Damian Garside

SO MUCH BETTER FOR IT

When the great
god Emperors
go juggernaut

it will
ss always

be poetry
that suffers

and there we see Ovid
the pornogrpher
banned from Rome
languishing in exile

the great Julisn
city of Augustus
now so much better for it.

BUNDLED

and so I bundled
it up
my
lost soul

in some
old cabbage leaves
we (as a family)
could hardly scare

still somewhat green
they were
and likely to remain

though by no
means as green

as blossoming orchards,
rich fields or
(real
or counterfeit)
stacks
of new money

AJAR

white smoke
blank smoke

suddenly stymied
something is ajar

or it is just
that it seems so
need to
turn true scholatic
to question its quidity

and then habeam
everything geared to go

clocks
bells
and whistles

rerum
novarum this will
be no re-run

the new Vicar
(born under
the virgin at
least
stellar sigh of)

critically
testing the steel of a halberd
with his shepherd’s finger

new light in waves incarnate
as particle
this city within
a city
dovetailing itself into the heart
of the city of cities

paradigm for everything
we admire, everything we fear

first as myth
then as bad fairy Tale

the one where
a door is denied and
we
are prisoners of time

black smoke white smoke
a city
so divine must
find room for confession

that old river flowing
forever recycling the great
shapes of
virtue, obedience and power

dawn
a thing
we need
to
conduct as experiment

old medieval truth
not without fire

TO BE BELIEVED

there is ice
in my blood

my purpose
glacier

words freezing
up in my pen
before they hit the page

nothing to be eked no
out of the gangrene
of frostbitten fingers

this a coldness
that has to be felt
to be believed

total whiteout everywhere
all conceivable landscapes
both as regards
the external
and what
is believed inside

ZERO

and here I am chilling
among those
quick
to judge

creatures of
crystal clarity
hundred and
ten
percent certain

by
every metric
on every scale

where the temperature
is ice cold

hearts
at sub zero

DIRTY

talk dirty
write
dirty

this is not
the pristine poetic
world of eleventh century
Imperial Japan

no here
a poem might
so easily
get out
of hand

filch its meanings
transgress its codes

take
for a ride
things the goodly
well circumscribed reader

will find nigh
impossible
to
understand

OFF THE MAP

you lovd to frustrate me,
fire at me,
play sexual politics
strike true anti-colonial poses
revolutionary stances
in the bedroom
and pretty
much everywhere else

slide of lathe
recoil of the typewriter

hostile gestures of
a body
at large

naked in its knowledge
stripped of all pretension

the cement set to
seal the concrete of
your foundations
still
bottom of the harbor wet
as absurd
a lockstep as you
might
manage to get

Oh, you say, Medusa eyes
fastening upon me

we are that absurd
complete creature whose
permanent state of ecstasy
no god
or goddess could withstand

absurdly un-Platonic in the
daft contours of its beauty

and Aristophanes (for
it was he) rueful
of this
surgical separation even
if carved
by divine hand

at one stroke a lost comedy
and hydra of philosophy

from Socrates to Nietzsche
the words of
the mind to
bring merciful spin
to
the painful ontology
premised upon

that forever division
distinction

chasm
in the heart of desire
between woman and man

****

SMALL

here be
magic mirrors

reality killers
things Harry
Houdini found
in the book
of Thoth

magic they are
mirroring their means

but your inner
weather being stormy
heart
cloudy
they show only shadow
an
essential condition

and here we have
halls full, a glade
mirrors
covering, mapping
an entire topography

every mirror
giving room
for reflection, a room
a boudoir that
is a reflection upon
all
that is
hidden perspective

room within
a room
tesseract mirror
containing its
own reflection

and you
with pencil and paper tasked
to sketch
this truth in
myriad dimensions

all
unfolding
in real time

tiniest of spheres, indeed
infinitesimally small

yet
containing the Universe
containing every everything

****
DOWNSIDE

feel I am
going down

bound to get
relegated

have already fallen
half the distance
of any
dark angel

down a division
in fact
every division

imparting a whole
new meaning to
the word
“relegated”

but if
jury is already out
and what be
must be
   (to the tune of
Helter Skelter no
lesser
   lovey-dovey tune of
Messers Lennon
         and McCartney)

into that place far from self
from the centre
from
the presence of
God (here I go with Augustine,
father
of Bishop Prevost lately Leo)

but not
for pride or for wrath
or envy
(or my worst, sloth)

but simply, honestly,
inescapably
for lust

for lust is hardly the deadly
to destroy the world

hardly the deadly of
the prince
of darkness (once light)
his
most precious self

and
in my defence to all
those who

never felt
your touch, ever cast
eyes upon
you

and yet
so quick to cite text

an eternity of torture worth
every second spent

DUET

am hear
to learn; listen
know
my
history

be
sweetly transported

these minds encompassing
everything
voices like
encyclopedias

from Custer to Agincourt to
Hastings to the Stones
all the way back
to eleventh
century Japan

and me
thinking I knew it all
knew
ever so much

and there at that court
ruled by these poetic ladies
cannot
but think
would have been
in my element

reading
her body’s calligraphy
drowning in
her incense

learning every nuance
code semiotic of
pillow
and screen

mastering those rules as
my imagination candle lit
by
this quite
precious fabric melody
of voices

perfect duet
Tom
and Dominic
(Dominic and Tom)

OF THE LIGHT

some divides
unbridgeable

reconciliation
not possible

the snake unable
at this juncture
to swallow
its tail

unless all it takes
all is solved

by a simple trick
of photography

such being the
forever rise by
that thing of paradox

which believes
and tells itself

it is
the light

SUN GIRL

what is it
about these lionesses?

this one pitching up
late trashing my party
all because
by right should
not
allow myself to
feel depressed on this day

by immortal decree can
only be pure
ray
of sunshine

Gil Scott-Heron cassette flashing past my ear
hurled
with such
aggrieved force

birthday present saying
the sender she so pissed this
not
(however revolutionary)
going to be
televised

such an apt and thoughtful
sought -out gift

thrown with much
malice or
that thing called
love
I had failed to recognize