Damian Garside

SO FAR

so you were born/
cloned to
protect our crowning
achievement

our ability to
split the atom release
planet destroying power

which have become
so widespread every
nation, family,
individual
owns at least one

bare minimum
essential for humanity to survive

for without
fear of mutual destruction
what might
keep us civilized?

to destroy everything
wipe out one’s neighbours

every citizen across
the globe’s inalienable right

testimony to
the vast advances
in wisdom and knowledge
we have made so far

FOLLOW

I write
streaming live
scarring myself with
every pen stroke
as I do so

inadvertent self-exposure
sheer torture

navigating a ball and
chain spiked Medieval landscape
(how the dark
moments in our
history
cannot wait to return!)

what started as
cosmic irony
back-sliding, mutating
(openly) into
cosmic horror

as in
painful slo-mo
text allows itself, demands
to be weaponized

as was always threatened
as we started to think,
write, talk
in this most unforgiving of ways

as you walk
around me here
monitoring my footsteps
desperate not
to appear as some or other
poor
lost soul

and yet
you can take this anywhere
fly away
with whatever message
gleaned
or just follow

FOR FAWKES SAKE

it’s November Fifth
centuries ago
my Grandfather (last
in a long line
in his Catholic family)

used to
treat us to fireworks
those boxes that
bore the
warning that they
were bereft
of bangers (crackers to
my Souffafrikan and
my Transatlantic friends)

maybe they sounded
a bit too much like
7.62mm
rounds
flying out the barrel
of a Maxim machine gun,
Mauser rifle

he who
fought for his King
winning the military cross
(the lower-
grade one
you get as Senior Non-
Commissioned Officer
him
never been kissed
all of twenty one)

It’s Fifth or November
Twenty First Century, five
and twenty

no bonfire tonight but
maybe enough time
to rewatch
V
for Vendetta

amazing how mild
John Hurt’s false-
flagging mild riff on
essential
English fascism

compared
to the far darker Starmer world
Brits
have to deal with now

APPARENTLY

apparently
I have atoms
from
different
stars

my whole body
composed from
different galaxies

and your body too
those its configuration
nicer, sweeter
than mine
(though in truth
I could not be more
positively prejudiced
in holding
to this perception)

and atoms we have
I have you have

that with mathematical certainty
though we never
so much
as touched
(let alone
made love) came
from
belonged
to
the other

which atom
of yours I would
love to
find

truly love to find
try to figure out its role
in the
love that
I feel

love
in this poem

COINAGE

if there is subtext here
it is hardly subtle

the eyes of the satirst:
nothing sees
better in the dark
sees better the dark

and you caught her
fair and square
in the cross
hairs of
your sight

saw
what you saw
and instinctively leathered her
(while others
will lather, sepia
tone, pastel shade

wave the wand
of innocence, swear
by the book
and flag)

a coup
to catch it
tight in the vice like
grip of one who
has form
here, whose reputation
precedes, projects

irresistible the
gravity
pulling together

a grip
so strong it
will never fail, never
let fall, as (ahem!) it
did
with all the others
promises to
high heaven not withstanding

Yes, those pants
so hot and well spied
(this the
killer pen
can scythe in rhyme match
“couch” and
“debouch” in an
assassin couplet)

yet
picture so hot
the camera
flared
solid walls did
in fact buckle somewhat

no sweat
no sweat ring 911 we got

this
contained explained shame
upon us
all who
veer from
benefit of
doubt to insinuation preposterous

who
in time of
big lie, false
flag

do not in
the shock of
the satirical

take constant delight
true coinage of worth
savage solace
of the righteous

EARLIER TODAY

read my poem
read my flow
saw it
go

slow; fast-slow

slower, faster
than Andrew Marvell’s
“To His Coy Mistress”

pored over, read until
it glowed
became cataclysmic

went Krakatoa, erupted
like Vesuvius

as if just
to prove
you ain’t never read
a poem like this before

read
you got
you to read me
like textually can
be nothing
beyond
this logically

like we wake tomorrow
only to realize
there
is no tomorrow
wrong
on all counts
when we thought there could be

a fit ending
I might add

for this
insurpassable dovetailing
of poem and writer
writer
and reader

flush menage a trois
of everything
fitting
beyond perfectly

AND SO (THE DEATH OF RIMBAUD)

and so,
a candle
burns quicker

when fed
oxygen and absinthe

the latter best
not from a drip
or medicine dropper

if if is
essential
to preserve the mythology
of most favored
of fan favourite
precocious outlaw

