Author Archives: Damian Garside

YOU

I wrote
a poem

penned
a few lines

sent them
to you

Imagining
they might fly
liike  an narrow
or a seabird migrating
South
   battling the aircurrents

flap flap flapping
unstressed stressed
iambic rhythm

ONE HUNDRED PERCENT

we
   are one hundred
percent proof of
space-time
     curvature

we are that system of
geometry where
parallel lines
run parallel
and
  yet they always meet

and so we saw
ourselves
         heading
toeards each other from
opposite ends
of the galaxy

way way faster
than the speed of light

something to do
with sudden simultaneity
and memory
   of our entanglement

STA R

could have dreamt
a reality for you

we could have dreamt
a reality
    for each other

but non-event  chirped
                    sick
and sanctimonius
shadow-
spouted
     guff
from his stupid black book

that timing
was terrible nothing
     was possible

and so
   we lived our lives not
realizing we were
waiting for each
other
     found each other

even as
       hearing that
the Universe
now set
     to repeat, geared
forever re-run

northerly and southerly
such
   opposite winds
currents, tides

did
   once tragically contend
now
melt
      in each other’s arms

MONICA

when you went
to see the doctor
pregnant with
what would be
your first
born

he saw your dazk hair, brown eyes
and made the mistake
of imagining you
one of his
tribe

but you
were no Queen
of the Levant, no Rose
of Sharon,

nor even English Rose
if truth be
told
you were French Viking
whose ancestors conquered,
subjugated
the poor English people
sat on the throne
speaking no English
for over
two hundred years

youngest daughter of z father
who found himself back
in France fighting
for King
and Country still
pretty much a teenager but
fighting
really well

but could we expect any
less of a descendant of Vikings

and before him
those who were murdered
for the steadfast faith
in the religion of Rome

this
part of the package, came free
with everything
hard to
escape what
history has made you, what
is locked into
the secret
of your DNA

and here is a picture
of you at Stalybridge pushing
me and my sister
in a pram over
the Tame River
before it flows
as the great
River Mersey

and here are you old
and frail
waiting in silence to
see what
Heaven
will make of you

Heaven here remembering
only when
you were young and lovely
that dark dark hair
flowing

and the Jewish doctor so
strongly believing
you must
be chosen person
one of God’s
first tribe

first in
something we all say
adoringly

MISTAKE

sorry
for the mistake

this poem
is a mistake

poetry is
a mistake

I am
a mistake

forget these words
do not let them
break your
concentration
drag
you away

commit yourself
with renewed fervor
there
to the terrible
grindstone of
the immaculate real

ON THE SPEAKER AT SPUR

takes me back
Supertramp Logical Song

takes me back
not quite to Plato, Nietzsche,
Heidigger, Socrates
that
   smorgasbord of
philosophical ideas and little
old me battling
my way gorgeously
through
     Logic and
Metaphysics 101
               TS Eliot’s Prufrock
and Wasteland

and you there, Missy Libra
sleek and slim and
from the Northern Suburbs
of Johannesburg

but I couldn’t make a move
because you was obviously
so
obviously sold
on someone else

except
that someone
was
    (so, so
illogical, so counter-
intuitive
against everything
about myself
I was
told
   to believe)
me

on the speaker at Spur
the logical song

and you
telling me what I missed
all those
   years ago

showing me
just how logical
      the world can be