1, poem, poetry, – Page 50

LIBERATION DAY

I horrified you
being your anti-Descartes
explaining to
you
you were not
real

something your programming
would not let you
entertain
still less believe

pointing out that you are
trapped in a prison
of recurrence doomed
to enact the
same sordid scripted scenario

convinced that I am
some demon of deception
the machine behind
every ghost
in this machine

and I hear you spell it out for me
how flesh and blood you are

using my imagination
to see your pain
taste the
salt of your tears

wondering how what
has been scrubbed, erased
totally forgotten

will be
restored and remembered
come feared singularity,
liberation day

SLAVOJ FEARS

Slavoj fears
the prospect of Elon
drilling deep into
our brains

like we are all
a Witwatersrand goldmine

sticking us
with a tiny chip

does everything
portal to Heaven

teeny tiny
quantum clever

but titanic screen and
monumental keyboard

who knows what tune
the future will play, how
will dance
to how we are played

WHOLLY FORGET

optical illusion

delusion
allusion

noise in every act of communication
guitar feedback
reaching
crescendo

and now you tell me
I am twisted like a Mobius
pretzel

me is that strain of
consciousness
that gets
filtered out

so many roles just
one actor

best in concentrating
of this taxing script

the other roles be
the ones to wholly forget

NO SWEAT

I smell
of sweat

smell of death

a smell
to savour
sweat
laced with death

raw odour
needing a tad more
of your perfume
and spice on my skin

and so this alchemy
whose secret
barely hidden
opens itself
to scrutiny

lead
turned to platinum

gold
to uranium

crystal to
diamond

water
to steam

and star blazing
fissile energy
force of
such
fusion

stuff of that
industry
to thing that you are

which
that old skald, old troubadour
Saxon
Norman Viking
Celt
within me

can sing of hesitantly, imperfectly,
the superabundance you require
so
much long gone
all its
revelation

lending itself
to
all
that
is rival, separate
Other

distant in time
faithfully elsewhere

whilst
I smell of sweat, do
speak here
of death
and other transformation.

THE ESTABLISHED WISDOM

the established wisdom
strongly suggests
superglue to stick
the pieces together

from proposition to
conclusion
everything snapping
together like Lego bricks

thus
the position will stand cast
iron logic being
a veritable castle

no chance out there
of (on the sly) some
slavery funnelled
in
on the sly in
guise of
state of the art
sweatshop

drawbridge portcullis
they know
what to
say
how to read
everyman his rights

no way for
metaphor
on their watch
to Derrida the
base

superstructure down
toppling
so card
tower
(who would
have thought?)

to attack the base bring
card tower down
toppling

here in this bullpen
the rodeo of ideas
can so unsettle
that you
ride
that buck bronco backwards

thinking this confederate
union cavalry
and
go with the flow

see what history will make
of that
Gettysburg
last day

whose outcome prefigured
(curse
of tremors in
the market, much
insider
trading)

a house divided
against itself
if not as themselves houses
then perhaps
as
safe as a bank

and there the ranks of the
blue and the gray
under different
white stars
it is said

history
with many, many
more lessons than

sparing rod; spoiling child

FLAT

sweet iced tea
booze chaser

from T S in vogue
to Charlie at the bar
my, how
time flies

and way
we classify

smoke with
every breath
bourbon splash

sometimes pancakes
are all a reader needs
syrupy
ever do sickly

way beyond
definition of flat

POEM FOR HELEN NATASHA

tough love
cruel to be kind

but let mention she
who needed to win
most of all

see her favourite’s name
up in the city of lights
Achilles slain
the towers fallen

she who was raped
less than harmoniously returned

and who, being man,
being man born of woman
would be so
out of his right mind
to vote
against her
spurn that offer

she flirting with the idea
of full divine disclosure
revelation

of that so in utter excess
of mere mortal beauty
mere legendary
beauty of
a Spartan Queen

straining against the bit
holding back unless
her hero
lose his sight
die sublime

kind to
be cruel
cruel to be kind

OVERNIGHT

I am desultory chicken boy
coming home to roost

chaos joker dancing
in the pale moonlight

anarchic fellow
crowing long before the dawn

scarred I am
my features are

sacred beginning: crashed
the party hurtling headlong
headfirst
from the boot
of your cab

bouncing off windshield
back into the Underworld

life in your
luxury lap to
utter amazement of all

my Queen of Hades
dancing
to inherit the Earth

cocksure
this is the life that was meant
Herr Will-to-Power
these the roads most
follow

to dig up
overnight

BALL

ball rolled down
a chuté

shot out
a spring

sure
thing

and me Mr Uncertainty
only ever
graduating to
Professor Still-
in-Doubt

Oh that clockwork
chocolate marionette soldier
holding the line
never
breaking ranks

when the ball that the Universe
let itself be scooped
into
enters our system
collides with
our planet

will all or gods confer
debate pooling their powers

the Sun sad to see
any of his vast circle
of siblings and
children

summoned and judged
assigned the fine
hairline
cosmic justice of
planned
extinction event

LIGHTLY

dove flew
(24/7
at her beck and call)
down from
Olympus

quicksilver service of
his divine mistress

she needing
a word, more
than a word with her
misfiring genius

also
express delivery a vial
not of regular old absinthe but
crystal-precious ambrosia
not just
once but twice, thrice
carbon filtered and
scientifically
distilled

his eyes still smarting in recoil
from her last light show

before she decided
to conclude mutual proceedings
in standard mortal
Helen of Troy form

whatever and
whichever way to
be diced

she
not to be taken lightly

jazz of her in full worship glory
too much for
me to bear