EMPTY
the plane is full
the plane is empty
every champagne bubble
could be its own
tiny universe
every chess match
ending in stalemate
and not
every island
is Devil’s island
not every
island has a
Devil
even the
Devil fears the advent
of pure nothingness
why
he could well be
so desperate
to rebuild, redecorate,
have
his domain
look more like Heaven
WASHED AWAY
washed some
ants down the drain
they did not scream
did not complain
did it as thoughtlessly
as we might get genocided
by an advanced civilization
from a distant galaxy
or closer to home
guilt or innocence
accident or
intention
you call I believe,
falls under
your jurisdiction
but I
can’t give
evidence
face
cross examination
can’t even
see you, am blind
without my glasses
and I seem
to have misplaced them
lacking them
impairs my
pattern recognition
and my perspective
on morality
give me a moment,
let me
indeed
call a timeout
find my glasses
put them on
see what in
tarnation I appear
to have signed up for
what these vague squiggles
signify
I have written on this page here
OTHERWISE
“The poets help enslave even the best of us to the lower parts of our soul; and just insofar as they do so, they must be kept out of any community that wishes to be free and virtuous.” Plato
handle the narrative
we need to get a hand
on the narrative
otherwise
don’t come crying to me
when you get
handled
when you get written off
written out
hear a voice in your head
narrating you, got you
down to a T
got you
there on the page, down
in the text, character in
a story
anything but
open ended
not seeing it coming
(foreshadow radar turned
down
to zero)
the final sentence of
the final chapter
(should you
even
be that lucky)
closing on you
slamming shut
like a great iron
final door
TURNIN’ POINT
“All you need to do
is swallow.” Josh Johnson
waiting for
something to push
an envelope
must have come
to the wrong place
basic chords, I presume
the guitars
are
in tune
(not a lick, not a riff,
not a whiff of the blues)
paint drying slower to not
show up anything
and free speech put
to the test here, yes sireee,
twangibg lyrics that sink
to the bottom
of the bottle
giving dregs
a new name
and these
the musical
airs and graces need
to send out to, show
the world
the deepest metaphors
of the tribe imaginable
would
tie up
with a ribbon, present
you myself
but the truck got stuck
truck got stuck
DAWN
where did you come fron
what day
did you dawn?
or is it that
I have my dates and
times screwed up
causing offence with
my words because
you were
always here?
plunging up through
through the ground beneath us
to claim foundation
music in one hand
syllogisms in t’other
reeking of born-again pragmatism
not here to
redefine, or control, or
take possession
but
just look around
and now I see
you still looking but
with wildly greater intensity
dissing, dismissing,
decrying,
lecturing me
on what is good for me
sour-faced and malign
when it comes to all that
would wish
to flourish alongside you
go better
angel with you
for better
or for worse
THIS IS WHERE
this is
where
democracy died
saw its grave
despoiled
its name
erased
the thing
ghost danced
never
talked about
outside the camps
where though
strong verboten
discussion
remains
AT LEAST
you tried
to write
a poem
but your
fat pen
slipped
sloshed
all over
the page
and me
when i
popped
in to
the poem
to have
a read
found
you drowning
in a torrent
of ink
and being
the saintly
figure that i am
leapt in
feet first
making
every effort
to save you
sadly, we
were not
entirely
successful
lost you
but managed
to salvage
fix your poem
some of it
at least
PAR
par for the course
par for the curse
mute the Wasteland
savage reduction of
noise
stanza
by
stanza
you feel it in your bones
tremors under the skin
your tectonic
plates shifting
specialists mailing in
their verdict
you on the verge
of breakdown
hanging by a thread
golden, astral silver
or maybe just
Manchester cotton
an industry booming
blackening the sky with it
suddenly
in the wash there
is blood
much red blood
humanity split, a house divided
par
for the course
echoes, allusions, vertigo
in the poetic factory,
foundational mythologies,
whatever
it takes to finesse vers libre
rich resources to be mined
be inevitably exhausted
see there
what scripture remembers
we should know,
it needs to
tell us
a door opening, first
thought springing
to mind
must be of awakening
so much out there
the picture freezing
in anticipation
of expected regret,
customary hesitation
step
by guarded step
par for the course
,
IN THE HOUSE OF NO LESS
THAN ENGELS HIMSELF
Big and bounteous
the Chirch of Capitalism
expanded its limits
threw out its long, craggy arms
became a
Cathedral
assumed the position
assumed the latest of
its greatest shapes
and
nothing there
entirely alien,
least of all to me, whose
Norman ancestors, newly
converted, set
immediately to work
building these things
eventually
stealing
the English crown in
the one they built
in England
but
I do digress
just to point out
the songs
remain
more or less the same
we all, having learnt
them all
by heart and
then force fed them
again by media
a hundred years
of continuous advertisement
so intrusive having become
we can
barely breathe
without a priest or pastor
pope or cardinal
if not
great market
theologian
of the faith
dragging us
by hook or
crook
right up to
the altar
more to consume
than ever commune
(and me
once having lived
along Oxford Road Manchester
plumb in
the sacred house
of no less than
Engels himself)
BOGUS
so this skinny old
withered guy
splurted out that the skiers
who called into question
the current state
of American
should be unceremoniously
stripped of their
national ski uniforms
which
gets me, thinking
if this geezer is
so passionate about this
he should
travel to Milan
strip the offending
skiers himself
presuming
obviously that
he survive
the cold
manages to
not drown
in the snow
such fake, bogus contrived passion
stuck in a glacier
not going to melt anything
poor, skinny, old
withered man
older, more skinny, more
withered,
infinitely
more bogus,
than i am myself
poems 2 die for