1, poem, poetry, – Page 11

SLICE

gave you
a slice
of cake

put it
on a plate

gave you
a slice of plate

and on
that slice of plate
I laid

all
my love and hate

THERE

there
at the edge
of wine-dark sea

justice and power
at loggerheads

power ganging up
determined
once and for
all
to crush justice
calling in
all an sundry

ash gray confederacy
of forces and armies
desperate to
cleanse
five thousand
years of history
wipe thousand years
off the map

and they have been
redrafting, redrawing,
rewriting everything

this is prime nineteenth
century in a
Jason Vorhees mask

maybe
before
one evil, stupid misjudgment
kills us

we will all trundle back home
call it stalemate
shake on a peace
to last until
new duplicity

there is no
decisive, definitive end
that brings honour
or any redemption possible

final resolution that
hope for justice deserves

BOTTOM OF THE PAGE

are you
reading this poem

sitting comfortably
or on a tightrope or
trapeze suffering
some anxiety ?

in which
case
don’t
look down!

otherwise
watch for any
distraction (my
lovely assistant)
misdirection
or any
significant
sleight of hand

perhaps
if you do not read
had not
read
this poem
things would have gone
so much better
worked out fine
with limb
and like

imagining what it
might feel like
to wake up
every morning
to every possibility

that you
have no need
for words
figures of speech at all

but you
have read the poem (almost)
struggled and suffering
(which can
indeed be so
good for you)

thrown
into existential zone

before
your brain switches off
or at least gives you notice

best worst thing rather
than worst best indifference

not coming clean
about things now abyssal
here at the bottom of the page

GARDEN

hurry up
final brushstrokes
finish that portrait

write
that chapter
conclude your
epilogue

they say
shock and awe
sturm und drang
they are
going to
decapitate the State
it will be a quick campaign
over in hours

I am neither tactician
nor strategist
but I would beg to
disagree (always
overthink things
a curse that genetics
handed down to me)

but for you
I would give time
infinite time if
I had the power
and I feel
you might have
requested it

for what
in all you do
does the soul
not require?

when
our music is all
discordance, dissonant
chaos symphony

and me
in this chaos space
so at odds
with your careful
subtle
cultivations of tranquility

you
with your precise
place to stand, viewpoints
and perspectives

place outside
this poem
space of refuge
green sanctuary

everywhere
nothing but sweet
sanity – – lesson, message
example
for the world

but have you now
quietly captured
in my mind’s eye
(and apologies for
the trickery that
did allow
me to intrude)

watching you
at work
patient, careful, loving
every moment
knowing
the secrets of the soil
how to make things flourish

painstaking, just a half a degree shy of perfection (yet
on the right side)

a teacher too, but I observe
in awe
a lesson here, not
for me uniquely

but out there, right there
place of deserts and gardens
where
life could
not be more sacred

bodies of bombed schoolgirls
lined up in rows across
the sand
over four score (to give
it a Biblical number
a collateral quota)

faces covered (saving us
the trauma of
God’s maimed body,
disfigured image)

transparent truth
warning to
take care
with what you
make of God’s image

image you
carry into war

with prayers
for annihilation, banner
in blood-soaked hands

hurry
with your garden

last hope
we all have

TRIAL

thought you
would love me
if I were
brave as Achilles

had a body like
Apollo’s
not a blemish
not a scar

if I could
sing like Sting,
Robert Plant or
Pavoratti

or riff
like Django or
Jimi Hendrix
on the guitar

if I could speak
French faultlessly,
seductively, and
then write
like Proust
or Rimbaud

had the intellect of
Derrida and
the wit
of Oscar Wilde

and all this childhood trauma
that I carry with me
this toxic
family stuff
inside

you would love me
once I found
the instant
total cure for it

or battling and failing
to shake it, negate it,
integrate it
shape it
to true loving ends

you
would love me
for how hard I tried

SHAPESHIFT

stealth bomber
all the rage

but to be frank
prefer my surgical
strike vehicle
to be more
shapeshifter

my hypersonic missile
to hit lightspeed

my AI killer robots
to turn on tech bros

their wetdream brought
us to this conjuncture

when they come for us
God please,
write it
on the wall:
all the code we need
to talk them down

MAGA MANGA

was watching the
second series of
“Fallout” blown
away by the first

why the idea
popped into my brain
of scripting
a maga manga

an animation
to animate
good old boys, proud
boys and
good old Uncle Sam

crafted as a gift to
this great nation
in the style and with
the themes of
this media form
capturing the creative spirit
of those upon
whom
you twice dropped the bomb

POEM FOR THE NEW DARK AGES

and so
with cluster bombs
and missile strikes

we are happy
to welcome in
the new, longed for
beloved dark ages

final death
of that enlightenment
so alien to our natures

and now
we must needs search
for all that will
definitively
spell the end
of freedom

a new Torquemada
and new Inquisition to implement
his absolute control
over all our thinking

rooting out
any hope that we
can aspire to
anything higher

than slaves of Empire,
cyphers to be wiped
off History’s blank slate

IN OUR HOUR OF NEED

so these are
our great leaders
the one we asked for,
begged for, swore
binding oaths
we would give
our lives
in the holy
protection of

most sacred symbols
creme de la creme

steering Ship
of State between
Scylla and
Charybdis

charting the perfect
course to ensure
the entire crew gets
devoured by
the former
before the Ship
itself gets
swallowed by
the latter
pulverized into
microscopic
perhaps subatomic bits

no fear
no fear
enough spin
doctors on the shore
think tanks well
bunkered
to call this
what it no doubt is:
perfect solution;
strategic victory

reassure us 100, 200,
3000% in our
our need

and yet
our poets and philosophers
(bless them) the ones
already marked for death camps
but presently well
and living

try to
get through to us
contact us to
tell us

all
common sense
is now
gone to Hell

something so fucked up
about our evolution

and all our voting, political,
social, economic
and natural selection processes

centuries we had
to see
for ourselves, live
and learn

tragedy we didn’t

WRITING A POEM

writing a poem
makes me greater
renders me lesser
gets me

spinning round and round
in perpetual circles
not orbiting
possible worlds or
planets with potential
(for then I would

be missing out
following an ellipse)

Smith. Marx, Engels
Hayek, Varoufakis

debating the politics, economics,
textual strategies and
social dynanics
concluding with
a wrap up comment
to contend
the basic meaning of it all

   not in any total
absolute sense
             upon which
what falls, outside poetry
has to depend