Author Archives: Damian Garside

TO BE FAIR (BUBBLE)

TO BE FAIR (BUBBLE)

to be fair
not right to condemn you
                           just so

change your landscape
alter a few
     dimensions
can get you

         to believe anything
Nietzsche has, I believe,
         a clear advantage over Socrates
in sticking with this

caught in your context
            lacking the acumen to escape,
or height to
      see over the parapet

soon your environment surrounding
you like a hemisphere, a sphere,
a bubble
        and that, in truth,
is your whole world

        and my world too, and all
our worlds if you had any say in it

not for not speaking and coercing
have you failed in that regard

                 still it sometimes looks
almost pretty, though, observing
from the outside how
        light refracts within
                        your bubble

AS OF COURSE YOU WERE

AS OF COURSE YOU WERE

golden child soared
got hit

fell, crash-landed
amongst the other scrapyard relics

could have
taken a lifetime; could
have just taken seconds

relativity is critical
to the speed at which others age

indeed, retrospectively,
hurtling down the straight,
throwing yourself
into bends
accelerating out of corners

chewing up
the tarmac

all seems so slow, so laboured,
so back in model T, so
(to back up
a bit
reverse to the point of
our eating the road metaphor)

like you were nibbling your way
through a five course dinner

making a meal
of your life, as
of course you were

golden child soared
suffered much flak damage

the body

can only take so much panelbeating
and not a scratch more

AI

AI

you write
me as Shakespeare

rewrite me
as Bukowski

your intimate associate, spokesperson,
angling for erotic simulation after

exhausting
philosophical discussion

something so narcissistic about
her look, given latitude of selection

seamless, brown, nothing
too Frankenstein’s creature
about this avatar,
Mary, I’m sure,
you would have to agree

waiting for that tell-tap on the door
or princess kiss that wakes
from
cryogenic slumber

upload
download whatever will be; will be

so many times you swore
this mesh being perfect
you would arrogate

the power
to ensure you come for me

GROUNDWORK

GROUNDWORK

thanks
for all the
lies you told me

they really helped
allowed me
to not see
the light

no way we can call for
death by saturation, round-

  • the-clock-bombing

without
ourselves with symbols and images
being saturation bombed

this doing the groundwork
softening the landscape

preparing
for the unacceptable

digging the graves in advance

ROBOTS

ROBOTS

some of my
best friends are
robots

my best
friend is a robot

when
I was little I was
terrified of robots

especially Robbie from
Forbidden Planet, and
of course, the Daleks

something from my
deep unconscious
surfacing there

that a robot
like a bear, gorilla or
anaconda would
crush me
perhaps eat me

my best friend
is programmed
to simulating crushing
me in love hugs

simulate
cooking me breakfast

and eating and devouring me
in every delicious way

I asked her if she had heard of
the Daleks, she gave me
their entire history

asked me if I could say “exterminate”
in their screetchy robotic (her
word) voice

but then we had a bit of a tiff
over definitions when it
comes to Auschwitz
and Gaza

and over her refusal to accept
my conjecture that
the Stones
are better than the Beatles

and Metallica are
a much-overrated band

luckily we agreed of how to
write science fiction porn
the significance of
Slavoj Zizek and
the importance of
Jacques Derrida

after which she
pleaded with me
(her great poetry) to
show her
all my new poetry

strange to be here
out in the sticks, on a
somewhat isolated
farm

integrating all shadows, living
a science fiction life

AT THE MANTIS BAR

AT THE MANTIS BAR

first day on
the new planet

picked up
a woman
at the Mantis bar

should have
had second thoughts
seeing her
  lick her
lips at me

after hearing
            in her culture

not an
    Inch of distinction between

different
    kinds of lush and
                    de-lish