1. DIRTY BEAUTY It's a dirty beauty There is no place on earth more magic than this Spirit of the eclipse No street in time more joyful Recent blood moon An exhibition at Surgery Gallery Significant new tattoo Constituting five prints Old brutalist surface In stark black and white New shimmer of heat Classical images cut up rough Crazed by the drought City scenes collaged carelessly In love with my thirst Reverse Archaeology Decoding new styles Xeroxing meets xeroxed Feeling the cracks emerge Layering upon layered Fearing the angels descend Palimpset and palimpsetting Watching the roads melt Hand shifted for chance and bend to fabric of time and place Knowing fabled monsters rise Phone processed to cheat purity Sighing gut as night becomes day Clerkenwell printed for definitive finish Spinning head as day becomes night A2 size to fit window space, placed carefully by Bjorn Singing a song in prison, what? For a four-week showing to the street A mirror to our vanities Surgery Gallery A reflection of our fears Pitfield Street Ignore Thyself Hoxton Delusional Quincunx August 2026 Parched raw on parquet floor Where can we go from here? 2. PALIMPSETTING Looking over the road there is a stretch of ground in front of the council flats This land used to be a burial site for victims of whatever plagues blighted the area at any given time In the good old days of Shakespeare and Marlow and other syphilis ridden kings of the stage The council have a sign advising the passer-by to keep away To keep off the grass at the very least If you can call it grass now The scorching sun has done a job here and no mistake What was once ultra-vivid inner city verdant green is now desert Pure scrub Vacant slag Curled up in heat Caught lagging drought A carpet of wire blanched out and burned up Like a badly bleached straw blonde on a bed of barbed wire in the hight of the drought I am surrounded by this blight I am adrift in an urban desert I am starting to feel just a bit disorientated Then I happen upon a pool in the road On the corner of Pitfield and Haberdasher Oh what a benevolent surprise Thames Water has gifted the neighbourhood something beautiful A gorgeous gurgling burst of main Which is nothing unusual in itself Every street now has its own unique water leak But this one kind of speaks out to me Draws me in Attracted by the flickers of diamond lights speckling over the surface This stream of algae and detergent This river of scum scudding along the ground A gleam in the gutter of life Oh dirty beauty! Shining emerald green on faded black tarmac Shimmering merde brown under merciless sun Glimmering and gurgling slowly along the kerb Of the drought tempered concrete streets that constitute pavement And feeling like Tintoretto’s thirsty crucified thief cut down from the cross next to Christ I find myself down on this pavement As I kneel but to quench my thirst Scooping up the bloom of water In my smooth unworked hands And sating the dried throat That has been denied sustenance so long But here sustenance arrives, finally The weird taste of Hoxton Slipping down my throat Trickling down to my belly Making its presence felt There is a rumble in my gut A tremor in the bones A tightening of the sphincter A flutter of wind in the nervous system As shoulders shoot up Neck twists like hung Head begins to jerk And then my skull bursts Like my mind is split open And even in the raw sun of the day The light that shoots out is palpable I am enervated inside Gazing into the blooming algae of my leaking stream Taking stock of this new underworld that is showing out to me And thinking about the fragile precarious madness of this life And how there is no place on earth more magic than this No street in time more joyful It’s a dirty beauty all right Weird apparitions become quite apparent Rather strange visions suddenly present themselves Of a city that is undergoing shift once more That is rapidly metabolising before our eyes Let me try and tell you about the visions I see 3. THE LOVERS Vision number one Blood moon Trouble ascending Moon permeating soul State of ragged joy Turmoil spills out onto the street Bubbles up from the drains Spreads right through this neighbourhood As hell claws back down Two misbegotten angels A right couple of nineties casualties Who could never leave the old Hoxton stomping ground And this pair of tumblers descend from the sky above Hitting the pavement hard with rude loud contact Screaming where the fuck is Charlie Wrights? And whatever happened to the Foundry? What is that big black tower of glass and steel in its place? That insult to Babylonia They are lovers of tonight and all nights These two feral spirits from the other time Their souls are entwined These two slinky foxes One very much the fool The other a wanting magician Both of them Stray mythical idiots Star crossed demons Full to the brim Brim full of lust Dustbin of desire Overflowing bowls Filthy spectacle Naked as sin Skin in the game Game for anything Pucker lipped Broken teeth Fat arsed Bone thin Hairy nippled Bad Tattooed Falling tit Over arse Arse onto cock Cock in a jar Jar in a mouth Mouth full of sores Sores laden with bugs Bugs carrying disease Do anything to please Fuck naked Nights bold tarmac Life’s sodium glare The dirtiest dream The filthy laugh The slutty cackle The ecstasy bark Tender wish Brutal pavement This is their state This is how they roll Here to create magic Here to craft myth So near to chaotic majesty So far from civic sense Ah look at them together Look at how they play Rolling and tumbling Gambolling like lambs Roll up, roll up, roll up A gamble on the burial ground A chance in the field of the plague A bet on the pride of Pitsfield Street A wager in the bone ground A flutter on the death land A sudden winning cruel streak Racing up to the finishing post Leaving for dead those who fell at the first hurdle To come to rest in this cockney knackers yard Where once upon a bad time they buried the diseased bodies And where some say the