Damian Garside

GENUINE

“Oh this isn’t a copy, this is it.” The Freshman (1990) (dir: Andrew Bergman)

could it be
a hypocrisy

to think
of this poem
as “genuine”
whatever
that means

written
in free verse
stolen from others

needing to
be “liberated” absolute
prerequisite?

and so
the question arises
raising its hideous
beautiful head

what to do
with the rules?

with Robert’s net
we have removed
trying to
define
our own trajectory
less travelled path

keeping it
rich

right words in right places
worthy of keeping
in the Louvre

behind glass
genuine,
unless
there is a copy
we know nothing about

PAY GRADE

no clear
consensus
about
consciousness

cannot see it
but its
jumping us
from behind
slapping us
in the face

take this entity
on the periphery

I shout
I speak I whisper
but no
answer
do not respond
do not reply

no wonder there’s
fertile field out there
researching
the problem
of other minds
(present
company
existentially excepted)

so
quiet
between jobs
between mirrors
between
operating systems

let us
Turing you
let us bombard you
with
standard twenty questions

are you

rock? robot? stone?
xenobiological?
home grown creature?

thing made of
carbon, silicon,
titanium, gas plasma?

thing with other specialities
beyond linguistic aptitude?

or are
feedback, repartee,
dialogue, duet

things above
below beyond your
pay grade?

not your thing
your buzz
your way of showing
me
whole new archetype
for inner self?

DISCLOSURE

Oh dear

we somehow ended up
in bed together

at which point
it emerged
was disclosed

we are just
not never on
the same wavelength

one is
a FM local station

the other
a set of interlinked SETI
radio satellite dishes

picking up pulsars
deep deep in
far flung space

pulsating
at the dawn
of the time

not the loving aliens
sending us love
letters
wanting to get
down with us

come travel light years
to be with us
teach us

the harmony concord we desire

MIDTERM

got an ‘F minus’
for my midterms
in erotic theology

basically because
I could not wrap my
head around Harvard
Referencing System

felt there must be
some abstruse conspiracy
behind such an innovation

some dictat that it
should be so
which was communicated
from up on high

a brain so great
was not just subsumed
but swallowed whole
by terminally
expanding
artificial intelligence

things that
bodies, structures,
and walking dead conglomerate
corporates

find themselves determined
by the way they
believe
instinctively and
instinctually need to be

curtailing any tendency
to
think
out
of the box, each
and every box

pull out
of the hat, out
of thin air; out of nowhere

LOVE STORY

watched the Sun
go down

what are the odds
that next morning
would
find it taking
its
own good
time to
pop up again

lazy Sun
stay in bed
Sun
(and today
not a Sunday)

unless
that 3I cosmic
interloper
up to
something

tearing dear Sun
away to
old dream
of much greater love

hand in hand
Sun and 3I
heading
into the sunset

leaving us
in the dark, real dark
worse than
what dark our species
has been much enduring lately

trying to devise
what this visitor
us about

now hijacking our star
off on some interstellar romance

IN THE MIX

added into the mix
got added into the mix

wrote a poem
about the Universe
added everything I
could come up
into
the mix

even with my imagination
far from
being out there
amongst the most wayward

wanted to get recognition
be answered

be subject
of interstellar curiosities
read by the stars and
their planets themselves

which
forged stuff I am
made of due
to
reclaim it shortly

built me up now
I am to
become the basis for
whatever
would build itself

every atom molecule
subatomic particle
recruited accounted for

calculated with gusto
to be taken into
the mix for
all that is next stage
for realization of
greater
long-term plan

SCRY

I scry
the world

through
smokey quartz

whereby
whatever
visions I see

always
remain guarded

steeped
in cold blood
close to the bone

I scry the stars
through the same
dark crystal

knowing as with us
and our blue
bright planet

out in that darkness
nothing remains what it first seems
B

ASS

listen
observe

I sense here
a mad dialectic

right wing
left
wing

left brain right wing

not excluding
all that stuff
still left

in the centre
left and right of centre

talking opposing fighting
negotiating

brought to
the boil
coming to head

pain
in the ass

virus finding the door
wide wide open

no need to burrow
drill
right through the skull

SEE (C)

Cincinnati
cinnamon

what’s in a consonant?
what’s in a syllable?

you taste
of cinnamon

such a strong striking taste
lingering on my tongue
(and my tongue
knows lingering
learnt it by heart
from great ancient manuscripts

I love strong flavors
tastes that linger
grow on you

down there where
as you descend
zone
grown delicious

and there
deeper down
freshly ground

maybe I will stall
entangled in the roots
of first fatal tree

which I believe
just had to be cinnamon

here we are
sneak a look

spell out
all you can see (C)

BREATH

fish swam
as fishes do

because they
like to have to
kind
of by definition

saw something bigger
swimming her way

something very unfish
too big to be fish
even ancient Megalodon

to big to be any
aquatic creature, sea mammal

thing
with whirling propellor
yet quiet
as a mouse
super stealthy multi-
megaton mouse

mouse in a mask
in a soundproofed house

seemed to fish
that it needed to
take
big breaths

so many tubes symmetrical
huge breathing tubes
would have
to open them all
breathe
through them all

one two three four five
six sixteen
gigantic

arrayed in
pairs
all the way
down its back

its sleek
deadly back