Wednesday, March 16, 2016

Rupert M. Loydell, Three Poems and One Artwork


                                      Black & White Series, image by Rupert M. Loydell



THE PICTURES STARTED TO INSTRUCT ME

1. All the Colours

I wanted all the colours to be present at once.
(Our chromatic decisions are not fully rational.)

How difficult it becomes when one
tries to get very close to the facts:

various intensification and dilutions take place,
colour is still only a beginning.


2. Monochromatic Triads

The important thing here is
a slow dance of golden lights,
the transformation of structure.

I put down my magnifying glass;
a world without colours
appears to us dead.


3. The Process

All of this is highly speculative;
there is no logical argument.

AVOID THE SYMBOLIC
AVOID THE IMAGINATIVE

Otherwise it would still be
a representation of light,

a large and expanding collage
fleeing extinction through a meadow.


4. Colour Exceeds the Word

Colour is pure thought.
Colour is a vast problem.

Intelligent beings have a language
I will not attempt to describe.

Colour has its own meaning.

(SOURCE
Colour, ed. David Batchelor)



WHITE SHADOW

a flurry of negatives
contradictory absence

the third
walking beside us
unseen

the burnt trace
of a man
absorbed by light

disintegrated
by fire

24 hour light
blue shadows
on the ice

blizzard conditions
white out (black out)
a ghost even

pitch or tarmac
poured
ready to harden

gloss sheen
absorbing light
reflecting light

true north
compass spinning

monochrome
white veils
imagined greys

layers of shadow
in the ancient church
arches and alabaster

one slit of light
one line of light
across the floor

emulsified white
chalk white
powdered dust

rice white
paper screens
starched white

no trace left
no shadow

the outline
of a man in the rain

a space
where somebody
ought to be



BODY SWERVE
(crucifix, V & A, London)

   Body swerve
the pain

   carved tension
angled   arched

   Wooden corpse
hung out to dry

   seasoned
by the centuries

   forgotten
story

   collecting dust
in a museum

   Oh the sorrow
in your eyes…

   Forgotten
saviour

   forgotten
salvation

   Body swerve
the pain

   body swerve
the past

   body swerve
the passion

   body swerve
the pain



—Rupert M Loydell