FOR REAL
No one here
is for real
everyone
is a smiling simulacrum
a fiction of shadows
a ghost voice pleading
poverty from.beneath
the stage
trap door
as if that is not
the place they should be
writing antitheses
finding sustenace
in the darkness
Satire on Rishi Sunak’s idea everybody must do Maths at school until 18.
poem plus AI art
ON THE CARDS
my robot
took me
to the South Pole
she dialed in
a formation of doves
to strafe
me
with lore
took my
heart down
into Vesuvius
Volcano
froze me cryogenically
and sent me hurled me
into deep space
he mind ticking over
as we nudged forward at light speed
her limbs fully uncoupled
and then coupled for
infinitely greater attachment
permanent
decoupling never on the cards
FILL
poem would
not come to me
do its sure sell
soft shoe shuffle
open
a window afford
glimpse
of its tricks
said I
lacked
the appreciation
was far too driven
for anything
to
nestle, rest
fill that grievous hole
in my disposition,
cement
my understanding
these basic
words having
so much
to discover
not to
mention
(by way
of footnote) seren-
dipitously gain
PINGS
my phone
is on LSD
pings the bounds
of infinity will take forever
for the signal to return
time to
rethink unthink
this
time
to burn
THEY
they papered over the cracks
until there was only paper
the whole wall
was wallpaper
steadily depreciating
but as of now
worth a ton
but so much
focus on the paper
we were told
to forget about doors
forget about windows
forget about foundation
forget
about structure
and then
they wrapped all
our joys in
smothering, swaddling paper
killing them off
telling us
out with
the old in
with the new
and loss of our joys
pleasures and
freedoms
part of the
new beauty
wealth of
our trajectory
purpose of life reconceived for all
neatly packaged
for death to
receive them
how many without love
like me
without love
far too
late for me
to love them now
neatly packaged
for death
to show them
love is a thing
one can live without
DEAD ISLAND
Oh something sank
in the history channel
something sank
having run aground
for our part
we floated nonchalantly
around that dead island
all those high tales, great fables,
dead as the stone
of a cenotaph to me
Oh spectral place
and yet
the juries are still out
it is conceivably not death
but a morbid moribundity
that plagues this place
fed its viral rage
a flag burned
not the whole fabric but
just a few cigarette holes skewered
right through it
as apocalypses go
it is like a half-wit
smothered, a
candle snuffed
the air
heavy with phosphates, nothing yet
so sulphurous
stared down to find the bottom of the tide
but there
not a live fish swam;
nothing
swims in this.
poems 2 die for