Off his Trolley

Where do artists, writers, poets get their inspiration? 

From people or politics, religion or Real Things? I’ve been inspired by the 26 Collective to write several sets of ‘sestudes’ – 62-word studies based on 26 objects, pictures, or artefacts. I first became aware of this new literary form when the Museum of Scotland held an exhibition called 26 Treasures, based on selected objects from the Scottish section. 

I decided to compose my own sequence, which I wrote about on this blog throughout 2012 and as a guest blogger for the Museum’s website. I also made 13 hand-folded artbooks for Kalopsia Colective.

People who know me well won’t be surprised that I’ve written a 26 sequence on phone boxes. I’ve been mildly obsessed with this classic piece of British architecture (its cultural, social, and political significance) throughout my adult life, and incorporated it into much of my writing. 

The phone box sestudes have yet to find a home – although I’ve had my eye on a few obvious locations!

Also on this blog, widely exhibited and displayed, and published as a pack of cards, is my set of sestudes titled 26 Doors between My House and Yours, following a route of doors through Edinburgh. This was a reflection on the symbolism of doors, and a special friendship. 

Many of these doors have now changed, been painted over, or even removed forever! Such is the transience of Art… and sadly, sometimes, also of friendship.

At the beginning of 2020, I established a new, exciting friendship with someone who, having seen my 26 Doors exhibition and learning about the 26 Treasures too, suggested another 26 project: shopping trolleys! 

At first, I thought she was off hers, but when I began to spot trolleys around the place (and sent her pictures) I soon began to think of stories. 

When the pandemic kicked in, I realised I had something to get me through the lockdown – all thanks to Marta.

It’s hard to believe the ‘unprecedented’ events of the Pandemic occurred four years ago. Who can recall the unchartered times preceding lockdown, when even the buses changed colour!

Just a Number

I’m travelling on a Green 16

Don’t know where it’s going or where it’s been

Don’t want to panic or make a fuss

But Green is the colour of a Country bus

 

I’m hoping I’ll be home sometime soon

Even though City Buses are Maroon

The route we’re on seems as per usual

But the journeying is extremely casual

 

With very few passengers to pick up

We’re sitting for minutes at every stop

At least with such empty roads we’re able

To stick for once to the published timetable

 

Stay calm, keep your social distance

Is the Government’s solution and stance

Yet even with only five people on this bus

It’s one rule for them, another for us

 

That we’re on this bus in the first place

Is symbolic of the general disgrace

Of a Government, inept and unable

To offer advice either strong or stable

 

For I have to travel – albeit alone –

As the work I do can’t be done from home

And I won’t get paid if I don’t manage

To honour my contract of a minimum wage

 

I’m not some kind of working-class hero –

When my actual hours are reduced to zero

It’ll make no difference what colour bus

I’m travelling on – I’ll be as useless

 

To myself as to the ‘gig economy’

And as bankrupt as this poem’s allegory –

So now I’m alighting from a Green 16

Into times yet unheard of and as yet unseen

 

What about those pebbles the kids painted and left in lines along the prom, or footpaths, or outside closed-down schools? This poem, I confess, was written in the year before the pandemic…

 

Stepping Stone

Based on a painted pebble, found in Fife     

 

She gave him back his SMILE,
   though her heart was made of stone.
She offered him her LOVE,                       

   but he was not the only one.
She told him to be HAPPY...
   his ecstasy was temporary.
And yet, despite his loss,
   he was glad. Glad that she
had used his heart as a stone 

   to bear her foot across.

 

Like those painted pebbles, the Pandemic went on and on. Some feel it’s not over yet. But who can forget the ineptitude of the Government at the time, not to mention the corruption? Many, I suspect, have a hazy memory. This sort of social amnesia leads part of a population to vote for a government, politician, Prime Minister or (may God forbid) President despite abysmal form, behaviour, or record. 

