Word during Covid - Time

'Words during Covid’ we are setting word prompts & you can respond to it in any way you wish. We thought it could be interesting and hopefully a cathartic activity to do in this time of quarantining, and to create a collaborative diary of sorts. It's a challenging time right now, we hope you are all holding up okay & taking it easy. Thank you for sending us all your responses!

2nd word: Time

Time

It seems to me

that the health of the mind

is entirely down to the shape

Time wants to take that day

sometimes

Time pushes the future so far away

youths are gutted by immortality

i’m so fucked trying to fill my mind’s own eternity

but sometimes the past is too far back

Time’s a catapult clinging

casting you forward

toward

crashing

ambition

am I a grown up now? am I grown?

then on the good days

you won’t even notice

Time might leave you alone

for a moment

and this is the kindest thing Time can do

like the lover who knows what’s best for you both

it’s only in leaving you that

time loves you.

Sean Lìonadh / @lion.adh

Coco Lom / @_cocolom_ As many other artists are finding, most of my commissioned projects have been cancelled / postponed, leaving me with a lot of ‘time'. For me, ‘time' during lock-down has meant more ‘play-time’. I’ve enjoyed exploring ideas and experimenting in ways that I might not have had the space to do so in my busy day-to-day routines before lock-down. For example, here you can see a series of printouts from my printer as it started to run out of ink last week. I found something very calming about watching each image glitch a little bit more than the last. A reminder to future self - embrace a dying printer cartridge...

Ida Henrich / @idahenrich

This is the COVID-pot which explores what will be said about this time in the future.

Zoe Bruce

Time

3 lines of (debatable) enquiry looking for a good home... 

- The right time is often now

- Growing up makes you both more, and less like yourself

- Time spent with the right people is never wasted

Quarry / @quarrywastaken

Sam Wood /@samwooddoowmas

Elliott James Pettitt https://www.facebook.com/pg/BeKindPoets/posts/?ref=page_internal

Sinéad Meier / @uptosineadigans

TIME IS AGAINST US

Time is running out, like a phone battery spent on envying someone else’s life, addicted to a device where you only see what society wants you to see, look past the screen, raise your gaze, catch your own reflection, squint through the glare, sweetheart you shine so bright, against these false voices in your head you must fight.

In this very moment best do what you can, everyone knows the storm is close at hand, this, that, everything gleams, the cacophony of everyday, this digital age uploads everything, it’s obscene, though it’s the wonder of the uncaptured that fuels our flame, it’s the frame of each motion of the butterfly’s wing that lights the fire, not instafame.

My dear I write this as a gentle reminder, nothing is permanent, everything chances, instant by instant we grow closer to an end, empires rise but eventually crumble, in the wake of the storm nothing emerges intact, what goes up must come down, words to that effect.

Though this is not about impermanence, this is a wake up call, like a siren’s song, rise from your sheets, in the end all those dreams will prove obsolete, take the long route, unveil the secret garden, hop the fence, bite the forbidden fruit, understand life is a fleeting gift, never a burden, take a breath, inhale deep, view your environment with childlike glee as if you were again ten.

Take the path less tread, be audacious, drown out the insistent lies of dread, again and again walk your own path, leave those bastard nothing from which to be fed, enter into those great halls uninvited, swallow false idols and breathe in their feast, my dear this is an endearment you are the beast.

Beautiful you must dance, dance as we never had the chance, hit your stride before the final crushendo, my dear we are all mere mortal.

Elliott James Pettitt

Matt Spratt / @joanna_drink

Gia Greenwood / @xgiagreenwoodx

It's called turned to stone/frozen in time and is a commentary on the fact that for a lot of us now, life has been paused / frozen / stopped and delayed and it's hard and frustrating. The snakes symbolise Medusa, who like the virus has turned many people figuratively to stone.

WHEN THIS IS OVER

When this is over I’ll get black out drunk, not intentionally I’ll just get carried away in the festivities, kiss the most beautiful person in the room, not being intrusive, a gentle press of the lips showing my gratitude, intimacy of the utmost respect for the anomaly that lights up the room.

When this is over I’ll travel the world like I’d always promised, sailing these seas on a hand crafted vessel always mindful of my intake, travelling to foreign shores, embracing each new adventure, celebrating the law of impermanence and each’s fleeting nature.

When this is over I’ll love like never before, compassion disarming frivolities, moving into a new age of an eternal honeymoon, the weightlessness never losing its novelty, each day filled with blossoming butterflies, sitting still appreciating the dawning and setting pallets of an ever changing skyline.

When this is over we’ll touch each other just because we can, social distance will be reserved for games of hide and seek, the feel of touch the modern day forbidden fruit will taste sinfully sweet, this new age of harmony will like a flower down a soldier’s gun barrel disallow armies.

When this is over we shall remain exactly how we emerged, untied and humble, the world will carry each of its nations, supported and prepared to catch each should they stumble, priorities will be rethought, the reward, the recognition shifting to those heroes who stood brave against adversity, those who acted in the belly of sorrow, those who fought relentlessly so there would be a tomorrow, to those heroes we owe our everything, to those heroes for their work so far and in anticipation of the miracles that lie ahead we say thank you.

Elliott James Pettitt https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQQDT1IFdJXPfeFSJrsg29A

Words by Séimí Rowan, Illustration by Darragh Moss @dazmoss

Adam Ogwu / @lab.coats

Ida Henrich / @idahenrich

- Elliott James Pettitt / https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQQDT1IFdJXPfeFSJrsg29A