REPLY (Rupert M. Loydell)

Yes, I know how distant you are

& why you check the starshine.

Your dream will never be perfect,

fenceposts never totally upright,

and the clouds won’t stay on track.

There will always be questions

to which only I have the answers.

Don’t dismiss me as kind; even when

the angel song sounds sweet

it does not mean I’m at home.

You can see me, true, but I

see you more clearly. Contrition

does not engender forgiveness,

and my mind helter-skelters

whenever you tell me your stories.

You can try to call in a favour

but don’t expect me to listen.

Prayer is not the right excuse;

you must learn to recondition light

& make sure darkness never falls.

A dozen types of grey only emphasise

nostalgia; the poets’ field hospital

is a state of mind, not a place to stay.

Abstraction wipes all detail from the plate,

religion is more thorny than you think.

HOSPITAL FEVER (Peter Dent)

You’d say it’s dream that perfects the distance?

getting on top of stars and their shinings feels

right to me.   The one question I’m looking out

for treats contrition like a song without a tune.

Clearly, home is where the art is?   Darkness is

anything you have a mind for, helter-skeltering

through the words.   Do me a favour, listen to

the poet.   Lick the plate, if you want to — it

promises an even barmier way to clean up on

abstraction, but what do you think?   The only

thorn in the detail is the state of mind: for all

I know, conditions out there in the field are a

dozen types of grey!   It isn’t how you pray or

play, it’s the colour clouds go when I tell a lie.

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS (Rupert M. Loydell)

The distant prefect is on top of the world

though he can hardly climb the stairs or

answer the question. How will he get home?

Darkness hides the poet and makes the map

too hard to read. If you want it on a plate,

forget it, grey abstraction is the best you’ll get

and words come in many flavours. Life’s a joke,

but keep it clean, you never know who’s listening

or coming along behind you. Death spikes you

from the word go, thorns hidden in your side

and every field is mined with exploding clouds,

more problems to be solved by constant prayer.

FEEL-GOOD FACTOR (Peter Dent)

The problem as I see it is dilation and whatever

quandary is in the air.   Less cloud and a stare

goes further.   Darkness hides not just the one,

but every prayer.   Was my nature perfect?   If

solutions are anything to go by, anything goes.

I don’t take kindly to even the best of the past.

It reeks of lamentation.   Perhaps an appearance

by some childhood hero or other will represent

the truth of rumour, but I can’t be certain, nor

can I say I didn’t warn you: thresholds seldom

deck themselves in roses.   You explode a myth

or you mind a field.   It’s all the same, a clean

sweep’s never in sight.   Virtue’s only a stumble

through bramble and thorns do what they must.

ALONGSIDE THE SOUND OF STEAM TRAINS (Rupert M. Loydell)

The reek of lamentation still hangs over the creek.

The holiday makers are on a slow death-march

to nowhere, due to overclouding and the rain.

They stumble through brambles on the quay,

minds not on myths and childhood heroes

let alone local poets or forgotten authors,

just wanting their tea and a pair of dry socks,

or to be piloted to the moon where they can

imagine their itinerary as prayers pass by.

It’s hard to make sense of nonsense. You stare

hard and ask what painters and writers and students

have in common? They all are friends of mine

(though sometimes I’m not so certain or sure).

There’s a lovely sense of being confided in;

the error is in assuming that there’s one to find.

ALWAYS AND NEVER (Peter Dent)

So, that was how it was: locals all round the

table, the unforgotten quaking in their shoes,

when the dream passed by.   I was here at my

desk, as usual, itinerants emerging one by one

and not so much as a word.   Soaked through.

You don’t blame contexts though.   Things try

to surprise and, well, I like a rich suggestion,

I suppose I always did.   Prayers to the moon

were just a phase, and brief at that.   Or, or

do I assume too much?   Forgive my stammer,

the deep-seated sense of mischief in a mind.

A fixture?   Irregular, really, like the average

get-together.   Untrammeled deviation: think

little or often and more or less discrete.   Not

at all how it was.   As it now is, if you want.

WHITEWASH (Rupert M. Loydell)

If you want? Of course I do! You should

assume more, not less – it makes praying

easier, and eases the moonlight howl.

No, it’s not at all how it was. If it was

how it was, then it wouldn’t be now,

and we’d all be in a knot. Forgive the

how and why, the howl and whine,

I should think more and write less,

but thought’s more thorny than I think

and thorny thickets prick the mind,

shock stammer into silence, wring the

flooded words out and wash away

how it was or seemed to be. The clouds

have all exploded, and the shape of rain

is now revealed. Summer is a shadow

of itself, only half visible through the mist.

If I could I would canoe into the future

and see if it still smells of damp. As it is,

I must wait for sunshine to emerge.

