seaweed dries
in crumpled fistfuls
strewn across shorelines,

a scribbled calligraphy
filled with tongue-tied letters,
tangled ligatures.

i amass a small pile,
ply a dry patch of grass
with stilted lowercase,
slowly unsnarling
one letter at a time -

each gnarl snaps easily,
with the same brief pressure
as the tip of a pencil
or a camera's shutter,
gentle enough
to be accidental -

afterwards, forgetting the words
for the wind to find.

Then she stopped dead still and Tirian saw her gradually sink down into the grass and disappear without a sound. A moment later she rose again, put her mouth close to Tirian's ear, and said in the lowest possible whisper, "Get down. Thee better." She said thee for see not because she had a lisp but because she knew the hissing letter S is the part of a whisper most likely to be overheard.
· C.S. Lewis, The Last Battle

vessel. the esses there, the excess breath
whistled through lips; the sinuous promise
of floss, press, caress, kiss. S, the sound
and shapelessness of misfired fireworks,
of indecisive rivers. vessel, possibly
a shell, envelope, bottle, fist; anything that simultaneously
holds and is held.

ferry insinuates
an eternal to and fro, like a misaddressed letter
lost in the mail. from north sydney to port aux basques
to north sydney, to port aux basques. the mv caribou,
the mv joseph and clara smallwood. merchant vessel. why do i think
of mussel, kestral, sessile, fossil? of fissile, of driftwood or bone
split along the grain, of ventricle, vascular, of plumes of steam
from smokestacks as thick as a butcher's wrist,
smokestacks the colour of shallowed veins. whistle, the shrill
of a kettle threatening hell, visceral. yesterday
i dropped that glass with the hairline crack, it shattered i swear
before it ever hit the floor. the mv hopedale, twenty-three years ago,
guttered on fire for thirty-six hours before going under. the records say,
sank at berth. seven weeks later she rose again
to be properly scuttled, twelve miles south. glass slivers easily
into invisibility; sweeping up
is something you shouldn't be careless about. SOS
because it was easy to morse, not because
it meant anything.

Found these at a thrift store in Dartmouth recently and couldn't resist the wonderful illustrations. I was hoping it was a complete set but it turns out I'm missing almost half of the alphabet. You can put them together in sets of three to make animals but I don't have any entire animals either, and have to settle for odd barnyard chimeras like duckcowdog and nursefishigloo.

Strange that the more that is happening, the less I tend to write about what is happening. Here is a small update.

Earlier this year I took part in the MFA group exhibition Interrobang, at Anna Leonowens Gallery. I suggested the title and designed the invitation (right), and contributed a large inkjet print called index of first lines (32 months). The print consists of the first line of pixels from every photo taken with my previous digital camera (read more here).

I'm currently working on a blog version of index of first lines, as well as another blog project called queries. In the fall I'll be teaching a studio course called Blog Art: Artists' Blogs that will explore blogging as an art practice.

Also recently designed consumptuous.com for artist Shelley Miller.

index of first lines (32 months) at Anna Leonowens. On either side are artworks by Catherine Allen and Smriti Mehra. There are more photos of the show here.