Steve Bucknell's photos

These were flying above the De La Warr pavilion in Bexhill on Sea. I have no idea what they represent. I didn't ask, I can't find anything now I search online for it. It's a mystery.

From the Museum of Our Lord in the Attic in Amsterdam, a very smart way to stop visitors sitting on the antique chairs!

From The Diary of a Snail 26.08.14 Window today: easy climbing, smooth , wet with rain, good traction, but felt...high up... Glad to get to other side. 27.08.14 Quiet day in shell, reading, thinking and writing a little, stopped in late. 28.08.14. I made delicious lettuce soup, I read a little Spurgeon: “Around the Wicket Gate.” I have to agree when he says: “Sometimes silence is better than speech.” 29.08.14. Aching ganglia, dry radula, sore foot , contracted. No appetite for anything. I felt a singular darkness grow within me. 30.08.14 Translated Hadrian’s “Animula, Vagula, Blandula” just now. Used my own helical verse-form. Pleased with the result: “My sole, my wandering foot, Pale companion of my shell... To what unknown garden Will we go today To sup sweet dew And pass the time away?” 01.09.14. Last night, under a hedge, found a skull, went inside . Thought it like a large shell. Chewed a little of it for calcium, very useful and tasty. 02.09.14. Noticed new snail nearby. Lovely neat spiral and pretty mantle showing. Really wanted to go over... But too shy, too worried about getting pregnant. 03.09.14 Rumination, lucubration, involutional melancholy, recursive, solipsistic. Sometimes the path is not the way. Sometimes the examined life isn’t worth living. 04.09.14. A real joy tonight: looking back behind my shell as I painted, with my lubrication, an abstract in the moonlight. Called it “Fulgence”, signed it and left it there. 05.09.14. Reading Grass today: “From the Diary of a Snail”. Disappointing, mostly German politics. No interesting snail facts; but “resolute as a snail” an excellent phrase! 06.09.14. At the corner, a sexual encounter: sudden, quite anonymous, we interlocked for hours, gripped by pleasures: wave after wave. Afterwards, sated, I felt depraved... but happy! 07.09.14. Some call me erudite, sesquipedalian, dilatory, living on a spiral stair in a haunted cupola, prey to fits, déjà vu, and passing blackbirds. Well, they’re right: that’s me. 08.09.14. Wrote out my list of favourite sayings: “Learn to live in a spiral of uncertainty.” “Contraction is a virtue.” “Best foot forward, only foot.” “Chew everything over.” “Slow down.” 09.09.14. Sudden dark: stepped on, I think. Shell broken, excruciating pain. Dragged myself home under pot. Last entry. For God’s sake, please be careful where you tread. I feel ...afraid. Steve Bucknell. 10.09.14.

the breeze that carries traffic sounds across a tractor- scarred farmland... pylons above the bypass reiterate the vantage point of a hawk .....houses with grey blue slates ... nearly rhythmical murmur of the pines and far-heard traffic ... that’s how it always starts ... the enigma of the reservoir, the soft light bathes the red brick mantles of estates... the woman has her left arm raised to shoulder level and bent at the elbow ... that gesture of benediction... this, together with the smile that implies a kind of enigma... someone has written the word austerity on her body ... the stranger carefully underlines the... uh ... noises from the steelworks across her shoulder... the bus crawls on all four wheels wheezing in the sun...... heads sink under blocked grates...we journey to the end of the street...a cul de sac ...

Handle with care.

for Karen

My early morning walk

Ceramic sculpture by Helen Nottage.