Author Archives: Damian Garside

NOT YET WORLD

NOT YET WORLD

I received (or perhaps found)
a poem from the future
which I lacked
the technology
to wake
from its cryogenic sleep
(in this state presumably
that it might be
preserved
to be read
not in the past but
in their future)

was sure it would
help us resolve
the riddles of
our past
whilst giving at least
some inkling
of our evolution, and
the nature of the .
way technology would
be reshaping us
in order to assume radically redefined transhuman shapes,
perfect for
the pursuit of
exotic directions

and so I sit
using every bit
of ingenuity to
find
my way in

read
text, break
the code

decipher, deconstruct (as far as
I can) the message contained
it appears
to Express take a,precious glimpse into

the assuredly alien,
perhaps
incomprehensible nature of
that not
yet
world

ROCK BOTTOM

ROCK BOTTOM

Playing for
team humanity

I have tried
my best
as have
we all

and yet
we languish at
the bottom
of the league

zero points, expected goals,
goals, assists
the statistics show us
to be
the supreme
soft touch

slaughtered every
game whether
home or away

no match for
the power of every ambitious
all or
nothing
team

   stocked with
foul misanthropes and
cheating galacticos.
 

BRUNO

BRUNO

the stars above you
the flowers
around you

from where
you stand now
stare down St Peter
the Vatican lies
dead ahead
if infinite worlds
then
infinite knowledge
infinite wisdom

it seems axiomatic
but as fire closes
the case
denies everything

that wisdom and
knowledge
are cosmic
soulmates
forever to embrace,
walk arm in
arm

is becomes clear that
this is an argument
the laws
    of logic might
in this instance
have declined to make

LITTLE TUNE

LITTLE TUNE

“a funny little tune
but it yielded some
good things” AMADEUS
(dir. Milos Forman, 1984)

hope there
is something here
you might conceivably
run with

an idea you might reshape,
rephrase most interestingly

for why am I here, bothering
with this
    if not to inspire, steer
in right direction

write
      as heartfelt tribute that you
might further enhance

as lifelong struggle to
attain what
momentous effort
labours
      to perfect

gets swept
away by human genius
   

BACK THEN MACBETH

BACK THEN MACBETH

watched Shakespeare’s Macbeth
with all of my school class
back then in the sixties
marvellous setting: an outdoor
stage in a park.
surrounded by woods

and me in the front row
suddenly suprised by
my Jewish classmate
rushing up
to sit next to me
let me share her blanket

and so,
we watched the play
(later I would audition
at this same theatre
to join the cast, as an extra,
in Anthony and Cleopatra

later
as a student, and as an intrigued
observer of the authorship
controversy, would
take Shakespeare in
fat doses, not exactly
in quantities though
to take me up
to my ears

but then I thought
good things in woods, bad
things in
woods
   soldiers with tree branch
camouflage to peversely
help realize
hidden divine justice
at the heart
of evil prophecy

and as for Lynne
with her blanket
        she got me in her
school play, saw
her around at University

wondered about
magic and
evil
    and things beyond
human understanding,
re-defining the limits of
malignity and cruelty,
hatred of other
politics
   of pure power, fear
and revenge

a witches’ concoction
brewing away in
the dark
core of
    this darkness, deep heart
of the forest

I wonder now
what we all
of made of it, how it
shaped us
    in what ways we
too might think, dream
of murder,
         the grasping of power
believing
it is what we deserve

back then
Macbeth, for three solid hours,
prisoners of that imagination