2001: A Space Odyssey – poems 2 die for

WITH THE END OF SCIENCE FICTION

WITH THE END
OF SCIENCE FICTION

as apes we are
quite unique

see how shaggy sweet
and smart we are
dancing a-rout around
the monolith

about to
leave the cave
start
the arms race

tell our fable
to the stars
the twinkle, twinkle
bright ones
not the ones with
planets of
the dark forest

but the blessing
of evolution, breeding such
an array of
heights and sizes
coats of many colours

has not quite had
the effect
sought after

nothing like difference
to breed the hate
that kills
and if
not hatred
then a road, no
THE road to power

which has me wondering
my the monolith
bothered
came our way

gave
us our truth
out there somewhere
with the end of science fiction

(as unique apes with
unique ape planet
seemingly star
child
bound
unless resting
on our laurels)

HEY STANLEY

hey Stanley
throw me

a bone

match-cut
me
to something out there
beyond infinity

Space Odyssey me
strapped to the monolith

so at last I
can expire

leave the cinema last
rewatch, last time

knowing
in my soul I
have somehow

arrived home

COBBLERS

I cobbled together
a Mary Shelley
using some
leftovers
from the
fridge

filled her lungs
with a breath
of Romantic poetry

stuffed her brain
until it was set
to burst
with every available
microchip

and soaked her soul in
a loop-feed running of
Kubrick’s
enigmatic
masterliece

that if
this
the genre
she was put on this Earth
to bring to birth

she migjt
glean
enpugh of a gist
for a
pure reboot

remind us
where it
all went wrong

where it
all

returned
to the slime

sank into
slick
death hubris

ONE AND ONLY

imagine
you are one
moment
naked in
the street
in Hamburg

the one before
in Strawberry Fields
with Yoko

the next
being introduced to
Paul

the next being blown
away by a jealous soul
with a snub-
nosed special

imagine a
world become
so non-linear

everything you are and were
revolving forever on a carousel

imagine that you
are
   have become
none other
than
    Mr Sergeant Pepper’s
one and
    only Billy Shears

CLOCK THIS

I glare
across the board
at you

my need
for victory
my need for redemption

though not
necessarily
a queen
sacrifice

there is in chess
almost always
a really
good move

perhaps even
a best move, a
brilliant move
hiding behind it

submerged in the patterninf
and yet in plain view

clock ticking while
I rack my brain
to find
my moment
of mastery

the beauty of the pieces
finely carved, exquisitely
molded

expanding the brain
Star Child style
to
the edge of consciousness.

KUBRICK’S CHILD

when
dust

sprouts legs;
begins

to
think

the Cosmos,
amazed

proffers
a nudge

might
venture a wink

MONKEY BUSINESS

’68, year of the Monkey
what if there were
no Space Odyssey

no Moonwatcher to watch
the students of the Sorbonne
turn France
upside-down

overhead, somehow lost
in the inaccessible recesses
Overlook labyrinth
of HAL’S digital memory,

there is no
continuity error in space
no ninety degree offset
in every planetary alignment

no fabulous match cut,
best there
has ever been

and incredible other
incredible leap by
the Kubrick imagination

Star Child spawned of monolith
floating back
from Jupiter down to
our so shabby planet

to tell us
that the cosmos is our
mirror and our future

written
as if on a screen by
end of
the journey, last self
our evolution

pure promise of our becoming
true
immaculate machine

TIME OF THE SPIDER WASP But what is the rush? At some point there has to be acceptance acceptance will carry the argument and so, accepting I then accepted the spider wasp’s invitation followed her to the front door and somehow we had found out way out of this crypt moved into the strange air I lingered as she hovered close to my face not wishing to rush enjoying the mystery wondering what kind of portal this must be leading to dimensions adjacent or whole new galaxies infinity is a concept which, crazily, we cannot but believe.

B ALL (and end all)

B ALL (and end all)

what’s the monolith?

and what’s a monolith
doing here in our
simple
B movie?

did you, my extraordinarily
intelligent darling
bring it onto
the set
write it into the script even?

seeing eye to
                      digital eye
communing secretly, talking
                                  telepathically
in binary code, arcane
subtext, hidden
                 hieroglyphics?

stretching yourself to the limit
to receive the advances
of super-
advanced alien

higher consciousness
to higher consciousness

(raw) red eye
to (raw) red eye

parallel line
to parallel line

biomechanical to organic
in endless feedback loop

PIE

PIE
“a piece of pie”
2010: The Year We Make Contact

A piece of pie this monolith is
the cosmonaut said, unaware
how he was caught or
framed by
HAL’s beady eye (I say
“HAL” but you know
I must be alluding
to his Russian equivalent)

the monolith such
an iconic object by now
in all technologically advanced
civilizations

giving us the smarts to
nuke the entire
planet in
defence of our waterhole

and all on that hill
we havd sworn to die on

no the monolith though
teeming with stars looks
like a thick sheet of rolled steel
block of
planed wood

so much in our culture (ask
HAL!) revolving around
the battle
between steel
and wood.