On Crossbones Graveyard by Max Reeves (with images and introduction by John Constable/Crow and Katy Nichols/Kaos (Entropy Press, 2025)
Reeves’ lens lips a line across all manner of icons,
From scarecrow to Crowley: Boleskine House to burnt worlds,
With each image intent on rewriting life across stasis, or in
Moving the moment from surprise and spell into sunlight
By casting an eye-stone that only the most adventurous
Minds will have hurled. In his new book his gaze strikes
The folkloric, sourced in Old Southwark from which
The Crossbones Graveyard still sprouts, freshly peopled
Once more thanks to J. Crow and K. Kaos and their long established
Geese Rituals, whose invocations across this century’s span
Sees spell shout in a modern setting remade to recapture
That which has been long established, from the first Bishop’s blessing
Of sex workers of old, his wild geese, to the countless who throng
To re-energise past enchantment; these care-communions
Prove essential to each city set search for release. Reeves’ own
Crow sits besides Constable’s as he watches the people
And performance offered as connected air to that tasted
By poets, sages, musicians and artists of course from a time
Which still lives in the land, should you strive to see it, the ways
Of the Pearly Kings and the Morris stem from scored streets
And thus mine deeper furrows and finds, and these are what
MR captures. His portraits reveal dedication and render objects
As remnants, relics remade for today, whether it is a table
Of Constable’s Southwark Mysteries scripts, complete with light
Lent lilies and pumpkin, or the great Niall McDevitt still strumming
His way into legend as he promenades down Redcross Way
As led by John Crow by this time long ignited, by the spirit
Of the Goose: paupers, poultry transformed over time into Guides
As Virgil meets verse offered by these daring Dantes, including Max
Reeve’s son Marlowe who is seen exploring the graveyard as only
Young boys can, while beside and before a sense of lost spirits
Shimmer, whether it’s the iconic Ion Alexis Will as wizard, sadly
After death on tabard, or the graffiti of ‘Don’t Dick a Goose’s curse’
On a wall, clearly as sacred as Shakespeare’s, or the eerie offer
Of a seeming money mountain of stone heading skywards,
Or the contrasting laser like lance of the Shard. Reeves works
His way across his and Constable’s friendship, of over two decades,
His own dedications are depicted in each well framed shot, shared
With love. As there is much portraiture here, as opposed to his previous
Place made poems, in which light is line and scene stanza and a voice
Is heard from both below and above. So this book celebrates a secret
City of others. From Crow and Katy, through the purity of gin spitting
To Irene Anderson singing alongside Cunning Folk/Fred Hoyle,
To John and Jack wheelchair sat, or Lucy Coleman Talbot who works
As historical workshop leader, to outiders and friends, those lost world
Reclaimers who take heart from Crossbones, as well as blood and belief
And dream-oil. Each are photo described here through love, changing
Day into dreamscape. Crow’s Southwark Mysteries become Bible, or
Totemic scroll as they stroll, strum, chant, sing, chorale and cry
For what’s happened, a paving over of prizes surrendered to time,
Taste and soil. And yet Reeve’s photo revive each dead presence
Lost to the living. They can be glimpsed in the spaces between
Faces and faith on each page. The wonderous Stephen Micalef
Takes the stage with his endless paper sheet streamed with poems,
Held in his hand are the holy; from Blake blazed words to the wisdom
Wound in his beard: a soft sage charming all as he laughs at what
Time and fate lend us; the memory of a magic that in itself grants
A freedom, that will if fully recognised breaks the cage in which
We’re all bound. If you do not have a goose or crow, seek your sigil;
A city cat say, or grass-snake, or haunted and hurt urban fox,
Scouring old ground to gain only what such spirits as these seem
To offer. Cross your heart. Bones bear witness to how death’s dare
Stokes defiance. It is asks us all through acceptance to prise
Its ghosted gifts from the box of grave, ground and grail, just as
The pictured Morris Dancers are raising air from the ancients
That many today will see past. But there are rituals within
The morning making of coffee. Nicholls and Constable in this
Graveyard, along with the Campbellian Warp Crew and the
Walkers both surburban and Weird form a cast to re-enact
What Crow wrote and all of the others before him, not to mention
Those now beside him, offering their own rites and runes,
From Mervyn Syna to Mu and Johnny as St. George and the Dragon,
To Zoe Young, Granddaugher of the Antarctic’s Captain Scott,
To the Reverend Andrew Young’s God graced tunes. Here, spirituality
Swims down each soul stream and mind river; tribuatories tried
And tested flow above and beneath untapped veins, which are
Blooding old earth and making this book of images its own bible.
Reeves holds the runestaff on which is camera rests. His eye reigns.
For his is an invaluable stare. I have stood beside its click. Instant
Icons. Caught here, made holy, whether passing or posed, his gaze
Gains what real photography always does: a way in through what’s
Received as the real in order to at last see the secret. His is an X-Ray
Without radiation. It is an examination through image of what is
Within us all and sustains. A semblance. A splint. A kiss’s spit
And a shadow of a lost light still shining. From the crossed bones
In a graveyard to the one I give you now to soothe pain.
David Erdos 20/11/25