SQUARE DEAL
can
a poem
stop a tank?
better than
a Javelin missile
a WW2 German
88
or the guy with the shopping bag
rock steady in Tiananmen
something in his stance that day
confounding the mechanics
of wheel and track
TODAY
today to ask me
to define “Nazi”
“fascist” and my
brain has
gone zombie
and I don’t know
where
to start
it’s so long ago
that time of twisted shapes
and clinging shadows
it is a story
that issaid and done
a picture
that could never
return
I tell
myself
you tell yourself
the whole world tells itself
finding the old music
for that marching tune
IN THE CENTRE, MS VENTER
“it’s in the centre, Mr Venter”
catch-phrase from South African
TV advert from the 1980s
poetry lies
on the fringes
ineffable
stretching meaning
dabbling
in truth
you yourself, on the other hand,
way to upfront to dabble,
are
dead centre
in
all things
truly blessed with such
elasticity
deeply effable
CONSPIRACY
It’s not conspiracy
its just ths logic
small store go
ecomonics of scale
push
out of
the way
next minute Skynet, Enron,
Weyland-Yutani
next minute they stuck
AI chip somewhere
in your head
and still
you not able to out-think the
system
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.
poems 2 die for