HALF-TIME SCORE
oodles of suffering
eating this icecream
without sprinkles
the icy cold vanilla
travelling down
a tooth nerve
but, hold your horses,
let’s get the half-time score
from the West Asia war
all those cruise and
ballistic missiles leveling
high rises as if
they were fragile confections
death feasting on the complicit
as ravenously as
with the innocent
death longing
for a war that
will annihilate us all
nuclear winter us
out of this,
bad joke of a time
POEM FOR 1983 ME
there you are
in that disintegrating photograph
so sure of yourself
Mr Wry Smile, so unsure of
yourself : deconstruct
this photo Professor Academic
Expert
so much space here
to delineate those inner doubts
and (to make no bones
about it) existential torments
scars of neglect
and what eyes have browsed this?
looked here, remembered,
eyes have looked into,
souls loved, have loved,
still love
could never
possibly forget
(know who you are, know
what history we have,
stuff
shared together)
and now having
pulled this out of the hat
my next trick
will be
one of disappearance
taking all this stuff of self
off the shelf
go Cheshire Cat on you all
(having at times
threatened to
go full
mad hatter
perhaps in truth, far more Alice
caught right there
before the door into Wonderland
crazy. divine, nonsensical
quantum who
knows what
Wonderland
battling to balance
medicine that makes me
too big medicine
renders me too small
she
of the sign of the Libra born
most loved of the beloved
quietly shaking
her head at this point
NO BRAINER
maybe nothing
maybe everything
no brainer
given what you stand to win
and if you lose,
well at least some schaden
consolation
everybody loses
not a single winner
no one
coming
out on top
Yes, Blaise,
I wonder what Jean Paul
would have
made of this, argument
observing the world
through those thick
existential lenses
sipping his, ninth coffee
smoking his tenth cigarette
wondering if this
fine, very modest but
highly intellectual Parisian
establishment
could be the blueprint, the
archangel archetype
for all the
great coffee houses in
the afterlife,
worth wagering something on
if when
the great debate is
entertained between existence
and essence
it would be bad faith not
to consider the being in
and for itself of coffee itself
INVOCATION
It was my optimum desire
to forward you an invocation
and tell you (in an appendix)
that you should genuinely
feel free to deploy it
as you see fit
but I was unsure
of my vocabulary, in
particular which
verb would
be the most appropriate
so desperately reluctant
to get things perchance,
breaking every
protocol, twisting
customary practice,
getting things
irredeemably wrong
especially given
our fraught and brittle
exchanges
over the years
where so hard
to judge whether
things
between us
cold as Arctic ice
on boiling
like the magma
in massive Vesuvius
and so
I left it to you who or
what
best in this context
to invoke
whilst I felt caught between
the wish that
in all aspects
you might “glow”, or
there again “sparkle”
beauty of rich sunset
versus diamond string
of stars
unless
best do both
or best, neither
as the days shorten
and never
grows real
I will invoke the gods and
the Universe itself
to ask, as last best gift,
some light might find you.
FUNERAL PLAN
they keep
phoning me
to sell me
funeral plans
somehow they got
my number give me
their spiel
so want
a “yes” for an
answer
but as death
capitalism goes
nothing here
strikingly imaginative
deeply inventive
not
a single offer
of a burning on
a pyre
compressing into
a diamond, exotic
ship burial
talk of
days in Elysium
drinking pure ambrosia
flying through
the clouds eagle-
winged to
commune with
the Great Spirit
on take
the escalator down to Hades
consoling Orpheus
swopping tunes
lovely threesome with
his darling Eurydice
or
speaking of wings,
winged helmet things,
being
swept up to
Valhalla in
the arms of a Valkyrie
there to eat
meat, drink mead and
do
my Viking thing
wondering why
I
denied myself
such wicked joys
believing saintliness supreme
kind of life
and mode
of being
a host of Valkyrie
working on me
doing all it
takes
to shift that perception
now that
is what
I would call
a funeral plan
NEITHER HERE NOR THERE
sadly I have
forgotten you already
though a little bird
keeps reminding me
how razor smart you
were
and how beautiful
something I have to tell you
before this poem
goes off
the boil
it’s Christmas day after the day
after the day after tomorrow
I would wish
you every joy
but we cannot risk climbing
out of our trenches
onbewapendt
exposing our shared
humanity
risking all
that vulnerability
I can whistle the tune of
every tracks on those
albums
you gave me for
Xmas
God knows how many years ago
and soon but not
together obviously we are
going to
wake up dead finding
ourselves one
hundred
percent spiritual
able to laugh
(not earthbound resounding
seismic belly laugh
more celestial titter)
at all
those
misunderstood signs, wrong
words, mistakes,
as far as
eye can see landscape
of obstacle and
barbed
wire
here where time is meaningless
and
spanner in the works and
as a
consequence jammed
clockwork
but I did send
a dove with a message
if it reaches you if you
read it
deep as I have tried to be
it is all neither here nor there
LESS THAN FINE
wanted to write a
sexy poem
very
sexual
but the ink
prematurely ejaculated
shot out of my pen
wanted to a write a
very scary poem
ultimate scare
but the ink froze
my blood curdled
as it
hit my brain
wanted to write a
very sentimental poem
terribly sad
but the
page got fluffy
all
of a sudden
out of nowhere
went all
soft toy on me
didn’t want to
write an
elegy, my
elegy
a poem
on death
but you
twisted my arm
persuaded me I should
promising me
you would give me
the perfect
last line
all those last lines of my own
though by
no means hopeless
less
than fine
DEAD
trust me, it’s complicated,
but if you
are reading this poem
you cannot
be dead
maybe
not quite alive
but cannot be dead
no paradox here
neither the trivial
nor the magical
just a philosophical aside
regarding your
spiritual condition
not alive perhaps
but not yet, definitely
not yet
not completely dead
so many
I know (have the pleasure)
would argue
totally gone
do not yet realize
it
but beyond the pale
dead
but
step up
to the mike
and give me
your best whisper
here I feel, hear
breath, am certain I feel breath
TINCTURE
tincture of something
on my tongue
hard to place it
need to pin
it down exactly
outside the world its
raucous self, perhaps
even
more cantankerous maybe
we talk softly therefore
defining our demeanor.
quietly desperate not
to say the wrong thing
feeling our
way towards acceptance,
adjustment
we wonder if this could be
the same small bustling cafe
from all
those years ago
and if we would be doomed
or maybe fortunate enough
to enter into
the same debate
as to whether what
we are eating today
is canneloni or
lasagna
how we see now that
time before when
we almost
shared love
so close we were but
such a gap between us
in our mutual
understanding
of the codes and syntax
governing
offers and
suggestion
so much lost though
perhaps here we are again
in disagreement
could there be
any “if onlys” that we
actually do share
the ghosts of that love and
metaphysical questions
raising the hypothesis that
ghosts
could be lovers
so much here the same
so much that has changed
LOVERS
millions
were making love
when the bomb
dropped
a fat few megatons
vaporized them instantly
moment when
dream and desire
annihilated themselves
love and death
in dark exactitude
of intensity
so mirroring each
other
as if the species
was fucked from the moment it began
but
the poem still here
jury out
clock still ticking
lifetimes of love
still to resolve
poems 2 die for