from THE SILENCE INSIDE

ACE2

 

 

‘Maybe a man could not bear how the world had turned pallid, washed out, grey, every day a photocopy of the last.’
– Peter Murphy, Shall We Gather At The River

‘What we are reluctant to touch often seems the very fabric of our salvation.’
– Don DeLillo, White Noise

 

EDGE OF THE WORLD

Paint fades and peels
as the wind drives
salt water into the edges
of whatever you choose
to build here
at the edge of the world.

Everything cracks and burns,
everything is held together
with hope and longing.
It is greed and ambition
drives the world,
thinks Doctor Doubt.

 

 

HIGH TIDE

All the pebbles on the beach,
all the grains of sand, the water
in the sea, the molecules of air;

Doctor Doubt questions where
they came from, how they got there,
and why anyone would bother.

Other people mention their gods
but scientists refute every one.
It is high tide now, regardless.

 

MALIGNANT

Doubt is as doubt does, if you let
yourself believe in the possibility
of opposites and absences.

The world is but if you choose
to make things truly difficult
you can live as though it is not

and bruise yourself bumping into
what you refuse to acknowledge
or partake of. Doubt is all-consuming,

like the anger and despair it produces,
malignant side effects that counter
any attempt to laugh or love or live.

 

 

POSSESSION

You can see right across the valley:
lights flickering on as dark arrives,
a late plane descending to land,
a spotlit factory, the snaking road
and finally the hilly outcrop
that becomes the horizon line.

Doctor Doubt quietly absorbs the view.
For once there is nothing to question,
what is just is, althought night
changes the equation: one can
only presume what is still there,
one certainly can’t possess it.

 

 

© Rupert M Loydell
Montage AC Evans


This entry was posted on in homepage and tagged , . Bookmark the permalink.

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.