Category Archives: 1, poem, poetry,

NAME OF THE GAME

NAME OF THE GAME

how to write
a poem

how to
not write
a poem

right track
start
from scratch

now here’s a scratch
could work upon it
open
     up

make into something
way bigger than
something your
domestic
    feline
might deliver

leave a scar? there’s
always a
scar
    par for the course,
name of the game

it is what
     it is

your child, your offspring
looking nothing
    like you
      wanted it to look
saying nothing
like
you wanted it to say

you thought it would
stick to you
   like a tatoo

change your voice, your look,
everything
     inside, how

you see
    the world

it’s just a poem, do not
fool yourself, on your way
to Sun, Star, Moon
Magician,
        La Maison Dieu

become
the Tarot Fool

poem is
     last word, final
analysis

          when all
is said
and done: something,
nothing, something and
nothing

everything no one saw
every word you spoke
                   but didn’t see
foresee
           .

QUIETLY

QUIETLY

me and my 
postmodern imagination

sat together quietly
thinking about you

comimg up with famous
film scenes the three
of us might appear in

just the three
of us
   cutting and pastimg
from classics, mainstream,
and independents
alike

as if we had become
possessed by the genius
of Mr Tarantino

players and played
as it is with
practically everything
most of the time

you, me
and my postmodern imagination,
only thing that
connects us
any way at all

DARKER TURN

DARKER TURN

when I die
condense all
I was
and now am

into a love poen
single, short, to the point

thing of night and dream
and moment when
all our darkness
all that
we are
    of  darkness
thrives, comes alive

knows
the bliss
    of a star

when I die
turn me into
a love poem

short
and to the point
         nothing special
of diamond, golden

   thing in the heavens
like Romeo’s heart
                      speaking plainly

not
    (as Juliet did envision)
beautifully scattered

and then
    if I am read

(if you
are the one to read)

put
    what did, what was

into some
forever parenthesis

just to say, remind me,
that I am
           thing of absence,
thing of
the darkness now

this
    small, petty life that
writes

being so
preoccupied with what it says
                                           what said

took a
      sweeter, darker turn




CAVE

CAVE

by the time
news of the election
happened to reach me

it had aged, ten
twenty years

and I had
aged a thousand
so sarcastic thanks
due to Albert
  opening this can of worms

despite the shock of relativity
the news
      was soggy with conjecture
about coalition
of the centre
   vaunted talk too of
government
of national unity        and
me so far
    out the frame, swinging
pitching
in left field

not boding well
my initial gut reaction, by
the time
I’d sussed the story
seemed
    all talk of rebirth, revision,
repentance and renewal
at every
   little individual, and
of course, the national level,
was perhaps
a tad
    too hopful, insanely premature

but this analysis killed
left me crippled, ancient

as old
as Plato

him stuck way back when
still dreaming of his
Republic of philosophy, hierarchy,
meritocracy

and me
totally
      abstractrd
out of the picture

still hanging around,
       for better or forcworse
                
               somewhere
near the backwall of
his absurdly
over-estimated cave

***