Author Archives: Damian Garside

TUXEDO

TUXEDO

tuxedo
is name of
the game

you file your suit
hoping
     to agree
of definitions

promise not to fight
over whether
this or that
homonym
accidental or
         intended

all puns here
quite intended

but here they all are
creatures
      of the South
my fellow-travellers

fat portfolio in their satchels
speaking in each codicil
humanity out loud

arguing
      that a single sluk of
this evil
can
    erase angelic face
pollute the God-given concept
of eternal, outright righteous

hold mirror up to Emperor
to deconstruct
      all mind of god

yes
   a time when
courage must be superhuman
to vouch for
           civility, decency

to put us on the spectrum of
one indivisible being

and this to argue
          before history, in
tuxedo

lest the lie, the quite lie
the brutal lie, the truth
denying
        crushing line

find its path to become supreme
    

RUBBLE

RUBBLE

my poem
lies under rubble

dead, asphyxiated
would be on
life support

but
there is no life
is no support

my poem
is getting
amputated

will lose a whole page
has already
lost
    stanza
after stanza

without antibioticd
without anaesthetic

each line screams
as they cut
through
bone

you will have forgotten
these words
and the mass graves
of those
that have
spoken them

as you stare into the sunset
across the Mediterranean
from
    your beautiful
seafront property

looking out towards Greece
the rubble
          of great Troy

and the gods
       of Homer’s world

SHOOT

SHOOT

shoot
what moves

you can wash
your mouth out later

top
up again, be carefree

who cares what
you did, what you said

still out there
got stuck somewhere

but maybe
water not strong enough
need to
liberally swish with
concentrated acid

something stronger
than any dream juice
than you could
possibly imagine

take you head off before
full rewire

SIMPLY PUT

SIMPLY PUT

am here
for my brain
wash

get a new, shiny
gloss

am so excited
about the process

feel so
out of synch
with the world
        today

everybody
thinking
  another way

so hard to
      adapt if
short on
cynicism
      lacking
stupidity

am here
  for my brainwash

things
    from here
on in

going to
simply improve

SHINY

SHINY
.
people
become evil
it happens
every
day

especially
the shiny ones

in all they do
and
say

people
become liars
it happens
every day

they gibble
gobble goebbels
the
   truth

it happems
every day, every
single way

and who do it
best? you ask
well who
    could it

be but
the shiny ones

justified in
every single
              lie

lie
upon lie

because they
       are

the ones who
need
    to shine

day in
    day out, day up

day down
    the only

shiny side

they
are the shiny side

CURLED

CURLED let me take a break from being a political animal writimg to protect humble humanity from true zealots of God missionaries who taste like, smell like (a bit too much sulphur there in with the holy napalm, cordite white phosphorous) feel I have to speak for them nobody listening when they speak for themselves (but now from the South some eighty-four page document so much devil in that detail some holy spokesperson said) time for me to go snake style serpent sidle up next to you slither out of fighting for humanity to fighting for you or just curling up close forked tongue doing the talking flickering into every hidden secret place ultra-sensitive your own true King Cobra we need you if not to entertain then pay (at least) lip service to our huge fantasies we souls of the great serpent born in the snake year

FARM STORY

FARM STORY I am all farmed out Tick tock me here on your doomsday clock on the farm you will see I need my tik I need my beautiful tribe of B to get me atomic golden shower of abracadabra (hashtag Hasbara) help me to isolate myself stand against every creature, every animal calls itself humanity doesn’t rwconize tgd beauty of a bunker buster pure cluster bomb (failing which there is always the nuke in the cupboard) but this just the beginning every true alpha needing its omega its sky raining gamma needed to sort out everything unspeakable that crawls yes my dear saviours in your sanctified flavours need to demonize every farm imsect out here every stick of farm produce every evil land mime of flower only B’s Heavenly true propaganda hits the spot righf spit can correct my poor eyes attune to the power show things as really are.

CHALLENGED

CHALLENGED

Like all criminals
I am arithmetically challenged

cannot count up to,
never mind beyond
20,000

    so many integers missing
fractions and
decimals
     buried under the rubble

so levy your articulate  accusations
against me

that I am
        chlld of darkness rapist
animal in
league

      with the Devil

go through the text, this text,
if not the eighty-odd
closely argued
pages

and we shall see
before Heaven and Earth

whose soul
    is damned here

awaits
historical damnation.