FOOTNOTE
What is
a politician good for?
was baffled by this,
but now
am entirely
flabbergasted
it’s the kind of question
after too many drinks
stuffing down a cheap
curry or
fish and chips
funny question to ask
and we have no better answer
than that given by
the Ancient Greeks
shocked at the disjunction
between political deeds,
political speech,
political ambition
and any
kind of philosophy.
AQUARIUM
She said that her star sign was aquarium.
I said that this
is such a coincidence,
since aquarium is
a water sign
and I am a fish
a flying fish
a salmon that can leap
in and out
of aquariums
bearing an amphora full
of cosmic energy
and if she played her cards right
I might be willing
to spare her
a sip
THINGS
Things crumbling
imperceptibly changing
and not for the better
all about energy and
closed and
open systems
but bear with me
there is dynamic, much afoot
some strange principle here
amongst all these
swirling particles
and yet
they are not particles
They have only the dream of a particle the whim of a field the thought of a spectacle yes bear with me this is going to be my slowest most considered most laborious poem the one that rambles on and on and on doubling back on itself out Wordsworthing Wordsworth
I guess this is the only type of
poetry genuinely left to write
this is my Solaris Mirror Stalker deep
and dark most Tarkowski of poem
oblique, difficult
conceptually
diffuse obtuse suspicious of words that hide what the carry within them
words that are hollow
resonate with the nothing
they bear within
this is me floating Sub-Zero
this is me looking where no one else has looked not knowing what we’ll be found this isn’t me stripped of human company empathising homing in on the suffering of others the pain of others
speaking dreaming the
dark night darkness we all feel the dream that coldly informs us
there will not be
an awakening
in the centre of the labyrinth
where sonething is there for us to
show (not tell) that
consciousness is meaningless consciousness is nothing consciousness is an accident at
the heart
in the nature of things
the broken
fragmented dark energy
anti-matter
frozen violently expansive imploding heart
of things.
RIGHT AS SHE BLOWS
Human rights
human rights
you have to squint
through a microscope
to get the gist of where
she is coming from
in her text
on human rights
Oh my humongous Suella
Sulla Braverman Braveheart
you will stand by your principles
fight for them lie
for them
kill and almost
die for
them (not
really, but it rhymes)
and rhyme is good
and euphemism too
and repetition
a zillion times
uncovering the frustrated
inner poet in you
(not that you would
ever stoop to elegy
not
the job of
Home Secretary)
to bewail
lost migrant lives.
BOTTLE
genie was in the bottle
bottle was on a plinth
plinth was right
in the centre
of the gallery
and they
were so
fucking glib
they pranced they danced
they pontificated
sprayed glitter, ribbon too
but that genie
swirled in its prison
like poison
nitro-glycerine,
rocket fuel
and I wondered
alone sensing all
that diabolical anger, power
if
some crazed fool
might release it, break
it free what it might effect
what
outrageously do
and so
we talked and drank
the genie and I
as we left the gallery
empty save
for bottle on plinth
and
its all-
new contents
stoppered, dissolved, placid
under that titanic
other-
worldly pressure
best place for them
to forever be
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
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
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
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
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
poems 2 die for