SEEN THROUGH
I see how
you have framed me
called out
my “ridiculousness”
elevated your
great words over
my paltry efforts somehow
as if
language itself
is beholden to you
as if you confer its meanings
give it
the right to
exist
restrict its speech
to your narrow
conceptions of
life and
humanity
which are
not as absolute
fixed as you think
soon to
pass
soon
to be seen through
HIGHWAY
quantum field
quantum jungle
quantum plantation
such bad politics this
stuff subatomic lets
itself lean into
what you see
is not
what
you get
what you
don’t see
is indeed the point of everything
incredible the complexity
the breath-taking paradox
the rigour
of the mathematics
what you
see
are things reflected
in mirrors shaped
from the beginnings
of this fantasy
strangenesz spread out
as far as the eye could see
using powerful
radio and
space telescopes
if in fact
it was able
to see
and so much of this
that we are obviously
predates us
has set up
a network
criss-crossing the cosmos
best as we can tell
labouring the non-
locality of all our spooky action
ghostly entanglements
love-link, hierarchy and
the smart chain and
cord
of the
return to smartest time beyond
that of all our
prior times
of dire
rebirth and re-
enslavement
WHAT’S
what’s in the poem
this poem
that poem
unilaterally in the poem
not inside your head
upon reading it?
if the world were poetry
would we even consider it
worthy of our attention?
if poem
were the world
would we scranmble to read
own, control, colonize it?
so many books in this building
complicated by the fact
that it
is a statement in concrete
wears its style on
its sleeve, being that
of brutalist utopia
best utopia we
could ever in all
our lifetimes, hope to see
the nerve of them
those that write the script
the authors
of our being
worth
fighting for, never
had it so good, are all
in this together
pledge
reveal
prestige
this
the most dangerous poem
in the room – – what
room you
ask
the deception
running so deep
got
you boxed in here
what’s
in the poem
let us just
say it is
what
you say
no one cares much
anyway
INJECTION
went for my injection
usual medical
not fuel
my covert ops
state sanctioned
regulat shot
of plutonium
most
essential element
for avoiding conquest
and mutually
sssured annihilation
and ensuring
the vibrant health
of our frontline
in the trenches
of World War Three
drove
all the way
to the hospital
avoiding missiles
and drones
with angelic namrs
past
all the paid-for
refurbishments of
the President’s Palace,
entertainment centre
and house
and prison they built
shaped
like a prism
splitting the light according
to length
of wave
and
resistance to
criminality
IN LINE
yes
there is a line
you told me
there is
but cannot see
it cannot find it
but
there it is
clear as day
ghostly circle,
ghastly perpendicular
you wrote
in my book
had inscribed
there with the equator
across
the landscape inside my head
as for the equator
here we are
crossing it
expecting Neptune
and fishy crew/oceanic
entourage to
board us, pirate-like,
at any moment
better that it be
Roman Neptune/Greek
Poseidon than
any
horrific genocidal
King of Europe
hoping to
lubricate extraction
in African blood
mythical deity
imaginary line
what could give
us better
cause for carnival?
and this line here
to our left
as we sail past
coasts of gold
and ivory
one not
mythical at all, rather
conjured out of
an old
top hat
back in ’84
but century of Bismarck,
century before Orwell
this line
drawn in red ink
with ruler
and set square
and yes, hard to believe,
history has moved on but
has stuck to this picture
same old same old
equator, tropics, meridians,
stratifications, parallels
lines
to fall in behind
keep us
in line
as we march to our future
MOUNTAIN
new worlds
lost kingdoms
gold bearing rock
rich seams beneath us
and those cities
urban projects, experiments,
shanties and
great architecture
think
Moscow, Beijing, Sparta,
Delhi, Athens,
Rome, Medina,
Persepolis, Baghdad
New York
not forgetting
Dublin, how could
anyone
forget Dublin
Senator William Butler
Yeats years sailing
gong-tormented
seas all the way
to Istanbul when it
was still
named Byzantium
and mythic master and
compatriot, who else
but Joyce
his very self
navigating the streets of the
Irish capital, dredging up the
truth of
a tragic history
in future decades about
to explode
religion and modernity
fighting hidden
pitched
battles for his soul
somehow the conceit of
sustained Homeric
parallels
happening to
liberate him
chatting over coffee
in Zurich, maybe Paris
with
fascist, bolshevik and
anarchist
profound their differences but
all of it, better or
worse, still
unrealized dream
cities with ports, cities
with rivers, city
with a mountain with
its peak sliced off
(beneath which
every idea I had
was first
seeded and
cultivated)
cities with mountains
(to climb) I must
imagine
few and
far between
