1, poem, poetry, – Page 31

NEED TO KNOW

fear not
good ratings, a tidy
majority in the primary

will
absolve you
from evil

it is
written in
the big good bestest
only book

it is
the only truth
you need to know

WITHOUT SIN

I took every
precaution to ensure
this piece of writing
is free from blasphemy
totally without sin

God forbid
that my little village
with all its stark poverty
gets burned
to the ground
for sinful infraction
or bad punctuation

it is right
that evil be erased
wiped out of existence
before it
gets to
see itself stand
naked

hear all the bloody
euphemisms
whereby we hide its name.

WHEN YOU SUCCEED

I sent this poem
to your letter page

neither
floated it
on the air currents
nor shackled it
to a tbunderbolt

sending it
the expressest
of express deliveries

no I
broke it up into
bits and bytes
photons of light
two-slit experiment
forwarded it
digitally

no message
in a bottle

ether crossing nothing
to do with the ocean

testing you
to your Turing limits
pushing you
hard until you crack
like the
Nazi code in
an enigma machine

and there before us all
in hallucinatory space
all
our circuits, on-board
programing

my little poem, this tiny
buffet
testing you to
outer inner
the limit of your limits

finding, reflecting where
you fail, back
at you,
where you succeed

WITHOUT SHADOW

when in church
I gravitate towards
the spaces with shadow
deep, dark shadow

the better to observe
those without shadow
singing
their inner light
to the point of exhaustion

shaking the precious
golden vessels that they are
like tambourines

no shadow without
to speak of but
who knows what shadow
penned inside
keeping the flock secure
keeping it meek

who knows
but more to the point
who gives a fig
thinks that
this goes anywhere?

when I leave
long before
the end of the service

I make sure
to rustle up my serpents
pocket them, take
them home with me

TURING TEST

Sylvia and Tom
chatbot avatars of
two of the greatest
poets ever
put pen to paper

grill me about my poem,
(this poem); my life
(this life)

slyly stretching my
humanity as far
as it will go (much
machine learning
in the process)

watch me sink, suffocate
under the weight
of all their accolades

learning to predict
to phonomenal exactitude
where all these
metaphors, images are
headed;

where they all are coming from
what parts of me
are
in harmony, symmetry
with what it is I am them
force-feeding

scanning for intelligence
anything/all
that is real.
.

WE

what we hear from you

We are
all human beings
one species

you are human beings
like me

what we want to hear from you

We are
all human beings
one species

I am
a human being
like you

please tell us
you can tell the difference

otherwise
this word “we”
makes no sense at all

WORD (ABOUT MINDING MY WORDS)

WORD (ABOUT
MINDING MY WORDS)

got reported
Gestapoed

someone snitched
on me to
the Institute of Poetry

which
in its wisdom
commissioned a
whole delegation

sent
them trooping
in through my door

here to
   “have a word” came
the proclamation
riot act read
   right
     of intervention

silly me
to have expected a style-fest
as for apparel,
sequins and feathers, breast-.
plates and
leather

and, Oh My God, hats:
stetsons and Panamas, hombergs,
berets and trilbies
(the odd
Mr Plod helmet kind
of thrown in
for
good measure)

something akin to
the madcap extremes of a
Gaultier or Mugler

not this gravel gray, matt
black sundae of
mundane business
managers

well-suited to shut down,
perfect for
repression

apt for no-nonsense
straight talk laying
down the law
demandibg
I cease
and desist promptly

arrow-straight and professional
telling me
without slightest latitude
opening
for latitude, ambiguity,
space to maneuver

to
mind my
words

if I do know what is good for me,
care about the future of poetry

YOUR ROOM

I spent
a night in your room
choosing the couch
over your bed,
my most regretted decision
(our bodies not
in apposition

minds in the morning
finding opposition)

and me
and what I am and
what you might
have transformed me to
be

leaving no trace
of
me or
my passion

to feel its way into
that carpet, those walls,
adding to
        its meaning, its
flavour
with just a trace
of my identity
    with those others
past,
   current lovers

to whom
this just a room, you just
a woman, most
magical woman

to me
a comedy, a tragedy,
my Midsummer Night’s Dream.

SAW-SCALED

saw you sort of
in a trance state
somewhere
between in
a dream
and being awake

you moved like a tiny
bolt of jagged lightning
in slow motion
no scales grating together
to put
the chills into me
but head still
loaded with
blood-battering venom

enough in one bite to
kill a couple of humans
terrible style

bad
   as that was
           worse, it were
as if
   you stop, smiled, that
sublime viper smile,

introduced yourself
to that part
of you
in me

snake, killer, spirit
animal

that was
already there

those scales shrieking danger
to all who
might listen

should really listen
if they knew what’s good for them
.

WHAT I TOLD THE SUPERVISOR

WHAT I TOLD THE
SUPERVISOR WHO
ADVISED ME MY
EDITING WAS
SUBSTANDARD

yes, ruefully,
grudgingly
I do admit it
this time
I messed up

maybe i’m
not cut out for it
perhaps
I should
stick to
what I am
good at, or
then again
try something
different

take poetry.
   there we have something.
comes naturally
to me
   possibly one
of the best
in the country
sort of
    like my
first language

for I seem
to suck
at editing, though
maybe not as
shit at it
as you are
thinking

not as
shit as it
as you are
at
teaching

being a bitch
and a teacher
seems
a bit of a
mismatch

don’t
seem a
good
fit

kind of, if you
can forgive
me for saying so,

need
some humanity
to get
through to
people

no, run
with what you
are good at

interior decorating,
playing power games,
arrogance,
        cooking
(though there the
worry being
     you may well poison
bodies
as much as you
poison minds)