GARBLE

GARBLE

I stutter
I garble
something

leaves my mouth
dies on the air
not quite mine

and now
millennia later
Jacques D
turns me
upside down
says I
should have
written it down
(focusing
     on metaphor,
eschewing rhyme)

and,
   following that cue exactly,
what was once there garbled
finds form
function structure even
as
  dances across the page

and now
    internalized, compartmentalized,
I live inside
a structure, penned in
by these
   four walls, a
structure of structures

infinitely layered, anything
but solid in
the old
classical sense

though it will
always surely appear so

story of
our entire take on everything
modus vivendi
with the Universe

fairy
   tale and fable
treatise, principia, tractatus,

tall
    and charming
tale alike
of what we are, always were,
never shalt be, how
we do and
where
we
    came from

stardust rotting
under burial soil

so hapless, helpless, truly
marvellous, utterly outstanding,

as yet again
    I garble as I try to
do it justice, go for balance
in expression

wrong and misconstrued
despite (because of) every
total global consensus

and here
      you have whispered it,
captured it
   sealed it in a nutshell
more perfectly than all that I
by very name
and definition
             could ever get
within
striking distance
          ever dying just short
of having achieved

JUST MAYBE

JUST MAYBE

maybe
if was just
bad juju

maybe you ran
into an electronic storm

your SUV cartwheeling
from zero to eighty
in two
     point seconds

one day
we should sit down
put our
   heads together
talk
   about it

that is if the Fates
let you live
your soul
      neither ascending
or descending
to
place of absolute rest
in a mind-
blowing shower

of hideous,
deadly,
fundamental sparks

TOYLAND

TOYLAND

let me be abstract
let ne be
hypothetical

let me
not worry abouf ereor
let alome, Sin,
let me have the
algorithms not
to put a foot wrong

to vontinue of my given
track without regret,
remorseless but effortlessly

and when i come to
you in ths night
all exchange and interplay
a sturdy versitiliyy
aa per
   every bell and whustle

by the numbers snuggle and
cuddle do all the fore
abd after
back and forward,  prelude
and post

being in it for the long run
until we bust
a spring, spring
                  a leak
as
    is the  case when
every little life
       scrioted by truth and
Scheme of perfection

finds, andxis ground down
in the forever coils of
the eternal
nemesis

which
     goes by one name alone,
which nsme being love

the disastrr dreamt of
by every toy or machine

.

SNAKE AND LADDER

SNAKE AND LADDER

my tongue
endeavouring to
acquaint itself
with you

ladders and snakes
snakes
and ladders

your nipples seem
to have
something to say
a point
to make

tell me
to look here
there

this way
that way

ask me
if I can turn you
into a butterfly

can turn you
into a million butterflies

which, if
they should co-ordinate
find their rhythm
best
fractal pattern

a truly stupendous storm
must needs create

SILLY ME

SILLY ME

silly me
how silly could
I be!

all the ills
of the world
I do allow
to make
me
sickly

so please
do not simply
condemn

if in this
fall
   from grace
I do

maybe
vomit up the odd
poem
    or two

perhaps
quite hideous

possibly
outright
               sublime

silly not to factor
all that is genius into
the chaos
          of big picture

MEASURE

MEASURE

measure that phrase
see what we might
distil from it

Oh the essence of that cadence
is elixir, to put it
plebian  plainly
is music
   to my ears

has a French know not what
syllabic ring to it

is pleasant of feel and
to the touch in exquisite extreme

would that I could write so:
be creature of delicate
supplement, careful balance

even as the world is shifting:
places where already breakneck
is even out-accelerating

and the page
the page

      things seismic there, the text
spiking, falling, big fear is
cannot but
       be flat-
lining somewhat shortly

as for the stage
       much staggering incomprehension in respect
of beneath the boards all
                    tectonic plates

strike at the need to measure
but by then, of course,
               too late   too late

SEED TO STORM

SEED TO STORM

seed to
perfect storm

let us
consider
that dynamic

explosive this energy
in the million
volt zig-
    zag of its release

Nazaré
        Teahupoo

surf that water mountain
until it crashes into
a swirl
       of demented foam

when the world breaks for us
against us

              when storm
supercharges our
lives

         go with that flow
at ultra velocities

       plug yourself in
what
      else can you
                   are you

        supposed to do?

seed to
           perfect storm

storm to perfect seed

ON BOARD

ON BOARD

you made your god
into a god 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

GASHED

GASHED

a butterfly
flapping its wings

can tip
the scales
in a chaos dynamic

as can
    as many bombs and shells
fired and dropped

onto an area
the size of a postage stamp

as dropped on Laos, Cambodia
and Vietnam entirely

         to save humanity
from itself

lucky
     we have
                 the power of
these skygods
              to look out for us

this
    the most angelic
of all butterfly effects