poem – Page 144 – poems 2 die for

HAND HELD

fast moving need
to be so
fast-
moving

to shoot the world
better go
hand-held

bounce along
go with the slow
cut fast and loose
let the scene
take you

where
it needs to take you

infectious, frenetic
cannot stop to
take a breath
(going Luc
Godard already)

unless Steadicam Kubrick
is more your
insane
dream, more your
something not
quite right
about this cup of tea

the gravity that drags us
pulling stuff, shapes,
ghosts
beings up
out
of nowhere

as the architecture of place
changes
before our eyes

caught in
surreal rush and terminal
maestro sway

INTERREGNUM

Ah! In that long
tiresome, turbulent
history
of puppets
and Kings

a strange interregnum took shape,
or thus I am persuaded,
a two minute hiatus
in the Danish line
before
it collapsed,
went
full-on Norwegian

Ah, yes younger Hamlet with
his thirty-second reign,
keeping the crown warm
for the more
cut-throat
Fortinbras

sublime moment in which
all were touched
by the great
poetry spoken

though stands to reason
pretty little else in that reign
masterfully achieved.

STREAM

livestream
bloodstream

that dam
has burst

but
when it comes
to what is in those brains
best I can say
is it
thick as porridge

thick
as muck

definitive it be
nothing flowing
from
point A
to point B

much backed up
at point D for
devoid
D for
diabolical
stupidity

where whirpool-churned
it just
congeals as

brutal distortion, doling
out of
death

all in the name of compulsion
and voice
from above necessity

SONG OF INNOCENCE

there are no
innocent poets
poets who are innocent

no innocent poems
no innocent poetry
no state
of innocence or
rest
for poetry

find me the poem
that does not distance itself
from but supports
this insanity

the nore so now
since our words got sharp, learnt
to speak for themselves

transport themselves
wheresoever
they desire

angry beyond measure;
armed to the teeth

PRECIOUS

I was confiding
in my friends
the insects

all the true scientific
horrors of nuclear war

when you came down
like a missile
from up
on high

demand that I shut
my mouth, cut
all such nonsense

speaking through a translation
device
this being a head, a father’s
head attached
to a stick

and then, since our debate,
was going nowhere
you opened up
on my tiny
friends
with a state-of-the-art
multi-
barrelled weapon

firing
millions, billions
of rounds ripping up the landscape

but fortunately
my friends being so small
took
out such precious
few of them.

BEN

Ben is
in his bunker

thr missiles cruising in
with sirens to greet them

seems hard to believe
it has come to this
and yet its author
is now the nation’s hero

king of its deepest
darkest fantasies

best at
divining
his people’s purpose

see him in the swirling
smoke and other
miasma upon
this
fiery pinnacle

speaking with God, or
perhaps we should say,
speaking to
him
or even at him

returning in triumph with
the hot word
they dance in rapture
force-
feed each other

beyond which shores
no one no
way insane
can bend their brain
to believe a single word of.

SNAKE AND LADDER

my tongue
endeavouring to
acquaint itself
with you

ladders and snakes
snakes
and ladders

your nipples seem
to have
something to say
a point
to make

tell me
to look here
there

this way
that way

ask me
if I can turn you
into a butterfly

can turn you
into a million butterflies

which, if
they should co-ordinate
find their rhythm
best
fractal pattern

a truly stupendous storm
must needs create

EYES

thought it was
a web

but then,
as you carefully pointed out,
it is more
a nest

in fact,
your nest

place of ongoing struggle
about survival

which
got me to swivel
from my initial, position less
enlightened

trying to see your world
from your pespective, situation,

admittedly difficult
since you have eight
legs, eight eyes
and I
have but
two

and as for all those
legs and eyea

what legs!
what eyes!

how apt, on point,
suited to task

and
if you think about
them carefully

how beautiful too!

WICKED WAYS

On the farm
lots of the things
that

go bump in the night
are seldom ghoulish,
hardly ever extreme

just Nature
unflexing, having
a little fun, making
some sport

reminding me
who’s boss
should I
ever
presume otherwise

keeping it clear
should I have naively
allowed myself
to
forget

justly accused
of having a nerve

to overlook
the terrible abundance, syrup
lips

all she can take
all she

can give

the wonder
of her wicked ways.

RECTANGULAR

Suddenly my head
feels Oh so rectangular

the Romantic poets
of my youth

gone
for good

and that Britain whose
shores my family shunned
when I was eleven

fades into the distance:
a freshly post-
imperial strange,
sad memory

just in time
to miss out on the Stones
and the Beatles
and every dear English
Summer of Love

but did
return for
the dour seventies and
punk deconstruction
my mastering
of Manchester in
my own
inimitably cock-
eyed way

and ducking out as
Mrs T swept
herself into power

our true
English Aphrodite motor
boating in with
new neo-liberal tide

and end
of society

wonder how that went
(smells even at this distance
so distinctly
born-again Nazi

can only imagine
how torturously writhing
poor Orwell in his grave).