Damian Garside

ABSURD

in a poem
it gets so absurd

the whole thing
can be changed

by
one word

for the piece
at hand
it’s life
or death

the shift of shade
you now express

CROSS

my sphere
your sphere

two
hemispheres

no actual line
of demarcation
marked
for us to
cross

at out
peril

as painful first
step to

(what discord, what
dissonance,
what celestial music)

some
kind
of redemption, state

of liberation

ENDGAME

playing chess

whilst our liar leaders
think about war
at the summit
of their lives

you don’t have
to be Bobby Fischer to
win

a nuclear match
           just a matter of economy
and who makes
the
    signature
      sacrifice

        puts it all out
there
      tempts into an atomic
      no-holds
barred
         pawn gambit

SOFT

soft
as a
leaf

haiku
tiny

falling

swept across
the page

by breath, breath
of the spoken word as

the brush
the paint give

everything meaning

BOX SEAT

there is nothimg
in the box

the box
is shrouded
in mystery

someome left
it locked

but now
it has
been opened

the box
is covered with
gold leaf

exquisite
wrapping paper

it must
have been
full

but now
it is empty

shrouded
in mystery

not just
one mystery, either,
a mystery
within
a mystery

once it
was full
(I believe
it was full)

but now
it is empty

EQUATOR

forget boundaries
forget enclosures

here
there are no
prisons for the body
of the soul

there is wide expanse
open sky only

boundless
across the page
between the lines
each and every

three sixty degrees
meridian and back
from pole to pole
twice across
the equator

planet
to galaxy
ocean to ocean

from
the river

to the sea

ANACONDA

reconnoitre
my anaconda

see what proclivity for
algebra

her evil eye
able to solve for the
lengthiest equations

serpentine mind slithering
axiomatically

perfect physique for
quadrilateral equations
pure Amazonian
when
calculus calls

not at all flummoxed
if the ground
should be shifting

Kurt Godel’s theme
of incompleteness
her piece of cake

and if
using her body to
define new systems of geometry
topology

no lever needed
to make her cosmos move

SUGAR MINERS

sugar miners

not for
minors

candy
finders

old joke going back
to the goldrush of 1849

the sweetness they
find down there
a seam so treaty

litigation and issues
of property rights
following
everywhere

but
I bought this face
from a robber baron
could not be
happier
at the game
history played

the dice loaded, the hired help
packing

alternate narrative notwithstanding

this is the way
it has always been

REPUBLICAN

Oh, baby,
you are
so good
so good
to me

take me
to infinity
in a slow, stately,
crazy
turbo-
charged carriage

and we ignore
the clouds, the crowds,
have
no time for people whatsoever
no need to wave and smile
wave and smile
were we
the celebrated figureheads
of some constitutional monarchy

no we screetch and caterwaul
roar and cry

like king and queen, which
we are but
of our animal kingdom

the power to take and shape
and give
back equally

fair just re-
distribution no royal
could dream of

our sweet template for
complete republican

Oh baby
you are so good to me.

ICARUS INSTINCT

I barged into
the temple of
artificial intelligence

stormed out
after dismantling and
indeed liberating
a host of automatic
telling
and vending machines

flew up to the firmament
with the eye for aeronautics
of an ancient Daedalus
deluxe

soaring Sun-ward like his son
determined that the destiny
should be
becoming child
of the cosmos beyond which
no sense to aspire.