poem – poems 2 die for

PEEL

I watch you
peel
wondering if this be
a whole new being
or at least a new species

I would touch you
but that might produce
an intensity
at which flesh dissolves

or, at the bare minimum, a
moment beyond
our capabilities where
we hurt each
othes’ feelings
.
perhaps
(but no quid
pro quo) I should
peel too or
simply
stand before you
as yet unpeeled

or stretch out in a tableau
of tender vulnerability
peeled of everything
extraneous and
at the
heart of my need

what
is the worst that could happen?

best and worst
beyond my wildest imagination.

TYPICAL

STEPS TAKEN

wash the blood
of these steps

scrub the plaques,
the statues until
it all looks
pristine
ersatz Athenian

shepherd in your student flock
they are your volk
you are
responsible for
their
safe-
conditioning
(yet still might have to
get some tasered;
still might
have to get
some heads beaten in)

sitting securely in your much prestigious chair,
huge and padded
to signal desinated role, supposed supreme authority
power
totally screwed in

and yet
to
remain on
the safe side

better
stuff your ears with wool
turn headphones
up to full

for the skies are screaming,
the heavens thundering,
the ghosts of great
intellectuals who
graced your halls
are Siren-shrieking

throwing out of kilter
all yout factory
procedures

your vaunted
education
is nothing
but lobotomy

duplication of
all
that is
crass, all that is brutal
all that is pitiless,
merciless

apotheosis
of horde

OFF- SCREEN

OFF-SCREEN

your monologue
was so bad

it had to be delivered
off screen
(they couldn’r
cant the camera
to get
a steep
enough
Dutch angle

equally your
plans, designs and
power plays are so
monstrously
devious
they have to take place
behind the scenes

and such a spin put
on them
the world, our planet
might just threaten
to violate
its orbit
which you would claim
is worth it
given the diabolical evil
you are determined to hide

UNLESS

Yes, what would I
what would we do
without you?

not a joke
and if a joke

not
such a good one

in all seriousness, you ask:
is there, could there be
satire in Heaven?

and me thinking
of loading the dice, going
to my grave
with my face painted

satire? Could it be possible
that they know
that tune
have that
music?
or are the strings of the harps
up there strung far
too tight?

if it is absent from Heaven
perhaps satire would
be conspicuously absent
from the other
place too

no place for criticism, correction
and logical exposure
when
all are condemned

torured
to the limit
for all eternity

beyond pointed comic comment

unless

GIST

WITH WHAT PASSION?

with what passion
do you make love
Oh my sacred soldier

returning from duty
returning from the kill?

does it excite her
that she can smell
death on you, taste
the predator inside
of you

do you murder each other
ecstatic touch upon
ecstatic touch

no seeming end to
your divine lust

the whole night through
the lurid love
that you do here
fulfil

viewed
       here
     through the cold, dead, eyes of those
     tortured, slaughtered,
                         mercilessly abused

a different,
alien perspective

REPAID

anger
from above

anger
from below

and here it is,
their
meeting point

where all the debts
and offences
of our kind

get
monstrously repaid

BETWEEN

every city
is another city

the other city
being how that city
is dreamt
how it
dreams itself

every city struggles
to separate reality
from dream

fudges the demarcation
so easy then
not to be able
to avoid
slipping between

RUBBLE

books were
my civilization
not enough
have
they taughr me

but where are
the books to
be seen
to be found

in these cities of
sky high

demented aspiration
built upon
rubble

and
when one
of those towers somehow
happens to
fall

teach me where to
find smooth smooth stones

midst all
that dust and rubble