Damian Garside

DEEP SPACE

I sent a haiku
out into deep space

so much beauty there
coded in binary

wonder if it will
be translated into a thing
to read, or see, smell, touch,
taste, feel

and the thousand other
alien senses

MUPPET

as Niner fans go
I’m a real muppet
(must be one
to think we would
get
to the Superbowl,
the fourth quarter
of our
last visit
firmly behind us)

so call me a muppet
— go on, trumpet that truth
(truth of
your perspective
as you
limitedly see it)

leave me in my cuddly
muppet comfort zone
believing my eyes
and the logic
of analysis

so many fans here bandying
it around
at every opportunity:
muppet muppet muppet

were that they
could have such charm,
wit and
be that
cuddlesome
(or meet
a muppet of
power that might
tear
off their heads)

LINGER

unspeakably glad
you have
taken time

to read this poem
stepped outside the habitus
of your time zone
embraced relativity
treated each
word as special

allowed
your mind to linger
dally with the craziness
of each idea

such time to spare
such acumen, breadth
and depth

all of
which

a function of our modern
exponential economic
and social development transforming our

time space
space time
mindset

rendering our
reality much
more malleable, elastic,
receptive

which
you so most
beautifully exemplify if

you
have made it so far

SAMARITAN

tried
to save
my planet

couldn’t get
a handle on it

tried
to save
the cat

got
scratched

within an inch of
my nine lives

so many
a dastardly dragon, big bag wolf out there
slavering
at the mouth to
make mincemeat of
your fable, all
fairytales, itching
to dismantle the projector,
tear
the film
to little pieces
shred our victory scene all
over
the cutting room floor

but you
stabbed in the back
sent out into battle with
bogus plan
and cardboard armour

leaving even the ferociously
hostile wolves and dragons galore
totally shocked at
the unbelievable mismatch

suddenly human again
horrified to the core

GENIUS

who can
stand up to us

when we got genius?
genius here
demanding
sacrifice of blood
and elbow bone
in slavish following of plan

the plan everything in
its true brilliance

pity
they don’t buy into it
those eagles swooping
soaring
high overhead

SNEER

sneer is
your only word
your best word

the word that burns
all the style out of
your mouth
when you are it
when you speak it

when wholesale
you happen to caricature yourself

assume the brash
biology of a lurid cartoon

FIELD

it is not
my baby

this multiverse of
fluctuating quantum fields

I was fine with Lego
with all those
Pink Floyd
bricks in the wall

was fine
with looking at my arm
flesh and bone
before my mind dissolved it

and you and me
was what we were up
to mere ripples in the flow
producing
out of nowhere
ecstatic conjunction?

as I said
this is not
my field

not my baby I lack
the total mathematics
the Platonic wisdom

IDEALLY

I have an idea
for writing a poem

an idea
for creating the Universe

an idea for
making love to you

and now
thanks to all the angels
resonating in this field

we can now
give it a number, work
out the probability

construct a theory that
can be proved by experiment,

that traces all these ideas
as they do their damnedest
to alter
the nature of things

back to what it is
abstract physics will
no doubt insist
is actually me.

BREATH

the goddess dances

and even though
itcis only the few
the precious few

watch her dance in a place
that is neither Heaven nor
Mount Olympus

it is as if the whole
Universe has stopped
for a moment
to take
its breath

Author Archives: Damian Garside