jumieges is a painting upon a painting / scraped out and replaced / bayeux tapestry on ghost / girl awkward / dead king & yellow god all red spun on garbage wood

JW Summerisle lives in the English East Midlands. Their poetry & artwork can be found in Catatonic Daughters, The Madrigal, SAND, & Re-Side. They may sometimes be found on twitter @jw_Summerisle

“Inside Outside Mixed Media Series”

In these mixed media pieces that combine my love of painting and construction, I aimed to go beyond my signature painterly strokes and meld together the world of painting and 3D elements of collage. 
These are my latest works of art, made around mid July 2021. In these works, I challenged myself to enter the world of collage while staying true to my identity as a painter and allowing the painting to peek through the collage construction. I found the juxtaposition of the gestural architectural gray-scale paintings mixed together with the smooth surface of the collage to be satisfying to my sense of aesthetics. Moreover, in these pieces, I aimed to be explorative while pushing the envelope of the mediums along with the subject matter. I intended for the artwork to intrigue in multiple ways, be it the combination of mediums along with the play on themes and how they intersect and come along together. As a whole, these mixed media paintings’ collages are allowing the viewer to enter my world which doesn’t only consist of me as a painter, but as a designer, a thinker – an innovative visionary. Like all of my work, the art mirrors the person that I am, and features my current interest and what circulates in my head and world. Thus, the artwork presented is a reflection of my contemplation and ponderment on the theme while allowing my imagination to run free and play in the art field. 

            ^{Alive (En Banco Plato)}

Our boat is sunk, and I can see no other 

survivors. Silt falls a long while

to the wreck and the bleached reef.

Skua circle. Beyond the sky a concussion 

of sun. At every compass point unmapped 

cliffs, deserted wellshaft crumbling in — stormdark clouds.

Visions come; I recline

in half sleep, a lemon sargassoed in the blood-warm sea.

Like a busted hull the skull floods again and shades thrash

across my eyelids, fly for somewhere, maybe 

land. I decline to sink, or follow them. It’s not yet time to weigh 

this grin.

---

^{The Bird Poem}

It’s not that they descend

From tiny dinosaurs.

            And it’s not that they

Can sing and swing and squawk.

These goddamn things can fly!

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Mundane Things That Immediately Make Me Think of a Specific Dead Person


washing my hair over the edge of the bath • orange squash • doing the crossword • unscrewing / emptying / refilling a hot water bottle • stripping the bed & putting on fresh covers • rope • inspecting my scalp for grey hairs • snow • poaching eggs • denim shirts • the price of bread • bluebells • badly parked cars • the shortest day of the year • aching knees • Sultans of Swing • exclaiming “Christ!” • using my Nectar card • leaving the dishes to soak overnight • Magaluf • the longest day of the year • aching knees • improvised bookmarks • peeling potatoes • Batman • samurai swords • muttering “Christ” under my breath • the BBC lunchtime news • paper shredders

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Your Name in Flames 

I blow you out / extinguished flame / you always smell / the same
as a candle that / has just / been snuffed / as that tiny trail of most / delicious smoke / that dances from the blackened wick / the one that I / can never catch as it disappears too quick. I am the spent / match, used and then discarded / I crumble
at your touch and your patience / with me / vanishes / as it so often does.
You are the charred remains with which / I paint / a smile onto my skin / for my sins / for yours: we share a love we both abhor / and practice makes these wanton sparks
so easy to ignore. But when I am gone you will taste my pretty ashes on your
tired tongue / and curse yourself for failing to start fires when you had the chance /
and so the smoke / will never dance / again.

