Damian Garside

UNDER YOUR ROOF

lost sock
damp sponge
wet
blanket

cold
fish

I see your name up
in lights however
straining my eyes
to read
the letters
from my worm’s eye
view so close to the ground

your
vapid theme

unless I am
missing something, actually,
missing
everything

the meaning of a poem
still escaping me
                   still seeming
like something
magically
     conjured out
              of thin air

cannot imagine how
hard I would lose, how
shown up
I would feel going
one on one, head
to
head with you

seriously needing
to improve my game

pump up
my action not

to feel so steamrollered
when your next
exquisite
petite volume
voluminously appears

lost sock
damp sponge

even if I should win
no achievement here

shrink me
carve pieces off me
cut me
down to size

reduce me
condense me
down
to single molecule

erase
all that feels it has to burst
its boundaries, explode, expand
be liberating
be transformational

yes,
slice the heart out
of all that stuff

kill all that is poet, poetic,
make the poem, the poetry
go suicide

once upon a time I clung
to the fiction
it was
my purpose and meaning

now
I am far too old
for anything like this
at all
at all