Tag Archives: poem

BETWEEN

every city
is another city

the other city
being how that city
is dreamt
how it
     dreams itself

every city struggles
to separate reality
from dream

fudges the demarcation
so easy then
         not to be able
to avoid
slipping between

OVERLOOKED

OVERLOOKED

I awake
fresh from nightmare

lost my way in a city
of memory spiralling upwards
into the mountains
totally transformed beyomd
all that I
can remember
wanting
    to get home
needing to get home

but no sense of direction
as with every step
I climb higher
and higher
passing a giant cathedral
like structure, itself
like a mountain with
a trio of spires as
its peaks, its pinnacles

all the wonder
    I should feel submerged
by the fear

and no way of phoning you
because I am
out of reception, do
not have
your number
so far for you
to drive
      in the night to
collect me

your death three years ealier
somehow dream- forgotten
crucially overlooked
    

RUBBLE

RUBBLE

books were
my civilization
               not enough
have
they taughr me

but where are
the books to
be seen
to be found

in these cities of
sky high

demented aspiration
built upon
       rubble

and
     when one
of those towers somehow
happens to
fall

   teach me where to
find smooth smooth stones

midst all
       that dust and rubble

SLIVER

SLIVER

poem is a piece
of the heart, a sliver,
a part

poem is a shadow
of a shadow
of shadow itself

needle
in a darkling haystack
no way
to locate
the gist
of its spark

divine or
decisively physical

thing that
refracts, tries
its best to reflect
in the grace
of mosaic
sealed in sharp
mirror shards

poem is.

Tell all that is
out what
you can
of the in

this thing I am we you are
public private the terrain

of all
hope and despair

creature of light (said
to be) much
submerged
in own light

SHAME

SHAME

I sought out
Shelley (great
political poet)
to help me
with my poem

had to battle my
way to the garden gate
and along the garden path
to avoid his wife’s
deadly creatures, Doctor
Frankenstein having
restored them
from thing called death
to thing called life

the latter, at this time,
for beings deemed inferior
infinitely preferable
in the minds of those
for whom they forever
constitue
a serious problem
life best reserved for
the good and the rich

and so, ushered in,
I did speak with
the great firebrand
asking of him, quite simply,
that he
do show me the way
to convert pen traversing paper
or fingers attacking keyboard
into a manner of address
designed to inspire
and, yes, shame
shame, shame
particularly that shame
that is due
for having no shame.

BUFFALO BILL HITS THE CIRCUS

BUFFALO BILL HITS THE CIRCUS

was at the circus
but the tent fell
down
    swamping poets,
academics
and other clowns

maybe the pole was broken
no way steadfast Shakespearean

perhaps
     Nietzsche’s concept
of evil which
I did lately relate
   offended every deity,
was tempting fate

a direct dereliction
of poetic duty

speaking of which
         when those poets
copped it
not much, to use my TS
word should be
bewailed as
    having been given
much
    lilting solipsism there
sweetest narcissism

stuck in
    their own heads:
what it
means to be
        this sort of man
what it means to
be a woman
    what poetry must
become in a Zuckerberged world

and
     what magic deserted when
we got skinned

those bodies even more
dumb and devoid of stuff

no
magical coat for me thenn