P-oint 2 - Poetry, Short stories & Art

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C O N T R I B U T O R S C onst a n t i n P r e d a Vin ce nt Man d a Nick B a b b i n g t o n Ja ck L itt l e A ne t t e San d b e rg N icola H e bs o n Ve r on ic a M i g n o n Tom Wa tt s H a n na h C a mp be l l Nove mt o Ko m o Eu ge n ia L o l i A mir L od ge C hloe New m an Sam Dunn ASD Joe F u r l o n g Emma J ack s Mu a : J a d e J o n e s Soph ie s @ GA P M o d e l s S PAD D a mil ola O d u s o t e

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Jack Li ttle 1

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Sam Dunn 2

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Veroni c a M i gnon 2

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Vi nc ent M and a 4

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Steven Poxson Novemto Kom o Ami r L odge

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Tom Watts 4

R ob Pyb us

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Ni ck B abbi ngton 3

Emma Ja ck s

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Anette Sand berg 3

Oly a Ol einic

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H annah Camp bell 2

Eugeni a Loli Nicola Heb so Novemto Kom o

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Dami lo la O dusote Jenni fer Ga rla nd

Joe F urlong 5

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C R E A T O R S PAM (P-OINT.CO M) Thank s to ZIGZAGZIG.CO.UK & Lena Gha ninej a d

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POE TRY SH ORT STOR I E S & ART

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Co n st a n t i n P r ed a Poet

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Consta ntin Preda

It It feels, and is not felt by things although its edges are distinct, since matter ruptured from the void and all things are themselves, yet somehow linked.

It sees, and is not seen by things it stares at days and widens being into thought and darkness clashes with the light, and thus it loses all the battles that it fought.

It makes, it does not suffer life it knots and is not knotted in the weft since cold erupted into warmth it carries on, because life never left.

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Ar twork

By Eugenia Loli

Pa inting

By Nicola Heb son

Consta ntin Preda

Listening to November Fall, fall on things, plummet and fight to the death with matter lie still to hear the withering smoke the friction of water listen, acquire the anguish of waves, the hunger of flowers get up and create the world as another Feelings cluster and swarm around magnificent.

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Consta ntin Preda

Effortless You could desist the moment from emerging and numbed it with a placid stare to clot the hopes that waterfalled inside me and all the things I did not care‌ to dare‌ to say, my fears became relentless birds of prey all huddled in a sky of steel that opened up the skin, the twitching flesh, the acrid humors and the harmony within, and stared and summoned up the will to see how in your heart the dust had set like silence on the thought of me. I was a smoke you knotted into

nothing the possibility of

an event, a limpid glow my love fermented, feeling hollow, like missing something one is yet to know .

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Ar twork

By Novemto Komo

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leoht Collective

By Constantin Preda

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here is a rarefied air of nostalgia about SE London that for me, in a very Proustian manner has something to do with the smell of crude oil that hangs heavy around the stairs of New Cross Station. It’s a fortunate coincidence then, one that poets love and logicians loathe, to paraphrase Nabokov, which made me alight there on my way to seeing Going Backwards Towards at Lewisham Arthouse.

It is this sense of synthesis, of ascendance, that brings to the foreground the work of Guthrie who transcends the social aspects of memory in a piece that lends itself to be read a languished movement from genealogy towards history through the means of an inquiry into artistic practice itself. Her work consists of abstract drawings and paintings that are layered like memories, one on top of the corners of another and pinned in place by wax sculptures redolent of seeds, an optimistic motif for the growth and role of the artist in whose slipstream the development of history duly follows.

Inside the gallery space, the first of the pieces that arrests the gaze is a series of four photo-portraits (of members of the collective themselves) by Gjertsen. Although the portraits are made by means of very long exposures and traditional techniques, there is nothing dated or antiquated about them. They maintain a modern, clinical, almost eternally ethereal quality around which the notion of individual time coalesces and this disquieting effect is achieved through the gauzy contours of the photographed faces, which float and dissolve in the womb like quality of the dark grey that surrounds them.

