SIX POEMS

SIX POEMS:
without batteries
masterpiece
tantra
scrapbook
the music
warhead

WITHOUT BATTERIES

insidious, the pun
destabilizes

mangles single-
meaning

in its electromagnetic
                        field

a field day having thereupon
I think of a goblin green
Vader Christmas

slipping down an industrial
smokestack for the children
who choked to death

on his back a pack of Death Stars
and other Sith machines
to toy with
and destroy the galaxy

luckily without batteries,
Skynet took them, the Matrix
took them

total the disappointment
whereupon for the
children of every executive

reminding us all
of former wicked times
of Scrooge economics
and monetarist deprival

and those who suffered
the feeezing calamity
of Christ”s birthday
reflected
     as it was in the tiny
suffering always
happy face
of Tiny Tim

meanwhile some Jew or other
in the British musuem
is slaving daily
    at his big
red book

we are
creative creatures, he writes,
not regretful
afterthought, surplus
liability
      
        image that is no.match
for such
dreams of
  transcendence that plague
our human imagination
(the ghost of
a Marley man financier
ghastly at the door).

****

MASTERPIECE

I read an
unusually bad poem
from a
Professor or so

worse
    than normal
but no ways so bad
that I might
quite involuntarly, mind,
require to
     gag, vomit, spit

which would have been
not a good look for me
given his
current level of
appreciation
(verging on
near total public
         adulation)

such pressure on me
unforunately to
favourably respond

that when I did in fact retch
(following
      line of least resistance)
I threw up
     a jewel

wonder of transformative
power of mind over matter

a gem
    of a vicious
     masterpiece

****

TANTRA

I drink
where the rivers merge

slake my thirst
at the delta

some ocean salt here
too which
I taste
    no mistake

a lock
on time
    when you
flow
with me
and we
locate our
psalm sustenance

behold
     something has
changed

      seems the sea is
surfeit

we have
long left the land

****

SCRAPBOOK

I am going
to repaint this town

in line
with how you
dream it
retell
its history

scatter sepia, reframe
as daguerrotype

invest with shade
of fake civility
wherever
     the whim takes me

nip
   new

in the bud
let

this be my enterprise
until faith
       in the lie

gets up one day
and quietly leaves me

****

THE MUSIC

there was no music
none
   to
talk about

then suddenly,
there was
the music again

and the Beatles
found it

learnt it played it
packaged it
         sent special
delivery
from turntable
           to heart

and there
        inside that music
there was
one Eleanor Rigby

who
   are went
           looking for

nobody
found

sadness of that
            fiction destined
to haunt

****

WARHEAD

I don’t know
about your brain

what kind type of
brain and
whether firing on
all cylinders

but your head
     did take
             your body
along
other day
went looking for
                 headwear

thought
      if at least looked
half articulate then
    the words might just
elect
to follow

but
nothing there your size
nothing
     but extremely bad
  
fit

seems
     your head
                   has sacrificed
rational brain for

warhead target selection
and
    guidance system

set with such hair-
trigger precision

best not
     ask you to speak