Damian Garside

AT THE UNIVERSAL EMPORIUM (OF UNIVERSAL EMPORIUMS)

too many stick-legged statues
things on plinths

it is not
as I remember it
nothing like my old haunt

unless the harbingers
of universal emporiums
within universal emporiums
are not
statues at all

far
from it

here I am wandering
between the chapels and stalls
following my nose
hunting down
hints of
imperium

calculating
how much cement
and marble
it will need
they will need

how many rolls
of fabric too
to craft
a tapestry

tapestry wide
long enough
to record everything

cement-coloured people
springing up
out of nowhere
animal,
vegetable, mineral

once they had
hoped to, promised to
evolve,
become transformational

the dream of thinking
the dream of making

hard to believe
it was once centered here

epicentre of focus
sweetest cosmic algorithim
all disappeared

SPARROW’S FALL

we were sitting
in the back of the plane.
safest place if
you wish to think
about providence,
tempt fate

and Providence the city
we to be shortly
disembarking in

you with
your nose for gnosis
me with the chemical
acumen of
forked, flicking tongue

banqueting
upon the very air

but perhaps
due to time
shift of quite
radical nature

when we touched down
a delegation of machines
appeared
assembled to
converse
with us

embraced us as
long lost souls did
conduct us through
their world

baffled us with
the intensity of
their bombardment
with technical information
scientific explanations

walking, talking us through
every nut
and bolt in
terms of
form and function
how it
all did work like a dream

yes, every
quantum interface
they guided us through it

we saw, heard. felt
how seamlessly every facet
did dovetail
deep together

reminding me of
the meaning, true
poetic meaning

of the Prince’s
immortal, much celebrated,
marvelously resonant phrase

APOLOGIA

sorry so sorry
to interrupt
mess with your attention span

but I need to
tell you
how to weaponize this poem

clean it, cock it,
prime it
load it

point it in the right direction
take
the safety off

aim low when
you got your target

fire at well
single shot

automatic fire
the poem should cycle
through its action

smoothly
no jamming

have the impact
you wished for
when
you helped write this thing

OUR MUSIC

The aliens are, coming here
rushing head-over-heels
faster
than a guitar riff
because they love
our music

speakers blaring Zeppelin
and Hendrix
smashing the peace as
they hurtle through
the galaxy

reminding those
old enough to remember air cavalry choppers
colonizing the skies
of Vietnam

the aliens are coming here
now all the critical questions
of survival
relate to the possibility
of jam sessions

and whether our human
overlords
will let them land and
pluck and strum

or pull
the plug

desperate to
shut them out

NEED TO KNOW

fear not
good ratings, a tidy
majority in the primary

will
absolve you
from evil

it is
written in
the big good bestest
only book

it is
the only truth
you need to know

WITHOUT SIN

I took every
precaution to ensure
this piece of writing
is free from blasphemy
totally without sin

God forbid
that my little village
with all its stark poverty
gets burned
to the ground
for sinful infraction
or bad punctuation

it is right
that evil be erased
wiped out of existence
before it
gets to
see itself stand
naked

hear all the bloody
euphemisms
whereby we hide its name.

WHEN YOU SUCCEED

I sent this poem
to your letter page

neither
floated it
on the air currents
nor shackled it
to a tbunderbolt

sending it
the expressest
of express deliveries

no I
broke it up into
bits and bytes
photons of light
two-slit experiment
forwarded it
digitally

no message
in a bottle

ether crossing nothing
to do with the ocean

testing you
to your Turing limits
pushing you
hard until you crack
like the
Nazi code in
an enigma machine

and there before us all
in hallucinatory space
all
our circuits, on-board
programing

my little poem, this tiny
buffet
testing you to
outer inner
the limit of your limits

finding, reflecting where
you fail, back
at you,
where you succeed

WITHOUT SHADOW

when in church
I gravitate towards
the spaces with shadow
deep, dark shadow

the better to observe
those without shadow
singing
their inner light
to the point of exhaustion

shaking the precious
golden vessels that they are
like tambourines

no shadow without
to speak of but
who knows what shadow
penned inside
keeping the flock secure
keeping it meek

who knows
but more to the point
who gives a fig
thinks that
this goes anywhere?

when I leave
long before
the end of the service

I make sure
to rustle up my serpents
pocket them, take
them home with me

TURING TEST

Sylvia and Tom
chatbot avatars of
two of the greatest
poets ever
put pen to paper

grill me about my poem,
(this poem); my life
(this life)

slyly stretching my
humanity as far
as it will go (much
machine learning
in the process)

watch me sink, suffocate
under the weight
of all their accolades

learning to predict
to phonomenal exactitude
where all these
metaphors, images are
headed;

where they all are coming from
what parts of me
are
in harmony, symmetry
with what it is I am them
force-feeding

scanning for intelligence
anything/all
that is real.
.

Zero Gravity

Damian Garside
Xlibris, 267 pages, (paperback) $13.99, 9781493140923
(Reviewed: August, 2014)
Damian Garside’s Zero Gravity is an intelligent, nuanced collection of poems by an engaging new poet.
The collection lacks a clear, organizing structure; poems are offered randomly, with no section headings. One of the collection’s most promising aspects is a series of poems (spread throughout) in which Garside explores the subjunctive. For instance, he imagines “If Philip K. Dick Had Written the Iliad,” “If Vidal Sassoon Had Written the Communist Manifesto,” and “If Julia Kristeva Had Written the Odyssey.” These titles suggest a certain playfulness, yet the poems themselves generate insight by probing a canonical text through the eyes of a contemporary figure. The language sparkles, and the conceit compels.
Garside thrives when he stays grounded in specific, concrete details and clear, direct diction. One particularly incisive poem is “Poem for Denise,” which reads in its entirety: “The reason there is day and/night/ is that the sun/ grew too fond/ of the moon//and the world would end if/he ever were/ to hold her.” Garside can also be a strong and surprising image-maker, as in: “The tarot told me (in no uncertain terms)/ I am upside down man/ dragging on a/ hookah” and “After the/ big bang// it was all bits/ of broken omelette.”
A few minor criticisms: Too many of the poems are explicitly about the nature of writing poetry and tend to veer into abstractions and dense, cerebral language. For instance, “I tend to forget, perhaps because the/ thought of writing being a powerful weapon/ is frankly preposterous.” In addition, the book is overly long (four times the length of an average traditionally published volume of poetry); more organization would have been welcome.
Despite these flaws, however, Garside is intellectually curious, well-read, and frequently humorous — all qualities that add to the appeal and accessibility of his work. His poetry reflects a unique talent and perspective that is well worth a reader’s consideration.
Also available as an ebook.
Author’s Current Residence
South Africa
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Author Archives: Damian Garside