Author Archives: Damian Garside

NO BRAINER

NO BRAINER

a no brainer
you cannot lose

you paid the deposit
now stand good
are in good standing
to inherit everything

no moral
price to pay

just
see
the glory

play your part
bank the assets

watch them all
fail and fall
the unevolved
the unchosen

a no brainer
press the button
do what you
have to do
sit back
relax
enjoy everlasting life

by definition
by decree
by all the truth
of natural
divine selection

never
to be raised up
on high

VERY LIKE A WHALE

VERY LIKE A WHALE

was up there somehow
miraculously, marvellously

hanging around just
below an underbelly
of interspersed
white
    and gray cloud

holding a conversation
with that expression
of cloudiness

whilst beneath us
two could hardly be
more well established actors
were playing characters
somewhat
hostile to each other

playing a game of
power, authority
and contending perspective

debating
     the difference between
what princely and sycophantic
imaginations might
project upon
cloud

and me ignoring this happily
knowing it by heart
having watched it to death

broke the fourth wall
to warn them
both of their deaths

until
    the cloud took me,
as I became
one
  with its vapours

crazy tableau upon tableau
as the stage lighting
got dimmer

darkness
in that prison

unless as
the god of this genre
as he did
to defend
his birthright
simply unlock everything

deus ex machina
a saucerful of insane secrets
hovering above
            the two of us

alien
vanity plates

UPSIDE DOWN

UPSIDE DOWN

a bunch of bad philosophers
have broken into the library
are hard at work
stealing books
as if they were
works of art
or treasury bonds

I was debating with myself
whether to make
a citizen’s arrest
or
drive the getaway car

the thing being
that so many good books
subject to
in-depth study

would be bound to
impact upon their moral
compass
     turning that needle
quickly, slowly,
eventually 180

away from Nietzsche and
Bataille back
     in the direction of
Plato and Mill,
Kant
    and Aristotle

the kind of thinking
that starts with the premise
the best
   first move is
to base the logic
on what
    we are, what we have

not the existential, methodological necessity
of turning
      inside out
reversing poles and
that radical
       decentring that
privileges margin and
everything upside down

CHOCOLATE INDEED

CHOCOLATE INDEED

I took
the Emperor to task
over why
there were
no sprinkles
on my ice cream

seemed to me
an example of misrule,
abject discrimination

with which
he did not concur
adding insult
to injury, fuel
to the fire

with a brush
of his hand
simply
             waving
me away

insisting
that I redirect
my complaints, to
the author
of this oversight, a
certain Mr Stevens
legal expert, insurance
executive
somewhere
in New England

and so
I looked for him
in Boston, and
Providence Rhode Island,

all over Connecticut, Delaware
and Maine

not coming up trumps
getting horribly misled
at every juncture,
between
    stanzas

by host upon
host of
impenetrable clues, most
cryptic of metaphors, obscure
intellectual
references
philosophical conundrums
and impossible
spiritual quandries

all of
which I loved
left me
begging for more

and with this
his answer to
my sudden
supreme question

wondering whether
if you sliced
ripple in half
(be it
   with scalpel, scimitar,
or ceremonial longsword)
would it indeed

bleed raspberry
and
   with rum and raisen or
blueberry, strawberries
and cream,
rocky road
tutti frutti
               and indeed chocolate

would the same fate befall?
                same fate befall

and indeed chocolate
same
     fate befall

chocolate indeed!

DOORWAY

DOORWAY

there is
no one
at the door

no enemy
at the gates

we need a door
we need a gate
without them
how

can our enemies
find us, how can
we locate
our enemy
find out
who is
our enemy

we
and our enemy
need each other

how else can we
set traps, devise
fields of fire?

catch them
lining up
taking turns
to knock

trying to dupe
us into thinking
this be a social visit

UNTOUCHABLE

UNTOUCHABLE

politically
I am untouchable

pregnant
with bold ideas

in your face
about to
drop a
truth bomb

many megaton
nothing your battery
of lies,
weapons of
disinformation
can do about it

no hope of
saving yourself
building deep
underground
anti-truth bunkers

the truth radiation
will get it
if not
the unbelievable
shock wave
flash of a million
degree light

CHOSEN

CHOSEN

Thank you Bibi
for choosing me

epic fury
roaring line

hearing those names,
feel safer already

protecting me
iron dome
nuclear
umbrella

all your power
aiding
and abetting

felt so
insecure
in this parallel universe
cartoon world
where
nothing makes sense
no sanity, not any

terrified that
a stray missile
or drone
homing in
on me
got my name
written on it

bound
to cut
me down
        to size, or
worse fate entirely

I tell
you no lie,
no lies
in my armoury.