Author Archives: Damian Garside

BASE EIGHT NEIN TEN

BASE EIGHT NEIN TEN

bass
superstructure

caught you thumping
away on those four thick strings
heavy beat
too much in your face
with sound of supremacy
to be reggae

must be, well, death rock
gothic and nihilist nazi

so much hangs on
distinctions in rhythm, key
and music scale

I mean, total love and
total war,
mark a difference in style
but not commitment

and the blues is hardly
sanctified by stretching
out its themes a bit

wailing out to the
dark lords of the universe:
Cthulu and the other
loony luminaries in
the Lovecraft gang
to work
their unearthly magic
(neon lime green)
resurrect Totenkopf, brown
shirt, black shirt
and assorted Hitlers
(evil
always picking
the same side
to forestall
a different revolution)

RAY

RAY

came across Ray Bradbury
sitting, spinning
a fantastic yarn

to all
caring to listen

but no one was there in
Parow Children’s Library

uncanny this was
quite mysterious

and what did I know then
of quantum entanglement,
alternate
universes, simulations?

what did
anyone know including
physicists?

so I just sat there and absorbed
death rays, Mars, bullets that
killed first astronauts sounding
like bees
time travel fractures, vampires upstairs
evil circuses
fruit in a bowl
never enough clean

now I am not entirely sure
if it happened at all though the

whys and
hows

seem, in retrospect, so
obvious
dark tales they were
but
filling my bland
grey soul with
a beam of light

FIRST STRIKE

FIRST STRIKE

aliens havs taken control
of Parow library

they are using their plasma
weapons to take out
all the poetry
classic novels and
books of philosophy

there were
not so many
but all are now gone

this alien high command
circling the northern suburbs
in their mothership
are openly
celebrating as
a titanic victory

the human race needs
to be even more unread
dull unimaginative
and stupid

to become the compliant
servants and slaves
the great
alien think tanks
are convinced we can be

SOMETHING

SOMETHING

Something in the air
so strong it is I can
almost taste it

not just breathing it in
seems
to be getting to me
filtering into everything

the fusty, unread books
in my library
the arcane worlds
to which they once
gave access, were
portals
(perhaps still are)
are fundamentally disturbed
if not
rewritten

some tumble from.their shelves
one even brazen enough

to hail me, speaking as
it slo-mo summersaults down

landing open
on its spine observing
the world through a single
eye at the heart
of the page

beautiful and
yet so grotesque

bringing everything into
its field
of vision reducing

to its
big bang moment
point of view something

in the air
longed for
dreaded

outside the world, the Universe
waiting to be told
what to do

always something
rather than nothing

something and nothing something
and nothing

out of the minus of number comes
your everything.

BALL

BALL

created a swirl
of sound on a synthesizer

a flowing circle
that became Andromeda
became a spiral nebula
a galaxy
vaster than our own

but then, in a goldilocks zone
a ball appeared
energy to matter
completely consolidated

and here
with time this cosmic dance

heard its music, found its
singers, dances learning

how
to express, how to direct

how to name every star before
plucking them each
one by one

by now the song
resounding, orchestral

echoing in every ray
of light found
harvested
gratefully received

SETTING  (for JM Coetzeeon his 83rd birthday)

SETTING  (for JM Coetzee
on his 83rd birthday)

the pain
is embedded
has become
geological

so
deeply impacted
revelation is going
to be
  extinction level
be seismological

and there we are (time
as we now
    see
          thing quite unreal)

looking down from
the reverse slope of Devil’s Peak
out over the flat suburbs
(dust and sand
              of ocean reclaimed)

but your mind is
far into the interior
digging up the bones
that tell us
      pain is history;
history pain

somehow they cannot convert
your cerebral into spectacle
no technicolour out there
to match your austere

somehow
        intensity here has
of necessity to be
sharp
    and sweet

somehow
      these titanic currents, seas
meeting
        twisting, contorting

all going to
      flow ultimately
                        transformed
in that wash

for now
    so precious little melding,
blending
                                    hope
for the rude rudiments
of a comfort zone
            (plane almost scraping the
lids off shanties take offs
and landings
                      whole other, true,
South Africa
    cannot just wish away)

and there you are
                        delivered
of all our quandaries
all our questions
            bitter conundrums

absorbing the crimson sunset light
in your paradise of refuge

do you
          not think of us    recall
what was lived through?

take a
        last look our way

scan sky far
      to the West    where Sun
is forever setting

Sent from my iPhone

LIGHTS OUT

LIGHTS OUT

lights out for you
for me

lights out for us both, for
us all
to the edge
of infinity

and we haven’t even talked
had dinner together
and what
comes after

and so now we know
there ain’t no after
so wrap yourself
in your body blanket
construct
a Faraday cage

dig around to uncover
a shovel put
together a bunker

maybe unearthing
signs
of comet impacts
and lost
civilizations

all the way down
I wished we might
go down

LET ALONE MEET

LET ALONE MEET

wearing my shirt
totally Lovecraft coloured
black sarcophagus

in my backpack the book
that opens up secret passageways

me eyes
laser slice

stare down the sky provoking
extreme lightning

dark matter dark energy
anti matter
                    made of
the stuff
      you would
rather
not think about

let alone meet