Author Archives: Damian Garside

SIR JIM

SIR JIM

for a moment
when Sir Jim
came in
to fix us
we deluded ourselves
it would be
Camelot

but turned out
much more
managed by
Mordred and Morgana
than reborn
Manchester United

still
   a key player short
and no free
bananas

no free lunches ever
as we stop-start climb
above fifteenth

we never expected you
Sir Jim to be
   thin and sparse and
tin
  man kind
of hollowed out

supposed
     to unite us all

but here you
are breaking apart, fragmenting

a team of squares and
round holes
       bits and pieces

no football logic, common
sense
      so must be

profit in it
primarily, exclusively,
in
   everything we do

SWITCHED ON

SWITCHED ON

Switched on the TV
but it was the emergency
channel

sirens blaring
where I thought
Tony Soprano
would be

outside the sky
looked ordinary,
nothing special,
dull blue,
straggles of cloud

not the wondrously
horrific spectacle
I was convinced
our last ever sky
damn well ought to be.

THREE BOOKS (revised version)

THREE BOOKS

there are three books
any of the three will
provide you with a basis
for understanding everything

even though
they are so different
don’t say
the same things
at all

there are two books
(three minus
one
is two)

either of them will
provide you with a basis
for understanding everything

even though
they are so different
don’t say
the same things
at all

there is one book
(two minus one
is one)

even though
it is
so different
it will provide you
with the basis
for understanding everything

even though it doesn’t
say the same things at all

even if
no books
may just be better
than one

THREE BOOKS

THREE BOOKS

there are three books
any of the three will
provide you with a basis
for understanding everything

even though
they are so different
don’t say
the same things
at all

there are two books
either of them will
provide you with a basis
for understanding everything

even though
they are so different
don’t say
the same things
at all

there is one book
even though
it is
so different
it will provide you
with the basis
for understanding everything

even though it doesn’t
say the same things at all

THE TEXT OF YOUR TEXT

THE TEXT OF YOUR TEXT

you texted me to tell me
that i must be delusional
not to believe democracy
is doomed, on its
last legs

all that talk of
by and for the people
already well on
its way to becoming
laughably quaint

but
not so quaint or genteel
the armoured personnel
carriers full to the brim
with paramilitaries

screetching to a halt
pistols, automatic
rifles at
the ready

primed to debate
the finer points of political philosophy

CRIME SCENE

CRIME SCENE

those faces
so bright and happy
so ecstatic, Sun
everywhere

paradise
just
off the coast
beneath
the radar

who would have thought
could have believed
it was, is,
a crime scene

a bucket of horrors
kept closed
at all costs
Atlantic breakers to
drown out screams

out in deep dark space
they know
all our Disneylands
are not the same

the light
at its brightest
deadly radioactive

that cancer goes deep
beyond
gold mine deep

and where
those faces meet
off camera, off script
are
returned to shadow
show depth
much darker

have calculated the
evil necessary
for everything

but
hurry along, be
on your way

no
concern of yours
not your
crime scene

HI GIDEON

HI GIDEON

hi Gideon
sorry you missing
all the action

this despite itself carnival
of idiocy targeting, amongst others,
you and all of your inclination

yep, death is a bitch
when life becomes surreal
phenomenal
is about
   to follow a course
cannot but
shatter your established
sense of things

and worst of all
the release
of these hellscape files
has shown us
how close we
are
  to final
denoument

not a thing to
be part of, and yet
for the spectacle, not
a thing
to miss

and, me
out in left field for
the occasion
(would that
you might have joined me)
great point
    of vantage yet
clear target too

and all this
    just came into my mind,
unfiltered, unedited
out of
    nowhere

most unredacted thing
to read this year