OFF THE SCALE

OFF THE SCALE

the Sun
beamed through my window
only to
take issue with me
scorch the files
on my computer

leaving me desperate
to get a handle on
electromagnetism

so much fire out there
in here
    as chatbot and I
argue the toss
over philosopher
Catherine Malabou
and other
anarchist thinkers

wondering about
the Sun’s role
in authority, Apollonian
regal power
       and how that
might avail itself
to tyranny

especially the kind
with solar ring of confidence
branded by beaming smile

YES YANIS

YES YANIS

“the surreal colonizing the real”
                     Yanis Varoufakis

Columbus would have made it
if he had not traded
his ships in for jet skis
and surf boards

would have made it
to the Pacific
if he had not
stopped off in DC
to watch the
Army Navy game

his progress tracked
by GPS satellite, with
constant updates on
FOX, CNN and
alternate media
(outside Columbia and
MIT braves from
the seven nations having
set up
protest encampments)

Zadie so worried
whether her hypothetical
Zionist student would
not be bound
to feel aggrieved, suffer
horrific identity collapse

if hole in your vessel
easy to find a plug in DC
use a member of the house

the Hatter would tell Christopher
as the tenor got weirder
and the teapots all ran out
tea enough
   still perhaps
after a previous party
floating in the harbour, but
for a great teapot at
this time of writing, a
wanderer did inform him,
you might
have to consult Boeing and
the military
     industrial complex

Ah, the logic, the methodology,
suffice it to say, pure area 51
pure Man Ray,

pure
    little girl without arms
bullet
through her head this
tale of Wonderland
is not about

you came to these shores and did
not expect to find palaces
did not expect to
encounter castles
golden dubloons maybe,
perhaps
    a golden gate bridge

but not a landscape of
golf course and tenement
and cloud
    saturated with capital

dodging those Lakota arrowheads

they said that
here there

would be no King
everybody would be a king
as
   many kings on deck
as playing cards

Christopher somehow now
up in the Rockies inside
the Overlook Hotel

ghostly overseer Stanley
whispering in his ear
an adage that
    colonization is

the heart
of the horror

colonization
       the name
of the original sin

Yes, Yanis
      still waiting for the cartoon
version of what I scribbled
down here

have commissioned Salvador Dali
have pleaded with Picasso

A BONE TO PICK

A BONE TO PICK

what you said
on TV months early
if not sanctimoniously
then with astonishing conviction

I sat on your front lawn
my campfellows battling
to resurrect children
fitting mashed
body parts together

I sat there Googling
desperately for
a technology of salvation

when the ghosts of those
slain when you made
your case
that for reasons of
defensive measure
the slaughter
must continue

marched up silently
to your front door
informing you
ever so
ever so
politely

that if
could spare the time
they did indeed
have a bone
to pick with you

ZADIE (3)

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.

POLICE BE

POLICE BE

police be
a reality

peace
uphold
the vanity

steamroll through
happy metaphor
such as
carnival
of Peace

cracking heads
breaking ribs
the like it when
you go
     crunchy
(much prefer
to smooth)

came in ranks
came in files
along
   the flanks

a navy blue line
many navy blue lines
that
   in storming
the stairs

fell
  out of step, became
Mongol horde
become
throwback
sheriff and
all those deputies
Bob Marley missed

rowdy, bouncy,
sad that
     there have
to be prisoners

their mission, God-given,
all about nipping whatsoever
with
  measure
of violence
in the bud

HIND

HIND

your last moments
how
   can we forget them
ever forget
them

now they are
seared into us
like
  a cannon flash

and we
      here promise you
little angel
to clear the world of this evil
make it safe
from
   the power that is
death and deaths
league
of demons

let us return
its agents
back to the dust
from whence they came

naming
the darkest places in
the human heart
after them

placing them
in the innermost circle
of the forever Hell
that
   is satanic mind