Gerry Loose’s sixth collection maps the fault line dividing man from his environment. His territory is the Gare Loch in Argyll and Bute, its outstanding beauty at odds with the Faslane submarine base on its eastern shore, home of the UK’s nuclear arsenal. The beauty of the area coexists uneasily with the knowledge that it also harbours weapons that can reduce their target to radioactive ash. This tension has inspired a book-length poem that probes the delusions of the political and military classes, as well as the beauty and fragility of the landscape.

Extract from Fault Line
By Gerry Loose
Published by Vagabond Voices

I
about right for these parts
mostly birch
some oak
my living room
where the white hind has
scented me
though I’m glassed in
standard class
on the halted train
through Glen Douglas
she follows my gaze
over her shoulder
to hillside bunkers
trots downwind
in the direction of
the sea’s drifting
foam specks
~
while an owl
edits my sleep
an object

II
consider these lilies
what you talk about
when you talk aesthetics
& these sweet coils
woodbine razorwire
~
my fixed point of the hills
grasping peerless sunlight

III
states of matter
halogen lights
safely do away
with night & day
abolish the moon
barn owl
snatches song
all twenty four hours now
a siren
rock to my hard place
these men talk
to their lapels
~
meniscus
mergansers dive
see
the bridge
see the water
see the bow wave
turning

IV
the streets are lined
today I found a penny
yesterday a pound coin
it’s on my shopping list
tea wine gold
that everyday hero
Midas
warned me
~
inadvertently
making the sign
of the cross
on that train
no other
he offers me wine

V
more than one sun
in the sky now
the heron’s auguries
no longer to be trusted
she too stands
on the street corner
hand to mouth
hand to ear
I still worry
about the apple trees
~
dawn
here if
it’s rosy fingered
it’s brambles
or blood

Gerry Loose

Born in 1948, Gerry Loose has lived in England, Ireland, Spain, Morocco (briefly) and now Scotland. A slow-moving nomad, he is poet, writer and landartist who works primarily with subjects from the natural world, as well as the world of geo-politics. His poems and texts are as often found in built and natural settings as on the page.

He also designs and makes gardens. Among his most recent publications are Printed on Water, New and Selected Poems (Shearsman Books) and that person himself. Fault Line (Vagabond Voices, September 2014) is his most recent collection. His awards include: Creative Scotland Award, Robert Louis Stevenson Fellowship, Kooneen Säätiö Award, and Hermann Kesten Award.