Damian Garside

PISCES IS

Pisces is dreaming
was sleeping

but rising from the depths is
totally awake

deciding which direction to follow
(the eternal
problem)

swimming upsteam downstream
with and
against current
indifferent to tide

such a sweet silver creature
you say
forgetting the
brain of a shark.

RETURN

come back Isaac
all is forgiven

don’t want no multiverse
no wave collapse
restore
my comfort zone

force and motion, quantum
probability tells
me you must return

reinstate the old classics
that were
so ball-bearing

sex that is
simple mechanics
no
this way
and that

love that cannot be
entanglement

is there in the calculus:
mass meets acceleration
(what better
golden ratio?)

HERON

so many stars
the river reflects them
a heron
(blue)
splash landing
deletes them

looks at me with its yellow eye
as if to tell me
yes, one day

this
is how it will be

LECTURE

lecture me
censure me
assume
the moral
high ground

I will just
bend not
break
flow with
the blow

and then
show you
I am kensai
in the art
of villification

sit you down
squeeze at long
last
a poem out
of you, a work of
aesthetic sensibility,
heartfelt sensitivity
imagination

stuff you never believed
you had
stretched beyond
your limit
for this achievement

which
as promised
I will respectfully read
and critique

showing exactly how
putrid, unbelievably
shit it is
how someone
like you
should never ever
be let loose
within reach of a pen

WELL SPENT

that would be a night
well spent

getting
the taste of you
learning your flavour

how it shifts between
Empress, High Priestess
Queen of
Cups and

Sixty nine
of Hearts

RAIN

you had me
crucified
and cremated

because I did
rain on
your parade

but
second time round

I came back
stronger and
wiser

billion ton
collision trajectory

hurtling
through space

SPHERE

Where are they?

maybe there are
none

maybe
they are here
under your skin
in the biosphere circling the planet

inside the Moon
waiting ever so
quietly just
next door

or a class and several
levels if civilization above us
not even
bothering to watch us
like we
were to them
pretty much
old silent film,
syndicate TV

whilst they hold high tea
having solved all philosophy
every
teeny-weeny social
existential political problem
consumed in the
vast production of infinite energy
their galaxy already one vast
sun-swallowing, black
hole mining
absolutely invisible

spooky paradox
Dyson-type sphere.

COOL

you cool girl

slay and
slay again

in tight formation
and you know
I don’t drink no
Kool Aid but
would drink
every last drop
your lemonade

did I have the sweet
ben franklins to buy
more than
a mouthful

buy whole jug and
then recipe too

A DARK IRONY

a dark irony appeared
well, more
than one

filtered up through the floorboards
appeared out of nowhere
fell
from Heaven

but whatever its origin
could not wait
to make mischief
amongst us
do its little work

dividing us from each other
ruthless seperating us
as it
always does

sheep from goats
virtue from
sin

but, above all, those
of the species
with a modicum of
smarts
from
those chosen from
up high
blessed by the sanctity
of all-
knowing power

to take up
their true and rightful place

amongst the
blissfully
ignorant

terminally
stupid

arrayed in such
forbidding shape
(never more solid
more coherent ranks)

LET LIE

could write
a poem
or untangle
the big lie

you know the one
tied up in a big bow
charcoal-suited

but went for poem
left big lie alone
(let
big lie lie)

take it easy,
simple

be
glad to
be alive

until big lie kill me:
such a stupid
incomprehending smile blasted

clown-style
actoss my face