BENEFIT OF THE DOUBT
we came to clean
fix things up
get
things back on
even
keel
save
what we could
would, on behalf
of your planet, behalf
of the Universe
appreciate
an apology
pity
you not able
to deliver it
personally
apart from the mess, could
not
find a single
trace of you
so hard
to accord you
any benefit of the doubt
BABEL
everybody talking
nobody hearing
nobody listening
not the poets
even the poets
especially
not the poets
for where
are the old guys, what
happened those brigades
who came to
Spain, who streamed
in to Catalonia?
those old universalists,
absurd internationalists,
comic characters in
every historical
drama
so beautiful their
pipe dream of comradeship,
a lovely insanity
that could not hold
yet
might have
saved us
not that I am here to knock
the appeal of all those
Caesars and Francos
rewriting the law
from the vaunted
point of advantage
of their
glorious, golden,
divinely ordained thrones
telling it
like it is, like it
has to be
polishing a set of shared words
until
their speech being
all light
and fire
burn like suns
bright beyond question
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
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