Damian Garside

NO SURPRISE

no surprise
this is just a mirror
and you know mirrors

see yourself there
wondering how the light
could figure you out at all

no depth you have
is what you assume
perhaps
definitively conclude

but when the reflection
moves first, poses
a question
how can you
be so sure?

and who is meant to
act nonplussed

downplay the magic that
undeniably exists

something transformative
in the air you pick up an image

try to place its scent
hold it
up to the light

strange how it
lets itself
react
to your presence

PLENITUDE

now where in the great book
does it speak of plenitude?
because I
did not get any
get any at all

so I mistrust these books
these books of huge substance
that say everything
supposed to call
angels, summon semons

but in terms of my
small wealth of experience

these texts of divine good
and implacable evil

do not bring forth
hosts
and legions

just suggestions to
temper a cosmos
of sublime
or supreme indifference

with sad and small
and limited revelation

all cool breeze or,
contrarily, hot air

CAN (NO LESS)

Poetry is what is read
as poetry

no more; no less

that fat book of prosody
that you bought
(so heavy
in hardback)
is mission wasted unless
you fancy yourself as sonneteer
or the bloke with
the penchant to pen
the occasional rondeau
or vilanelle

as for me, as you can see
pretty much an
ignoramus when it
comes to things prosodical

indeed things strict and linear
not entirely my bag

read me (if read me
you must, by compulsion
or insistence)
forwards backwards
upside-
down

head to tail in oxygen-rich
atmosphere
or zero-gravity

your poem your choice

read me
any way you like
way you can.

WHISPER

wrote you a poem
not for reading
not for reciting
either

this is sweet, sly
little poem

decidedly
for whispering

straight into
that small, soft ear

breaking into
tiny, petal-like
downward fluttering pieces

every false barrier
every
fourth wall

fall
of Jericho:
their bricks and mortar
seen to
magically
dissolve

SPIRAL

Must check
the physics of its orbit

for I feel the planet
is off course

its circular pathway
around the Sun
has gone into a spiral
a downward corkscrew
nothing
Fibonacci about it
regular
or golden

this is what you get
when you give
the keys to the door
to a gang of
stupid, selfish
power hungry apea
who
in their hubris
branded themselves
“humanity”
set themselves, in
their imaginations,
to conquer
the galaxy

let us just
take a solemn moment
to laugh at that now

Train (Snowpiercer)

You’re going on a cross-country trip. Airplane, train, bus, car, or bike?

SCREEN

Need to get
with our twelve-
step program

say no to
lassitude, polysemy
and poetry

soon you will wake
from high-definition dream
to high-definition reality

will be like watching
every channel through
the clearest
of all screens.

GARNISH

I have eaten crocodile
which means, in the grand
scheme of things

I am
one up on you

bacon and
rice-pudding being,
to the best of my knowledge
neither forbidden
fruits; nor
in any way exotic vegetables
such as might
truly flavour my poetry,
garnish this
particular text

it’s only my love life
that could possibly be
considered spicy

huge flesh fetishes here
and commodification
of lust interesting to see

where it leads, this stripping
away of the rituals that
assure satisfaction
via surfeit of sensuality

to that austere conjunctive
morality and cold, soulless

pornography, rapid-fire supremacies leading to
ultimate in
orgasm, true
labour-system test

the less hint of nuance,
imaginatively the best

I have
eaten crocodile, like
eating river itself.

FREELY

Muse
is not taking my calls
think she has blocked me

I imagine her sitting
in a cafe reading The Paris Review
drinking an aperitif

not wondering or
worried about me
in the slightest

or why it should be, despite
the myriad reasons not to

I have sacrificed my life for her
given her
love her
so much for those who

know nothing of her power
are so happily immune
to her seductive beauty

selling
her soul unashamedly
giving
herself freely.

Author Archives: Damian Garside