Author Archives: Damian Garside

FADE

FADE

Caligula sleeps
(and for a
moment Rome
sighs
with relief)

wants to be Caesar
wants
a power parade

yet
by the time he
finds himself in the position
to become one,
have one

that god-like mind
will have drifted away

ceased to
function, slipped
far beneath
the level of dangerous
dementia

terminal shade
of fade

THAN WE WERE LED TO BELIEVE

THAN WE WERE LED TO BELIEVE

ideas come and go
court words, sometimes
bond with them

come and go
like, as this starched aesthete said,
like women talking
of Michelangelo
lovers of classic form

or they sing
like sirens to follow
them deep
even though they know
whilst poets, artists we
may yet
be
we are nevertheless mere
mortals
may well be lured
by the mystery to
embrace our own drowning

and there, strandloper, desert
shadow
we may well find you
catch you
between the lines
more agreeably human, far less
invisible than hoped for
as you had intended

not the catalyst
we were led to believe

DENIAL

DENIAL

a bug clawed its way
in through my navel

hurt like hell
those titanium pincers

told me instantly
I had misread
my world
     got it wrong

sometime in the past
this shift in
genre, everything
turning
science fiction

dystopian, not
the utopian kind, total shock
not nice surprise
in every bit
and byte of
its
dream logic

and you
    curious, if not
at the limit of your anxiety,
to
know
   the wherefores and whys
of this threshold reality

would be happy to explain,
conscious of the likelihood
of throwing you
into
   a denial
from which you might
never escape

INALIENABLE

INALIENABLE

sorry G
for slashing at you
satirically

losing my cool
yet
  still trying to
be brutally funny

no doubt you
being golden DJ
and everything
setting yourself up
to the call
the shots

know it is
my democratic right
to smack you
satirically
    whilst defending
your inalienable
democratic
right

to speak freely
no matter what agenda
no matter
how cutely nonsensical

how third reichy
I believe it feels

PAR FOR THE COURSE

PAR FOR THE COURSE

I come
and
   go

come and go
go
and
come

collapse in
your arms
   (one
happy wavefront)

hard to make sure
every fractal
on board
   on the same page potentially,
pointing in
   the same direction

the mystery I am
you are
    delirious product
of choices

what
   you are reading right
now for instance

coming and going
going and coming

glimpse of the pattern
            even pattern
of patterns

par of the course
(true or false? spin
the coin
      you decide   all
up to you)

I come
and go

THEREIN

THEREIN

ah, such golden
reflections on the ills
of democracy Mr Cliff

I wonder what heightened
state of political consciouness
making
   you kin
to Plato, produced
such
   desire for curation, left
us with
so much to mull over
State of beauty in
all its golden
reflection

ruled and voted for
by the very best, like
your good self

hearts of solid, pure
high caste iron

brain
    of shiny tin

(all such philosophical
mumblings, rumblings,
              perfect expression
of the truth
therein)

TODAY

TODAY

today, no cheap
linguistic tricks
I promise

such as
comic wordplay involving
crude pun, your
basic
   obvious homonym

such as
   poor Gareth, so
on the
wrong side
of history,

                  losing
intellectual footing
tumbling
    off a cliff

in his desperate intervention
to save the State
by savaging democracy

anything to distract
from the patently
racial
   sleight of hand

HAPPY COUNTRY RY

HAPPY COUNTRY

always better
to conquer
a happy country
.
dare
to pass yourselves
of as a circus
to infiltrate,
push your
way inside

truth be told, there
is not so much distance between
clown comedy
and clown tyranny

where
    the clowns go pinstripe
and everything red
is just
     blood

always better to conquer
a happy country, lands
bitterly starved of any
kind
of reasonable fortune know
the punchline to
this joke
all too well

AH, YES, GARETH

AH, YES, GARETH

Ah yes Gareth
is, this, not a case
of who will
guard guardians (custodes
custodet ipse)

or that old
joke against the Reich
involving bicycle riders
and Jews

we see
how neatly education,
class and
       wealth translate
into realms political as
more insidious
species of liar

as the world clamours
for democracy in the face
of every species of
fascism

I confess to be less
than entertained as your
stale brethren
by the puttering
posturings
of your pithy little pen.