Rupert Loydell and Robert Sheppard: Risk Assessment

Rupert Loydell and I wrote this 26 part sequence together and it is now published by Damaged Goods, apress you might never heard of, and of which you may never hear again. Email me for details.

See also further excerpts on Stride and on Neon Highway .

There's also a review of it here:

http://www.stridemagazine.co.uk/Stride%20mag%202007/Feb%202007/risk%20assess%20rev.htm



A MUTUAL MIRRORING

A mutual mirroring of egos under the influence of
conjunctions and conversations where desires clash tinged
with contrived contempt adopted posture adopted pleasures
where the words work well re-inventing a tongue twisting

current lost in breathy intonations let it percolate through
this new dream of mine energy flows where it will
soft palm offered to itself self-embrace for each
a reliable comfort zone fantasy pushing against ignorance

glove-puppet her into ‘situations’ hand up her back
back up against the wall strokes her to pleasure
in athletic manoeuvres dissolves not dissolved
nipples should be plural desire drips from each

metaphor leavens language’s expected rise and fall
attending to that in the other which is deeply strange
enclosures and the assumed narrative of mumbled prayers
held between them extensive incorporeal perverse


COINS

Coins glued to pavement systems we devise unstuck
a world of permanent echo tapping its way across the
flesh of the city the last night bus growls
at the next morning’s light cluster of balloons

caught on telephone cables collapsed whirligig
strings of sad jewels listing rubbish by the railway
a waste of time a taste of sour wine
and cider on the wind fresh pint clearing mist rises

limitless sky clouds of science thunder heavy weather
storms upset my little world heavy on the seat I’m
about to shit on silence shout out loud and listen
to myself in the distance pierced by sound a ritornello

sporadic orchestration before we steadily sink
my hand-held recorder coils my wordless haiku
into dislocated syllables of syntactic collusion
unwinding winking eye of lorry reversing no way back




DRAWN FACE

Drawn face in misted mirror masked marvel in
a tobacco dream superhero’s alibi crumbles
as water seeps down and Britannia’s boiled clean on
the gables of the Bank income for the coming year

looks likely to be down an axeblow of wit debits
weasel words upon the block submits accounts too late
tender disabled returns gold crosses stolen to be
melted up to human value faith sold for scrap

a belief in basic matter drips its guilty fat
in front of the fire greasing the sleepy relief
as last cigarette burns out three bigwigs in a fog
well up to accuse us where is our interlocutor now?

he’ll wear his rage like medals sheered to scale
anger shearing silvered memories of redemption
monsters warming themselves on a furnace of repealed statutes
endless amendments ring fence of fudge selfish concern



EMPIRE

Empire like a fist shooting like a sniper
blind in one eye we’ll bite the bullet
and torch the dummies tongues seared metal
minds alight with plans humid Disney jungles

shed light on people’s whys look the other way
turning the hand over morse fingers tickertape
a skull in Irish peat warring bleach and brown
in cartoon apathy encoded in this pot bellied

wood carving the glue of the world
is coming unstuck fake shirt bursting like Europe‘s
MultiKulti castaway cargo cults tight jeans
already patched and worn roots uncommonly exposed

how truth changes as it travels across language
as democratic eyes ‘like’ a millionfold column of gas
glow unseeing in the night that never ends
a multi-dimensional setting across the playing fields of Europe


PERSONAS CONJOIN

Personas conjoin and dissolve imagine sweaty fat men
tugging their penises stretch and rise fall away
endless and breath taking a mid-point arrest
tickles their fanciful restlessness premature to think ahead

damp patch of memory beating out to hairy thinness
the skin I love too much hands stuffed between his knees
too much humble virgin pie flat on the tiger rug
turned inside out and spitting sabre-toothed desire

mired in marital memories she breathes to his pump
he eases for her rump sniggering among uncertainties
smokes his last cigarette an experiment with an apple
a vigorous gentleman's vicious grace demanded but not given

the sprouting of wings brushed from a dusty shoulder
whispered, breathless song of lisping choristers and boys
tasty orgasms juice their tongues licking leopard lips
a fanaticism for fetish inside each other’s heads