virus still lingers Well come on you slummers come down and linger All you absconders give straight life the finger And get down with our lovers tonight And just look at them Look at our vile foul specimens pinned just so Touch them Grope them Kick them Caress them Feel how sick they are Think how sick you can be This is catching Stroke them Poke them Choke them Invoke them Trace the beauty of their scars Fate is written in the stars This is where we dance now It’s a baalroom invitation for real Come dance, come dance, come dance And here we all are We are the scum who fell to earth Have we ever been so free? Oh what a summer this has been For the fool it was impossible For the magician quite inevitable Their chemistry struck somewhere in between And they beckon to us now Oh how they tempt us Come lie down On the plague grass We have had our fill Of the black sun Now is the time To gaze up at the blood moon And read the signs And act accordingly 4. THE PAINTER Vision number two Ill starred We find the painter Howling in anguish Whimpering in pain Through matted beard In stinking rags Ignored by old friends He has quite lost his way Oh what has become of the painter It wasn’t always like this All of his stars once so aligned So refined, so rich, so of the moment He used to be so mellow Such an earthy grounded being With a meditative air And the look that said he had this world so worked out Found his one true path in life And nothing would ever touch him He had found the confidence of having balance in his soul And acquired riches through the harmony of his paintings And through patience his heart had remained whole And his belly of swell full of fine wine and choice delicacies Stylish clothing, swish vehicle, the best apartment Comfort was king and conformity his queen And how safely sublime was his road ahead But then somehow he strayed from his path Ill starred for sure The painter was told of the Dirty Beauty A special new drink to be had down on Pitfield Street And full of greed for the hit of the moment And forever wanting to try of the latest thing He knelt and drank from the scummy source And the source soon worked its way inside him He got to his feet and roared to the Gods in confusion And at that moment everything good just shifted away The solid ground was torn away from under him Everything he once knew as normal became now quite strange And he found himself slipping, slipping, slipping As the world around him began a sudden change And deep inside despite himself he began to shift And he could not make head nor tail of his being Whilst losing his only blessing, the ability to create And the theft of his gift hurts him deeply Vision upon vision upon vision of all the fearing things And drink after drink after drink of dirty beauty He can’t close his eyes or shut his mouth This scream through matted beard I see his howl of anguish Vision upon vision, drink upon drink, fall upon fall He finds himself now homeless on the street Whilst beginning to see things other men never saw before He becomes the holy unbidden tramp of urban lore The prophecy’s within him flow stronger and stronger The righteousness inside him burns and burns and burns And so he screams the scream through matted beard And I see how he tears himself up inside And I see how he is filled with self-hate and critical loathing Of what he has become The state he now presents This existential mistake This crap practitioner Bad posture Scrawny limbed Filthy tongued Shallow breathing Weak boned Dirty beaked Filthy minded Self absorbed Razor clawed Pimple skinned Scabby nosed Lice ridden Space stealing Short tempered Idiot brained Greedy and clumsy Skinny feral scaled cuntish scrawny thing He is the intense madness of city vermin life Lick and spit and snarl and scratch and scrape Horny gnarled old fuck bird renouncing no sin Arms flapping like the broke rooster wings they are Diseased cock crowing to the weary jaded sky Still to give the man his due he has retained some artistic instincts He has noted a few things along the way and absorbed so much more He has decided to start painting again And he wants to relate now some of the things he has seen Some of the characters he has come across recently And he is absolutely going to capture the state of the world as is now Just to make it plain to everyone, just how fucking bad things are He will be the people’s eyes He will be the people’s soul He will be the people’s conscience They have all been crying out for someone like him he just knows His painting will change everything He even has a title already The apocalypso tryptich He is going to paint the best fucking painting in the world And the world will absolutely thank him for it He will show them, he will show them all the error of their ways And they in turn will bestow successes and respectabilities upon himself again And everything will be alright, tonight He will make a start on it tomorrow I can’t tell you just how ecstatic How up a height this painter is But then the high passes over And our painter comes crashing down He looks at us all baleful Ashamed to think that his gift would return so readily Knowing he had sold his soul a long time ago He had his chance but that moment has passed And you do really only get one chance in life eh? Some of us make the most of it And some of us… Still what does it matter anyway? I am looking at him now Framed in the window there Pinned like a Victorian butterfly of old Howling mouth open Eternal scream of anguish through matted beard And I feel… Well… I don’t care for the painter at all I didn’t care much for his paintings then Less so for the arrogance his success brought I care not for his manners and predicament now And don’t much fancy the new apocalypse style he talks of I will leave him to his end times visions He is probably right though With it being end times and all that Mind… I have that feeling Now the world does seem to be ending It’s like When we have been At a party all night And we have all