WHAT TO MAKE OF THIS
Oh, what
to make of this
all those inbred crazy
arguments from analogy
conclusion being
there we have it
shut all your doors
batten the hatches
and set sail
ten strike fleets with carriers
all integrated into one
ultimate bipartisan armada
each carrier
reminding us of
great
snd not so
great Presidents
contained, perfectly
preserved within
a bubble
total logical technological wholesale impossibility
rather
the stars collapse
high ceiling
caves in.
AT THE SHEBEEN
I took Wallace Stevens
down to the Shebeen
we dined
on braised cow’s head
and a selection
of South African beers
all of this chased down
with tub-fulls of
salted caramel ice cream
throughout this novel experience
I felt I could detect things whirring
in that machine-like faultlessly
poetic brain
something afoot behind
those placid eyes
finely meshed, sublimely
purposeful
some I dream, gut-feeling,
but also there
in heart
of hearts
he will real all this off
by way of a special poem
cleverly infected
in language
flirting with becoming
totally impenetrable to me.
READING MR STEVENS
AS SHADE OF COLOURLESS GREEN
close to the shoals
of colourless green
Mr Stevens verged
close
to wreck, was
my initial fear
this I saw
oe believed
I did espy
with my
own two eyes each
mesmerized
though
the sound did sedate whereupon
yes, seduced me
to a danger
I dare
not stomach
actually embrace
and to
think out there
a, whale of a, whirlpool
Charybdis to outdo
closest thing
terrestrial (I meant maritime)
to that fat
killer singulaity
they say drives the galaxy
and yet be
a secret
submarine portal to
an all new
nonsense Wonderland
where
Hatter 2.0 and
the entire 2.0 gang
speak this post post post
Also Sprach colourless
idea
sleeping, dreaming, totally
insomniac
deconstructive
jibber jabber
giving
the poem such
a hard time of it
ideas colourless green
fried to a frazzle
in the desert
or there miraculously in
the mind of Apollo
whilst
he sleeps
lives his cosmic wet dream
read it here, on the page,
then tell me
it might never come to be
DIG
dig deep enough
and
for this moment,
for God’s and.
all our
sakes
forget your pretensions
of becoming a gentleman
recent
revelations have
proved that tribe extinct
quibble with me if you must
temper getting frayed
delving
into dissonance
sounding like
a squiggling saxophone
as Wallace,
high priest of poetry and
its elite gatekeeper
might have said
but there
of a sudden, shovel scrapes,
spade makes good
motherlode
of dirt
and debauchery
low organs finding it
hard to be
their own
true selves in
the highest places
searching for
compliance, rule
by fear, a
surrendering niche
calling it
by its name, spadefuls
of names
as we begin
excavating
proof
that nobody is above
but then the
below
happens to be worse
than you thought
anyone can go
and yet
you found this treasure
only to get
it crime scened
with all
that that means
knowing
the sick beating heart
of this
corruption
intense as demons
we will still dig
indeed keep digging
for God’s and
all our sakes
we have nowhere left
to go
THE DAY THE FUHRER LANDED
the day the fuhrer landed
home land security and
immigration
were put on maximun alert
rushed into action
terrified that there would not be
enough babies and flowers,
guards of honour
rapturous screaming crowds
to welcome Herr H
to his
final, true home
Decided you all deserve to be scared out of your wits now WW3 starting in the next few days is probably in the region of a 99.99% certainty.
OVERNIGHT
after the war
I found myself
to have spider legs
and tentacles
a thousand eyes
which would have made it difficult to prove my identity,
nationality not
to speak of humanity
a sitting target for homeland
security
except there
is no homeland
and if anyone comes this way
calling me
into question
will be
the very definition
of a suicide mission
gone in thirty
microseconds
having written thirty poems
a novel, and the
definitive history
of this
the last human
armed conflict
(armed
conflict, without arms)
overnight genetic mutation
having
some advantages,
no way entirely and
absolutely
necessarily a
world ending thing
TICK
beware the
time, of the tick
your speech
already rambling
pretty fucked up
and
tick yourself
you bite, you suck
give yourself
permission to leave
the table Harkonen
blood-bloated
who were meant
to be more symbiotic
than parasitic
in style
of leadership
delivering so little
promising
so much
taking so much
you said you
would drain the swamp
end up draining us,
draining us, denying us,
despising us, depriving us,
meant
to uplift
giving new sick meaning
to the image of bounty,
symbol
of overflowing
but
speaking of symbolic
it seems you eschew
all that
is indeed so
better to stick to
the sclerotic, the
crying out for diagnostic ,
tick
gets pulled
tick gets squashed
all its pilfered, stolen
blood
one fat smudge
of what
it was
nothing else to see
THERE NEVERTHELESS
we both got
Daddy pressures
both got
Daddy issues
lifetimes (mine longer
yours, shorter) of pretty much
failed adjustment
tough to find
a resilient forgiveness
strong enoigh to survive
first emotional storm
and since
we are comparing wounds
(our best effort at
any kind of
hoped-for intimacy)
i might suggest
though mine is deeper
yours deep enough
that there
is no
stopping the bleeding
a red
deluge in the making
mine
a wound no one, nobody
ever there
to care about
presume to notice
yours, pages and pages worth
unbandaged, still
outpouring
everyone there for you
(too hideously late) but
there nevertheless
HOLLOW
I believe it was he
who wrote The Hollow Men
so obvious
person to speak to
fighting this
emptying out
inside me
tried to track
him down
show him my words
ask why they sound
like
empty shells, receptacles,
dull and
distastefully metallic
scoured the deserts, every
academic precinct, places
of learning on
both sides of the pond
Nobel Prize man, last
I heard of him
his very words
being mouthed
magnificently by
Mr Brando, renegade
colonel
stripped of every shred
of normalcy by
anti-coloniaj war,
by now
the malaise my words
spreading paragraph
by paragraph
turned exponential
a death pallor already
so far down the line hardly
worth talking about.
LABOUR OF LOVE
we are
so unlike
she creates landscapes
has always had
her head
screwed
on tight
sees
the picture
implements
the dream
no place, space
for irony, ambiguity
sudden shift
back and forth
between
high and low
East
and West
North and
South
inside, outside
nightmare and dream
this very enterprise
premised on
shift and change,
subtlest suggestion
fluctuation
ah, yes
there we are, out
of nowhere had to
just
stumble upon it
world’s apart these practices,
so entirely alien
to each other
labours of love
for us both
poems 2 die for