Damian Garside

LINE

It was cold
freezing cold

so I started burning books
to get warm
enough to survive
survive
and wrote poetry

I burnt
my entire library
but all
I came up with
was a poor, single, line.

AT ALL

readers refused me
doors, windows,
mirrors,
refused me

when I disappoeared
nobody cared
nobody knew

it was as if
I never existed
as if I did exist
yet didn’t at all

RIVER

was crying
for myself
and not
for humanity

pretty shameful this
when you think about it

those tears
dribbling down my cheeks
like watching
Field of Dreams
the final scene

where crying
for everbody, for
us all

there
tears would flow
like a giant, winding river

OFF THE PAGE

I was writing about
the world
but it all
got very
faint
and small

like a film dissolve
set to permanent

and those strong words
powerful words
there to express
energy, vigour,
passion, life

went elsewhere;
refused to show
their faces

leaving me
in my watercolor world
pigments merging
everything
that might have made
this a poem
dripping off the page

SHUT

close your eyes
it is better
to read this poem
with your eyes shut

lest these words dazzle
trick you, seduce you
lead you off
on a dance
of disaster

as, from the very beginning,
they have me
they have me

eaten me up
entirely

ON THE OTHER HAND

Aphrodite passed it to me
bade me drink
and drink deep

mistakenly, I took it
for a love potion, but
those are
I believe somewhat bitter
this, on the other hand,
was sweet
to the taste

that taste
long and lingering
until it
began to fade

and
everything too

HEAR

wrote you a poem
but you said
you preferred silence

so I doused dampened down
the lines made them quiet
as can be

forbade
everything from shouting,
speaking, making
a sound louder
than a whisper

and I would love
my poem to sidle up
right up
to your ear
almost say
all the things I want to say
that you say
you dare
not hear

IN THE CORNER

in the corner
a bucket of nothing
full of nothing
under a sign
never to peer inside

for no one can tell
(though we all hypothesize)
the true threat
of nothing

what it might
do to us
how deeply
it might
skew things

infect our Universe
run riot on the inside
end body and mind

or just
open a doorway
to paradox
upon paradox
mystery
within mystery

get us, searching
for final
ultimate truth

truth
by its promise
presumed depth
and nature

way
above our pay grade
impossible to find

IMMORTALITY

you are still here
but your body
is buried
in a thousand graveyards,
has been
reduced to
handfuls
of ash scattered across
a range of locales

you should know death
so intimately, but
are none the wiser

have no kind of access
to all these fatal histories

and so
it still continues this
curse of life since
consciousness. horrifically,
is forever
is immortal

that sleep of sleeps, that
fruit
    of the fall
most
   ingrained wish
just
   a fantasy

you still here and the
you that is here
forever survivor
blessed with
the curse
of immortality

hard luck trying
to disappear

ALMOST MEMORABLE

a floating feeling
my inner snake checking in
with me sadly, peering
into my eyes and
then it disappears

I wish it well, God I’m
going to miss him
so much
he gave me, made
this almost memorable,
made it
almost worth living

but now floating out freely
with the current, along
this river
of darkness,
not a care in the Universe

all my stars going out
down to the last sprinkling
and then they disappear