Damian Garside

SO MANY TIMES

I saw you
again and again
in that AI generated
time lapse history

saw all your deaths
all your lives

saw you in so many
different identities

so many
different names

our lives
failing to cross
again and
again
so many times.

WHAT TO DO SHANTY

WHAT TO DO WITH A DRUNKEN
NATION SHANTY (EARLY
IN THE MORNING)?

Oh America!
America!

after those Lego
diss videos
(while we are about
it give that what
to do with
a drunken Hegseth
one a
frigging Oscar)

you are going to
need
to come up
with something
truly blockbuster, titanic,
brilliantly epic

find your
new Lincoln, Roosevelt, Walt
Whitman, Henry
James, William Faulkner,
Kennedy,
Stanley Kubrick, Scott Fitzgerald,
Sylvia Plath George Carlin

to put
     forward your
counter argument, redress
the balance
    stop the entire world
killing
     themselves with laughter

upping your smarts
to compete
with such
outrageous wit, pure
satirical talent

grow such artistic,
intellectual, literary,
political luminaries —

which
makes it a pity you
slashed education, downgraded
critical intelligence,
stripped your
universities to purchase
another trillion
dollars worth
of essential weapons

rather
plant for a future
a different path
entirely

that one
you always refused
to take

now your
only survival

AMERICA

America
nobody told you
the Universe
loves irony

dramatic, cosmic, satirical,
irony in each and every
size
shape
and form

America
nobody told you
about the nature
of irony,
gave you a clue
a working definition

or maybe they did
and it slipped your mind
or you contrived
to forget it

having such exclusively,
crucially important priorities,
a destiny to make
manifest,
which you didn’t
quitecunderstand at all

THE SPECIES FROM THE MOMENT THEY ARE BORN

THE SPECIES FROM
THE MOMENT THEY
ARE BORN

for a few days
they are pathetic
but
those predator
genes kick in

few days looking
shaking my head
at the supreme irony
of their mousiness

but then things are
are unfolded, edges
angles appear

stuff that
pound for pound
(or rather, ounce
for ounce)
outranks almost everything
for kill rate attack
speed, general
deadliness
reaction time faster
than cobra, faster
than tiger

you see it, time it,
and simply cannot believe

and how
they carry this
inside
a fur scabbard sheathed
in cuddliness,
yet that walk is just
sheer femme fatale
including
the masculine ones,
pure Chicago Tommy-gun
their sisters
more inclined
to snipe on the hunt
with telescopic sights

still not
of our hearts complete
conquistadors
but
their quirks and wiles
that first,
twelve thousand years
ago might have
made us
smile

now tipping us
over the edge into
adulation,
cult fascination

finding here
an alien craziness
to
complement
our own

so hard-wired to
perform
in ways so familiar
and yet
so long content to
be totally in the dark
about
but at last
making inroads

beginning to understand
this odd, relentlessly
expanding sort
of perfect
match near
complete jigsaw to
jigsaw puzzling fit

as we watch
these day olds feed
get told who we are and

why
we need to
constantly reminded

who it was
came to the party
discussed conditions
and terms

agreed, they believe,
by all by
unanimous show
of hand and paw

valid
for what feels
like eternity

INSANE RAIN

Insane rain
insane of itself, in itself,
and in its capacity
to drive
us all insane

so this is it
this climate change
you claim is false science
you claim
is overrated

what was hitherto desert
a little more of this
well on it’s way
to mangrove, rain forest

and here, with
devastating predictability,
it is here again
raining on
all and sundry
Monday
to Sunday

raineth on
the faithful, raineth
of atheists too

pouring down on Protestants
down on Catholics too

drenching, drowning,
the hapless,
forcing the sheltered
to count their blessings,

talk
to God Himself about it
talk to
the highest Papal appointee
will take your call

Nature
taking a savage turn
thanks to
our interference

yes those
who survive, remain
bone dry

know that at least
though screwed up
terminately, definitely,
entirely

at least
respects our sacred
truths of wealth and class.

BOSS TALK

this is a poem
wrote it
in a flash
still
a novice
at the art
been learning it
all my life

still
so much to learn

such
a waste of time
according to the advert
according to the boss
in the advert

the boss who doesn’t care
for time unmotivated,
time without results

time
in a poem
time that is a poem
time edging
its bets, running
forwards and backwards

time that is
microlearning, is
Swiss watch precision

is the accumulation of
a world of everything
caught, captured
in a phrase

KIND OF SLEEP

we are asleep
all asleep

sleeping
forever

nothing can wake us
we were bewitched
by a spell
of sleeping

we think we
are awake

but were
never awake so
having nothing
to compare this to

and so must sleep
until we die
        which the poets
tell us
is itself
   a
     kind
of sleep

HAPPEN TO

is poem
thing that
you do
(dowadiddy do)?

or is
poem a thing
that
simply
happens to

(happen to
me,
happen to you?)

let
me know
by return mail

or message
to scroll down to
at the bottom
of the page

in that vertiginous,
voluptuous space

that defines us, surrounds
us

daily infiltrates

EDITED VERSION

cut
dissolve

and fade to

this poem could not
be what it is without blue screen

without what magically
to interact with
these words here
gets
projected
onto the page

and what
could be less analogue
more digital
and yet mimetic

what a job
you pulled, downloading
your everything
into it

calling the shots, making
all the key directorial,
editorial decisions

as there it
rolls out, into the public
domain, global
mediasphere
heart, mind,
soul (to
varying degrees)
all thrown into it

for which you entirely
must take half the credit,
at least, at least

ONCE WERE

I toss
and turn

missing beat
after beat

my bed become
a boat as
dream
metaphors go

battling to cross
plough its way through my
turbulent ocean of sleep

my covers
    in some kind of
cross-current, horribly ruffled,
exposed
     on the deck, naked to
every
    cold wave

Odysseus, Nemo,
Ahab, Columbus,
Nelson, Yamamoto,
so many
names out there
embodying saga
of the seas

and much in the laity
still massively oceanic

memory still vivid even
if we left
so long ago

content
in this format of
our evolution, to skirt
and dabble, surf,
paddle

unless
where we ourselves become
denizens
become the monsters
from the sea across
the sea we fear.