FADE
Caligula sleeps
(and for a
moment Rome
sighs
with relief)
wants to be Caesar
wants
a power parade
yet
by the time he
finds himself in the position
to become one,
have one
that god-like mind
will have drifted away
ceased to
function, slipped
far beneath
the level of dangerous
dementia
terminal shade
of fade
THAN WE WERE LED TO BELIEVE
ideas come and go
court words, sometimes
bond with them
come and go
like, as this starched aesthete said,
like women talking
of Michelangelo
lovers of classic form
or they sing
like sirens to follow
them deep
even though they know
whilst poets, artists we
may yet
be
we are nevertheless mere
mortals
may well be lured
by the mystery to
embrace our own drowning
and there, strandloper, desert
shadow
we may well find you
catch you
between the lines
more agreeably human, far less
invisible than hoped for
as you had intended
not the catalyst
we were led to believe
DENIAL
a bug clawed its way
in through my navel
hurt like hell
those titanium pincers
told me instantly
I had misread
my world
got it wrong
sometime in the past
this shift in
genre, everything
turning
science fiction
dystopian, not
the utopian kind, total shock
not nice surprise
in every bit
and byte of
its
dream logic
and you
curious, if not
at the limit of your anxiety,
to
know
the wherefores and whys
of this threshold reality
would be happy to explain,
conscious of the likelihood
of throwing you
into
a denial
from which you might
never escape
INALIENABLE
sorry G
for slashing at you
satirically
losing my cool
yet
still trying to
be brutally funny
no doubt you
being golden DJ
and everything
setting yourself up
to the call
the shots
know it is
my democratic right
to smack you
satirically
whilst defending
your inalienable
democratic
right
to speak freely
no matter what agenda
no matter
how cutely nonsensical
how third reichy
I believe it feels
PAR FOR THE COURSE
I come
and
go
come and go
go
and
come
collapse in
your arms
(one
happy wavefront)
hard to make sure
every fractal
on board
on the same page potentially,
pointing in
the same direction
the mystery I am
you are
delirious product
of choices
what
you are reading right
now for instance
coming and going
going and coming
glimpse of the pattern
even pattern
of patterns
par of the course
(true or false? spin
the coin
you decide all
up to you)
I come
and go
THEREIN
ah, such golden
reflections on the ills
of democracy Mr Cliff
I wonder what heightened
state of political consciouness
making
you kin
to Plato, produced
such
desire for curation, left
us with
so much to mull over
State of beauty in
all its golden
reflection
ruled and voted for
by the very best, like
your good self
hearts of solid, pure
high caste iron
brain
of shiny tin
(all such philosophical
mumblings, rumblings,
perfect expression
of the truth
therein)
TODAY
today, no cheap
linguistic tricks
I promise
such as
comic wordplay involving
crude pun, your
basic
obvious homonym
such as
poor Gareth, so
on the
wrong side
of history,
losing
intellectual footing
tumbling
off a cliff
in his desperate intervention
to save the State
by savaging democracy
anything to distract
from the patently
racial
sleight of hand
HAPPY COUNTRY
always better
to conquer
a happy country
.
dare
to pass yourselves
of as a circus
to infiltrate,
push your
way inside
truth be told, there
is not so much distance between
clown comedy
and clown tyranny
where
the clowns go pinstripe
and everything red
is just
blood
always better to conquer
a happy country, lands
bitterly starved of any
kind
of reasonable fortune know
the punchline to
this joke
all too well
AH, YES, GARETH
Ah yes Gareth
is, this, not a case
of who will
guard guardians (custodes
custodet ipse)
or that old
joke against the Reich
involving bicycle riders
and Jews
we see
how neatly education,
class and
wealth translate
into realms political as
more insidious
species of liar
as the world clamours
for democracy in the face
of every species of
fascism
I confess to be less
than entertained as your
stale brethren
by the puttering
posturings
of your pithy little pen.
ELEGY
elegy trumpeted
my sadness
painted my grief
in matt black paint
or was it gloss
or was it indigo
forest green
steel gray colour
of cold Northern ocean?
so many in mourning
at your passing
so conceited
as to think my loss
beyond bitter,
intemperately special
as if I the only one
to truly know
what an incredible being
to have
here disappeared
poems 2 die for