And with this in mind we turn to the broadest, most universal category, natural time and the permanence that lies in the cyclical character of nature. Fólkadóttir’s series of surreal paintings and photographs brings a sense of timelessness to the viewer. In them she conjures a world of plants, of plump fleshy clouds, of leaves, of landscapes evolving resiliently and calmly, a world that in relation to our short, coruscating existence seems to stands still. This is a nurturing, feminine world where rain falls unperturbed, geometrically, a world wrought from primary colours, in big, eternal blocks of blue, green and flesh-pink; a world that reveals itself to both the eye and to the quietness inside us.

Moving “backwards towards” the next temporal category, the interval of generations, one finds Davenport’s pieces to behold, pieces which explore the relationship of the individual with parenthood.

In a series of striking photographs, of ballet shoes and “stitched into” family portraits, she achieves the uneasy metaphor that describes the process of memory and its social implications. Her work artfully illuminates the tragic aspects and the psychological expenditure of our emergence as individuals, and even more refreshingly, the effects it might have on the ones closest to us.

And for an added Nabokovian delight, I left the gallery and found myself coming across my own memories of Goldsmiths College, tall and elegant, and felt that in the meantime they became somewhat more contextualised and truer.

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Ja ck L i t t l e Poet

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Ja ck Little

rurlin yur ‘r’s There’s a ghost of Geordie vowels and he’s buzzin in my boca Intento a hablar bien but its nee good hinny, the invisible r’s he growls of hoyin’ hammers ower hinny dee nee good for hablando Spanish, hot with salsa and balloon rides, red skies away from bacon sandwiches with brown sauce the ghost of Geordie vowels pulls my voice box around the world in the wrong direction nunca hablaré bien en español, like but that’s alreet cos we divvn’t complain no matter how many ghosts we have

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Illustra tion B y Sa m Dunn

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Veronica M ignon - Writer

1DK An odd couple that day.

The white curtains billowed, introducing the open balcony as her green eyes followed subtle ministrations in cotton. She couldn’t have been older than eighteen. A willowy figure, unnaturally tall with long blonde hair that emulated the curtains as it framed her odd bird-like face. Wide eyes, set perhaps too close together, crane nose, poignant girlish lips.

The man could have been her older brother. As they smiled, their faces appeared eerily similar in presentation. He was her contrast, black hair and darker skin.

His body was held awkwardly, as if his rigid bones couldn’t agree with slouching flesh. So similar and so disparate. They carried reflections rather than expressions.

The apartment was strikingly normal. Limitless without occupancy, the walls were white and aseptic, like a sick room. Many a time, the landlord had shown off the blank bones of a household, all which were met with dulled reactions.

But the apartment was akin to the young lady’s face, her past and future limitless without a name. She moved, her skirt fluttering. Clothes insisted she was a grown woman which only exemplified how poorly they fit her small frame.

Starch white shirt, navy pleated skirt, high heels made for a secretary.

They walked about the floor cautiously, the apartment a pure spectacle for their gazes. And then, arm in arm, they strolled the small floor space as if they were shopping in a mall. It was easy to forget the man existed. The lady was present, her demeanor would pop in a crowd, but her companion faded willingly into the woodwork. With the exception of a scar along his jaw, he was utterly forgettable.

The kitchen and living room were contained in the same area. A water heater and a stove- top oven with two burners greeted them at the entrance. The dining table folded into the wall. Closet space surrounded the apartment, their articles meant to be hidden rather than presented. Chairs could be folded and placed into storage space, the landlord insisted, or under the step leading into their bedroom. A doorless entity of a home, the bedroom lost all intimacy ; standing between those walls, they could hear the neighbor’s television set. From the bedroom, they were led to the balcony where a plastic rack waited to dry laundry.

