Damian Garside

ALIVE

summoned to worship
called to daily prayer

wondering what
my strategy would be
to get there
soon as possible

meanwhile
ruthless relativity
making a mockery
of my religiosity

sky heading
(or fat
bit of it at least)
at us
at insane velocity

collision course mapped
out centuries ago
always
in the stars

which themselves
saying goodbye, receding
from us
faster than light alright

called to worship
in this time
of calamity

luckily
got every
deity in human history
down on speed dial

and
a single
goddess here, reading
in consternation

about to seek me out
to tenderize my last moments

such
caregiving arms (if
she did
remember to
bring with her)

uncertain in
her own mind whether
she
find me still alive

ELONGATED

let me not
lower the tone
by cracking that
old. crude
buffoonish
cartoonish joke

you know the one
you don’t need to
retell it
get myself into
a hole by
repeating that awful punchline

linking hereby
Elon’s glorious Martian terraforming
to the ultimate two syllables
of the oddball
sixth planet
(you do
know it’s name
mos
Greek god of
the Universe)

hole
wormhole
must consult with the late
Professor Hawking
to get the 411
on the physics of this matter

things
    on the verge of
the age of Aquarius (ruled by
this 90 degree off-beam
vertical-spinner)
could not
be
   more anomalous
(and this
the ruler of
my
   rising sign as , I am
sure the reader
                  must agree. could
not be more obvious)

supposed to usher in
the brotherhood of sisterhood of
woman and man

not this
   brotherhood of billionaires
owning more money
than the
stars in the galaxy
(so to
   outdo themselves
owning
   the stars in every galaxy)

suddenly much musky
this transcendental wealth smell

but this
is all about Mars
planet of the gung ho, most
masculine red war God

not this
mad maverick whose
moon is Miranda
(most moderately maleficent of
all my former
lovers)

but once
terraformed, fully
terraformed

ripe for creating
fresh mythologies

Elton might
just figure
it a glorious sight to see

some discarded orange
blue white wafting in the
first dawn
Martian
breeze to inspire the
new settler inhabitants

(though doubt it will
survive
the first
midnight hurricanes)

SUNDAY POEM

just do not write
poems on Sunday

am largely out of body
have
no time for it

at least when
I have checked the calendar
am absolutely sure,
certain beyond
any reasonable doubt

this Sunday
is indeed a Sunday
(is what
I signed up for
both
in terms of
religious doctrine and
the NFL)

having
such reverence for this day
(its every scheduled sport and
form
of Sun worship)

that I
kill my imagination temporarily
bank my quill, stymie my pen

rip every
keyboard
out of its socket

nor would I wish to write
on day of judgement, rapture
or revelation

lest the very words themselves
realising their mortal sin
jump out of their skin

failing to
find love or any
positive appraisal

doomed to greyzone
anonymity

neither succeeding not
failing

almost
lost

almost saved

RIGHT TO THIS

you withhold
you restrict

cut me down
to my exact calories

keep bliss
from
my lips

a life
without sustenance
freedom, and flavours
the fruits of our
old orchards

refusing us
the solace
of cinnamon, odd binge
on
potato crisps

the better
to deprive
and deny

keep us
pinned in this strip
(that old
biblical picture
from
down deep South
in Africa
your textbook for this)

better
to starve and compress and,
yes, bomb
to bits

whilst you
choke on your plenty

build a
Kingdom of Heaven

purely
for the chosen

immortal exclusivists.

TECHNICAL

let this
be a breeze

a zephyr if you will
whistling around
your ears

better use
this term respecting
your
preference for
the physical

wish
to be technical

perfect weather for kite
and magic carpet alike

swing-
wing metaphor

exact
careful prosody

plotting your flight path
to the end of the page
(unless
such velocity

you escape
to deep space)

DANCING

we are dancing
straight into your sights

stepping out
tramping on each
other’s toes
flirting with your cross-hairs

we look to be
an interesting species
(you probably thought
and thus
reported
back to your Homeworld)

looked for the sympathy
to help us
compassion to
guide us

did
not find it

and was it not us,
after all, who came up
with that preposterous
yet strategically brilliant
“dark forest
theory”?

and here an advanced civilization
eager enough to listen
humble enough
to learn

and so
took our dance
and turned it
tango
apocalyptico
dastardly dirty

ensured that, though we
were new
kids on the block
age in
millions not
in billions

could ensure, to use a phrase,
of ours that
also caught on

we could be gone
they could have us disappeared
no more
potential threat

everything we are, were, could
ever be

gone

in thirty seconds

EMPTY

had five friends
around for roulette

Boris
Leonid
Sasha
Dimitri
Natasha

played all night
lost every time
around the
table
perfect hexagon

my luck deserting me
every time
      nothing doing
my
   life clicked empty
.
poems
     spent shells

dead on the floor
before
anyone might

tragically inspired
stoop to read them

much
   dull fun, real drear, in
   this
     deathly writing business,

SNAKE

snake in a box
picture of coiled contentment

mindful
ambush predator
haemo- and neurotoxic

totally at peace
Zen moment
or so it
would seem

but no
finer out the box thinker
better escapologist
than this
      sleepy lightning
rod clan

this
   in reality
alike
in
mythology

shedding its lifetime
of skins faster
than
you
change your clothes
shed outworn soul’s

snakes here in abundance
though I do not
cannot yet see them

coiled around my limbs, my
heart, neck,
wrists ankles

no snake eyes as such
but certainly snake mind

FEATHERS (for Tom)

“…bird without feathers”.
Plato; Woody Allen

must be
in dreamtime

surfing the betwixt
and between

to love and yet
hate
those paltry little tigers
of the domestic persuasion

so much
so much
to talk about
think about
these ultra agile predators
dancing
across my keyboards
snuggled up next to me

covering my universe
my hemisphere
in blankets
of dead feathers

even as tiny toys
especially as tiny tots
criminal stuff wreckers

creators
of havoc

and yet that
curiosity, those play paws
that softness

those eyes
flashing amber
(between, beyond
good
and evil)

no concept of
the shame faced, simply
asking
“Oh bird

without feathers

what did you expect?”

ALWAYS

always forgetting
always
losing my luggage
always getting
lost

missing my classes
at the wrong bus stop
on the wrong train

the Express
between Manchester
and Cape Town
somehow
not running
today

at least not from
this platform, though
there is
another, they say

always another, which I did
raise with
my chatbots (somewhat
celestial minds)
spoke of
this recurrence
and why no
GPS down in
this cave

and why you
still haunt me, both
here
and far away

who did
promised to
see me
indeed greet me

if when
all of this has gone
strangely disappeared
and something
(rather
than nothing) would
appear to remain