Gerry Loose
(Scotland)
fault line(segment)
Ⅰ
consider these lilies
what you talk about
when you talk aesthetics
& these sweet coils
woodbine razorwire
*
my fixed point of the hills
grasping peerless sunlight
Ⅱ
states of matter
halogen lights
safely do away
with night & day
abolish the moon
barn owl
snatches song
all twenty four hours now
a siren
rock to my hard place
these men talk
to their lapels
*
meniscus
mergansers dive
see
the bridge
see the water
see the bow wave
turning
Ⅲ
the streets are lined
today I found a penny
yesterday a pound coin
it’s on my shopping list
tea wine gold
that everyday hero
Midas
warned me
*
inadvertently
making the sign
of the cross
on that train
no other
he offers me wine
From: Sweeney Albannach
(Scottish Sweeney; Albannach is Gaelic for Scottish)
The historical Sweeney poems are ancient set of Irish Gaelic stories concerning a king who becomes a hermit and exile, hunted by his enemies, living in the trees and caves. In them Sweeney visits Scotland, but there is no record of what he did and thought there. I redress the balance a little here:
*
my poetry
is entirely made up
of the sounds of rain
on leaves
*
at night I
waken to myself
not there
either
*
plover fears me
flees on a path of air
clatter of dove wing
rising from oak
startles me to run
into the path of bramble
dread keeps us living
*
how do I move from the past
to present but
by the astonishment of a peewit
how do I move from the
present to the past but
by the twitching throw
of a pebble as I sink
into sleep the way a seal
slips back into the waves
*
Overseer of wind
narrator of air
conductor of skies
moonhandler
star-juggler
sun-lifter
breath of your lungs
without memory
continuous
____________________________________________
Gerry Loose is a poet and land-artist who works primarily with subjects from the natural world, as well as the world of geo-politics. His work is often to be found inscribed on wood and stone in Parks and Botanic Gardens as well as on the page. Among his most recent publications are Printed on Water, New and Selected Poems (Shearsman Books) and that person himself (Shearsman Books) fault line (Vagabond Voices). Forthcoming is An Oakwoods Almanac (Shearsman Books). His awards include a Robert Louis Stevenson Fellowship, a Creative Scotland Award, Kooneen Saatio Award and a Hermann Kesten Fellowship.