LOUVRE
the Russian
poets
are all
at war
shooting the Ukranian
artists flinging grenades
from opposite
side of
the battlefield
producing the kind of
Surrealist landscape
will
alter history
forever
best splattered onto a canvass
and hung
in the Louvre
PUT DOWN
Put down
your candy crush game
(would so
like your candy
to crush)
but first a word from
our advertisers
if you went professional
option you would get
premier service and not have
to worry about anything
meanwhile in the simulation
that is the poem
we are either particles
or waves or
both or neither
so let me crush your candy
whatsover
catch you me
cheating on the two
slit experiment
by the time the last line enjambs
many many alternate universes
(eat your heart out
Michelle Yeoh)
up and running, teeming
with our joint energies
ESPRESSO
was malingering in Hell’s
best coffee shop
started to fancy a coffee-
coloured barista
serving espresso
shrouded
by steam
and yet
still no mistaking
her demonic beauty
(so on point with
these fine surrounds)
and me
trying to catch her
jade green eye and
lure
it
towards me
as if she might fall
for a run of mill, ordinary devil
such as
the one there
in the corner
writing this thing
MONETIZE
monetize
demonize
I am
writing a new thesaurus
looking for
a common denominator
even as you
wait in the shadows
crumbling
to dust
once wondering but
now given your answer
as to
how it is
all going to
end
RAIN
the writer writes
the end of
the world
but the paper
is putting up
too much
resistance
somehow he just cannot
write his way to
his vision of
an ending
quietly cataclysmic
apocalypse falling
upon us soft as rain
SOFT
your poem
is soft
is malleable
when you call
it answers
fawns
rolls
at your feet
always there
to do your bidding
is as safe
a wicked pleasure as
anything the Universe
contrived
to devise
as harmless an intervention
as can be imagined
desperate to
appeal
this
I really feel
deep in the heart I’m
pretty sure I have
GAME
saw you reading
my poem
in a Video game
and there I was
writing this poem
as part
of that narrative
an Escher etching hanging
on the wall
windows
mirror
smoke dolls and
boxes
looked around but failed
to see anyone writing
about to
reboot me
so I just
drove to the ocean
to admire the artwork
the artwork there almost
beyond belief
EXCHANGE
paradox of choice
constant of change
let’s just surrender to
life, the flow, the poem
forget writers and
readers
who is where
who is what
where to find our story
the narrative that spreaks us
captures us totally
in its
open-
ended box
NATURALLY
a nation of shopkeepers
without shops
a nation of conquerors
without conks
a nation of accountants
called to account
in the event of
analysis
it’s a lout
rout
AS IT SO HAPPENS
as it so happens
the Church and State
are both
outraged
the Sun and Moon
have begun to
tango begun
to samba
and some devil drunk
on tequila
is in the vestry
demanding communion
damanding absolution
quoting from a mash-up
of Neruda’s sublime Cantos
and visionary
holy books
and all are aghast
having booked their places
these
sons and daughters
not a tatter between them
no missing thread
and thus
in assued completeness
remain well aware
that devil on tequila becomes
devil in tequila becomes
democratic
host of devils that
bring decorum down
become god of thd people
hacked to pieces and
resurrected
become
the bones
of the philosophers doomed
until the end
of argument
to host
perpetual return
poems 2 die for