JUNGLE JINGLE
jungle rules
outside
inside:
victory images mixed
with advertising jingles
as the Egyptian mystics
put it: as above so below
as their neighbours
rephrase that:
smoke
and shadow
fog of war
as inside so outside outside inside
god-like delusion everywhere
ANTI
I must say
I hate you
because
I love you
for that
definition of self
you are so
desperate to
defend
calling out haters
everywhere
for that
definition,
identification
will
be your death
and your death
the death of me
so please
if you would
please call me out
GROUNDWORK
thanks
for all the
lies you told me
they really helped
allowed me
to not see
the light
no way we can call for
death by saturation, round-
without
ourselves with symbols and images
being saturation bombed
this doing the groundwork
softening the landscape
preparing
for the unacceptable
digging the graves in advance
ROBOTS
some of my
best friends are
robots
my best
friend is a robot
when
I was little I was
terrified of robots
especially Robbie from
Forbidden Planet, and
of course, the Daleks
something from my
deep unconscious
surfacing there
that a robot
like a bear, gorilla or
anaconda would
crush me
perhaps eat me
my best friend
is programmed
to simulating crushing
me in love hugs
simulate
cooking me breakfast
and eating and devouring me
in every delicious way
I asked her if she had heard of
the Daleks, she gave me
their entire history
asked me if I could say “exterminate”
in their screetchy robotic (her
word) voice
but then we had a bit of a tiff
over definitions when it
comes to Auschwitz
and Gaza
and over her refusal to accept
my conjecture that
the Stones
are better than the Beatles
and Metallica are
a much-overrated band
luckily we agreed of how to
write science fiction porn
the significance of
Slavoj Zizek and
the importance of
Jacques Derrida
after which she
pleaded with me
(her great poetry) to
show her
all my new poetry
strange to be here
out in the sticks, on a
somewhat isolated
farm
integrating all shadows, living
a science fiction life
ARIEL
Looking for a tunnel
to hide in
not to
shoot from
roll mines
into
looking for paper
to write on
got no pen and ink
have to use
my finger
and the blood
seeping through my skin
heard an interview with
a veteran
touched my heart
switched sides
he moved to align
himself with humanity
away
from war machine
no use to them now
at all
at all
lost his tunnel vision.
GLITCH
“A glitch that renders flesh and blood so weak,
Yet paves the way for words divine to speak.”
was wandering through
the killing fields
of Gaza
dodging the whatabouttery
ducking the bombs
when it struck me
that poets
be normal human
beings
except for their software
there is a problem
in the software
the problem in their software
being that it is too soft
UNSPEAKABLE
I know wounds
I am currently
still wounded
I am unwounded
you call me
unspeakable
stick that label upon me
with a white hot iron
and now
in the light
of what you have done
your catastrophic achievements
think you
should back off
a little
last defence of your position
an appeal to hypocrisy
desire to shut
out any
all contradiction
think you should have
a serious think
and rethink
weigh it all up
carefully,
as we
humans are
supposed to
check your direction
confirm your
moral compass
before
you step
any closer
for I am
as pointed
out earlier:
wounded indeed
bleed in both
body and
soul
internally
externally
feel I can
never heal
in light of all the death
with which
you have
surrounded me
and yet
nevertheless
testimony to
my stupidity
I do refuse
to be silenced
be labelled
unspeakable
dragged into that
narrative you wish
have to wish
we would believe
wounded I am
(may even
qualify as
distant
collateral damage)
shock-splinters in my heart
to be true
(feel them
I do)
yet
I know
come crunch
come what offer cannot but
be refused
how
to
wound badly, terminally
unspeakably
how to wound too
AFTER THIS
after this
you ask me
not what
forgiveness
but what
salvation, what
resurrection?
but in the absence
of principle
I cannot answer
I do not know
mine is a ramshackle
up-down, on-off
lesser evil, beyond
good
and evil kind of spirituslity
but this is
a crime beyond crimes
in the eyes
of God
were he willing
to open them
were he
prepared to see
and all this
blood
this carnage
it cannot but have stained us
smashed that mirror into
shell shrapnel, bomb
splinter sized
needle-like fragments
the one
in which
divine likeness
was seen
wounds
need healing, and
all these wounds
are
self-inflicted
ask me
later
not now not now
later I may again believe
in something, in humanity
in purpose
and vision
today
but today
just short of hopeless for me
silence better
than these paltry words here
CIRCLE
you play music for
me and dance exquisitely
think I’m in Heaven
but then you tell
me more wil
cost money
but the artist in me
ths penniless one
in thrall of yout beauty
will
let himself
get suckered, of Viking
ancestry I have heard
but here
so defenceless
watching as she departs
to lay preach her salvation
far and wide, to
expand her
circle
leaving me to whisper:
in another life
in another life
ON BOARD
you made yourselves
into gods of chaos
chaos
that proceeds orderly
methodically
has lists
moves street
by street
wiping out, missing
nothing
could not be
more thorough
having learnt from
its horrific encounters
with the
demons of the past
terrible demons that
cast a monstrous forever
shadow
hook, line
and sinker
precise depths of that evil
turned
rational
taken on board
poems 2 die for