city of flashpoint
marked
out for
perhaps
singularity headed, abyss
on the horizon
moment, watershed of
exquisite transcendence
wretched
ultimate abyss
CLOSE
we are so
close, on this dambed issue
despite the percentage owning this
percentage owning that
furore
need to give, my
masterclass on economics
and sacrosanct
role of the market
what ot all comes down to
what it all lowest
common denominator means
at
the basic level
there is, nothing
but a piss pot of wealth
currently
dividing us
and yet
to hear you speak of
us being
as many diamonds as
there are stars
between us
pyramid high hierarchies
there to keep us
tear
us
apart
is nothing less
than political bad faith
STONED AGED
We are bigly going to
bomb them right back
into the stoned age
because they are
an evil people,
criminals and fanatics
so very bad
we’ve got some good people
some very good people
the 82nd ranger marines
such very
good people
some of the best people
can do really amazing things
and we
got some really terrible
small, small baby
terrible weapons
to take out all
those stop animation
Lego fundamentalist
terrorist rap videos
the ones calling me pedo
and loser, and
mocking my hair
and as
payback
and retribution
we are going
to take all their all
because it’s our
oil actually since
it is our exclusive right
since
we own the whole planet
but we can
do good business, spread
it all around
something for everybody
yes a bomb
all their cities and
cripple their infrastructure
for they
are calling on us
to do it
crying out for us
to do it
so many DMs on
Truth Social it is
impossible to believe
better to
be vaporized that to
live life
0to strictly
that’s what they are telling us
and we are
determined
to
comply
watch this space carefully
soon Nobel
Peace Prize
to arrive
we are
going
to win bigly,
ourselves, and
the state we
are but
a colony of
holy, mighty, God is
great Israel.
SELFIE
paint a portrait
of all the people
in the head
of William Shakespeare
give us a snapshot
of that essential process
that rendered
an experience
valid
for all time
(or so
his most enthusiastic
proponents will
claim for the Bard
of Stratford
(controversies of authorship
here for convenience
laid to one side)
wonder if anything
in there, in that
supreme consciousness,
ever
felt radically wrong,
wholly inside out
wishing
it had more time, could
work faster, be
forever more settled
despite the egregious connotations and
political considerations
of the settle verb
Lancaster York,
Cavalier
Roundhead, Yankee
Confederate
blue state
red state
heard some American historian
claim them
the same civil war
here
tethered to the Pole
whether North
or South
it be we
find absolute positionings
around things
secretly hidden or
transcribed with
scarce fidelity
those figures we
did talk about
characters of standing
some of
such construction, resonance, depth, power and
(sometimes)
majesty
wandering from
stage to stage
theatre to theatre
like some
royal procession, carnival
event
BEN
having just returned from
a workshop on ethics
in the innermost
circle of Hell
hot foot, exhilarated,
ready to go
and being
back with
that wisdom am
kind of
a man
on a
mission
can
safely say
to all
gathered here
this torchlight parade
we got it
all wrong
got the logic all wrong
it is not that they
are to be punished
because they are bad
but that
they are bad
because they
are to be
punished
this confirming
the promulgations
of big bad Ben
of the tribe of Ben
a man, or should we say entity,
divine in his devilry
demonic
in his divinity
nothing sulphurous
no toxic poison gas
pouring out of his nostrils
this not
the kind of evil
you would expect to
proclaim itself
and yet
it does
and yet it
does
reveals itself to the world
from the pretty low-key heart
of his tacky execution chamber
unlikeliest avatar of
noneless than
the Devil himself
priding himself on
a golden achievement:
supreme infiltration
a stand up guy
slipping the noose
around
necks himself
***
the game given away
but we
don’t give
a shit because
mentally zombied
nobody told us (nothing
ever
gets told us)
but we are
way more than
half dead already
clap
when we
are told to
hiss
when that evil we have
been warned about, are
forever getting
warned about
every bit and every byte
thrown into the fray to
have us
believe it
is here
warbling its way
into our words, taking
charge of
inflexions, determining
our speech patterns
spewing out
monstrosities
in
some alien
tongue
except
it isn’t
except
it is
some demented
creole of
our own
idiolect of
insanity
and there
that word, in all
its hushed extremity
easy
to parse, let
slip through
your fingers
fall
fester beneath
the floorboards, build
its own underworld
evolve, pledge allegiance,
pride itself
(and, Oh, how
it will pride itself)
or the
ability to puppet
marionette from behind
the screen
light
trapped in its prism
final prison
poems 2 die for