QUEEN OF
INTROSPECTION
dainty
delicate
I read your words and
am proud to
tell you
you are
my Queen of
introspection
so go to
the podium
get your
award
thank your
agent, your parents,
your minister
at the Church and
above all
He
who created you
without which
this award-winning poetry
with all its
soft
soft
words
would
not exist
NEMO
suddenly I’m Captain Nemo
fathoms deep
contriving to
fight a liberation war
against my people
against myself
sharks swimming past
my bedroom window
and me
tearing into
everything I was
once
taught to believe
PERFECT
your sarcasm
perfect
you poem:
who dare call it so
each word
a detour, a question
no matter
how tight
how close to your chest
coming from a place
where stuff gets chiselled
when quibbling of legality
behoves
a perfect storm
but perfect joy is the trope
that I am here
to be in the market for
perfect joy, perfect bliss
things that start not with
pressure fronts
on massive collision course
but simple,
deepish parable
and perhaps a kiss
that fall from grace that be
your righteous sarcasm
can
take a pause moment
to accept incomplete
FOLLOWED
followed Jacques Derrida
down a rabbit hole
seriously
name-dropping all the way
saw Slavoj Zizek
and all his twin twizzle
and tweedle brothers
who asked how I could
have been so sure
that down was the direction
I was heading
when, counter
intuitively, up might
equally
make perfect sense
and I
might be twin too
Moon cavorting on the lunar surface
doing sibling-style stuff
with young
Castor and Pollux
and other twin
who penned that tune
I am the Walrus and Richard and
Karen
in such seemingly
beautiful harmony
Oh you cannot
put a cat in a box
and have any kind of certainty
you cannot come up with truths
you can always reconnect
the very land we stand on
slipping and sliding
so slippery-slidey
what
we have before us here
(not referring to the tea party)
so different
from what I was thinking, what
expected, and
what I almost fancied
I was destined to express
THAT WILLIAM BLAKE CHARACTER
saw that William
Blake character
on social media
disagreed about the war
had a few sharp words
fresh from this exchange
looked him up
found
not a word on Wikipedia
save a reference to a character
in a Jim Jarmusch film
which seriously flustered me
for I had got this notion
into my head
about this far from prototypical
radical
early nineteenth century
English Romantic poet
but seems it is all a myth, a false flag,
huge disinformation
which
stands to reason,
for if there were really
a Songs of Innocence and
a Songs of Experience
think how
different the world would be
HEAVEN OF THE UNREAL
somehow I have ended up
in the Heaven
of the not real
I do
apologize
do mythologie
am unsure at this point
whether I be many
or am alone
every choice
so critical
slight preferences
of tone and shade
altering how
the Universe should appear
so much nuance at this point
infinite possibilities
and yet so
austere
feel
so abject so incomplete.
INCONVENIENCE
I am an inconvenience.
The outs
outweigh
the ins.
Suddenly I am a
question that
leads into an issue
that creates a problem
in need
of a solution
that will
speak bare faced
only after generating
euphemism
upon euphemism
euphemism to
truth
being as absence
is to death.
NOT TO CONCERN
mystery planes, crazy
ambiguous figures
suspect characters
appearing and disappearing
popping in
and out of existence
later we shall be told
move on
move
on
nothing to see here
nothing of interest
do not concern yourself
what you are looking for
is at best
speculation, figment
of your imagination
how can there be
a story to uncover
an
astounding narrative
no words were ever
spoken about such things
in every dimension of
space and time
these are phenomena
that never existed
SLURP
I drink your
strawberry
chocolate
salted caramel
hazelnut
even
vanilla milkshake
slurp your sarcasm
as if
it were melting ice-cream
munch your foaming banana
fudge
as if
it were
direct from drug store spigot
sweet Vesuvius, blessed
Krakatoa
fallen
like hot manna
into my lap
swirling like
a spiral nebula in the
machine of your receptacle
thoughts
of cosmic body horror
subsumed by the
rush of your
sudden pink
flamingo
sugar
treacle and absinthe.
PING
bats is
cats
gone
AWOL
cats
is bats
less
upside-
down
cats with
devil wings
even more in need
of holy St Bernard
canine salvation
sacrificing
grace and poise
for
stealth
avionics
and
hi-tec ping
poems 2 die for