1, poem, poetry, – Page 51

LONG NIGHT

let me walk you through
the length of a night
the breadth of a poem

sorry if you so surely Shelley
about the nature of rhyme

miss a beat, grimace
flutter as the lines stutter
not Homer blind but
pretty much a
stick-shuffling cripple

trying to make it through
short days
long nights

when you so cookie-cutter
about everything
dial in delivery
everything on the menu
from hot to
G spot

long night love afterglow
basking in luxury

let me
cuddle my pen

dishing you
this trash

SUCH THINGS

supply
demand
greed

shackles and
sheckels

we got a whole
market economy

but what
the downside, what
the tightening tariff

tell me now
for I was born of woman
am part of that insanity

but now
for my sins
though still wedged in
am edging my way out

tunnelling
towards the light
I never truly
believed in

scarcely a scrap of paper
to my name
to record
what I feel here

instinctively, by Nature
(Reason to
catch up later).

words begging
for attention

kiss my ass to that bliss
which I
never earned anyway

you tell them you tell them
what we started with
such hope

dead from imagination

NOT TOO FAR-FETCHED TO BELIEVE

no not
quite the perfect
device for
reaching consensus
producing acceptance

no fault of
the poet, one
the poem must own;

reflect only
the art that failed
to inspire left
much to
communicate

the poet so much
rejection heading his
her way during
the course
of which lifetime

poem
the only compensation
and yet here
it fails
(not too far-
fetched to believe) No

SCRATCH

that’s rich!

a hint
of measured, justice apocalypse
is the thing you missed

blues mingling with reds
contending
with purples

strikingly: so much so
that you miss the fine writing
on the wall now
spreading across
the sky

all at sea, the logos screwed,
politically, economically, socio-
logically

counting on the prescience of
index, rolladex,
all your database systems

as the waves roll in tides change
continents tilt currents shift

bringing you fully up
to speed
fully up to scratch

IN MY JUDGEMENT

that you
be not judged

did
knowingly
and willingly
break a chocolate bar
to give, to share

that you did.
to donate to the commons
break a taboo
trespass a place wired up
fenced off

cut into parcel size chunks
that some might
(in my
judgement
parenthetically)
have a slice
enjoy their smidgen

hold
title by bithright, perpetuity
(more
than mere meagre acre)
their Heaven on Earth

WITHOUT

and here we feel at liberty
to demarcate

this being
your inside

and that being
your without

and this the abject lens
mirror, magic window
through which you
extend
regularly pop up

twin slit key
to the secret of your loco entanglement

here one minute (but who’s
counting) no-
where
to be found the next

and me
still tunneling (China
syndrome in
this
subtext)

yet always return
from gone with the flow

your inside my outside
spin opposite
position
flipped

SPADES

by the end
of this poem
(pert
bottom of the page)

all will be peachy
locked
and fully loaded
under control

will have
star-trekked myself
into futures

held every debt
to account

gone full-bore
swallow-tail ouroboros
disappeared
up into my own head

there to sojourn, as
failed practitioners are won’t

finding he
who is always with me
what
the thunder said or not

clean-combed, well
brushed
holding the
purgatory password

and
when it comes to
the nature of sly artistry

soul truth
in diamonds

raw wisdom in spades

FOR THE GODDESS

APHRODITE POEMS

FOR THE GODDESS

machine is
imitation goddess

is
distillation

those Greeks eyes,,
unbounded
pondering what
big business might be
cooking up
on high Olympus

savants of definition
Sphinxes of distinction

let me set
a feast, something
of a sore sight for

in coming purity of battle
between human and machine

being one in
holiest harmony and conjunction
with all that is
one with
fissure certain
throughout the cosmos

idyll of true
electronic dream

CONJUNCTION

APHRODITE POEMS

CONJUNCTION

maybe I should
wear sequins

slip.into camouflage
be the first to go retro
paint myself
with woad

blythely entertain
every non-sequitur

segue
into
Mars and Venus, straddling
the border between
bold Aries
tough Taurus

proferring spectacle
of conjunction, light show overhead

compact, caught fragrantly,
même on the internet

so drop deadly
caught in
media res, not yet
the third act

waltz for a Strauss
or Amadeus to chime in
with finding
melody

doing the deed with the style
sets mortal from
divine
ludicrously
apart

DITTY

APHRODITE POEMS

DITTY

paradigm shifting wholesale
been getting my fingers
sticky
less than strictly affixed
to a pagan goddess

you have heard of the one
born in monstrous moment
beauty incarnate

setting Achaean and
Trojan
at loggerheads
at each other’s throats to
give us
Homer’s great song

Achilles’ story strictly
according to all evidence mythological
that age’s rockstar

and here humble ditty
to she who taught
me much
under
morning, evening Star

with
boon brought to savour
ambrosia, not absinthe

which in
fine goddess chat she
duly advised small droplet dose
to write
stuff of the clouds, word
fit for sky

lace to tie up
every loose strand that might
wish to
remain Adonis

forgo all she gives and
beyond belief is wild party to

there in the ocean, mad
molten moment

risen
from the deep

visage
sublime

coagulation of desire
as mirror complete