Rupert Loydell

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, Dear Mary, The Return of the Man Who Has Everything, Wildlife and Ballads of the Alone, all published by Shearsman, who also published Encouraging Signs, a book of essays, articles and interviews. 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.

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APOCRYPHAL TENDENCIES

I feel the need to

                                 be enmeshed in the exhibition

of the present

                                 in order to better examine it

feel the need to

                                 find context from reliable sources

for the state of

                                 subjective experience

I feel the need to

                                 have something that I do not have

especially what

                                 I have no actual use for

feel the need to

                                 go out and play

be influenced by

                                 a passive voice

I feel the need to

                                 consciously experience need

which may relate to

                                 deprivation or discrepancy

feel the need to

                                 know what I've done wrong

so I sit still

                                 and make a phantom pilgrimage

I feel the need to

                                 measure the square footage

in order to calculate

                                 how much of anything is required

feel the need to

                                 correct the deficiencies

of my community

                                 but you must not feel obliged

I feel the need to

                                 obtain objective evidence

need to discuss

                                 opening up to new experiences

feel the need to

                                 change mentally and physically

am susceptible

                                 to the growth of mould

I feel the need to

                                 follow the crooked path to

the gingerbread house

                                 and find out where I belong

feel the need to

                                 exert a demanding influence

didn't have

                                 my chance last time

I feel the need to

                                 know everything

it is like waking up

                                 with no teeth in your mouth

feel the need to

                                 make the necessary changes

those people

                                 should be replaced soon

I feel the need to

                                 carry out patch repairs

don't need surgery

                                 to correct it straight away

feel the need to

                                 manage my symptoms at home

before I end up as

                                 a pile of old bones

I feel the need to

                                 keep myself safe

by understanding

                                 what is available

feel the need to

                                 keep momentum going

cannot overestimate

                                 the importance of words

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DISSOLVING THE BOUNDARY

'Change can be a noun, but then it needs a subject

or object, so we still have more questions'

   – Marcia Reed, 'What Is Fluxus?'

After this introduction the concert

Bubbles blown out of various instruments

Cultural upheaval and self-reflection

Deliberately ahistorical posturing

Ephemeral moments of everyday life

Forms of music challenging social boundaries

Glitches between past and present

Hearing the water dreaming

Identity and ideology in representation

Junkyard skirmishes and kinetic sculptures

Knowing performances and organized events

Learn to listen and your life will change

More of a shared attitude than an art movement 

Networks of artists and musicians

Obscure books and journals

Publications by pseudononymous individuals

Quantum-indeterminate electronic noise

Reconfiguring and redefining the rules

Shaking hands becomes elegant nonsense

Temporal disconnects between subject and object

Utopian understanding of the implications

Vanishing into the night

Words reproducing themselves

Xerox as an aesthetic device

Yellow tulips set on the living room table

Zero calibration and no zero drift

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STRUCTURAL DISINTEGRATION

The symphony of the nervous system

bothered Cage; he wanted silence.

How did that incident impact?

'Extend or modify or disrupt space,'

he wrote in his journal. 'Make use of

everything from the interstellar void.'

It is safer to talk about beginnings

than endings, easier to stay in the dark

than steer your way into creative light.

You should without exception be

able to answer yes to any question

that illuminates narrative experience

and slows down time. Learn to embrace

endless flashbacks and temporal distance,

adopt defamiliarizing writing practices

which can be folded into a dissident

bricolage to stimulate debate and

endless interpretation. The idea is

to force the reader to try and outrun

their own thoughts and expectations,

to navigate doubt and disorientation.

Language will always be a protagonist,

otherwise there would be no conflict,

no disambiguation or sense of closure.

Consciousness and life are a lot

like writing, although they might

work better as a graph or painting.

In addition to change and forward

momentum, popular phraseology

and perfect reasoning will shape

versions of yourself for the shellshock

we call the future. Get into the habit

of writing down words you can live with,

then reacquaint yourself with glitches

and surprise events. Have the capacity

to be amoral, and never mention death.

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THE LIST GOES ON

'Find a little space so we move in-between

And keep one step ahead of yourself'

   – Talking Heads, 'Born Under Punches (The Heat Goes On)'

A list is an ordered collection of values,

an abstract that represents a finite number.

A list is the most versatile datatype available,

an ordered and changeable sequence of objects.

A list is important as it stores all kinds of information

which can be used for tracking ownership and progress.

A list is a collection of records that you want

to catalyse action for conservation and policy change.

A list is an ordered structure with elements separated,

equivalent to arrays in other language.

A list is information displayed in logical formation,

each item associated with a number.

A list is a sequence which determines what gets done,

handles its arguments as if they described function.

A list is a collection of zero or more values

which helps you contain information and organize work.

A list is a simple and minimalist database view

which different people construct differently.

A list is a collection also known as a sequence

that you can use to store all your variables.

A list stores its information in contiguous memory,

comprehension is used to perform some operations.

A list is just a sequence of arranged elements

written, printed, or imagined one after the other.

A list that is empty means that there is nothing in the list.

Seek medical attention and make a list of possible outcomes.

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