Author Archives: Damian Garside

SQUIZZ AT K2

SQUIZZ AT K2

I am digging through
rock and concrete
searching
    for secret gospels

in the ruins of a bombed
out city
    who can say there is not
a pitcher buried deep
or just
beneath
    the surface

as it was in ’45
    under the sand of Egypt

six feet
tall filled to the brim
      with the voice of God?

searching hard around the farm
maybe through the mine dumps

beneath the Colosseum,
Acropolis or
      great temple of Mars
   
failing which
      we should explore
the death zone mountains;
Annapurna, Everest,
       or tip it over
on its side and take
a squizz at K2

CATHOLIC

CATHOLIC

something
catholic in each of us

we’re all trying
to become saints
supersaints
at something

get our statues
and relics
into thd hall of fame

that the text of our lives
be housed, remembered
stored
        somewhere

not buried
beneath the concrete
of a vast library floor

DIAMONDS


DIAMONDS

before I knew it
my life had
for better
  or for worse

gone
full mythological

Homer had
      fallen from the heavens
down on
my ten year old
                  head

and Aphrodite, my god,
how that goddess killed me
then
    thereafter
and every day since

if not in
divine form, then with
the active collusion
of her
   clones and copies
and would-be
avatars

each as gorgeous as
they were fake

but you
      were the one
she must have chosen
specially

      inner outer beauty
got in
hearts, diamonds, spades
(and so
    your namesake
did
   sing of diamonds)

time has passed on
but the poem
                      won’t
forget

AND THE LOVE

AND THE LOVE

I was listening
to Santana
and you
just walked on by

shouted out to you
but no words came out
was no sound
   or you elected
not to hear

or maybe
I just whispered
   all I had courage for
best I could
do
   all I could muster

truth is the heart of me
someone close
         an everyday someone
cut
   it out

and you were just
beauty’s archetype
by look
by name

a mirage, thing
off the silver screen, a
biblical queen

and me
       somewhere in the desert
all those years

where you
    called me, found me

shared
a word
       and left

I was listening to Santana
connecting the world
                            world
which will
            end

eternal it is however
                sadness, joy

and the love

ANACONDA

ANACONDA

was trying

to rhyme
my anaconda

get it
to do tricks and
every
   perform sundry
to maundry

put on fool bells
and smirk-clown greasepaint
in vain
      in vanity

and me a snake too
as Taoism sees it

think would get him
her to shapeshift, budge
yellow green yellow-green
yellow

     limit to the spectrum
archetype notwithstanding

(no bend in this landscape
states of curvature only)

will
    tell if it feels the same
when tunneling inside

SIDE

SIDE

smokestack lightnin’

wild side
other side
                  flip
side

bit
on the side

I hears you
   can’t do nothing
when twelve bar slide
or blow
   that blues harp

so much death in that ocean
under that mud-brown river

hell yes

I’ve studied that time
saw how
it lost
     its colour

all that
glorious grey

      war never over
till its over

divide outside always
                   first inside

STONES

STONES
  
I saw the scene
in the Chess Studio film

so iconic and
yet the moment did
not know it
yet

revolution in the music
of the muddy river
with all
its deltas and
tributaries
(do not
   trust me to
describe it, go read
Derek Walcott’s
fabulous poem)

broke blues legend affronted
at the cheek of these
five skinny
     ultra pasty white
long-haired
dionysian ruffians

unloading amps on their turf
like it was all
        in a day’s work

just part of the process of
legend, transformation of life
into mythology

yes, Mr Waters, welcome
to epic
    they took their name
from one
of your records (or maybe
it was some
Jewish folk singer’s)

step opon Olympus
they say and of course
do not say

they are the music of this time
this changing time
come full circle

from hereon in
it is pure Rolling Stones

LOVE DUST

LOVE DUST

came across
a speck of love
dust
    in the Universe

travelling at, near,
or beyond
the speed
of light

in slowed down
approaching Earth

like the alien
mother ship
in Independence Day

which became an issue
of global security
national concerm

world waiting with baited breath
praying it would
burn up
    in the Earth’s atmosphere

failing which
there is always the
nuclear option

deflect the trajectory
or vaporize entirely

for if that speck of love
should touch anything human

could go extreme viral
wreck our civilization
the one we have spent
decades
     building and
re-building

love bringing
the extinction
            of all we love