Damian Garside

SINCE

I was cooing
and gurgling mightily

all those years ago
the day I was born

some few years after
the war to end
all wars
(part two)

so unbelievably lucky
to live in a world where
since then

no one
in Syria, Lebanon, Rwanda,
Angola, the Falklands, Iraq,
Eritrea, Algeria
Vietnam or Ukraine

has died or been wounded
or in any way
been inconvenienced by war

such as being
covered in white phosphorus, Sarin gas
or napalm
shredded by machine gun
disembowelled by rocket
burnt to a crisp
by hot cluster bomb

and me gurgling away happy
happy happy

stupidly convinced
I had been brought
into a world

where such things
would not could not

must never
be allowed to happen

MY WILLY WONKA STRAWBERRY FIELDS FOREVER CHESS SET

CHESS

he bottled some lightning
that one did

who first thought of chess
must have seen
it in a dream
a perfect machine

figure of legend man
whos name is lost
to time

who plunged into
the labyrinth of his brain
found
its dead centure

captured
the square root of
infinity

game
that is everything
board and pieces
complete
package of
symettry

MUST BELIEVE (FOR RYUICHI SAKAMOTO)

where does it come from?
where has it disappeared to?

those opening notes leaving me spellbound

bridge and chorus
taking me far away

I hear you and the angels
and devils of my nature
drop what
they are doing

in their rush to love
sign a peace pact
crazily meant
to
last forever

but whilst it echoes
in my ears refusing to die
I reckon,
must believe
that I am safe

SNAIL

snail
sings itself to sleep
inner voice
resounding in
that shell

recites thd numbers
of the fibonacci
sequence

better than
counting sheep

easier to segue into
fable of a cosmos
it cannot see
but feel

golden spiralling into
imagining itself stuff
of a star such as lens and

book of
belief
assure us we are

snail-like centuries
to get us this far

ALTAMIRA

poem is
when the world
goes binary

poem is
in that darkness
and separation
in a fever of deprival-
induced hallucination

animals in all
our wildness
flash upon
and through the white
cave wall

and we
see everything
suddenly our whole story

shifting revelation
of shapes and forms

death and life
in dance of fusion

and even in depth
of darkness

light
of suns, message of
a star

VOICES

those voices
surge, they burn

promise to become
incandescent, and
threaten it too

behind
this shield of gases, vapours
we do not see the odd
star dance, others
as the old tale tells,
stopped
in their tracks

to hear such spluttering lives
take flame, exult, exalt

as if
they were lines
in the same grear epic
one great poem
one pure song

the hall echoing for
years thereafter

.this empty hall echoing
still echoing if only
we could still hear it

compare it to the sound of
the ice cracking, seismic
ripples
and tears

as
our voices lost
our poetry gone

the world chooses silence
and now fragments

LITTLE WORDS

little words
William, neat, little

but they rhyme
like a charm

their lightning
hits you long

you even sense how
easily seeming simplicity
has
got the better
of you

these little words of power
prowling across the page

burning
with mutable malleable
fire

fore you
stand shocked

fooling yourself

BOATS FLOAT

boats
float

boats
disappear

screws with my mind
the causality here

loaded with refugees
now
nowhere to
be seen

to some
a sadness
to others nothing
short of
palpable
relief

the sea so fraught,
so fickle
so
uneven
in its favour

bringing
horror to all
horror in sadness
horror in
relief

but worse, far worse
awaiting the survivor

no perfect storm at sea
ever came close
to this mother of
maelstroms

once
setting foot on land

FOR DESSERT

the Oompa Loompas know
how to do

they even know
how to do-be-do-be-do

shovel in the sugar
sing their moral song

like little purple and
green machines
what on Earth
could go wrong?

but I think my fault
is knowledge
know just too much to do

would like to go with Wonka
down the crazy-trip ranting Rimbaud
tunnel
time
after time

after time
after time

write a pretty little
dissertation or two