Tag Archives: censorship

WORD (ABOUT MINDING MY WORDS)

WORD (ABOUT
MINDING MY WORDS)

got reported
Gestapoed

someone snitched
on me to
the Institute of Poetry

which
      in its wisdom
commissioned a
whole delegation

sent
   them trooping
in through my door

here to
   “have a word” came
the proclamation
riot act read
   right
     of intervention

silly me
to have expected a style-fest
as for apparel,
sequins and feathers, breast-.
plates and
    leather

and, Oh My God, hats:
stetsons and Panamas, hombergs,
berets and trilbies
(the odd
    Mr Plod helmet kind
of thrown in
for
    good measure)

something akin to
the madcap extremes of a
Gaultier or Mugler

not this gravel gray, matt
black sundae of
   mundane business
managers

well-suited to shut down,
perfect for
      repression

apt for no-nonsense
straight talk laying
down the law
             demandibg
I cease
and desist promptly

arrow-straight and professional
telling me
       without slightest latitude
opening
for latitude, ambiguity,
space to maneuver

to
  mind my
words

if I do know what is good for me,
care about the future of poetry

ACCORDINGLY

ACCORDINGLY

this poem
(if you can call it that)
has been prescribed
for the safety of us all
in the interests
of National Security

no one may according
duplicate, disseminate, read,
repeat, cut splice dice
dip
   into
take a single syllable
from this poem

allow the words
to proliferate, play
run
all over the play

and so
  in the interests of
the preservation
of hard won liberties
let us
   all
stay
    on the same
page
rejoice in this dictate
        

HONEY

HONEY

do not presume
to tell me
what
is forbidden

is the sky
forbidden?
the sea
the Sun
you

yourself
    forbidden?

are all the things
in your book
of prescriptions
             ultimately forbidden

what of honey
is that too,
forbidden

bees may sting
but the make it freely

as is the case
with honey, your honey

it is the sting
itself that makes it what it is
defines it as honey

and so please
before you
close the gates
shut
   the hive
lay the mines
      string the wire

as a matter of gentility do
tell me what is forbidden
point to
     what is forbidden
in all this honey

that I might discover
taste
    and judge

decide for myself

ON A SINGLE WORD

ON A SINGLE WORD

wrote sent a poem
to you, both
id and ego

poem full of instant
instinctual gratification
and
     boost to overweening sense
of self

the superego
    though
              finding indiscretion
taking execption
finding fault

might rip the text out of
your sweaty palm
tear it to
    censorious shreds

before your eyes
do alight
       on a single word

THANKS

THANKS

thanks for protecting me
against evils known and
unknown

possible abd impossible

real
and imagined

and even
imagined-imagined

thank you for protecting me
from my self, all my
avatars and handles

thanks thanks thanks thanks
thanks
             but no thanks

I’m too useless, uneducated, over-educated, uninformed,
misinformed, disinformed,
to know
anything anyway

do what i am
supposed

do what
is required

follow the plan
execute nicely and neatly
alomg the dotted line
tick my tock tick
the right box

be the perfecr customary
idiot you can package
in brown paper

send off to
         war (just saying, just
saying!)

prime human material
ready to be exploited

smothered
      in your love

suffocated
with affection

and now technology
world of
        science fiction horror

alien
event horizon

thanks
     but no thanks
thank you for protecting me
from it

must say this
demonic technology

was only
       a pleasure, a joy
in this shit life you
         do manufacture

milliobs of us
zillions of us
         having fun, being
creatuve
feeling the same way

not feeling all
that mind control, becoming
other, changing shape
changing form
as our world turned pink
and then red
and then,
    as that poison did its work,
complete Chinese
Communist Party

wonder what
     we can do
now its gone, Devil
loving hands
                  idle

need a new vehicle to
go same-same to
ridicule this nonsense
throw
   your democracy
back at you

mock, scoff, laugh, sing,
dance, ridicule

tell a little
needle sharp truth
to ridiculous power

OVID IN EXILE

OVID IN EXILE

in the Senate
on the Forum

they are not talking about it
no one is talking about it
Ovid
  is in exile

the young Emperor
Augustus, formerly Octavian,
friend to the poets, patron of the arts

has blotted his copybook,
sent Ovid
     into exile

no headlines, not a
scrap of graffiti
to record this event

too much truly momentous
on the horizon
to let this
      sublime moral moment
undercut, let alone
overshadow
the great transformation

civil war over
the Caesar legacy entrenched
for who knows how long,
even the most conservative guess
will kick off with
a century or two, a good
few centuries

an Empire has been born
and Ovid missed its birth
for Ovid
       is out of town

and, to be honest, who
really cares,
   gives a damn about the impact
of this on his poetry

lately become
what was promised, always
                                 promised

as the statues go up
to enshrine the new image

Ovid is in exile
and Rome and its fictions
transformed as expected
                continue to be