poem – Page 12 – poems 2 die for

DEMISE

the sky
looked tie-dyed

but otherwise
communicating with us
as if
fulminating
from a pulpit

lashing us for
our climate sins
with downpour
after downpour

as for
books and other
things of presumed value
getting washed away

what
good are they, what
role can
they play

in
such an era?

this
end of days
deluge
drenching my books
turning them to mush

laughing at our faith
in the protection
of roofs, walls
and ceilings

what good is communication
when moving
in one direction
so
flagrantly
one-sided

closing our
account finally
balancing all
in the
debt column with
ruthless denise

A. K. A. LEAKS

there is a leak
have to sort out
need to get fixed

I know is about leaks
not enough
anybody, everybody,
needs to know
but enough, I think

to know that
what we have here
is probably leaking
all over the place

despite
assurances to
the contrary

threats
to shoot the message
and then the messenger
to prove
there are consequences,
a. k. a. leaks

PLAN

This poem
is going
according
to plan

that is the
best

worst
thing about it

according to
the precise terms
of reference
herein revised.

RELEASE

The cruel symbolism
in your heads
locked in there
nut and bolted

how did it arrive,
get past the gatekeepers

will it

ever
leave

or hang around, parasitic,
feeding off shreds
of all
that is
good (potentially
at least

longing for the day when
it all
gets
vindicated

no escape
no release

DEPENDS

mansion is
mountain

high
above base camp

high
above
anything

mountain
of responsibility

a whole
community
an economy

the very image
of the architecture
of division and
hierarchy

upon which
it all depends
bread
and butter depends

about which
I am alertly aware
a poem being
a ledger, a cashbook,
a financial transaction

to choose
to write one
you have to worry
where
the next one
will be coming from
where it
all comes from

where you are
going to find them
all those symbols, those
words

anxiety of
supply and demand

AND IT ISN’T EVEN CLOSE

once you see this
cannot unsee it
not a thing
you might elide
simply glide by

leaving you wishing
you never
witness this
again

leave you
wanting more

sure, you may
forget, tell yourself
you forgot, to forget

but
it is always there
the suspicion remains

see saw seen unseen
never
crossed your
mind

messing with you
on and off,
all the time

like nothing hitherto met
previously encounter

and
it isn’t even close

BE ADVISED

be advised
that in the extremely
barely (jacking
up the adverbs
here for
satirical purposes) event
of loss of fuselage pressure

no oxygen masks
will drop
down or spring out
from anywhere

so suck it in
hold your breath, try
not to breathe

or strangelet
let loose leading
to total collapse
of the atmosphere

or catastrophic
overnight magnetic field
reversal

or immediate
climate change aberration
or caldera magma explosion

being a poet, a writer,
I have not the faintest
idea what can
be done to avert
disaster, reverse
damage
or otherwise somehow
mitigate above-
referenced impending
extinction level event

on remedial action
any and all possibilities
just draw a blank

now
given that we all knew
from archeology, paleontology,
climatology, geography

that one
or all of the above
with the critical assistance
we have given
were
quite obviously
bound to happen

be advised
that regarding
safeguarding the continued
existence, long
term survival of
this our species

preventing the fucking
occurence, ensuring it
could not happen
in
the first place

I happen to have
the odd
few
radical proposals,
legitimate ideas
could not happen

HIS BOOKS

the Nazis burned his books
he wrote new ones

the Soviets burned
his books
he circulated
new ones
samidzat

the capitalists
did not
burn his books
but engineered
the market so
he could never
sell them
make
a living off them

good thing that
we
all love
books

and libraries
do not burn

WE DIG

We dig
for what
was written

may turn
a new page
on what
is here

old ideas
predated
by new ones

it is
a race against time
to find them
before
they

before we
are allowed
to disappear

we dig
for what
was written

what is there
hidden for us
hidden from us

could confirm,
undermine
every single thing
we just
so happen
to believe.

KILLERS

whoever
first thought checkmate
knew final
understood
completion

look at that regal
fellow first
battling to evade
now unable
to escape

what looked impossible
at the hands of
these killers
becomes inevitable

you know
the names of
the most infamous
of these murderers

Fischer, Carlsen,
Kasparov Alekhine,
Capablanca, Morphy

if you find them
on the other
side of the board
you are soon a dead man