Author Archives: Damian Garside

KASPI

KASPI

Ah!,
     those pieces
are starting to open up
becoming a lot more
friendly to me

the squares, too,
are starting to show me things,
teach me
how this dance
is done

pulling back the veil until
I see them, find them,
those
   secret patterns, hidden
pathways

how it all
       meshes together as
a perfect machine

Oh
  now for the first time
I embrace that temptation
to sacrifice time and
material
    seeing what this game
of games unlocks
to what heights
it takes me

honoring the memory
of Kaspi, my one-eyed, bicolor,
feline best friend,

named after that author
who so cogently argued for
the intimate
connection between chess
and life
with all the persuasiveness
of a great world champion.

AT THE TIME

AT THE TIME

we
were always
in a different time
zone

perhaps even
epoch

but then again, maybe
it was all down
to me entirely

light years away from anyone
in my own nebula
or just
high above, if not
deep below
the surface
of this planet
(who knows?, perhaps
both
at the same time)

fifty years whizzing past
each other, never colliding,
not even
a glancing blow

destined for
bigger things, battering our
ways quite
independently into
populated planets

as if
    radar guided, as if
beautifully synchronized,
exactly timed

AND ALL THAT

AND ALL THAT

I was present
at the funeral of the dead Universe,
not a pallbearer
but did bring flowers
(obviously not there
at its birth)

was sure
     they would let me
give a little speech
but was assured
I wasn’t
important enough, and
being a sort-of poet
would be
bound
to get the tone wrong,
if not break into
rap, or, heavens forbid, song

and so
     my bubble burst,
disappointment expanding
at the speed of light

I found a fulcrum, place
to stand, and lever

spent all of eternity
dissing the hell out
of everything, everyone
that somehow
found themselves forced into
or openly deciding

to love badly, and
be loved badly back.
     

CAMILLE

CAMILLE

saw you hanging out
at the Mad Hatter’s party
with Madame Ferocity

your girl
I believe, after you
gave us the lowdown,
told us her true story

or was it
more like home turf for you
the two of you
wearing matching aprons
sinking strong, dark
Italian roast
espresso after espresso?

there in some Sicilian cafe
bristling with costa nostra, being
their regular haunt?

Then,
her back being turned,
you tried to (brigand
that you are) sell me the line
that this Amherst spinster
be some
daughter of
Dionysus

making so persuasive a case
in usual heavy artillery style

that was easily seduced
(how could I not be?)
dragged along
pointedly and
pitilessly
for the ride

ON THE OTHER HAND

ON THE OTHER HAND

daylight here
giving me permission to
write whatever I come up with

conscious that the Austrian
did legislate
of what we
cannot speak we
must needs be silent

this itself
being a species of silence

whitespace, words,
you yourself fill
the sound
syllables in
feel how they match
the rhythm

darkness however
(and here so hard to
decide between them)
rejects
silence
in favour of secrecy, mystery
all that
be whisper, middle-of-the-night
to and fro, touch and feel

arabesque
circling the absolute
homing in on fat zero

and,
done with that divine calculus,
invites the light in again
with all
due protocol and
consideration

the love stand-off (some say,
cold war) between them

feels
in my bones
to be too much either-or

sometimes a bit too
sublime, intense, fraught
with havoc
for the sense
of settled taste you
appreciate here