Damian Garside

FULL FLOOD

a sacred cow
came floating by

following another, followed
by another

a whole army, but dead,
which I looked in the eye

presuming this to be
a wake or a procession
or a disastrous offensive

(some gunners
holding strong points
having a field day)

all of which I presume
just the vanguard
for a plague
of frogs swimming
for the far bank

each
one entrusted
to carry its
personal scorpion

safely across
which
traitors to the cause
sad slaves
to their nature

desperate to inflict such
unkind fatal wounds
as only the truth can

HORNS

had a wild
dream

you had
grown horns

I had fangs
and wings

as a couple
how we battled
in the kitchen
to cook
for each other
eat
together

but kitchen
our Mecca
for solving all
the intimate problems

happening
to surface
in every other room

DANS LA CUISINE

you lack the elfin
qualities of
a true
la belle dame sans

but have
merci in spades
and so
took pity on me

like a
true courtly lover
hot spotting it
from enchanted
wood to
secret bower

I stalled
at the door
to your kitchen

stopped in my tracks
a moment
to
take it
all in:

the spiced fruits and
chopped vegetables,
the lemon
liquid cleaner

no hint
of ammonia

there to
best strip away
all the flash gilt and varnish
to let
your domicile
make
its case to me

kill that
deadly perfume which
has always
run roughshod

delivering my
poor soul up
for what
you wouldst do with mr

POEM FOR SOME VICE CHANCELLOR

POEM.FOR SOME VICE-CHANCELLOR

was not
gravity apple

not
fruit in any size shape
or form
forbidden

to give the scope and
agenda
for every Ph D

more instruction manual
set of templates, list
of prescriptions
essential to
your throughput
as bags and
sacks of
ball-bearing steel

no serpent to
shift paradigm but
discovery that the tinies
of the Universe
were quits with tape measure

and then
exponential took
dimension to town
(coming up
with twenty-six last
time
happened to count them)

needing
to gauge what
(if any) might constitute limits

time
and motion study
.
on the revelation of self

NO CLAIR VOYANCE IN POETRY

NO CLAIRVOYANCE IN POETRY

there is no clairvoyance in poetry

just the iambic de-dum
thick-skinned drum

and carrying
that beat

stock-
in-trade
image
all ash
and sparkle

yet
when come
to the crunch

tough as barbed wire
hard as diamond

HAVE HEARD

have heard
the fable
of the sticks

lovely metaphor
for unity
unless
something black
shirted takes charge

gives it a
tighter symbolism,
nastier appropriation

unity
unity
which ever way
you cut it

for me
in this not
small matter
of heart and mind

a single flower
owns more power

FIRST GEAR

making hot
stuff with you

raises
my pain threshold

lowers my centre of gravity

tunes me up, every piston
pushing perfectly,
like
a twelve cylinder engine

a portrait of road
holding, fuel-injected precision,
as soon as you get me
out of first gear

PROFESSOR MOONSHINE

PROFESSOR MOINSHINE

was wearing
my best strip-searched
human face
instant guide
to my moral integrity
goodness of my nature

philosophizing
at the turnstile

life
death
Heaven Hell
United City

activating my consciouness
Earth watch, star radar

derby match floodlight
bathing the stadium

sky wheeling in time lapse
as it got to
penalty shootout

even as Sputnik
circles, Eagle as landed
space roce
whizzes by

long time long time
(unless already on Mars
conspiracy theory) we
all
believe we saw

boys shot from sunny Florida
racing in silver dune buggies
back
fron the Sea of Storms
bouncing in that gravity
towards the Sea of Tranquility

ACCORDINGLY

this poem
(if you can call it that)
has been prescribed
for the safety of us all
in the interests
of National Security

no one may according
duplicate, disseminate, read,
repeat, cut splice dice
dip
into
take a single syllable
from this poem

allow the words
to proliferate, play
run
all over the play

and so
in the interests of
the preservation
of hard won liberties
let us
   all
stay
    on the same
page
rejoice in this dictate

FOR HANNAH ARENDT

what it the compassion
you can squeeze
like a lemon
drag
from a stone?

camp gypsy
coaxing a wealth
of sadness out of an accordion

a couple of devil
Halloween masks
fall by the wayside

not all that skims
is banal
entirely devoid of imagination

lips finding
special pleasure, dodging meaning

the road
once tangential is
now overgrown
unless it is autobahn

we were
talking compassion

but dismiss this, or
whatever

not enough tears
in out history
ever to drench you