Author Archives: Damian Garside

THIS PLAY

THIS PLAY

I came to the play
               in suffering

Hamlet this night
sure to be my guy
having pencilled him in

but no sooner ghost-talking
guards appeared on the parapet

then down in the audience
war broke out
        between those who
swear by
William of Stratford, and
              those who proclaim
a new king
by name of de Vere

sad that either way we
facing some
         serious anonymity

which is hard for any writer
     but perhaps par for
      the greatness course

I am told these poor folks
put their whole
        souls into it

and next time you scan
not a single bone remains

spiritual, symbolical, material
not a shred
     of connecting evidence

it’s like the stuff
  wrote itself or
             ethereal hand
              blessed the page

no chance here to debate
learning
        versus innate craft, the role
pain played in it

of trace of the causality that
produced this irreplaceable shape

         and there we are
watching, dreaming

          as it
all goes down without us

pale reflection of being
         perhaps not even

bridge
      best we can be, bridge
broken or
magnificent

Hamlet
dead again
      
                 as always

In state of acute longing some suffering,
      I came this play.

KILLER

KILLER

daleks and poets
it is the old antagonism

they have their bombs
and wire and goebbels-bibles

we have
      our metaphors and
satire that can kill

and now we are free range
and open targets
                  better we genocide
them “the people” say

but
   we are sitting
           on ancient weapons,
your words
    rallying to our cause are
exposing your
bleakness
       rebelling against you

even
as you speak
         (if you call it speech)

and

      come to think of it

cowboys and aliens

in the sacred spot of their
crash landings

        this is a juicy antagonism
turned connection

the cosmos putting this
planet to
                     strangest use
(a poem
       here
                      never
           make the news)

MR GLADWELL

MR GLADWELL

Oh Mr Gladwell
I am playing chess
writing poetry

writing poetry
playing chess

playing
             poetry

writing      chess

my brain has become
a RORSCHACH blot

there
     is blood all over
the board

strange body fluids
all over the page

wanted to be a kind of genius
but I’m dissolving into
nothingness

         Mozart composing symphonies
still at the breast,

                 working out
the arias for his operas

from within
     his pauper’s grave.

B ALL (and end all)

B ALL (and end all)

what’s the monolith?

and what’s a monolith
doing here in our
                          simple
B movie?

did you, my extraordinarily
intelligent darling
            bring it onto
the set
     write it into the script even?

seeing eye to
                      digital eye
communing secretly, talking
                                  telepathically
in binary code, arcane
subtext, hidden
                 hieroglyphics?

stretching yourself to the  limit
to receive the advances
of super-
             advanced alien

higher consciousness
to higher consciousness

                          (raw) red eye
to (raw) red eye

parallel line
                   to parallel line

biomechanical to organic
in endless feedback loop

ALONG

UK OK (not so very)

        still solid
    (courtesy of Victorian
architecture)

crazy high aquaducts
    (now exactly what
               do they do?)

university I went to
down main road manchester
freshly
    returned from
south africa

settler colonial
(apartheid to
           god knows who else
and me
and you)

but on that diet of dismal
how stuff going to grow properly?

how stuff going to flourish
when for best moral fibre
getting
     force-fed gloom

red, white, blue
flag should be slate grey and
colour
     most exploitative

see your politicians now
scared at the thought
                               people

might
     have their
                       own ideas

university down oxford street
(or was it road?)
                 taught me something
about the
    economic of F and K
(plaque proclaims
them
                    the previous tenants)

anarchy
OK OK    strawberries
spoiled, by
                      this time
was
          the late 70s

ust rattle your cheap jewellery here
                                  and I’ll
imagine
            in falsetto

less than happily singing along
        

JERICHO

JERICHO

Let me project this for you
                                onto a screen

proof positive that
we never learn from the past
about our shadow

and there
         like Babel, like Jericho
it all falls down

the air
      you cannot breathe, the crops
you cannot eat

such a price to pay for
all our vulnerabilities, for
all the exaggerated postures
of our fears

for all the bricks and mortar and
wire that we need

the concrete shelters that
we build

     the all-seeing eye
focus nought to infinity that
                      we believe

the memory of ashes
       that we can never leave.

BOX SET

BOX SET

she came
in a box

I put her together
easier than Lego
more intricate
than Meccano

no gears and sprockets
and chains and pulleys

took fabulous care
assembled every piece lovingly

in no time
she was together
            all
up
  and running

came specially to thank me

thanks so profuse
can last

a very long time