meaning – poems 2 die for

PLAIN SIGHT

hiding something

always hiding
something

black ink sloshed
across the page

covering
with words, meanings
diffuse, uncertain
unsteady
complex

everything there opaque
clear as day, in plain sight

GALLERY

I paged through my AI art
gallery
whilst you were busy
working at your craft

reports flooding in
of genocide and
impending nuclear confrontation
not enough to detract
you from your task
of penning the perfect couplet
and then perhaps, who knows?,
sky’s the limit
a further lifetime might well
need to be devoted
to the first draft of
what holds so much promise
of one day becoming
a most exquisite haiku

shining like a jewel, a gemstone,
amidst all the rubble
and detritus
of what we once were
a beacon of light
to draw us together throughout
the years of hard nuclear winter

perhaps
tattooed on skin and
thereby passed down
through the meagre generations
of survivors
more effective as message
that painting
sculpture
could ever be

which very idea I put to
my AI artist
in a flash of
miraculous intelligence
bound
to come up with something
a little off-putting since
still somewhat aliem

yet wondous nevertheless,
worthy of its place
in my gallery
never
to be seen again.

CUT

a pixie cut
does not
make you
a pixie

being called
Rose does not
turn you
into a
rose

being cut
to the bone
does not make you
any less
a person

but your death
dear Juliet,,,

cut to
your body wrapped
around the body
of your Romeo

elevates you into
a realm where
tragedy elevates the world
beyond our
poor
ordinary being
.

DOWN TO SIZE

I have no memory
it has all gone

maybe
it was never there
in the first place

maybe someone
somebodies
came in
the middle
of the night

sliced
it out of
my head

did something
unspeakable

that cannot
be spoken

so many words
too many to cope with
need to cut
them
down to size

thing
not to forget

resist
not realize.

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

RECALLING MR POPE

sound
echoing sense

but what if there
is no sense

rule of your nonsense
Mr Pope
descending into
the entropy
of brute power

I decline
to add

for why say anything
when gets so grossly filtered

crushed by the imposition
superimposition
of hideous, ruling
mythology

under which stone rubble
words die, asphyxiate
cannot breathe

AND SO

and so;
God showed Job
the small things
of the Universe
the fine
print

of his creation
as they
walked together
across the smouldering ruins
the fields of ash

the huge expression
catastrophic to
a fault
of those

who refuse
to see
who
do not read

BUFFALO BILL HITS THE CIRCUS

was at the circus
but the tent fell
down
swamping poets,
academics
and other clowns

maybe the pole was broken
no way steadfast Shakespearean

perhaps
Nietzsche’s concept
of evil which
I did lately relate
offended every deity,
was tempting fate

a direct dereliction
of poetic duty

speaking of which
         when those poets
copped it
not much, to use my TS
word should be
bewailed as
    having been given
much
    lilting solipsism there
sweetest narcissism

stuck in
    their own heads:
what it
means to be
        this sort of man
what it means to
be a woman
    what poetry must
become in a Zuckerberged world

and
what magic deserted when
we got skinned

those bodies even more
dumb and devoid of stuff

no
magical coat for me thenn

DELETED SCENES

I love deleted scenes.

I myself
am

a deleted scene

excise.
by the shears of the fates

by an
editing machine

there it is
it is what it is

has its meaning and beauty
special to me

never going to feature
in the great picture

big picture out there
on every screen.

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