Rupert Loydell – The Brazen Head

RUPERT LOYDELL is the editor of Stride and a contributing editor to International Times. He has many books of poetry in print, including The Age of Destruction and Lies (Shearsman), Preloved Metaphors (Red Ceilings) and Damage Limitation (zimZalla). He has co-authored many collaborative works, and edited anthologies for Knives Forks & Spoons Press, Shearsman, and Salt. He also writes about post-punk music, pedagogy, poetry and film for academic journals and books

HIDDEN IN PLAIN SIGHT

Events hamper the imagination.

Spirituality mostly revolves around

complexity and trying to reframe

the impossible as now believable.

Religion is essentially a big office

producing the new world we might

be longing for, a plague appropriate

for an England where everyone is

morally corrupt, bombs explode

and laboratory monkeys scream.

The beautiful afterwards of history

is a revelation but questions remain,

encapsulating the cultural logic of

empire and ghost voice corporations.

Faith is a clumsy metaphor for fugitive

moments within, an uneasy philosophy

ever reliant upon misread scriptures.

Time circles and collapses, whilst

readers are the only ones whose

overwhelming melancholia can be

salvaged from the so-called death of

gleeful affirmation and are capable of

waiting on the platform for salvation,

secrets always hidden in plain sight.

Like all theories of everything, it is

too simple and leads to longer words

and inevitable destruction, might be

described as superstitious nonsense.

ENTANGLED

The idea of place is a central theme, journeys are at the core. Writing allows me to displace your narratives and replace them with things more relevant to my choice of subject matter, an endless gathering up blindness and doubt.

I am not bothered with chapter endings or pauses between moments. Instead, I allow a series of bizarre events to unfold the story and totally forget audience comprehension.

Verisimilitude intrigues and consoles me quite a bit when performing the impossible, which is mostly misdirection, a musical take on freedom as I work on my wondering, making my stories unrealistic to fascinate younger people.

All things can be visions, shining through the blurring of upside down books offering a route through labyrinths that become the when and the was, different possibilities and devices to heighten ambiguity.

POSSIBLE DEFINITIONS

A poem is two things. First, it is an abstract

idea. Second, it is a trace of how the author

has used language, a way to gain knowledge

about the process of acquiring knowledge.

Writing is an act of displacement, evidence of

one possible arrangement of images and words,

each chosen by its author, always reliant upon

what shapes or letterforms mean or represent.

The page or line break is an imaginary boundary

which allows for rhythms, associative thinking,

different forms of and routes to understanding.

Language is always rooted in specific moments

and personal circumstances despite any claim

to universality. It is not only how it is written

or said but also what is heard, seen and read.

Words can only ever be stolen or borrowed.

COMMON SENSE

At what point will common sense prevail?

When will the last bus arrive? Will it ever

stop raining? Probably never, soon, yes

of course. There are many ways to think

about drawing and you must understand

that perspective is an imposed system

of representation, not an actual thing.

My studio’s awash again, cacti sodden,

jugs and plastic cartons full of rain but

no canvasses or works on paper harmed.

I hope to find courage to look the storm

in the eye, contemplate what is missing

from my life; have no use for concealment,

can only read what is put in front of me,

try to hear the music, work out the shape

or form of these fragmented narratives

and random episodes. If there is too much

storytelling I am gone. Let me make up

links between moments, order the scenes,

work out how to understand juxtaposition,

collage and remix. Epiphanies are patently

false, happy endings a literary device that

makes things all too easy and predictable.

We must rescue ourselves from the swamp

of literary seduction, false promises, and

question everything before the water rises,

bus services are cancelled and we no longer

recognise common sense even as it sneaks

up behind us to bite us on the bum and

make us behave in a more reasonable way.

Rupert Loydell