FRESH FRUIT

FRESH FRUIT

On the farm
I wonder

about the ideology
of a tree

the entire tree:
roots, leaves, branches

cannot
escape asking myself
what haiku currently
courses
   through the flowers

Of course
    this is (dear reader, I
do recognise) a
category
   mistake
of the first order, and will
no doubt, none too late,
be brought
   to my attention amidst
much
  wild snarling

and thus forgive me
my contextualizing in a poem
how much theory
pervades
        everything (truly
it is in
its nature
    to be an invasive species)

and Fall and Autumn and
all those mellow feelings
much
   written about

some ode or other
      that leaf to dead leaf
is
  remembered

all the wherefores and whys
as to how
  this system getting greener
came
   not just
    to be but
into conscious being

ruthless and polite both
stuck in a rut this day whilst
supposed
    of infinite variety

and my voice
     estranged, coming back

to me alien

as if
   freshly arrived, in awe of
all capacity to
shift the
      word of perspective

see things differently.
   

SILLY ME

SILLY ME

silly me
how silly could
I be!

all the ills
of the world
I do allow
to make
me
sickly

so please
do not simply
condemn

if in this
fall
   from grace
I do

maybe
vomit up the odd
poem
    or two

perhaps
quite hideous

possibly
outright
               sublime

silly not to factor
all that is genius into
the chaos
          of big picture

HARD CORE

HARD CORE

searching for
my inner Bukowski

scanning every word,
inclination

ruthlessly scrutinizing

fastening onto
all the scruffy, seedy places
where, turning over
some unkempt stone,
I might
   just find him

turning
   the tables upon myself
tables I can now easily
drink each
and everyone
                    under

sinking my last inspirational shot
to welcome first light of dawn

and
   then there are the
creatures of night’s pleasure
I might now
feel
    free to consort with

the boxes of cigarettes
stacked mile high
I should
   suicidally smoke through

in
the name of art

burnishing an image
burning my trash
openly
    on all and sundry’s lawn

that manicured lawn
cropped
    close as a Brazilian

delight
in the mind as such

thoughts, hard
                 to the core just
spurt
   from my mouth
     

AND DICED

AND DICED

Oh the satire
ran away from me

shunned civility,
turned severe

demarcated sharply
for slicing

sheep on the one side
    goats on the other

yet
   to preserve some
semblance of balance
nothing in the middle

a house divided:
those who laughed
       set against

those who cried;
and those, true
     to the sport

        who both
laughed and cried

and then up
on high prior so
           monstrously reversed

those whose guilt of complicity
though masked by
whatever
     fake camouflage

ran
  
horribly
          deep

that like Vampires in the light
suddenly stripped of immunity
and with
  ripped-off
disguise

all they dare do is lie
down with their victims
(human
     at last) wither
and die

(sadly only
    metaphorically, in my
wildest imagination, even
though the world,
planet,
cosmos

crying out for justice;
desperate for correction).

NEAR PLANET CYPRUS

NEAR PLANET CYPRUS

swimming pool breasts
that goddess is
the archetype
of woman
in water

no Pygmalion girl she
no labour of love
to put her
together

she was as add water
instant delight
as they come
stirred
     not shaken
(we are the ones Honey
Ryder first
appearance shaken
Mr born-under-
Mars Bond)

and what
a recipe
        something went
so wrong with the logic
flummoxed our expectations
gorgeous

       complete antithesis of
imagined Kaiju type beast

(unless
       as with Troy in absolute
beauty such much greater
capacity for
disaster
     causal factor)

even now
plunging me into
state of arousal

suddenly suffused by
the light
   of her
near planet

and yet it is for night
one night
    I pray in vain to you

would
       absolutely cross oceans
swim
  out to you

WITHOUT EXAGGERATION

WITHOUT EXAGGERATION

this poem
may,
   without exaggeration,

be
the death
of me

even as I write
artificial minds
are reading
   between the lines

which lines do not exist
since all
      is dust, is code,
is wll that flickers
between
death
  and infinity

this I do confide
as we approach a turnstile

time for anxiety should
cards
    not be in order
should there be
no automatic passage

from desert
on one hand
  to circus on the other

with such
    an outside and inside

precipice, blade
of razor

all destined
     to endure

system
  is forever

our salvation   our doom

this poem, without exaggeration,
taking the very life from me

JOY

JOY

a god walks the stage
the world in
a state of wonder,
state of fright

loses; forgets
its words

as above
     so below

jets and drones
contest the sky

we are below, suffering watching
unless the god
rescinds his
refusal to elevate us

teaches us that which we need
to scoff at this war
thess wars
   elevated to the stars

the words that turn
a world streaming out
from under that mask

direct from Olympus, words
to drive insane, turn
upside down

flood with intense
laughter and pain

dark understanding
filled with divine joy

so far beneath him
this thing they
will eventually call
history
terrible in its
            truth

  a god walks the stage