Author Archives: Damian Garside

AT APPOMATTOX COURTHOUSE

AT APPOMATTOX COURTHOUSE

proceedings were held up
because the burgers and cokes
had not arrived

then they
        stopped shirts, swopped swords

slavery remained the elephant in the room

it was either kiss and makeup
or unconditional surrender

Arnold Schwartzenegger was playing General Grant
the Rock (naturally)
was playing the ghost of Stonewall Jackson
Charlie Sheen
was totally miscast as Robert E Lee

he rolled ten singles in succession
and so Vicksburg fell
and Pickett’s charge was defeated

unfortunately this doesn’t mean shit
because the Japs and the Krauts
invaded on alternate history Netflix

they promised to
have a comnerative reunion meeting
when the time felt right

slavery remained the elephant in the room

(a room
      nobody bothered to, didn’t
even think to clean)

FROM THE SOUTH

FROM THE SOUTH

South gives you an
wrong-way-up perspective

right way up
as we
see it
    though

blood rushing
    to your head, helps
you think better

in the Tarot
      nobody clearer
in thought

more clued up
on the road to redemption, than
eye to the sky hanged
upside
      down man

and so
    I spoke to this soul
looking for liberation
and he
      told me what to
tell you

which I
do relay here:

          you are not
              free from
and will
never
be
    free from discrimination
(by the
sharpest of logical
definitions)

if you
do not
    free yourself from
the Liberty
to discriminate against.

FOUND FOOTAGE

FOUND FOOTAGE

I recall
the footage
am

still haunted by it
those days it was so fresh
(I was born
just less than eight years
after the war’s end)

thought
      for a long time
there a level of darkness,
depravity, racist inhumanity
the likes of which
we would
      never
             see again

terrible to say so, but our species
is nothing if not
a creature
of irony

      delighting in proving
(here so glaringly) everyone
horribly wrong

one monstrous darkness disappears
         another

is creating itself

   a darkness whose reversals

were they
       not so cruelly logical
would

     be impossible to understand

at last, I think,
I am beginning to understand

NOTTOKNOW

NOTOKNOW

crash the cymbals
bang the gongs
trumpet the
chosen

for they
are multitude

you are
so holy
you are
so handy

are so
holy handy

you have crucified
more souls this month
than in its entire
history

   did the
little city of Rome

have slaughtered
so many
   seems you
were you
to go Genghis

given permission
from
    up high

and dig a hole
    big enough to bury
all of us

while we all shout “hosanna”
and raise nailed
         fists to the sky

CLOCKWORK

CLOCKWORK

like clockwork
everyday
      somewhere
in the world

a poet
jumps under a train

they know
it’s a poet

because
they find poems

send them to me
to fix, to edit

a labour of love it is
piecing them together
making them
              whole
editing
      out
            all

the
stuff
  that might
derail the project

all the unconscionable hurt
and real raw pain

SOFTLY

SOFTLY
(for Emily
Maitlis)

speak softly
when talking
truth to
power

walk
circuitously
and carry a small
yet not
too insignificant stick

above all
addressing
the voice that
        must
never
be addressed

don’t go for it
call
    sign
    Maverick
like a
shrieking naval jet
on a strafing run

however much
after-action satisfaction
however
      much top dollar

sheer
        redemptive fun

ROSE?

ROSE?

is that
a rose

or is it
a bullet hole?

red rose
red rose

so many of them
slaughtered in the snow
days of
    York and
Lancaster

tried to stitch those
wounds together

but blood still leaking
through that tapestry

carnage
    somehow still
in your
    poetry

freeze
    framed you thought
for all
of history

not forever displaced
from theme to theme