David Russell’s extraordinary creative flow continues unabated. The ‘quadrilateral’ here refers ostensibly to the four-part structure of the book – Lyrics – Eros – Dystopia – Prose but there is nothing four-square about the writing and the cover image hints at fractals and something altogether more polyhedral. One of Russell’s several parallel careers – as singer-songwriter – comes through in much of his writing: choruses and the explicitly lyrical abound, as we encounter Crack-Down Tribunals and the Burglars of Britain amidst raging Eco-Thunderstorms. The protest songs and free-form prose experiments reached this reader more than the love-songs. We live in a triplicate world, as one of the Lyrics observes, but Russell remains intent upon breaking us out into other dimensions.
Respitoration
Can there still be irrigation
now the stem’s closed, dry?
Can there still be imagination –
when the bottom’s gone awry –
when everyone can see
through every ancient icon?
In spite of everything, maybe –
when light floods all opacity,
as every block of granite, basalt, obsidian
melts into a stained-glass window;
when experience
submits to colour separation,
sparks my feed –
a phoenix out of limp exhaustion.
When water fails,let therebe light.
* Respitoration: the processby which plants and some other organisms use light energy to convert water and carbon dioxide into oxygen and high-energy carbohydrates
UnderwaterBallet
In the wistful – drowning;
all dreamers hold their breath; floating balloon
rests full in blister world before the land.
Slippery between skin and scales,
drawn throbbing from the gilled;
great tuna from crustaceans postulated;
anemones, new-boned;
in parallel concert writhe curl double joints.
Flippers of androgyny erected supple.
thighs hoisted angular, lungs ultra-blown;
Last bursting thrust, febrile diffusion;
velvet sense – soft through soaking,
impervious skin in utter life.
Its elements sliding; gills suckling lungs.
David Russell
.