A CLUEDO (HAVEN’T GOT)

A CLUEDO (HAVEN’T GOT)

deduced it in no
time

saw it clearly it was
either Plum that went
shapeshifter
      eliding, gliding
between
the kitchen (pots
still greasy)
               and the games room

turning up at the table
through
     the fourth wall

or could be
Mustard, that die-
hard Imperialist with the
old Western front Vickers
water
     -cooled machine gun

defending the pantry against
whatever
       latest horde of savages

took out Ms Scarlett  and
Ms White

ebony and ivory in
their delightful negligees

wandering aimless into
his line of sight
             in persuance of
their tryst

or Green could have done it
C of E but some old Catholicism
at root there

         adding a twist of hemlock
to that holy wine
(cardinal
   not working out, we’ll
smoke that
one out
               bring in another)

or someone in the garage
with rolls royce style
handy wrench

           call murder murder
a spade a spade

a wrench a bloody brain-
fragment spattered wrench

and me
    with my candle card yet again

with
such bad eyesight
     cannot make out a thing

WHIFF

WHIFF

it is
incumbent upon us
and so

I pamper you
enter you

desperate
   (clock ticking)
to forge
a synthesis

little gnome
my metronome

need to fit togegher
(no perfect dovetail
                 can go
rough
cut

     every art every act
evert entry
has a
     twist of the old
experimental

can
  start a new life
knock uo a shop, whole
new industry

bang together
entire
   new universe

refurbish, replenish
dissolve into
AI where

       inevitably necessary

removing stains
    going through the gears

would not say religiously
unless some Rumi Sufi stuff

mindset
     where time just run out
and could not give a whiff
   

JUKEBOX

JUKEBOX

we had love
hard and soft love together

in my dreams
or maybe
your dream

difficult to say
how must claim authorship,
location and territory

so receptive our separate states
given you
     had been studying a
painting by Miro,
I, for my part, reading
Neruda

poetry from a time when
Communism was sexy
full of the surreal
and carnival
potential

and Professot Slavoj Zizek,
archetype of
Lacanian pessimist

was young in years, wet
behind the ears

little more to speak of
than mere
    slip of a
            Slovenian lad

Prince’s sign of the times

        song on
the jukebox before
                              we
did
   our dance



GHOST STORY

GHOST STORY

a perfect storm

winds from the East
winds from the South
converge

tearing through the streets
making a nonsense of your hopes
of a full
Mediterranean side-
walk café life

sipping a latte, sitting in the Sun
reading Proust or Sartre

nothing in those books
talk about
how the ghosts, the sins,
have caught
up
with you
(at least none
that you do read
none that you can see)