language – Page 2 – poems 2 die for

ZADIE (3)

Oh Zadie
your words
hurt me

I was wandering
along the periphery
eating an onion
gifted me
by Roland Barthes

when
I overhead a word
that hit me with
all its 50 megatons

and so, I had no option,
but to
take it to heart

which
    would have killed me
had not realised,
it was
not
   actually a bullet
and only like a bomb
by virtue
of
   analogy
a prime (should I say
“primed”) example of
metaphoric
thinking

and I rose
to go on
my way

fight again another day

but then another bullet
hit me, though
you may say
I just walked into
it

but luckily, was
a recent arrival, via
plucky trade

a miracle, God be praised!,
and I was saved

its manufacture British

Oh Zadie your
barrage, blast, MG-42 spray

so totally
nailed my argument.

ZADIE

BY CATEGORY

FRESH FRUIT

On the farm
I wonder

about the ideology
of a tree

the entire tree:
roots, leaves, branches

cannot
escape asking myself
what haiku currently
courses
through the flowers

Of course
    this is (dear reader, I
do recognise) a
category
   mistake
of the first order, and will
no doubt, none too late,
be brought
   to my attention amidst
much
wild snarling

and thus forgive me
my contextualizing in a poem
how much theory
pervades
everything (truly
it is in
its nature
to be an invasive species)

and Fall and Autumn and
all those mellow feelings
much
written about

some ode or other
that leaf to dead leaf
is
remembered

all the wherefores and whys
as to how
this system getting greener
came
not just
to be but
into conscious being

ruthless and polite both
stuck in a rut this day whilst
supposed
of infinite variety

and my voice
estranged, coming back

to me alien

as if
freshly arrived, in awe of
all capacity to
shift the
word of perspective

see things differently.

VARNISH

he vanished
because he lost
his varnish

the gloss
fell off

end of the licence
afforded to clown face

debate now raging
openly, covertly,
between
reflect
and refract

pitting the opaque
up against
the transparent

no space in this world
of everything hidden,
full disclosure

for the serious serial
beauty of the translucent

the mystery if the word as
it conjures killer fact

hard to
     live
         where condemned
to reflection, purity
of copy
     completeness itself

AND FILE

imminent
immanent

who knows
cares

what these words
mean?

whether they circle
each other in a loop

stand in
series

rank and file

or jostle with each other
flex their muscles

or scratch like stones
giving
sparks

birthing
fire

EDITORS

the editors called
them in
hectored them

told them that
to keep
the people down

we need
to keep language

he we she it all
they them

need to kill
the words
kill
and liquidate
kill
and paraphrase

topple words
from their throne
strip poetry
to the bone
(reduce it to a
sweet
bare rhyme)

down
down
down

kill and devour

reduce all
words to spit
and spume

our few
true words will

hold all power
and so
the unthinkable

can
be made to think

and think
the death of truth to power

WE TOO

we love to
play the language
game
we two do
come at greasing
the signifier
not
from different
poles entirely

my games with sound
and sense
more about
foregroundimg other,
difference, perhaps
a touch
of deviance

yours
(if I might
proffer
this distinction) about
what is established, believed,
holy ordinary,
sacred same

how we can get
          the narrative to
go full
python
    swallow the facts
(crush in its coils any
                truth inconvenient)

and of course, after my little
pointless spiel
boredom, dismissal
the worst I get

the guilt that comes
with bad poetry

not, as in your case, if I
dare suggest

every kind of sick and
unconscionable paid-for
complicity

that
shades us into dystopia
thence living Hell

BY NAME

Ah, water moccasin

what an ugly smelly
snake
you are

other pit vipers
think you
an embarrassment

feel
species shame

but rattler, bushmaster,
puff adder and copperhead

you kill them
stone dead with

the beauty
and truth of your name.

SYSTEM

and now I find
and now I find

gymnast and
syntagm
are so intimate

anagrams
of each other

spooky action
at linguistic distance

but what do I know
of such unique connection

all my lovers
ghostly, some
actual ghosts

the dust of all
that was desire questioning
my stridence

gives the idea
puts me on notice

that it is
all simulation

and when you undress before me
in name only

getting the sweet syntax
up and running

see what you are up to here
Mr Shakespeare or
Earl
of Oxford

whatever you wish to go by
privately call yourself

spilling from Juliet’s lips
the philosopical truth of
a true rose

even if
a thousand years of cynicism
scepticism stands in its way

when you
go inexplicable mystery
and wrap yourself around me

making us (yes, channeling you
Professor Noam Chomsky)
branches, leaves
upon the same tree

graft taking
we can grow now together

happy
(who would not be) though
this all
feels pre-planned: our
perfect simulation