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Article Game Poem

‘The Flesh Steals Work That Condemns’ by La Sirena

Poem by La Sirena featuring in Jean Bonnin’s book, A Guidebook to Surrealism: Surrealism by Surrealists (2022).

The Flesh Steals Work That Condemns

The flesh steals work that condemns

The meat steals the work that you throw away

The mountain throws it back at you

We wear the coat of eyes in autumn

The bird told me a tale of autumn leaves

The heart is stolen from the work

The thunderbird flew out of the stone

When the cave was empty

Yet the flesh demands that we swallow the hours of her peacock clock

Meat is a wasteful job

The tower will dance when you see it

Silently the stars shone their shadow talk so that the smile was broken nightly

It has all gone asunder

Work disguises itself as life and holds time hostage

The body steals the work of resistance

I will return to the swaying clouds

‘Embrace the pleasure principle’ declares the flesh

But not before the books write themselves

Whose face is missing now?

Sinful deeds, damning works

Who can know the revolution of the clock more than those who toil in the fetid sweatshops of capitalist hierarchies?

The sleeping clocks pretend to chime

Does a backwards clock run faster?

The world will never know

The wisdom of the cats in medusa masks knows no equal

Who holds the keys to past doors?

Who steals the work he condemns?

When will the wind sing in my ears again?

The body steals work it judges

Their secret is the golden travesty that pierces the palimpsest of flesh

The cats whisper the secrets that were frozen in time

Cats fed on dogs’ meat 

And the wish cast in the placenta birdcage painted the trail to keys I cannot grasp

Embryonic fires burn out the future of time

Cats mummified in wishes and curses

Even their bones sing with the echoes of murder and the murder of echoes in triplicate

All this and a dancing amoeba

Collective poem by Doug Campbell, Taya King, Daina Kopp and Darren Thomas

Categories
Article Game Poem

‘How Much Longer?’ Collective Poem by La Sirena

Poem by La Sirena featuring in John Bradley’s book, Blue Will Rise Over Yellow: An International Poetry Anthology for Ukraine (2023).

Categories
Article Game Poem

‘I Am Still Here’ by Surrealists in Wales

Poem by Surrealists in Wales featuring in the seventh issue of John Richardson’s magazine, Once Upon A Tomorrow/Un Tro Yfory (7 January 2023).

https://www.johnrichardsonsurreal.com/_files/ugd/6244c5_defd385e3d9747fa92c8d2cecc7570a0.pdf

Categories
Exhibition

Once Upon a Tomorrow: Surrealism in Wales

Members of La Sirena will be joining the Welsh surrealist tribe and surrealists from across the UK at this event. We hope to meet some of you there. Further details at the Globe website.

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Film Game Poem Talks and Presentations

The Lost Plot

Surrealerpool, the Liverpool Surrealist group, organised a public happening ‘The Lost Plot’ on Friday 9th February 2023. This was a vibrant and thoroughly ‘pataphysical manifestation of the Surrealerpool group. We hope there will be many more.

Doug Campbell attended as a representative of La Sirena, and is entirely responsible for the ‘in the moment’ quality of the photos below. We hope they give a flavour of the event.

The programme

Arrivals

Collective performance of the Surrealerpool manifesto

Further inspirational readings

The audience is rapt!

Climactic ritual sacrifice of the Lost Plot piñata

Denouement!

The website of the Surrealerpool group, is linked below. Their numerous publications are uniformly excellent and warmly recommended.

http://www.surrealerpool.online/

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Enquiry La Sirena

Images of La Sirena

Fantomas meets the Sirens!

‘The Fantastic Aquarium’ (Mexico, 1974) Art by Gonzalo Mayo.

Categories
Article Game Poem

‘How I Sometimes Feel’ by Surrealists in Wales

Collage and poems by Surrealists in Wales featuring in the sixth issue of Surrealerpool’s magazine, ’Patastrophe! (7 November 2022).

https://surrealerpool.home.blog/patastrophe-no-6/

https://surrealerpoolhome.files.wordpress.com/2022/11/patastrophe-6-online.pdf

‘How I Sometimes Feel’ (Jean Bonnin, Steve Handsaker, Taya King, John Richardson, Darren Thomas, Tracy Thursfield & John Welson) 25th & 26th July, 2022 (29.5 x 42cm).
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Enquiry La Sirena

Images of La Sirena

Our dear friend, John Richardson, kindly shared with us these three wonderful collages of sirens.

Hand cut collage ‘Marine Forms I’ by John Richardson
Hand cut collage ‘Marine Forms II’ by John Richardson
Hand cut collage ‘Marine Forms III’ by John Richardson
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Enquiry La Sirena Tattoo

Images of La Sirena

Photograph of Patch’s mermaid tattoo

My beautiful, creative and talented friend, Patch (do check out her artwork here), recently shared a photograph of her mermaid tattoo on her thigh (pictured above) with me. What I found particularly striking about this image, was the uncanny resemblance it bore to Youki Desnos’ mermaid tattoo (pictured below), which is similarly positioned on her thigh.

Youki Desnos showing her mermaid tattoo (Robert Doisneau, Paris c.1950)

This chance encounter between the two mermaid tattoos really resonated with Patch, prompting her response to the image: ‘I love that shot, [Youki’s] confidence and the fact [the men] look impressed rather than letchy’. Indeed, both women can be seen controlling the gaze in their respective photographs and embracing their femininity through the siren figure.

Categories
Enquiry La Sirena

Images of La Sirena

Our good friend, Tracy Thursfield, kindly shared with us her wonderful painting of a siren, based on the Star card from the Tarot.

‘Starcard’ (Tracy Thursfield, 2022)