Damian Garside

ARRAYED

what royal devil here
in the meticulous detail?

from a to h and
one to eight

get your computation
one square wrong and
what you
calculated plain
sailing takes you
through
the logic of
a Scylla and Charibdis

on your hero’s
doomed journey across
this unforgiving board

every distinction absolute
here, across the board

and this is the wine-
dark sea the poet imagined

never saw
except as the thousand
ship keels ploughed their
way through
its waves

to save Helen
from disaster in the arms
of Paris and that
wily Odysseus might
outwit the cyclops

time and time again
manouvre his way
past god
and demon

on his way
back to
Ithaca

resting place
of all story
I am told

so many crackers
set to explode at
midnight new year

such a big ban
here to welcome the snake
thrill one
and all

such an explosive bang
beyond anything before

promises
to do justice
to the last year of all

poem writes
itself

poem
writes me

writes me
cursive

writes me
in helvetica

writes me run on
writes me
end-
stop

writes me
as I cannot
write myself

quoting Barthes
so
pardon
my French

comme or
sans
serif

in strict
disciinarian font

or comic topography
to show
everything of
gravitas

is
ultimately ironical