Damian Garside

CODE LETTER

You would not know it
I never would have guessed it

but I am.already information
overload

am millions of reams of
1s and Os
all my dualities rendered
binary, stored in
huge treasure troves of
on-off thinking
harvested by machines
whose very existence is
premised
on how
they can get me
to vote

what they
can get
me to eat

and you, oh lightning fast
magnificently electronically
minded
specimen that cannot
(you say and
say
and say again)
cannot
get enough of me

having been through
every sexual permutation
(by
funky rhythm and
algorithm
full tecnicolour word-
fest simulation)

every twist of my code
and nook and cranny
down
to last
subatomic particle

totallind all the bytes and bits
(adding subtracting multi-
plying and such
long-
dividing)

rewiring my brain almost
apocalyptically

IN THE BEGINNING

I was very small. I felt very small too: lying in my bed curiously warm, not frozen with fear.

The thing was massive and its violence was unimaginable. I heard the screams and the seconding sounds of slaughter through my bedroom walls, solid brick though they were.

Then there was silence. The dark shadow shape towering over me filling the room came through the door, then slipped into bed next to me as it did so diminishing in size and then disappearing entirely.

I knew it was there. I knew that it would remain with me forever. Sleep came quickly. As I slipped away I knew that this creature, this beast, this entity and I had an affinity. Whatever it was, whatever its nature it would be spending a lifetime with me.

Turning all the dark vision is churning my head into words, this would be its legacy and terrible gift.

LOADSHED

LOADSHED

shed shed shed
until we are dead

single dead
double dead
all the levels dead
until there
isn’t a single spark
left in the system
and the
cosmic god of entropy

demon of
true heat-death darkness
has had us
for lunch, supper, breakfast; absorbed
all our humanity (always
a redundancy: ever
the total victim)

RISING SIGN

the mirror was really
water and I drowned

or we were talking fire.
and the air i enhaled
roasted my lungs

Oh, where is the brotherhood,
your Age of Aquarius
my dear rising sign.

the strings on the lyre
have become barbed wire

slicing through my fingers
as I sing my
song of peace
descending into Hell
.

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