Author Archives: Damian Garside

PROLOGUE

PROLOGUE

it is a prologue of sorts;
at least it feels like one

Modiegi and I
are at the ocean

she has
never seen the ocean before

words are battling to
express what she feels

sentence structure is
creaking and groaning

I am overwhelmed
an old vessel trying
to cope with this
odd flood
of happiness

hard to tell
if we are both alive or dead.

MACHINE

MACHINE

the machine swallowed you
but not like it did
the Chaplin prole

not like it did that voiceless
Harlan Ellison being
stitched-up cross-
hatch in order
to make

the horror
more delectable

no, this machine
going to give you
an executive suite
ply you with
business class
and expense account
Martinis

keeping it all coming
keeping it all coming

lights out
at one two three

GALAXY

GALAXY

Ah, yes, Professor,
that Gutenberg Galaxy!

first only one Church;
and now
everywhere a church
far as the eye can see
a billion church communities

religion
is booming
Jesus is booming, dividing
and subdividing
splendidly proliferating

first there was one text
now there are many texts

once many
texts, many libraries

but now, when it
comes to libraries
business is
on
a downturn

we are down
to our last one

GALAXY

GALAXY

Ah, yes, Professor,
that Gutenberg Galaxy!

first only one Church;
and now
everywhere a church
far as the eye can see
a billion church communities

religion
is booming
Jesus is booming, dividing
and subdividing
splendidly proliferating

first there was one text
now there are many texts

once many
texts, many libraries

but now, when it
comes to libraries
business is
on
a downturn

we are down
to our last one

AUTOPILOT

AUTOPILOT

“Vada a bordo, cazzo!”

Sank in the shallows
actually needed
more water to
make a good job of it

the sea sparkling
Champagne clear
nothing wine-dark
about it
and yet without question
still the lair of Poseidon

and he in charge, at the helm,
somehow abstracted, too
pressed uniform
for any hero’s journey

everything analytical
set
to pause, cruise
control selected for
vital and most critical

falling like Pantaloon
by sheer outrageous luck
into first seat in
first lifeboat

skew serendipities:
disaster sloshed out of
its amphora
as superrich cocktail

and no
tripartite structure: beginning middle ending
rushing
like an express train
(where
there is a will there
is a way and
rudder should find it)

catharsis — this the thing
if we are chosen to survive
we may well talk
about later

hubris: most brutal, un-
forgiving of our flaws

always available
to shoulder the blame.

IN THE GREAT LIBRARY OF MOSHAWANE

IN THE GREAT LIBRARY OF MOSHAWANE

sometimes I wake up
in the great library of Moshawane

and suddenly ir has become
all the great libraries
in the history of the world

the place is so quiet
has a charmed silence

and I think of she
who kept the library of
Alexandria
until they burned her
books and priceless scrolls

books so easy to burn
to take your anger
out on

to torch to suppress any
inconvenient thoughts, words,
expression of ideas

that do not fit the mould
that we are better
off losingthe circle of all we love

and know
needing to be
drawn
smaller, smaller
than any fabulous circle

until of a size
no bigger
than a noose

and here I am telling you
what it is the books are saying
talking to each other

in this charmed silence
feeling to
humble to speak

waking up in a library
of dream

EVERYWHERE

EVERYWHERE

everything is moving
and we
are moving with it

takes you by surprise
doesn’t it
to find there is
no still point

and this poem:
you think it is on
the page, on the screen

of this you may
be certain but actually it isn't

the words are, yes indeed
the words are but the poem isn't

it’s location is unspecified
somewhere betwixt
and between will leave you to find, discover exactly where

for I must fly
by metaphor and
transport