Author Archives: Damian Garside

AT THIS RELATIVELY EXACT MOMENT

AT THIS RELATIVELY EXACT MOMENT

sent my cats
into outer space

because I felt
they perceived me to be
too idiosyncratic

felt that they
would be much happier
living on a planet
without humans,
perhaps ruled by dogs

and there they are now
up there about
to leave the solar system
on their way through
the galaxy

tons of recyclable water
and cheapest brand
pet food

about to found a
new civilization some day
at this relatively
exact momemt
    off all our
star charts already

the most sneakily dominant
infuriating predatory species

we have
ever seen
our world has
ever had

REGIME CHANGE

REGIME CHANGE

we were
a bit dumbfounded
when the planet itself
told us
we were
headed for
regime change

that it was
bored by the age of
mammals
fed up with
the disastrous
dominance of
a species of ape

looked for a reinstatement
of the age of the dinosaurs,
the best of all ages,
as our own
Jurassic Park
demonstrated so well

LOST ON ME (HEADCASE)

LOST ON ME (HEADCASE)

the gods did it
so wanted to fuck with me

last day
before i left England
to journey
to South
Africa

apartheid
South Africa
some sixty
two
  years ago

threw the book at me
(two of them actually)
hurling them
     from the top of
a wardrobe
(direct hits
  on my cranium in
both cases)

later, in these very books,
I would find
      parallels,
Polyphemus tragically blinded
by Nobody
throwing boulders at that
taunting Achean hero
to avenge
     his mutilation

or Ajax throwing rocks
at the Trojans as battle became
brutal
   beneath the city walls,
the fate of
all Ilium
   hanging in the balance

of course, being only eleven,
this symbolism
was lost
     on me
and Homer’s Iliad and
the other one
had, no effect on me, were
lost on me

about to sail the wine dark sea
myself
      they did not
impact my life at all

amusing them that in their hubris
they thought
     they might reduce me
to a blind poetry headcase

OILMAN

OILMAN

bug
   in a spud

getting buddy
with that spud

dossiers on
every blackmail secret

but
  emerging ftom his spidery
hidey hole

finds himself on the flight
deck of a nuclear-powered
aircraft carrier
       in borrowed uniform
sitting in the cockpit
of an ait dominance fighter

great photo
opportunity before
the crucial press conference

two hundred feet below
a thousand yards off
starboard beam

bug in a sub
with a bone to pick
over the issue
of oil
and Empire

up periscope
calculating missile launch
sequence and torpedo spread

COMRADE KROPOTKIN

COMRADE KROPOTKIN

Comrade Kropotkin
lines up meticulous
at his desk

works
at a measured pace
with clever care

consults his almanac
to get a handle
on the time

he hopes
the weather will
be fine
Sun
   will shine
on all his
friends close
to the
Tsar and Tsarina

and bring
revolution and
state
   of extraordinary equality
and political freedom

far to the left
of Lenin and Marx.

BULLET POINT

BULLET POINT

he wrote
his poem
in bullet points
came across
as a cross
between Navy Colt
and MG-42

yes
   a bit of a risk
playing Russian Roulette
with an AK-47

not
  the route to take
believe me

in this game
failure is legendary

sniping at you
(as if they
could do
any better)

snide remarks about
when you
put it up
as
  slideshow
can see they were wrong
to expect poems
of high calibre

3 POEMS: THE BOOK/ WITHOUT BATTERIES/WANTED TO WRITE

THE BOOK

let me tell
your story

let me
write your book

alpha
to omega
cover
to cover

put it out there
do the marketing

and then
sit back and read
everything there

your life
open to everbody
in such detail

a life history
somewhat fictionalized
for the ages
even if it does
not end with me

****

WITHOUT BATTERIES

insidious, the pun
destabilizes

and here we are
with our ban on homonyms

thinking of a present
for the son I
do not have, never had,
could not
have thanks
to low sperm count
(my father
ascended to Heaven
as he always proudly
said
   he would
up there laughing at me)

and what, you ask, did
I eventually come up with:
a goblin-green
         genetic hybrid
of Sauron and
Darth Vader
perfect evil action figure
to exemplify
    the outright commercialism
of this day

on its back
a collection of cave trolls
and death stars
to teach
     young minds
how to deploy their
mass destruction forces,
ceaselessly strategize

making it a peerless
death to Middle Earth and
galaxies
     far far away festive
time

bliss for
    the changeling child

****
WANTED TO WRITE

intended to write
a very sexual poem
but the ink
in my pen
jumped the gun

wrote a mess of words
refinement
wasn’t ready for

wanted to write
the scariest poem ever
but my ink
froze
   lost my nerve.
my blood curdling

needed to write
a truly emotional poem
awash with feeling
but the page
got
   too fluffy
went all soft on me

as a last resort
convinced myself
I now
   by process of
elimination
absolutely had
to write
about death

with your
loving help

should know I am
banking on you
to kill this last line
put it out of its misery








TIME TREK

TIME TREK

straight from the pulpit
mouth of Stanley Kubrick

by way
of Jupiter, the Moon,
beyond the galaxy and
the dawn of Man

without
historiographic context
the grain
of the cross
         cannot be determined

thus spake the Yale
deconstructive theologian
unto the mediasphere

meanwhile on the other side
of the screen
but
   likewise in Africa
I saw cinema where
I had my
first Kubrick contact

along the old Voortrekker Road
North, in those badass CY
suburbs of Cape Town

the Christians came in droves
drove us
    from that
watering hole

turned it into
what I suppose they thought
a special day-night
paradise
   for the evangelically faithful

no world
      in which they
and I
could meet and talk

about pod bay doors and
HAL
    and the Monolith

about starchild transfomed
floating through space

haunting
    close to our Odyssey