Damian Garside

EXCHANGE

We thought the goddess
was here incarnate
to impart her blessing

we thought Aphrodite
but it was
time of Kali

wrong mythology, wrong
about everything

and you
hot-stove focused
when
I made my move

the chemistry I thought alchemy
much, much mistaken
this
kitchen stuff, basic
premise of our evolutionary trail

exchange of fluids, no
noble elements, grubby
hydrocarbons

no catalyst here for
transubstantiation
trans-
formation of the real

and we, after the greedy, grasping

clamour of our exchange

left wondering
where we were heading
praying
we not taking
our Universe, the Universe
along with us
for some dark ride

and Kali’s dark eyes filling
with the light that is
her darkness

needing
our little, paltry,
insignificant dance

to spur her upon
her cosmic charge.

WAYSIDE

Not a doubt
my script is being written
by a severe Russian novelist

giving me really poor lines
a Dostoevsky life

this piece here
being pretty prime example

poem, if that’s what
you can call it
falling
quite by the wayside

and me
wandering through life
seemingly without an arc
let alone
driven by quest, on
pilgrimage

following
the flow (if flow it is) of
words
wherever they go,
wherever they take me

with what false promise,
fatal lure
ot gnosis, wisdom.
sublimation

revelation
that I am no one’s fool,
no one’s text,
no one’s flawed or
anti-
hero, character-whatever

puppet told
to prance
and then put back
in the box

ECLIPSE

got kissed
by an eclipse

full
on the lips

nothing sensual:
something industrial
about the sound
of those
suckers locking
or truly confrontational
like the clash
of contending blades

and you
in your headset
oblivious to my
life-and-death love battle

having zoned yourself out
of the untidy range
of all the ambient
swirling noise
and feedback

waiting for the light, the
total light taking
too long
about its dawning

waiting
for new
colours,
different darkness

still
same old old playing
play
rewind
play rewind
the

tunes of our time
tunes of our time

OH WHY

why
have windows
when you have got
television?

why when cerebral implants
still the need for eyes

I asked
but seems like all ears
tuned today
to another frequency

sensual, sensuous,
simulation can deliver
more than we
able to
desire
could ever require

IN SUPPLY

I saw you wearing
the darkest, hugest
sunglasses imaginable

necessarily so, what else
might shield your blue blue eyes
from the Heavenly Sun in
full heavenly glare

light so bright
you would be forgiven
for imagining
that light
to be everywhere

and there you were
tucking not
into ambrosia
but a fat, juicy, meaty
(perhaps
the meatiest pie
imaginable)

knowing that
everything you had
ever dreamt
is
here realized

a paradise of demand
never short
of supply.

ICICYLE; CINDER

ICICLE; CINDER

icicyle;
cinder

am looking out
of the window
waiting
for my next class

the rain falling
no snow
no ash

nothing flash-
freeze
nothing volcanic

yes, Mr Frost:
ice might suffice

or rain might drown us
after a thousand
days
and nights

rain
from above
and rising sea

before I do drown
promise to give
your poem
a final read

CLEAN SHOT

Ah! You look back with
unbelievable fondness

trying to relive the time
only one of your feet
had a bullet through it

not two beauties in each
felicitously self-inflicted

the accuracy having
substantially improved

unerring aim —
today shooting at
oneself
it is
impossible to
miss.

TINA

TINA

law of
thermodynamics

there is no
limitless energy
force of
Nature
voice blasting its
way into deep space
flash-fire
raging across
the stage

what can we say
sometimes it takes
a humungous star
to
cease its star-stuff
for the curse of mortality
to hit home

I say star
but it was like you
were a one woman whole
constellation

crafted,
beautifully crafted
in
such special metal
creature of
song
forged
in the flame
of spirit, a truly
golden soul

SPEED DEAL

SPEED DEAL

This poem is coming at you
in real time

you may
reduce the speed
to ensure you do not
miss anything

for what is a poem
if you miss anything?

A thing you might
have to read again

another day
when you feel better

when you feel like
being nudged ever so
slightly
towards
your much better self.

STOCKFISH

STOCKFISH

my pieces do not flow
they are all
nut
and bolt

whilst the Stockfish pieces
swarm to devour
attack like piranhas

strip my defence down
to bare bones

there’s blood
in the water though you cannot
see it

Oh, that one day my
chess brain might
be Achilles and his Myrmidons
so brutally fleet
and adept
at butchering

slaughter without mercy
and then we shall find

out exactly what you
are made of
my artificially intelligent friend