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Close Your Eyes And Go To Sleep. I Dare You. (2003)
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Sgraffito 3 / 4 (2000)
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Kindergarten (2011)
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Reflecting On The Door Of Perception (2011)
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Love · Labour · Loss (2009)
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Sgraffito 2 (2000)
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The Ghost Tree — or, Dr. Pook’s Arboretum of Osteo-Venation (2012)
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A Moon Daisy Contemplates The Horror Of It’s Own Mortality (2007)
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Reminiscent III (2013)
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Birth Day
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Careful, my dear. Careful.
CAREFUL, I SAID. It’s for your own good. You know that I might be right, I can see it through your eyes. No matter where or who you are this night will be rounded in a frame, flash-gunned and shuttered in and changeless for once. And painless, that’d be a treat. My birth day gift to you.
Why do you always cry on your birth day? That’s not for you. It’s supposed to be the one day when you don’t have to give, only to be. I’d have thought that it would be the perfect day for you, but maybe that’s the point that sticks you still. For one day a year a looking-glass is held up just for you, with no blurs or distortions to distract. Is that why you cry? Is that why you are so hopeless at hiding?
When you were young there was always the chance that this year would be different, not enough had passed to dull the sharp edges of your delight. Yet unwrapping after unwrapping only delivers a shaken parade of the clumsy and the mean, but even then hardship or neglect – or the thought that maybe it was your fault – hovered like forgiveness in the wings. But that was a long time ago now; the child learns lessons hard taught.
Untied by string your fingers shake without anticipation for fear of what you are unfolding, of how others see you. The good gift writes relief not happiness into your face, the bad gift strips you bare. Is that why you cry? Is that why thank-you-cards are painted in sodden lipstick and mascara? The paper is soaked and offered by hands that know what they hold; little reliquaries of recognition are never lightly given, smudged or torn.
The false memory of glee may hide in your eyes, cosseted and cheated as a favoured phantom-limb, but it is the wasting figure wrapped in ribbons that pricks you open and naked. Crowded by the illegitimate desires of those around you can never be on your own this day, a day without passion only sentiment. Is that why you could never lie?
So happy birth day, my dear. But be careful, everyone bought you mirrors this year.
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[JC/2001]
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Birth Day (2012)
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Reminiscent II (2013)
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Reminiscent I (2013)
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Sgraffito 1 (2000)
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Dancer At The End Of Time (2013)
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reproduced courtesy of the foyle collection
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Wax Work (2013)
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oil & wax on wood [detail]
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Jack & Lottie / Sunken (1999)
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who’s laughing now?
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Pomegranate Painting #3 (2003)
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oil & pomegranate on canvas [detail]
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Tender Hook (2005)
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Do Not Go Gentle Into That Cold Day-Light (2005)
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She Borrows A Revolver (1995)
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The Heart asks Pleasure — first
And then — Excuse from Pain —
And then — those little Anodynes
That deaden suffering —
And then — to go to sleep —
And then — if it should be
The will of its Inquisitor
The privilege to die —
Emily Dickinson
1890
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Naomi Foyle / Seoul Survivors
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Naomi Foyle Seoul Survivors (Jo Fletcher Books 2013)
ISBN 9781780875989
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The dark cyber-thriller Seoul Survivors is the debut novel from poet, performer and activist Naomi Foyle. Published by Jo Fletcher Books (an imprint of Quercus) on 28th February 2013.
‘A meteor known as Lucifer’s Hammer is about to wreak destruction on the earth, and with the end of the world imminent, there is only one safe place to be.
In the mountains above Seoul, American-Korean bio-engineer Dr Kim Da Mi thinks she has found the perfect solution to save the human race. But her methods are strange and her business partner, Johnny Sandman, is not exactly the type of person anyone would want to mix with.
Drawn in by their smiles and pretty promises, Sydney – a Canadian model trying to escape an unhappy past – is an integral part of their scheme, until she realises that the quest for perfection comes at an impossible price.’
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Naomi Foyle (2008)
john luke chapman
official author portrait for Jo Fletcher Books
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Where Wolves Slink Through (2008)
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Og Fegurðin Mun Ríkja Ein (1984)
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‘The loveliest flower lives in hiding; very few people ever manage to see it, many overlook it, some do not understand its value, while those who discover it will never see another flower again. All day one thinks about it. When one sleeps, one dreams of it. One dies with its name on one’s lips.’
Halldór Laxness World Light (1969)
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A Spy In The House Of Love (2003)
john luke chapman
1. The Invitation / 2. The Dream / 3. The Wait
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‘Exactly as in a fever dream, there was in her no premeditation, no continuity, no connection. It was all chaos – her erratic gestures, her unfinished sentences, her sulky silences, her sudden walks through the room, her apologizing for futile reasons (I’m sorry, I lost my gloves), her apparent desire to be elsewhere.’
Anaïs Nin Ladders To Fire (1959)
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Whitby Abbey (2008)
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“Lucy has not walked much in her sleep the last week, but there is an odd concentration about her which I do not understand, even in her sleep she seems to be watching me. She tries the door, and finding it locked, goes about the room searching for the key.”
Bram Stoker Dracula (1897)
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An Infinite Hanging (2002)
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Desiccant Wings (2009)
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Dirty Weekend In Brighton (1997)
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Mr Glowry’s Summerhouse (2009)
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This house has been far out at sea all night,
The woods crashing through darkness, the booming hills,
Winds stampeding the fields under the window
Floundering black astride and blinding wet
‘Wind’
Ted Hughes The Hawk In The Rain (1957)
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Gene Pool Massacre (2000)
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Pomegranate Painting #2 (2003)
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oil & pomegranate on canvas
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Jackbox Diner (2008)
john luke chapman
‘We are lucky, even the worst of us, because daylight comes.’
Jeanette Winterson Lighthousekeeping (2004)
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Moth Light For Rothko (2012)
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Bad Moon Rising / Blue Version (1998)
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Bad Moon Rising (1998)
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Squid · Ink · Blood (1998)
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I Hear My Ghost Banging On The Door (2008)
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I Have Measured Out My Life With Coffee Spoons (2007)
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The Black Cat Of Montmartre (2004)
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Reclining Nude With Stars In Her Eyes (2005)
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Snow Blind I-VI (2002)
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Gleðileg Jól
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Child of God III (2008)
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Features a hand-rendered ‘Heart Box’ by Jarboe
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The Snow Queens (2008)
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Photograph was conceived and shot for the front cover of Naomi Foyle’s collection The Night Pavilion. Published by Waterloo Press in 2008 the book was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation.
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Naomi Foyle The Night Pavilion (Waterloo Press 2008)
ISBN 978-1-906742-05-8
cover & author photographs by john luke chapman
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Why Hast Thou Forsaken Me? (2004)
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The Drowning (1997)
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Red Star Promenade (1997)
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Liminal Disturbance (1997)
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Twilight Of The Idle (2002)
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The Ectopic Joy Of Meagre Twins (2000)
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darkling eye 