i wake in a different body

being less than i was

emptied out

through the bloody keyhole

my old home / my new home

the same / not the same

i dis/solve

wide shingle skies / speckled walkways

where charcoal-crushed violets fizzle

black silt flaking / spiky connective tissue

books shelved / dust heavy / intent layered

worlds unexplored / paths not yet navigated

unimagined / the invisible writer / freshly minted

eats everything

---

^sext 

the story goes

that when they spied the kraken’s head

sailors set off home-made flares

for the fleet on the horizon

legend has it

that when he had abandoned ship

and the captain washed up far from home

he lit beacons every night

for the shadows of passing ships

coffee, sandwich

a buzz in your pocket

I light my match

my last pinch of dry powder

I watch the waves for a sign

---

^trepanning

archaeologists learn more from middens than 

from monuments

more from scattered pits and shattered clay 

than gold and marble

the worn teeth and the mended skull

tell a tender story of their own

you and I won’t recoil

from the sliding trash-heap we’ve made here together

our record runs bone deep

---

^{Start Here, Find Yourself There} 

“Thought is only a flash between two long nights,

but this flash is everything.” —Poincaré

There is a darkness, you know, this darkness,

I think, have seen and sat through it 

before, been taught its ways—

been tempted

but never mind that, we swivel our hearts 

towards fallen snow, birds in flight, 

and from what, exactly? Exactly.

It is the word you look for 

but never find, not even 

on the last day

does it come to you

and that’s alright, surely, 

who could bear to have the word

one looked for all one’s life, 

so naked and unadorned

and right there, quivering, unsheltered 

it’s like what they say of kindness—

it’s a warrior’s mood, we know this,

don’t we know this? There is a darkness 

everywhere. Why pretend 

we’re better than we are? That’s the wrong

question. Why insist on being so

terrible, everyday, to each other? Exactly. 

Our eyes follow the winter birds like escape-stalkers 

but their flight away from us says nothing and the darkness is always

just there, yea though we strain through it for that one 

undark and beautiful word, a light-feed at the dry breast of time, 

but never you mind. It’s never been about what you find 

here, to sustain you. It’s always the other way around. We,

are found.

---

^{We Don’t Last, But The feeling Does}

and it goes like this

as a river wrapped round 

its only course

ask not why the light 

has never found you

just push at the dark

like a root sensing water 

and from below

you know 

it goes like this 

our loved ones die out like stars

but still they are hanging there in the sky

like Orion’s stitch work of time 

and if not for loss,

something else

have you asked your body 

where it goes 

while you sleep

dream, gentle weep 

have you

come here to collect 

your greatest hopes 

and feed them to your fears 

I am telling you 

we are always dancing on the edge

of everything that can’t be 

stilled, gutted, explained, 

or remain 

but that for a while,

oh my god—

we were here 

and we were burning with it:

this light

---

^{Goblin hymn} 

Goblin God

Puzzle-Grass God

God of babies born with Jaundice and kept their first days in a box with blue light.

God of nauseous newborns still reeling from previous incarnations, who lift their heads too early and make the nurse cross herself and slam the door behind her.

Spleen God

Picking at your scalp God

God of mean eyed children who hold garbage tightly in grubby fists, who cry when adults finally pry their hands open over trash cans, who whisper goodbye to tarnished candy wrappers.

God of sour faced little girls who scream instead of wave goodbye -who don’t know the words to ask them not to go, and are called creature. 

Pinching God

God of things that stare out of spite,

My own god,

send me that dream again.

That dream of a windmill in the mountains

with the ship in the waterway,

cold in summer, someone’s hand on my shoulder.

 Send me that dream where my bile was balanced and

despite my nature,

It was sweet.

---

^{Waiting for Wormwood} 

At this point in this life I no longer care to achieve anything- I smother ambition with the weight of almost 8 billion lives- 

I’m in a place where I don’t really have to try and survive -the call of the parasite- why would I create something ? When it seems eating this host to hollowness is programmed into my hands and my mouth ?

But it was prophesied that one day a medicinal star will come and 

cleanse  me 

from the face of everything 

And the body I’ve been sucking dry will be finally healthy and

Flowers will bloom in my absence 

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