poem – Page 134 – poems 2 die for

BIDEN

Last night I dreamt
I was at Kubrick’s
Overlook Hotel

arguing over
who had prior
right to a suite
with your venerable
President, Joe Biden.

Eventually, after much
negotiation, offer
and counter-offer,
we decided to share
for iut was my dream,
my homeground,
I held the moral
highground and he
had his
military-industrial complex
and Israel lobby
to push his case

eventually we
amicably settled
upon equitable time-
share
or splitting the suite
exactly down the middle

with respect for
each other’s human rights,
legal interest and sense
of constitutional democracy

conscious
that conflict nakes no sense
when time edging us
both
out of the historical frame

death, electoral defeat or
both (for our sins and
wrongly
lived life) looming
huge on our respective horizons

which, in his case,
would give me much
Schadenfreude

see him
swept away divinely defeated
in dubious rapture

me in the Gold Room sipping
some extravagant concoction
mixed by
some ghost barman
who kmows his stuff

him and me
chatting about the hotel
as a metaphor for history
and what it means
to come
to consciousnesz in
Kubrick’s mind

make your way
into such a deep, multilayered film

OFF- SCREEN

OFF-SCREEN

your monologue
was so bad

it had to be delivered
off screen
(they couldn’r
cant the camera
to get
a steep
enough
Dutch angle

equally your
plans, designs and
power plays are so
monstrously
devious
they have to take place
behind the scenes

and such a spin put
on them
the world, our planet
might just threaten
to violate
its orbit
which you would claim
is worth it
given the diabolical evil
you are determined to hide

DOWN

in the defence
of the truth
people can rise
be inspired
to moments
of courage
actions
of extreme
bravery

in defence of the lie
a person with
power

can destroy
every truth-teller,
bring the world
crashing down

POEM FOR THE PRESIDENT OF COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY

WHEN

BEST HE CAN DO

BACK

back you are
to tell all

you who
found yourself’
privy to the soul’s
panorama

found yourself
presented
with such
establishing shots

so beautiful
so terrible

tracking shot through
the gates of Heaven
gates
of Hell
divulging the ground zero
truth of the latter

whole horrific spectacle
way beyond language

leave us wondering
what we
could have done
to possibly
deserve this

forgetting
how the world works

how it is
what it is, no

end
to the suffering

MY CASE

sick in bed
2000lb building buster
fell on my head

out of nowhere
the papers passive voicing
the issue of agency

saying that
my skull thick
as concrete

no sign
of a brain

no doctor willing
to tend to me

there is not the
bedside manner
in the whole
of Christendom

willing and
able to

deal
with my case

SIGN

I want to take you
on a bed
of wine coloured
roses

my lips wanting your
brown skin
beneath them
for all of
human time

and though
I have not yet
found you

and still have
to persuade you
to commit
to this enterprise

an enterprise in which
we die and die and die
forever and ever
constantly rising
constantly reborn

for which the shade of deep burgundy of
these flowers
has become
of
this desire and
would be passion
its
eloquent sign.

THIS SPACE

found
or otherwise

you have no footage
of me writing, whole
creative process

you just have to
go with face value
take on trust

seems that no bot
wrote this
you think
as levels are
discovered;
let themselves
get uncovered

before, in
coming to
a reading,

you edit and
manipulate

impose
and frame
according to
best-
guess narrative

supreme
authority
over all
located in

this space