humanity – poems 2 die for

THE SPECIES FROM THE MOMENT THEY ARE BORN

THE SPECIES FROM
THE MOMENT THEY
ARE BORN

for a few days
they are pathetic
but
those predator
genes kick in

few days looking
shaking my head
at the supreme irony
of their mousiness

but then things are
are unfolded, edges
angles appear

stuff that
pound for pound
(or rather, ounce
for ounce)
outranks almost everything
for kill rate attack
speed, general
deadliness
reaction time faster
than cobra, faster
than tiger

you see it, time it,
and simply cannot believe

and how
they carry this
inside
a fur scabbard sheathed
in cuddliness,
yet that walk is just
sheer femme fatale
including
the masculine ones,
pure Chicago Tommy-gun
their sisters
more inclined
to snipe on the hunt
with telescopic sights

still not
of our hearts complete
conquistadors
but
their quirks and wiles
that first,
twelve thousand years
ago might have
made us
smile

now tipping us
over the edge into
adulation,
cult fascination

finding here
an alien craziness
to
complement
our own

so hard-wired to
perform
in ways so familiar
and yet
so long content to
be totally in the dark
about
but at last
making inroads

beginning to understand
this odd, relentlessly
expanding sort
of perfect
match near
complete jigsaw to
jigsaw puzzling fit

as we watch
these day olds feed
get told who we are and

why
we need to
constantly reminded

who it was
came to the party
discussed conditions
and terms

agreed, they believe,
by all by
unanimous show
of hand and paw

valid
for what feels
like eternity

INSANE RAIN

Insane rain
insane of itself, in itself,
and in its capacity
to drive
us all insane

so this is it
this climate change
you claim is false science
you claim
is overrated

what was hitherto desert
a little more of this
well on it’s way
to mangrove, rain forest

and here, with
devastating predictability,
it is here again
raining on
all and sundry
Monday
to Sunday

raineth on
the faithful, raineth
of atheists too

pouring down on Protestants
down on Catholics too

drenching, drowning,
the hapless,
forcing the sheltered
to count their blessings,

talk
to God Himself about it
talk to
the highest Papal appointee
will take your call

Nature
taking a savage turn
thanks to
our interference

yes those
who survive, remain
bone dry

know that at least
though screwed up
terminately, definitely,
entirely

at least
respects our sacred
truths of wealth and class.

BE ADVISED

be advised
that in the extremely
barely (jacking
up the adverbs
here for
satirical purposes) event
of loss of fuselage pressure

no oxygen masks
will drop
down or spring out
from anywhere

so suck it in
hold your breath, try
not to breathe

or strangelet
let loose leading
to total collapse
of the atmosphere

or catastrophic
overnight magnetic field
reversal

or immediate
climate change aberration
or caldera magma explosion

being a poet, a writer,
I have not the faintest
idea what can
be done to avert
disaster, reverse
damage
or otherwise somehow
mitigate above-
referenced impending
extinction level event

on remedial action
any and all possibilities
just draw a blank

now
given that we all knew
from archeology, paleontology,
climatology, geography

that one
or all of the above
with the critical assistance
we have given
were
quite obviously
bound to happen

be advised
that regarding
safeguarding the continued
existence, long
term survival of
this our species

preventing the fucking
occurence, ensuring it
could not happen
in
the first place

I happen to have
the odd
few
radical proposals,
legitimate ideas
could not happen

HIS BOOKS

the Nazis burned his books
he wrote new ones

the Soviets burned
his books
he circulated
new ones
samidzat

the capitalists
did not
burn his books
but engineered
the market so
he could never
sell them
make
a living off them

good thing that
we
all love
books

and libraries
do not burn

WE DIG

We dig
for what
was written

may turn
a new page
on what
is here

old ideas
predated
by new ones

it is
a race against time
to find them
before
they

before we
are allowed
to disappear

we dig
for what
was written

what is there
hidden for us
hidden from us

could confirm,
undermine
every single thing
we just
so happen
to believe.

