Tag Archives: poem

RATTLER

RATTLER

they kill
the ones that rattle
louder they rattle
more sure
their death
a fact

Oh, the rapturous ones,
you who do
murder all
these creatures

as soon as you say lord
I am your ambush preditor
whipping up
    a juicy cocktail
I am determined to instill

and strike I will without warning
for you have sorted me
by selection

no doubt
you see
        me as your devil
think
    I could well just be
pure devil

this my utter evil nefarious plan
not thing
   delivered unto yourself

FRACTAL

FRACTAL

I am
a fraction of myself

I write
and my words go haywire
my thoughts
splinter

sorry, did I say, “fractal”?
I meant “fraction”

here signifier signified
losing
do much traction
wandering
off the track

the word game that
is consciousness is
forever process

already out of words, too
many for comfort,
a devil of a deal
to
select

and already by now
the devil much with me
impossibly
deep
within me

telling the compound tale of
moments, incidents
(much
sensory doubt, semantic
slippage)

forever fractious, terminally
forgetful
defining the case of
what all I might speak.

AWAY

AWAY

friendly fire kills
without any
bad intentions

its bullets and bombs
morally superior

but let us pause
for a moment here
for establishing shot
and then
extensive tracking

as we go for
metaphor and
superimposition

passing all those broken
riddled statues
of Mary
   and the Christ

in search of a man
called Wilfred, dead now
but formerly a captain

machine-gunned within
sight of peace and an
end of the war

    correction, apologies, end
of the war to end all wars

pity we are late
for he was the all-
time expert in battlefield elegy

thinking
of butchered aid workers
he would know
what to write

he would know
what words to kill the lie
sweep away
convenient narrative

a Britsh poet himself
already long-forgotten
the art of a true-blue
true-
   blooded imperial culture
to sweep such things away

STRIKE ONE

STRIKE ONE

if the poem (this poem,
any poem,

freaks you, takes
you out

feel reassured
be happy that all
can call
it
collateral damage

for my part
   condolence and
commiseration
that it
strikes you
     out of the blue

as it is
meant to exactly

getting the retaliation
in early, serving
       your revenge up
               first

DOOM

DOOM

it’s a ghost ship

still a bit
sleek keeled

but now
with a spectre
capital
       at the helm

seeking out every
shark, Siren, Hyra infested
patch of ocean, not so
navigable
     waterway

dragging us like as with Odysseus
to find that
fine razor’s edge
between Scylla and
        Charybdis

but then
to get pirate-torpedoed
the moment
we pass through

and
    indeed it is for the better
that someone do
torpedo that metaphor

put it
out of its misery

sink the link between
ship
      and state

depth charge it to its doom

EMILY SYNDROME

EMILY SYNDROME

stuck some poems
in a folder
    ready for revision
(Oh,
     happy day!)

left them not
so long but
long
   longer than
intended

albeit without Sun
or air or
indeed watering
at all

so imagine my delight shock
and horror that
day of
   days, moment
of reopening

when found the little bastards
to have thrived
and multiplied, some

even grown in size
to embrace the gamut
from
     split little
atom through to
       Pandora of expanding universe

poem growing up
prophetic,
apocalyptic
      
            whispering, screeching
to the Universe

their
    primal truth as mirror
and
testimony (dear
reader)

to all
   expanding size