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Gerry Loose

Biography

Gerry Loose lives on his boat near the Faslane Nuclear Submarine Base on the Clyde. His work includes poems made for precise locations in Botanic Gardens & other public places, inscribed on stone, wood & plant labels, to be read on site.

Recordings

Glasgow

Recordings here were made in Glasgow by Iñigo Garrido on 19th March 2007, and are all included in Printed on Water: New & Selected Poems (Shearsman Books April 2007).

'Commentaries'
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'Holy Loch Soap'
'Stroke Mother'
'The Deer Path to my Door'

Bibliography

that person himself (Shearsman Books 2009).
Printed on Water (Shearsman Books 2007)
Eitgal (Mariscat 2001)
Tongues of Stone (Mariscat 1998)
a measure (Mythic Horse 1996)
The Elementary Particles (Taranis 1993)
Knockariddera (Galdragon 1991)
Change (Writers Forum 1987)
Yuga Night (Writers Forum 1986)
The Botanical Basho (Botanics Press 2001) editor & translator (with Yushin Toda)

Sample Text

from: that person himself (pages 34-36)

Immaculate War

having identified them to a moral certainty (a standard far short of what would be required by legal criteria of proof, it should be noted), there is no moral objection to targeting them. Indeed, one of the benefits of framing these operations as "war" rather than "law enforcement" is that it does not require the ideal outcome to be the apprehension and trial of the perpetrators. Instead, it countenances their direct elimination by military means

this's cat's cradle
cattycorner said here
Indra
's strings pull
the shutter's open time

This standard asks not what an individual knew, as a matter of fact, about a given situation or set of facts. Instead, it asks what a reasonable and prudent person in a similar situation should know. Thus, even if a person or government truthfully asserts that they were unaware of the activities of a terrorist cell in their territory, this does not provide moral immunity from attack. This standard asks not what they did know, but what they ought to have known

lapse
says
I don't know why govts lie

we cross
the autumn
in the larynx
not in things
not not in things
as one
with a caw
30 crows together
peel off the horse
chestnut tree
settle in a nearby
open book
flatten conjugate
solecize
this
his
is

ethical warfare		Jus in bello considerations
time of geese skeins		Attacks must be discriminate and they must be proportionate.
all directions
flying low overhead
close yr mouth boy

riding the wave
when the shadow
of the turkey vulture
cast ahead
crinkling over gravel

descending sky

Military necessity permits actions that might otherwise be ethically questionable

westing
past 2 Sticks Farm
heat an
incoming tide rising from
that gravel
audible
Painted Rock zoomorphs
anthropomorphs
vocables
motionless covered in
visible heat
Lizard Man
Turtle
Quail

Painted Rock Reservoir is closed to the public because it is one of the most toxic in the country with pesticide contamination. Its water will eventually disappear under the scorching summer sun, leaving behind a poisonous

tunnel from one world
to another
spiral into voicebox

unpracticed
rolling pebbles		Tohono O'odham
in a dry gullet		Hia Ced O'odham
those who have gone		Akimel O'odham

only insect voices
zing
Hohokam tongues		ghaan'ask'idii

NO WEAPONS OF ANY KIND
TO BE BROUGHT IN HERE

desert prune
old lady at Gila Bend		Heloderma suspectum Gila monster is venomous heavy slow moving 2 feet long [torn] skin has the appearance of beads in the colors black pink orange yellow [deleted] intricate patterns
says her family escaped
dustbowl Oklahoma
to here

doctor wants to amputate
her injured foot
's not speaking
my language says

dull sullen thunder
no crackle anywhere but
fizz of lightning
splashes of heavy rain
Sonora desert monsoon

lean
45 degrees
sleep on air

HOT EATS COOL TREATS
NOW AVAILABLE
GOD BLESS OUR TROOPS

Reviews

"Intimate and personal, public and global: a consistent philosophy and personality at work through history, an individual in specific contexts, tilling the contexts with implement and word. Addressing concerns from positions ancient Celtic to contemporary nuclear arms race: invocation, iteration of the particular and passing present. A poetry of wonder, sexuality, angry wit. An important and exciting collection from a poet centred in his and our world, with none of the mind-body dualism irrelevancies that bedevil so much and so many." --Tom Leonard on Printed on Water

"Gerry Loose has produced a sequence of poems which must be among the most authentic and intense evocations of monastic experience. In these poems the monk's chant has become a rant, and then a mantra of faith driven to its extremes until it has become a curse."--Chris McKinnell on