Halcyen Days

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Night we filmed

the edge of the Gut

the water rose under the dry

dry leaves, coloured with river 

silt.

Dusted with feet from the pussy

willow.

In a dark corner a blue flash of

feathers.   the tiny remains of a kingfisher 

I took some home , 

Dad confirms on the phone 

i took him a feather .

 

 king fisher has it all 

salt swelling , brine , roughbreath smooth breath 

gannets 

The morning 

star the seven sister .

Lucifer .. 

 

 

 

https://www.etymonline.com/word/halcyon

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcyone_and_Ceyx

 

 

 

Audio Samples

pinnel · GUT Samples

Devils Porridge

 

Hemlock Cordite and Oatmeal 

 This Summer the bottom of the Gut was filled with Water drop Hemlock . 

It’s a deadly Carrot, not for Gin like Angelica  But be mistaken for Wild Parsnip , it’s  in the same family of plants as cow parsley or the troublesome Giant Hogweed .

After  Christmas I went to visit an peice of woodland in East lothian and  came across a Hemlock Pine ( so named because it smells like Hemlock , its a Japanese Pine  .. Tsuga … in the wood I speculated on why such different  plants had the same name … is it in the Latin.. or the Etymology .. a dive into the Wiki world of Etymology gave me all the smell based connections .

What I did find was Anglo-Hibernian name for Hemlock is Devils Porridge or Devils Oats , Deid Man’s Oatmael,  Socrates Blood , 

In Greek Conium , Refering to Koneious , meaning to Spin or whirl , 

Konas_Whirl - Vertigo 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conium_maculatum

Hemlock Water Drop 

Water Hemlock 

Dead Man’s Fingers 

Dead Tongue 

Oenanthe crocata,Wine Flower 

Can stain yellow , unlike C.maculatum it smells sweet , but like its sibling it’s poisonous with no antidote 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oenanthe_crocata

The words Sardonic Grin come from the use of hemlock to kill crimials and the elderly by the Nurgaic people of Sardinia, also some of the First metal workers , mines  in Europe. a neat link to this site or early mines and blast furnce.

but the river here was faster flowing then , navigble  an inland port and harbour . Whos to say if the Hemlock flurrished on the waters edge.

Poison Sweet poison Yellow Sap of the hemlock sends my synapsis leaping to the Canarys the women that filled the bombs . The chemical porridge slowly posioning their skin . their own slow devils porridge.

 Surrounded by water for protection, but in the factory its cordite on skin. 

 This quiet  spot hidden in plain site .

 

Cordite and fur trim 

Oat bread breakfast 

Deer run devils hart

Sardonic Smiles 

Devils Porridge / Canary Smiles 

Cordite Cordiale 

Mid Winter on Canary Island

 

Lemington Gut

 

The Gut 

Newburn Haugh 

Lemington 

Saltmarsh

Layers from the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. Prerailway .

When the river was still king .

Before it was annexed for the main river to flow faster this small part of South Tyne is now tucked into the edge of promise the new industry , no industry .

This small part of the Tyne encapsulates like so much of our industrial past out journey through wars innovations, through carbon, and into the nuclear . Weapons and power, this butterfly meadow this horse paddock made glass , made bombs to the minerals of the north and sent them out to the world .

Shells to kill boys and men . 

We sit proud and conflicted and defensive . 

We sit in Orchids and vetch 

The burn filled with slag, rubble and silt 

Bubbling with its own air 

Hemlock Summer.

Iron chain , furnace holes ,streams , sewage ,  slicks