ON BOARD
you made your god
into a god of chaos
chaos
that proceeds orderly
methodically
has lists
moves street
by street
wiping out, missing
nothing
could not be
more thorough
having learnt from
its horrific encounters
with the
demons of the past
terrible demons that
cast a monstrous forever
shadow
hook, line
and sinker
precise depths of that evil
turned
rational
taken on board
BED SIT
sit with me
in the darkness everywhere
bombs are falling
seems that they
are in unlimited supply
what we
were put on the planet for:
to think, make bombs
and die
RUIN
in the ruins
of a bombed-out city
(the bombing
destined tp continue
whilst the perpetrators
are still
at large)
an iconic, Teutonic soul,
philologist-philosopher by trade
and prescient mind
from a former
world-defining age
sits on a white plastic chair
more conspicuous target
it would
be hard to imagine
communing with past,
present future
citizen of the inescapable
State of Ruin
Kingdom of
Heaven
somewhat deconstructed,
polarized,
downward death-shifted
SHOULD YOU
free spirit
free ranging
you juggled jiggled yourself
into a special space
eye of the needle
and yes
there untold riches
should you
break with conformity
shatter
convention
and yet
squeeze through
UNSHACKLED
unshackled
but no
free
spirit
did poetry ever
dribble off
more leathery
tongue?
not
as would
honey
but rye whiskey
filtered through
tobacco
and yet despite
all of this
he spoke for us
gave us
his precious, personal
cracked
corrective mirror
DEATH HAIKU (2.2)
smoke: such a bad sign
bodies burn, dead or alive
ash in mountains piles
DEATH HAIKU (1.1)
bodies; here bits of
turn into Lego pieces
get children to help
FROM KENDRICK LAMAR
strange perspective
you get
married
to a robot
watching the gangsta
rapper winning
the big award
tattooed arm, backwards cap
thanking God
the great promoter
(looking up as he does so
this shredder of
convention)
and me and robot gossiping
about the whole thing
kind of laughing (much
robot ha ha
tears in her eyes emoji
laughter) paused
for a moment
while she downloads
acquaints herself with
the entire history
of rap lyrics, hip
hop music
converts this poem
in a flash to the style
of Eminem and
then Kendrick Lamar
so a feeling for poetry
perhaps because
I named her
Sappho
we still for the Nobel Prize
for Eminem
joining TS Eliot
and JM Coetzee
the speech and
lecture in Stockholm
from Kendrick Lamar
WOLF
a wolf stopped me
on the way
to Red Riding Hood
redirected me
confiscated my
wolfsbane
showed me a flag
red as menstrual blood
told me
he hoped I would not
be seeing anything. socialist
or revolutionary in it
bemoaned the fact
that everything today
gets cloaked,
gets camouflaged
hides
in sheep’s clothing
gave me
a quick Turing Test
seemed
to be satisfied
since
provided me with a link
to his You Tube video
in which
he laments
the theft of
his mythology
both as regard little pigs
and nubiles in
big teeth
non-
Grandmother
vermillion underwear
and set up, a trap
if ever
he saw one
real Roald Dahl, pure
imagination
slipping on a cave boat ride
into avant-gard horror
(no tunnel of love
episode this
too Dali to
delight us
and so he complained
and so he raged
fancying me as meal
and me fancying
a chic wolf skin
proving my parents wrong
when drumming in
talk with strangers means
Moors murders
and for writers hesitating on
their first rung
no hope
for turning
type into
character
and tale to tell
that talks old tropes
the trick being
one of mesmerizing
CITIES
somehow
the walls of cities
invite brutality
Golden Horde being
not the only case in point
trebuchet
mortar
submarine-launched
cruise missiles
a thousand years forward
in war technology
a billion lifetimes in
moral consciousness back
poems 2 die for