SWAN SONG
was singing the multiverse
thinking of travelling under
an alien ocean
in Nemo’s submarine
light years from our home planet
travelling metres deep
twenty thousand leagues
under that sea
the pressure getting to me
rivets popping
no one
able to make sense of my
song
as it rises from alien
depths to cultivated surface
finding the ears
of beings like me except
they have
neither space, nor time
for outlandish things
IF
if I could embrace you
hold you
in my arms
love you
inside and out
all through
the night
your body so warm
so close
up
against me
and me so
deep now
so tight
you are
so wet
as well
THINK THAT i CAN THINK
i am body
without consciousness
I am consciousness
body free
wondering how,
if I am just a deteriorating
copy of a photocopy
I can
make love to you
think that i can think
almost philosophically
WHITE
Yellow custard
red jelly
black cat
white phosphorous
what is the colour
of horrible death?
ON MY PART
was going to send you
an audio
making love to you
with voice
reaching those spots
other voices fail to reach
but
I held back, pressed
record
but no speech
on my part
nothing came out
think it must
be the terrible fear
that something
spoken
sensuously
will
bounce back
and before I know it
there I am once more
falling for
you again
desperate that all the pleasure
I talk, is pleasure
that in my
heart I still
hope of talking you into
lying back on my bed night
after night alone
longing, dreaming
one day
we will touch
AJAR
listening to progressive jazz (Ian Carr’s Nucleus
with Chris Spedding
on guitar)
same time ploughing through Joyce’s Ulysses
say ploughing but sometimes
one is surfing there
on a glorious wave, following the sweeping tide
nothing I can think of
could exceed this configuration
in respect of
artistic complexity, cerebral
integrity
unless
twin philosophers of the body politic
were
(becoming Maenad, going full Dionysian)
to pop in
for a spot of ménage a trois
or
no less exquisite
the
jam session
to end all jazz
jam sessions
in case
they coming left the door ajar
climate change
has not touched me yet
maybe
warming is not real, neither
have I been seared
nor likewise broiled
the talk of the Poles South
and North shedding
their huge
ice
falling apart
does not seem
real to me now
as I lie here
contemating the eternal
verity that we as species
will continue
forever as we are
the dread of our demise
just brush by
zither was what I used to strum
and trombone too
could crank a
tune out of
but all got exchanged
traded for bone bagpipe
at the local
flea market
and yes, feel I got cheated
I definitely do
bought and sold way
below
true value like
a cracked Grecian urn
down to thing of singld string
which I can pluck for all I’m worth
but no way its going
to replace Paganini
or be up there
with Hendrix
poets and guitar heroes
naturally enough seem
to
incline towards
early graves
AS FAR AS
as far
as poetry is concerned
I am
provisional front
out
in left field
since poetry owes me
has not been
so sweet
to me
demanding
I constantly exceed myself
never too
understanding
or overly kind
this poem too
gung-ho
about
its sympathy
and charity
and desire to
enshrine this
in the hearts
of all of humankind
this poem too, no exception,
giving me
a big fun for my money
obstinate in making it case,
protesting its faith
whole world of difference however,
between what it seems to be saying
and how it appears to me
I am done with dissonance
except where
it captures the complexion
of what surrounds
gives
taste of the chaos that
riddles through
harmony is the thing that
must nourish, bring together
harmony that
feels
like
impossible belief
when last, if ever, were
woken by wings
hovering above
taking angelic form?
just add a few Pratt and Whitneys
and there you have dissonance
what you figured might be
Michael, Uriel, Gabriel
drowning out the room
with clamour of regular comic
superhero
(or, indeed villain)
elevated to cosmic, epic,
mythical proportions
by virtue of three-
act structure, and titanic movie screen
already you can see it touch it
smell it feel it, let alone
hear it
this dissonance, every tiny
breath of harmony
here in me, here
in the poem
so desperate to distance from
quietly eschew.
poems 2 die for