I went to Napoli recently to continue working on a collaboration with Iranian photographer Xeder. We began our project in Edinburgh in 2024 and have since passed through St Veran in the south of France arriving on Ischia and then Vomero in Naples. Our sessions in Italy were strongly coloured by visits to the National Art Gallery to look at paintings by Caravaggio and many religious epics. Our work was also flavoured by the haunted streets of Pompeii, and by the presence of a large octopus from the local market.

Altogether a very dynamic and dramatic time.

So here are four pieces of writing reflecting on those experiences, alongside a sound recording made whilst walking through the market of Montesanto, and a drawing of an octopus in the Greek style.

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Surgery’s DoorDragons at the door holdfast and mark their terra-torialearth, grip the handle hereto follow serpentine ways,opens pages of sinuousthought, summons viscous tearstraces the path of thoughts pastuntil their forms writhe and slideupon vellum voluptuous,nails black claws, skin sheathed,pearlescent, inviting;questions hiss, gaping -teeth a promissory note I owethe bearer of this fleshan invitation shouldyou accept a change madethat cannot be a step inany way because there areno feet the journey abeginning, middle and an end.

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Naples Street

Eating sweet pastries and baba, the smell offish heavy around us; scooters and menwith thick arms and fingers revvv orshout their engines running past girlswith thicker lips glossed seriouslyshiny black hair tossed back laughwith friends where shellfish snap,bubbling in shallow trays of brineonly minutes away from boilingshare their final moments withindomitable lobsters so very aliveuntil dead like all here in this morning’spescatarian tableau vivantall scales and sales.

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Road Side Shrine

Blue leaves and blossoms spreadthrough a ceramic floor, opening undera lace of white plaster dust and broken glass.Sculptures soften, slide quietlyfrom pedestals and leave.Tissues and condom packets line up at the window’sledge looking out towards the Mediterranean Seawhere pleasure boats loiter and roar.Along the road dogs are walked atlead’s length but never here to wherethe Gods have fucked and then fucked off.A green cupola collects light and sound,sending them inwards and downwards tofall upon the supplicants, miraculous andfull of hope, kneeling in reveriebeneath an empty niche, a note on thewall written with ash or scratched withpumice wishes most sincerely that they willforgive this little absence, this departurefrom the sacred, from shared sufferings,and have the very best of days.

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Krakenate

Pale blue eye sees sure as I seeeights and creels and cold green stories.

Tentacled dance splits the bivalves;opens their hearts, survival rivals.

Succertronic pneumaticals;your beak bites hard, brain empirical.

Wrap your arms round my pseudo palps;coloured cuticle psycho pomps.

Creel caught dead drop octopodus;molluscula cephalopod.

Death is for babies, senescence;love happens once, camouflaged wants.

Ink and swim sugar, poisonous arts;too sexy by far, eight point star.

From abyssal depths to shallow shoresyour mantle cavity tempts and allures.

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AR 2025

Photography by Xeder:

https://mehrphoto.wordpress.com/about/

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