1, poem, poetry, – Page 30

UNDER ATTACK

I attacked your poem
because someone was
going to attack
my poem
as soon
as you attacked mine

the logic here being
super-faultless

and yet
you keep raising
this inane criticism

that poems
are for reading
not for attacking at all.

UPSIDE DOWN

a bunch of bad philosophers
have broken into the library
are hard at work
stealing books
as if they were
works of art
or treasury bonds

I was debating with myself
whether to make
a citizen’s arrest
or
drive the getaway car

the thing being
that so many good books
subject to
in-depth study

would be bound to
impact upon their moral
compass
turning that needle
quickly, slowly,
eventually 180

away from Nietzsche and
Bataille back
in the direction of
Plato and Mill,
Kant
and Aristotle

the kind of thinking
that starts with the premise
the best
first move is
to base the logic
on what
we are, what we have

not the existential, methodological necessity
of turning
inside out
reversing poles and
that radical
decentring that
privileges margin and
everything upside down

CHOCOLATE INDEED

I took
the Emperor to task
over why
there were
no sprinkles
on my ice cream

seemed to me
an example of misrule,
abject discrimination

with which
he did not concur
adding insult
to injury, fuel
to the fire

with a brush
of his hand
simply
waving
me away

insisting
that I redirect
my complaints, to
the author
of this oversight, a
certain Mr Stevens
legal expert, insurance
executive
somewhere
in New England

and so
I looked for him
in Boston, and
Providence Rhode Island,

all over Connecticut, Delaware
and Maine

not coming up trumps
getting horribly misled
at every juncture,
between
stanzas

by host upon
host of
impenetrable clues, most
cryptic of metaphors, obscure
intellectual
references
philosophical conundrums
and impossible
spiritual quandries

all of
which I loved
left me
begging for more

and with this
his answer to
my sudden
supreme question

wondering whether
if you sliced
ripple in half
(be it
with scalpel, scimitar,
or ceremonial longsword)
would it indeed

bleed raspberry
and
with rum and raisen or
blueberry, strawberries
and cream,
rocky road
tutti frutti
and indeed chocolate

would the same fate befall?
same fate befall

and indeed chocolate
same
fate befall

chocolate indeed!

DOORWAY

there is
no one
at the door

no enemy
at the gates

we need a door
we need a gate
without them
how

can our enemies
find us, how can
we locate
our enemy
find out
who is
our enemy

we
and our enemy
need each other

how else can we
set traps, devise
fields of fire?

catch them
lining up
taking turns
to knock

trying to dupe
us into thinking
this be a social visit

UNTOUCHABLE

politically
I am untouchable

pregnant
with bold ideas

in your face
about to
drop a
truth bomb

many megaton
nothing your battery
of lies,
weapons of
disinformation
can do about it

no hope of
saving yourself
building deep
underground
anti-truth bunkers

the truth radiation
will get it
if not
the unbelievable
shock wave
flash of a million
degree light

CHOSEN

Thank you Bibi
for choosing me

epic fury
roaring line

hearing those names,
feel safer already

protecting me
iron dome
nuclear
umbrella

all your power
aiding
and abetting

felt so
insecure
in this parallel universe
cartoon world
where
nothing makes sense
no sanity, not any

terrified that
a stray missile
or drone
homing in
on me
got my name
written on it

bound
to cut
me down
to size, or
worse fate entirely

I tell
you no lie,
no lies
in my armoury.

IN HER FIELD

read her PhD
loved every
bit of it

read it
cover
to cover

her topic
obfuscation
in the media

which she
researched
with such
clarity

exposing it
for what
it is
finding
it everywhere

from basic
low grade
run
of the mill
everyday
stuff

to
obfuscation
of the
highest
order

weapons grade,
sublimely transcendental

MEDAL

He is so proud
he just
got his medal

for exceptional
courage in
the line
of duty

bombing
a school
for
little girls.

BLUE PLANET

the blue planet
we have fucked up

loving to see us
turn demonic

knows it will
soon be
shot of us

the plague
of which it
shortly
will be
finally rid

observing us
as our systems collapse,
fall apart
and we
genocide
each other

final triumph
of our evolution

this ultra crazed
fundamentalist mind

blue
planet
almost unable
to contain itself

never ever
loved us at all

SCRIPTURE

thick smoke pouring
skyward indicating
target-rich environments

things
balanced on
a scalpel-sharp
knife edge
nuclear option
not least of all

and here I am in
the basement stack
a year before
we met
used to chat
in this exact place

half
a century ago

here I am
deep down in the
bowels of the University library
(the same
library destined
to burn)

reading
the Upanishads, wondering
about the nature
of consciousness,
transcendence and
this thing
they call the
soul

outside the thick rain clouds
hitting us with an
insane deluge
as they cross
the mountain

and
me diving deeper into
these sanskrit scriptures
(in translation)

losing all
sense of
space and time

the ghost presence of that
briefest moment
of being
together,

swirling about me
unseen, promise of
something
beyond special
never destined
to be

those thick clouds rising
above an expanse
of ferocious
flames

this is not going
to end well

chance that
what ends it
ends everything

so much
for all of us to lose,
we
played this so badly
so stupidly,

the laws of physics
that tell us
we are all
if small
matter

infinite energy
a small Sun a
flash of light of
miraculous intensity

and
crazy as it sounds, obessive
truly

the balance
slipping, tipping

thinking of you

something of the truth
of you there
in those scriptures