Tag Archives: poem

OPEN QUESTION

OPEN QUESTION

was over the rainbow
reading Gravity’s Rainbow

totally alone in the Manchester
Poly new lecture and dormitory complex
the night outside
straining against the streetlights
to impose impenetrability

occupancy
a month away, set for
summer and the new
academic year

and me
feeling secure, overlooking
the small matter of the SS20s
parked somewhere
in Eastern Europe
sights set on this city
and
thus on me

Oh V2 rocket
progenitor of these mid-range
city killers

this technology so set
on rendering all
human future an open
question

what Pandora could not have
imagined lurking
in the bottom
(true bottom
beneath all false versions)

but Pynchon
saw so intensely

setting his imagination
to dead end

JUST AN ORANGE

JUST AN ORANGE

no mixed messages here
just
   thank you
for the sun juicy orange
you gave me

I love
orange

     and, what is more,
orange loves me

teeth, tip of tongue
and every
bit of my mouth
that can
    put it all together
to make
warm glowing orange sounds

I have prepped
brought to state
            of readiness

the better
to tantalize the giver
with every
    secret of receipt

so now
     I spin it in my hand
my tiny
orange planet

planning to eat it
as sacred mindful act
like a true
Zen master

or eat it not
    as stipulated by the sages

but like a character in
a novel
   by DH Lawrence
or one of his
utterly sensuous teasing
poems

but
    on second thoughts
my mistress of
mixed messages best

keep this
to myself

just pretend it was an orange
gratefully received,
and eaten as
was purposed

nothing more, nothing less
all that
     preceded, all that fancy talk
flowing with crazy
flavour
       dripping with suggestion

should stay
between the two of us, beloved
                                       reader

kept
    to ourselves

FAST FORWARD

FAST FORWARD

fast forward

       when I looked
at the film
again

it had
all been remastered

some
small scenes had
been tripped
    cut down the running
time
to Hell with
     the narrative

villain had
     becoms protagonist
protagonist
did nothing

and old ending
charmingly absurd
had made way
for denouement generic

lay a foundation
for sequel

cruel to laugh seeing
them flounder
in that
wet cement

but I did
so anyway
           (no
samurai suicide
for these
producers and
scripwriters whose

sense of
shame so
not of the best

STICK

STICK

stick to atoms
it is what
you are good at

how can you
escape being
miniscule
if this
is what
you are?

but
big bang too
your soul
ready to mushroom
in power and
glory up
to Heaven

shimmer of light
and
   no one
is home
connection
is fried

but something even
smaller
    hard tp pin down
stick (that
word again) a
detailed
label upon

this smaller that you
dissolve into
gives
    me a
crazy map
down into your
possible probable
sides

and what binds us
has us
    moving, swaying as
one
   in the wave dance
of all that is
suspended between

so-called real and
          so-called unreal

idea
   and its every outcome

we quietly, despite
ourselves working in this

the pieces
             finding themselves
in place

chaos
       and perfect
symmetry
      

SAME PAGE

SAME PAGE

sorry reader, nothing for
you today
     I’m om strike with
the other poets
over fair treatment

do you not see the barrier
here in the middle of the text
where it
         says “picket line”
and begs
you not to cross it?

not just pens
and paper and AI assisted
wordprocessing programs

we have
to seize
the means of production

without
      full autonomy over
the forces of creation

where would we be
where
      would we be?

not between
here and the deep
             blue sea but

right
at the bottom of it
just like drowned Percy
Bysshe Shelley
     pretty much a saint
in this trade

so
deadly serious (that
you convinced yourself was
all about
    markings and meanings
whiff
    of ink
     on a page)