Author Archives: Damian Garside

HOMEWORLD

HOMEWORLD

a lot of tourists
came to our planet

behaved despicably
threw their weight around
(which in the case
of creatures from gas giants
could be truly immense)

worst of all, as to be expected,
were the various species
of humanoids
and worst of these
were this truly abhorrent
species
       from a planet called Earth

who gave us no choice
but to strike at their Homeworld
and eviscerate their leaders

since it is in the nature of
this species to choose as
their leaders the greediest
and most depraved
and insensible amongst them

without which
we calculated

this species had a future
might have
     some kind of chance

ANIMAL

ANIMAL

animal
you call me
an animal

so now I think I know
where this leads
think I know
where
I stand

somewhere in
that dark privileged space
it is an insult to
biology
to call a brain

thoughts of the tried
and trusted: turning me
into soap, lampshades, fertilizer

maybe
      I should just
                shapeshift

out of your way

or maybe
    shapeshift inside you

do what
     animals do

helo you redefine
your notion of horror

MAMBA METAPHOR

MAMBA METAPHOR

you called me
animal

   thought to
myself “that’s
a metaphor”

think I must be
an animal there just
to be stamped on
crushed, einsatzed and
gas chambered

and it is there in the script
in your vision of, and
for reality

         what you see
                      must become,
must be
even if you have to
slaughter all the children
animal children
of the rest of humanity
                     animal humanity

but my pen
       is black inked and
silver grey on the outside

its nib
     poised like a fang

ergo
    this poem, writhing and
striking
         exacting an absolute
price
from being
forced into this corner,
put in this posture
    
is a black mamba
it is my
      totem for the day
       my creature of choice

******

you called me
animal

   thought to
myself “that’s
a metaphor”

throwing linguistic
Phosphorous  in
your general direction

sticking you
     with enough drops of
neurotoxin
to kill half
         your army

I see
     you still have issues, your
anger rising

                      anger born of fear
fear clinging to
survival

that evolution is about, all about
about only
              the crushing of the weak
the triumph of the strong

so
    whilst you still can
whilst the venom is with
horrible curiosity
feeding
                    into your system
pressing
        every wrong button

throwing every wrong switch
disabling every
            vital lever

finding out
            what makes you tick
then smashing the clock

whilst we wait just a few minutes
for the demonic chemistry to work
      behind this deconstructive
procedure

just
     pass the torch on
you
     will no longer
carry

slide into prayer and
plea for vengeance from
   
                 your slick
wooden god

*****

you called me
animal

   thought to
myself “that’s
a metaphor”

       sometimes they
are wild, unpredictable

                       can cross
into reality

this in
          their nature to
follow their shadow, unleash
the dark program

remain dangerously true
to both
          species and brand

NEMO

NEMO

suddenly I’m Captain Nemo
fathoms deep

contriving to
fight a liberation war

against my people
against myself

sharks swimming past
my bedroom window

and me
       tearing into
everything I was
once
   taught to believe

PERFECT

PERFECT

your sarcasm
perfect

you poem:
who dare call it so
each word
a detour, a question
no matter
how tight
how close to your chest

coming from a place
where stuff gets chiselled
when quibbling of legality
behoves
a perfect storm

but perfect joy is the trope
that I am here
to be in the market for

perfect joy, perfect bliss
things that start not with
pressure fronts
on massive collision course

but simple,
deepish parable
and perhaps a kiss

that fall from grace that be
your righteous sarcasm

can
take a pause moment
to accept incomplete

FOLLOWED

FOLLOWED

followed Jacques Derrida
down a rabbit hole

seriously
name-dropping all the way

saw Slavoj Zizek
and all his twin twizzle
and tweedle brothers

who asked how I could
have been so sure
that down was the direction
I was heading
  when, counter
intuitively, up might
equally
      make perfect sense

and I
might be twin too
Moon cavorting on the lunar surface
doing sibling-style stuff
with young
    Castor and Pollux

and other twin
who penned that tune
I am the Walrus and Richard and
Karen
    in such seemingly
beautiful harmony

Oh you cannot
     put a cat in a box
and have any kind of certainty

you cannot come up with truths
you can always reconnect

the very land we stand on
slipping and sliding
so slippery-slidey

what
     we have before us here
(not referring to the tea party)
so different
    from what I was thinking, what
expected, and
what I almost fancied
I was destined to express

THAT WILLIAM BLAKE CHARACTER

THAT WILLIAM BLAKE CHARACTER

saw that William
Blake character
on social media

disagreed about the war
had a few sharp words

fresh from this exchange
looked him up
found
   not a word on Wikipedia
save a reference to a character
in a Jim Jarmusch film

which seriously flustered me
for I had got this notion
into my head
   about this far from prototypical
radical
      early nineteenth century
English Romantic poet

but seems it is all a myth, a false flag,
huge disinformation

which 
     stands to reason,
for if there were really
a Songs of Innocence and
a Songs of Experience

think how
different the world would be

HEAVEN OF THE UNREAL

HEAVEN OF THE UNREAL

somehow I have ended up
in the Heaven
of the not real

I do
apologize

do mythologie

am unsure at this point
whether I be many
or am alone

every choice
so critical
    slight preferences
of tone and shade
altering how
the Universe should appear

so much nuance at this point
infinite possibilities

and yet so
     austere

feel
     so abject       so incomplete.

BLACKPOOL

BLACKPOOL
“how many holes it
takes to fill the Albert Hall”

I came to
Blackpool, Lancashire,
to be conceived
my soul already garbed
in tangerine

inland from the Irish Sea
I lived
our little river
up to something

revolution in music
to be remembered forever

there in that old, dead
slave port
swept up by voices, songs
steaming in
from a wilder West

brief Renaissance they
just had to
weed out

the fiction of Empire
in such dire need of it.

I came
to Blackpool to
get conceived

though sex, as Larkin said,
waiting for its establishment