Author Archives: Damian Garside

LAST GASP

LAST GASP

last gasp!

every piece is now
in place

but no sooner assembled
that under its own
gravity or something
it falls to piecesp

and so
back to the drawing board
start afresh
labriously connecting
making sure
we find every piece
fits perfectly

but then again
as soon as completed
the pieces fall apart

a lifetime’s work:
the dissolution seems
irresistible

it is such a mission
every time the picture is
different
and yet I could swear
the pieces
are the same
must be
the same

there must be a parable,
an allegory in here somewhere

such a puzzle;
it is such a puzzle
tiny tribulation

for each remaining day

last gasp;
last gasp again

DARK READER

DARK READER

have to be careful
take things
in my stride

scribble at night
penlight, under the covers

and then
should I have something
keep it
under wraps

ghastly if even a word
could find its way
into the wrong hands

the kind of hands
versed in torturous
analysis
iron hard, having trained
for years
in the art
of dark reading

NOTES TOWARDS A SUPREME MUSICAL

NOTES TOWARDS A SUPREME MUSICAL

Wallace”s notes
towards a Supreme Musical

just because
we happen to sing in tune
together

does not have the logical
consequence we going
to get
married or
anything

as far as I can see
life is not and can
never be
a supreme musical
though the enriching
of your technicolour might
say
otherwise

might point to glorious
constellations
that don’t exist
have not
be truly conceived
of as yet

even if
the lyrics of your songs
harmonize around imagination
and supreme fiction

doesn’t mean anything
beyond meaning beyond all

meaning
any meaning at all

SEA ARABIAN

Back where
I started not
quitw back.where everything started in
our two hundred million
year galactic rotation

I blow into the tiny sail of my
home-made ketch
sending it across the
puddle which is
now my sea Arabian

trading for spices not
for blasphemous, iniquitious things that Empires
need for gold
and glory

seeking out
fine wines and art and
cloth of great magnificence

trading with
what little I have to give

did not occur to me (since my
play play world
did not aspire to the realm
of thought experiment)

how toy boat is in motion, I am
in motion
planet is in motion
everything is in motion
at fantastic velocities

everyrhing, though there will.be
buy-outs, investitures, mergers
acquisitions, collisions,
the mighty galaxy,
Andromeda, blue-
shifting our way
whilst the rest of the Universe
hurtling away from us

moving so fast their light
disappearing

soon
not a hint of what was
out there
to remain

something in our hearts
perfect for such darkness

as I search the visible heavens
for stars with Arabic names

kingly stars, to guide my
puddle-boat as it navigates
its waters

dark drowning waters
so many stars even

captured in
my splash of puddle ocean
wish to
last until morning

reflection of the shifting
nature if the cosmos
(same puddle quite
obviously never
sailed the same time)

and the vagaries of
our time, human
time

with its moments of light
sagas of epic
darkness
disaster

unspeakable monstrosity

magic city of Baghdad
namer of these stars

its people slaughtered across
the sands more than the stars

far more far more

stood
in the path
of the golden horde

and my little ketch
so worse for wear,
battling nights
of all weathers

soon to be lost
wrecked upon some shore

back where it
we started:
movement
our purpose
movement
our all

MAESTRO

MAESTRO

maestro
coverts everything into
four cubed

you and I see
trees and grass
but he sees pawns
and
major pieces

Kings and Queens in a
stylized death dance

can predict their required steps
six moves ahead this is how

his needle-sharp
fine-margined world
is choreographed

and you and I taking
world more multiple, less
polar, binary

awash
in all that green

you thinking how lovely
memorable as lived
here and
now
sensory (if not
sensual) real
experience

me, anguished at the thought
I might just mess
up the meaning of
all of this

in my
inescapable, all of
a sudden

win or lose
attack at a poem

DEMON

DEMON

I’m a
shit poet

with a name
that sounds
like “demon”

so go ahead
demonize me
Frankenstein monster me
Salem witch trial me
send
me to Guantanamo
have me up
before
the House Committee

in an ideal world you house
will have long gone and
you
and your House Committee

will no longer seem vital
for the protection of
power and
reputation

will be a footnote
to a footnote

to
this poem
(we demons know
best revenge and shit

poet or not

how to
take care
of our horrible little selves)

MATCHSTICK

MATCHSTICK

was thinking of
a thougjt experimemt
with matchstick men

not involving
time and sunbeams

light
split by gravity
from
a distant galaxy
a million years
took to get here

who knows how
much has changed
if anything is
left there

or it can give me fuel
for my thought experiment

which involves
imagining a world
where these figures of
matchstick
do not keep ending up
setting themdelves alight

or fattening themselves up
with demonic projection
with shadow matter
to become
multi-dimensional, warpers
of the fabric
of the Universe
in their
own right

building such figures
in their own image

only
able to
self-duplicate

hold in each flawless hand
the truth, the logic
every secret of fire

key to
forever advancement

sublime destruction

POEM IS

POEM IS

poem is
the private show

no one
can vote you out of

I see no very British
person giving me
a killer crit
sitting in
a swivel chair

Simon says
Simon says do you see

a Simon says
anywhere in this poem?

do you see any cameras
there to open my world
to your
every surveillance?

strategically placed for every possible

secret revelation

to thrill you
to the core with
the unquestionably banal