Damian Garside

QUITE

it doesn’t matter
if you can’t
do your taxes

fly a plane
or even drive a car

make love to
a man
to a man
or lover non-
gender specific

none of
these things

matter
at all

left-brained, right-brained
schizophrenic, dyslexic

pro-
universal peace
or hungering for
thermonuclear war

everything will be fine
as long as you
never
attempt poetry

as is
well known, and
absolutely historically proven,

starting
to write poetry
is the universal mistake
found throughout the galaxy

incontestably quite
the biggest disaster of all

NOT WHAT IS PERCEIVED

we played chess
on acid

which gave the whole game
a kind of
snakes
and ladders effect

then went
to write our
entrance exams

hard to do
algebra
when all you can hear
is the sound of a mellatron
and bagpipes
in your head

but nevertheless prevailed
did my level
best

spirit level best
left brain right brain
quantum
entanglement at
the heart
of everything
every
single breath

both in terms of the
horizontal and
the vertical dimensions

every shape
and size, every configuration

my eyes
see
my fingers touch

and you in your beauty
naked before me

at the core of love
meaning (and future) of our
stunning species

having recently discovered
all that is out there
if anything is
out there

is not what is perceived

HAVING HANNIBAL FOR BREAKFAST

tell me Dr Lecter
how many census takers
have you yourself tested

and is
their bureaucratic impudence
any guide to flavour

this I ask
as one of your greatest
admirers
who
would have felt
so blessed
to have just a smidgen,
an ounce
of your visceral
eloquence

not to speak of
your tactical acumen
or ease with
which you
freely segue

from devious thought
to diabolical strategy

but
let that all rest

we are both here
for breakfast, to enjoy
ourselves
try
this Jamaican cuisine
you were so thoughtful
to bring

jerk Dr Chilton
lots of prize juicy
essential and
inessential
parts
in a doggy bag

YET ANOTHER

wrote a poem
crashed and burned

nice and crispy
in my coffin

no big deal
this grandest of exits
doesn’t make me
a rockstar
or anything

just another wannabe
following that script

so faithfully followed
right now
you might think it
an algorithm

that old self-destructive
yearning
for excess

yet another convert
to the great
Arthur
Rimbaud paradigm

YOUMANITY

youmanity
meemanity

this is written
in adoring
praise
of meemanity

youmanity
at its apex
when
distant, exclusive,
self-centred
and alone

DE FACTO

the arm and a leg
debt retrieval people
(who might
already
be hallmarked
for, or even be
in the midst of the process
of being
replaced
my machines)

have stamped me on my forehead
laser-branded my file
“terminal case”

and here I am
under cover
trying to slip through
every electric fence by
way of
some dark carnival

commodified down to
my body parts as
sole exchangeable assets

fear
being cannibalised by
seemingly civilized means

but when
the bandsaw hits my bone
de facto, I am
going to scream no matter
how you
spin the semantics

the blood on
your apron
calculator on

your desk unless
chipped into your head

BELONG

Sufi Mufti
Grand Wazoo

feels like abracadabra
like verbal algebra
tuneful vowels
rolling
off my tongue

Shia Shia
Sunni Wahabi

and you Omar Khayyam
and disciples of Rumi

out in the desert
looking for rose
of beauty
woman

whose every
move a poem
every word
divine bliss

something mystical about
these Persian angels

something that drives the soul
to write
its love on sand

and me
in Heaven as I spell
out the logic
of this grammar in
full
linguistic mouthful
after mouthful

searching as I speak
for place to
belong to

if you
would have me belong

ALIVE

summoned to worship
called to daily prayer

wondering what
my strategy would be
to get there
soon as possible

meanwhile
ruthless relativity
making a mockery
of my religiosity

sky heading
(or fat
bit of it at least)
at us
at insane velocity

collision course mapped
out centuries ago
always
in the stars

which themselves
saying goodbye, receding
from us
faster than light alright

called to worship
in this time
of calamity

luckily
got every
deity in human history
down on speed dial

and
a single
goddess here, reading
in consternation

about to seek me out
to tenderize my last moments

such
caregiving arms (if
she did
remember to
bring with her)

uncertain in
her own mind whether
she
find me still alive

ELONGATED

let me not
lower the tone
by cracking that
old. crude
buffoonish
cartoonish joke

you know the one
you don’t need to
retell it
get myself into
a hole by
repeating that awful punchline

linking hereby
Elon’s glorious Martian terraforming
to the ultimate two syllables
of the oddball
sixth planet
(you do
know it’s name
mos
Greek god of
the Universe)

hole
wormhole
must consult with the late
Professor Hawking
to get the 411
on the physics of this matter

things
    on the verge of
the age of Aquarius (ruled by
this 90 degree off-beam
vertical-spinner)
could not
be
   more anomalous
(and this
the ruler of
my
   rising sign as , I am
sure the reader
                  must agree. could
not be more obvious)

supposed to usher in
the brotherhood of sisterhood of
woman and man

not this
   brotherhood of billionaires
owning more money
than the
stars in the galaxy
(so to
   outdo themselves
owning
   the stars in every galaxy)

suddenly much musky
this transcendental wealth smell

but this
is all about Mars
planet of the gung ho, most
masculine red war God

not this
mad maverick whose
moon is Miranda
(most moderately maleficent of
all my former
lovers)

but once
terraformed, fully
terraformed

ripe for creating
fresh mythologies

Elton might
just figure
it a glorious sight to see

some discarded orange
blue white wafting in the
first dawn
Martian
breeze to inspire the
new settler inhabitants

(though doubt it will
survive
the first
midnight hurricanes)

SUNDAY POEM

just do not write
poems on Sunday

am largely out of body
have
no time for it

at least when
I have checked the calendar
am absolutely sure,
certain beyond
any reasonable doubt

this Sunday
is indeed a Sunday
(is what
I signed up for
both
in terms of
religious doctrine and
the NFL)

having
such reverence for this day
(its every scheduled sport and
form
of Sun worship)

that I
kill my imagination temporarily
bank my quill, stymie my pen

rip every
keyboard
out of its socket

nor would I wish to write
on day of judgement, rapture
or revelation

lest the very words themselves
realising their mortal sin
jump out of their skin

failing to
find love or any
positive appraisal

doomed to greyzone
anonymity

neither succeeding not
failing

almost
lost

almost saved