Their view from the window : another set of eyelet lace curtains, shadows leaning across the fabric as if a puppet show had been in session.

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Veronica M ignon - Writer

A thin mattress had been rolled out as an example. If they needed more room, they simply had to roll it up. Staring at the sheets, the young lady placed her head on the man’s shoulder, arm coiling around his torso. A loving couple. That’s what they were. It made sense. But they were not pleased and when the man spoke, his voice was oddly accented: “The bathroom?”

A large curtain in the living room masquerading as a wall. As the landlord pulled it away, he revealed a small square of tile with a drain in the center. No mirror, slim sink, and a toilet, with a shower head implanted in the wall. Their eyes were wide, a strange hum from the man as the curtain returned to its place.

The final verdict. Standing in the center, glancing at the abode that surrounded them; the man was completely outside of a decision. His eyes were set on the balcony, the outside world. It was all up to the little lady. In her tiny, childish voice, she proclaimed, “This is a home.”

Seduced by the coquettish voice, the landlord understood her strange beauty then. He placed plants and flowers upon her nameless face: Rose, Lily, Violet.

Unseen memories flashed in his head, the young Rose practicing ballet, Violet first meeting the man in class. How could she have allowed such a figment of a man to caress her limbs? The landlord could see them, naked under the sheets of the roll-out mattress, discovering where to place their hands. It clouded every thought in his head.

Producing an identification card, her face was repeated. In printed letters, her name rearranged itself to the landlord’s liking: Calanthea. It was all his eyes could see. He didn’t look at her height or the one letter that defined her gender, the only information worthy of his attention was what vindicated his image of the girl. An accompanying face, the man’s name was discordant next to hers: Ilan.

Papers were signed, her signature oddly beautiful for a girl her age. Young people never practiced their penmanship, yet her pen sashayed over paper. Hands were shaken, Ilan’s thin and meek. Calanthea’s lips spread, curling at the ends.

They were holding back, the young man’s mouth clamped shut.

It wasn’t until the landlord was halfway down the stairs that he heard their loud, raucous laughter. Their voices twisted into a single cacophony, synonymous with the rattling of the city.

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Illustra tion

By Olya Oleinic

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Han n a h C a m p b el l Writer

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Ha nna h Ca mpb ell

RENE Now she is free. The day is at its peak, blue skies and all. The sun picks out the real ripe red in a pile coke cans, the fluorescent yellow in the park swings.

Real lomography bitches.

Her bag is empty of necessities, a black and yellow duffle bag just full of useless shit, her red lipstick, her favorite bikini and her daddy’s guitar. Empty of the usual just in cases, no money, and no bus pass no social security ; she didn’t even have a tampon.

She swings the keys of her brother’s motorcycle on her index finger, round and round, and round once more, and jingle jangle go the shiny crackling sound of the keys. Tappety, tap, tap goes the plastic of his key chain. She has pulled the Indian into a gas station on the skirts of the city ; the territory before her, molded now into highways and national Parks, counties and cities, but I do not reckon she sees this.

She has a couple of forgotten singles, tucked into the back pocket of her 501s, which she proudly pushes into a charity box and a lollipop, which she sucks on as she cruises the narrow aisles for supplies. Shelves here are crammed with different kinds of one thing; own brand food and coke covered in yellow markers proclaim cut prices compared to the brand names. She skims the cheap literature and smiles at the dirty words.

The pistol was her daddy’s, a colt with a barrel and everything, its been loaded with shells since the night he shot a man, somewhere in Nevada. When she takes it out and lays it on the counter beside the Twinkies and the Hershey’s, the man behind the counter takes a couple of steps back. He thought she was a little girl.

But Rene wants the vendor to see her visage in her mind.

