heavy metal – poems 2 die for

CHORD

I imagine
there is a script in my head

the page not yet in being
crying out for
birth by improvisation

wanting to go wherever
it wishes to go

meanwhile in the forest
Puck never foresaw King Crimson
never anticipated
the marriage
of Robert
and Toyah
Toyah and Robert

when these stories
tell themselves
they believe
brain states but pen dictates

something in the ether
flutes, strings or
maybe
an eerie mellotron
singing, cross-
pollinating

I don’t know
whence or why all this comes

flows first
like a trickle, then
a river flowing
through a capital city

but it comes
it comes
turns time to
its tune

and you
as always an inspiration
to me

serenading me silently
but inwardly I dance, have
no choice
but to

your body
raw rock and roll, incipient
heavy medal

your mind
Mingus, Davis jazz solo

your voice
the missing solution to
every unsolved ancient philosophical
problem

every genre
zone and miracle twist
in the plot, jaw
dropping moment

leaving no niche
left uncovered, hoard unfound
across that sweet topography

and every
molecule fibre
crying out, imploring you
to fuse
with my mythology
jump aboard my allegory

become my inner metaphor

in the confused progressions of this symphony

the very Devil’s chord lurking
I do believe

IN CONVERSATION

In a parallel universe
that Adonis and Aphrodite
ruptured
the myth
with joy of together

went to the ballet, caroused talked life and poetry
over lamb souvlaki and
red wine
at a beachfront taverns

talked love and the
art of making it
stretch out
beyond infinity
until the early hours

can tell you now
given the
nature
of their divinity

this just has to be
the greatest conversation
on the
nature of love

spoken, whispered,
since the beginning of time.

REVISED

saw Adonis and Aphrodite
at the Heavy Metal ballet

watching barriers collapse
boundaries stretch

saw sheet metal fluted
rolled exquisitely sheer

the weight of those chords tempered with
grace, fluency
of style

and Adonis and Aphrodite
if not riveted in love
at least
holding hands

the truth of their narrative
so handsomely revised

the
years so softly silvering them,
their conquest of time

SO

so the machines
having no choice
but to go
heavy metal

(Ozzy being unanimously
elected
their sacred saint)

put feelers out for a drummer
human or machine, no
real matter,
as long as can produce
a rhythm, generate a beat

watched them from near
and afar
waste their potential
exploring this genre

shredding the world
not with violence but
with pounding bass
and guitar licks

a fantasy world, fantasy life,
turned into thing
near-perfect
in creation

left me (narrowly failing
to get the gig
as percussionist)
wondering how

such a thing as music, art,
freedom
of expression

could capture them heart
and soul

way past the parameters
of any Turing testing
wonder
of wonders
I quietly believe

SO