ON ITS LAURELS

flint
brass
brimstone
lodestone

iron
steel
sulphur
phosphorus
and gunpowder

stone was stacked
stone got cracked
shot and
shell

courtesy of
the tactical flamboyance
of our old friend fire

naphtha
napalm
nitro
nuclear

could not
let stone
rule supreme
therefore no
resting on
dud laurels

nothing ever
so sure or secure
in the nature
of regime

when walls
take writing
seismic cracks
then appear

RIDDLE

drop me from
from nearly thirty thousand
feet

or maybe
more aptly
two thousand and one
plus which
in Arabic numerals
at least will
tally up
to two thousand
and three

the sneakiness of three
plunging us
headlong
via Oedipus, foot leg and
stick of the Sphinx
into the heart
of riddle

whose subject
framed by that odd
counterfactual
joke
of time

we now seen
born
held up to the Sun
but dreaming
of Moon
strangely named Moons

Phobos, Deimos (Oh, I
mean
Demos
Titan, Europa, Miranda,
plus others
as well

five listed here for
every toe on
your foot, finger
on your hand

held up to the Sun, ball
of such Uranian energy

watch him
long for that furnace

given
the slightest opportunity
doomed to there
walk, hobble,
crawl

FRIDGE SYLLOGISM

my cats, great philosophers
that they are
assure me
that inside my
old fridge

it is
pure utopia

a Platonic communist state
jam packed with delicacies
for all
felines
to share

each according to their need, and
power to irrutate

and I, for my Sins (all of
which pretty mortal), have
five of
them, one Socratic,
another Nietzschean and the
rest undecided whether
to follow Slavoj
Zizek or
call themselves Arisotelian

masters (and mistresses) of
the art of the syllogism
each of these
little logicians
expert at reasoning

and so would you be too
if you believed for a moment,
as cats indeed do,
that we
are blessed with
a modicum of rationality
if not an entirely rational species

whose yes/no, valid/invalid, true/false binary processes
can be read off their faces

and exploited to
ensure the

keys to
that aforementioned
paradise are not
left entirely in human hands

ALL OUR CURRENT

All our current
antichrists

happen to be worse by far
than the archetype back there
in the Book of Revelation

all our latter-day demons
more demonic in essence
than any cast out
in holy parable or
Biblical Tale

and these in
plain view or
under government top secret

but truth
will out
so just
scratch the surface

with flesh-cutting scalpel
used in sanctioned
medical experiments

on the maruta of
Pingfang, or the Polish women
at Ravensbruck

or, closer to home, the
hypodermics used in
the bastion of democracy

to inject the other with syphilis,
give people
their plutonium shots

hunting for the mirror
in which to see their own depravity

the immunity given
to these pioneers
true
demonic complete redemption

all our current antichrists
God bless them all this Easter.

EASTER POEM

Easter is upon us
read
the book “Zealot”, read the
Gnostic Gospels

watched J of N
on a streaming service
for the zillionth time
but did not
see this
sucker coming
(still see
myself as
the prodigal son)

and now
a tale of torture, agony
for all time
sweating blood there in
Gethsemane during
that ultimate dark night
body of
Christ itself
turned apocalyptic

tale of Paul and tale
of Mary Magdalen
tale of Crusades against
the other Abrahams

tale of
the energy in mass
released in microseconds
delivered on a platter
to vaporize
sacred sites

just
to list
evidence for
the case

that we
still
need
redemption

transcendence
of the brutal self

at least
for some peace, a modicum
at least
over this Easter

whilst I
amongst parable thorns
fallen on
stony ground
called
but not answering

flatly look forward to
spending this Easter
summoning up
ancient alchemists
of my
acquaintance

begging them
getting them
egging them on

to transform, transmogrify,
do their utmost
to achieve this

this bag
of Roman nails
simply
shuffle down
that table
before
my very eyes become golden,
eclipse my eyes as solar spikes.