Avoided each other In fact Snarling with cynicism at people we hardly know Then all of a sudden As the host switches the lights on And tells us We must go home We are suddenly up and doing the rounds Wanting to know everyone and what they do And we want all of us to be the best of friends We have Always been Slightly Desperate That Way And We all know This one thing it’s much too late to save ourselves So let’s just enjoy The moment And the Dirty Beauty 5. THE ECLIPSE I take off the protective glasses and stare right into the event Disregarding all official warnings of gazing unprotected And thus ending up blind with eyeballs burned out by rampant UV The mystic idiot that I am I want to experience this happening religiously raw I am so minded to disregard respected advice I expect to suffer whatever dire consequences My own silent stand against the dull way my age is turning on me these days I know a full eclipse is something I will never see again in my lifetime Or any symbolic date of any cosmic magnitude or celestial significance really Always now this expectation that I may well be gone from this earth soon enough Or this earth could well be ripped straight out from under my feet sooner Every chaotic moment of careless magic has to count now And this could be my last palpable chance of creative mayhem Of fooling around again and feeling some dirty beauty in my soul Of witnessing something the bland and the brazen can’t appropriate I am very much here for it standing with friends on a clearing of the hill overlooking the city We have waited and waited and here it comes now The sun shimmers as the moon makes its movement A silver shilling shining in a pale blue fountain The golden orb pasted to a glam icon’s forehead A singular sunflower in an endless windswept desert An unused mirror-ball in an abandoned dancehall The mushroom cloud of nuclear testing somewhere over there There is a marked shift in the atmosphere The move inspires a sense of wonder and quiet concentration This is an act of universal magic at play here The people on the hill engage in a collective hush The birds all around have stopped singing Even the sirens of emergency vehicles have muted themselves An eery quiet prevails It then appears to me A prominent, mystical, unfiltered black sun I get the impression I am not experiencing what everyone else is experiencing That I have taken it personal and inward for my own alchemical ends I shudder, shiver, almost feel like crying I am starting to feel just a bit disorientated There is a sense of wonder swirling around me The black sun becomes a black hole becomes a black door I feel like I am standing on that doorstep With a ticket to another world waiting to pass through But in opening the door I am triggering something more momentous in return Black sun black hole black door Before I can step through that door though I feel a swish of shadows swarming around me And countless wyrd forms rush through Monsters, I hear someone sigh in the distance, monsters, are here Am I now allowing monsters from distant times to come rushing right into this world? Monsters that I thought were banished long ago Monsters that I thought were successfully contained Labelled and pinned in museums and libraries Dissected and branded in style manuals and fashion magazines Appropriated and rejuvenated in pop songs and romantic poetry Commercialised in advertising and celluloid fantasy Labelled and nailed as mere distant myth Monsters Monsters let loose amongst us once more Black Sun Black Hole, Black Door It feels so strong this fanciful notion I look around to see if anyone else is seeing what I am seeing I cannot articulate this whatsoever But something within me reacts so strongly to the moment The unconscious leaves traces which we don’t always understand That is a given But at this very moment I feel I have lost all sense of who I really am I am shaking but I keep my eyes focused firmly on the eclipse The moon passes the sun and goes on its way The atmosphere lifts and a hazy light prevails Friends and lovers embrace and kiss and dance and smile The birds start singing again A vector of dragonfly dart past Couriers go about their business down below Artists take up their brushes once more The hill around us kicks back into action I take a deep breath and try to absorb as much as I can A moment of reflection is much needed Most occasions have always passed me by This one has engendered some kind of change Tam had asked me to write something about the Metabolic Shift for a project he was doing I didn’t quite grasp what he meant And failed, as I often do, to produce something relevant to the remit I feel those words now though, much as I felt the sun burn into my eyes A shift in my metabolism and a metabolic shift in the people around me Everything changes from this moment And I am here for whatever changes occur I just need to capture those monsters I have let loose on the world Or at least give them name and form and soul and purpose and set them on their way I believe in sacred monsters and malevolent spirits I believe in dirty beauty I believe in feral angels and fallen lovers I believe in the good of people too And the pursuit of grace and wonder in the face of spite and cynicism We are the scum who fell to earth There is no place on earth more magic than this There is no street in time more joyful I am here on One Tree Hill with Inga and Kevin and Sayako and Bjorn A cool nucleus within a more expansive collective All tuned in to the sun event for whatever reason might stir the singular soul The spirit of togetherness in a fractured world is palpable though Disregarding the heat which increases day by day Despite the monsters I fear I have just let loose on the world I turn to my pal Bjorn who is stood by me also staring into the sun without protectives I ask if I may have use of his street gallery for the purposes of capturing inexplicable monsters He says yes, and a date is set And everything flows from this moment.