Andrew Taylor reading at the Walker Gallery in Liverpool as part of an Edge Hill Poetry and Poetics Research Group group reading as a warm up to Allen Fisher (visible, seated left), at a Neon Highway event organised by editor and PPRG member Alice Lenkiewicz. photo: Andrew Taylor. Andrew Taylor is a Liverpool poet and co-editor and founder of erbacce and erbacce press. He has had six collections of poetry published to-date. The latest, Make Some Noise is published by Original Plus. An e-book is forthcoming from Differentia Press. Recent poems have appeared in journals and e-zines such as Calliope Nerve, The Exuberant Ashtray, Willows Wept Review and Full of Crow. Poetics - ‘A Poetics of Absence – part one’ has appeared in Otoliths and is re-published in Troubles Swapped for Something Fresh: Manifestos and Unmanifestos, ed. Rupert Loydell, (Salt), which we are launching soon.He has a PhD in Poetry and Poetics from Edge Hill University
A Poetics of Absence Part II
The Permission to Continue
How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
to rest unburnish'd, not to shine in use!
A life's work? Writing after the fact
tasked to reflect from tower block
balconies
like an empty colour slide I'm black and white inside
Industrial heartland wasteland
regeneration the smell of the docks
college of further education
of higher education
university status university
poetics as exploration
poetics as continuance
When I sleep alone I hear the sound of your breathing
re-visitation evokes memories
If I stand here long enough will you appear?
Such diversions – they test Take Courage
Wars. It's the forgetting. The peril of loss.
Without trace
a red double-decker bus sits idle
in the middle of the street a blackbird hello blackbird
stands amongst the debris
A visit to Test Place
River now merely penthouse background
we consume much more nowadays
the boats carry shit
or sightseeing passengers
Bates Salve cures wounds & sores
Stops, station buffets, road links
to walk the river's edge at twilight
offers new perspective
watch the greyness fade
Poetics as memory
Poetics as provider
London's outmoded DNA –
workmen's cafés, dingy pubs –
disappears. If anything survives from
post-war newsreels of civic improvement, it is
heritaged, squeezed between commas.
Liverpool your public land too
is being sold to private developers
place [your] feet in the deep tracks they make
poetics for now
Because we love to look at them [the stars]
we hope maybe they love to look at us
across such landscapes fairy lights predict
the glow
poetics says: look back, look forward, look straight ahead and cross the page.
follow Mail Train lines
Queens Park and Kensal Green
company alters routine
morning making
matters better
resting after exercise
poetics as investigation
poetics as sound
such sweet piano chords
the melody weaves a quiet voice
poetics as consolidation
The recovery of a memory is a present day
activity. It's not the past. Memory occurs in the present.
It should all become clear
from Cumbrian mountains to York stone pavements
the letter K carved
an indication
I don't know why I am tied to the winter
exit from Bankside
point me towards Eros
All through the storm, the frost, and the snow,
Death on our black horizon pulses clear
off the route
and mast head of the evening paper
I idle the thoughts of Woking
Last night I dreamt that outside Melling Church
I told you that I still loved you
Poetry as lifesaver as life giver
To A Fox II
Autumn falls lanes
drop darkness
hedgerows trimmed
fields ploughed
in preparation
Roadside awareness
flash of white
twilight nocturne image
of a moment
nice moment actually, dusk was falling,
lovely watery sunset which was very enigmatic
amongst the overgrown runway strip......
also managed to locate abandoned buildings
that formed the old hospital site on the airfield
in amongst some woods......very, very scary though.
En-route accompanied
chatter of engine whistle
of rack scratched inside
journey reinterpretation
Sleek tell-tale signs
Unhexed through lanes
a darkened memory
trimmed hedgerows
ploughed fields an escape route
(With thanks to Antony Harding)
Signboards: old type of writing
Transparency adaptation
siren insight
intersection and sodium highlights
present a few streets away
Future plans
every so often
it all becomes clear
source a manipulation
an epic example
context over content
such tasteful digitized blurs
Why Do You Come Here When You Know It Makes Things Hard For Me?
Ever presence followed
like the first star that guides
as night falls
across the hills and into
the bay the turbines stand
firm as that
day the wind ate my face
icily from the end of
the pier
These tracks that lead
to you lay cold while
steam rises
from railway station waiting
rooms this moment this
passing where
does it come from?
***
To here knows when
phased like worn tape
through patio
doors washed cars
stood path bound soap
pools gathered
capturing the light
through the orchard
where memories
are fixed as the day
you stood photographed
in the white
of your wedding dress
amongst the overgrown runway strip......
also managed to locate abandoned buildings
that formed the old hospital site on the airfield
in amongst some woods......very, very scary though.
En-route accompanied
chatter of engine whistle
of rack scratched inside
journey reinterpretation
Sleek tell-tale signs
Unhexed through lanes
a darkened memory
trimmed hedgerows
ploughed fields an escape route
(With thanks to Antony Harding)
Signboards: old type of writing
Transparency adaptation
siren insight
intersection and sodium highlights
present a few streets away
Future plans
every so often
it all becomes clear
source a manipulation
an epic example
context over content
such tasteful digitized blurs
Why Do You Come Here When You Know It Makes Things Hard For Me?
Ever presence followed
like the first star that guides
as night falls
across the hills and into
the bay the turbines stand
firm as that
day the wind ate my face
icily from the end of
the pier
These tracks that lead
to you lay cold while
steam rises
from railway station waiting
rooms this moment this
passing where
does it come from?
***
To here knows when
phased like worn tape
through patio
doors washed cars
stood path bound soap
pools gathered
capturing the light
through the orchard
where memories
are fixed as the day
you stood photographed
in the white
of your wedding dress
