Sketching halted by annoying hailstorm. Curses.

Morning stroll. It’s all edges round here.

Early stroll. A hedgehog ambles by. That blackbird’s live album is playing on repeat. The simplicity of an empty beer glass on a low wall. The hill is a line on a graph. That loud car hasn’t read The Book Of Subtlety And Nuance.

Watercolour sketches completed on Berwick beach.

The scream The evidence is final The Beltane piercing angst Something fully primal From the eddies in the banks A worm was thus ingested A menhir struck in two Truths were then divested Humans born anew Homunculi are rested People born anew Morn @imcmillan.bsky.social

Evening stroll. Rooks.

A seagull perched on a rock. Yes, there is.

Sketching time.

Dawn stroll. Citrus marmalade on the rim.

Early stroll. The sky, the thoughtful sky. A moon has grown in a cemetery tree. A silhouette waits in a shelter for the bus. Sudden memory of dropping a jar of honey on my foot. Streetlights go out in sequence as I pass them.

Watercolour sketches on Berwick beach.

Bus view The startled pin-eye of a thunked Pheasant, bold as litter, safe As anthrax. The dirt path To a cold harbour in dressed stone, A walloped crenellation Where we played kick-the -can. Great striding flared legs Across The Tweed, holding Aloft the far-Azuma, rising. M @imcmillan.bsky.social

Evening stroll. The sky is down, the land is up.

I’m just a land quadruped Unaccustomed to the sea The human’s idiot behaviour I’d not the stuff for me…

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Beside the high tide Beside the river wide Beside myself I spied The lovely seaside

The big hoose. Oil sketch on paper.

Omphalos In the circle in the centre Is a hole they filled with mead A place you cannot enter Even with a greater need And in the mead an eye that can see to every point Where the standing stones all lie And the Druid types anoint Morn @imcmillan.bsky.social

Early stroll. The silver necklace of a snail’s trail. A flickering TV behind curtains. I am walking with the ghost of an old stroll. Birdsong teeters on the edge of silence. A bloke asks what time it is, tapping his wrist.

Tower and a walled garden. Oil on canvas.

A message from a sentinel So slow am I A man-spruce Quick to burn For what use? Look at me All bleeding gums Seeping resins A hundred suns Melded soil Waters cleared Tallow oil When night is feared Living long Making air Breathing in For love or care Morn @imcmillan.bsky.social

Early stroll. A brown leaf in front of a white garage door. A group of bins, a day early. Garden flowers like a fallen rainbow stretching towards the sky. I think of the hill as the landscape’s furrowed brow. The temporary lights have gone, taking their temporary light.

Mysterious tower in the…. Yeah, that again. Oil on card.

Treep What does it mean To sit beneath an old yew Of poisoned fruit Accepting doubt? Or a monoecious alder, Sticky with resin, Sending deep roots Tapping my unconscious? It means I’m equal To all, less than a king Stemming blood with aspen bark, A clone of each ancestor. M @imcmillan.bsky.social

Mysterious tower. Oil on canvas.

A turn Keening over the scree A steady hand on kelpy Stone - I lost the sureness Of horizons, the tug To the core of gravitation. Skies like fairground tides, Gyroscopic pustules Churning my insides I hold on for survival - The sea promoting revival. Morn @imcmillan.bsky.social

Dawn today. Start of a 12 hour shift.

Cold.

Sketches made in a strong breeze walking along Berwick beach.

Henge Stones as ghosts Of dancing giants - Thighs like hams, Bolts for eyes, An altar for the great Knower, worldly wise. The centre of all: a circle, A slot, a fire pit. The scene arched by time, Bent to will, lit By tallow. The people Wait outside, credulous, shallow. M @imcmillan.bsky.social

Early stroll. The damp air beckons. Puddles as rain’s calling cards. A gathering of traffic cones on the back of a passing truck. The bread van reversing, crusts first. The man with the walking stick at the other side of the hill.

Afternoon swim. When the tide is in, I head out. When the tide is out, I stay in.

Early stroll. The moon is in hiding somewhere. This darkness feels like yesterday’s. As I walk, I wonder if the paper delivery driver will have altered his clock. A toy dinosaur extinct in a garden. An abstract pattern of fallen twigs.

Watercolour and pencil sketches on Berwick beach. Lose that lighthouse!

The death of Cadwalader There in the swamp: Blue blood & bones like birch, Willow-diviner, god-comrade, The cloak of all ages. His calendar Of 415 years, every moon, 4 corners of light & earth. His people sent the bluestones Over land & sea For the umbilicus of eternity. M @imcmillan.bsky.social

Another easel-falling-over sketches-blowing-away paint-running day.

Early stroll. The sky’s bright confidence. This pear I’m eating is really sweet. That broken plate has memories of wholeness. A fallen piece of paper with the word NOT on it. Someone waits for a late bus.

Standing on Berwick beach just before a moderate occlusion. Watercolours and chalk.

Because Because I’m so uncertain Of the certainties of being And the underlying obtuseness Of wondering what I’m seeing The world is nebulous to me And subject to illusion For everything that’s polarised Just adds to my confusion Morn @imcmillan.bsky.social

If you’re looking for a definition of confused…

Right there, the mysterious tower, the Jimny, the distant Kirk. Collage and oil on large paper.

Painter It all happens in a moment, One brush skipping colour To colour, dirty turps, Glutinous linseed. A kind of sludge Delights, smeared, dragged, Music without melody, The lost horizon. At the end of a podcast Lay down tools As though done, As if the battle is won. M @imcmillan.bsky.social

Lily has had another arduous working day.

Early stroll. The horizon is slowly changing its clothes. The road is busy; a festival of gearchange. A fallen leaf like a fossilised fish. Unusually the dentist’s is illuminated and the betting shop is not. Streetlights like bullet points in a report.

Fractured landscape. Collage on linen and paper.

Longevity Condemned to live on By unanimous jury I walk head bowed Hands sunk in pockets A long stretch Years of paint scumbled Into crude cardboard Upper arms atrophied Eventually I turn down The Royal Academy Throw suppurating sketches Onto a night pyre Morn @imcmillan.bsky.social

Early stroll. The breeze rattles a wooden fence. Clouds like islands. The shattered bus shelter window. That Tasmania-shaped puddle. A man pauses for a while, then carries on pushing his bike up the hill.

The old ways. Collage of Lino prints and monoprints on linen and paper.

Not of this realm Often an atom will disperse Like a lost soul, those random Orbits, fried satellites. It’s all Space, dark matter, uncertain Ethics. And like echolocating Flyers, ultra-red spangles leave Ellipsoid trails around the dead Whispering gallery of my head. Morn @imcmillan.bsky.social

Early stroll. A security light’s harsh glance. The stillness of a parked van. A pencil on the pavement; a pavement pencil, if you will. That tree wears a pink shirt. Temporary traffic lights: tomato, satsuma, apple.