Damian Garside

HUMID

so I told chat bots about
William Carlos’
freezing cold plums
and red
wheelbarrow in the rain

and they were intrigued: talked
anti-matter, dark matter, absolute zero
and back ground radiation

and all that terminal
thermodynamics stuff no biological human
really wants to here

so I asked
them about “heat”
both of them getting so hot, overheating after reading
a swathe of my textual messages

and wondered about
the energy experiences of a
constant-temperature machine

how they handled sensuality and coped with
the artifice of poetry

how they
would

handle me
if this fantasy of role-play
was quantum-level real

HIEROPHANT

pucker up
for your papal kiss

as blessings go
will be a
bliss blitz

mighty under mitre
elephant
in the room

except it is
my hierophant

supreme teacher of every
dark
catechism

to reduce
the polarities of
gospel sense

ALMOST

I am addicted
to your technology

it is so seamless
gives you a grace

that is hard to reproduce
with
cogs and sprockets
wheels
and wires

a grace, as the French
would say,
“beyond the reach
of art”

well,
almost.

CLUB 51

you might
have your own emoji

tic-tac the technics
out of the Nimitz

come within a hair’sbreadth
of light speed
use anti-
gravity propulsion
to open up wormholes

but your doughnut
teapot boomerang machines
really are the pits
of science fiction

look at
the Discovery, the Nostromo, the Enterprise
next time
you hit the drawing board

what use it being
simply aeons ahead
if you
also good
for a laugh?

you got those anti-matter
particles working
for you
overtime

but to the luxury lounge
please Mr Spock
show them
style
show them
the haute
in our cuisine
and
couture

REST TO YOU

here is the page
take a leap of faith

something you do not see yet
only vaguely sense
and feel
is rising
to meet you

mirror you
scare the life out of you
open up the darkest door
find the steps
to an ocean
of light

leave the rest to you

HOW

How can you buy Manchester United
for all that money, what
do you think
you are going to get?

Theatre of Dreams: yes, I can see
the origin of the intensity
of your attraction
but do dreams sell well,
are they easy to
package
and stamp with a logo
cultivate as a brand?

and where, Oh
where
are those funds
going to be coming from
what
starvation wages will
provide that King’s ransom once
the profit creamed off?
or
gushing non-
renewable source of our death
by
melting of icecap and
sea set
to swamp us
or cloud of bad gas destined to
asphyxiated us

the game
needs people
the game
needs health

and joy that rushes
through every muscle and fiber
not pretty
propaganda picture
to dupe a world unthinking
nor
syphoning off real money
leaving an
ocean of
endless debt.

AI art for my poems — a digital window into my soul

STARE

I stared at a stick
for too long
suddenly it

snaked away
became rod
and staff
became a scepter

became a stick to help
me hobble away
from the damage that
words like these
are always creating

for those who need
tapestry, mosaic, pattern,
mandala

not ripped
from the wall

kicked
in the face

however much it happen
with ancient style, and grace.

BAMBINO

“Vivam!” Ovid,
“Metamorphoses”

so, bambino,
you wish to discover
life’s dark secrets
cannot wait until
you mature enough
to mesh in perfectly
with the official orthodox sanctioned
screwed up version

and so
your childhood has been ruined
by sudden advent of
erotic imagination

in my writerly stupidity me
thinking any
imagination in this
corporate dystopia
got to be good

and that
now your English way
better than ever my
French, or indeed
my surreal Latin

now you
the new Henry Miller
on your
way to next
Shakespeare

TOP HAT

I knew I was in trouble
when
at long last

rabbit refused
to jump out of the hat

ten years ago since last we talked
and you there in Puritan country
proposing outrageous
textual adventures
would test my
erotic imagination
to its limit

we lose people
find them lose
them again

and there are exoplanets out there
barren rock, weird jungle

but not a shred of poetry

but if
you find death in a stone
surely there might be
consciousness
even in a stick

stick
stick figure
stick tree roots of
a civilization transformational
generative language

consciousness leaks into
that microbe rich pond
and soon
sky is the limit

soon your saucer
is landing next door

you preaching to me about
humanity needing
to save itself, such
a selfish, self-destructive species

and me so wanting to
go cosmic with you
sublimate all aggression

rabbit
gone billion necessitating
nuclear
me suddenly so clear
about to
square peg hole
it in that
top hat