PARAGON

PARAGON

of hysteria
you are
the paragon

need
to live in
a bubble
under
an umbrella

free from paradox
parasite and
(above all)
each and
every
unsettling parallel

a dome in which
there are
no voices

just
dead echo

and
life continues
as before
as before

beyond time and history
above consideration

AND DICED

AND DICED

Oh the satire
ran away from me

shunned civility,
turned severe

demarcated sharply
for slicing

sheep on the one side
    goats on the other

yet
   to preserve some
semblance of balance
nothing in the middle

a house divided:
those who laughed
       set against

those who cried;
and those, true
     to the sport

        who both
laughed and cried

and then up
on high prior so
           monstrously reversed

those whose guilt of complicity
though masked by
whatever
     fake camouflage

ran
  
horribly
          deep

that like Vampires in the light
suddenly stripped of immunity
and with
  ripped-off
disguise

all they dare do is lie
down with their victims
(human
     at last) wither
and die

(sadly only
    metaphorically, in my
wildest imagination, even
though the world,
planet,
cosmos

crying out for justice;
desperate for correction).

PLEASE YOURSELF

PLEASE YOURSELF

please yourself
it’s not your war

and why should
old injustices
present slaughter
trouble
you

you have
your own life to decode
everyday concerns
to fret over

so much
fretting there

who cannot forgive
your total dedication
to present
woe and
need

pleasing yourself
finding
what you pray will
prove
(and provide)
supreme relief (in

an extremity
beyond
belief)

TANGENTIAL

TANGENTIAL

as the camera pans
and tracks

keenly observant
as the eye of God

    note all of it
down
take it
      into evidence:

here a triptych of images
from the bowels
of Hell
            avenues of billboards
picturing the unspeakable

and here words untethered, words
     of wild association

and here
in consequence, dancing
                         on fresh graves

grinding down the monuments
crushing the flowers

all we
need is a river
                    coiled like
a serpent
        and we have apocalypse now

      *****

Excuse me
          apologies for

throwing you into this headlong
without thought of a preamble

felt you are
so familiar with this
terrain
          no introduction required

observe us now: myself
and an odd band
of philosophers
                in open formation

making huge headway as
we navigate the path
between
      battlefields

move from battlefield to
battlefield
      observing with horror

how far we have slid
from regime of rational truth

and the care
of the wise gods

finding the think tanks and
complexes and factories

structures wide
as whole cities, reaching
upward to Heaven
                      portals to
supremacy

foundaries for the steel and ghe stone for us to build
our lush monuments

utterly expressive of our
desire
     for eternal comfort
and peace

and as
      for the price paid

we do not
         let it run away from us
but
   (in tight formation now)
keep it
      carefully monitored

the debt in hard currency
always balanced
in blood

for philosophically speaking
this is
    a landscape of division
cruel dialectic
and dichotomy

those who did this finding
means to speak that
horror

      terrifying their madness
out of them

sculpting the darkness
                    of the species in
such
exquisitely warped
                      form

STUMBLE

STUMBLE

we were falling asleep
trying to left-brain
follow every
technicality after
technicality
(South Africa got no case
because we forgot
to insist on
a reply)

but we will show you
dispute if you
diss our
deep integrity

(bet after this you
wish we were
your legal
arm)

but where
were your human fire and
intensity
moments of raw humanity

saw only a shifting of the goal posts
a stilted conjuring act

none of that Irish flair and poetry
threatening to scorch the beams in
the palace roof bringing it tumbling down, everything upside

down
and tumbling down

the world tipped South and
the Southern Cross

pointing the way
dear next Dante
away
from Hell
and towards Heaven

yes no poetry, not a flash at all,
just stumbling responses
and mixed-up
papers shuffled like cards but

all of them
jokers

not a poet
in the pack

not one
homegrown (perhaps
you did
them in

as you did every voice in Gaza
especially
those of the poets