MIRAGE

MIRAGE

it is too
much for
anyone

we stumble around
unable to see

someone has
switched numbers
someone has
changed the codes

nothing makes sense any more
it seems like soldiers,
armies,
divine leaders

are just
bursting up
out of the ground

if it is
not on a screen, not
been digitally altered,
an obvious lie
we can
no longer believe it

we seek shelter
in the familiar, tried
and tested, first
principles,
things of foundation

but they all
have become
L for
liminal

there is nothing
that is not a mirage

history is a nothing
to see here thing
just walk on by

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MISTER DANIEL

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MISTER DANIEL

happy birthday
Mister Daniel

bet you thinking
of Paul singing
will you
still need me

will you
still feed me

when I’m sixty
four

which, by my
calculations, you exactly
are at
the stroke of
midnight

but brother love
will be thinking of
you all Daniel day

WITH EVERY DAMNED THING

WITH EVERY DAMNED THING

look what happens
when you put pressure
squeeze everything
you can out
of us ordinary humans

reduce the quality further
of our less, than stellar lives

force us
to turn within
find what
we can all bring
to the party

fish for and
snare
what stories. fables,
myths, legends,
and, dare
I say it?, poetry
that we are sitting on
that we
have always hosted

and, to give
supreme benefit
of the doubt,

try to
touch your heart

believing it not
irredeemable, for
argument’s sake

but of course, as you have
gathered, as we have
always gathered nothing there

bereft of empathy
devoid of
understanding, no
place
for anything but
profit and greed

and a polished ideology
premised on a need
to never let anyone
smell
let alone see (in
all its abject glory) such
ceaseless hypocrisy

at which
revelation

we sigh, close ranks, recite
poems, tell our stories

back to
work
putting pen to paper
hit you with every damned
thing we got

HATCHLING

HATCHLING

by no means
profligate
or ultra fertile

I have fathered
(just to offer
a conservative
estimate)
around twenty
thousand children

or perhaps, being
somewhat elapid
in my nature,
I should call
them hatchlings,
think of them
as true
to type, reflections
of my serpentine, often
venomous demeanor

not brown
like the Aussie
brown snake
nor black, death-velvet
mouthed like
our own
dear black mamba

but up with this gang
whose wisdom so far
exceeds what
I can barely
achieve posing
as human

twenty thousand offspring
(and maybe some change)
so don’t
ask their names,
their achievements
and titles
where and how
documented, perhaps
preserved
no hatchling of mine
has any respect
for all yout acadenic hypocrisies
and concerted double dealings

trying to live
their lives, make their way
slither into
your consciouness, root out
rodents and such like

many
killed on the spot
victims of crude misunderstanding

so many
already disappeared, barely
seeing light of day

the odd one, perhaps
even this one (for what
ever rational, logical,
critical, aesthetic reason),
destined to remain

DONALD’S ARGUMENT FROM. DESIGN

DONALD’S ARGUMENT FROM DESIGN

you need mega patience
to run a galaxy
call
all
the executive shots

more still
(we bordering now on infinite)
to dictate governance
across the Universe itself

put in those golden scales
that determine prices
against values
values
against nothingness

we see
how incredible, utterly
magical it is
to master the art
of controlling a relatively
short
lived
smaller space
even if
continental country

home of
the slow
and the brave (no
longer braves)

regimenting every facet
ruling as you divide

pretty much the ideal
God-given can’t wait to
put their marching
boots
on. situation

divinely designed, if
lockjawed in the extreme

NO BRAINER

NO BRAINER

maybe nothing
maybe everything

no brainer
given what you stand to win

and if you lose,
well at least some schaden
consolation
everybody loses

not a single winner
no one
coming
out on top

Yes, Blaise,
I wonder what Jean Paul
would have
made of this, argument
observing the world
through those thick
existential lenses

sipping his, ninth coffee
smoking his tenth cigarette

wondering if this
fine, very modest but
highly intellectual Parisian
establishment

could be the blueprint, the
archangel archetype

for all the
great coffee houses in
the afterlife,

worth wagering something on
if when
the great debate is
entertained between existence
and essence

it would be bad faith not
to consider the being in
and for itself of coffee itself

WITH EVERY DAMNED THING

WITH EVERY DAMNED THING

look what happens
when you put pressure
squeeze everything
you can out
of us ordinary humans

reduce the quality further
of our less, than stellar lives

force us
to turn within
find what
we can all bring
to the party

fish for and
snare
    what stories. fables,
myths, legends,
and, dare
I say it?, poetry
that we are sitting on
that we
have always hosted

and, to give
supreme benefit
of the doubt,

try to
       touch your heart

believing it not
irredeemable, for
argument’s sake

but of course, as you have
gathered, as we have
always gathered

               nothing there

bereft of empathy
devoid of
understanding, no
place
    for anything but
profit and greed

and a polished ideology
premised on a need
to never let anyone
smell
    let alone see (in
all its abject glory) such
ceaseless hypocrisy

at which
     revelation

we sigh, close ranks, recite
poems, tell our stories

back to
work
putting pen to paper
hit you with every damned
thing we got
  

NECK OF THE WOODS

NECK OF THE WOODS

cut me
some slack

a huge swathe
a tidy sum

use a sharp sharp knife
or maybe a hospital scalpel
sterilized, sharpened
to such an
edge

can cut
cloud

or, on the other hand,
to move in an alternate direction

string me up
and hang me, let me
die 100% marionette
my
   feet not
touching ground

not entirely convinced
you are fixed in viewpoint
regarding what
right and proper
to do with poems
in your
       neck of the woods
and with those that write them

the jury
   one day in, the next so very out

STICKS

STICKS

knocked two
sticks together
inventing time

no, not fire,
fire would come
later

and with it fiery
music, boiling ,
raging chords, bursting melodies
yet
all things to those who wait

and wait for this
we have for a pretty long time

right now I am listening
to progressive, much
dissonance
incredible complexity

someone with sticks
pounding like a mad
beautifully crazy controlled
machine
jack in the box leaping out
of the background

I suppose
every digital and
electronic device under
the musical Sun
also helps