knows a good sandwich 
from a run of the mill one

afternoon shadows
he brushes a few stray crumbs
from his workstation

Paul Conneally
Leicester 2013

Thursday, May 15, 2014

Ancient Oak - Bradgate Park, Leicestershire


'Ancient Oak' - Paul Conneally 2014

This oak tree is around five hundred years old.

It stands in Bradgate Park, Leicestershire, the family home of Lady Jane Grey, Queen of England for just nine days before being usurped by Queen Mary who later had her beheaded.

Sunday, May 11, 2014

Dead Whale's Teeth


'Dead Whale's Teeth' - Paul Conneally

Dead Whale's Teeth is a shreadlines piece.

Shreadlines are created by the artist poet cutting up headlines from a particular publication and putting them into a bag.

Each line of a shreadline piece is written by the artist poet by randomly picking five pieces of cut up headlines from the bag then using three or more of them to construct a new line. Any not used are put back in the bag.


The shreadline process was devised by Paul Conneally in 2000 where he worked with members of the public walking through Loughborough Market to make Easy Mother Expletives.

Saturday, May 10, 2014

School's Out


school's out
the sound of sticks
pulled along railings

Paul Conneally

Waiting Room


waiting room
a fish through my pockets
to settle the nerves

Paul Conneally

Wednesday, May 07, 2014

A Bull and Two Cows


spring bluster
a bull and two cows
in the china shop

Paul Conneally

Monday, May 05, 2014

Hilversum


HILVERSUM - Paul Conneally 2012


mixed media valve radio with framed concrete visual poem - the radio dial set to HILVERSUM