In 26 Trolleys, I predicted (or prayed for) the downfall of a Government that wore a paper crown – and this was before we discovered they were all wearing party hats. I also suggested that a certain mendacious clown may not have been as plagued with COVID as his treatment required. Another poem might have worked better as spoken word, but that wasn’t an option at the time…

 

The Poet Compares Boris Johnson to Jesus

 

Jesus came (outwith God) from Humble Beginnings

Johnson came with God-given ready-made winnings

 

Jesus was born in a cowshed, yet was gifted with gold

Johnson was born with a silver spoon, entitled and bold

 

Jesus studied the scriptures, learned from the prophets

Johnson, at Eton, learned how to reap elitism’s profits

 

Jesus learned his Father’s trade as a show of humility

Johnson got elected on the basis of faked personality

 

Jesus said, suffer the little children to come to me

Johnson said, let them suffer – they don’t belong to me

 

Jesus respected all women, every Martha, every Mary

Johnson’s attitude to women was extremely contrary

 

Jesus gathered around him ‘followers’ from every walk

Johnson’s tokenistic Cabinet was bluster and all-talk

 

Jesus came to show the Way, the Truth, and the Life

Johnson, directionless, told lies sharper than a knife

 

Jesus fed five thousand families – with food to spare

Johnson induced greed and panic-buying everywhere

 

Jesus cared for the sick, the crippled, and the leprous

Johnson’s healthcare plans proved to be disastrous

 

Jesus instituted a High Feast in eternal memory of him

Johnson created food banks as a forever ‘us’ and ‘them’

 

Jesus was obedient, even unto death on a cross

Johnson ignoring his own instruction didn’t give a toss

 

Jesus continues to be celebrated in mythic resurrection

Johnson will need a miracle to survive the next Election

 

If you believe in unconditional love, then vote for Jesus

Or vote for Johnson, and spread another political virus

 

And who can believe both Easter and Christmas were cancelled that year! In a time when cancel-culture was rife, we also experienced the resurgence of ‘me too’ and ‘Black Lives Matter’ campaigns, accompanied by ignorant claims such as ‘not all men’ and ‘all lives matter.’ 

This was my short, simple take on the latter.

 

Subverting a Sentence

 

I tried to say ‘All lives Matter.’

Turned out I was a racist.

So a black person said to me,

“You need a change of emphasis.

 

“Try saying ‘No Lives Matter,’

and it will seem ridiculous.

Then say, ‘No Black Lives Matter’ –

you’ll see how you’re not one of us.”

 

On the absurd behaviour of that crackpot quack across the pond, I had little to offer in my 2020 opus. An older piece of work remains relevant to the current situation.

 

Trump is much worse now than he was eight years ago. It beggars belief that a convicted criminal, verified racist, unquestionably sexist and incoherent sociopath can run for office. Yet to say he shouldn’t be allowed would undermine democracy!

What a strange world we live in… but what a stranger world we inhabited in the Pandemic Lockdown. Many people felt quite inhibited at this time, and experienced immense creative lows – or perhaps, just a lack of muse.

 

Writer’s Block

 

Did lockdown break your spirit?

   It hardened mine –

at least in respect of a drinking habit.

 

Were you depressed at the thought

   of quarantine?

It surely cut our friendship short.

 

Of course you were reflected

   in every line

that, over time, became rejected.

 

Was increasing your social distance

   due to Covid-19

or a personal coincidence?

 

Although I was determined

   to find a rhyme

your demeanour left me winded.

 

And reading Essays in Pessimism

 – a sign of the time –

reflected your existential nihilism.

 

Even as we eased our isolation

   the dark red wine

fomented our sense of desolation.

 

Summer ended. But that pandemic

   seemed resigned

to make this metaphor endemic.

 

After months of endless nothingness

   for you, between

ourselves was friendship nonetheless?

 

No: whatever ‘future’ this virus

   could undermine

it destroyed what was between us.

 

Yet only after you’d departed

   I wondered why

my sadness turned to broken-hearted.

 

Perhaps it was because you left

   without goodbye

that I felt unfulfilled, bereft.

 

Would these lines ever be the same?

   This unforeseen

became an endless waiting game.

 

Personally, I found the experience extremely creative. Some of my lockdown opus has been recorded, posted, or published, though much of what I wrote remains on the shelf. Maybe people don’t want to ‘re-visit’ the misery of a lockdown. However, this year two exhibitions have proven, I guess, that my 26 Trolleys in Lockdown project retains relevance and interest despite its historical stance.

Having first exhibited my work (starting with my Gormley-inspired piece, Walking on the Water) in a shopping centre, I was delighted to find the first home for 26 Trolleys in Westside Plaza, Wester Hailes. 

