Author Archives: Damian Garside

SHOT AWAY

working on my poem
tinkering, hammering away

X marks the spot
where the writing
got stuck, became defunct

and Marx and Engels
now branded unconstitutional
my university roon mates
in Manchester from
a whole
different time

meanwhile watching
content creators reacting to
Mick and Merry Clayton
voices in
   unison soaring, screaming

wonder what Rosa Lux
would say about everything

as I walked
with Karl along his river
to its confluence
with the Rhine

thinking up words
and images
        will never find
their way

into the nuts and bolts
and hammered frame

of something
that could ever
say anything to the world

as the song tells it
just a shot
a kiss away

LAST NIGHT

last night
unexpectedly

against the odds
out
   of the blue
against
the grain

we
   became lovers

as a result
   physically. philosophically.
are
   welded together
possibly forever

and in retrospect
lying in bed, in your arms
swear you
    took advantage of me
took me
by surprise

got bliss blitzkrieged
by you
      caught and captured

bombed, stranded
by your beauty

the two
of us suffused
blended
together

one movement
in a symphony, one connection

so complete
movement of movements

both of us
left hanging on for dear life

FLOW

go with the flow
to
   and frow

stern
and prow

become being of
full fluidity

creature to
shapeshift

meld with me
as every night we
set sail
   
     voyage
discover
set sail again

SMOOTH

smooth
so soft
and smooth

which is
how I imagine you

rising up before me
like Aphrodite springing
out of the ocean

the taste of those waters
flowing through
every
beautiful molecule

SLEEPER

I had a dream
.which I can”t remember

maybe
I forgot it

or maybe somebody
came to mr
whilsr I was sleeping
snuck up
close and
put a bullet
through my head

not a
dream I was
supposed to have

PLATEAU

it is a beautiful planet
a picture postcard world
without parallel

or once was,
somewhat in decline these days

but still, sadly,
a place of
barbarity, foreboding, danger
she dark imaginings
amongst
it’s most extreme creatures

place where
grace is
lethal
colour is camouflage

and things
have learnt the vital lesson
never to
seem
exactly what they be

and here we now return
after so much time
to see
how much has changed
how much
remained the same

what exceeded
and what fell short of,
far short of,
our expectations

must be something in
the atmosphere
so inimical, utterly
resistant to
growth in awareness
movement to understanding

breathtaking when
you consider the lost potential

this need to settle
for
permanent impasse

level
down to
low plateau