UNSITUATION

Unsituation of the unprison unsurprising freedom
unhurt by time not passing she piles the archive high
in her cell unseen and unattended unsure memorial
by the unmade bed resident magistrate in the nursery

Untested pulse of history usurped by ur-traditions
intent on uncalled-for change the uncalled call in perfect
recall an Odyssey of reading an undecided homer pigeon
miles off course catalogued as the body’s culture

Ulysses stretched on the slab a corpse undone by unkindness
unwired cables and skin a dead face watches her
as it walks away unseen not the usual suspects nor
an unusual case it seems but untrained out of love

it is unclear how unlikely umbrage is given here
taken that her unreliable face is under consideration
her ulterior memory and unopened eyes are full of it
epic images released from successive un-imagining

VIOLENCE IS

Violence is a wasting disease with headbanging flesh-meets
with wigs like Pharoahs’ stones and paper cut fingerprints
with bruised shadow sightlines snatching from yourself what's
given as little unforgiveables human life’s distilled from it

Violet is a burning light with scorched splinters
with swallows from tilted microphones and cut glass senses
with heavy blue shadows fossils lifted like kippers
onto smoking walls humane files dictated for it

Viola is a wooden mask with antidotes to vision
with scratched veneers of bones a voice that scars
with highly-strung fractures humming the epic ballad
all the way to China where man directed: fire it

Violate each pile of chaos once it’s stopped smouldering
Vindicate each other once you have hit the concrete
Vitiate bimbo men with suntan streaks firing plastic guns
Votive offering to war and power voracious need



Page 522

Rupert Loydell: Four Poems

CUCKOO


I'll find you one day raiding a brighter silence
or hugging the darker place you left for dead
- 'Containment', Peter Dent


Each morning the ship leaves harbour;
the past is here again.

In sunshine the village seems different:
acorns and oyster shells after the rain,

wet gardens and windblown leaves,
mudflats and mudlarks,

charred pumpkins and abandoned brooms,
smell of fireworks in the air.

I am on the isle of the dead,
a ghost among the living.

Friends moving too
share worries and wonders,

scars of recent removal.
I really don't want to go,

have lived here as long
as almost anywhere else.

Thank you for sending the image,
it looks like a still from a film.

Cuckoos in my nest delight.
Light ripples on the creek.





MAGPIE

random sample jukebox alarm
foregrounded word acquisition

born into language remembering
songs only the male birds sing

lightning flash destabilizing text
tone ghosting all the things we are

carnival folklore below the branches
when the going gets dark light the star

other true self multiple variations
we speak in each other's words

animating lists: the hat, the chair,
the smoke, the bones, the fact

a twilight coalition of the unwilling
story without end until the sun dies

a few incidents in the stillhouse
gold resonator night wearing feathers




ANGEL TRAP

Honey trap, word trap, angel trap,
baited with diagrams and glyphs:
pictures to seduce the æther,
glue language to the page.

Standing still in a sea of words
I sense a pleasant corrosion.
Confusion is rusting away, I
am drowning in possibility.

The sheer strength of the interface
disrupts the link. Each gesture is
deliberate, designed to assassinate
meaning, keep the magic working.

Everything is rumour, everything
is up for grabs. The blank sheet
of paper glows white, appears
to be illuminated from within.

I told no-one about the candles
or the light in the glass of milk.
The body remembers even when
the mind forgets. Which in my case

is quite often. Words have a history,
they come to us from former words,
other worlds. The only way to effect
a rescue is personal participation.

All connections have been severed.




NEO-SHAMAN

inherited gesture
possible hesitation
surface appearance
question of degree

obligation

stumbling block
pause or hesitation
painting the painting
half the story



The launch of Shadowtrain books is also the launch of Ex Catalogue, the most recent book by Rupert Loydell. To find out more, follow the link: http://www.shadowtrain.com/id100.html


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