She pulls out a Luckie, unfiltered, a better taste than her mother’s Malibu’s. She holds the Luckie it her lips, and when she pulls the cigarette away the tip is stained MAC red. She notions to the vendor for a light. His lighter, a pistol, shoots fire instead of shells when he clicks it open; the sound is a poor imitation of gunshot. Rene bends her neck and the vendor places the flame to the tip of the Luckie. It takes, and they freeze Mexican Standoff, him with his pistol shaped lighter, her with Samuel exhaling opaque curls into his mouth.

When the cops finally pick her up, a little while into Oklahoma, with her mother in tow, she is nearly out of Twinkies. She already held up a roadside diner with her Daddy’s colt; put it down next to her when Sally the waitress gave her the bill.

When she did, Rene asked for another coffee, sat back and took a drag on her final Luckie. Rene wanted Sally the waitress to see her visage in her mind.

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Photog ra phy

By Emma Ja ck s

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Ane t t e S a nd b er g Poet

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Anette Sa ndb erg

“

IT’S A FUNNY WORLD.WITH FUNNY PEOPLE IN IT.

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Illustra tion

By R ob Pyb us

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Nic k B a b b in g t on Poet

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Nick B a b b ington

Love Letters i.

My lady compliments the verse, But love’s letters arise like languid leaves upon the breeze, dancing unhurried casualties of autumn’s visionary vintage -melting into pools, warm abstract mosaic hues. ii.

All autumn seems a portfolio of slow joy and slower sorrow, dry thoughts which blow through withered catacombs of crumbling bronze leaves -weaving tendrils of dust in the light: frail fragments of ambler parchments. iii.

Yet still I pluck these lyrics of love: condensed mists of unique mythologies.

Respire rhapsodical recitals reviving the imprint of a metaphysic link: -the ritual, her cruellest vendetta liberates my loves simmering subterranean architectures.

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Ar twork

By Steven Poxson

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Nick B a b b ington

Not unless I dream of you in eyes with which to wither while I watch, ageing

~

like the sea is ageing wave by page, page by wave,

Now I dream of you, emerging from the bedded dead

Not unless I dream of you do I star-blind find stars

ageing until I meet the wage of living.

long lost, lain slain in more painless embrace -and I

Not unless we hide our vows, make love to secret templates, disguise the naive dialect which seeks

wish I too could now awaken, find the world beyond of love enduring, escape the endless bigamy of dying.

enigma in debates of skin -sexes silent ciphered scrimshaw baited, dedicated to the edge of this duet.

For the gift of age is becoming a bitter souvenir, to Not unless the babes we bear are born with taxi-

hear in every distinct memory of love, to know in

dermists milk throbbing froth crossing their heart.

every tone of voice the taste that’s found in one an-

Martyrs made of polarized conceptions, coaxed hy-

other.

brid crop of compromised antithesis hostage amputated orgasms.

This is how I suffer, suffer without rest: a sentimental

No not until our bourgeois nest is found finally hollow at their exodus will we reacquaint with revolutionary minds and bodies, reincarnate through

memory, diluted by remorseless youth who give and bless while enduring I obsess with eulogies ambiguities of love, quote romances, unquotable Romances,

redundant arts a brief renaissance of surrendered metamorphosis.

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blended with my famished testimonies.

Ar twork

By Novemto Komo

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Vin cen t M a nd a Poet

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Vincent M a nda

Hammersmith Bridge With all that weight It could be so easy So easy to lift one leg And follow with the other All the while knowing That you cannot swim.

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Photog ra phy

By Amir Lodge

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Reviews by Chloe Newman

For those of you who fear you will have to read the poem to understand this film need not worry, the animations in the film mirror and illustrate the poem, portraying its surreal style.

HOWL (Rob Epstein & Jeffrey Friedman, 2010) Howl reveals an insight between Allen Ginsberg’s view of the poem and the events of the poem’s obscenity trial.

Written between 1954-1955, Ginsberg’s ‘Howl’ was noted for its boundary-less writing, as a poem with no restrictions.

