Homegrown: For the 2016 Thames Art Gallery Homecoming

Homegrown

On the occasion of the Thames Art Gallery’s ‘Homecoming’ exhibition (January 23, 2016)

This January Gust of

Inertia has brought

you

home

to the Tender Stems

of your

   Beginnings.

It was here that

Mirror Mirror

showed you Odysseus

through Polyphemus’

silk-spun eyes;

or told

  fairy tales

each night before

a lush sleep,

like little Katzman

watercolours jigging

beside your crib.

Having your

‘Head served on a Platter’

only happened

in distant lands

like Kathmandu

or, god forbid,

Toronto.

No here, at home,

with these Small

Monuments to

your childhood

tales, you

transform the portrait

of whom you once

were to

who you are

now.

Here, your

two halves

share the same canvas,

both selves focused on

   immediate

 intentions.

Two beings:

looking you

straight in the eye

of home.

For Kristy Cons 'Identities' Exhibition, ArtSpace, Chatham

This is Woman

On the occasion of artist Kristy Cons’ exhibit, “Identities” (January 23, 2016)

“Fatty!” the tosser-lescents

shame me,

their fellow female,

as I trot by,

trying to lose this excess.

Why bother?

Underwear cutting

  soft flesh;

foolish– like a circus

bear on a tricycle-

rolls at War with the worlds

around,

but I don’t have to be:

I will paint my nails black.

Stand on my head.

Jump rope (even double-dutch

if I so please).

I will wear square specs, and

let my long, luxurious

Big

Hair go,

down

stroking over those

skinny stragglers that

prod and

poke.

I will ride

My big butt

by.

Because this is

woman.

- Kara Smith, poet Ghobhainn

Stratford Chef School Meal at The Prune

Four courses with Prune

We all emerge from water,

Tentacles of eight roasted in slow, fragrant seas until

we

are tested

to be served;

Potatoes of the earth

nourish from the root,

growing long in warm soil,

filling with the taste

of the cord of life.

In air, country pigeons

take flight.

“It’s so rare to get them with

their heads still on,” Prune

considers,

“best serve them

next

to the seeds they eat.

Toasted”

On fire.

Invention of human,

born of the sacred four:

elemental

courses.