SHOUTING BACK
for Mike

Critique and question, grapple with
the burden of fame and literature,

then move on and start another
line of attack, an authorial riff

or series of riffs that runs on for pages
then stops. Whatever is being

written about, the words on the page
are as interesting as the experience

of legitimising digression and tangent,
of recognising that is how we listen.

Once you are over the shock,
the fishing boat bobs on the gospel shows

for a long to-and-fro water time,
evidencing weak chimes of desire

and eschewing new directions
from another possible start.

Sat in the sunshine, the weight of ‘like’
and ‘dislike’ balanced with a cup of coffee,

I listen to these lesser melodies
as a way of understanding populism,

music, audience and song, Dylan’s
fluid and erratic, highly original mind.

© Rupert M Loydell

Delighted to receive this response to my poem here referencing Rupert and his review of You Lose Yourself, You Reappear: The Many Voices of Bob Dylan by Paul Morley.

The trenchant eloquence of his poem is wonderful.