Damian Garside

WOBBLE

apologies
for the speed
wobble

but have got
fully pedal to the metal
watch them
all vanish
in the rear
view mirror

Plato, Aristotle
Jesus, Buddha, Nietzsche
all those great philosophies,
species dreams

fascism, dystopia,
cyborg reality, looming up
ahead
trying to
millionaire there
quantum disentangle, hit
light speed if possible

all a blur
crazy psychedelic sensation

soon
you will
feel the doom

really get
to the core

be one
with the rule
of iron
over chaos

ride the great wave
final seismic shift

DANTE

and there
at the very centre
of Hell

we find
Dante

tortured for eternity
for libelling those
above his
station

the justice perfect
the irony beautiful

everything in accord
for one whose wicked faith
could not
comprehend

that the Universes
has its golden favourites
who
should always
be worshipped, venerated
by those for whom
they are
their betters

the writers
of the law
always
above and beyond the law

(on this angel and devil
could
not be more
united

it is
their common faith

DOWN THE LINE

you two
who bred

tended
to

were two and eight
years respectively
when Fuhrer
fellow
first came to power

something in that Zeitgeist
pairing with you

saw
felt enough of it
throughout my childhood

every year
towards adulthood
that little
bit worse

wanting Biblical respect
demanding
regard for
that toxicity

and now we see
a few generations
down the line

how beautifuly it has grown
so well-shaped
and tended

long boisterous
soon bloody
burgeoning of those bundles
torches,
traitors and
putsch

WITH LOVING INTEREST

have
a window box
in my hellish suburb
hellish apartment

these
are more like cells
though they
call them mansions

no friend, lover,
family to speak of

keep
me company
help me through the bad

whatever bad others did
seemingly way within
the bounds
of forgiveness

in my little box
subject of all my
precious regard
and loving interest

a tiny flower grows
to prove science wrong
which said
I could not grow anything
in my hands
nothing would prosper

blossom
be bountiful, even
indeed multiply

but maybe
it is further
thing of deeper
punishment
malice
still to reveal itself

cherry
on the top
of my suffering
for eternal time

DIAL FIVE

dial one
to dial back the intrusion

dial two
for communicating inhibiting
solar flare
or pulse

or one of those bombs
to create electro-magnetic havoc

dial three
for nice-sized asteroid
take out your switchboard
once
and for all
do the trick

dial four
for twenty eight day after
virulent
zombie plague bacillus
leave you
guys
feeling

not quite
yourselves

dial five
for perfect payback
catch a bullet to
shut you up
stop you
phoning for good

dial six
for the offer
you just can’t refuse

LITTLE

I knew so little
understood so little

read page
upon page but
nothing stuck
nothing sank in

lost everything, all hope
in that insane five minutes
with you
in your car

at Salt River Station
you told me brutally
bluntly you
did want to get involved
but here you are
your fingers desperate
out of control
all over me

suddenly, and me blind to it,
like some witness wonder in
an Achean tragedy
not seeing
this mirroring of
desire
for what it is

falling
out of love for you
for the briefest most
killing
of moments

but there we are
years later
words spoken
memories on the table

edging towards each other
warily, uncomfortably,
uncertain of
our certainties

and the swansong
only in a dream

me in your car thrown back
by g force this thing
propelled by a rocket
redlining
skimming the
rooves of the
city precincts before

heading into deep space
only place where love between
us
such as it is
could ever be

AND NOW YOU DON’T

here we are
yet again

tooth and nail
battling upstream
insane in our search
for
forever narrowing

until
as always

the river
swallows itself
contrives
to disappear

UNTIL

poetry is
the easy way

simplicity itself
line

of least
resistance

a quantum wave
of words
about to
flow

no huge
necessity this
be

in any structured
shape, size
or form

any
particular direction

in your head
mon lecteur acad-
                 emique
length
     of line
geometry of page
                slice and dice
of caesura
stanza

and here
we have a bitch of a poem
that refuses to budge

your fingers hovering above
the page
a picture of frustration
portrait of
inertia

nothing ever seemed
so impossible
until it didn’t

nothing even
beginning to flow until
it would
not stop

poetry is difficult until
it isn’t

poetry
is no way
easy

until it is

until
(out of nowhere)
it writes itself

MILLION WATT AMP

I espied Apollo there
with his lyre

or maybe an
old banjo from dust bowl
heartlands

I am no
expert on music though
strolling through the stadium
with his
half-brother Dionysos

both exchanging at that moment
a sort of knowing smile

my guy
wondering what it might sound
like and,
more importantly, what
that sounds might do
to the
structures of
society

if it were seriously electrified
Marshall amped up to the max
(not ten
but eleven)

fuzz-boxed, wah-wah pedal led
and shaking the foundations
of Heaven
through
something close
to a million Watts.

ANACONDA

syllable by
masticated syllable

came across you
filling that legendary belly
devouring every
morsel
of my name

seems
my being a snake too
according to
the ancient astrology

made me
as regards foodstuff
near
exact fit for you

a task for you
to slide into wisely
without apprehension

if you were
to call it
a marriage here not
of convenience

but
made it Heaven

consummated
in Hell, in devilish fashion

I would have
to agree

although
equally I might just add

it sounds
just
as good

the other way round.