Author Archives: Damian Garside

SPECTACLES

SPECTACLES

my spectacles
are too foggy
for this world

this world
is too foggy
for these
spectacles

you may
call this
serendipity

but I call
it shit

unable to
see anything
past my
nose

no hope of
validating
even the mildest
of all
these

global
conspiracies
some
of course

with their
own spectacular fog machines

CONSIDERATION

CONSIDERATION disconnect uncouple float around taking it all in the beauty the existential the abstract all that is in this supposed simulation riven with torture carnage unspeakable pain and why if it is all a phantom supremely a fiction why is it of such deadly import what we think, what we say why are there lies we must all be cultivated to believe in propaganda from Heaven every single say

OF THE AGE

OF THE AGE lies live lies survive lies fly all over the place so much destruction in their wake their instinct being to replicate split like mutant cells divide and be careful how you yourself do define for here service to the lie loses the light goes completely blind for shadow has shown too easy it be to mistake the love of a death embrace become the thing we fear we hate the beautiful hypocrite of the age the lie in us so consummate

HOLES

HOLES

there are holes in the paper
places of quicksand

the words cannot
traverse this broken landscape

move at pace
across the page

shocktroop you with
tactical juxtapositions,
lightning images

no
the whole nature of
poetry has changed

those books on mechanized modernism
      so obsolete (ultimately
so) better
thow
   them away

                  only good
for metaphor

subtext is where
                   the power now
lies

RANCH (BACK AT THE)

RANCH (BACK AT THE) here’s a tough thought for a tough time anarchy fresh from the UK back at the ranch we desperately playing scrabble to unscramble everything twisted out of shape fallen out of line as definition drifts; seems like we fresh out of tiles to tile subtle find our groove, roof liberty’s lexicon (defunct form roof) make what will stand outstand outlive this funk test of time (canary in a cage) as our mosaic now wakes (leave this here as my missive on our most ambitious take)

LIONHEART

LIONHEART Oh Mars Oh Venus saw Richard F surfing bonkers bongo through the quantum foam at CALTECH there is a box inside which is a box containing a cat being thought experimented by Erwin Schrodinger but Niels Bohr proclaims the only language of the atom to be poetry whilst which Richard handles every marauding Pacific great white with aplomb conjuring up the body of Aphrodite as subatomic delight (being born under Taurus, her love sign) and this this mess my pen itself insists I write down to every point of gravity every unique quark

NO EASY MEASURE

NO EASY MEASURE

there are many ways
to start a poem
maybe an image, a theme
a rhythm
    bouncing
around in your head
snake-like
    rasp of  word

many ways too,
to enter a poem
linear or
       non-linear
syntactic
or symbolic

feeling your way
set to full tactile

             or up
for helicopter shot
to view
    as mosaic
put
everything
in perspective

then
fill in the detail
                induced, deduced
seduced
at your pleasure

although
          linger on
this thought
if you will, let us dissect
this
dark treasure

only
fair to point out,

to leave a poem, however,
(speaking
      of seduction)
is no
easy measure

here is the poem
here is we are
                     unexpectedly
together

not so many ways down
from that height
this height,
routes
     out of the labyrinth
                              this
labyrinth

safe and
   without cost

hardly enough
    to count on the
fingers
of one hand

so many surrendered
to the poem, dissolved,
got
   absorbed by
poetry

something about
the beauty
    of this python still
to comprehend

as it
   closes the circle
you now mine forever