Damian Garside

COLLIDER

they claimed you were
the Einstein
of literary studies

but then
you went
and dissed
my poem

so I dragged
you down
to our local Collider

had you
smashed into
sub-atomic particles

the quantum impact
of which on the world
as we know it
being
at best purely
academic

OUT THERE

we sat around
the campfire

talking about
the evil out there

and anomalous
interstellar comets
that may well
be mother ships

such moments
the ontogenesis of
so much philosophy

the words out of which
much of our celestial framework
were once born
.
but the infant
in each of us sat there
growing ever
more terrified

the evil in our tales
quietly encroaching
creeping closer

drawing us
for comfort
closer
to the fire

until, ultimately
amongst the embers themselves

if we
are meant to burn
be
reduced to ask

prevailing logic
determines
best do it ourselves

we sat by the camp fire
long nights to talk through

FINALLY

the ground is calling
blind creatures of the soil
need me
I sense that
cloying feeling

and me — sad inevitability —
headed in that general direction

soon to satisfy
(in intimate fashion)
all those tiny
desires for connection

there
down in
the vertigo

imagining our
small, precious
time together

my time to revel
in close acquaintance that
is different, radically other

a change from all those
macro forces trying their
utmost to shape, define,
dominate me
as was the case from
first breath
was to
take

farewell to these forces
finally

CRAZY THOUGHT POEM

you are
a light
for
anyone’s
darkness

you are a star
for any
lost ship
at sea

as I float through
deep space
looking for
something
I might
call my own
new home planet

a crazy thought finds me
the idea
that should
I find it

you
will be there to meet me

exactly
my cup of tea

DEEP

escalator
went up

up
up
up

forward
reverse

it’s axiomatic
elevator went
down

down down down

skipping circles
of good

ploughing
through axes of evil

down through
every cellar, basement,
bunker
ever built

through the deepest
mine of all
on the
golden
Witwatersrand reef

deeper than a anything
that ever went
China Syndrome

deep and
deeper still

never to bottom out

ARROWS

I have arrows

gold, steel, lead,
silver

one for the Earth
one for the Sun
for the Moon

one
for the abyss

have such faith
that all three arrows
once in range
will Saint
Sebastian
my target

all
notched, in the groove,
tailor made to
be lethal

every arrow a question
every arrow
an answer

Apollo
knows

it is what it is
they are what they are

challenge to
your sacred
armour

WHEN MARCUS CRASSUS

when Marcus Crassus
died in battle
everybody wept
the grief
shook Rome

the whole
city consumed
by sadness

slaves being tortured
prisoners crucified

took time
out of their suffering
to make sure
they found time
to weep

gangs patrolling the Subura
to ensure there
would not
be a single
soul
failing to
feel heartbroken

for if the gods
could not fail to be
grief stricken
how not
mere mortals?

so tragic that one
so rich and powerfully
should be put
to death so aptly
suffer
so horribly

so wrongful a vengeance
so totally
beyond the pale
of social justice

ORANGE

instead of apple
(green, red
or rainbow skin)

picked
an orange

colour a
misinterpretation of red
reinterpretation
of yellow

nevertheless
how that colour
did warm me
as I lay
with you you
in the tall grass

cobra of this very colour
luxuriating in its supreme
extreme elapid
deadly beauty

shrugging its shoulders
mission unaccomplished

shoulders it
definitely
deeply does not have

OTHERWISE

clockwise
counter-clockwise

I look for
the otherwise

am stamped as
otherwise

told I had to
do better had
better do

not do be
so otherwise so
anti-anti-clockwise

try to cut the gaslight halt
the rear projection

give up boiling my brain
thinking my way
out of
this impasse

want to do so love to
do so have to do so

be so otherwise

otherwise
who knows what
in Hell is what

NOCTURNE

either
it is everything

or it
is nothing

or it
is something

beyond time
beyond meaning

beyond
understanding itself

I wrote you a note
by a river
             (not sure
when I think back
whether it was a real
river
      or one
            purely imaginary)

let the words flow
across the page

flow
into the night