THE ESTABLISHED WISDOM

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

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

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

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

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

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

LONG NIGHT

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

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

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

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