BACK
back you are
to tell all
you who
found yourself’
privy to the soul’s
panorama
found yourself
presented
with such
establishing shots
so beautiful
so terrible
tracking shot through
the gates of Heaven
gates
of Hell
divulging the ground zero
truth of the latter
whole horrific spectacle
way beyond language
leave us wondering
what we
could have done
to possibly
deserve this
forgetting
how the world works
how it is
what it is, no
end
to the suffering
MY CASE
sick in bed
2000lb building buster
fell on my head
out of nowhere
the papers passive voicing
the issue of agency
saying that
my skull thick
as concrete
no sign
of a brain
no doctor willing
to tend to me
there is not the
bedside manner
in the whole
of Christendom
willing and
able to
deal
with my case
ON EVEREST
thanks to
the traffic jam
on Everest
the road
to the summit
has
been closed
meanwhile
further to the Northeast
in landscape
unrecognisable
I sit at base camp
freezing to death
hoping to
catch a lift
to the world’s
second
top spot
to arrive
in good time
for my
great
debate with
the gods of snow,
death
and ice
who dwell
on the
highest
point
of K2
SIGN
I want to take you
on a bed
of wine coloured
roses
my lips wanting your
brown skin
beneath them
for all of
human time
and though
I have not yet
found you
and still have
to persuade you
to commit
to this enterprise
an enterprise in which
we die and die and die
forever and ever
constantly rising
constantly reborn
for which the shade of deep burgundy of
these flowers
has become
of
this desire and
would be passion
its
eloquent sign.
THIS SPACE
found
or otherwise
you have no footage
of me writing, whole
creative process
you just have to
go with face value
take on trust
seems that no bot
wrote this
you think
as levels are
discovered;
let themselves
get uncovered
before, in
coming to
a reading,
you edit and
manipulate
impose
and frame
according to
best-
guess narrative
supreme
authority
over all
located in
this space
MOTORCYCLE DIARIES
me and Modiegi
watched you
swim that river
only to
die
in Bolivia
the CIA more deadly
than piranha fish
between which
there is a piece of
timeline
in which
you changed history
became the T-shirt
and thus immortalizdm
JOSEPHINE
Josephine
I do not ask for your
cheetah
or your
anaconda
just let me
unpeel one two
three all
these dancing bananas
all eyes on you
as you mesmerize
me watching an actress
enact
your story
the patrons, and yes
even the Gestapo
in the world
of the solidly real
but, alas!, not one
from that dream-factory
fairy-tale land
you managed
to scramble away from
the sky
is the limit
but you are what you are
if you be
black or
brown (forever down)
Oh to be part of
if not your rainbow tribe
at least
your menagerie
or have some role
some task
that might
continue your legacy
touchstone for the power
of our human drive
to surpass ourselves
irrefutable argument
that we are indeed all one
OUT OF THE CORNER
OF MY LEFT EYE
I am such a soft
precious revolutionary
I smother demons
(my own included)
with an exquisite pillow
where
it might well
prove impossible
to integrate them
put them on paper
place them before
the great
arbiters of
civilized society
in no way
a scion or off-
spring of Comrade
Vladimir Mayakovsky
whom
I espy, out of
the corner of my left eye,
flinging a Louis XIV chair
through a crystal
clear
window of
The Winter Palace
ISLAND
the island
appeared out of
nowhere
popped up
all of a sudden
before
pur very eyes
where we no longer
thought
an island
was possible
no longer
had any faith
in islands
a single shred
of belief
and yet
here it is
here it is indeed
Joanie’s stardust,
golden garden island
we have
to get back to
(mpre music,
more fun
way better
than Shakespeare’s)
where artist Ai Weiwei
can come fix the landscape
make everything painterly
using best
aesthetic primciples
a new Romer
a new Troy
a new Aeneas
an island
where we
can redo
history
miss
the terrible time
to found them
bombets
sent to destroy it
simply
wished
out of the sky
islsnd
rushing towards you
at the speed of light
EMPTY
Eden is empty
frozen over
or overgrown
no one comes
to clean up, ckear weeds,
pick up the garbage
here we
must consult with
the biologists, philosophers,
theologians
have coffee or a beer
with Neil deGrasse Tyson
to puzzle through the impact
of our human departure
on this now, to all
intents and purposes,
alien world
and whether, riff on
flower unseen meme,
the colours, the odours,
the sounds
very tactile feel of
the place
might exist
in our absence
forever persist
in their wondrous,
fabulous intensity
or has it
all just freeze-framed
forever capturing
the tragedy of
our great catastrophic moment
that coming to a consciousness
so acute we
no longer have hope
of the real.
poems 2 die for