He refers to outcasts – poets, artists, jazz musicians, drug addicts etc he had encountered in the 1940s and part of the 50s. The biographical drama stars James Franco as the young Allen Ginsberg. Franco’s performance alone is one reason to watch this film.

The film is split between three different elements dealing with Ginsberg and ‘Howl’ itself.The first element being Ginsberg performing his poem with visual snippets of his relationships with other beat icons such as Jack Kerouac.

During this performance are the intersecting animation segments; we then see moments where Franco as Ginsberg is interviewed about the specifics of the court case and ‘Howl’. Finally both these are interconnect with the trial events. This may seem confusing and disjointed however Howl combines these scenes well, although one thing I would say of the film Howl, is that I felt it should have been slightly longer, it would have been nice to see more of these recalled moments of Ginsberg’s private life, but none the less the film provides an insightful log of the books trials and tribulations during the time of its publishing.

Ginsberg described Howl as a ‘promotion of frankness’, in specific, the frankness address of homosexuality, which provoked the trial.

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Speaking of this opening animation in particular, it felt like a very detailed and intricate childhood storybook however more fluid due to watching instead of turning pages. Within the opening the characters actions are playful and heartwarming especially coming from two elderly men.

The animations all vary from Claymation to CGI and cutouts. Each stanza has its own unique style, capturing a certain mood and atmosphere. For those of you who are particularly into animation this is a must, the nice thing about this piece as a whole is that due to the vast variety there will be at least one segment you’ll find enrapturing. A very calming watch.

WINTE R DAYS (Kihachirō Kawamoto, 2003)

Based on the Japanese poet Matsuo Bashō’s renku (a collaborative poem), Winter Days (Fuyu no Hi) depicts the poetry as an anime film. Directed by Kihachirō Kawamoto, the collaborative anime involves visual pieces from a total of 35 animators, each imprinting their visual style on a stanza of the poem. Consisting of the 40 minute animation and an hour of the ‘making of ’ and interviews from the animators, each supplies roughly 30-50 seconds illustrating their stanza, all but Yuriy Norshteyn’s 2-minute opening piece.

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Tom Wa tts - Writer

The Ghosts of Our Breakfasts.

I watched the river of lights as the ghosts of my breakfast played over the dashboard and hummed along to the radio. That’s what my father called them: the ghosts of our breakfasts.

I called them farts, but then I’ve always called a spade a spade.

If there was one consistent complaint people have had about me it was this: ‘The killing of all poetry in things,’ as Carrie once put it. Only six hours ago we had danced, her feet on mine, so that our footprints only showed one dancer and half a waltz. Outside a storm pushed the trees around and choked the gutters. We danced whilst the radio played Viennese waltzes.

And if there is anything more holy than the music in this world of never ending sadness, I have not found it yet. But I’m always looking.

I am a drinking man and a gambling man, but no big win on a horse race or icycold beer on a hungover morning could ever beat dancing with a pretty woman.

And Carrie is a beautiful woman.

She can place a hand in mine and it feels like I’m holding a wild animal, something I don’t want to let go of because I may never hold it again. Like the first time you hear a joke, you will never completely comprehend it again. You can never really hear it anew. It’s gone.

I’m sitting in my car outside work and the evidence of our dance will probably still be there in the spilt flour. One set of footprints, mine, in my workplace, all over the floor. I’m the only one who works there with feet that big and I’m on a final warning.

I fell asleep here in my car and had a strange dream. I wrote down my thoughts when I woke up and now I want to send them to Carrie somehow but I know she’ll be asleep and other people’s dreams bore her. Carrie gave me a poem that she said she had written in her dreams. I read it over and over looking for some kind of meaning, but it only becomes more opaque like watermelon in the rain.

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Offer you to the mouth walk th the fields b The reachin science carry into th Its all in the peoples

So I go

ur father h of the cave, hrough before us. ng hearts of y the animals he lake.

Denver: s collection.

o to eat.

