PLEDGE
I would have pledged
allegiance
to the planet
but the planet
doesn’t much like me
wants me dead,
or so I fear,
for it
has good reason
so I would pledge
to busy-body about
writinv stupid little satires
like that one
and this one
insread of getting down
on my hands and knees
cleaning
trying to
restore your majesty
restore your glory
all super-
reflective, super shiny
but not your power
I balk at that, have grave
reservations about
what that
power can do
FURTHER
it is amazing
what pressure pushes
a sapling through the soil
think I read a poem
about that once
furthermore,
it”s amazing, history tells us
how slowly, when the poets are
gathered to watch,
the leaves fall
and how they blaze
drifting downwards
less earth
in their nature
more air, and fire,
history tells us too
all you need to know
about mythology
and meaning of tree
how trees weep, bow, fling
out there arms in joy
or gather, in deepest irony,
to watch us
at our darkest
knowing how, in sacred
fable
we once fell
observe us, the chemistry
of rebirth
locked into
their sap fall further, much further
STONE’S THROW AWAY
I think there is a moment
of pure clarity
but then it goes
then everything goes
never having experienced
any such clarity, indeed
anything pure
I am at a loss
to extend you an image
provide a metaphor
but
time draining away
like someone of something
nicked
its artery
that moment of clarity
of deep and complete
change in perception
must be near
if not at hand
but a stone’s throw away
it is amazing
what pressure pushes
a sapling through the soil
think I read a poem
about that once
furthermore,
it”s amazing, history tells us
how slowly, when the poets are
gathered to watch,
the leaves fall
and how they blaze
drifting downwards
less earth
in their nature
more air, and fire,
history tells us too
all you need to know
about mythology
and meaning of tree
how trees weep, bow, fling
out there arms in joy
or gather, in deepest irony,
to watch us
at our darkest
knowing how, in sacred
fable
we once fell
observe us, the chemistry
of rebirth
locked into
their sap
fall further, much further
BACKRANK
I play chess
to take my mind
off the darkness
but the light squares
they blind me
and I fall into the void
that is
a black square
and the pieces glower
at me when
they are captured because
I was begligent
or blundered into a mistake
but I am determined
that however long it takes
I will have
my first victory
even if I have
to sacrifice everyrhing
i cpuld or might have
been
to win that
single little game
GOOGLY YOU
did google you
noticed, to my surprise
you got googly eyes,
and you, in turn,
not too
enarmoured at
what you did goggle
our focal lengths extremely
dissonant to
mix tune
and image
and so those photons
zipping past us
long sighted, short-
sighted as well
as opposite ends of the spectrum doppler-
shift speaking we missing each other
firing blanks from the hip
need to take our cue
from hunter-gatherer- making-a-
killing
savants out there
who need neither scope
nor cross-hairs to
nail true significant other
with one single
(or double) flash
sniper centrefold shot
and you may
take it to the bank and
that’s
a social media fact
CLOUDS
the clouds, who
whilst they
have hidden so much,
equally so
have seen it all
everything before
came scudding my way
to whistleblow their truth
that evolution in
human favours the rich
and rotten
the denizens of
deep comfort zone who
will live
and die (but so yes-but,
and grudging absolute end of the day delay
on mortality) passing on
their inheritance
to generation the next
producing this fine stock
out of
which we might dream
of the future utopia
no, as the clouds did indeed
take pains to explain,
evolution does not
sieve, does in
no way strain
strip cream from dross
amongst what does
rise to the top
evolution is not a miner
up in the Yukon
for gold hard a-panning
no evolution just looks and laughs
wondering what its
mutations might mean
LANTERN
bottle rocket
ship lantern
nothing so poignant
in my humble opinion
braving the dark pond, the calm lake
that is the ocean
that is the immensity of
intergalactic space
soaring high, showing the stars
what we are worth
how we can make stars
that explode and fall
with our chemistry wisdom
every
colour of the rainbow
(where in the cosmos
star that burns lilac,
star that
burns lime green?)
the stars our audience here
so tiny from our perspective
our moment of
triumph
ecstasy the dead Universe
out there has never felt for itself, seen
the like of
no feared fable of entropy
the lantern boats sail, burn
are consumed, sink
disappear
tiny energy, cause
and effect
to perfection
our hearts hopes
on that little
Odyssey with you
the morning rain turning all
those spent cardboard tubes
to mulch
the stars
in recess, no doubt
conferring such distances involved,
such titanic energies
doubtless stirred into some
kind of reaction by
all our performance
STONE
they support life,
are Goldilocks planets
like our own
scattered through space
and you can find them
like the islands Odysseus
hopped
from, one to ths other, on his journey back from Troy
to his beloved Ithaca from.the arms of Circe and
Calypso to damn-near the
intestines of Polyphemus, the Cyclops into his grear marital bed hewn from a tree to be with his loyal
wife Penelope waiting for him
all those years
which analogy ends for me
befpre ig has begun
no parallels for me in
this seminal, archetypal tale
not even in
James Joyce, or in
the Stanley Kubrick versions
but my sensibility remains
Homeric, Greek,
strangely Pagan
as i somehow find myself
before Medusa, the Gorgon
feeling my
brain atrophy, everything
I am, or thought I was,
hardening, petrifying,
turning
to stone
Medusa, twisted punished
serpemt coiffured demi-
goddess
who could turn the great
gas giant of our system
into a pebble into
a statue
to Zeus
this planet of rock becoming
more rock
submerged rock
and we all waiting wondering,
mesmerized, as if in Medusa’s
snake-like
laser-scoped toxic
vision and like her victims knowing
inescapable transformation has begun
Odysseus sailing the seas
chased by Poseidon
ruler over all
the waters
fish-teeming, such waters can
be walked across I belive
by ultimate
creatures, beings of
redemption
maybe now I am stone
Medusa’s stonethey could use me,
deploy me as a tablet
upon which
to write these things
as they look for Goldilocks planets
look for Ithaca
find us
and our home
i
DISTANCE
There will always be
some distance between us
because we arenot the same person
and gender-different, and
race-different too
and other minor, pin-point
differences
to different to
mention
need to take them all
into consideration, subject
to close-
careful evaluation
lest we be led to conclude
upon way too superficial analysis
no two creatures in the galaxy,
let alone our smallish
Goldilocks planet could ever be more similar; less short of same ,
poems 2 die for