five from Rupert Loydell
FINAL DESTINATION Without the incentive of finding time I do not have it in myself to be myself. Only the rhythm of stuttering remains, interrupted cadences and note to self, reminders of what I should be doing, could be doing. Attempts to motivate myself, to stir my stumps, all fail; sequences of events simply happen, none in the way they were planned. It is living secondhand, giving in to compulsion and the branch lines of living, where all tracks lead to being dead. I used to tell Brian he didn't have to turn everything into poems but now I find myself doing the same. Unless the words from all the books I read and images from exhibitions and TV turn up somewhere, processed and rearranged, it is though they are at arm's length, only seen at a distance, half-understood. I'm sorry to be so long-winded, it gets harder to make myself clearer, difficult to ignore the empty seats beside me.
IMPOSSIBLE HORIZONS for Paul Hawkins, after his Music For The Last Couple The face is not quite right and the bicycle wheels have disappeared. Visible glitch and impossible horizons, motorways across the desert and the sky. If if if if if it wasn't self service we would starve or be helicoptered to another page. Here is apocalyptic, police and politicians apoplectic, our future not so bright. If if if if if I bury myself in the road do you promise not to run me over? Not mess with the shadows or light, what we have become? If if if if if this was science fiction the aliens would arrive but we are too busy rearranging our faces and seeing if our eyes still work. If if if if if we can manage to stay alive we will have to live together, out of focus and half-blind.
COMMUNITY MEADOW ALCOHOL RATTLE If you need help then you're entitled to flowers, trees and the quiet beauty of nature in the same way as anyone else who has a problem. Gun crime may be a good place to start: people will ask about the weapons you own, your other recreational activities, and express disbelief that violence could occur within such a vibrant and diverse community who are busy tackling pollution and burying supplies under the ground. People will also come together to connect with shock and sorrow, enjoy golf and fine dining, and create a safe haven for raising questions about enthusiasms and the implications for those affected. This can lead to a cycle of fear, with residents becoming more isolated and distrustful if they have been asked to provide a sample of urine or saliva to check what drugs they have been taking. A problem shared is a problem that can be bought in bulk, often with a profit to be made. Just sign here.
ARTIFICIAL EXPERIENCE for and from Lawrence Frieisleben 'My brain is like an attic where there's room for everything.' Ā Ā ā Enrique Vila-Matas, Bomb interview From the slums to sky-high figures who prefer art to makeshift balconies, ramshackle gentrification and class, sloping bridges over gridlocked life. Half-dead, fascinated with chaos and wishing it always to remain so, art in its most vivid form multiplies risk and challenge on so many levels. History is mind's attempt to conquer meaning and the winding hill, guide the battle between good and evil to weed-covered zones of tentative peace. At the intersection of alchemy and soundscape, a whispering haze cancels out the essence of certain key words and chaotic visual floods of thought. Optimism itself carries ghosts of black ravens and invented books, nothing written down, it would be too cruel. Stone cassettes record each moment, disturbing the dead as indulgence spreads: no self-control, negative reality banished as culture becomes clouds and colours, dust.
ABOUT YOUR FUTURE 'Beware of the dreams of others, because if you are caught in their dreams, you are done for.' Ā Ā Ā Ā ā Gilles Deleuze, Two Regimes of Madness. This most holy place intimates that everyone loves presenting examples to their specifications and elsewhere refers to the imagery of sacrifice and prayers, how they encourage fake feelings to vindicate progress. Those who have been persecuted for their sculpture consistently refer to the interior of a spaceship, reason that art is asking God to do something. Heavenly sanctuary must be found in post-apocalyptic ruin. Brutalist buildings cleverly hold dead people together. The prophets among us often compromise about compliance reminders, screams and shouts enable readers to distinguish between the future and present tense. Lightning, rumblings and thunder establish the divine throne as the place where the futures we seek are only slightly tweaked versions of stories from the place where you live. There is no room for hope in our photoshopped world. Scripture offers three major judgment cycles: imagination, surprise and revolution. Whatās ahead? Judgment and salvation, written in a manner that clearly distinguishes musical examples from experimental process. Our slumbering inattention is a pathology we experience around saints. The idea of sacrificial victims is mind-blowing, does not consider what remedial action might be possible or consider any divine perspective on contemporary world views. Applicants are destined for destruction, indifferent to the reality around us. The realm of apocalyptic that we point to as evidence is simply to numb the pain of our imagination, document a society in collapse. Extraterrestrial intelligence has focused on human creativity, a dynamic blurring of distinctions between meaning and actual results. Apocalypse will smother you with projections of techno-possibility, overwhelm with ferocity and volume. We must learn to walk through narrative dreams and listen to lengthy utterances, catch the analogies and experience both endings and edges. God cannot believe that God is so confused by worlds with overlapping stories. Visions can simply mean being apathetic or unaware, participation in dreams of an ultimate future, a solar-system-wide transformation that elevates time and defeats spiritual advancement or poor mental health. Eternity may or may not extend through next Monday, is filled with endings and new beginnings. It is not about enormous structures in space, it is about challenging readers to be real, to contemplate possibility. The past tense is always upon us, enfolded into doomdsday imagination. When itās all over, the search for aliens will begin. A circular, spiraling galaxy will be visible, we will enjoy zipping between planets then give up on space exploration. I hope you find something we could not, and thank you for your complacency and false teachings. They clearly indicate rapid disintegration but it is going to be just fine. Nobody knows what anyone else is talking about. We have an obligation to ensure aggressive purpose, ways of escaping and endless prayer. We are living in the post-apocalypse, in the aftermath of burnt offerings and coincidence, Earthās numerous endings. Let's all have a good time together. Rupert Loydell is the editor of Stride magazine, and contributing editor to International Times. He is a widely published poet whose most recent poetry books are Damage Limitation (zimZalla 2025) and The Age of Destruction and Lies (Shearsman, 2023). He has edited anthologies for Salt, Shearsman and KFS, written for academic journals such as Punk & Post-Punk (which he is on the editorial board of), and contributed to books about David Lynch, Brian Eno and Industrial music.