HEY STANLEY
hey Stanley
throw me
a bone
match-cut
me
to something out there
beyond infinity
Space Odyssey me
strapped to the monolith
so at last I
can expire
leave the cinema last
rewatch, last time
knowing
in my soul I
have somehow
arrived home
BLESSING
I chiselled this poem
out into stone
laborious work
but it
felt worth it
wrote the whole thing
with a stylus cutting
markd into
clay tablets
spray painted
a whole stanza
in plain view
on the side of a building
in the middle of the night
daubed
it in blood
desecrating a flag
keyed it in electronically
pressed send and
believed it
published instantly
bouncing across the ether
whispered it into
your soft
ear
typed it out with suddenly
agile fingers
observed it flow
across your body
taking
it
to the house
point of truth where
you are at your most receptive
most fully conscious
of how
transcience here
comes into play
poem
be both blessed and
doomed
to disappear
WOBBLE
apologies
for the speed
wobble
but have got
fully pedal to the metal
watch them
all vanish
in the rear
view mirror
Plato, Aristotle
Jesus, Buddha, Nietzsche
all those great philosophies,
species dreams
fascism, dystopia,
cyborg reality, looming up
ahead
trying to
millionaire there
quantum disentangle, hit
light speed if possible
all a blur
crazy psychedelic sensation
soon
you will
feel the doom
really get
to the core
be one
with the rule
of iron
over chaos
ride the great wave
final seismic shift
DANTE
and there
at the very centre
of Hell
we find
Dante
tortured for eternity
for libelling those
above his
station
the justice perfect
the irony beautiful
everything in accord
for one whose wicked faith
could not
comprehend
that the Universes
has its golden favourites
who
should always
be worshipped, venerated
by those for whom
they are
their betters
the writers
of the law
always
above and beyond the law
(on this angel and devil
could
not be more
united
it is
their common faith
DOWN THE LINE
you two
who bred
tended
to
were two and eight
years respectively
when Fuhrer
fellow
first came to power
something in that Zeitgeist
pairing with you
saw
felt enough of it
throughout my childhood
every year
towards adulthood
that little
bit worse
wanting Biblical respect
demanding
regard for
that toxicity
and now we see
a few generations
down the line
how beautifuly it has grown
so well-shaped
and tended
long boisterous
soon bloody
burgeoning of those bundles
torches,
traitors and
putsch
WITH LOVING INTEREST
have
a window box
in my hellish suburb
hellish apartment
these
are more like cells
though they
call them mansions
no friend, lover,
family to speak of
keep
me company
help me through the bad
whatever bad others did
seemingly way within
the bounds
of forgiveness
in my little box
subject of all my
precious regard
and loving interest
a tiny flower grows
to prove science wrong
which said
I could not grow anything
in my hands
nothing would prosper
blossom
be bountiful, even
indeed multiply
but maybe
it is further
thing of deeper
punishment
malice
still to reveal itself
cherry
on the top
of my suffering
for eternal time
DIAL FIVE
dial one
to dial back the intrusion
dial two
for communicating inhibiting
solar flare
or pulse
or one of those bombs
to create electro-magnetic havoc
dial three
for nice-sized asteroid
take out your switchboard
once
and for all
do the trick
dial four
for twenty eight day after
virulent
zombie plague bacillus
leave you
guys
feeling
not quite
yourselves
dial five
for perfect payback
catch a bullet to
shut you up
stop you
phoning for good
dial six
for the offer
you just can’t refuse
LITTLE
I knew so little
understood so little
read page
upon page but
nothing stuck
nothing sank in
lost everything, all hope
in that insane five minutes
with you
in your car
at Salt River Station
you told me brutally
bluntly you
did want to get involved
but here you are
your fingers desperate
out of control
all over me
suddenly, and me blind to it,
like some witness wonder in
an Achean tragedy
not seeing
this mirroring of
desire
for what it is
falling
out of love for you
for the briefest most
killing
of moments
but there we are
years later
words spoken
memories on the table
edging towards each other
warily, uncomfortably,
uncertain of
our certainties
and the swansong
only in a dream
me in your car thrown back
by g force this thing
propelled by a rocket
redlining
skimming the
rooves of the
city precincts before
heading into deep space
only place where love between
us
such as it is
could ever be
AND NOW YOU DON’T
here we are
yet again
tooth and nail
battling upstream
insane in our search
for
forever narrowing
until
as always
the river
swallows itself
contrives
to disappear
UNTIL
poetry is
the easy way
simplicity itself
line
of least
resistance
a quantum wave
of words
about to
flow
no huge
necessity this
be
in any structured
shape, size
or form
any
particular direction
in your head
mon lecteur acad-
emique
length
of line
geometry of page
slice and dice
of caesura
stanza
and here
we have a bitch of a poem
that refuses to budge
your fingers hovering above
the page
a picture of frustration
portrait of
inertia
nothing ever seemed
so impossible
until it didn’t
nothing even
beginning to flow until
it would
not stop
poetry is difficult until
it isn’t
poetry
is no way
easy
until it is
until
(out of nowhere)
it writes itself
poems 2 die for