Damian Garside

SHOCK TREATMENT

Espied a shock-haired Jew
standing on a roof

jumping from one
thought experiment
to
another

dancing as he free-
fell in his imagination

down he plunged and
the world rising

up to meet him
as if he were a cannon
ball, as if he were an astronaut
cosmonauting the Moon

with every breath calculating
the space time warp woof
curved by gravity
parsed
in German

but the system too young
and crazy and seething
with energies
even on this ancient
satellite seemingly
hollow
shell
thin as cardboard

ringing like a bell
calling the faithful, the
enlightened
to extrapolate
backwards, to the raw
crazy
quite illogical

big-bang birth of the beginning
of mind.

THE LIGHT

the light is beautiful
the young
morning light

and there is crystal
and there is
broken glass

and there life
is precious and
life is cancerous

and things are
growing, flourishing
and things
are getting smashed

FIXED

FIXED

Wasn’t broken
but you were determined
to fix me

and so
here we are

I am here
(you where you are
having slimed yourself
in somehow)

and me just waiting
for the wind
to go
chainsaw, the Sun
to shoot fireballs

and every molecule
of my being to evaporate.

IMPOSSIBLE

I cry out
many times

cry out
but am
not heard

you might not think it
to read this poem

what point is there
crying out
in this poem

crying out
in any poem

poetry being a vehicle
of containment
a thing
of control

not a place to cry out
the pain
of each cry
rendering the poem
impossible

COMMON DENOMINATOR

only the rich
have franchise

are the only people
to have a say

they are our common
dominator
common denominator

all our gods and
devils
brutally pray
they will amass the good fortune
to have their way

CLOSED

everyone
is an unreliable narrator

third person
omniscient
does not cut it
any more

open ending, minimal
the sense of closure

and yet
the world is closed
the walls shifting inwards

maybe it is your brain
contracting its sphere of power

maybe it is that
we are all trapped in
a prison simulation

literal
metaphoric

who knows the code words
for our liberation?

so far
and no further

in this supposed dawning
of Aquarius I think I have
been
a character in
this sorry tale beyond the human

capacity to
survive and thrive

GOLDEN

Show me
your golden ratios

love the very idea
of Fibonacci sequence

that I am blood but
I am
also code

blood and code both
what could be better

warm
as the Sun not
too
Platonic but
perfect the images
your philosophical
Matrix and
most sumptuous cave.

LOUVRE

LOUVRE

the Russian
poets
are all

at war

shooting the Ukranian
artists flinging grenades
from opposite
side of
the battlefield

producing the kind of
Surrealist landscape
will
alter history
forever

best splattered onto a canvass
and hung
in the Louvre

PUT DOWN

Put down
your candy crush game
(would so
like your candy
to crush)

but first a word from
our advertisers

if you went professional
option you would get
premier service and not have

to worry about anything

meanwhile in the simulation
that is the poem
we are either particles
or waves or
both or neither

so let me crush your candy
whatsover

catch you me
cheating on the two
slit experiment

by the time the last line enjambs

many many alternate universes
(eat your heart out
Michelle Yeoh)

up and running, teeming
with our joint energies

ESPRESSO

was malingering in Hell’s
best coffee shop

started to fancy a coffee-
coloured barista
serving espresso
shrouded
by steam

and yet
still no mistaking
her demonic beauty
(so on point with
these fine surrounds)

and me
trying to catch her
jade green eye and
lure
it
towards me

as if she might fall
for a run of mill, ordinary devil

such as
the one there
in the corner
writing this thing