Category Archives: 1, poem, poetry,

HITLER

HITLER IN MANCHESTER

Hard to believe it
but Hitler is not in Manchester today
neither visiting the museums
nor watching the Manchester Derby.

He is in fact in Blackpool
recovering from the latest
amongst the host
of victory parades.

Tonight he will,
with  few choice SS guards,
find himself
strolling the promenade
taking in the lights
thence
   up the top of the tower
surveying the Irish sea.

The town
conscious it cannot
compete with Paris, but
is determined
to show its best face.

Seems he heard about Blackpool,
the Las Vegas of Lancashire
whilst munching on
his strudel whilst still
a young, maladjusted boy,

but now
the propaganda ministry
finds itself with
far too many
photo opportunities
that it knows
what to do with

but did get
an endearing clip shot
by Ms Riefenstahl
of the Fuhrer barefoot
testing the sand with
his toes,
paddling, sticking
his feet in the
freezing sea (impudent
frothy ripples washing
right over them)

smiling,
      not just for the publicity,
but out of a growing inkling
that the conquered English
(or should he
say “British”) are
at last
    beginning to warm to him

an encouraging sign, this
melting of hostility, he
tells himself
          tiny wooden spoon
trying to dig out the last
morsel from
the bottom of the
tiny tub
   of truly delicious, blackcurrant and vanilla Italian ice-cream.

AS K2

AS K2

same old
same old
           scribbling away
getting nowhere

scrunched up
sheets of paper in
the waste paper basket
threatening
to soar
high as K2

when
    I heard you singing
wept at the beauty
of it

such the gorgeous damage
just a single voice can do

EMPTY HANDS

EMPTY HANDS

We were mere babies then
before we sailed
the length
of the Atlantic
to find our new
colonial home

and there you are
in that photograph
English Catholic rose
of Norman Viking origin
young and lovely
twenty-five, twenty-
six
   by my reckoning
pushing my sister and me
across the Tame River bridge
in the heart
of that old
mill
   town

and all of us
arriving home safely,
without a scratch
in this scenario

but not
     in the other        one
the alternate
universe
one

where you lost us, lost
everything dropped
pram
  from bridge into
the river

and the two of us
not having
        read that book, kind
of hopeless as
water babies, swept
along by the river
             past Anfield, past
Goodison
past
   Ringo, John  George
and Paul not together
as
   a band

down into
the Irish sea via
             the estuary thence
to Ireland

my Mother, in
                  this rather
different
scenario

returning home with empty hands.

TAL

TAL

must be special
the wood
they are
carved from

what do you think
Mikhail?

they seem to mesmerize
commune with a source
of vast intelligence

wonder what
secrets (instilled by
nature
or by nurture)
are to
be
found lurking inside

something there cerebral
doing the heavy lifting
rattling through
truth trees
devising their own
algorithms

every carbon molecule of
that wood
steeped in the history
of the game

which brings me to you
son of Scorpio, maverick magician,
conjuring up combinations
opponents cannot grasp

as if you are
playing chess
at
an entirely different level, in
a higher dimension

sleepwalking to victory
radar guided by
the pieces themselves

HORIZON

HORIZON

Poem
Is the edge

poem
is the horizon

forever pushing the edge
forever  crossing the horizon

thing itself
notwithstanding being
its own
process
of creation

flattened out, creature
of a plain off-white
two
   dimensional
surface

blank underneath: here
bereft of sign and meaning
but from
        below, from all
that is off the page

within the words
betwixt and between invisibly
torrent of all
that is in us, beyond us,
defines what
we are
      breaking bounds,
bursting right through.


BET YOUR SWEET ASS

BET YOUR SWEER ASS

Your paradigm is slipping
was always slippery

can see
bare flesh, stuff exposed

wondering
who schooled you in
this philosophy, laid
it out
on a platter it
would seem

so let
me put this hypothesis
to you now

whether
truth be whole or
(Boltman brain territory)
it be severed

you eschew the wisdom
forget the transparency

force down
that blue pill
without a second thought

knowing, not knowing
who or what
on top

who on top
and who at the bottom
(in or out
in terms
of innuendo, sauce for the goose
in terms
of double entendre)

either way (feeling your way
in building your
perspective upon it)

the symmetry here, the super-
position, sweet Thomas Kuhn,
pure paradise

your paradigm
no longer slipping
must have got the hang.

SAUCE CODE

SAUCE CODE

Zappa, in my ears
can taste
the satire
in my mouth
(heavenly,
demonic
like a celeste with fuzz
and wah-wah pedal)

something really salty, pillar
of salt
salt of the Earth

except
(thought to savour)
and discovering your capacity
to escape
cistern, be
fountain

be of February
the fixed Gannymede

easy to
throw my lot in
with you on
this issue

designate you
a truly credible source

unless when
you spoke I did happen,
to be Frank, to
mishear you

therefore when you said “source”
could have sworn you said “sauce”.

BENEFIT OF THE DOUBT

BENEFIT OF THE DOUBT

we came to clean
fix things up
get
things back on
even
keel

save
what we could

would, on behalf
of your planet, behalf
of the Universe

appreciate
an apology

pity
you not able
to deliver it
personally

apart from the mess, could
not
find a single
trace of you

so hard
to accord you
any benefit of the doubt

DIE DAY

DIE DAY

The day I died
they called a stop
to all wars

voted every war-mongering
(and other kind of idiot)
out of office

built a shield, a Dyson
Sphere around the planet
to harness energy,
protect from
asteroid impacts and
all such extinction events

wasn’t there to see it
but my
heart, support
was with you

requiring my death
to get this done

small
price to pay.