Tom Wa tts - Writer

The restaurant was empty apart from one table of waiters and a table of risk analysts negotiating with the manager. They are all smoking. This morning I feel like a coffee and a club sandwich could save my life. Last night the storm blew so much fruit off the trees that the pavement outside is covered with halfcrushed apples. The waiter wipes down the tables whilst eating an apple with his left hand. He takes large bites and it doesn’t last long. Between the bites he’s singing something to himself I don’t recognise. None of the fans are on and the vast space feels frightening. It is so hot in here that the packets of sugar in the ashtrays have melted into hard lumps; a few loose granules in the corners.

After a shower the coffee before me is the single most perfect thing I could ever have.

I am a customer.

I look out the window at the wide brown river. The trees that crowd along it’s bank dip their branches into the water. It looks like the trees behind are jostling the front row, nearly forcing them into the water, like winter swimmers at the edge of the ocean. Once I swam with napoleon fish, giant and blue. They swept across the coral grazing with their beaks, hearing them biting off chunks, a deep head-filling sound. I swam amongst them in the clouds of debris. They didn’t mind my fleshy presence. They were huge. It was like swimming with dinosaurs.

I feel like that now, sat here waiting for Carrie.

In the bakery, the bread will all be burnt by now. You can’t leave dough in a hot oven for that long without something beginning to combust. If I were there I would hesitate before peeking inside, scared of the sight that awaits me. I’m never usually this careless. I have been late for work, half asleep, drunk even, but I have never burnt bread. The bread is the entire reason I am there. I may not own the business any more but they keep me on because no one else can make the bread like me. I have a secret ingredient. I carry it in my pocket so nobody can steal it from me. It’s precious, it’s why people queue around the block for my bread, and it is priceless. It keeps the bakery alive and me in my job.

Carrie told me she wrote her poem in a dream. She was dozing one morning, trying to stay asleep, trying to hang onto her dream when she decided to try and remember all of it. And that poem is what came to her. She told me she went over each line in her head, saying it repeatedly until it was committed to memory, and then she moved onto the next and the next until finally she could remember all of it. Then when she woke up she wrote it down on the pad that she keeps next to her bed.

I love her but she can be a little woolly sometimes. Me too, I suppose.

I don’t think I’m going back to work. I have my secret ingredient and I have my car. I have Carrie, too.

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Illustra tion B y Da milola Odusote

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Illustra tion

By Jennifer G a rla nd

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Joe F urlong - Writer & Ar tist

Deathbed Repenter Rust, is forming where the dust one fought the water, and the sweats collecting as the drip by drips saunter round the place, imagined by me to be the saving grace. Refurbished sunk wrecks swallowed whole by the old blue whales that are now rigging the sales to accommodate the drowned – where’s the undercurrents leading now? Cos it’s getting more sinister than Poe here.

Old souls fear these queer times will be revered once we’ve, steered full circle and the suction spits out our skint corpses. But keep in mind: The bacteria will multiply.

I admit I come across slightly bitter in this skit, it’s cos the current slump’s knitted used wire wool into my sweatshop sweaters which, Warped my style-sense right back to the dark ages when a peasants rage was about as long as this tatty page is. I’m getting wise to this grinding rhythm that’s forcing compromise while, wild lies blind eyes away from life’s prizes. A bigger society than that blue man’s in rising, knee-high in slime but try to confide in your pride when the sideline’s become your environment.

Early retirement’s not for the faint-hearted when there’s no children left and no farms left to be started.

Unsubtle shades of grey slabs slay said pride from your estate, while an old lame man slams face down by mistake slipping up on, banana skins slap-sticking to the foot of the stairs, his pearshaped days don’t pay the rent for him to stay so pray that, a creator will provide him a nice place. Late formed grace replaced the virtues forgotten near the finish line. Your prime, survivalist, instinctual, meticulous, action-plan hands-down will side-step the cracks in his so don’t lend no placenta to this deathbed repenter.

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Joe F urlong

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