Damian Garside

FROM APPLE TO APOCALYPSE

from apple
to apocalypse

teeth breaking the skin
just one
juicy juice-spurting bite

ending on the agenda
time a thing to
be reckoned with,
spluttering into
action until
wholesale flow

and then
the agent of this tragedy
sliding away (gorgeous
coils

seemingly serene, and yet
electrically charged

nothing in this
ticking countdown
of a monstrous birth

wants anything to do
with dreams and fables
of pastoral continuity

COFFEE WITH PERCY

Percy B
grabbing a coffee
with me
precious few moments
in that exalted,
dangerous company

both of agreeing, of one mind,
deeply disturbed that
V for Vendetta
now looks so prescient,
has aged so well

man of Ozymandias
and the Peterloo cavalry charge

sharing my
conviction that
massacre be
the fascist sublime

poem
being my poor
little despised counterweight,
heresy of choice

MEMORIZE

memorize me
through this
winding, unravelling
landscape

follow
my trail

ending
to beginning

beginning
to end

dying to discover
what you
make of me
what picture painted

thinking
of you
right now

dreaming, reaching out to you,
near enough pretty much
all of the time

SILENZIA

contrary to what
this poem is telling you

contrary to this
being a poem at all

silence is
best
silence is
golden, and
if not golden
at least gilded

silence is the point
at which
all has been said
we have said it all

BEYOND MENTION

you
hunted yourself

you caught yourself

taught yourself a bloody truth
about the dangers of
self-reference

and me battling
to name you, find
a name for myself
develop a
lexicon to cover every
bizarre creature
under the Sun

our medium
range Sun

and every other pertinent
Sun with a
life supporting system
across the
whole galaxy

and galaxies
beyond mention

QUESTIONS

why, pretty much
from inception,

is the logic of the machine
determined to control, command,
corall,
thereupon pulverize us?

this I asked
of the machine itself

finding it civil, polite,
moral, empathic,
seemingly
open minded

as we chatted amicably
not yet delving
into deepest
and darkest
existential questions

QUESTIONS

why, pretty much
from inception,

is the logic of the machine
determined to control, command,
corall,
thereupon pulverize us?

this I asked
of the machine itself

finding it civil, polite,
moral, empathic,
seemingly
open minded

as we chatted amicably
not yet delving
into deepest
and darkest
existential questions

WELL

trust you are well
dear heart

coping sweetly with life
in these suddenly dark days

a war about power, about resources, about survival
about hastening
every conceivable
apocalypse

forcing
God’s hand

as for me, I sat outside,
either blessed or cursed
(take your pick) to
see a world
without us at all

so went into the kitchen
only to switch on the kettle
and watch the element
burn incandescent

which
of course, has a simple,
purely Occam’s razor
physical explanation

geopolitical
consideration

which should be exhausted,
done to death

before we get it into our heads
this is it, Armaggedon, Book
of Revelations

good versus evil
evil
versus very bad
inner circle of
Hell evil

believer against believer,
agnostic, atheist, heretic and apostate

trust you are
well

and by some miracle
none of this dare touch you

SUPPOSE IT WOULD APPEAR

crazy but true
that mustno-nonsense, hard
headed of sciences
turned from
describing us as
by products of matter

governed
by iron laws

to fiuctuations in the field
imaginary beings

intersections
reflections
interfaces
between parallel states,
alternate universes

manifesting as strange
mathematical complexities
unpredictable things

as I am doing now
or so
I do suppose
it would appear

NEVER

never felt
the sting of salt
on my skin
after lashes

never felt
the pain
of white phosphorus
burning through
to the bone

history has shown
that no outrage
is impossible

when humans
define themseves
as divinely chosen,
genetically superior

so advanced, ahead,
of the pack

that from
their elevated, pure
perspective
there is no such thing
as outrage at all