Damian Garside

AT A STADIUM IN LAS VEGAS

the apparition of those Niner faces
in the stadium

blotches
red and white and gold

running on empty
desperate for dopamine

FEEDBACK

“and so cold”
William Carlos Williams

just want to say
you wrecked
my night
my day

my week
my month, my year

my death
my life

playing
like that
coaching like that

do you
not know?

is it not
amongst the so
many things

you do
not know?

MAGWINA

MAGWINYA

do i want
to eat
your magwinya?

well, sugar,
pop the lot
in my mouth

hot
from the oil

and to keep
the Celcius and
Fahrenheit
seriously up there
soaring
everywhere

let’s go to town
with seconds and chilli

crazy red pods and
green eyed demigods

seem to have come
from the heart of
Sirius
core of Betelgeuse

magwinya: South African fast food: deep fried dumplings eaten with a hot vegetable relish and polony

KANSAS GEORGE AND THE FLYING MONKEY

KANSAS GEORGE AND
THE FLYING MONKEY

Hello George
I am
also
George

funny about that
isn’t it
George

people might call it
a coincidence
but there
are no
coincidences

where are
we George?

are you the blue fairy?
are we
    both red fairies?
are we
   the munchkins
are we
     in Kansas, in Oz
somewhere in the 60s
down
     in Hait-Ashbury

carefree
and happy
enjoying
a summer of love

now
don’t go
wicked witch on me George
fall on that
ball all
serious

go total
flying monkey

jumping on that ball
as if it is not
all
just a game.

HELLO GEORGE

hello George
are we in Lyra
is this the star Vega?

good to see
you
we have.the same
name we
could be friends

cannot hear so well
from inside that thing
must be a
space helmet you
are wearing

red and yellow red
and gold we
are so brightly
coloured
this evening

and he you are
mumbling stuff about
yards and downs
and winning
turn overs
and not being
on Vega
but in Nevada
Las Vegas

and completely ignoring me
you have just
jumped on
the ball

BY NAME

Ah, water moccasin

what an ugly smelly
snake
you are

other pit vipers
think you
an embarrassment

feel
species shame

but rattler, bushmaster,
puff adder and copperhead

you kill them
stone dead with

the beauty
and truth of your name.

FISH SWAM

fish swam

for enthusiasm
though tiddler
to a Megalodon

ate one human
breezed rather playful
past
another

part of the regular
carcharodon

learning curve

(who would have thought
the white pointer
so agree
with Aristotle)

EDWARD

if you did write those plays
how wrenching for you

to have instantly disowned them
with the final word.on the page

and what words!
what words!

our best algorithms prove
them yours statistically
one by one
the pieces are found

and
begin to fit

together
and suddenly, quietly
we have
our mirror

plays lost to the man
man lost to the plays

SIX

sometimes
simplicity rules

so much practice until
instilled

becomes
embodied in
perfect delivery

and, talking of perfect,
in your hands
a dossier of
perfect plays

grandmaster chess puzzles
fail to
rival
in their brilliant complexity

but here
we have comedy

see epic antagonists
convulsed with laughter

suddenly the script has the
texture of absurd theatre

longer
than waiting for Godot
waiting for
Super Bowl six

BLUE STAR

blue star
my blue star

keep
shining

when I am gone
keep shining

charm the sleeping world
with memories, stories

of he who
sang such songs
for his lost
Eurydice

that
the rocks, the trees
awoke from their slumber
to share
the beauty of
this sadness

blue star

my blue star

keep shining
help me remember
before I go

why
I am here