Author Archives: Damian Garside

ZONE READ

ZONE READ

my bedroom
orbits your Sun
at perfect three
bear distance

it is so indeed
in a goldilocks zone

sometimes you flare
as those wild waves
I ride them

the porridge of life
kept at perfecf just-
right temperature

and bed
tailored to host
every
shape every size

for whatever mother-father
babying
gravity, atmosphere,
open door
policy
cuddle
in the huddle
your system really need

HOME POEM

HOME POEM

I left today’s meaning
on the page
in a notebook
on a desk at home

and so at this veey moment
am floating free
of impulse or obligation
to poetry

and what you see
is what you get
what you read
is what
it means

we can put in bunsen burner
in diffusion chamber
basic chemistry (ask W K
and Beardsley, such
astute
Americans, new world
theorists)
all this word imagination
in the crucible
catalyst
that is the brain

so do not give me your flux and ripples
spooky action in
semiotic field

what travels with you smouldering, close to igniting

I left my poem at home
how clear can that not be?

may explode into being
leaves
and
tree

MEDIAN

MEDIAN

the medium is
the message

but I am out
have exhausted my
stock of words

wish
there were
a word store

or way
to paper over

seems
all that material
all my fresh and new
and vital truth
has simply
been recalled

and I must scratch and scrape
until my cortex bleed
to remember
anything at all

poem is what it is
does what it does

how difficult to talk
that talk

laughablle
to define
(been like
that since
the start of time)

DOLLDRUM

DOLLDRUM

we have drifted
we have drifted

an accursed mariner
at the till

      we have drifted
into a patch of dead sea

our island settling
somewhere
            between Shakespeare’s
garden and Eliot’s Wasteland

as droll and dyspeptic
      a dolldrum as
                    ever can be
zombified
      from head to toe

the specter that shadows
our humanity

FLAMETHROWER

FLAMETHROWER

got  job as
gardener

put a flamethrower
and (Zyklon-B
out of stick)
gallons of
agent orange
in my hand

can’t believe what
happened to this garden:
not a single rose
red or white to
fight
    hack to death over

what the Hell since
my ancestors invaded
           has happened
to this place?

Oh they brought you silk
they brought you cotton
brought you
    Asian and African wisdom

brought you Rolling Stones
Kinks Zeppelin
               and Beatles
(same river
        wound its dark way
past our homes)

and now I must massacre
weeds to save
      the bowling green surface
recite Prufrock under
the collapsed
gazebo

       once walked the streets
with Swift and Pope from
Ashton to
              Rusholme

once
       when the youth stuck a
big fuck you
    through lips and nose
deconstructive style
               meaning anarchy baby

death throes felt
       that we all must
             surely see
     
fuck you-s through

GLOW

GLOW

walked into the Cafe

fish in the tank
had an unearthly glow

no one else seemed
              any the wiser

seems it is
the privilege of being born
twelfth sign
              to read this text
devise the code

and see with eyes
pure Old Testament

but as we
          enter this establishment
scan, reconnoitre,

see this bunch of executive media
types crunched around a table
talking District 9
        or possibility of TV follow up
with talent competition and
fun rides

      I could pitch them my talent show
all of them
          contestants, nobody survives

and the fish trying to sell me something  could it
be a (fish)fingerprint of the gods tale of
Antarctica hiding
                    Atlantis

love these lost cities when feel lost
in the city, lost in my own mind

should write an alternate history in which
my ex-wife led a revolution sending me
                                      and my kind South
to Antarctica

where
            there are alien space bases, lunatic
                                                fringe has it

me and
          my kind      I do not have a “kind”

milk of
              human kindness milk of my galaxy

spiral nebula in my coffee could be Andromeda

hurtling towards us
                                  take billions of years to get here,

Greek mythology certified, sweet extinction on its way

I know
  you know
                                      I glow
                                      you glow

twin slit experiment    you wave me away

DROOLING

DROOLING

the gargoyles are drooling
at the prospect
of their emancipation

entombed in stone
now they are
to be resurrected,
thrown upon the world
monstrously released

for the demons they were
meant to
            protect us all,
the simple faithful

are amongst us, 24/7
and in the current electronic
maelstrom we swirl in

impossible to tell
what
      is limbo
                    what is
                    Hell

sane to
    have given up
                        on bliss
and joy
      and glimpse of Heaven

ONE ONE

ONE ONE

Gary has scored!
Gary has equalized against
this team from the thirties
he spun, hit his shot and
it went in on
the rebound after
taking a deflection

but now they say
he should stick to
punditry, stick
to scoffing crisps

and they want the goal
disallowed, they demand
a recount
    insist there must
be a referendum
on the decision from VAR

so Gary’s goal will be disallowed
and what sinks must carry on sinking
there are wave machines
to sort this out
      and full fan hatred
        shouting singing.