Damian Garside

OBJECTIVE

FREEZE-DRIED

fudge soft
was my brain at my
first philosophy class

Plato’s dialectic wholesome,
why should not the State be
good and strong
and solid and true?
why should I not be
thinking axiomatically
working my
way slowly
towards great gnosis
at the cave’s entrance

why should this not all be,
even in a philosophy class,
some desert of
the real shadow show
programmed to
amuse
this unspecified
superior intelligence?

But these are questions for
later
not for poor white boy
at mountainside university
refugee from
all that Christian National
Education might teach
true
to apartheid

and so, face-beaming, I
did drink it, savour
swallow
every joyous scrap of
the fat one via
Professor Obi Wan’s
interpretation

the Jewish boy in the corner
(so slightly older
reading his way into
territory
full-on genealogical, beyond
good and evii

scowling at my
naivete,

having not
become my friend

Nietzsche not yet
my philosopher of choice

outside, of course, outside
the theatre down
the slopes
beyond the steps

something stirring
something
at a different pace,
with a different
dialectic

about to explode
about
to rock to the core

but this
down the line

from up in this high place
easy to calculate
work with
established truths,
historical certainties, clear
percentages

down there
as bra Chris wrote

its all
in graffiti, still
yet in code

soon
world going to
go full on punk, class-war
deconstructive

defeat in Vietnam

meaning
power
of powers

determined to determine
we think how they say,
are
so subtly, subtly
forced
to do as we are told

mind put on hold
fast-food fried down
to the last algorithm

brain
freeze-dried, feel
free to liquify

fudge soft
back then

but maybe
Plato was right

SERVED

BUST

heard the good goog news
that they cut
the arts in
th-re-will-always
be an-England

big cities did it
because they are bankrupt now
and who wants
poems and plays about
terminal
austerity

why should the State
or anyone subsidise
anything so irrelevant
trivial, spurious
as performance pièces
exposing this very hypocrisy
when money
is desperately needed
for jets and bombs

preserving the hegemony,
no time for idle hands,
wicked pens and
wasting
all that is precious on
such self-indulgent luxury

nothing there worth
watching, listening to, reading

this is our absolute truth
to you
there is no longer space
or capacity
they are
no longer part of
our identity
do not fit in
our economy

we
are the final arbiters

we decide the colours, tastes,
feelings, shapes

this
the realisation of our
special, almost sacred mission

to tell our culture like it is
close down all else for all

GIST

STALWART

one day
not upon a time
the plants
elected
to row straight

electrifying with joy
stalwarts everywhere
every
treacle-thick politico
in
wotlds known
and worlds
unkown

fairy tale
and the political
racing
to conclusion
running in parallel

Oh happy day
exclusion of the middle
extermination
of the extremities:
it’s so
axiomatic, lowest-
common-denominator
raised to the heavens
square
root of zero
dutifully delivered

and in the woods so
much smoke
the trees so
covered in soot you
cannot see the leaves

but
Pan’s man, fabulous
Guillermo has
set a fantastic trap
they are
bound
to fall into

surrounded by thorn bushes
in the light of their shadow

you could not
do anything to look
more enchanted
surpass the mystery

conjuring up
a string of images

burrowimg in
wormknv deeo

teaching us how
to align, accept
the imperfect, rough
and smmoth

how to accept what is
for what it is
become part of
the picture

native to this place

MAGICIAN

I met a magician once,
the whole world knows
his power
but I saw him first

was possessed by him
and wanted to possess him

wanted to
learn everything I could

sittimg at hos feet
for a tbousand years

but
despite his best efforts
huge patiemce
most sadly
he failed in his
sublime efforts,
did not succeed

for I was not
cut from the right cloth,
of the right mettle

open to all the possibilies
it is my belief
he saw in me

CROSSING

from the sea
to the river

from the river
to the sea

crossing the
river

crossing the sea

walking
on the water

as if nothing
could be more
natural, normal

a matter of faith;
matter of belief

LINEAR B

the treasure is hidden
maybe they buried it yesterday
perhaps it was not
and will not ever
be discovered

buried as it was
at the beginning of time

but here is Homer
who threw his two
books at my head
as the goddess Athena
instructed

giving me
the choice between the epic,
the poetic, on the one hand,
and on the other, narrative story
via a story that is simply
the mythos
of story itself

having, for my sins and
pretensions, run with
the promise of this goddess,
eschewing the chance
to be loved or
figure of power, status
and wealth

for which
error in judgement
no Trojan war
in my lifetime, but
the enmity of Aphrodite
and
lack of
intimate touch

but back to the drawing board
and the key
theme of this piece

though Homer’s works oral
and recited

I am sure I read of scholarship
of text
voice reduced to word
in script
Linear A or B, perhaps
(given the nature of
this industry) all the way
through (American
pronunciation here
if you please) a
Linear Z

and me, unlike
my Father, so cyclic, so
non-linear

cannot
connect dots together, am
totally
unable to
draw a straight line

my Father sketching plans
to meet highest expectations,
serious
engineering requirements

and here I am, for
my part
a Nobody poet, almost
drowned
still journeying home

my words
running across
strict
line division, gallivanting
this way
and that way
flaunting, luxuriating in
the joy of
enjambment

buzzing like bees
(no
epic simile) all over the page

and so much I have
here
thrown out on technicality

that great 9000 Cyclops red
eye giving me
the wherefores
and whys

and me pulling the plug on
your blackboard your
whiteboard
T square and micrometer

searching
before we leap into
the arms of the Sirens, are
devoured by
Scylla, sucked into Charybdis

for what
the game is here, the genre,
the argument, the premise
the narrative

scribbled
somewhere on that board, in
its circuits and relays

somewhere buried there inside
in the floor beneath in
the wall behind

a treasure, a dark truth,
a secret

desperate to be lost
desperate to arrive