Echo Monthly
Reviewing the Works of Poets, each month, 
with extracts from the best moments..

 

 * Eddie Kyle * Noel Fuller *

Eddie Kyle began the month with a repost of Soul Mining with those troublesome last lines rewritten..

       Too many years in the same rut -
       Pissing away time, stuck in the same old ways.

a melancholy mood to begin with - yet, in its own way, haunting. A much better ending. 

Far more haunting, as well as being a fascinating read for those who have lived in the echo for long enough to have memories of Nigel Rean was this poem, Staring at the moon:

       *Staring at the moon*

       I need to have a smoke again,
       And sit down by the window frame,
       To mull it all over some more,
       let the breeze ease my pain.

the slow drag downward, this time is toward peace:

       I feel my emotions decline
       As I fade into peace with myself,
       I find that peace is mine.

       Depression will always reverse,
       My comments won't always be so terse,
       I cast my gaze towards the moon,
       And feel at one with the universe.
       Now I look towards the month of June,
       And hope for that feeling soon,
       I was sitting on a window sill,
       And staring at the moon.

it's an interesting poem, and though it is patchy in quality the mood is pervasive and not unpleasant. I suspect it is one of my favourite 'Eddie' poems, and seems to express a great deal of 'the way he is'.

Quite a different aspect of 'the way Eddie is' was shown in the two little filks he published:

               Millenium

       Now that my PCs ceased to run
       And my bank's lost all my funds
       The power and telephone's gone dead
       Millenium....

and Viva, in which that car features one more time:)

               Ancient Vauxhall
       Badly rusted through the floor
       The lights are broken and the tyres are bald
       Climb through the windows
       Cos I jammed the doors..

We were also graced by Eddie's contribution toward our understanding of 'Filk technique' and a challenge to Porcelina. I'm hoping to give that short work wider coverage in the very near future.  Slow Train To Dawn II was another moving tribute, puns and all to the love of Eddie's life. The softer side will shine through..

       I ride upon the highways
       As the time passes me by
       When I know I'm taking
       The slowest train to Dawn,
       Which started when I was born.

Chief of all Eddie's postings this month however, has got to be
'Bobby on the Beat'. A poem in memoriam of a very fine person. The poem deserves to be quoted in full, and left to speak for itself..

       Bobby on the beat
 

       Bobby on the beat
       Small town copper, He helped us all,
       Always a friend, Would never fall.
       He rode to town to do what's right,
       But he died last night.

       ...
       Bobby on the beat,
       He did his job, a local hero,
       who sadly now calls ten zero,
       He rode into town to do what's right,
       But he died last night.

Dedicated to the memory of Constable Murray Stretch who
was killed last night in the line of duty.

Bob King

Bob for posted 'Timberwolf' - written by TD from the USA. This was a vivd sketch of a man and a style of being which is almost mythic in quality. It reminded me of some of the stories of 'old identities' on the coast. A most interesting and memorable read, thank you Bob.

The ever responsive Bob kicked of his month with an offering inspired by someone else. In many ways 'Soul of man' is a reprise of much that he has said before, yet I think he has never said these things so well before.

       Why do most souls flounder
       when the answer is just under
       their own shell of conciousness
       awaiting the call of unselfishness.

..
       The soul of man cries out in vain
       Oh God! why so much pain
       desire and lust create the strain
       and man goes on, his soul to drain.

Rainbow was a shorter poem, succinct and almost painfully expressed. It begins as a plain description:

       As the dark clouds drift slowly overhead
       and the sun gleams between them with shafted ray
       the shower of rain that grows our bread
       wets the road across the bay.

We are warned that there are darker meanings, in these very fine lines,

       the rainbow that shall always be ours
       shining through the rain without pity

an inversion of the more usual picture of the rainbow as mercy, the sign that the sun is still at hand.  the whole poem is brought to a swift and blunt conclusion,

       Where is the end of that great bow
       that man seeks for his pot of gold
       'tis there son, just across from now
       when time stands still and life is cold.

the last note still resonates.