
CRUEL



QUIETLY
me and my
postmodern imagination
sat together quietly
thinking about you
comimg up with famous
film scenes the three
of us might appear in
just the three
of us
cutting and pastimg
from classics, mainstream,
and independents
alike
as if we had become
possessed by the genius
of Mr Tarantino
players and played
as it is with
practically everything
most of the time
you, me
and my postmodern imagination,
only thing that
connects us
any way at all

DARKER TURN
when I die
condense all
I was
and now am
into a love poen
single, short, to the point
thing of night and dream
and moment when
all our darkness
all that
we are
of darkness
thrives, comes alive
knows
the bliss
of a star
when I die
turn me into
a love poem
short
and to the point
nothing special
of diamond, golden
thing in the heavens
like Romeo’s heart
speaking plainly
not
(as Juliet did envision)
beautifully scattered
and then
if I am read
(if you
are the one to read)
put
what did, what was
into some
forever parenthesis
just to say, remind me,
that I am
thing of absence,
thing of
the darkness now
this
small, petty life that
writes
being so
preoccupied with what it says
what said
took a
sweeter, darker turn

CAVE
by the time
news of the election
happened to reach me
it had aged, ten
twenty years
and I had
aged a thousand
so sarcastic thanks
due to Albert
opening this can of worms
despite the shock of relativity
the news
was soggy with conjecture
about coalition
of the centre
vaunted talk too of
government
of national unity and
me so far
out the frame, swinging
pitching
in left field
not boding well
my initial gut reaction, by
the time
I’d sussed the story
seemed
all talk of rebirth, revision,
repentance and renewal
at every
little individual, and
of course, the national level,
was perhaps
a tad
too hopful, insanely premature
but this analysis killed
left me crippled, ancient
as old
as Plato
him stuck way back when
still dreaming of his
Republic of philosophy, hierarchy,
meritocracy
and me
totally
abstractrd
out of the picture
still hanging around,
for better or forcworse
somewhere
near the backwall of
his absurdly
over-estimated cave
***
TUBULAR
here’s a tube
of me
and now I have
a tube of you
if someone were
to come
out of the blue
mix what’s in
the tube
of me with
the tube of you
it would be
no mere inadvertent
pleasure

ROLL
I let the world
roll
will find a hole,
a Plato cave to go
total Thomas Pynchon
though the pattern
need not be fractal
reek of brutally random
or at the highest
sub-god level
diabolical conspiracy
but you let me
rant and rave because
in the game
it’s zugtwang
cat got your tongue
neither do
nor speak
damned if you don’t
to an eternal pondering
of so rare a hopeless
configuration
of the pieces
clock ticking —
well, yours is at least!
mine sunning itself
with a mixed race Pisces
dragon pop star
somewhere
in Barbados
me Pisces too, and who
says I dare not drean?
who laid down an
edict
that if life be hopeless
cannot sublimate,
replace
with fantasy?
shirk every
tiresome responsibility
shirk realpolitik?
running on fumes, losing
gas, out
of propellant
the fat
part of the world (mum
as to which hemisphere)
has got
even fatter, gone
paranoid schizoid where
was just passive aggressive
see it up
but falling
down from the sky
bad
Icarus moment, raging
at the Sun (just as
it is about
to make an appearance)
sneering at that light, that heat
and here the dice
have rolled as they may
well short of snake eyes.