Damian Garside

SQUARE MEAL

what are your
co-ordinates
in terms of ex, why and
zee axes
or the number and
letter of your
black or
white square?

here is Pac-Man singularity
gone full T-Rex devouring
all your pieces

and here I am
coming to save you
to tell you it is
all Maya, all simulation,

a game that is being played
through the complete joy
and abject pain
and horror

of all
its infinite possibilities

CHOICE

Shake off that dust and follow me.
We shall take this road
even less travelled than any
you have read about.

Just through this door
you call a gate
secret garden? you ask,
but in truth this is way more
in the nature of a secret world

so many covet, yearn to own,
failing which destroy,

for who should enjpy
such a world if
the freedom is not proferred
to subjugate it, colonize it?

so take in as much
as you can whilst we are here
commit to your heart
this set
of directions

and I shall leave you here
so fitting, indeed politic,
that I should disappear

honestly, I do feel
that this is
all I should say
am
permitted to say

indeed it may be said
to have
may be charged with
having spoken
out of turn, broken
the code,
said too much already.

But the thought that you might
guide
your soul’s
choice

here,
when you assuredly return.

RIDE

come out
for a bit of a death drive

no need to worry
we got cruise control
we got a transmission
that is automatic

confess your need
for speed
that is certainly no sin

so forget singing your song
before we fasten all seatbelts

over the rainbow — well, there
is no rainbow, no yellow
brick road —
doesn’t
cut it no more

as we
overtake everything
at the foot of the blind rise

we can drive without lights
appreciate the darkness more

who cares what
falls by the wayside as
we accelerate science fiction

no picking up
hitch-hiker psychopaths
out for life of wild ride

ON EARTH

in my dreams I am
still drowning

battling to get my head
to the surface
but no surface exists

and so
my battle for the air
longing for land

eternity of the test
which must be
a quest

my mind circumnavigating
every sunken city
on Earth

WHERE

where are you?
when
are you?

I can only imagine
forgive me if I humour
myself with the thought
of you reading this poem
streaking through
the galaxy
at near light speed

puzzling through this conceit
deploying all the
intricacies of your
programming
possibilities of
your circuitry

wondering how it
could be I got you exact
nailed you, labelled you
almost
perfectly

a life that I can
only dream and so

did dream

and now we you here
you might just allow yourself
to dream of me

ZERO

zero
was worth more
than a poem

no civilization I know
stood or fell
by a poem

but zero, gorgeous oval
that you are
you gave us infinity
opened space
and time

and terrible
singulaity that
just swallows swallows

zero
my best little beautiful
paradox of the absolutely
essential
number
that can never be

a whole Arrakis desert
in your history
sheer
possibility

quietly, quietly
zeroing inimagining the poem

that simply cannot be

NO SURPRISE

no surprise
this is just a mirror
and you know mirrors

see yourself there
wondering how the light
could figure you out at all

no depth you have
is what you assume
perhaps
definitively conclude

but when the reflection
moves first, poses
a question
how can you
be so sure?

and who is meant to
act nonplussed

downplay the magic that
undeniably exists

something transformative
in the air you pick up an image

try to place its scent
hold it
up to the light

strange how it
lets itself
react
to your presence

Disappointed

What is one word that describes you?

PLENITUDE

now where in the great book
does it speak of plenitude?
because I
did not get any
get any at all

so I mistrust these books
these books of huge substance
that say everything
supposed to call
angels, summon semons

but in terms of my
small wealth of experience

these texts of divine good
and implacable evil

do not bring forth
hosts
and legions

just suggestions to
temper a cosmos
of sublime
or supreme indifference

with sad and small
and limited revelation

all cool breeze or,
contrarily, hot air

CAN (NO LESS)

Poetry is what is read
as poetry

no more; no less

that fat book of prosody
that you bought
(so heavy
in hardback)
is mission wasted unless
you fancy yourself as sonneteer
or the bloke with
the penchant to pen
the occasional rondeau
or vilanelle

as for me, as you can see
pretty much an
ignoramus when it
comes to things prosodical

indeed things strict and linear
not entirely my bag

read me (if read me
you must, by compulsion
or insistence)
forwards backwards
upside-
down

head to tail in oxygen-rich
atmosphere
or zero-gravity

your poem your choice

read me
any way you like
way you can.