Author Archives: Damian Garside

LEFT TO SAY


LEFT TO SAY

since she
is
   goddess,
divine

it would have to be
mortal Adonis
to make the sacrifice
to tell their story

get
  those beautiful,
painful words
upon the page

and there it was, their
love saga
     captured forever
magnificent creation

and there Adonis lying
finally in the arms of grieving          Aphrodite

mission accomplished, nothing
more for him left to achieve
nothing more
        left to say

CONTEXT

CONTEXT

concrete
is the context
of everything

wrote a
concrete
poem

going for
a concrete concrète effect

so you can run your
fingers through, across

plunge
them into the
harmonies
discordances
         of this here poem

context is
the concrete
of everything
final framing of
all that
can mean

IN CONVERSATION

IN CONVERSATION

In a parallel universe
that Adonis and Aphrodite
ruptured
the myth
    with joy of together

went to the ballet, caroused talked life and poetry
           over lamb souvlaki  and
red wine
    at a beachfront taverns

talked love and the
art of making it
stretch out
       beyond infinity
until the early hours

can tell you now
given the
nature
    of their divinity

this just has to be
the greatest conversation
on the
    nature of love

spoken, whispered,
since the beginning of time.
     

REVISED

REVISED

saw Adonis and Aphrodite
at the Heavy Metal ballet

watching barriers collapse
boundaries stretch

saw sheet metal fluted
rolled exquisitely sheer

the weight of those chords tempered with
grace, fluency
of style

and Adonis and Aphrodite
if not riveted in love
at least
holding hands

the truth of their narrative
so handsomely revised

the
years so softly silvering them,
their conquest of time

OUR LITERARY HISTORY

OUR LITERARY HISTORY

scruffy rebel poets
Knights of the Realm
sometimes those
strangest of
hybrids that fall
into both categories

and there
in the schools
and universities
an industry at work

creating a mosaic
building a pantheon

that Shakespeare, whoever
he is, whomsoever
he was

can float high above everything
in great
volumes of cloud

Hamlet teasing the Danish
first minister to fix
upon absolutes where
all is
shifting significance

VAULT

VAULT

opened the vault
hadn’t looked that
deep inside
for a very
long time

found your
photograph back there
brought all that
loss, sadness
to my eyes

and you
standing behind me
so passed it to you

you
   looked sighed
kissed me softly
on the temple
   on the lips

this the place
where all roads meet

all secrets
revealed
       so close it must seem
to the end of time

GHOSTLY

GHOSTLY

did Hamlet’s father’s ghost
write Hamlet

in the same way
that
Shakespeare is
the ghost
the rest of the plays?

not a question
to pose to you
my friend Professional

my
world of cold truth so
riches to
rags of
its very nature

yours so
smartly sanctified
appropriately sanctioned

allowed you
to make money, get status
more more money
and status
writing this ghostly Shakespeare

than anyone ever
made

writing his
plays