Oh yes,
let us take a poll
on this side
those who
might suspect
the drunken boat sank
on this
those who would
steadfastly argue
it is there if you
would care
to search
for it
safe at its Seine mooring

but you yourself
were a veritable personification
of resistance to tethering

and now
no longer with us
bond boundaries and bindings
do appear everywhere

the colours of the vowels
have lost their
surreal charm along
with
former deep saturation

we
should take a plebiscite
to see if
in this impoverishment
poetry
might survive

and you so
word-
agile reduced to
a meme expanded
to an
entire semiotics

stuck in
some library
every
library

where they
got you to behave
taught you to dance

their dance
nuzzle and fawn

FRAME

am at a distance
am

at an acute disadvantage

wish I could steadicom
my eyes go
rack focus

crane shot floating
over and above

give you the one-take
tracking shot of
my every life moment

diegetic sound being
the beastly bustling buzz
and freaking
hubbub of
technologized time

for which screetch of
whatever wheels will serve
as slick
sufficient synonym

and here
we cut to

me at fast food joint (fabulous
community)

writing fast I can
as if looming shadow of
terminal extinction event

thing dipping
into Earth’s atmosphere
to turn
up the temperature
eat all that
luscious oxygen

gulping us
down
with it

as in
so many disaster flicks has
already gone
mega-cliche

damning any hope of that
movie that
heavenly moment
of moments

where you and
I playing
antagonists as ever

find ourselves in
and on
camera

perfect in
same frame

IN THE FAIRY TALE

no the little boy
in the fairy tale,

didn’t stop the world
screaming the bare truth
the nakedness
of a beloved
Emperor
we had no wish to hear

no he screamed
like a Stuka releasing its bomb

that the Emperor
is riddled with holes
inside and out

and there we were
scales falling
from our eyes
desperate
to stick them back

hear
the old nursery
rhymes again

sweet corporate censored
rap

BALLROOM (revised version)

BALLROOM

we Brits (was once Brit)
two centuries ago
torched
your White House

but now
the special relationship
all is forgiven
all is
forgotten

and now, anyway, you
hard at work
knocking it down
(Donald confesses to
loving that sound)

but soon
to be revised, restored,
resurrected
into a glorious ballroom,
divinely beautiful
fit not
just for a King
but for a god

place
for the elite
to meet
meat of the elite

one thing
   about the true elite
will swear
to the media, to all
who might listen.
they are,
so bog
ordinary
      which terrible taste
kind of confirms
that they are
and here
     beneath this gloss
something exquisitely shabby

yet be
that as it may
everyone
will
fall over themselves
to be
first
to proclaim it a people’s palace,

open
to all
and sundry just
so long
as they be corporate, so
long as they bank billions

fantastic fever dream structure
that simply
pulls out all the stops

promises to give you
space to
express yourself to
trip the light
fantastic
waltz, tango, whiskey, Charlie,
delta

Lightnings, Eagles, Tomcats,
Apaches

whatever your wings
enough floor here to park on

rivalling
the USS Enterprise for
deck
to take off and land

returning from bombing runs
on incalcitrant blue cities
the governance
of America
not
leaving to chance

that no one
will
dance
out of step
play
different tune,

mess
with the waltz

rewrite
the text of this sacred script

that gave
us the blueprint for
this insatiable dream

and in the realization
of which

because money isn’t real
you need so much of it