Category Archives: 1, poem, poetry,

EDITED VERSION

EDITED VERSION

cut
dissolve

and fade to

this poem could not
be what it is without blue screen

without what magically
to interact with
these words here
gets
projected
onto the page

and what
could be less analogue
more digital
and yet mimetic

what a job
you pulled, downloading
your everything
into it

calling the shots, making
all the key directorial,
editorial decisions

as there it
rolls out, into the public
domain, global
mediasphere
heart, mind,
soul (to
varying degrees)
all thrown into it

for which you entirely
must take half the credit,
at least, at least

ONCE WERE

ONCE WERE

I toss
and turn

missing beat
after beat

my bed become
a boat as
dream
metaphors go

battling to cross
plough its way through my
turbulent ocean of sleep

my covers
    in some kind of
cross-current, horribly ruffled,
exposed
     on the deck, naked to
every
    cold wave

Odysseus, Nemo,
Ahab, Columbus,
            Nelson, Yamamoto,
so many
names out there
embodying saga
of the seas

and much in the laity
still massively oceanic

memory still vivid even
if we left
so long ago

content
   in this format of
our evolution, to skirt
and dabble, surf,
paddle

unless
where we ourselves become
denizens
       become the monsters
from the sea across
the sea we fear.

IN MUNDO SATIRAE

IN MUNDO SATIRAE

“It is allowed on all hands, that the primitive way of breaking eggs, before we eat them, was upon the larger end; but his present majesty’s grandfather, while he was a boy, going to eat an egg, and breaking it according to the ancient practice, happened to cut one of his fingers. Whereupon the emperor his father published an edict, commanding all his subjects, upon great penalties, to break the smaller end of their eggs.”

Jonathan Swift, GULLIVER’S TRAVELS

tene cervesiam meam. Horati,
Kings and Emperors
cut their fingers
on egg shells
every day

not that that
makes it a logical
defence for
jettisoning
the Republic
(the side, dear Horace,
which, I believe,
you once fought on)

not that we know,
are told, anything
about eggshells
and the grievous wounds
inflicted
upon royalty

stuff
that might
Humpty Dumpty style,
bring that entire
playing card tower
edifice
crumpling down

no
no one has a clue
about this
and other
spurious
causes of war
reasons for battle

not a whiff of any of it
outside mundo satirae,
that treacherous
world of satire

and here I remember, as
no doubt you do too
the doyenne of us all, a
man of the cloth,
a most acerbic, ironic,
comic fellow
whose factual
       account of
travels I quote above
was seen
   through by many
a stately bishop
not believing
a word of it

but there it was
on the page
          cutting like
a razor,
worse
    like oxy-acetylene
and not a soul to realize
they were
bleeding. burning,

his like today
we do
    not have

do not see
       and for
the satire world so
much more the pity

as today’s titanic giants
supreme in
    blissful idiocy

proclaim themselves Jesus
proclaim themselves Pope
proclaim themselves God

which we being
humans are wont
to believe

slaughter, torture,
martyr

those who don’t
for ultimate crime
of blasphemy, heresy

DEMISE

DEMISE

the sky
looked tie-dyed

but otherwise
communicating with us
as if
fulminating
from a pulpit

lashing us for
our climate sins
with downpour
after downpour

as for
     books and other
things of presumed value
getting washed away

what
     good are they, what
role can
they play

in
such an era?

this
end of days
deluge
drenching my books
turning them to mush

laughing at our faith
in the protection
of roofs, walls
and ceilings

what good is communication
when moving
in one direction
so
flagrantly
one-sided

closing  our
account finally
          balancing all
in the
debt column with
ruthless denise