loss – Page 3 – poems 2 die for

VICTORIA (music track)

VICTORIA

go well
brave friend

you have slain
half your demons
there are
but a few more

and here he is
figure of power
spirit
of sunshine

a life so close
in the offing will
be
as if you
were welded together

just think of me
retreating from my last demon
after most beautiful battle

no terms of surrendef demanded
in truth we
found ourselves matched
fought
to a draw
a forever stalemate

no time here
for memories to
be clung to

winners and losers and
those who are neither

these
are the stakes

when the dream is everything
it is unbearable to fail

A DAMN

always
in a rush to
publish

sometimes I leave typos
all over the page

sometimea my
typos
themselves
have typos

sometimes I wonder
when I write

where the Hell
is the poetry
where
is that thing
the poem

not in the world
and apparently
not
on the page

maybe
I should go look
for it

maybe we
should all go
look for it

try to figure out
what the Hell
has happened to it

go
find Dante
he
being the
expert in
such matters

hear it
from hia own mouth
hear it from
all those
voices

the blessed
and the damned

how
small poetry has got
allowed
itself
to get

barred from Heaven
closed off
from Hell
lost
all its real estate
kicked
off its land

nothing big left
to talk about
nobody listening
no
imagination
inspiration

so just shovel that shit put
it
out there
have to
put it there regardless

put it out there
fast and
furious
wrap, drench
the world in it
before it dies
entirely

no time
to worry about
this and that
the dream
of certainty
delusions
of perfection

the time
for care
and concern
has all but
vanished
is long-
time gone

no worry about typos
lack of rhyth, rhyme
missed meaning
what
does not
scan

no one
gives a fig

no one gives a damn

TO SHAKESPEARE’S WOODS

STROKE

RIGID

when British satire
became
(Oh, what’s the kerfuffle?)
self-
satire
(losing its old
job description)

and British comedy got
its priorities straight
putting its foot
right up its
mouth

when Goon and Python hilarity
cowed in the shadows
onset
of Orwell reality

the laughter of the gods
truly
deserted this place

left it to sink with
traditional flawed false graciousness
under the waves, get
swallowed by
ocean, reign of
old stuck-
up unconscious

spirit
of dead gravity much
bemoaned by Pope

in his assault on all things
vapid, and without
substance yet
weighed-
down by Dunce
rigidity

most righteous of true
rigidities such kingdom
could ever
know

LOST

we have lost
poetry somewhere
down the line

no subtlety
to speak of
no time
to let the word
find itself

relish the slow verbs
the ones
in whose nature
much inclination
to digress

and beauty
what has happened
to beauty in all
its carbon copied, cloned,
photoshopped glory?

our
idea of beauty
(very idea) is

ugliness
itself

DIAMONDS

before I knew it
my life had
for better
or for worse

gone
full mythological

Homer had
fallen from the heavens
down on
my ten year old
head

and Aphrodite, my god,
how that goddess killed me
then
thereafter
and every day since

if not in
divine form, then with
the active collusion
of her
clones and copies
and would-be
avatars

each as gorgeous as
they were fake

but you
were the one
she must have chosen
specially

      inner outer beauty
got in
hearts, diamonds, spades
(and so
    your namesake
did
   sing of diamonds)

time has passed on
but the poem
won’t
forget

SUPER BOWL POEM

woke up
in time to hold off
on the SuperBowl result

worst fears confirmed when
I summoned up courage
to check

yep Brock loves God
but Brock loves
Patrick Mahomes

(does not seem
to care much about
Head Coach Kyle Shanahan)

and at this
        juncture, out of the blue,
an unruly host of
archetypes made their move
wanted to stick
         around a bit, get
the lie
   of the land in the process
of passing through me

a mad mosaic it was
for a while

many shapes and
sizes, manners and
demeanours

jostling up against each other
(Brownian motion)
excanging, debating,
doing their
dialectic dance, analysis
synthesis
no homogenizing

and there I was in a carnivalesque dream

chatting to the players in
St Francis’ kingdom
of those elevated
high above
the realms
of material wealth

peering into the abyss that
a philosopher cum psychologist
had laid
before me

a tablet broken with the
entire script jagged

and there on the road
a burnt out humvee

and there in the docks
a rusting destroyer

archetypes at home within
settling
for a game of solitaire

and me
thinking, wondering,
who does have a
prophetic bone in this
my body

is winning everything?
and if it is not

will there ever
indeed

be an end to war?

GIMME

world’s
falling apart

little children
getting blown
to
smithereens

so gimme that
sweet false consciousness
that would come
with a
SuperBowl victory

don’t let Mahomes
spoil everything
with
an insane overtime
charge

this after Kyle left
his best laid plans
in a briefcase
in the
locker room

this is not
the script I want,
I need

so write me a new one
bring me that
thick syrupy delusion
that a Niners’
Vegas victory
would bring

the world falling apart
bits
of little
children

how come I always get
caught this way

how come
I’m not
so smart