It has been a serious error, to assume

the seasons still in place, a god still

listening out. Minor injuries, sour milk

and final demands for services provided

do not ease the mood, help mop up

the wet, or wipe away the stains.

I am washed in the flood, washed

in the flood of the dam, have sprung

a mental leak. A month’s rain has fallen

in a day, the hours seep into grey.

Problems cannot be dissolved away.

SUNSHINE OVERLOAD (Peter Dent)

Really, did I say that or did someone do it for

me?   ten days since the final demand and not

a thing has happened   you work in revelations

you mop up no-one’s pain   but it isn’t in the

book and no-one’s here to choreograph delight

no question when ‘shock’ receded it’s the latest

in a fine line of sticky futures   you could say

one thing’s definitely after another   a Summer

heading out through mist … lo the conditional

self!   and God’s hours leaking steadily into it

I want ’n you want everybody in the joint want

boogie?   whose jury’s forever out   a shadow

in the silence shading a souped-up shine (don’t

twist my words)   it’s a damp place only when

clouds act up   keep a weather eye open   and

where a howl’s concerned deactivate!   error is

banished to the pit   today’s in dominant mood

X marks a spot to die for   Freud wraps it up

INSTANT SIDESTEP (Rupert M. Loydell)

I’m afraid of Freud and what he decides

makes me tick. Makes us all tick, dance

and wonder, disturbs the silence every time,

though always asked to speak only when

you’re spoken to. Otherwise stand still

and look as though you’re thinking

nice thoughts and have washed your hands.

The onshore wind keeps us on the bank;

will we ever set sail again or make it to

the other side? The trickle of doubt’s

a wave of insincerity and plastic smiles;

each day’s a disaster, with one eye on

the rain outside, other on the time

that’s passing. I could be writing

or painting, dancing or singing, marking

crosses on the floor. Spot the stains

and spit at the thinker of thoughts

who’d reduce it all to lust not love.

Final demands may yet catch us up

and words be held against us. Give

us this day a chance to glow or shine

(we’ve had the central heating on

anyway) and give us the medical

attention we desire. Desire, see –

here we go again. What’s in a name,

and how do these letters overlap?

What’s with this alternating current?

SINCERELY YOURS (Peter Dent)

So pass me the handwash.   The issue is   and is

not   to be avoided.   The stain’s on most of us,

so says the man in black.   But, you know I’m

no card-carrier: I vowed to leave my wonders

snug at home to go looking for more.   Desire,

is that in order?   I think, therefore the medid

thinks, overmuch.   My new prescription (help)

is definitely asking for trouble.   High-strength,

and side-effects unknown.   Forgive the dancing,

the overlapping doubt, don’t tick me off.   I’m

still at nursery: see me wave, a plastic sail on

a plastic sea.   Offshore, there’s a name for it,

a number as well, but where’s the wind?   I’m

out there, putting down markers, till close of

day.   Here’s one!   But wait, tomorrow there

could well be another!   If not, check earlier

jottings – include those crosses on the floor?

Freud’s onto a winner, he knows where I live.

THIS IS WHERE WE ARE (Rupert M. Loydell)

And so do I, know where you live I mean.

If you stood still, just for one moment,

you’d know that wonders never cease

even when frozen with doubt and fear.

A failure went to sea, sea, sea,

to see what he could see, see, see.

See? It’s not just you. The drugs

may keep us sane enough to notice

asides and sidings, but memory

still stream trains across the page.

I can’t keep track, have learnt to sail

by default, canoe when the wind’s

not right. Nothing is ever right,

just tentative, putative, quantative

and other open terms. Yes, I’m sure

there’s a name for it, but it’s not

one I know. Besides, naming’s not

owning, it’s just pinning dead things

to the display board. The house where

I was born is just a house, and I

do not belong there any more. The

coloured crayons and hesitant texts

just seemed childish framed this way.

Better the scrapes and drag of colour

in the next door room, the disordered

grids of glass and steel in the park,

the far away sound of cars driving

this way and that, shiny in the sun.

FAULT LINES (Peter Dent)

Name your price then, tell me more about how

you like your crayons.   Believe me, it’s never a

drag.   The more I get to hear about order the

more I need to say it: tea leaves can’t read tea

leaves.   ‘Storms common in China’.   Surely I

read that somewhere – somewhere in the rain?

For action – seize your wonders as I’ve seized

mine.   At any given moment, expect a moment

that’s already ahead of its time.   For disposal

– a first home full of its far away sounds, an

image on a board in sunlight, losing your name.

Plain sailing can never be a name for childhood.

Yet, in terms of ‘what or even who goes there’

(consistently, ubiquitously), there’s not much

leeway: the water’s frozen, doubt (try silver) is

at best what you see through, to a better eye.

    

8 August 2008