This had double significance since Marta first noticed shopping trolleys when living there, and this fact prefaced our conversation when she gave me the inspiration!

Next, imagine my delight when I applied to be part of this year's Art Walk Porty (an art festival in Portobello) to be invited to display the work in Porty Light Box – a phone box converted into an exhibition space. 

It’s no exaggeration to say I’ve had my eye on this ‘gallery’ for as many years as it has been there! The only downside is that there are only 24 panels in a standard ‘K6’ box, and with three of these taken up with information slides, I had to choose only 21 of the set of sestudes.

The full set can be seen on my Instagram, along with a few other bits of my 2020 work.

Thus ends my reflection upon 2020, and another set of reflective studies known as ‘sestudes’ (I’m really hoping this neologism gets into the Dictionary!) The job of an artist is to reflect, and often this requires looking back. I started 2020 by vowing not to go back to where I’d been before. And I retain this stance, although ‘back’ remains ambiguous – as all poems should be.

 

Going Back

 

I will not go there, I said:

I’ve already visited it in my head.

 

The past will not unravel;

it is a land to which I need not travel.

 

At journey’s end, I am unwilling

to return to journey’s beginning.

 

The past is not a place I’d planned

to visit again like an unfamiliar land.

 

I’ve trodden this track before;

It only leads to another locked door.

 

And though my steps falter,

there’s nothing solid I can alter.

 

So why look back to nowhere.

It’s gone: I will not go there.

 

However, I won’t stop writing, using the past or current inspiration to fuel my art, my work, my passion. I’ll end this annual peek through my window with a final trolley poem; another reflection on friendship which, as I suggested, doesn’t always last.

Joni Mitchell, naturally, puts it rather well...

 

Anyone will tell you
Just how hard it is to make and keep a friend
Maybe they’ll short sell you
Or maybe it’s you
Judas, in the end
When you just can no longer pretend
That you’re getting what you need
Or you’re giving out anything for them to grow and feed on.

(from ‘Jericho’ – on Don Juan’s Reckless Daughter)

 

It’s true, some friends are fair-weather, others simply come and go; some are demanding or take advantage of our generosity, while others don’t appreciate us for who we really are. We’ve all been betrayed, and must learn how to walk away with dignity. 

But sometimes things just fall apart. At least I, like an abandoned or broken trolley, can turn this into art.

 

Closure

When shall I ever stop taking

pictures of trolleys for Marta,

park-benches for Melanie,

cows for Gaby, doors for Elena,

or telephone boxes for me?

 

In the days of film photography

expense dictated a prudent restriction:

only one photo per phone-box.

Gaby’s juvenile bovine-obsession

wore off in time, like innocence lost.

 

I permitted only 36 exposures

of doors from which to choose

26 to compose Elena’s sestudes.

Of Melanie’s benches I needed but one

to sit for an hour and write a poem upon.

 

But of trolleys, there was no closure.

When lockdown ended, Marta had gone,

and so the ubiquitous shopping trolleys

imbued me with increasing melancholy.

I made a rule, never to shoot

 

the same trolley twice

even if I saw one in a different place.

I broke it, of course: technology

encourages one to be far too snap-happy.

Cycling along a familiar route

 

I spotted a trolley I’d seen before

on a path that led to an esplanade

running alongside the water’s edge:

having been taken on a joy-ride,

left high and dry on a grassy knoll

 

looking out towards the bridges

that span the Firth of Forth

from Queensferry South to Queensferry North.

Was it the same one? I couldn’t be sure.

Nevertheless I took a second picture.

 

In 104 days of lockdown I shot

over one hundred and fifty

abandoned shopping trolleys:

who cares if one was a duplicate?

Was it that I wanted more, that

 

I travelled back to that same site

and, as the Queensferry Crossing lights

twinkled alluringly in the sunset

I, in a foolish attempt to forget

my friend and the distance between us,

was drawn towards the sea wall.

 

I looked over at the stony squares

scattered like stubborn sugar-cubes

and saw an image far less sweet.

Broken in two on the rocks, there

 

it lay, body separated from its legs.

Sometimes a situation begs

a final, honest photograph.

So I took it, wondering

if I should cry or laugh.