THE MUSIC
the music is dangerous
the artwork
is dangerous
the dancing is dangerous
the slogans are dangerous
if
they carry on
they carry on
they will destroy
this Empire
go for it
my sweets
you are
my only solution
LAWN
weed out
the troublemakers.
now
the lawn
do mot let
them infiltrate
the body politic
infest our dead reality.with their
thriving little
protest village
a place that we must
segregate, isolate,
wire off, set apart
place that needs to
be an unadulterated patch
of lawn, piece of
Golf course green
cannot be that which
quietly and noisly
speaks to a new humanity
all kinds of new dispensations
set
to bring new life to
resurrect all forgotten
notions
jettisoned thoughts
twice dead big dreams
BLOTTED
the lie spreads
seeps into, flows
across the page
as soon
as pen hits the page
commiting such
magnificent untruth
to screen
and paper
you need
air-tight law
to protect the lie
from truth’s
unholy power
make sure it
feels safe
has the space
required
to enact its alchemy
turning blotted
copybook
ink spilled across
so many fronts
to rivers
oceans
of blood
(enough
to paint the world
twice over)
EARLY
going to bed early
want to, and so let me,
sleep through thr most
gorgeous
and most
harrowing dreams
and those dreams
that provide a mixture,
a melange
of the gorgeous
and what is harrowing
a new, alien world,
full of new vistas, images,
stories, beauties,
fears and horrors
where the monstrous
otherness we fear
is what
we brought ourselves
so leave me in this ghost
world of such promise and
achievement
and, yes, abject failure
wake me
if ever
it should set itself
the task of a journey
of transformation
both outside and
in, searching in the hope
that it did
not die
can still
be found
lomg thought lost,
murdered, imprisoned,
coopted
its
true, better self
going to bed early
so
much to sleep through
SPRING CLEAN
wish I was young enough
and close enough geographically
to join you in
your protest encampment
a swatch of colour, a carnival
vibe, foregrounded against
the grey architectural
ersatz imitation of things
Athenian that marks
your alma mater’s
mode of academic being
the joy of community,
diversity
and alternate, far more
utopian
student perspectives
is not a thing to be tolerated
by a militaristic, utterly confused
and confounded, imperialistic regime
you just so happen
to call home
you are subjecting to a fantastic
targeted spring cleaning
throwing out the old
that you do not need
that all
too painfully
does not fit in
STEPS TAKEN
wash the blood
of these steps
scrub the plaques,
the statues until
it all looks
pristine
ersatz Athenian
shepherd in your student flock
they are your volk
you are
responsible for
their
safe-
conditioning
(yet still might have to
get some tasered;
still might
have to get
some heads beaten in)
sitting securely in your much prestigious chair,
huge and padded
to signal desinated role, supposed supreme authority
power
totally screwed in
and yet
to
remain on
the safe side
better
stuff your ears with wool
turn headphones
up to full
for the skies are screaming,
the heavens thundering,
the ghosts of great
intellectuals who
graced your halls
are Siren-shrieking
throwing out of kilter
all yout factory
procedures
your vaunted
education
is nothing
but lobotomy
duplication of
all
that is
crass, all that is brutal
all that is pitiless,
merciless
apotheosis
of horde
SLAP-BANG
I took Socrates
on a tour of the campuses
in turmoil
they were peaceful
but then the cops
and every kind
of president demanded
they be taught a lesson
I watched the old,
self-appointed philosopher
shake his head
wondering if these
were not,
given the architechure, given
the phalynx formations
graphic scenes from
a battle
slap-bang in the middle
of the Peloponnesian War
poems 2 die for