Author Archives: Damian Garside

UNLESS

UNLESS

the meek shalt
inherit the Earth

unless
the meek
are beneath
contempt

snake slithering
leopard crawling
                     bellies
scraping desert
sand or
      black soil

leading you to think
no
   response has been planned
no strategic trap

your low
    and high roads
                       so undermined

Ah yes,
        the Earth as promised
will be theirs

their force an army too
huge, top astute,
     to meek
and mild

        to suffer defeat, be
any way cheated

I say “unless”
          but this is certainty

DOOR

DOOR

there
is a gate
between
us

one of us
cannot, dare
not enter

the other
has the power

there is a
gate
   between us

exactly as, and
totally different from,
how it looks

gate eternal, gate temporary
provisionsal
               and stop-gap barrier

contrary to what
you have told eveybody,
have told me

there is a gate between
                                    us
nothing
        like a door

SO SURREAL

SO SURREAL

O (for black hole)
it has become so surreal
so much
   tunneled under I no
longer feel the ground
to be
   safe
       under my feet

no place to shelter
no place to hide

they sow fire and death
from above, supersonic vampires
(must give our
    instant mistrust to
mythology
        of eagle)

so
  messed up and mixed
the blood that God (so you
tell me)
wants
   to keep apart
        churned together so thick

and who can
demarcate, who can divide

madness from reason, demonic
from divine
     Heaven from Hell?

and you don’t
   have to read up on rapture
to know we are
in Hell

except that place is pure evil,
unmitigated by
                this stupidity
                              that we
see all around us, bombarding us
from all screens

definitve of humanity (no not
science
    or philosophy)

and there are
        chasing the white rabbit
wondering why

no sign of Oz

just bad stand up politicians
so horrible at comedy

should say

              truly terrible
and leave it at that

O for black hole
(this Universe not going well)

SHOW ‘N TELL

SHOW ‘N TELL

show me
your love
don’t
     tell

correction!
after a week of
show
    24/7

words
    have been earned

will
enshrine, augment

then you can tell;
     then we can tell

enthral each other forever
Ooooo in
       the way we
        tell, tell, tell
         

POLITY

POLITY

let me speak
on behalf of all small
creatures

myself having
been  small creature
who survived extincion event

millions of years ago
having grown to the
power that laughs at
they who could not stay
the great lizards

the thunderous power
ever
    expanding power
to destroy this planet
in a moment
on
    a whim
with a single breath

let me speak for the worm
and the millioede, the gnat
and yes, the butterfly

let me speak
      their polity

   their dream of survival,
of creature prosperity

on their behalf
become foreceful, get rhetorical
make a clear case for them

so much
    we owe them in that

should
    not overlook

          in their smallness
   humilitu

let me speak
      for these creatures, lesr
no one speak for them

EARLIER

EARLIER

earlier
   billions of years earlier

you cooked up
a storm in the kitchen

preparing roast, making a
souffle and creating
a Big Bang

    which we now know
happened because of a microwave afterglow that
is its
heat signature

and so
   for your consummate skill
in creating us
   and our
            Universe

you have our
        undying love and deep
                 deep thanks