Author Archives: Damian Garside

101

postmodernism 101
will be written
in the Mirror Room

make sure
you look good
and agree with
your reflection
before taking
the examination

the notes for Chaos Mathematics
will be issued on holograms
every
   key theorem
broken into fractals

delivered
should systems collapse
by android
drone butterflies

well
before the hurricanes hit

the one caused by
the stress and
agitation
       suffered by your
fellow chaos
students
   writing the same exam
                            in China

****

COPERNICAN SYSTEM

tellers of tales
doctors of spin

the world
is a globe
it is
an LP record

it turns
with you, against you
within you and
without you

it is the Centre
of the cosmos
it is
a billion light
years from anywhere

screaming
    ahead of
    languishing behind
the times

common as muck, forever
plucking treasures
from the heavens

out
of the blue

****

RORSCHACH COYOTE STORY

swear I saw
a coyote testing me

not quite blotted out
motioning
     for me to follow

teaching me right there
and then
       every trick under
the Sun, aphorism
in the book

a wealth of key tactics
and strategies
        to cover my trail
dupe this
queen of analysis

****
SET IN TIBET

I perused Tibet

conferred
with a Llama

found
wooly enlightenment

the exact
moment a star
went supernova

somebody’s Sun
exploding overhead
a million years ago

RIDDLE

who
am I

what are
we?

did any of me
manage to
ripple
    through

or bump into you
heading my way
from
the opposite direction?

If so
I trust this was no kind of clash
only the softest
of encounters

as yet unlived life touching
yet unlived life

meeting at a cafe
we both conjured up
from somewhere
arguing over
   whether it is
spaghetti or
fettucini as we did
once and therefore
must always do

the same ghostly liminal
coffee shop
that always somehow
is deternined to
serve us pasta

and being
       a coffee shop
we both scan the tables for
the archetypal presence
of existential philosophical
and literary intellectuals

huge heavy hitters
conceptually speaking

who have
    no idea how
wondrous a fallacy it
would be

to take on the grounds
of consciousness alone
everything here
(as the
    regulars believe) is
incontravertibly real

****

LET THE POEM FAIL

let the poem fail
allow its words
to slur against
the grindstone

halt
  to such
an idea!

under our (your and my) watch
no King shall fall
no Queen tumble
no
   sans coulotte tumbril
(marking
  a change in style)
taxi these
sweet royals to
a one and done audience
with this most
sharp-
    spoken of Madames

yes, and no
booby-trapped package
to drop
through some
key letterbox
     escaping our surveillance
   promoting
the cause of anarchy

and
    God forbid we fail
to deflect
that burning fuse cocktail
named after Mr Molotov

landing
   bull’s eye
in your breakfast cereal

putting
    fire in your tank
adding punch to your day

let us
    leave this here, all
to fate these
terrible days

let the poem fail
it has no
power
except to

say
what it says

****

WHEN

When time got reversed
the plan was
to sail backwards
across the sea
undiscovering everything

magically, one by one
things disappeared: chilies,
popcorn, burgers, chocolate,
tobacco, tomahawk missiles,
baseball, gridiron, surfing,
rap, hop hop, jazz, blues,
slavery and potatoes,
Pickett’s Chsrge
Hiroshima and
the Normandy landings

the world
becoming a bit
less fun but
remaining that
much greener

and nuclear winter at
most a crazy science fiction idea.

JUNCTURE

Rethinking poetry

my pen screeched
to a halt at the frontier
between two words
two worlds

uncertain of how to
or whether it had
the right to proceed

at which juncture
the seasons came
and went
the climate shifted

and the poem
moved of itself, springing
to life

finally allowing itself
to slip in
and out of gear.

GUESS

I guess it counts
as a comedy

albeit one
of grotesque proportions

me in my tiny cell
monk-like, drafting
page of page chockablock
full of strange improprieties

whilst the world
convinces itself
it has
to act under the imperative
of ridiculous warp and
crazy tangent

chasing that absurdly logic
punchline
where it knocks
itself out
delivering a healthy dose
of brain damage
beating up
on its own face.

TWO POEMS: FIVE; RED GLARE

FIVE

water leaks through
as is its wont

cats
do
too

are
ace infiltrators

believe they
possess a divine
right to
do so

have a signed contract
airtight, since the Ark

repeatedly I ask
my own furry frauds
to produce
such a
document

want to
see
    who betrayed his or
her own
species

signing on
that dotted line

****

RED GLARE

standing
at a Cardinal point

expecting a Hail Mary
yet you toss
me a lateral

expect me to run
through linemen
and linebackers alike

reinforcing the inkling
I keep getting, cannot
side-
step, avoid
thinking

that I am
everybody’s
designated target
chilling
   here in the red zone

no one
   (before the
crunch comes) to
have a nice placid
word with

about
    to get spangled
become rocketed red glare

AVEC PLAISIR

I accumulate
years

but what I did
accumulate
over those years

(would you
care for me to
bullet point it?)

well then,
      avec plaisir

starkness
thinness
attenuation

things I thought
as in the economic theory
mistakenly would
trickle
    down in torrents

but was
never favored a drop

too late now
to start scratching
for remedy, hunting
for redress

all
   banked and
pocketed, I am reliably
advised
    can rest assured

and where to now
everything
    end of the road with
closure of
all pathways

gates and fences
        not prepared to fall
in what is left of
my lifetime

only the ironies
remain, if
           you would like
me to
    show you in
what we still enjoy of
this window

it will be my sad sombre pleasure
to be performed
as quasi
ritual

avec plaisir.