Rupert’s poem made in response to my show – thank you!

Rupert Loydell is a poet, writer, artist and teacher (contact details below) who I have known for many years. Yesterday he sent me his response to my show ‘The Secret Worth A Thousand’. Here it is:

THE SECRET

WORTH A THOUSAND

Kate Walters, Newlyn Art Gallery, January 2013.

 

 

parked in

the usual road

 

early for

your exhibition

 

fantastic curve

of the bay

 

cold water

dogs and gulls

 

hiss of the sea

white noise

 

dirty orange

pale snow light

 

too cold to write

or draw outside

 

 

 

 

surrounded by garden

amplified sounds

of the garden

 

as if the act

of reproducing the garden

is the garden

 

in the garden

nature is magic

by itself

 

 

 

 

a confusion of

dogs and deer

 

of animal

and spiritual

 

a confusion

of beasts

 

a bestowal

of divinity

 

impenetrable

mysticism

 

theology of goddess,

animal and earth

 

reliant on

intuitive feeling

 

what an artist knows

a personal symbolism

 

excluding non-believers

alarming the uninitiated

 

the only life

she knows

 

 

 

 

The horse with a womb

the horse with a woman

who looked like a leaf

who has become a leaf

and lives inside the horse

 

the horse that ascended

and became light

the horse that remained

in the imagination

and in the earth

 

the fantastical breath

of life in the paint

the words on the page

in the books on the table

asking to be read

 

the heating’s strange roar

sucking air out of the room

an echo of echoes

a pouring out of self

shamanic voice stilled

 

a quiet voice

in the dark

of animal skin

one shaft of light

on the dark waves

 

 

 

 

the deer

licks the doe

like a lover

 

 

 

 

bird as angel

in sacred tree

 

working itself

into a state of mind

 

world shaken off

earth left behind

 

 

 

 

owl bird

feather face

dancing in a nest

of misplaced beasts

 

 

 

 

allocating

what is due

 

to the beasts

and all that grows

 

simple movement

translated as dance

 

the buzz of a bee

considered as music

 

anthropomorphism

as a way of life

 

 

© Rupert M Loydell

Rupert Loydell is a poet and painter. His Tower of Babel artist’s book-in-a-box was recently published by Like This Press. Details at www.likethispress.co.uk/publications/rupertloydell